Our hearts and best hopes go to everyone impacted by the Covid-19 virus.
Just because we're doing non-Covid things, doesn't mean we have forgotten the folks suffering from the virus.
We also really, really appreciate all those folks out there keeping things going and keeping everyone as healthy as possible.
It's still out there and getting fiercer! Be vigilant and continue to be safe!
Wear your mask!
Wash your hands!
Wear your mask!
Wash your hands!
August 6th, 2020
( "In the Nestbox" has been updated! )
Sheep! Sheep!
(that's two sheep)
Sheep! Sheep!
the end result of a LOT of work
The fencing for The Sheep Project was started way back at the tail end of February. That's like a different world now since it was pre-Covid. Also, due to the virus, The Sheep Project has had some major changes from it's original plan.
The fencing remained the same as planned, so that part went well. Because of the requirement to clear a huge amount of vegetation from the fencelines before putting in the fence, it was a huge amount of bull work and our fencing crew isn't exactly a bully work type of crew. However, preserverence can make up for lack of pure strength so the job still got done. Kinda like being nibbled to death by ducks instead of eaten by tigers? Kinda a morbid analogy! Guess I need more coffee.
It's a small sheep pasture and we want them as fluffy lawn mowers that we can also shear and get some nice fleeces for making yarn. I guess that means they're a 'dual purpose' sorta sheep. The back yard is a bit too steep to make it easy to mow and with the various insanely tall and vigorous grasses we have around here, it would need mowing once a week or so. This is Hawaii, so mowing is an all year around activity.
I had wanted to bring in 'Miniature Cheviots' which are a much smaller breed of sheep so we would have been able to have more than two. But, what with the virus, there's a lot less planes flying aorund and none of them are shipping critters at the moment. Not even pets, so folks moving to Hawaii will have to move here without any pets until the airlines start flying critters again. However, there's woolly sheep already here on the island so we got two Clun Forest sheep from Sunbonnet Farm which is about five miles from here.
Clun Forest sheep have nice wool, it makes a lovely 'sproingy' yarn that's soft enough to wear close to the skin. At least some of them do, I'm not sure about the fleece quality on these two sheep just yet, but we will find out when they get sheared. Clun Forest is also supposed to do well in wet areas and these sheep are from a flock that's been here for decades, so they should be acclimitized to the local weather.
Flower & Cypress ready to travel
good thing there's only two of them
We rounded up a non-sheep trailer, a large dog kennel and a small pig trap and Flower and Cypress began their new adventure. A 4WD truck to haul it all was helpful, too. Sunbonnt Farm is at the end of a rural road.
It was interesting to finally meet the sheep. Cypress was hanging out with the boys, there were four or six or so of them. The other boys were put out of the barn leaving Cypress by himself. As soon as he was by himself, he became very anxious. Immediately, he became anxious. He was still in a familiar place but just by being a single sheep, he became agitated and wanted to follow the rest of the boys out the door.
Since he's the smaller of the two, (he's a runt, but we like him because of it) he was put into the dog kennel. He wasn't particularly happy about that at all. Flower was brought down out of the sheep pasture where the girls were all hanging out. She wasn't really happy to be a lone sheep, although she settled down when she got near Cypress. He cheered right up when Flower was near him.
I'd always heard that 'sheep are herd animals' but hadn't really known exactly how that would manifest itself. It's almost like they have a driving need to be around other sheep. I don't know if it must be other sheep or other animals?
Soon after they were released into their new soon to hopefully be a proper sheep pasture, they met with the new neighbor's young pit bull. I'd expected some sort of kerfluffle, but the initial meeting went well. There was staring on both sides (the sheep are much bigger than the young pit bull). I think the young pit bull is a mix of some sort, he initially did the typical pointing dog pose towards the sheep. Then there was mutual stick the nose through the fence. Sniffing, dog licked sheep, sheep licked dog. Then dog wanted to play and I think the sheep did to, although I don't know if they're gonna be able to read each other's signals.
A dog's invitation to play is to lower their front end, wag the tail and look happy. Sheep seem to sorta wanna butt heads? Foot dancing, head bobbing, a little butt and back? It didn't seem threatening, but I can't read sheep behavior very well yet. Well, in any case, pit bull met sheep, sheep met pit bull, nobody got eaten. We will see how Day Two of the Sheep Project goes along.
The whole pitbull thing is another change from the initial planning of The Sheep Project. When we started planning for sheep, the next door neighbors were different and the neighbor's dog was an elderly Labrador. The house was put up for sale right at the beginning of Covid and it sold very quickly. Now it's much more friendlier people, so far the scary pitbull has been pretty friendly, too.
Apocalypse Garden Watermelon
last produce from the first planting
This is the last produce from the first planting of the Apocalypse Garden. The garden was built at the beginning of Covid, we planted corn, beans, watermelons and marigolds. The specific varieties were 'True Gold' corn, 'Greasy Grits' beans, 'Strawberry' watermelon and seeds from whatever marigolds that were available from the ones growing around here.
From this garden, I learned that there is a reason why some varieties of vegetables are much more popular than others. I selected the seeds from Baker Creek's catalog. They ony have open pollinated 'heirloom' seeds so I can save seeds for the next crops. Although, I don't think I'll be planting these varieties again, so that plan didn't work out. Part of the selecting was to get varieties I'd not grown before and I'd not even heard about these varieties so they seemed like a good thing to grow.
Well, the 'True Gold' corn grew very well and produced ears of corn. About half the plants had two ears per stalk. However, the taste description of the corn would be better politely described as a 'butter' corn instead of a sweet corn. As a young corn, it had a buttery flavor but wasn't very sweet. As it matured, it became starchy very quickly. I did save some seeds, but won't be planting them so I'm not sure why.
The 'Greasy Grits' beans weren't from Baker Creek but sourced from some small farmers in Kentucky. As a string bean, they had two strings per pod and an odd flavor, more umami flavored than most green beans. As a soup bean, it's okay, but not one I'd particularly seek out. They grew well, they produced beans, the dried beans were a smaller bean than the Good Mother Stallard I'd been growing before. So, Greasy Grits was an interesting experiment, but I'll probably go back to Good Mother Stallard or even a basic Navy bean of somem sort.
The 'Strawberry' watermelon has been a bit of a disappointment. It did make watermelons, that's a plus. However, it's almost like they are part gourd and not entirely a watermelon. The seeds are white, thick and many. The watermelon flesh is coarse with sort of veins through it. The flavor is semi-bland, not particularly sweet. They were absolutely vine ripe and not overly sweet. The rind cracked almost explosively when it was cut, so it couldn't have gotten much riper than that. But, it still didn't taste as sweet or as watermelon like as I'd hoped. I think I'll go back to Charleston Gray or Crimson Sweet or a more traditional variety.
The bunnies like watermelon and aren't as fussy about things like cracked rinds, coarse flesh, fat seeds or not as sweet as hoped.
I've replanted corn in the Apocalypse Garden, although this time I got seed from the University of Hawaii's Seed Program. We've planted "Hawaiian Supersweet #9" and it's sister corn, Hawaiian Supersweet 'Silver'. One is a gold corn, the other a silver color. Not sure what will happen when they cross pollinate. Hopefully they will taste better than the True Gold. Of course, after the seeds were planted and had barely sprouted, the chickens got into the garden and scratched them up and out of their tidy rows. Hopefully they added fertilizer while causing problems.
Baby bunnies everywhere!
Three litters of bunnies!
The bunnies have been busy! Yay! The top two pictures are the same litter, but the bottom two pictres are each a separate litter.
Six weeks ago, Petunia and Phineas had seven babies. They're six weeks old now and getting to the very cute stage. One or two of them will stay here, one of the white ones will probably go to Kauai and one of the other ones is planning on moving to Maui. Petunia is planning on moving to Oahu. She's a good bun and a proven doe, however we only have room for so many bunnies here so some of them will go to new homes.
Buttercup and Hadrian had a litter of eight, at least, I think it's eight. They keep wiggling around when I'm trying to count them. There's at least seven. They're a week old and Buttercup is being a great mum bun. An assortment of colors, at least two chocolates, some Ruby Eyed Whites - although several of them seemed more white than others - and some tortoiseshells. I'll try for a better picture later today although it won't be posted for awhile, no dobut. One of this litter is planning on going up to Sunbonnet Farm. Most likely the biggest chocolate one, depending on gender, though.
Olivia and Hadrian also had a litter of seven. Since both of them are chocolate, all their babies are chocolate. They're getting to the cute enough stage that you can get diabetes just looking at them, they're that sweet. Several of them will stay here, the rest of them will go off to new homes. If you're interested in a bunny of your own, send us an email.
Yarn Skeiner Project Finished
it even worked on the first try
Another ongoing project was finished this week. Our Hula Bunny yarn is spun up on a little family mill on the mainland. There aren't any mills here in Hawaii, but even though it's spun on the mainland, it's a small family mill that does a really good job on making bunny fluff into some really nice yarn. However, it comes back on cones so we have to get it made into "hanks" or "skeins".
I had been making it into skeins one at a time using a basic yarn swift. This makes up to eight skeins at a time, much faster! However, they then still need to be twisted up into a skein, so now I'll need to figure out some sort of skein twister. So far I'm not sure how it should work, but that may be one of the new projects. Now that we have more bunnies making more fluff there will be more Hula Bunny yarn so having faster tools is a good thing. This does make two ongoing projects that finished up this week. That's another good thing!
The cones of yarn are put below the skeiner. The ends of the yarn are tied to one of the arms on the skeiner racks. There's little twisted wire guide loops that keep the yarn going to the right place on the skeiner's arms. There's two square racks, one inside the other and they are held and rotate around a metal shaft. After an ounce of yarn is wound onto the skeiner, then the two skeiner racks are brought together which loosens the skeins so they can be taken off the skeiner. The metal shaft pulls out and the skeiner racks are completely loose so the skeins can be easily removed.
Lanai almost finished
Lanai roof almost done
The lanai of the extreme fixer-upper is almost finished. It still needs the fascia board up at the front edge of the roof and the stair railings. Should also put some horse fencing between the deck and the top rail of the railing so things won't fall through the railing. I'd planned on glass panels, but those would be hard to keep clean. Also, more ventilation with fencing instead of glass. 'Horse fencing' has vertical holes that are about 4" x 2" or so. It makes a nice fencing and it will blend in and not be overly visible after it's installed.
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