And the rains came

The last two days have brought more than welcome rain. I am no weatherman, but I think it is the best rain we have had since July 2007. More supposedly on the way tonight, with a chance continuing into Saturday. Bring it on, we need it.

We have 14 inches of rain all year last year, after having well over 30 the year before. These things are hard to plan for. We hope that we are at the end of a drought, but that is probably reading too much into it.

The lamb count is at 31. We don't really have a Jacob/Navajo, ram/ewe, or four horn/two horn count yet. We are just catching them as they hit the ground. With all we have going, there is not time to do much more. We are happy to report no fatalities, and still only three bottle lambs -- all born the same, very cold, weekend.

The Behrends cabin is plumbed, and will be ready for occupancy when our first special guests arrive Monday, and then again Friday. The Braeutigam cabin is trailing by perhaps a week. They will be plumbed and heated for our first guests. Lest we get too boastful, we did forget to have propane installed, so our first guests will have air and heat, and running water, but the jury is still out on working stoves.

The garden benefitted from the rain. Freeze danger should be over soon. The tomatoes sitting in the kitchen may finally get planted in the next week or two.

Winter is back, although it will be short lived. For the rain, the cold temperatures are worth it. We take what we can get. That is the nature of living out here, and trying to make something of the land.

Until next time,

Tom

Cabin Progress.

Well, you might not be able to tell by looking at this picture, with the jacuzzi still on the porch, but the first two log cabins are near completion. The last bathroom cabinets arrived today, to be installed with sinks on Monday. The concrete floor have received their poly coat. Power is on, as is the a/c, which, believe it or not, might have been used on this hot and humid Sunday.

Beginning Monday, we will go into our full court press to completion. Plumbing fixtures are to be installed. Stair railings are to go up. Furniture will, at last, be moved out of every storage place we could beg, borrow or steal.

We have two groups of friend of the farm here the following week to do a trial run. They may or may not have all curtains hung and everything perfect -- landscaping will have to wait until the site is cleaned up and the truck activity has ceased -- but they should have nice cabins to stay in.

We are now taking reservations for nights beginning Friday March 27. That will give us an extra week to work after our initial guests depart. Everything should be in place by then.

For the first time in memory, we have a good chance of rain on four different days this week. Pray for rain for us; it is sorely needed.

Guests in the coming weeks will be able to see lambing in action, and to feed one or more of our bottle lambs if they desire. The wildflowers (in the garden, no promises about the "real wildflowers given teh drought) will peak at the end of March and beginning of April. Shearing will take place as soon as we can after lambing is complete. We should have a Dexter calf born in April. The garden is all ready well on its way, and guests will be able to pick some fresh veggies to take home.

In short, it has been a long haul, but we are almost there. We look forward to welcoming you as a guest on our farm.

Tom

Spring Lambs & Cabin Status

Good morning from Agarita Creek Farms. I wanted to take just a minute to post an update on our progress.

Cabins. Our first two cabins, the Behrends and Braeutigam cabins, each named after former owners of our farm, are almost complete. This week we completed the air conditioning and heating work, put in kitchen cabinets and bathroom cabinets and sinks (we are still awaiting one bathroom cabinet), and worked on general interior cleanup. This weekend the stained concrete floors will get their polyurethane coat. Next week plumbing will be completed and the stair and balcony rails will be up, and tile work will be completed as well. At that point, we will be ready to move furniture in, install window treatments, and generally make them ready for use. We should be able to post our website, www.agaritacreek.com, by then, and begin taking reservations. Our fingers are crossed. It has been a ten month journey.

Lambs. We have twenty-two lambs so far, including three bottle lambs that are a lot of work, but are actually prospering. At this stage, we are well into our lambing of Navajo-Churros, which we began breeding earlier than our Jacobs. So far we have twenty Navajos and two Jacobs. We should be near the end of Navajo births, and are just beginning with Jacobs. We will have lambs and probably ewes for sale later in the season, after lambs are weened. We will have them on our website, www.agaritacreek.com, as soon as it is up. We will also, of course, continue to post pictures and information on our available lambs and ewes on Facebook. It has been exciting thus far, we have made our first year mistakes, and are learning from them, and are eager to see how our Jacobs do. The Navajos came through with flying colors.

Garden. Essentially, what can be planted during winter is planted. We have mature lettuce, maturing spinach, carrots, and radishes. Our Chinese veggies have broken ground and appear to be thriving. Potatoes and English peas are planted. The real planting will, of course, begin as soon as we pass our last freeze date. We are racing to complete our deer fence over the next two weeks for this purpose -- around our new two acre garden edition. We misssed asparagus already this season due to the lack of a deer fence.

The wildflowers are up, and ready to burst into action any day now. The roses and fruit trees are healthy, and beginning to bloom. Winter is indeed, almost, finally over. Pray for rain for and with us. We have not had a good, heavy rain since July 2007. Watering will be a chore and a challenge if we do not get relief soon.

Okay, that is it for this morning. Thanks to all of you who support local food and heritage livestock. We are counting on you.

Tom

Today was triplets and no bottle lambs

Today one of our Navajo-Churro ewes successfully delivered triplets and, unlike our ewes this weekend who could not even manage two, is managing fine with three. The barnyard is full of lamb sounds and the season is only one week in. Many, many more lambs to come. For some reason the Navajos are ahead of the Jacobs. They may be finishing as the Jacobs start. I will say that our Navajo mothers are better than our Jacob mothers. Two of our three abandoned lambs are from Navajo ewes -- even though most of the lambs right now are being born to Navajos.

Bottle lambs & mixed breeding

We are up to 13 lambs after this morning. The last two sets of twins have been problematic, and resulted in 1 rejected lamb per twin set. We do not know the cause. 1 mom seems to recognize the lamb, but reject it -- although she lets it feed a little (but not enough to sustain it). The other left both lambs, but reunited with one when we took it to her. The other was twenty feet away, had not been at all cleaned off, and would have died had we not found it. It has now been fed colostrum mix, bathed, and is getting blow-dried by Bev.

Does the rejecting ewe who recognized her lamb just not have enough milk to sustain both lambs? Is something else going on? As to the ewe this morning who abandoned both, at least for a time, was the birth process unusually rough? Did she just get disoriented. Does the unusual cold this morning have anything to do with it? We don't know. We just know that of the last 4, we have two lambs that are at least for now bottle lambs.

I also have to report that we now have three Jacob ewes that have given birth to totally black lambs, that we think could only have happened due to their being exposed to one of our Navajos, Miguel. We were careful not to let this happen, as we hoped to breed these Jacobs to produce more breeding Jacobs, and their planned exposures were to our breeding Jacob rams. When and how were they exposed to Miguel? We may never know. It just goes to show that where there is a will, there is a way. It also goes to show that despite what our earlier attempts to breed Miguel led us to believe, Miguel does not shoot blanks.

We can only hope that our other Jacobs actually bred with our breeding Jacobs. Time will tell.