sowing and reaping

we're having a warm spell in january.  it's been sunny, in the 70's and it feels like spring is in the air (though i know it isn't...yet).  our caretaker, dusty, is out of town for a few days, so i was up early on both saturday and sunday.  washed the perches and went to the feed store on saturday, cleaned the coop and put fresh bedding in the sheep's shed on sunday.  the sheep seem hungrier than usual, probably because the soon-to-be mommas are ravenous.  we've been supplementing them with grain and alfalfa.  sarah has a kind of wild look in her eyes, and always seems to be prancing towards the next snack.  skittle is huge and kind of waddles, vacuuming up anything edible in her path.

pattie's doe, ellie mae, had 2 kids during new year's week.  i visited them on sunday.  jingles is a mostly-white, mostly-nubian buck and belle is a mostly-white, adorable little doe.  fortunately, ellie mae had an easy delivery and pattie didn't have to assist.  she's already burned jingles' horns - also known as "poling" - which is done when nubs just start to emerge to prevent horns from growing.  she's going to use an elastrator to neuter him in a couple of weeks (ouch).  the kids are only nursing from one side, so pattie has to milk ellie on the other side each day.  

over tea and leftover christmas cookies, pattie showed me her 2010 ledgers for the goats and chickens.  she's keeping a record of "dollars in" (egg proceeds) and "dollars out" (feed and supplies) for her chickens, as well as a daily tally of eggs layed.  we chatted about egg prices - i'm thinking of raising ours by a dollar - and she gave me a bag-full of 18-pack cartons that she saved for our bantam eggs.  i left her with a stack of pages from sand hill preservation center's website.  sand hill sells heirloom potato slips, and pattie would like to plant sweet potatoes but was having trouble finding anyone who would ship to california.  she's also keen on planting chayote, partly because the whole plant can be eaten - leaves, tubers and fruit.  i've never tried it.

our neighbor jim stopped by on saturday with a tiny blood orange sapling.  he works with treepeople, distributing fruit trees locally.  apparently he had also brought a tree to pattie (an apricot), along with a few grandkids who were excited to see jingles and belle.  we introduced jim and pattie a couple of years ago, knowing that jim was a big fan of fresh goat's milk, and both were farmers at heart.