Life happens

Life is about to get really crazy. Starting Wednesday, I will be teaching every day, Monday through Friday, from 8 a.m. to almost noon. The garden is still not completely planted, and there are plenty of things around the homestead that need to be done -- like shearing sheep and trimming hooves on all the animals that have hooves.

We sheared Rambrandt today. Poor boy was unlucky enough to go through the electric fence right there in front of us. So, Mike grabbed him, and we sheared him. It only took about five or ten minutes, which is long by professional standards, but not bad for a family of amateurs. Now that he's sheared, he probably won't be so quick to go through the fence. (The wool insulates them from the shock.) The good thing about rooing is that all the bad wool comes off first, which is the stuff you could have pitched anyway. All of the fiber from his belly, tail end, and neck were gone already, so we just got the good stuff. So, that leaves us with 19 sheep left to shear.

I bought another roll of woven wire fencing today, and once Mike gets that up, the farmhouse and chicken house will be completely fenced in. If we don't stop losing poultry to coyotes after that, then we are just out of luck.

But for the next three weeks, half of my days will be spent teaching, and another good chunk of time will be spent grading and preparing. In fact, a lot of today will be spent getting ready to start teaching. I've never taught a summer class before, but I've taken a couple, and the pace can be crazy. Add farm chores to that -- and, oh yeah, a big family party here on Father's Day -- and I'm kind of wondering how I'll mentally survive the next three weeks. I suppose I will have a much better idea of what it's like to combine a full-time job with homesteading.

Front fencing completed!

For several years, we've been talking about the need for a fence across the front of our property, and we finally did it. I should say that Mike finally did it, since my help consisted of recommending a picket fence. I thought that it would work well for keeping the birds on our property, since chickens don't exactly fly over a fence. They usually jump up on top, then jump down. With pointy tips, I thought a picket fence would be the least accessible for them.

With the addition of this fencing, it means the entire front of our property is fenced off from the road by either woven wire or a picket fence, making it much harder for any of our animals to get into the road and meet with the same sad fate as Willie on Monday. The gate is hard to see in this picture, but it's covered with a mesh that will make it impossible for animals to go through it. Right now it is kept closed with a small bungy cord, but we will be getting an electric opener for it, which will be similar to a garage door opener, so we won't have to get out to open the gate when it's raining.