Garden Tilling and Sheep Pictures

I shifted focus today to the garden finally. Since my hoping to get a 3 point tiller to replace my old walk behind one has not been successful I rented one just to get the tilling done.

Let me tell you that was the biggest walk behind tiller I have ever seen in my life. I should have taken a picture of it because it was literally almost the size of my 8N. It did a number on the garden plot though but it was so heavy that not only did it wear me out manhandling it, it broke my wooden ramp putting on my trailer. I had to get out the heavy duty metal ramp to load and unload the thing.

This year I am focusing on the sheep more than anything else. I almost decided not to garden at all this year but I do have my on going bean breeding to think of and I wanted to put in a Pumpkin patch. So I settled on reducing the actual garden area to about 10% of normal and am going to seed the rest of the approximately half acre garden area in Buckwheat. I need to work mostly on fencing this year but I wasn't going to just let the garden area go to weeds. With the new holding paddock I put around the barn at the end of the season I can also let the sheep out into the spent garden and Buckwheat as well.

Or that's the plan anyway.

You can see the very edge of the tilled garden area by the first gate on the left. This holding paddock which was stage one of the fencing project is encloses in about an acre around the back and West side of the barn. I use this area to store my trailers, tractor blades and other implements etc. It is also the only rout down into the hayfield without going through the horse pasture. Needless to say it collects a lot of stuff that is being moved around. Cinder blocks, pallets, T-posts, you name it. Nothing really dangerous but it's always been a pain to mow and weed eat around all those things. Now every week or so I can just turn the sheep out there and let them do all my mowing and weed eating for me. That is also why this area needed all the gates so from here I can let the sheep out to whatever pasture or area I select.

This is the strip of the Pumpkin patch I tilled. It borders up next to the edible hedge I am growing that is full of Wild Plum, Mulberry and other assorted trees from the area. The powerline guys come by once every 10 years or so and cut all the wild fruit trees down but I don't care. Eventually my bet is as things decline they won't show up and I will have all those trees growing back. Until then though I tilled this bordering section up and will plant Pumpkins there. Why? Just because. If nothing else I can feed them to the sheep.

At the end where you see the Cedar Trees is the West side of the Stage two fencing. That small pasture will enclose about 2 and a half acres. Another two weeks or so and the lambs should be big enough to let out there. Until then they will have to remain dry lotted or limited to the holding paddock.

Here Patch (our first born lamb of the season and the lucky Black ewe) has found a bit of gravel I dropped out in the holding paddock left over from when we leveled out the pad for my Mom's little mini-house. Patch has started learning the joys of fresh grass now and is growing like a weed herself.

This little girl is trying to convince her mom to get up because she is hungry. Mom doesn't look too worried about it though does she?

The young Rams like to find points of interest in the barn or out in the holding paddock and defend them against all challengers. Castration day is scheduled for next week so I think there are 14 little boys out there in for a bit of a surprise soon.

Tomorrow will be a bee day and hopefully I will start planting this years mini-garden a bit. I already managed to get the Potatoes in one of the raised beds this evening.

This dry week has allowed me to make a huge dent in the backlog I had but to be honest I am starting to worry a bit now. Seeing things this dry at the end of April is a bit scary. I cannot even remember the last time I was able to till before the middle of May before.

Keep Prepping Everyone!!!!!