Work Day

It might be a holiday weekend but the sheep don’t take any time off at Juniper Moon Farm. I had been letting some chores pile up and today was the day to get them off my plate.

In the morning, Maggie and I wormed, deloused and hoof-trimmed all the boys and the goats in the west pasture. It was still pretty cool when we got started, thank God. Worming is a piece of cake but hoof-trimming is filthy work, takes forever and makes me wonder why I still have goats. (The sheep’s hooves are much harder and only need trimming a couple of times a year. Angora goats’ hooves must be done every six weeks or so. Sheep don’t need to be deloused either, but it’s not such a big deal as it only takes about 15 seconds per animal.)

Since it wasn’t blazing hot when we finished I decided to mow the lawn to get it over with. I hate mowing the lawn, not because it’s hard but because it’s boring as hell. Boring and loud. I felt very grown-up since I did it anyway.

Next, Maggie and I loaded up her truck and took a huge load of brush and recyclables to the landfill. By then it was blazing hot, so we didn’t start on worming the ewes and lambs until 6 p.m.

This was the Tiny Man’s first time getting wormed, so we took a couple of pics for his baby book.*

After each animal is wormed, they get a red stripe with a livestock marker on their nose so we can easily tell who’s been done. (Yes, it comes off. Every time I show pictures of animals that have been marked some one asks in the comments. It comes off. I promise.)

A whole pen full of wormed ewes and lambs is a beautiful sight.

Miss Ethel is still sitting on her clutch of eggs and she protects them rather fiercely! I tried to give her some grain tonight and she pecked my hand. From here on out, she’s on her own.

Now I’m making sugar syrup to feed the bees, after which I expect I will collapse in an exhausted heap. Hope you had a terrific Saturday, my friends. More tomorrow.

*No, Rush doesn’t really have a baby book. That was a joke.