Sheep aren't smart but they can jump!

WWOOFer Kate arranges the onions, garlic, and shallots to cure
Wednesday, June 25, 2008


The second day of thistle removal has made a real visible difference in the hayfield and since 1) young thistles will pull straight up out of the ground root and all and 2) a nice breeze kept us somewhat cooler today I thought, maybe I could handle having a 5 acre hayfield. All it would take is one spring and summer of walking regularly through the field every other day and hand pulling thistle until you’d eradicated it, and then checking carefully once every spring after that.

We’ve also learned about fencing for goats and sheep. These are all things we could read in a book or ask my dad about, I’m sure, but there’s nothing like hands-on experience, right? You’d think sheep would be more docile but no – they’ll push over or jump over or trample a wire fence to get to the grass that’s greener on the other side, so the only way to keep them from doing that is to make the fence posts very strong, the fence fairly tall, and with a wooden rail on the top AND a couple lines of barbed wire to keep them from pushing on it or climbing up on it.

I got up early this morning by this house’s standards – 7:30 – and got the animals fed and watered and weeded some more onions before breakfast. The five adolescent chickens have taken to following me when I’m weeding because they can find lots of tasty bugs where I’ve pulled up weeds. They’re starting to feel like my little pals and I certainly enjoy their company and their soft little clucks. There is also a mother hen with 6 young chicks in the yard; she is the model of a mother hen, too. The other day the old cat – not a threat to the chickens at all – was sitting too close to something the hen wanted her brood to be able to eat and she puffed herself up and flew at the cat like a fire breathing dragon. And who would have guessed that baby ducks will eat mice? One of the ten young ducks in the yard is quite a hunter, the other day he had a mouse, a slug, and a snail, not to mention all the bugs and grass normally on offer at the lawn buffet.

Thistles in the Hay

Walt and Rosie after the weeding
Tuesday, June 24, 2008

We both worked on the thistles this morning in the heat and humidity, some of the hardest work I’ve done for a while. Slogging through an uncut hayfield and then gingerly trying to gather – wearing two pairs of gloves - the thistles that Walt has cut with his loppers and put them onto a tarp to drag up the long slope back to the goat and sheep fold… there’s still quite a lot to do, it feels like we hardly made a dent in almost 3 hours. An important lesson learned here, that at Chateau Lasalle was just theoretical knowledge: don’t buy more land than you need. Walt asked me how I would handle this thistles in the hay problem and my first reaction was, sell the field! My next reaction was, mow it for a whole year multiple times without harvesting the hay, and then, get some donkeys to add to the sheep and goats and let them keep it trimmed after the haying.

At the bottom of the field is a fairly big stream, with lots of trees keeping it in the shade. Right now because of all the rain it’s a little muddy and a little too big for Reed to putter around in, making dams and such. But maybe it’ll come down later in the week.

I’ve started several projects and haven’t finished any of them but I guess that’s par for the course here. The onions are partially weeded, the thistles have been started, the chicken house cleaning out project has started, and we mowed some of the lawn this afternoon with the small mower since the riding one is still out of commission. The grass catcher fills up after just a couple minutes so it really takes two of us to mow, one to mow and the other to fill up the wheelbarrow with clippings and take them to the compost and the various animals.

Our lovely meals continue here, lots of fresh tomatoes with balsamic vinegar and olive oil, homemade mayonnaise and hummus, Kate’s seed bread and lemon bread and macaroons and jam tarts, lamb ribs, roast new potatoes, roast duck, etc. etc! Our hosts were in town today and I got dinner and managed to overcook the roast duck but it was still edible, fortunately.

I’m going to try to get up early to weed, since I usually wake up at 6:30 anyway and then just lay in bed for a couple hours, not wanting to disturb Reed. Tomorrow I’ll just sneak out quietly and hope he sleeps late. It’s hard to get him to bed before 10 or even 11 with the light lasting so long.