Fresh Garden Veg

Shortly after writing the draft of the last post, hubby looked out the dining room window at about 10:30 a.m. and saw a coyote chasing the sheep!!  This is a distance of perhaps thirty paces from the back of the house.  Hubby went for the rifle and out the one back door, while I headed out the other back door toward the intruder.  "Hey!  Hey!  Hey!"  I yelled.  He was heading to the trees looking over his shoulder at me.  He moved faster.

I called for Millie and she came around the house.  Beau was at my heels and began to bark.  The remainder of the flock of sheep ran past me toward the barn.  Hubby was heading to the woods.  Millie stopped, felt the excitement, sniffed the air, hesitated, then turned around and returned to her spot under the veranda.  I almost cried.

I put Beau in the house.  I removed my grass covered house shoes and put on my barn boots.  At the gate the sheep came directly to me.  I closely inspected them.  Some were shaken more than others.  Some began to chew their cud, a sign that they were not stressed.  All thirty were there.  No one was injured.

Since then we have all been skittish.  The sheep are easily startled.  The humans are quick to grab the gun.  The House Pasture was supposed to be the safe spot.  Now it seems that only the barn is safe but the eating there is limited.

I continue to take the sheep out to the Middle Field behind the house.  This is becoming difficult as the sheep split up and quickly become hidden in the tall grass.  Other areas have been trampled and eaten down making observation easier.  After two weeks of doing this I came up in burn like welts on my hands.  My hands are one of the few parts of me exposed due to the sun and mostly the bugs.  The field is covered in poisonous Wild Parsnip and it often towers above me.  When I researched this on line our area came up as an example of a location riddled with it.  The juice from the Wild Parsnip is activated by the sun, causing the skin to blister.  Wild Parsnip has been known to cause temporary blindness.  I make sure I wear my sunglasses all the time.

Sheep in Middle Field.  The yellow plant is Wild Parsnip.  Note how the sheep have stripped the leaves from these plants.

Interestingly the sheep eat the leaves of the Wild Parsnip.  I have seen them eat the flowers too but usually they cannot reach the flowers.  The sheep also seem to love Milk Weed, stripping the leaves off the stalk.  This plant came up as poisonous to sheep.  In addition, a primary plant in the field is Spotted Knapweed.  This invasive plant is responsible for billions of dollars lost in the beef industry in the mid-west US.  The best thing to do for Knapweed is pasture sheep on it!  In addition to the nutritious Knapweed there can also be found clover, treefoil and timothy.  There is a lot of eating for sheep out there!

Spotted Knapweed is very nutritious for sheep yet known to ruin cow pasture

We have decided we need to cut this field to ensure the safety of the sheep.  In addition this is where we plan to hunt coyotes and cutting the field will allow the hunters to see the varmint.

I have now completed the required gun course and am becoming familiar with my own rifle recently purchased for me by hubby.  My sister said I am to become a cowboy - a childhood dream come true!  In addition she envisions us sitting on the veranda with our rifles, overseeing the grazing sheep.  She's not too far wrong actually.

Other things happen around here too!

The vegetable garden is producing.  There have been many weeds and I am finally getting ahead of them.  The straw mulch resulted in oat grass coming up and the sheep enjoy this as I pull it up and toss it over the fence to them.  We have enjoyed lots of salad greens, the red leaves left untouched by the bugs moreso than the green arugula and other greens.  The tomatoes are doing well.  There are tons of potatoes.  The beets and carrots are coming as are the beans, purple and green.  And onions too.  We will eat zucchini this week.

I placed a planter box of geraniums and petunias at the end of the driveway but these were well pruned, likely by deer.  The planter is recovering on the veranda.  Other than that I planted a few pots of petunias.  The nicest are the balcony box I have hung on the barn door.

Petunias on the Small Barn door

Millie is eating pretty regularly now although not much for such a large dog.  Under the veranda has been claimed as her domain and she does not allow Beau under there.  We have made a lot of progress in getting her to not chase cars as they pass by.  This was fine when she was in the fenced paddock but is not fine when she gets on the road in front of the house.  Cars honk, people yell - not a good impression to make on the neighbours.

We feed Millie in the Small Barn.  She is still quite hesitant to come inside the barn but she is getting more comfortable.  Some days she will come into the field near the barn, but most days she will not.  We think that she and the llamas have a huge conflict and the llamas have pushed her out.  Getting zapped by the electric fence did not help.  We are going to try removing the llamas from the flock and see if we can get Millie back with the sheep.

We had visitors over the weekend and a lovely time was had by all.  Two couples joined us for a Christmas in July dinner out.  On Sunday morning we whipped up a mess of bacon, eggs, mushrooms, tomatoes, scones, etc.  It was yummy.  Good food.  Good company.  And I got out of my barn clothes, put on some fancy clothes and talked a lot with humans...!