July 20, 2010

Our calf, T-Bone, seems to really like his new father-figure. We put Porter in with him and Sugar on Saturday. Any fears I had about how this would work out have been dispelled. Porter didn't try to nurse and he's been calm and pleasant both to us and to his pasture-mates (the two rams plus Sugar and T-Bone). He's interested in breeding and regularly checks Sugar for heat.

He did knock the sliding door partially off the track and moved the hay feeder into the creek. We've learned that if he pushes against something and it moves, he will keep pushing. The hay box is now screwed to the fence and when I get the door back on track it will be temporarily bolted fast to the barn underneath. One of the rams is limping so he may have gotten in the bull's way but Porter hasn't shown any overt aggression to them. He probably needs a hoof trim.

The garden is doing very poorly. Our soil doesn't drain quickly and the foot of rain we received in June stunted it to the point it hasn't recovered well. The corn is doing well but not much else. Just before it dries out enough to cultivate we get more rain so the weeds are pretty bad too. I'm hoping the scattered thunderstorms moving through this evening miss us so I can get the tiller in there later this week. It's almost time to plant the fall planting of root crops and lettuce. Hopefully they will do better.

I cleaned out the winter bedding pack from the cow barn last weekend before moving Porter in and will clean out the sheep barn in a couple weeks. I plan to remove a post and change my 4-foot door into an 8-foot door so I can maneuver the tractor in and out. It still involves a lot of hand forking but the loader bucket (with the teeth adapter I made) loosens it up and makes it easier to fork. Then I fill the bucket and dump it outside into a large compost heap.

The lambs are growing well as is the calf. We only get about 1/2 a gallon of milk per day and he takes the rest.