Endless Rain

Yesterday brought some relief from the rain but today we're back to more of the same. What happened to Sequim's blue hole?

Hattie isn't keen on the wet weather either.

But this Bonica is still putting out flowers.

Surgery Plans

So it looks like I'll be getting a new knee come February. There is a six month wait necessary from the date of the cortisone shot -- something to do with infections. In the meantime there is lots of blood work to do, dental cleaning, visit with my primary physician, physical therapy, and preparing the house (and Bob) for post surgery recovery. I'm feeling nervous about the whole thing already but every day my knees hurt more and more so there is incentive to carry on. I'll post developments as they happen.

Brighten the Night

The short, rainy, gray days have become depressing so we brightened the night with sparkling lights. I wonder if the sheep like it? This is the redwood in the back yard. Bob was on tippy toes at the top of the ladder and tossing the lights to reach the peak of the tree. It is very bright. 

Only two trees in front of the house were lucky enough to get the light treatment. I'd like to do one more next to the tree in the rear of this photo... if I can convince Bob. Our cloudy nights are really black.

Morning Routine

This morning begins in fog.

Hattie waits at the barn door, keeping the sheep out while I clean up. The barn modifications were completed just in time for the latest storms and are working well.

Wick-a, wick-a, wick-a.  A flicker watches from a tree top.

The hay santa is on his way and the boys are very excited.

The eating machines dig in to their hay bags. They don't care for the new hay so Bob mixes it with some of the tastier old stuff. They will have to adjust soon or go hungry.

Yes, I said go hungry...

When all is done Hattie lets me know it's time to throw the ball.

Barn floor

We've done a ton of work and expect the barn to stay dry now. It is built on what is essentially a sloping sand dune and all the sheep activity and poop removal during the dry summer resulted in a depression in the floor that was filling with water that drained through the sand. So the first step was to build a French drain, similar to the one we built in Homer but on a much smaller scale. I didn't take pictures of the process, but it involved digging a trench along the front of the barn, laying landscape cloth in it, adding the holey pipe in the bottom on a slight slope down to a bucket in a deeper hole beyond the barn, filling it all with large gravel and wrapping the landscape cloth around the top, then covering with sandy soil. The first picture shows that part completed.

Then we started to add smaller gravel at the outside base of the barn wall and inside to fill the depression and raise the floor a couple inches. Here's the outside as finished product. 

With the gravel base laid we put down holey rubber stall mats - the holes allow pee to drain rather than sit on the mats - and spread gravel. Here's how that looked.

Then we spread finer sand to help compact the gravel. Here is Bob using the foot tool to distribute sand.

And here is the new barn floor, ready for sheep. 

I expect the sand and gravel to compact as the sheep walk on it so every week or so we can spread more sand until it stabilizes. This is a good surface for cleaning and should be a nice place for my spoiled boys, although they usually prefer to sleep outside. If they poop on it I will consider it a success.

Hattie approves of the new floor and is ready to boss the boys around.

Now that's done I can focus on glazing. I've underglazed these poppies and will spray clear glaze over later, so that's all for now.

Herding With a Deaf Dog

I guess Hattie's hearing loss is getting worse and she relies on gestures for communication more than I realized. A flag or arm swing accompanies vocal commands when we herd and yesterday we had an interesting development as a result. 

I was dragging Tag's Radio Flyer wagon around with a slop bucket cleaning up sheep droppings, as I do daily. There is a large temporary pen set up in the back yard that the sheep can access through a gate at the east end of their field. Hattie sat at the gate while I cleaned up in the pen. The sheep were eating in their barn at the west end of the property. 

It had been raining so I had my hood up but was getting warm. I raised my arm to lower the hood. Hattie, sitting at the other end of the pen, interpreted that as a sign to fetch and took off on a beautiful wide outrun, circling around to the barn. I felt a moment of panic as she entered the barn, fearing the sheep would bolt and crash around, but all was quiet and five sheep exited the door followed by my little dog. Not a fence or board was smashed down in the process. 

She herded them along the fence, as we've practiced many times, over to the gate, but only three entered the pen. Now she had to deal with two rebellious sheep splintered off the group and going in opposite directions. This has been a sticking point for her in the past. Would she fetch them or leave them to focus on the larger group? I was still a good distance away and decided to stay out of it. This was entirely her show. Without hesitation she circled back and fetched each reluctant sheep to the gate and, to my delight, brought them as a group right to me. What a good girl! She looked quite proud of herself, deservedly so. It wasn't something I planned to do but couldn't ignore what a splendid job she'd done all on her own. 

Now if only I could get her to do the rest of the chores, too.

Stormy Days

What is there to do when it's too miserable to spend time outdoors?

My fair weather sheep shear grass in the yard when the rain subsides then run back to the barn when it starts to fall.

I'm not into eating grass like the sheep, but I made cannabis butter. After cooking last years buds in butter for hours and hours the mixture was ready to pour into the red silicone mat I make dog treats in. It makes perfect serving sized pieces to keep in the freezer. This was a great idea, even if I do say so myself. Much better than pouring it all into a single container and chipping off frozen chunks. 

I ran a bisque firing, too. Finally. I couldn't put it off any longer. Now there is glazing to do, my least favorite chore. I won't bother to go over what's here. I'll save that for whatever survives the glaze firing. My clays here are porcelain, porcelain paper clay, and a stoneware with iron. A few of the porcelain pieces cracked so I've patched them with some stuff that was recommended by other potters. We'll see how it works. Porcelain is so fussy.

Coolaroo Door

The Coolaroo fabric arrived and we finished the gate/door. Gimpy had to inspect our work then nibbled on the little clips holding the fabric on. So this is a nice windbreak. I hope it will survive the horrendous windstorms we can get. Last night we had a doozy that had me running around securing or removing tarps and anything loose. It was so bad my glasses were being blown off my face. This morning I found all the neighbor's walnut leaves piled in drifts under all my plants and had to spend a few hours cleaning that up. Walnuts produce a chemical in all their parts, juglone, that is toxic to many plants or can stunt their growth. That is the last thing I need in my garden with our poor soil. 

Here are the paw imprints of Tag and Hoopie in the Memorial Garden. We found the footprint rocks somewhere on our walks around Sequim. Leaving painted rocks hidden in places for people to collect is a sweet tradition. The footprints were perfect to place with the paw prints since the dogs and I spent so much time hiking together.

Barn Adjustments

Hurray! Weather is back to normal after a few days of freezing temps.

A storm pummeled us with driving rain before the freeze up. We thought we had wind directions covered with the three sided barn but of course this storm was driven from the south. Half the barn got saturated, requiring a few changes.

Here is the new wall on the south side. I used the gate Bob made for the garden as a door for the other half of the south wall. The gate was removed when the garden fence came down and was just propped up against the garage being useless. Right now it is covered with a tarp (on the right) but that will be replaced with Coolaroo shade fabric soon. It doesn't quite cover the width of the opening when it's closed but that's OK because it will give the sheep a slot to get in and out of the pen.

Inside, much cozier and protected from wind now. We'll be bringing in gravel or dirt to raise the low spots that developed in the floor. Our sandy soil just blew away as dust with all the sheep activity this summer when everything was so dry. I have to make sure the sliding door is fully opened or the sheep will somehow close it. I've found them locked one side or the other several times now, and if they get separated they become quite distressed. It's a bit of a mystery how they manage to close it.

Soil in this corner of the pen disappeared as well. I'm filling the depression with wasted hay and straw. It can break down and add soil nutrients. Notice the double fence. We had to block off the trees in this corner when the sheep began to strip off bark. They do get into a bit of mischief.

They are no longer confined to the pen at night being big boys now, and they prefer sleeping out in the open as long as it isn't raining heavily. Our boys like fair weather and I do too.

Fall Chores

My little strawberry bed is overgrown and useful for little more than producing new plants so we built a strawberry tower. We used sheep poop/straw compost layered with soil in a welded wire cage and transplanted some of the strawberry starts. The white pipe set in the middle has holes in it and provides a route to water inside the tower. We'll see how well it works before building any more. Should be easier to pick berries and trim off runners.

We had a terrible rat problem in the greenhouse this season so Bob added a concrete curb inside the door to block the gaps where we think the little bastards were getting in. Hope it works!

Inside the greenhouse I am finally getting shelves where I can grow plants in pots and store supplies off the ground. Here is the first one, sixteen inches wide. We'll put another one like this on the other side and a narrower shelf above that. A winter project for Bob.

Here's Tux. She's getting gray and showing her age but is doing well.

We needed more space for hay storage so built this quonset hut using stock panels and a tarp. It's a  handy temporary shelter where the hay is stacked on pallets to provide air circulation and prevent mold growth.

Bob built up the garden beds for me. The soil just wasn't deep enough in what we had. Carrots grew down a couple inches, hit sand and turned sideways. No good. I filled these up with compost and sheep manure and hope we'll have good results next year.

Here are my duck girls. We removed the fencing we had around the garden and moved their house to adjoin the sheep pen (second picture). It took a while for them to adjust but now all is well.

Here are some pictures of Hattie bossing the sheep around. I caught Boots nose to nose with her this morning, just calmly sniffing each other.  This is Hattie's idea of heaven.

Happy Hattie

The boys are growing their winter coats, some long and curly, others short and straight, but they will be well insulated from the cold. I love digging my fingers into that thick wool, and they're so much cleaner than the mud-caked creatures we brought home. I can't believe they've only been with us seven months. 

Timmi

Right to left: Gimpy, Boots, Stomper, Timmi. Mocha in the rear.

Stomper

Mocha