I quickly fed the pigs so we didn’t have a mutiny, and then ran inside to get Bella some warm molasses water. Blackstrap molasses provides energy, iron, calcium, potassium, magnesium and other useful vitamins and minerals. I give it to all my livestock after they give birth. Bella gratefully sucked down two canning pots full in between licks to clean off baby.

Baby was up and standing within the first hour, wobbly but strong, and has nursed a couple times already today, and Bella passed her placenta with no problems about 3 hours after giving birth. We had a healthy little heifer calf, and we’re still trying to settle on a name. We won’t likely be keeping her, but we’d like to halter train her and enjoy her a bit before we try to sell her.

I was able to milk out about a quart of colostrum from one of Bella’s quarters, but she was a little fussy about the back teats. I froze the clean bit I was able to catch, then went back out to try to milk some out of her back quarters to give her some relief. I was able to milk some by hand, but she’s so distended at this point that it’s hard to get my hands around her teats. I’ll milk her out fully, hopefully, tonight with the milk machine, which should give her some welcome relief. I’m hoping the milking will go smoothly so I’ll be able to freeze some of this colostrum as well, but I’m not counting on it.

Here’s a photo of some fluffy sheep in January:

The shearing went pretty well, all things considered, and I was really glad to have Jim’s help wrangling them out of the stall. The day before, I’d moved the sheep into the paddock closest to the barnyard and set up a chute to the barn using electric netting. With the kids’ and Jim’s help, I was able to get the sheep into the barn that evening, which not only made them easier to catch for shearing, but also kept them dry—you can’t shear wet sheep. While I had them immobilized, I also trimmed their hooves, all of which looked pretty good, and checked their eyelids for anemia.

Here are the not-so-fluffy sheep in April:

I did a pretty nice job on the two black sheep, but the lighter sheep is pretty choppy. The fact that she has horns made the job particularly difficult. Her fleece came out beautifully though:

Just look at all the beautiful color variation:

The smallest sheep, who also happens to have been a bottle baby, was the easiest to sheer. She was very cooperative, letting me get some really nice blows and clean her up nicely. She’s the one with the white nose looking at you in the photo above. Her black fleece was absolutely luxuriant:

Julia was out watching, and she climbed into the loft to take some photos of the actual shearing process for the last sheep—Candace, our largest sheep. Candace is the only one who will let me pet her, but I have a sneaky suspicion that has changed since yesterday. *Nope: she was happy to let me love her up, and happy to have the fleece off!

Candace was anything but cooperative. She bucked and kicked and fought the entire shearing. Here I am starting out on the brisket, hoping she’s settling into the process:

And here she is about a minute later. Notice the hog panel that is now just inches from her feet as she’s fussed and fought herself several feet forward:

She looks good, but her fleece came off piecemeal, as I sheared her any way I could, much of which meant having her on her side with Jim holding her firmly. The neck blows were awful to do because she refused to stay still. Definitely not text book New Zealand method!

Thankfully I didn’t nick her at all. The first sheep was the only one I nicked, and unfortunately, I got her a couple of times, though none of them bled. Their wool was so incredibly matted that it would not open up and fall away, making it really tricky to shear. Once I figured out how to work with the wool, however, I got significantly better. I’m thinking that I’ll need to shear them twice a year so that the wool’s not so difficult to get through.

Here’s a photo of Candace from today:

And here’s one of poor Esther and her chunky haircut:

Both Emily and Julia are really looking forward to processing the wool ourselves, so I’m busy researching just how to do that. We’ll need to pick up some carders, and after that, we’re hoping to learn felting. I’m not a knitter, so I don’t think spinning is in my future. I’ve learned to knit, but it’s just too hard on my wrists to make it worth doing, but I think felting would be a whole lot of fun. The girls are really looking forward to learning and creating. As luck would have it, next weekend is the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival, so we’re hoping to pick up some cool tools and tips while we’re there.

Navajo-Churro wool is unique in its dual wool layer: it has an outer protective coating that is coarse and a finer inner coat that is quite soft, but not nearly as long. Here’s a really great website that shows some of the natural fiber colors and the beautiful rugs it makes. Notice that she raises N-C’s, shears them herself, spins their wool, and then weaves it. Wow!

Radishes are all coming up, so we should have a couple more months of those before it becomes too hot. I’ve planted three different varieties: d’Avignon, a long red French variety; white icicle, the white radish; and black Spanish, a dark variety. We may also be seeing some cherry bells this spring or maybe come fall, depending upon how the weather holds out.

I have several varieties of lettuce in the ground, and I’ve already put up the shade cloth in the kitchen garden to help see the lettuces through the coming 70° days. I also ordered several heat tolerant varieties, most notably Jericho, an open-pollinated (will produce true from saved seed) romaine developed in Israel to withstand the heat, and Anuenue, a crisp leaf lettuce developed at the University of Hawaii.

Also in the ground are beets, kale, chard, leeks, onions, carrots, broccoli, broccoli raab, michihli (an Asian green), white kohlrabi, peas, and endive. Potatoes will go in this weekend, and soon it will be time for the first planting of sweet corn!

This past week we’ve also been expanding our berry garden, transplanting approximately 350 strawberry plants and 50 raspberry plants. The drought last year knocked out nearly all the raspberry transplants, but about 15 or so made it through. We’ll keep our fingers crossed for a kinder season this summer and an abundance of berries next year.

I’m a bit concerned about the 70° and 80° temps predicted for this early in the season. It reminds me of the four long months of 90° weather and dryness we experienced last year. Each year, though, brings its own unpredictability to farming, making it always interesting, often exciting, and at times, excruciating.

Today, I was outside as much as possible, hanging laundry on the line, weeding, planting, day dreaming and garden planning. I got a third planting of radishes in, a second planting of tatsoi, as well as kale, swiss chard, and endive under the low tunnel in the upper kitchen garden.

This is the weather I’ve been looking forward to—letting me get outside and work with my hands after a winter of stagnation.

During the high winds, both low tunnels blew off again, exposing them to those 9° nighttime temperatures. The hardy kale survived, but it will be a couple of weeks before I’ll see any regrowth to know if some of the other plants survived as well. The chard fared well, and should bounce back without much problem. I’m hoping the same will be true of the spinach and the raab.

The good news is that the high tunnel is holding its own, and everything growing in there seems to be doing well. The lettuces are growing and filling nicely. Both the arugula and the turnips in this week’s share were from the high tunnel, and there should be more to come in addition to the new plantings.

Our plan this fall is to do away with the low tunnels altogether and build a second high tunnel next to the first. This should provide better winter protection as well as allowing us to get the plantings in good and early without sharing space with summer season vegetables. We already have the plastic, so it will just be a matter of getting the hoops up and the front and back walls framed out. Probably a weekend’s worth of work in October.

The advantage to the high tunnel design is in its construction. The low tunnels keep the plants warmer because there’s less air mass to heat, but the low tunnels are extremely vulnerable to winds because they need to remain removable in order to harvest. With the high tunnels, we can trench the plastic into the earth, using the heavy wet and frozen dirt to hold the plastic in place. The low tunnels, even with their cinder blocks and bricks just cannot withstand the high winds we’ve had this season.

Good news is that the first round of radishes germinated much better than I had thought. This recent spate of warm weather gave them the boost they needed. This first round is a white icicle radish; the second round is a radish known as d’avignon, a long French radish.

Today I’ll be back out in the high tunnel, getting a round of beets planted and new rounds of both tatsoi and swiss chard for spring baby greens.

We’ve had some high winds and low nighttime temperatures again, and those are taking their toll. The tatsoi and raab, which have done such a great job through the winter, are starting to give up. The kale and the chard are rallying, however, as are some of the hardier small lettuces and the spinach.

During the high winds this week, both low tunnels blew off, and the sheep shelter flipped. The high tunnel, however, continues to hold its own, and I’m quite pleased. The red lettuces and spinach in there are maturing, though ever so slowly with the still-short days. The turnip tops look lush and beautiful and will begin appearing in market bags this week in the mixed greens. The bok choi looks terrible. I don’t know if it was the particular variety I planted or if it just isn’t suited to high tunnel growing, but it will not be making its debut any time soon, if at all.

The first sowing of radishes is suffering from spotty germination. Not a big surprise since it is so early, but radishes should be coming in the next 4 weeks or so. Carrots are growing painfully slowly, but they’ll be ready early spring as well. I’m anxiously awaiting warm enough soil temps to begin sowing spring turnips, as I have an amazing new variety for folks to try. Hakurei is a small, sweet white turnip that is the most delicious thing you’ve ever tasted! I’ll be planting rows and rows of these just as soon as the market garden is ready to work.

So, bah humbug to Punxatawney Phil and his predictions. This impatient gardener wants to grow!

Last week, our temps dropped to 14°F at night, and this week, they’ve risen to 70°F during the day, not to mention the gusts of wind up to 35-40 mph. Needless to say, the plants are not happy. That’s the down side of living in the Mid-Atlantic where we do—temps can go either way and often both, and that is hard on both plants and people.

The people, however, are making the most out of these warm days. Interestingly, Julia remembers her birthday (January 4th) as “warm” because we’ve had temps in the 60’s ever since she can remember, which means about the past 4 years.

The plants are hanging in there, though we’ve seen some significant yellowing of the romaine due to the heat and we’re continuing to deal with slug pressure under the plastic. The high tunnel helps to moderate these extremes a bit in addition to protecting the plants from the dessicating winds. Many of our early spring crops are coming in nicely, and growth should really pick up around groundhog day, as the days lengthen towards the equinox. New lettuces and spinach are growing, along with turnips, kohlrabi, Asian greens, cilantro, green onions and arugula.