Weekend Update and some Pasture Musings

Just a semi-quick update on various things from last weekend, Since it is now this weekend, and will be past this weekend by the time this publishes.

Edit: or not, since I hit “publish” instead of “schedule.”

Feeding the sheep.

I don’t remember which day this was, but it was a sunny afternoon.

This was a special treat at work, Deeper’n’ever’turnip’n’tater’beetroot pie. Mommy made it for Ellie’s Redwall birthday party, and there was about half the pan left, so Daddy had it warmed over for lunch, two days in a row. Bo urr, this yurr’ll put a shoin to thoi fur and make thoi diggin’ claws gurtly powerful.

Saturday Ellie had a friends birthday party at a gymnastic studio. Winnie was supposed to go with Seppi and stay at Deedee and Papa’s house for the day, but, alas, she has become a picky eater, now that she is three. She absolutely refused to eat her breakfast or get dressed or put her shoes on. So she did not get to go to Deedee and Papa’s house and watch paw patrol.

Instead she had to go with Daddy on an hour long drive up to Shoreline to by a bunch of antique hand planes.

An amazing deal! All in very good condition, and some of them would go for as much as the whole lot if they were put up youtube.

Kathleen: On youtube? You sell things on youtube?

Ryan: I don’t know, whatever website they sell things on.

As it is, however, they are going to be put up in our workshop.

Then she had to have a late lunch at noodle house.

And the only one she had to share the gyoza with was Daddy.

That’ll teach her to be a butt in the morning.

Sunday was a relaxing home day. Ellie baked some Rosie Rock Jelly Biscuits (from the Redwall Cookbook, of course.)

She tried to bake them all by herself with help only from her younger siblings.

Alas those minions turn out to be unreliable at best.

The many faces of Ellie-Belle.

Making jelly cakes requires concentration and focus.

Both of which Ellie possesses.

Going in the oven.

Coming out of the oven.

And there we had a delicious snack for afternoon tea.

But then the cousins came over, and Ellie took them outside while she and the three younger kids ran around like mad creatures. When the more sedate older children and grownups were ready to eat them…

There were none left.

So we mashed some potatoes and fried up some bangers for supper. Of course that leaves us with a quart of starchy potato water which is the best medium ever for proofing yeast. We started a bread dough sponge, and put it in the fridge overnight.

When we mixed it up into the dough the next day the yeast activation was…

Vigorous.

The small dibbuns made a little loaf each.

Their favorite part was painting them with the egg/milk wash.

Then they went in the oven.

Seppi’s loaf (one the left) actually looks pretty darn good, but alas…

The yeast was vigorous! And it overflowed the pan.

But still, it’s fresh hot sandwich bread, well in time for lunch on a Monday.

There is a constant round of chores here in the farm. Every day the animals need to be fed, since there is not enough grass to support them.

You might be wondering why we don’t just move them into the barn. The answer is quite simple, really.

Poop.

If we keep them in the barn over the winter we have to move all that manure and trampled hay by wheelbarrow out into the pasture come spring. If we keep them on the pasture in sacrificial paddocks, the poop is already out there, and they spread and trample in the hay for us. Most farmers in the area do not do this because they are worried about pugging (which refers to animals punching holes in the soggy pasture with their feet. This is less of an issue for us for three reasons.

1. We have smaller and lighter animals. Our cow is a dexter, small and compact, with wide hooves. The sheep are all pretty tiny. This is a far cry from the holsteins that most dairy farmers are running which are tall, thin and heavy.
2. We have different soil. We have a very low proportion of clay, and a high proportion of sand and silt. This means our pasture drains quickly, and there is never any standing water or mud for them to pug up.
3. We don’t drive. Because we don’t drive on the pasture or harvest hay with machines, a little irregularity in the surface doesn’t matter very much to us. Too much irregularity can make it hard to pull the shade mobiles, but because we will never run a sickle bar across it, we don’t need a golf-course level flat surface.

Right now they are manuring and trampling one of the poorer sections of the pasture. In a week or so we will put them onto the laneway and they will probably spend the duration of the winter there.