So Much to Do...

Things don't slow down on the farm for a pandemic. Life... and death... go on.

Fifteen year old Shirley "Puppy" went to sleep and did not wake up on June 16. She had been failing gradually after her remarkable comeback from strokes a year ago. Her story here: https://finkfamilyfarmstories.blogspot.com/2018/03/shirley-puppy.html

Although we intended to wait a year or so before getting another Livestock Guardian pup to help Mister McCoy, who is ten, fate intervened in the form of an ad in the local paper for Great Pyrenees/Maremma pups from the same farm Shirley Puppy came from fifteen years ago. We went and bought  one on Sunday, June 21.

 
The next day, Monday, Johnny mowed all three hay fields. The weather report was no rain until the following Sunday.

  I hurried to the coast on Tuesday to do a Black Oystercatcher survey at Cascade Head before my part of the hay saga began. Johnny stayed home and raked all three fields. The day before I'd helped in the heat with gates and animals and also weeded... managing to get a touch of heat stroke. I don't do hot weather well. Johnny loves it.

 I found no Oystercatchers on the coast, but I did find cool weather and lovely scenery.

These grassy ledges on the cliff is where BLOY have nested in the past... no sign of nesting this day

The rock where BLOY have nested in the past

Pigeon Guillemots

Wednesday I mowed the lawn before my friends and Qi Gong partners came and did Ren Yuan in the front yard, socially distanced and with masks on afterwards. We are all in the dangerous age range. Johnny raked hay again in the afternoon while I weeded, picked strawberries, watered the greenhouse, etc. It was cooler.

Thursday I made a quick dash to Sheridan for feed and other errands. My first excursion out in months. Johnny baled hay.

Friday and Saturday we hauled hay from fields to barns with the help of a local handyman friend.  Johnny re-raked the broken bales and baled them again. All the hay from one field went into the llama shed to be fed to horses. It was stuffed to overflowing.

 In fact, we had to put the last load into one of the buck pens. I'll feed from there to the horses first... well, after I finish all the hay that I stacked on my EZ Go.



The other two fields are full of lotus and that hay goes to the goat barn... Here is our last load going into the goat barn...

The goat barn was also stuffed to overflowing...

 ...overflowing into the aisle of the buck barn... and into several wheelbarrows... Bales that didn't survive the last hay elevator trip stayed on the flatbed trailer... to be fed gradually...

 
Saturday night, it rained. Not much, but enough so Johnny was very relieved all the hay was under cover. I was relieved we were done hauling hay!

Now my poor neglected garden may get hoed and mulched, raised beds weeded, flower beds weeded... between naps...