Of turkeys and deer…..

Up on our decks at the ranch house, in the early morning, you can see miles of the large expanse of fields and woods lined borders. At this time of year the deer are out in the fields after fresh new-growth grass, and the turkeys are in the middle of their mating rituals. The toms spread their tail feathers as they impress the females, which usually number from 3 to 6 or more. The hens run around the tom, trying to chase away the other females in an endless circle that really has no effect….at least as far as I can see. Kind of like our own efforts many times….lots of rather useless running around with no visible results…I guess we’re not much different than turkeys sometimes!

Lesson #1 when breeding your sheep……

And that lesson is pretty basic….don’t leave small immature males in with your females…they quickly can change to small mature breeding males, and your lambing season moves up quite a bit earlier than you want. Our target date for lambing was middle of May, and we have instead been having young ones strung out since the middle of February. Ah well….the best laid plans of mice and men!

T’was a rainy day…..

In fact, 4 inches of rain in a couple of hours. We had a little bit of hail but not near as bad as areas only 10 miles away, so we feel quite fortunate. However, in these steep hills we get quite a bit of damage to roads and other areas when that much rain falls that quickly. Sooo….time spent on the tractor fixing things back up. Actually, I enjoyed the time out of the office, and all’s well that ends well!!