The Hot One

Boy howdy it’s been a hot minute. Well 3 hot months to be exact. Things on the ranch quite literally have been scorching this summer and it has left zero time for any sort of fun of any kind to happen. We’ve been running water tanks pretty much nonstop to all these animals so they don’t die of heat exhaustion, meanwhile trying not to burn to crisp ourselves. It has been brutal as many of our fellow ranchers/farmers can understand. Our last post served as a catch up of sorts and I suppose this one will as well because along with that heat things have been pretty wild as well.

First off those peas we planted? Dead. Crispy. Never even stood a chance. The world decided we needed a drought as soon as those tiny baby wisps of green started emerging so goodbye summer pea harvest. Actually, goodbye garden period. Everything out there just never even got the option to grow. It is sad but it’s apart of farming. Some years just aren’t good. Luckily all that freshly tilled earth was able see sunlight for the first time and now has some beautiful grass on it that we can eventually rotate the sheep on to.

Speaking of sheep, we got some more. Because we are crazy and just know no limits to the insanity. So we loaded the fam up and headed up to Dallas to pick up a lovely herd of Painted Deserts to add to the crew. A breeder up there had 4 ewes, 6 lambs, and a truly majestic ram for a pretty decent price. We made a weekend of it and visited Mineral Wells before popping over to his ranch and loading the new crew up to bring home. It felt like we had a pretty solid setup at this point for getting them integrated with the herd and even what we thought was a decent ram pen. Joke was on us though because PD rams are intense. This bad boy had the fenced knocked out in less than an hour. We did what we had to do and got him into some electric netting instead but, they jump. Duh. Rams can jump seriously high. So we had an escaped convict running the tough streets of the prairie with just the dirt under his hooves and the wind in his horns. Bye bye Shiner, we wish you well.

The lady PDs did great though. They joined out Dorpers easily and everyone was getting along nicely for a while. Until that drought hit. With no rain to help the grass grow, no clouds to provide relief from the hot rays of the sun, and a hay shortage at the local feed store sickness set in. In the matter of a month we lost a ewe and four lambs. They succumbed to the disease and parasites of the hot summer and no amount of wormer or supplements helped. Down 5 sheep was no good and our minimum animal units dropped below the acceptable number for our ag exemption so we did what we had to do.

We bought MORE SHEEP. These came pre-wormed and most of them pre-bred so they are pretty solid stock. They even threw in a Dorper-Blackbelly ram who was bottle fed and people friendly so no more concern or crazy intense rams parkouring out of fences. We affectionately named him Waylon. The herd was back and we rotated them to a different part of the pasture to get as far away from those nasty parasites as we could.

But wait, there’s more! Because after worming and medicating everyone someone apparently still had some worms, one of our OG Dorpers took one for the team and one final lamb bit the dust. That was the last straw. Time to get this herd off the main pasture for the rest of the drought. We have a front pasture area that is lush and green and conveniently right next to a water hose. Why didn’t we do this in the first place, you ask? Because it is directly by the road. Our fear of people being nosey and stray dogs getting curious had kept us from pulling the trigger till desperation took over. After a very infuriating few hours of trying to herd sheep into the livestock trailer (because its not just a Snow White and the 20 sheep walking route) we got all of the herd moved to their new pasture. Well all except two of the ewes who escaped our grasp and ran off into the sunset. (Don’t worry we got them into the goat pen later and boy do they wish they would have worked with us once they got in Waylon’s eyesight…) We could finally relax for a minute.

LOL. Who relaxes on a farm? Did I mention we have pigs? Well now we have more. Because those sweet darling new Kune Kunes we told you about back in May got settled into their new home quickly and made the most out of their time together. 3 months, 3 weeks, and 3 days later we came home from church to the most exciting surprise. 11 piglets and another sow in labor. And guess what we hadn't had time to do because of dealing with psychotic sheep? Build a farrowing pen….

So after much panicking and running and drinking water and panicking we called up the troops and got to work. Our cousin Steven ran to the store to get some wood, our cousins Jason and Lisa came and picked up Hope and played with the new babies for a bit, and we hit the Tractor Supply for..you guessed it..supplies. Hog panels, posts, tarps, water tank bushing and nipples, and all the things we could think of in the moment. We are recovered at the pig pen and got to work. The guys threw together a rather impressive farrowing pen for each momma, Lisa and her kiddos helped me juggle Hope and the new babies making sure none got crushed by their mom…or Hope.

By the end of the night our sweet sows gave us 18 piglets between them. One was lost before we got to them and two didn’t survive their first night so a total of 15 cute little piglets are on the farm. 15 tiny rewards during one of the harshest summers we’ve ever experienced. We can't wait to see them grow.

Oh and one more thing, we started the house! After about 7 months of trying to get started, accepted, funded, and given the green light we’ve got a finished slab. Feels so amazing to finally see our dream home start to take shape right before our eyes. Thank you for sticking with us during this journey. While the rest of the world is out there acting like farming is easy we are here the share the brutal truth that it most certainly is not easy but boy is it worth it.