Notes From Zone 4

Outside work has slowed to a crawl this last week. The next round of must-do’s is for the pigs and bees in April, so even with the nice weather, we let the mud convince us to work indoors. Then we had a fine cold and snowy weekend. Once the blizzard had actually started, I remembered that we could have cleaned out the beehives without getting too messed up by the mud. Oh well, with 9 more inches of snow to melt, we can do it this week.

Bjarki had his first puppy kindergarten class yesterday. Apparently a great time was had by all. Lisa has him doing ’sit’ and ‘down’, at least when there’s a bit of deli ham in the offing. He could care less about official doggie treats. Next shopping run, we’ll try a pack of fish-flavored cat treats. He loves his tuna, so perhaps they’ll work better. This week’s homework is walking on a leash.

We seem to be having chicken issues. Our egg production is barely averaging 2 per day, down from 3 plus when we first got them. The only thing I can think that we might be doing wrong is letting their water freeze too often. The weather won’t be helping a lot this week, so I’ll try to change it more often.

All is well on the sheep front.