Ridgetop - our place and how we muddle along

[Ridgetop]

Life sucks and then you die! But not just yet.

Counting our blessings -

DS1 got the mower repaired
DH is mowing the goat weed finally
We are playing bridge today (found a weekly club in Minneola that welcomed us - fun people), There is still plenty of grass in the 2 fenced fields which will carry us through setting up an electric fence to move the sheep around and switch rams
The conex guy is looking for 2 more containers for us
We still have 20 live bred ewes and 24 still to breed
The dogs are working well
The spare room is painted and the Murphy bed is in (still needs a mattress)
The shelves are finally installed in the closets
The AC is working
We have a generator
We belong to a nice church (small but active with great people)
DGS1 is installed in his dorms and starting college classes
Everyone is in good health

So things are good!

Hope everyone keeps well in this weather wherever you live.

 

[Ridgetop]

DH sheared another set of bolts this am - thinks he did not lower the gear ratio(?) sufficiently. DS1 replaced them with the last ones he had then went to town to mail a letter annd get more bolts. I have been sorting out the boxes sof stuff in the office and filing my mail and paperwork. You can now walk to DH's desk. Victory!

DS1 is not happy. He walked the other pasture and found a lamb skeleton so we lost another ewe lamb. The last one I bought from the National Dorper sale. Then the black headed Dorper ram that was fine yesterday morning was dead yesterday evening! We have decided not to buy any more sheep.

This morning I walked over to check on the ewes in with the ram and R1 has bottle jaw. None of the others had any signs of bottle jaw before they died, and none of the live ones has any signs of it BUT we better worm all of them before losing anymore.

There has been a crew next door cleaning that property. I thought they might be removing the huge pile of rubble from where the owner knocked down the old house as well as cutting weeds and brush. But they just sorted out the unbroken windows and anything else salvageable and have left the pile of debris there. It hasn't sold after 5 years, but I think the owner may be trying to get it looking better before interest rates go down possibly in September. Still not sure whether or not it is worth the price to us at $459K for 30 acres when we could put in a hay barn for $20K and not have to fence any more acreage for the dogs. DH suggested we get it and fence it then run more sheep! But I want to cut some sheep numbers down, not get more. The Barber Pole and heat are helping with that plan.

It is unfenced hay field right now with about 6 - 7 pear trees at the front. They still produce but are old and need heavy pruning. The hay fields have been mowed each year, but never fertilized in the past 10+ years. There is a metal barn which needs some work, and a single car wooden garage which needs a LOT of work. The windows are broken out and black buzzards have been nesting in it for several years. There is a small pond in the far back corner which is shallow, mossy, and also needs some work. There are 2 wells, but they are about 15-20 years old so not sure if they are usable. Depends what type of piping and well casing they were installed with. The fellow who drilled our new well said his dad (granddad?) drilled those two. They only have the wellheads so would have to install an electrical hookup, pumps, wiring, and piping to use them. I really think that property might have been ok for us 20 years ago but I am not feelig up to it now. I would rather use the $$$ from selling the California house to put up a new hay barn on our property, finish our rotational grazing fencing, repair the tack room in our existing barn, and do some fertilizing and reseeding in our astures. In the house we could replace the windows, doors, and flooring, and have some easy upkeep landscaping put in and enlarge the deck. DH wants to build a little fishing dock in the large pond. We need another truck, and I wouldn't mind a pool. LOL Stick with what we have, improve it and enjoy!

DS1 said that TSC is our of shear bolts so he is ordering some on line. He is crossing his fingers that DH doesn't shear off any more before they arrive on Tuesday or he will have to drive to Greenville or Mount Pleasant for more. This winter we need to shop for a new mower on sale.
Either a new mower to tow behind the tractor or to drive it.

 

[SageHill]

Oh man - I'm so sorry about all the lamb/sheep losses you've had this year.

 

[Mini Horses]

As always, a lot going on there!

 

[murphysranch]

Thoughts: does your son have future plans to continue the sheep biz? If he inherits your property, after settling with the other kids, do you think he might want to expand? Then the property may have some value to him someday.

As a person in her prime also, I need to consider downsizing with in the next 10years. No more home on a hill. No more heavy upkeep for 9 months a year. So I like what you want to do to improve your current (and last) home and property.

 

[Ridgetop]

DS1 will not expand the sheep business. He is 44 now and has been raising sheep, dairy goats, and other livestock since he was 8 years old. He knows how difficult it is to make a living at livestock without intensive work and an additional job. We have our retirement to live on here while trying to strike a balance between Barber Pole worms and lambs to sell.

I asked him yesterday about the extra acreage and whether he would want to increase the ranch operation. He said "No, he would probably just continue leasing out the 30 acres of hay, and eventually just lease out the other acreage for cattle or sheep but would not want to expand. The fact that we have not made any money on the sheep is also a factor. LOL

Instead we will probably take the money from the house sale in CA, invest some, do more fix ups here, and maybe build a hay barn. While buying the property would be an investment for the children and grandchildren to inherit eventually, the land is way overpriced by about 35-40%. I am not interested in buying more land to spend money on fencing and fixups, take care of, and build an inheritance for the children/grandchildren. LOL DH and I could have some fun ourselves with the money.

Speaking of Barber Pole R1 came down with bottle jaw yesterday so we caught her and wormed her last night with Safeguard. She is in the pasture (breeding) where we lost the 3 ewes so we figure that they may have had a worm load too although no signs of bottle jaw at all. She was still really weak today when we moved those sheep so I gave her 2.5 cc of iron. Hopefully that will help her regain strength. I think that the cmbination of any worms and the heat is how they died. Rommel was in a different pen and he had no signs of worms, just died on one of the hottest days. We plan to worm the bred ewes and ram tomorow with SafeGuard. We pulled them out of their pasture tonight and put them into the small inner safety area. There is plenty of grass there for a day or two, and DH wants to mow the goat weed in their pasture. After it is mowed, we will let it lay fallow and put up some electric netting for them to graze in another location. There is plenty of Bahia grass but I think they are not impressed with it. That Bahia is fairly old grass although they have been grazing in that location.

Next we will worm the open ewes and the other ram, give them all Bo-Se, harness him with a crayon and turn them in together. That will mean 20 ewes lambing in a 2 week period, and I will not have a group of lambs to sell every month. Instead I will have October and November lambing groups, and then the rest in January. I was going to breed them in 2 lots, but because our mower was out of commission we couldn't mow the Goat Weed which made it hard to move the sheep through it. DH is now getting that taken care of and DS1 will start building the 3rd & 4th electric fences for the next 2 pastures. Once the electric fencing is up we can rotate the sheep around to avoid worms.

DH said he will mow and spray in the spring when it is cooler and when the Goat weed first comes up. He want to make sure that the spray can be used with the sheep in the field otherise we will have to move the sheep, spray the weed, and keep them off for a week or so. I think we can rotate the mowing, spraying, and grazing safely. We will look for a 6' mower on sale over the winter.

I worked on clearing out the office today and got a lot of the filing done. DS1 came in and suggested we rearrange the desks in the room to make rom for another file cabinet. Mainly he doesn't like the current arrangement because of the location of the tall file cabinet. I have another tall cabinet still in the 5th wheel because it wouldn't fit in the office. There are 2 windows in that room on different walls that make furniture arrangement awkward. He spent a lot of time measuring to work out the new arrangement. If he wants to move all the heavy furniture (mainly DH's L shaped desk, the 5' console file cabinet, and actually everything except my desk and bookcases) I am fine with it. I need the additional file space from the other file cabinet. I am not a paperless person, in order to find reference files, I print stuff off my computer so I can refer back to it. I keep all records for 10 years, and all our tax returns and receipts for deductions. If I get audited I plan to bury the IRS under a pile of receipts and paper. When we bought the Maude house in CA we paid less for it than we sold for and would have had to pay capital gains. We put everything into the house since at that time if you spent the difference in improvements within the year there was no capital gains. The IRS tried to audit us but DH quoted the provisions, and I copied off every receipt for everything we had dne. I even had receipts for $.79 for screws! I fitted as many receipts on a page as I could, turning them in various directions to fit them on. The copied pages were 2" thick when I mailed thm to the IRS. We got a refund. DH is fabulous! That is why I never get rid of a receipt and now keep all our credit card bills as well in the tax files. LOL However, it does mean that I need file cabinets (and chew proof file storage boxes in the conex).

 

[Baymule]

Barber Pole worms are really giving you grief this year. Come on killing frost! You need some relief. I'm sorry for your losses, it hurts.

I have a young ewe in the saved bunch from the last lambing that has bottle jaw. They are in a pen that is not easy to get them run through the chute, so I will have to make a smaller pen in their pen to trap her in. Then do the flying tackle and dose her. Sigh....... She was a chocolate brown color, now a shaggy leftover from winter baby fuzz mess. She is 75%, from Miranda's triplet daughter and I really want her in my breeding program and alive. I have noticed that for most of my young sheep, get them past 6 months to a year old and then they don't have much problems with worms.