The greenhouse starts producing.

Tonight we had a feed of fresh spinach from the greenhouse. We planted it in the fall and it survived the winter temperatures. It was a pleasant surprise when Andrew brought it in this evening.

Today we looked over the back fields to see how we could go about expanding our growing capability for future seasons. Many of the fields have either grown up significantly or have been very neglected. Hopefully we will be able to remedy this in the next few years. Land availability is a constant planning problem. Being situated on the Peninsula we have to deal with a lot of rock outcrops and hilly terrain.

Blacky's sick lamb passed away today.

Andrew penned off one half of the barn for the sheep and their lambs. They are all happy to be together again.

JG

Never Ending!!

Andrew is outside working on the apprentice's cabin and I am doing paperwork for our certification renewal. We are starting to find it hard to decide on a task that needs to be done and doing it. So many things are important and we really need to start prioritizing. Fixing that tractor, building pens in the barn, seeding, weeding, and finishing projects that have been started already.....

Update on Blacky's lambs.
I put the weak one back in with it's mother and brother. I was hoping that the lamb would get up and get some exercise. It is still very weak but is still eating. Blacky seems to have forgotton who the little guy is.

JG

I can't believe it is Wednesday!!

It seems that all we have been thinking about this past month is the sheep. The last thing we want to do at night is to count sheep to go to help us fall asleep. There is only one more ewe to lamb. We had our 10th lamb this morning. We gave her alittle help. Hopefully the lamb will do well.

Blacky's little lamb that is in the house is doing a lot better. We thought he wasn't going to make it for a couple of days. He is very quiet and he is eating well on his own.

It was wonderful not having to put a fire in the greenhouse last night. If things would calm down in the barn I would be able to get some work done in the greenhouse.

JG

What a weekend.....

Friday night Andrew went out to the barn to feed the twin lambs their bottles and found another ewe about to birth. The poor ewe was in distress. She is our smallest eweand it seemed that she was having the largest lamb of them all. It had to be an assisted birth. We called the provincial vet for some support. The lamb survived and so did the ewe. We had to meet up with the vet to get some pain medication for her and some other things she needed after her truama. She won't let her lamb suckle probably because of the pain. So... that lamb is being bottle fed too. We are still putting the lamb on it's mother throughout the day to keep her healthy.

Blacky's smallest lamb isn't doing so well. He can hardly lift his head. We have been giving him medication and we have to feed the little thing through a tube. We put him in the front porch.

I don't know what we would do if we didn't have the front porch.

We worked outside for most of the day yesterday. When we were not in the barn with the lambs we worked in the greenhouse. Watering and weeding the planted beds. We also brought out all of the colder weather crop transplants to the greenhouse. I needed the room in the front porch to plant more trays. The transplants will grow better in the greenhouse anyhow. With the better sunlight and warmer temperatures.

JG

Snow!!!

There wasn't anymore lambs born today. Yet anyway. Blacky's milk still hasn't come in so therefore I am now bottle feeding them every two hours. They learn quickly who has the food. When I enter the barn and starting talking they go to the gate of their pen and wait for me.

My evening is going to be spent watering and seeding in the front porch. With every CSA membership we get I get motivated to plant more trays.

JG

#7 AND #8!!

"Blacky" had a set of twin boys this morning. The second was very small but is doing alot better this afternoon. Poor Blacky isn't making any milk though. The girls and I have been bottle feeding the twins every two hours. Their mother seems to have accepted them otherwise. Hopefully her milk will come in for the sake of the lambs.

It seems the past two weeks have been totally focused on the lambs. I have gotten some more seeding done in the front porch. I am running out of shelf space.

JG

More Lambs!!

I hope many of you got the chance to listen to Maritime Noon call-in show on CBC today. I really enjoyed it. If you missed it I think you can go to the Maritime Noon webpage and download todays show. The show was on buying local and how we as consumers can support our local farmers.

News from the barn.....

Our ewe "Erica" gave birth to a ram Monday night. She was really spooked. Andrew and I brought the lamb into the house for the night because it was going to be so cold and we were worried about Erica's ability to look after him. We brought him in and gave him a warm bath to clean him up a bit and dried him off really well. He spent the night in our bathroom. He was blaating in the bathroom and the dog was in the kitchen barking for most of the night.

Yesterday morning we took him out to Erica. After a full day of latching the lamb onto Erica and forcing her to stand still she seems to behaving like a good mother. We checked on her many times today to see how they were both doing.

Our ewe that gave birth last Thursday got her head stuck and had to be rescued. She is the one we have started to call "Shaggy".

Everything we have planted in the greenhouse seems to be growing well. The growing season seems so far off still the falling snow outside.

I am off to Fredericton tomorrow for a Canadian Young Farmer's forum.

JG