Warm Holiday Wishes from Harrisdale Farmstead
December 17, 2019
Our best wishes for a wonderful holiday season.
Farm activities
The arrival of winter has meant adjusting our activities. We have spinach and other greens growing in our two mini-tunnels. However, "growing" is a relative term since we will see little or no actual growth until spring when temperatures warm. The cold makes the plants produce lots of sugars that prevent leaf damage from freezing. While we are saving most of the spinach for sale in the coming months, Ardy has been thinning out some of the plants along with weeding and has harvested a small amount for our own use. The sweet and tender leaves are wonderful.
On Friday the last four of this year's market lambs went to Atlantic Locker for processing. Their departure triggered the start of a "diet" for our breeding flock. Our ewes came off pasture in really good condition (i.e., being a just a bit on the fat side) which speaks to the effectiveness of rotational grazing. However, being in too good condition and eating too much during gestation are also associated with too big lambs and other potential lambing problems. Given that concern our goal is to thin the ewes down a bit over the next 3 months. As a result the sheep are acting like Gil is starving them, but, in reality, he's only reduced the hay and concentrates being fed to levels a bit below what the sheep would eat if they had unlimited access. Gil is still working on the challenging task of getting the barn cleaned out. He's feeding hay outside this year to avoid having so much matted-and-hard-to-remove residue to clean out of the barn next year.
Unless we have a warm spell, we are probably at this year's end to feeding sugar syrup to the bees. Gil is working on constructing what he hopes to be an improved variant of what is called a Vivaldi box. Such boxes go at the top of the hive, have space for feeding dry sugar to bees, and have a layer of wood chips that both insulate the hive and allow moisture from the cluster of bees to escape. We definitely do not want the moisture condensing on the outer cover and then dripping down on the bees. That makes them wet and chilled--a formula for certain problems.
Our puppy Harrison (now called mostly Harry or Hairy Harry by Gil) is really growing. He is now more than twice the size he was when we got him just 2 months ago. He remains very charming and loveable. He's been becoming less timid than when we first got him. One of the signs is that he visited our neighbors' place recently. That event initiated him becoming outfitted with the remotely controlled shock collar that we had gotten for White, not only for its potential for training but he also needs to get used to wearing a collar. Our main emphasis on his training will continue to be rewarding desired behaviors with treats and lavish praise and rarely use the shock collar to inhibit him from chasing vehicles, getting out on the road, or being too close to farm equipment. Besides loving dog treats, he is really attracted to the pellets that the sheep excrete. We have no doubt that those pellets would be very flavorful, but it's hard to imagine that they would be at all tasty. But then we aren't dogs (and we're not planning on any taste testing).
Gil has been focusing on farmstead maintenance, including replacing some windows in the machine shed, and on shop projects, including building shelter boxes for barn cats (which we hope to get soon to help us with rodent control). He is also starting work on cabinets and other items that he hopes will help in organizing the workshop. Another task on the agenda is working on our farm records--not very appealing, but still very important. Fortunately, we are starting the update with records that are in decent shape.
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