October

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Most of October was pretty darn good :-).

Happy Halloween

I couldn't come up with a good sheep costume this year, but that sure doesn't mean everyone has to skip the pumpkin party!  

"Sure looks like we're going to have to skip the party!"

Just give me a minute, guys.

Stellaluna helped me pick out a few pumpkins this afternoon.

And Baaxter and Thelma got first dibs before the crowd got too unruly.

Pumpkins have become a favorite treat.  Maybe not as universally loved as Vanilla Wafers, but the fans are big fans.

Big Moose is a big fan.

And wasn't afraid to let everyone know!

Pinto had to think about it for a minute, but he quickly remembered.

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Remember the little swallowtail caterpillar?  He/she is still here, munching away on the carrot tops, showing no signs of turning into a chrysalis (!).  I decided to carve a butterfly pumpkin as a little encouragement.  And now, looking at the picture, the makeshift greenhouse almost looks like a ghost costume :-D.

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Solstice Sheep Day One - Muffin

As I was preparing to get up this morning I decided I would wear my Maisie sweater today.  I love all my sheep sweaters and I like to think the sheep know I'm wearing their wool and are maybe a bit disappointed if I wear something not from our flock.  

I was rustling around trying to find Maisie - I do this by feel in the dark - and felt Muffin's sweater and changed my mind and decided to wear her.  As I was pulling it on I thought "Wouldn't it be fun if I drew Muffin's name this morning!"

I cut all the name tags out, folded them tightly and then shook them up in a bowl and without looking put each one into a pocket.  I love surprises and if I'd seen a name, I'd have put it back in the bowl and tried again.  I was Very Careful.

And on the very first day of Sheep Solstice I drew...Muffin :-).

Muffin and her mom, Mrs. Pepperpot, moved over here from Final Frontier Farm in...are you sitting down?...2017.  Good.  Grief.  Time flies.  She'd been the sickest little lamb I'd ever seen who actually lived and she still looked pretty rough when she moved over here to be Biscuit's best friend.

"First hot day this summer, you are probably going to lose her, so don't get too attached."  Too late.  I was already attached.

Watching Muffin and her mom take the very best care of each other was one of the highlights of my sheep life.  Remember them sleeping together, Muffin's head tucked over her momma's back?  The day we had to put old Pepperpot down was soul crushing, but the last thing I told her was that we'd take good care of Muffin and here we are seven year later, still enjoying some Muffin magic.

About an hour later I walked into the front room and found a ceramic sheep laying on the floor.  Archie!  It was a sweet little shiny black sheep and I picked her up and set her on the kitchen counter.  She'll be our mascot for the season.

Muffin is a sweet treat lover, but she also loves pumpkins, so today everyone got to have a pumpkin party.  My friend Celia and I picked up an entire car full of pumpkins at the season end at our local orchard.  I never shared that picture and need to go find it.  That car was loaded!  I think we had over 150 pumpkins of various sizes piled in there.

Muffin's portrait?  One only a mother could love.  Look at that slimy pumpkin face :-o.  Her calendar picture is so much prettier, but this one tells a good story.  Oh, and who is that sheep trying to share her pumpkin?  Yep, it's Biscuit.  I love that they are still best friends.

We'll try to do better tomorrow ;-).

The Great Bumpkin

I haven't carved a pumpkin in several years.  I always have great intentions and then seem to run out of time or motivation or something.  This year, as I was picking out some decorative pumpkins at the local farm market, the bumpy one just called to me to become a Cotswold sheep.  So I did.

I wish I'd left some details in her ears.  That was the original sketch, but I got carried away carving and forgot.  I toyed with adding them in the next day, but she doesn't know I messed that up and I'm not going to tell her.  She's just fine,  just as she is :-).

A practice run in the dark feed room.  I love that there is just enough light to show her bumps well.

Her spot on the Wool House porch.

And lit up for the night.  The sprinkling of rain was annoying for most of the festivities, but made a nice addition to this picture.

This is a special shout out to The Great Pumpkin and his younger brother.  The orange and yellow pumpkin showed up around mid summer as a volunteer across the road from our mailbox.  The green speckled one was a late arrival just a month or so ago.  There had been a middle pumpkin as well, but he was lost in a road incident :'-(.

I carried water out to this hard working pumpkin plant through the entire drought.  And for some reason the squash bugs either never found it or maybe somehow she was more resistant than all my other plants have been the last couple of years.  I will save their seeds and see what we get next year.

I just love pumpkins :-).

All Treats This Year...Big Treats

We were trying to work around some (too minor) rain showers so I didn't get the pictures I'd hoped for, but Maisie's costume this year was one of our best.  Odd sort of noteworthy fact, this is the first costume we didn't assemble with hot glue.  We upgraded to duct tape ;-D.

Clarice Cluck, running off with one of Maisie's cookies, is maybe my favorite part of this picture.

Hopefully you can biggify to see her "expiration date".

This would actually be a nice picture if the gate wasn't in the way.  I need to remember this lighting option.

Any other time a sheep wearing a costume tried to walk into a barn full of sheep, there'd have been a stampede to get away.  

Apparently they can either read or have a strong association with the color yellow ;-D.

Happy Halloween!  Nilla Wafers for all :-D.

September

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For anyone keeping score at home...

Remember the groundhog staring in the back door while eating a pear in the orchard in the August compilation?  Yep, that's him up in the tree after Bea and Possum tried to tag team on him.  A few days later he ended up on the Wool House porch.  Tim has named him Gary.  He is not moving into the house.  I repeat...

Somehow I have once again not blogged about the biggest tobacco plant I've ever seen.  I'll try to fix that tomorrow.  Sigh...

Did I not take a single picture of Archie last month?!?  :-o

As The Way Most Things End...

A couple of weeks ago I had a decent sized pumpkin starting to grow from one of the Big Moose pumpkins.  Most of the rest of the plants have died off.  While I had my hands full hauling out some potentially diseased vines I left the gate unlatched...got sidetracked...sheep got in...pumpkin got eaten.  

That one was completely on me.

I've pretty much given up on the Great Pumpkin making a showing here.  I'd add "this fall" to that sentence, but at this point I don't think I'll ever give pumpkins another try.  How I could have so much fun last year and so little fun this year...  

I just started to have one more potential pumpkin making an effort to save the day.  This is one of the extension office plants.  As I was checking on it this afternoon I saw a little blemish...looked closer...a stupid chicken had pecked it!  

My last grasp at success...pecked. by. a. chicken.

My first thought was "Well, that's going to be a goner now.  Those little holes will let bacteria in and that will be the end."  

I decided it couldn't hurt to try to cover the hole.  I was thinking masking tape would be the least destructive...but my masking tape has apparently run off with my half empty glass.  The only tape I could find was some vintage sheep duct tape from Auntie Reg.

Maybe the sheep will end up saving the day!

Don't Quit Your Day Job

Last year I grew a completely accidental pumpkin patch and it was the most fun thing I've ever grown.  I had the best time watching the plants overtake a pretty big section of the side field and the pumpkins were all different sizes and colors and the sheep had two big pumpkin parties at the end of the season and I decided I was going to be a pumpkin farmer.  Pumpkins at Punkin's Patch!

This spring I picked out three different varieties of seeds (including one called Big Moose!), figured out my plant date for fall pumpkins and then found out the extension office was going to do a "Who can grow the biggest pumpkin in Harrison County" contest and I was All In.

I waited with great anticipation for the date I could go pick up my free pumpkin seeds and in the meantime strategized as only I can over-think things and gathered up special dirt and compost and researched and watched YouTube videos and created a baby pumpkin nursery and went ahead and planted my earlier chosen seeds out in a special safe zone in the yard, fenced off and everything.

Since all the volunteer pumpkins last year grew so well just laying out on top of the pasture, I thought if I made a little effort to amend the soil for each seed this year they'd really take off.  And I thought the Big Moose pumpkins could just live in the fenced area with the other pumpkins. I mean, how big could they get?

When I got the educational handouts from the extension office I found out that the Big Moose pumpkin getting labeled as a "giant" meant it was going to be...a giant.  Who knew.  I carefully dug as many of  those seeds as I could find back up and put them in starter pots along with the extension office seeds.  The rest of the seeds sprouted, but have not taken off in any sort of manner.  Pumpkin farming, not as easy as I'd hoped.

Four of the five extension office seeds sprouted and four of the five Big Moose seeds I found sprouted as well.  As the babies grew I made their fancy growing mounds, which involved lots of shoveling and moving of heavy materials on some really hot and humid days.  I was becoming less enamored with pumpkin farming by the day...but the baby pumpkins all grew well and looked good.

When the plants got big enough to transplant, I moved them into their respective mounds.  Four Big Moose plants and three of the extension office plants (I'll try to remember to come back in and update the variety) were planted in Del Boca Vista.  I put the biggest and strongest extension office plant out front, next to the driveway so I could really keep an eye on it, in preparation for the October 27th weigh in at the office.

I lost one of the Big Moose pumpkins in a wind accident fairly early on.  I moved a tiny volunteer from just outside the Wool House into it's open spot and babied it through some hot weather and it survived and is now doing a great job trying to catch up.

I'm concerned about these leaves turning yellow.  This is my biggest Big Moose plant...of course.  It's also the first one to produce any female flowers and now has two pumpkins growing along it's reaching vines.  I haven't decided if I'm going to limit it to only two in hopes of growing a true giant.  At this point I'm probably just going to be happy if I get any pumpkins.

This Big Moose plant did not look good yesterday and has not rebounded today so I'm afraid it's going to be a another casualty.  I've been carefully watching the plants for bugs and mildew and all sorts of other problems.  I've used diatomaceous earth and a couple of careful applications of organic Neem Oil in the evenings when the bees are long gone, but I don't have any control over the too wet conditions that may be causing some of my issues.  

Three of the extension office plants.

While my volunteers last year were big, hardy, heavy producers, the volunteers this year (probably a different variety) have been a bust except for a couple plants here and there.  This nice volunteer is growing out in the barn lot, so I have zero expectations for a pumpkin to reach maturity surrounded by sheep, but it's helping provide pollination for the female flowers in the main patch.

The bees, hard at work.

Oh, here's a funny story.  The first morning I knew I had a female flower ready to open it was drizzling rain.  The flowers are only open for a short time on one morning so there's just a small window where they can get pollinated.  I didn't think the bees would be out until the rain stopped, so I read up on how to manually pollinate it, grabbed my paint brush, picked up some pollen from a male flower and when I went to dust it into the female, two bees popped up and scolded me.  

"Do you mind?!?"

I shouldn't have doubted them :-).

I think this epistle basically catches everything up on the 2023 great pumpkin venture.  I have lost any expectation that it will be a Great Pumpkin venture, but I hope I'm wrong and will have some happy updates through the next couple of months.  

I'm glad I'm just trying to find something fun to do during my least favorite time of the year and not trying to feed my family.  Farming is not for the faint of heart and we all need to be cognizant of that fact and remember that food does not miraculously appear at the grocery store.

It would be nice to be able to feed at least a couple of pumpkins to my sheep family.

It is really hard to type pumpkin instead of Punkin.

The Power Couple

I was planning on FINALLY writing up a post about my pumpkin patch, but when I downloaded my pictures I really wasn't super happy with them so I'm going to try again, maybe in the morning.  

I did get a sweet picture of Jared and Short Round though.  I call them my "power couple".  When they were grazing in the yard over the winter, I frequently found them together.  I loved that.  

Short Round is still creaking along, but the old man is slowing down.  I know he's old, but I also think he misses Rocky.  He still loves to stand out with me in the mornings and watch the sun rise though and I treasure those times.  

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The Pumpkin Party

Well, the after the pumpkin party.  Or maybe I should say the after we ate all the original pumpkins party ;-).

That's a ewe on a mission.

And the race is on!

"Let me show you how it's done, boys."

The two white faces looking at each other are Christopher and Maggie.  They are still the best brother and sister :-).

If you'd like a new puzzle, this is a fun one.  Enjoy!

The Great Pumpkins

After most of the pumpkins in the accidental pumpkin patch were eaten by the sheep, I stashed the last few in the garage for the big day.

And Auntie Reg picked up a few extras at Stepping Stone Farm.

Of course 20 helped and he brought Pip along for the fun, too!

Since Short Round was one of the main pumpkin eaters and she and Maisie are breakfast buddies and we couldn't stop her anyway, we let her join Maisie's Halloween party...but we whipped up a quick hat topper.  She didn't care one bit.

"I think the yellow pumpkins taste the best!"

Pinto was watching all the activity with great interest...and longing (for cookies) so we dressed him up as well.  

I think he liked it...or the cookies ;-).

Bea did her best to talk Auntie Reg out of more cookies.

Her very best.

"I don't mind dressing up for cookies!"

Tricks or Treats!