Poor Earl

There's something wrong with his front legs. So much for hybrid vigor! The vet is working on a diagnosis (birth defect? old injury?). Meantime, he limps around and his front legs (especially his right) are painful and swollen. He is a handsome 15-week-old. I want him to go bounding through the fields, like a normal puppy.

We turned the guineas out into the garden for the first time, and I watched to make sure they didn't wipe out the crops. Yes, some bean leaves were eaten, but for the most part they pecked at seeds in the mulch and looked for grasshoppers. That's Mrs. Davis on the left looking creepy (it was getting dark).

I've got the chicken/guinea house nearly done - we put the weird skylight/roof units up this weekend. We scrounged them from an old greenhouse in the lower field, along with a bunch of the framing. The siding is recycled cedar from Craig's List (free is good). It's not beautiful (I practice bad, slow-motion carpentry – and despite the practice, never get any better. Or faster.) but I think it has a funky charm. I'll get the yard fencing up and move the girls in, maybe tomorrow after work. A shed-roofed leanto or porch will go at front right. And I'll build doors for the front and the wide clean-out opening toward the garden.

(Jack was supposed to pose nonchalantly on the stool, but decided to do a headstand instead.)

Azul settles in

He's really very sweet and calm. I like him.

He enjoys being fed grass, oats and alfalfa pellets. He has an excellent big nose. He comes over when I call or shake a can of grain, but he won't let anyone touch him yet. He seems to like the sheep OK. He generally goes about his business, grazing or sitting or looking off into the middle distance. And he hums!

And, interestingly, he has made this spot his toilet, and goes only here. Weird and wonderful.

Meet Azul

He's a rescue alpaca, and he's unhappy. His owner got sick and couldn't take care of him, so he and his alpaca buddies went to stay at a rescue. But he's a Suri and they are the other kind so he ended up on Craig's List all alone. Suris have beautiful fiber and we're into fiber animals and we have fencing and fiber sheep and fiber rabbits and poor impulse control, so here he is.

I have to say he's pretty dorky. I know he's not at his best. I thought he'd be smaller. And more handsome. And less goofy-looking and moth-eaten and depressed. I've been around llamas a little, but never an alpaca. (What is with those awful lower front teeth? Are those normal? How can he eat?) 

Poor boy. We hope he'll bond with the sheep (they have beautiful fiber, too, so they've got that in common. And Tricks is kind of a dork.) And if he's still unhappy we'll look for another Suri. It's only his first day. I should be patient. He ate some oats, and went back to grazing and looking longingly at the gate, making soft little sighs. 

Creamed peas and new taters

We've had salads from the garden, but this was the first real meal it provided. Mmmm. I'm so looking forward to tomatoes, too.

In other news, M and Richard came up to fence the back yard for their two dogs. We'll be dog sitting for them for a few days – and tortoise sitting as well. They'll set up turtle quarters in the purple bathroom, which has working lights and outlets (oooooo!). They have two Sulcata tortoises.

I worked on the chicken house framing some. Reusing the old greenhouse structure is a pain. I probably should have dismantled it and used the boards instead of whole walls. It's patched together with new lumber and is a little funky. I suppose chickens won't care, and the old tiny-pane windows will make it shabby-charming. That's my look – shabby-charming.

I let the guineas out into the old sheep pasture for an hour or so in the evening, and call them home with millet and sunflower seeds. We're having four-egg days lately. I think they're content.

And C. has bought a rescue Suri alpaca on Craig's List. He'll be arriving Wednesday. He's about 5, just had all of his medical/dental/toenail stuff done, and is white with blue eyes. He'll hang with the sheep, and we'll look for a companion for him. Suris have long, silky corded fleeces, expensive to buy and dreamy to spin.

Sheep Tricks

Yep, that's her. Tricks the sheep. She says her recent adventures, rampaging free all over the neighborhood, have made her a bit peckish.

Early July on Old School Acres

Well, the hot spell is over – for now. I've been up on the roof showing it to a couple of roofer guys. (I'm hoping their estimates are really, really low.) Here's the view from the south corner toward the gym and smokestack. Our living area is under the silver metal chimney at center left.

Below, a long shot from the roof of what used to be the front lawn of the school. At top is the garden, then the first sheep pasture, the second, and at the bottom, the edge of their current buffet. The steps that kids used to climb to enter the schoolyard are at left in the shady spot. That's where the sheep escaped. (Not that I'm bitter.) The guinea pen (formerly the rabbit yard) is the wire structure with plastic on top at upper center. You can glimpse the pumphouse roof through the trees.

The garden is looking great – and we have peas! There are some edible-pod types in the freezer already, and these non-edible pod ones are just a day or two away from being ready to eat.

Below, KC the grandson working on cleaning up one of the original window frames.

And below, another job in progress, the chicken/guinea house, made from parts of an old greenhouse from the lower field (the old school ball field). It's just outside the garden gate. We'll let the birds free range through field and thicket in the afternoons and eat 'hoppers and seeds and greens.

Annie at the Elk Park

The grandson and I took Annie to the cool local park on the Little Spokane River today. It's a sweet little place, run by community volunteers, and has rills for kids to tube, a dammed-up shallow swimming area, a ball field and a simple grandstand. Annie charged everywhere (except into the water) and found some stinky things to roll in.

At the end of the park, a fence with a no-trespassing sign runs across the water and up the banks. It's a fair-sized little river and you'd think the state would have made it a public waterway, but no. There's a seven-mile stretch of the Little Spokane near the city that's been made into a nature preserve, but the rest is all privately owned. I guess if I owned a bit of it I wouldn't mind so much. Maybe. I'd let folks paddle through, though.

In other news, the sheep escaped and spent a whole 100-degree day rampaging around the hillsides. I tramped up and down in the heat calling, "Mmmeeeaaaaaahh," for a thousand years. No answer. The kids, bless their hearts, came out and helped scour the neighborhood. We did get to meet many nice folks up and down this road and the next, including a fellow who taught third grade in my schoolhouse in the 1970s. And his neighbor caught them in her barn, put them on leashes and sent another neighbor on a lawn tractor to let us know. It was awesome. K. got to wrestle a sheep into and out of the station wagon, and Richard took a butt to the stomach. With sheep back in pasture (fencing fixed), we celebrated my 55th birthday with smoked salmon and other goodies.