The Day after Christmas

So it is time to get back to life again. We started off by moving the two adult rams back together. They are now in a pen with tires around fence posts to limit the damage they can do to each other. So far, so good. (I hate this time of the sheep year.)

Then we got to work finishing putting up the first set of barn doors. It is hard to work with tools when you have goats around.

But despite the goats "help" we were able to get the doors hung. You can see the long shadows starting already at 3:00. I guess we'll call that a day.

My Christmas

So, Christmas is about a lot of important things to a lot of people. For me one of the important aspects is getting together with the people I love and exchanging gifts. I hopefully gave nice, thoughtful gifts, and I definitely received them as well. Four of the gifts are somewhat related to my farm (the fiber actually) so I thought I would showcase them here on my farm blog.

There’s my new cool sheepy knitting bag:


There’s two new books, one about wool and the other about textiles in history:

And there’s my new minispinner. I read about this in a newspaper when I was on the Olympic Peninsula as it is made in Chimacum. It seemed like a really cool device that would be easier to use while watching TV and travelling.

I spun this up in about 2 hours while there was a concert and then news on TV. It is really easy to learn to use. It is quiet, and because I do not have to concentrate on the wheel at all, I can concentrate completely on the fiber I am drafting. I chose a difficult fiber to start with- a baby camel down and merino blend roving. But despite this I think I did OK. I think this will give me more flexibility and opportunities to spin that I do not have with my Ashford wheel. Hopefully I can start making more progress on my stash!

New sheep and breed

Meet Dete

Unfortunately since it is still breeding season (until the 26th) I do not have a pen free to keep my new Cotswold ewe Dete in quarantine. So she is put in with my skinny old Shetland sheep. This is the introduction. Ebony (our incredibly skinny old sheep) is bashing her, but I do not think Dete can even feel it. She just looks a little confused. I am not sure Ebony’s going to be able to show Dete her place in the flock.

I purchased Dete from Nancy Wilkinson. She’s been diagnosed with ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease) and is trying to cut down on her flock of Cotswolds. I have always wanted either a Lincoln or Cotswold, and Tom had already agreed to let me get one so it all worked out. I went over to Nancy’s fully expecting to get a colored one. I am not planning on breeding so wool and personality are more issues for me. But Dete’s wool is SO nice and she’s quite friendly that I chose her instead. And since I have only one other white sheep, it makes sense. I think it was hard for Nancy to stay “bye” since she’s one of Nancy’s favorites too, but Dete’s not breeding quality, and Nancy has to cut down. It is sad though, but Dete gets a nice new flock, I get a nice new sheep (with lovely wool), and Nancy has less work to deal with.

New farm blog

Hi all!

Sorry to play musical blogs with you, but I have been playing around with a wordpress blog site. And since I have a cute Christmas theme going there, I thought I would unveil it sooner, rather than later. So it is at:
http://schoonoverfarm.wordpress.com/
Let me know what you think. It is still in its infancy.

Yet another Schoonover Farm Blog

Hi all!

On December 17th, Blogger removed my last blog of almost 2 years duration and all my work. The reason is:

“Blogger’s spam-prevention robots have detected that your blog has characteristics of a spam blog. (What’s a spam blog?) Since you’re an actual person reading this, your blog is probably not a spam blog. Automated spam detection is inherently fuzzy, and we sincerely apologize for this false positive.

We received your unlock request on December 17, 2009. On behalf of the robots, we apologize for locking your non-spam blog. Please be patient while we take a look at your blog and verify that it is not spam.

Find out more about how Blogger is fighting spam blogs.”

So I am waiting to hear back from them whether they will restore my blog. But I have found out about the dangers of having a free blog without back up. So I would strongly recommend that folks in the blog world consider switching to WordPress and/or backing up their blogger site using wordpress. Maybe this will not happen to you.

My previous two blog sites are still on-line. They are at http://schoonoverfarm.com/blog.html/ and even older yet is at http://www.schoonoverfarm.com/farmblog

Government

So yesterday we had a visit of a Department of Ecology official. We are in the Samish watershed, and there is a push to decrease the contamination of this watershed because of periodic closures of Samish Bay shellfish harvests and increased coliform levels in its rivers and streams. It is all spelled out in the http://www.ecy.wa.gov/pubs/0910019.pdf

Samish Bay Watershed

Fecal Coliform Bacteria

Total Maximum Daily Load

Volume 2- TDML and Water Quality Implementation Plan

August 2009

Publication No. 90-10-019

So I read this 150 page document, and we are seemingly in compliance with all the recommendations that are in there. We have our animals fenced away from any streams, and we have gutters on our barn to collect rain water. We do not have stored manure piles. We are (what I though) was the kind of people that Skagit County would like to support. We came into this very dilapidated property and put a lot of hard work and money to fix it up. We are involved with agriculture which is what Skagit County is supposedly trying to support. We pay our taxes and stay out of trouble. So I was hoping that this visit would go well.

Naturally it did not. He waltzed in here and tells us all these government officials that can help us with developing our farm plan, help with pasture management, and improve weight gain in our animals. He told us about grant money available to comply with regulations for fencing, pipes, and engineered designs. Then he said we had to fence off our animals 35 feet from the ditch line on the road. He said we could use electric fencing, and it could be down during the grazing season but would need to be up by August 15th. August 15th!!! That is the driest day of the year. And electric net fencing is not safe in my opinion for horned animals. I lost my first Shetland ram Loki to an electric net fence. He then pointed out that we had dug a trench in one of our 7 fields which drained into the ditch from a pasture where animals are (three small sheep). But we said we could fill in this trench and keep the animals out of this pasture once breeding season is over next week.

At his point I pointed to what I think is our real water pollution issue- the drainage from the development behind our property that floods our fields when there are heavy downpours. We believe this drainage through a culvert onto our property to be illegal because we have the original survey showing no culvert, the ditches designed for the drainage, and that all drainage from the development must be contained in them. There is not a drainage easement for our property, and this is not a natural waterway but a man-made one. We have tried to talk to the homeowners association, but the president does not return our calls. We have even talked to a land-use attorney about this. Well, this Department of Ecology official said he cannot regulate "clean" water drainage, but he does have authority over erosion. The culvert goes out from the road above our place at least 10 feet and free falls down onto our land causing a lot of erosion. The bottom of this culvert is also rotted out so some of the water runs under the culvert undermining it and the road. So this government official started talking about putting a wall on our property to control the erosion! Not the solution I was looking for.

The culvert on our property with water running through it

The "clean" water running out of the culvert

So I do not want a farm plan, I do not want government officials on our land, and I do not want their money. I also do not want to pollute Samish Bay, nor do I want to break the law. So we will put up the electric fencing (although I may not turn it on), fill in our trench and move our rams to the back far field (where it is a lot harder to care for and protect them). And I really hope this is adequate. Because if this official states that we have to put in 50 foot buffers all around our property we are done for. And that will be the end of Schoonover Farm. (and why I am up at 3 AM).