The problem with wool

 So Jake from State Farm got shorn. He feels much better.

Release me! I see ladies!

This means that I get a fleece! I really enjoy Jacob fleece, but you can't just spin wool, even the nicest wool, straight off the sheep. Well you could but it's not a GREAT idea, because sheep are dirty little grease balls. So we've got some prep steps:

The skirting floor, ie my front room.

1. Skirt the fleece. This means you lie it out flat and pick off the gross parts at the edges... poopy bits, felted bits, in the case of Jacob sheep, hair.
2. Wash (scour) the fleece. Yes you just took out the gross parts. All the other parts are also a LITTLE BIT gross. And did I mention greasy? Lanolin folks - it comes from sheep! There are multiple methods to wash a fleece, but I personally put it in a giant mesh laundry bag, fill the bathtub with hot water and dish soap, and slowly, GENTLY soak the fleece. Heat + agitation = felt. Heat is also the easiest way to get the grease out. I usually do two soap soaks and three or four rinse soaks.
   
3. Dry the fleece. Getting all the water out take BLOODY FOREVER. I squish it out in the tub, then roll it up in towels and stomp on it, then spread it out as far as I can under a full blast ceiling fan. Usually on my bed. This is the part where my husband becomes concerned. He shouldn't be because I am very smart and spread it out on a sheet, so I can roll it up and move it if we need to sleep. He is wonderful but does not understand my madness.
4. Card/comb the fleece. This is where you have some more choices, which are primarily dictated by what tools you have access to. Someday I will have all the tools. SOMEDAY. But right now I have a drum carder and hand cards. The drum carder usually wins, because hand cards take ages and I'm the "card it all before I spin any of it" type - mostly because having to stop spinning to card some more fills me with rage.

Now you have wool ready to spin! I'm asked regularly whether spinning my own yarn is a money saver versus using commercial yarn, and it definitely is not. But you have to figure in all the bonus entertainment value of all of this STUFF. Learn to spin! You will never "have nothing to do" again!

I desire friendship. Sheep desire NOT THAT.

 So I am trying to make friends with my new sheep.

They come from a fairly large herd and are not dairy animals, which means they are mostly accustomed to being handled if they need medicine or something - so, not great associations. Also the ewes are Soays.

You have nothing we desire, human.

Soay sheep "developed" from feral/wild sheep on the Scottish island of Soay (hence the name), and at that time their experience with humans was "those weird things that come get our wool once a year." They are not even shorn, they shed their wool out in the spring. So they are smart for sheep and have fairly good survival instincts, as well as being extremely hardy.

The survival instincts are becoming a problem, actually, because those instincts do not include "the human and the dogs will keep me safe." Fortunately we were making progress (the secret to sheep friendship is animal crackers), when we had a flood and the electric fence between our pasture and the neighbor's pasture was no longer zappy for awhile.

If I wanted to be in that field I would already be there.

Sheep, it turns out, are stupid enough to continue testing the fence, smart enough to figure out that their wool insulates them once it turns back on again, and filled with desire to trespass. Limu, in particular, is the "smart one" and ring leader.

You offend us! You offend our ancestors!

Things that we have attempted to break them of their crime habits:

1. Keep them off that field for a week so they'll "forget" that they can get through that fence. They did not forget. I spent hours cleaning the wool off the fence wires for NOTHING.
2. Shear Jake from State Farm (who needed it anyway) in hopes that one being trapped would keep them all close. JfSF screamed for awhile and then figured out how to crawl through anyway.
3. Triangle collars made of PVC pipe. Flo removed hers within an hour. By morning all sheep were naked and trespassing. Limu took off her collar IN THE NEIGHBOR'S FIELD.
4. Give up. The sheep vanished without a trace and were found an hour later way down behind the bend of the creek.
5. Keep them off the front field again and just let the goats up there at night, with the sheep on the back, because the goats need more field but also need hay and giving them both at once causes Sheep Crime.
6. Triangle collars PART TWO. With holes drilled in the PVC. And even more zip ties. And swearing. We haven't actually done this yet because I'm tired.

But lady they LEFT ME!

Meanwhile the girls are beginning to breast boobily about the pasture, making containment more important than ever - because if they drop lambs in not my field somewhere I will loose my mind.

Buy stock in animal crackers. We're going through a lot of them.

A diary of an old lady goat who just wants some respect dammit

 So I brought home two lovely aged does this weekend, Lily (7, in milk) and Champagne (9, bred), who have impeccable pedigrees and production records and will be tremendous assets to the herd. They have ideas about this.

Sunday afternoon: Lily and Champagne are happy to come out of the barn. They are suspicious of getting in the car but definitely too lazy to put up too much fuss. Is that hay in there? Get this puppy out of my way I am too old for this. (The puppy was very cute and received many pats.)

This new barn smells funny.

Still Sunday afternoon: Lily - whyyyyyyyyy I'm too oooooooold for this!!! Champagne - zzzzzzz

Finally home, Sunday evening: We have arrived just in time for everybody to be fed and milked. Champagne walks into the milk room and jumps on a milk stand like she owns the place. Lily converts into 160 pounds of rage and stomping. She does like the grain though.

Lily - I'M LEAVING THIS PLACE IS TERRIBLE WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE. Sif - don't worry mama I'll make sure she stays safe!

I'll find my own herd! With PROPER STAFF!

Monday morning, milking: Lily - I DEMAND TO SPEAK WITH A MANAGER. AND MY PREVIOUS STAFF. I WILL GIVE THEM SUCH A TELLING OFF. Champagne - (chewing peacefully). Milk goes everywhere. Everything is wet. Nogoaty else wants to use the milk stand after that.

Are you sure you are qualified to do this?

All goats are released. Champagne finds the babies. Happy old lady goat noises commence.

They will come around and everything will be fine, but if you enjoy drama, bring home an aged doe. You've apparently got a 50/50 chance.

Maybe don't quit your sysadmin job

FIRST BLOG POST IN YEARS BABY!!! I am still alive Facebook and Twitter are just easier to keep up with. That said, one of my friends sent me this lovely list of reasons you should quit your sysadmin job and become a goat farmer: https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/4l7kjd/found_a_text_file_at_work_titled_why_should_i/

And as a goat farmer who works in tech (although I am a PM, not an engineer) I have a few rebuttals. Quotes in bold because I'm too tired to deal with prettier formatting.

• Left alone, Billy goats and Nanny goats do what they're supposed to do. You don't need to format them, monitor them, be on-call for them, step, trace or inspect registers.

• Indeed they will, but you will also probably be frantically drying kids in the middle of a blizzard if you don't at least enforce a schedule on them. 

• Goats don't page you.

• They are better at screaming than most stakeholders though.

• When it comes to "software" (food), EVERYTHING is compatible with a goat.

• No it isn't. Their requirements list for hay is as extensive as it is unknowable. And GOD HELP YOU if you package their software in a new or unexpected way because this is not what they asked for, expected, or need. Also, sometimes they eat plants that are literally poison. Apparently to keep you on your toes.

• You don't need to call a staff meeting to make sure everyone's milking goats the same way.

• Only if you find goat shenanigans funny or hate your substitute milk maids. Goats will enforce your daily schedule more intensely than the most anal retentive product owner on the planet, and they will do so by screaming, becoming boneless, and generally acting like you are killing them when you ask them to do things they do literally every day.

• You don't need to sign in with the front desk if you need to milk a goat on a weekend. You don't need to use a badge to open a front gate. If you find an empty coffee pot burning on the machine on a Saturday, you just yell at your wife.

• But you might need to sign in with the livestock guardian dogs, who are highly suspicious of any change of schedule. It is after all their job to enforce security policy.

• You deliver applications to goats. Goats do not deliver applications to you.

• Isn't that what kids are?

• Goat security is applied completely, thoroughly, and with all the features you'll ever need, using a stake and a rope.

• Also an electric fence, gates (no taller gates), 24/7 canine monitoring, and additional after hours electronic monitoring (if you're lucky, if not, physical monitoring) during high stress periods (kidding). They still get out sometimes and your neighbor asks if that's your goat in the road.

• You do not need to buy anything to "uninstall" a goat. Maybe a gun or a knife.

• Sometimes people pay money for the privilege of uninstalling the goat from your property for you!

• No meetings.

• Yes meetings. Daily (milking, feeding, watering), weekly (barn cleanup, worm checks), monthly (more barn cleanup), quarterly (minerals), and annual (breeding, kidding, vaccines) schedules strictly enforced by screaming and/or death.

• All your stuff will still work when you buy your 100th goat, and your 256th goat, and your 65,536th goat..

• Unless the previous goats broke it in new and exciting ways. That said, bailer twine fixes most of that, and the rest is a replace/upgrade scenario. No dev budget required unless you feel like getting fancy.

• Nobody can go through your goat and get you in trouble for what they find in there.

• Yes they can, selling a goat into the slaughter pipeline that you gave an unapproved patch (medication) without express permission from an admin (vet), with paperwork, will indeed get you in a lot of trouble. Because they will go through the goat. They will find out.

Would I quit my tech job to goat farm full time again in approximately two seconds if I didn't have to worry about money? Yes. But do goats have a surprising amount in common with most stakeholders? Also yes.

Many mama duck styles

So as many of you know we got livestock guardian dogs this year.  While Heimdall and Sobek are still being dumb puppies (BIRDS ARE FRIENDS NOT TOYS), they are also already so good at their jobs that I can actually let the mama Muscovies raise their ducklings and I don't loose half of them to vanishing the first week.  This is super amazing because brooder ducklings suck (they're wet and stinky!).  But also interesting because of all the different mama duck styles we turn out to have.

White belly mama wants to take her ducklings as far away from the other ducks as she can possibly get them, as soon as their little legs are strong enough for them to follow her.  This is a little bit of a problem because she wants to take them into the cow pasture next door, and cows will step on ducklings and not even notice.  Still raised them all as far as I can tell though.

The white mamas always go in on a nest together, and seem mildly confused as to why these ducklings are following them.  They will cuddle the babies if they huddle up, but seem to want to know why crying ducklings are making that noise.

This is as close as I could get to black mama duck, because she will attack you if you look at ducklings funny.  Not just her ducklings, but ANY ducklings.  She stops mothering them a lot earlier than the other hens do, but makes it up in sheer determination to make you BLEED.

One of the blue hens has a nest that should hatch soon, that will be the last ducklings of the year, so help me.  I might have too many ducks.  But mothering ability is a good thing to decide which to keep based on, so I have an excuse to keep them a little longer.

Support your local feed mill!

So I love our feed mill.  They're like fifth generation, family owned and operated, and their feed is the best I can find anywhere.  I always haul feed in my van with the back seats out, because I would rather stab myself with a fork than back up a trailer.  This leads to some "that's a funny looking truck, wink!" commentary but it certainly isn't the strangest thing they've loaded feed into.

So today they were loading me up with feed, and I notice that one of my front tires is obviously short on air.  Yipes.  I have an emergency pump, but that thing takes about three years to work.  No worries, says toothless feed store guy (I don't know any of their names work with me here).  You can use our air pump.

The other one looks a bit low too, says current manager.  Best top it up first.  So we do that.  Then we try to do the other side.

AND IT EXPLODED.

Like kaboom and gravel flew everywhere it didn't just blow out it blew up.  And we all just stare at it for a second.

"Do you have a spare, darlin'?"

I realize that calling people darling or sweetie or whatever is kind of a southern thing, but I really hate it.  Makes me want to punch the dang guy in the mouth.  But the speed with which a swarm of feed mill dudes descended upon my car, pulled all the feed out, got the spare out from under the car, found a better jack, jacked up my car, and switched that tire out makes me very glad that I never have.  I surely could have done that myself, but it would have taken me at least an hour longer, and I would have been metaphorically dead afterwards.  As it was I still had enough energy to get the feed back out of the van and put up so we can take it to its appointment at the tire place tomorrow.

So support your local feed mill, darlings.  And if you're local to me, go to Big Spring Mill in Elliston.  They will save your bacon when your car explodes.

And in the fall, we have shenanigans.

So yes I realize it is not technically fall yet.  But the bucks are starting to do buck things (aka standing around testing the equipment and peeing on themselves), and that means the does will be coming into heat soon, which means fall to me, even if it's still so hot I can barely move.

Hey LADIES...

I do not want January kids again.  Which means that the bucks need to go into lock down.  And the growing doe kids have been using the buck hut as a house.  You can probably guess where I'm going with this.

So I shut the does into the loafing shed, shut the bucks OUT of the barn yard (so they were stuck in the pasture), and brought the doe kids down into the barn yard.  This was the easy part, as they are still in that "follow mom she will protect and feed us" stage.  They almost tripped me like ten times but they didn't run away.  Baby girls safe, check.

The bucks on the other hand will wander around eating things if I don't keep a firm handle on them, so I was going to take them one at a time.  This was a great plan until Roosevelt starting freaking the hell out because he was "alone"... which Sobek the LGD puppy though was a really fun game.  For Sobek.  Roosevelt started running around screaming like he was being murdered.  Chocula is a pretty calm boy so I had my eleven year old daughter hold his collar while I put the puppy on a tie out.

This was Chocula's cue to slip his collar.  We are fairly fortunate that there was honeysuckle right there and he didn't go far.  Got the collar back on him and push/pull/dragged him up to the front.  Got the collar back and repeated the procedure for Roosevelt, who was much better behaved given that we were moving toward his buddy and not away.

But wait it's not over yet!  For ease of access to all the gates I had taken down the temporary fencing (it needed moved anyway).  It is now one o'clock in the afternoon, and hotter/more humid than hell.  But the fence has to go up.  I managed three lines before I felt like I was going to pass out - good enough to hold grown does.  So I plugged it in and let them out.  The babies are now screaming because they want out, too, but I need to cool off and get a drink.  One more line and, fortunately, it turns out that freeing them (at least into a little strip of pasture) was enough to get P. Bubbs to shut her hay hole.

So fingers crossed that a) nobody escapes, b) the dogs continue to behave, and c) I figure out how to integrate the baby does with the big does.  That would return the shenanigans to a reasonable level.  As long as I ignore the ducks...