It has only been three days since our last harvest but wow! Lots of vegetables! This week's CSA baskets included: green beans, heirloom tomatoes of many different varieties and sizes, cooking onions, walla walla sweet onions, kale, carrots, eggplant, cucumbers, beets, zucchini, orange sweet peppers, hot peppers (jalapenos, chillies and others), parsley, mint, basil, swiss chard and turnips! What a feast.
Unbeknownst to me, the harvesting was the easy part of my day, in large part because Grandma was kind enough to come down to help me with the boys while Ian is away on business. This means that Liam and Seamus did not have to "help" me with harvesting. *Sigh of relief*. I love my boys but toddler "help" in harvesting makes the job take twice (or three times) as long and is at least one hundred times more frustrating. If I have to ever say the phase, "Seamus you are standing on the _______ [insert name of any vegetable you can think of here]" again, it will be too soon.
I have also been monitoring the ram lambs' castration and noticed that their scrotum is starting to detach. It looked a little sticky and icky along the edges during this morning's check requiring me to catch each lamb (Cobalt was easy, Lego not so much) at bed time and coat the edges of their ball sack in iodine. Ram lamb horns are sharp. I do not enjoy being poked with them.
Finally, it is pouring here. Not that I am complaining - rain is much needed after the drought we had for most of the summer. The problem with heavy rain is that my heart breaks to leave poor Charlie outside under the shelter while the other animals are snuggled up warm and dry inside the barn. It is supposed to rain all night and so I decided that I would put the three lambs safely inside the lambing pen so that Charlie could join the rest of the sheep in the main barn. It was a close call which was more heart wrenching - pathetic Charlie soaked from standing out in the rain or the pitiful baas of the lambs as they were separated from their mothers for the first time (granted they can see and smell them through the pen wall but this does not seem to be much consolation). However, as it continues to downpour I feel less and less bad about the lambs' separation anxiety and better knowing that Charlie is safe and dry inside the barn. Thank goodness I have understanding neighbours because I have a feeling that it is going to be a noisy night on the farm. The lambs seem pretty determined to express exactly how much they dislike my weather-related decision making. If only everyone would get along, barnyard living arrangements here on Gael Glen Farm could be much simpler.
No comments:
Post a Comment