Fall Has Fell

 Despite the hot temperatures there is no denying that Fall is truly here.  I thought the drought would impact the color change in our foliage and trees would yellow a bit and then drop their leaves.  Just the opposite is true and we've had the best color display in some years.

The fall flowers are blooming much more heavily that I would have thought possible given how water starved the plants have been.   The view across the neighbor's property down the valley is a river of goldenrod.

The sky is clear, unbroken blue day after day.  We did have one afternoon of wispy mare's tails which normally mean rain but we didn't get any.  I think this one looks like The Nexus (skip to about 1:10) and given the strangeness of 2020 I wouldn't have been surprised if it had been.

The weeds wildflowers in unkempt corners are making me glad I didn't spend a lot of energy cutting them down earlier this summer.

Even humble ivy that's crept up trees and along the ditches has turned brilliant red.

Normally the sheep would still have been out on pasture for a few more weeks but we had to bring them in and start feeding hay four weeks early.  We made enough of our own for a normal year but we didn't have enough for extra weeks of feeding.  We were lucky enough to secure 20 big square bales and after an initial trial of three bales - which the sheep were delighted with - we had the rest delivered.

Keeping the flock off pasture requires a different daily routine including scraping the barnyard area clean every morning.  Here, the girls seem to be giving our effort an inspection.

We left the auto waterer in the feed bunk to encourage exercise and because the chore of rerouting water into the barn isn't really necessary until freezing temperatures start.  Fortune is looking longingly at a kitty that she really. wants. to. sniff.

Another aspect of feeding hay is the need to coat the flock to keep the wool clean.  Thus began the annual Washing of the Coats.  I do about a dozen a day and triage them after they are dry for holes and weak leg straps.  Soon there will come a day of mending.

We don't normally need to keep the sheep cool AND in the barn but this year with a week of mid-80s predicted we knew we'd have to take some kind of measure to keep them comfortable.  When we used to have a building full of ram lambs in the summer we had a large box fan going for them but it hadn't been needed for a few years.  Time to press it into service.  First Andy had to create a 2X6 the right dimensions to support it.  The buzz rig was pressed into service as a big table saw.

This will move air!

Mounted where it is, at the end of the pens, a good flow of air will move the length of the barn and push stale, warm air out the south end where the rolling door is normally open. 

Holly sez:

"Bleah.  It's too hot and bright out here.  Let's go in for a drink."

Dogs are so sensible.

Hot And Dry

Late June and early July offered a stretch of great hay weather - hot, dry days with low humidity and only a few soaking rains which we could see coming and dodged around.  Unfortunately, it has stayed that way.  I love hot weather and look forward to summer more than most people but unrelenting heat with no rain is tough on the sheep and harder on the pastures.  We can manage the flock to keep them in the shade and under fans during the day but no rain just slows grass growth until it gives up and goes dormant.  We rotate the flock through different pastures but for the plan to work we have to have regrowth in the pastures they leave so there's something to come back to later.

Right now they are in the first pasture for the second time.  Normally it would be lush and growing as fast as they could eat it.  This year it's barely half the volume it should be and what's there is almost crispy in some places.  They graze it down and there it stays. 

Most of them are in good shape right now and the pasture includes a lot of clover which is very nutritious but they do spend more time than usual walking around looking for the best areas.

The section in the foreground has just been clipped back.  The farther pasture with the sheep should be much greener with fresh growth.  Not so much.  :-/

The field at the bottom of the slope is the next one they will go to.  It's showing some growth but not much.  Also depressing are all the dead ash trees standing in the woods, killed by the Emerald Ash Borer.  Will ash exist in 50 years or will it go the way of the American Chestnut?  Guess I won't be here to find out.

Andy just finished clipping the pasture they most recently vacated and fertilized it too.  Now it just needs rain.

It's easy to get anxious when something as critical as weather is so totally out of your control.  A good remedy is a walk and Holly is always ready to assist.

Pie helps too, but I didn't have any handy.  ;-)

Harbinger

The weather turned ugly Wednesday and we woke up to almost 2 inches of sloppy snow on Thursday.  That was bad enough but then it started to get freezing rain on top.

Since the trees still held a lot of leaves I was afraid for the really old apples in the backyard.  They were bowed but undamaged.

I have to be careful what I say.  Not half an hour after I said, "Gee, some tree is gonna come down on the power lines."............... the power went out.  The electric company still has not replaced our super old poles but they weren't the culprits - as usual it was a limb on a tree up the road that took out service for a grand total of 14 customers.  The battery on our generator wasn't up to snuff so Andy had to drive our old truck across the lawn to jump it.  The poor old truck is technically for sale and hasn't been on the road for a long time but it started right up.  The engine is good, mileage is ~ 120K and the interior is excellent but the body is rusting apart from all the road salt.  Bad enough that the towns use salt in the winter but the dirt roads are brined in the summer to keep the dust down.  Every time it rains the vehicles get a salt bath underneath.  :-(

Friday turned into a bright clear day, but cold!  We turned the sheep out into the south pastures for one last time.  How many days they can go out will depend on the weather and how fast they deplete the grass. We're supplementing with hay now but they are all studious grazers and will gnaw it to death if we let them.

And a great many leaves came down with the ice and snow.  All the pretty reds are gone leaving just some stubborn yellows and oaks that are still green.  Definately a foreshadowing of what's to come.

Out And About

Occasionally, errands take both Andy and I away from the farm at the same time.  Yesterday we both had business in Hammondsport and with the sun shining on the autumn colors it was a great day to be see some sights.

First of course we had to let the sheep out.  They had a very leisurely stroll out into the pasture.



The sun slanting in from the east really showed the colors in the woods south of the ram's pasture.

Holly and Calvin were companionably soaking up a sunbeam in the front room.

One of the reasons we went to town was to see to some things at the Fiber and Art Emporium where some of our goods are for sale.  The shop owners are always moving items about and changing up the displays in an effort to showcase new things or just make everything look fresh.  Quite a lot of the fiber here is ours and I think they did a great job making it look really attractive!

Hammondsport, voted "The Coolest Small Town in America",  is at the south end of Keuka Lake and it enjoys a robust tourist population most of the year.  It's about the only town I know that has every store and shop filled with merchants or services and the windows and sidewalks are always decorated with pretty seasonal displays.  The bakery has an alert doggy sentinel carved out of a log - better than your typical bear I think!

Returning home we still had a few hours of daylight and it was just too nice to work indoors so I finally got back to finishing the rock wall and flower bed on the front of the house.  A couple of years ago while ago we pulled out the ancient evergreens that were supposed to be a hedge.  They had matured to the point that they couldn't be trimmed back to size anymore - they were just thick stumps with no branches if they were cut to fit under the windows - so Andy pulled them out with the tractor and my plan was to put in a nice bed of hostas and other shade loving plants (it's the north face of the house).  Of course a flower bed needs an edge or border of some kind and we do have a lot of rocks........hmmmm. 

Earlier this year dear Andy took my request with good graces and we went to the woods and wrestled rocks OUT of the piles they had been dumped in after being picked out of the field.  He said he had thought when they were dumped that he'd never have to handle them again let alone lug them home.  They joined the load of screened topsoil that we had delivered.  A couple of them were freakin' huge very large ones that I wanted to use to give extra interest to the wall and we needed the tractor and front end loader to pick them out of the pile and put on the wagon.

Wrestling the big ones into place involved both of us, a lot of pushing and a good bit of patience on his part as I waffled over how to best set the big ones into the trench so they'd "look best".  I think at that point Andy thought they'd look best back out in the woods.  But we persevered and got them settled.  Then I started in laying the flat rocks which was actually a lot of fun.  It was like working a jigsaw puzzle with a side of architecture thrown in.  I worked at laying the stones in the evening (when evening lasted till 9 PM) and then things got busy and the project stalled.

Now, in October, on a lovely sunny day we got it finished!  Stay tuned - pics to come!

Ahhhh-ctober

We've had the most beautiful stretch of weather.  Sunny and warm during the day and cold enough at night that we close the windows up and start a fire in the boiler so it's not damp and chill in the morning.  I've relished every day that I didn't need a sweatshirt as a second layer.

The other day was cloudless from morning till night. The sheep are still working on the south pasture but now the hillside to the east is showing some color so we know change is coming.

In the very late afternoon the sunlight hits the hill at such a slant that everything is cast with an orange overtone.

Yesterday a front was coming through and the evening sky was lovely as we brought in the rams.  The gold and orange was quite dramatic.

The small volunteer maple near their water tub is also colorful.  It's a hard maple and one would expect it to show bright color in fall but I think some of it is due to stress - there are sections of bark missing where the boys have rubbed their heads on the trunk and the ground is packed pretty hard there since it's a favorite place to hang out in the heat of summer.

Green, orange, red, pink...... autumn in rural New York.

The boys are eating well and come in packed full and ready to sit and ruminate all night.

Andy had an interesting project - repairing an old cradle a neighbor wanted to use.  It came through one of Martin Donnelly's antique tool auctions.  The owner knew it was old and liked the look of it and wasn't concerned about trying to retain authenticity with exact restoration but did want the repairs to blend in.  The end panel at the foot of the cradle was missing the top four inches - it had cracked and come apart long ago.  All the joints were loose and needed stiffening up, one rocker was cracked and needed to be mended and it was very dirty.  They wanted it cleaned up but to still look old and be usable for a coming baby.

It's long and deep but I suppose there was a mattress or tick of some kind in the bottom.

This small decorative cut out on the head end is a nice detail.  In making the repair to the foot end Andy had to straighten up the old break and in planing it down discovered the wood to be tulip poplar.  It's fairly heavy and I'm puzzled by the lack of any kind of hand holds in the frame.  Sure, you probably didn't tote it around with the baby in it but it's still a bit awkward to carry empty.

The corners are all joined with hand cut dovetails and they are all a little bit different in dimension which made the repair a challenge.  In fact, on the head end there are ten dovetails on the right and nine on the left.  Surely not mass produced!

The rockers are different, either by design or perhaps the less elegant one is an old replacement done by someone less skilled than the original maker.

We're guessing the slots in the bottom were there to prevent moisture build up under a mattress.  Andy added a few small screws to stabilize the rockers to the bottom.  The few nails he found are square cut ones, so this is quite old.

There are even symmetrical holes bored through two places at the head end which was likely used to secure a bonnet or cover of some type to keep sun and bugs off the baby.

It turned out quite well.  I wonder what number baby the coming one will be to lay in it.

And since we haven't seen Holly in a while....... dog and flower pictures!

"I'm the best baby.  I was housebroken in just a few days!  And I'm still awful cute!"

 "I do roll in fun stuff sometimes..........but I'm a dog."

 "Nobody's perfect and I don't mind a nice warm baff if I get........."

"Wait!  What's that cat doing?  I'm not sure that's allowed - better go check it out!"

Holly's like me - she likes it hot and sunny so we've had a good run of days!