Sheep, dip

That's our sheep, Bambi, the dip.

Can you see the attitude in her eyes? She's a former "bummer lamb," a bottle baby, which makes her way too comfortable with humans, and gives her a sense of entitlement. A sense of entitlement is never a good thing, in people or sheep. At least she's a small sheep, a Shetland. C. used to have 300-pound sheep.

We were startled by banging on the door today – it was our neighbor, Bob, and he said one of our sheep was out, headed down the road to the river. We didn't have to ask which sheep it was. It's always Bambi.

I'd just fixed the fence on the south side of the barn to keep her in.

So we loaded the sheep halter and a bucket of oats into the Subaru, and went cruising for bad sheep. Our dirt road isn't so bad, but it meets up with the paved road down by the VFW and the post office, in "downtown" Elk. Logging trucks cruise through there. I imagined Bambi on the front grill of a semi, still looking entitled, but kind of flat. OK, so I was freaking out a little.

No Bambi on the road, at the post office, at the VFW, at the river. We whipped a u-ie and came back up the hill, and there she was, grazing in somebody's field. Not flat.

We pulled in, and Bambi looked up and ambled casually over to see if we had anything good. C. shook the grain bucket, and the wooly butthead was hooked. I grabbed the halter and tried to fit the loop over her head. She was having none of that. Eventually I held her by her fat belly and wool, and C. pulled the halter over her head.

OK, it's the cheesy adjustable halter, and it's hard for me to figure out which way is up, and what goes where. And it keeps getting snarled in her wool. Feh. 

This is how it goes. Big loop around the neck, little one over the nose.

But we finally get it, and C. takes takes the lead and starts the half-mile walk home. I follow in the car. 

Bambi is pissed. Every step she takes is a lunge, and a hop. She comes down on all four feet. C. pulls, Bambi bucks and lunges one step. C. pulls...

Sure, it's cute when a lamb does it.

Not so much when a grown sheep does it. Photo by Owen Humphreys, from The Telegraph.

I'm driving along, laughing. This is going to take a long time. Finally I stop, clear out the back seat, and we lift Bambi inside. We take her home and put her in the dog kennel/rabbit yard, a place she cannot escape. Take that, you dip.

And I go get my fencing kit (that's fancy talk for a bucket with pliers and fencing clips in it), and Earl and I drive over to the barn to fix any new hole(s) in the fence. We spend a few hours reattaching the wire where the goats have been scratching themselves and popped the clips off. Then the fence slumps, and they jump right over, the little bastards.

Yes, I put the fence up myself, and I did a mediocre job. It should be tighter. And probably have more clips. And I should definitely walk it more often and keep it tuned up. 

It looks pretty good now. So I'm heading out to move Bambi back into the pasture with the other big animals. We'll see how it goes.

Post toasty

We're home from the party, and exhausted. Came home. Made fire. Put amaretto in coffee. Bed soon.

And all we had to do was show up, eat and chat. We didn't plan or shop or decorate or cook or clean up.

I think throwing parties is for younger people.

Thunderstorm today

That's what the forecast said, but I heard only one clap of thunder. It was windy, though.

I puttered in the gym some. I now have a small area dedicated to garbage. I'm so proud. It's right beside the garage door so some kind soul can back in, load up and then hit the dump. I bagged up more moldy sheetrock, and swept that spot. I think I'll store the extra sinks and toilets there, in case it leaks again. And it will.

I've been sprouting barley again for the rabbits. The little goat likes it, too. We're trying to feed him up and get his coat in better shape. He's looked crappy since he had biting lice last year.

I took a notion the other day and caught the big goat and brushed him. He put up with it, mostly. Now his front half is all fluffy. I was expecting him to be shedding big swaths of cashmere, but it's still attached. I guess we'll try again in a month or so.

C. has another flat of tomatoes started. That makes four, I think. Half of the cabbages she started are robust and gorgeous. The other half are spindly, or missing. We think it might be because she used our compost instead of potting soil (we were out) and it got too hard for the sprouts to come through. Or maybe not. Anyway, she replanted some Danish Ballheads. She probably has enough time to direct seed some out in the garden, too.

Her first little tomato plants are nearly all up.

Out in the yard, she wrestled that big rock out, filled in the hole and raked it level. My nightly trip to shut the chickens in is now easier.

We browned some of our stored garlic and onions, added two jars of our tomato sauce and some of our pesto, and it was delicious over Costco country pasta for dinner tonight.

We're off to bed as tomorrow is Liam's birthday extravaganza, complete with catering and a bellydancer. And we have a bunch of shopping and errands in town as well.

Five eggs today; six yesterday.

Big rocks and a baby scare

The kids came up yesterday with the baby, and we sat outside and admired her for a while. Such a cute and chubby baby!

C. showed them the excavation, and enlisted K. in some boulder work.

We moved indoors as it cooled off. Walter and Hazelnut were really happy to see their people, especially that baby. Hazel is protective of her. At one point C. was holding the baby on the couch, and K. was sitting next to her with Hazelnut and Annie the dachshund on his lap. Hazel went after Annie, K. pushed Hazel away, and Annie lunged past the spot where Hazel had been, and snapped at the baby's face. We were all stunned.

The baby is fine – her cheek was bright red and she was crying, but it was all OK. Scary, but OK. The kids handled it well, staying calm and making sure the baby was unhurt.

Sheesh. So now we know to keep the other dogs clear of Hazelnut when the baby is here. Annie would never purposefully go after the baby, but she doesn't back down from any dog.

We shunned her for the rest of the evening – she knew she'd done wrong.

We'll be more careful. All it takes is a second for things to go pear-shaped.

Plant starting continues

I've been reading online about seed-starting lights.

We have the typical 4-foot fluorescent shop lights, with a mix of grow, warm and cool bulbs. Most experts say a mix of warm and cool bulbs are fine for starting plants – the more expensive grow lights are not needed. C. says she is skeptical, but I'll go for it. I do like to save the money. Anyway, these experts go on to say that the bulbs need to be new every year, as older bulbs put out reduced light. And while humans don't notice that, plants do. Now I'm skeptical, since I do like to save the money. But you can't have it both ways, can you? And all those seedlings are vital to our budget and our fall diet of tomato sandwiches with Asiago cheese, sizzled under the broiler.

Some of our bulbs are 10 years old. OK, I'm lying. Some are probably 20. So I looked for a deal on new bulbs, with an eye to switching to LEDs, if it was affordable. We've been swapping out the incandescent floodlights in our third-grade homeroom with LED floodlights on super-sale from Costco, and they are great. Brighter, cheap, and long-lived. LEDs are good.

And I found this site that recommends a smart solution – LED bulbs that fit the old shop-light fixtures. They're about $10 bucks a pop. I just ordered four from Amazon. Supposedly you can just pop the bulbs in, and go. But if you rewire the fixture to bypass the ballast, you save some money in operating costs. Reviewers say the rewiring is easy. We'll see!

I've been working on cleaning up the gym a bit. Yesterday I got sidetracked by a pile of old trash and tires outside the garage door on the gym. Big ugly mess. Shattered plastic is everywhere. I did the best I could without resorting to tweezers. I'll go give it a little more work.

Busy warm days

We've kicked into spring gear. It feels good.

C. is starting tomatoes. I think she has three flats (one more than last year) and a couple of trays of small pots. She always goes overboard on tomatoes, but it's (mostly) a good thing. We grow beautiful tomatoes – big fat Prudens Purples, weird fat pointy Opalkas, baskets full of Balconnoye Chudos – plenty to eat fresh and to can and dry and freeze. I think she's starting 25 different varieties, five or six new to us, and the rest old favorites. We have great luck with Ukranian tomatoes from seeds we order from Nikitovka. The Czech Stupice (Stoo-PEACH-ka) is usually our earliest tomato. And every variety we try has something special to offer. So, yes, we're nuts abut tomatoes.

I used to give her a hard time about starting so many – the greenhouse is usually packed with 150 or more plants come May – but last year I did the seed starting, and saw how hard it is to stop with two or ten of any variety. Those little seeds want to grow! and we are helpless to resist.

We don't have room in the garden for 150 plants, but our friends have gardens, too, and can always be persuaded to take some home. When I was working, I'd smuggle flats of tomato plants off to my coworkers. My garden club had a booth at the Spokane Garden Expo last year, and they sold Spokanites a bunch of Ukranian tomatoes. It's all good!

I know the trendy Paleo diets and autoimmune diets say tomatoes (and nearly everything else we eat) should be avoided. I'm skeptical. I think if we eat what country folk ate before industrial fertilizers and herbicides and factory farms took over, we'll be OK. We'll see if my new naturopath agrees.

The greenhouse can barely hold 150 tomato plants... but there will be more this year, so we're planning an addition. I have two or three weeks before the plants outgrow their indoor setup and need to move outside, so I'd better get moving. The building is basically a tall roof and a low front wall, with three glass patio doors sitting on the wall and leaning to the roof. The door is set into an end wall, and a triangular bit of plastic fills the rest. It's all salvaged material and rather funky, but works well, if I do say so myself. Our brick building is the back wall and heat sink.

So I'm planning to attach another tall roof, short front wall and three more patio doors. I'll try to build it better (the old part has some pretty warped 2x4s, is getting swaybacked, and the glass doors could fit more tightly...).

Right now, onions are in the greenhouse, and cabbage and pepper seedlings are in the house under lights. Next to be started are tomatillos. Probably corn, too. Our season is too short for corn unless you start it indoors, and get lucky in fall weather.

Our local little monthly paper came today, and mentioned that this has been one of the longest winters on record, and the wettest March, as well. And I thought it was just me.

Have I told you that C. is a digger? (Her dad was a digger before her, but he had a backhoe. I am very thankful that she doesn't have a backhoe.) Before the ground thawed, she had to channel her OCD into collecting guinea feathers. Now she can dig!

The front yard, with recycled greenhouse, and rocks and holes. That's the wide garden gate
 and the chicken house to the right.

She's been leveling the front "yard," gathering buried broken glass from a greenhouse mishap, and tile and other debris that other remodelers have buried there. We also have seriously rocky ground, and she relishes battle with a worthy boulder. So right now the whole area is pocked with pits and piled with cairns. I have to pick my way with care to the chicken house. I'm trying to convince her that the two big rocks she has half-excavated can stay right there under the ground. We'll see. It's astonishing to see a 4-foot-10-inch person heaving a bathtub-sized boulder around with a digging bar.

We'll have a path from our front door (off to the left), around the greenhouse and into the garden and chicken house. It needs to be smooth and rugged enough for people and wagons and wheelbarrows. We're thinking the flattest rocks could be set as stepping stones and thyme planted in between. I suppose I could trip over the rocks (or the thyme, for that matter) but then, I can trip over nothing at all. I'll just take it slow. Other walkway options are gravel (which always ends up migrating out of the bed), brick, or a boardwalk. I suppose we could leave it packed earth, and border it with rocks and an herb bed or something.

I've been organizing the gym a bit. It's filled with tools and lumber and boxes and junk and crap, and that's just our stuff. Most everything is lying randomly where the folks who helped us move piled it.

That's the moldy wallboard on the left. Lots left to do, but, really, you would be
impressed if I'd remembered to take a "before" photo. 

There's also a whole wall of leaning stacks of gypsum wallboard, some wet and moldy from the leaky roof. That's from the previous owner, or maybe the guy before him. He knocked down all the plaster on the walls, had brilliant new wiring put in, and sheetrocked everything (rather badly). I'm saving any big pieces in decent shape, but the wet and warped and weirdly cut can go. So I'm cutting it up and stuffing it in old feed sacks to go to the dump. I can't figure out any other way to move it as it's heavy, crumbling and mucky.

Ready for the dump.

We'll be able to use some here and there – we have a few unfinished wall and ceilings. And I put some up in the chicken house. The chickens decorated it. It isn't terribly attractive, but keeps the cold wind out.

So I'm tightening up the storage in the gym. That should make room to bring the non-mower inside. It's an old Craftsman riding mower without the mower deck. It has a plow blade and weights and chains, and we plan to get it running and use it to pull a trailer and move hay and such around, as well as plow snow. It's tarped and stored in the big dog yard now. I think the gym floor can handle the weight. Some past owner stored RVs in here, which didn't do the floor any good.

Here is the other side of the gym, with lumber storage. It could all be tidier.

If I spend hours and weeks organizing the gym, maybe I'll be able to find things. And after I get done with the piles of stuff, I'm going to hunt out all the tools, and hang them on pegboard. Yes, I am. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

RIP Jack

We lost another dog. Little Jack died at home of what the vet thinks was a pulmonary embolism related to his Cushing's disease. So last month, after Willie died and I said Jack was not dying, I was completely wrong.

All I know is he'd been miserable for a month, had been to the vet three times and had blood tests and urine tests and X-rays and medications, and was still miserable. The vets (Dr. John and Dr. Larry) were struggling to figure out why his mild Cushing's made him feel so bad, and how to make him better. He's not suffering any more, and I'm grateful.

Jack was simultaneously a sweet little guy and a tragic figure.

C. adopted him and his mother, Jasmine, from a dog rescue in 2010. She'd just lost her Pomeranian, Jasper, and kinda freaked out. She ended up bringing home four dogs: Willie and Rudy, the Poms, and Jack-Jack and Jasmine.

Jack (we dropped the other Jack) was about 5, and half Maltese, with some poodle and Shih Tzu. He was quiet and mellow, and always let his mother the tyrant beat him at play. He liked people but didn't have much to do with other dogs. He decided he was my dog, but I resisted – I've never cared for little poodles. Yes, shallow. I was better after C. quit giving him the poodle haircut.

He got into a fight with our big red hound dog, Badeaux, and lost an eye. It was horrifying. We found Jasmine guarding his eyeball when we got home from the vet.

Badeaux had never done anything like that, and had to be separated from the other dogs.

Checking out the country place, in back, Kewpie the peke;
middle, Annie and Willie; front, Jazzbert and Jack.

Jack loved his homemade dinners, and he loved living in the country. He blundered into the crawlspace once, and we went nuts trying to find him. We called him, checked with neighbors, looked in the barn. I finally stuck my head down the trapdoor and saw him going back and forth, looking for the way out. He never barked or cried, the idiot. (Jasmine did the same thing when we first moved out here.)

Then Earl went after him and he lost the other eye. Earl had never done anything like that, and had to be separated from the other dogs. I have no idea what happened – Earl is bigger and always played a little rough with the little guys, but is not and has never been mean. C. will never forgive him, which is why Earl is my dog now.

Jack got around pretty well, and stuck close to me (C. would laugh about the halt leading the blind). He used to sit on my lap and lick my leather recliner until I poked at him and made him stop. He was pretty cuddly, and liked to sit with me.

I could have been nicer to him.

He was a good dog.