Cabbages and Kings

It's been an eventful week! We have a new farm hand, I call him farm hand Cody. Actually I only called him that once but it was good while it lasted. With Cody's help we were able to get the fence done. The barbed wire has been tightened, new posts pounded, farm fence attached over the barbed wire, and the gate attached. We are now ready for the sheep and lambs to be moved into their new pasture where the cows & calves will also be. A little nursery pasture if you will. 

I have been sick the last few days, I believe it's little Nuggets fault, because I didn't sleep well for the first week and a half of her life. 

Animals are entirely unsympathetic to my illness. They're a bit selfish really. I guess just farm life in general is a bit uncaring whether you're sick or sore or tired the work goes on. 

Despite having the plague I went out and attempted to plant the garden. Here's the problem. Y'all know I'm a cactus killing expert? I can take a thriving plant and kill it within days. It's one of my many secret talents.  I also don't know my weeds very well. The previous owners of this place have the garden set up into six different beds. Each of those beds seemed to serve a different purpose. Which is fine in theory, and if you know what's in there. I however do not. So I'm digging out dandelions and the dead stalks from last year when I begin to realize that there are a number of things other than dandelions growing and I'm not sure whether they're weeds or veggies/herbs. Years ago a friend of mine, our yak bulls namesake Cameron, had mentioned that there was a Shazam like app for plants. When he talked about I mostly just tuned him out, for two reasons; 1. I hate plants and nature and don't care about nature related apps 2. He was always telling me about a cool new app that I would never learn to use

This tidbit though I was wishing I had paid more attention to. I google "Shazam for plants" and download the app, Maybe the app would be really helpful if you knew more about plants. I took a picture of my questionable plant and my results were the least helpful. I'll post a screenshot. The top picture is my weed suspect. That's it though you guys, just gives you a name for a possible match. Then if you're like me and don't know shit you have to go to google and google the plant to find out about it. As it turned out, none of those plants the plant app came up with were the same as mine, so I'm probably watering a weed now. 

 

It's fine though, I suppose I'll find out later on. On the plus side, one less thing I had to dig up, so that's a win for me. 

I am too ginger for this life though. It was 30 degrees and super sunny when I was out murdering plants/weeds and getting terribly dirty and sweaty. I had coated on some trusty spf 90 and when I went in the house I still had a bright red sunburn. Turns out I moved to a land where seven months of the year it is barren and a person is sure to freeze to death and four months of the year your face will melt off the bone from the unbearable heat. There is a nice two weeks on either end that are pretty nice. So I've got that going for me. 

Our little Nugget, which was just a nickname I gave the lamb but has now become her name is doing well. She's 16 days old and going strong! She sleeps through the night as long as she gets a good feed right before bed and very early in the morning. This is also nice. Her and our dogs have started to become friends, Rocky for the most part just ignores her, he got very excited about her once and jumped up, I yelled at him and now he just stays away. Rocky does not like to be in trouble, which is why he's been such a good dog. Bella on the other hand absolutely does not care about being in trouble. She is obsessed with Nugget and licks her constantly, despite both mine and Nuggets protests. But they do look hella cute together! 

 I've been working on trying to get Nugget to eat grass, with no luck. By working on, I mean I've been picking tiny pieces of grass and putting it in her mouth, she typically spits it out with a little shake of her head just to let me know she finds it entirely repulsive. Yesterday I even pretended to eat grass in hopes that she would "learn" from me. Calpernias two lambs (Nuggets aunts) were eating hay and oats by five days old. Our girl is far behind. She does however love to eat my hair, which her aunts have never gotten into, so maybe she just dances to her own beat. It's really hard to say. 

Walske is doing well, and ruling the pasture. I expected that King Cameron would put him in his place and he would stop bossing around the yaks, but he hasn't. Now he just bosses around all three of them. They make a pretty cute/weird looking herd though. 

 

As a collective I would say things are going relatively well. Though we have days of crushing stress and complete chaos we make it through. The sun comes up on a new day and we try again. Rinse and repeat, just rinse and repeat my dudes. 

Here is a list of the critters we have or have coming:

-6 Jacob Sheep, 2 ewes, 1ram and 3 ewe lambs

- 3 royal yaks

- 3 highland cows, 2 heiffers and one steer calf

- 25 hens & 2 roosters (8 white leghorn hens, 17 mixed breed hens) 

- 10 chicks (still living in the house, Cher help us) 5 marans & 5 americauna 

- 2 potbelly pigs (though they haven't arrived and I'm unsure if they ever will) 

And of course two of the cutest dogs in the world