FW: SWEET PEA FARM UPDATE 10/1/2007

 

 

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From: Stacy Murphy [mailto:hppsco@optonline.net]
Sent: Sunday, September 30, 2007 7:23 PM
To: Abbie Zuidema; Amy Ferraro; Andrea Hutter; Anne and Luke Williams (burntcove@verizon.net); Anne Davis (annekdavis@hotmail.com); ashby@ashbysedibles.com; Barbera Curry (bcurryjames@optonline.net); rmurc2@aol.com; Brenda Fries; BLARRABEE@aol.com; Bruce Baker; BFurgess@aol.com; tigerlilly2; ce; Cynthia Brown (cynthiabrownstudio@yahoo.com); Dan Hodges (danhodges@optonline.net); Mckenna, David; Dean Rohrer (drohrer@optonline.net); dmichelotti@aol.com; Debbie Seaman (debbieseaman@optonline.net); DeeDee
Subject: SWEET PEA FARM UPDATE 10/1/2007

 

Here we are!

 

The first of October already and there is a nip in the air late at night and the wee hours of the morning. It has been many times already where I have gotten up at dawn and seen my breath in the air. The trees are starting to change, signaling summer is drawing to an end and fall is coming. Our weather has been stunningly beautiful lately though – dry air, clear brilliant blue skies with not a single cloud anywhere to be seen. I often look up to see many hawks lazily circling above, sunlight splashing on their undersides as they turn back and forth in the sky.

 

Sweet Pea Farm has been plugging slowly along – in a multitude of fashions.

 

The master bedroom and bath are almost finished. The antique clawfoot tub I powersanded, and went from lying in the driveway, to being carried upstairs and placed in my dining room. It will be moved up to it’s final proper resting place in the bath next week! I stained and polyurethaned the floors. The antique wood looks stunning – it turned out much better than I had hoped! The bathroom is new wood – and it took 5 different stains and custom mixing the stain colors to get it to be a close match to the original floor. I am not thrilled with it – but it is fairly close and no one will ever try to compare the once the French doors go up.

 

I have painted the trim and bead board, the walls and the ceiling. Some of the light fixtures are up. The electrician has to finish, and all the plumbing has to be connected to the fixtures. It is like pulling teeth to try and get them to finish these last little things – surprise, surprise.  I have enclose some photos for all to see

 

Willie and Miss Rosie are doing just fine- in fact I have wormed them twice since we last had an update – with 2 different kinds of wormers. I am VERY pleased to say I had a poor volunteer – who I shall name Liz Munyon – stand and hold each sheep independently as she stepped onto the scale to find their current weight. I would have done it – but my collarbone is still broken. I say poor Liz, as the “little babies” aren’t quite so little anymore – in fact Miss Rosie is getting quite PORKY.  Wille and Rosie have gained another 10 pounds each! Rosie now weighs 65 lbs and Willie weighs 52 lbs. Rosie is getting to be almost too heavy to hold while balancing on a scale the size of a shoe box!

 

I can almost vouch they have gained even more weight since Liz held them 2 weeks ago – they both now have little pot bellies! This means they both have gained over 30 – 45 pounds each since I got them – just confirming the starved and worm infested condition they arrived here from the nasty farm where they came from!

 

My normal routine was to lock them in the stall at night. But that became impossible with my broken shoulder as I had to drag a grate across the doorway at night. So I now let them run the pasture, which as all of you know has a 6 foot fence with buried wire. They seem to like the freedom, and unlike their choosing to stay in the stall almost all of the time, I will find them lying out in the meadow, up on the hill in the shade under the apple tree, chewing……. Apple leaves.

 

3 weeks ago I was awakened abruptly at 4am by a sound that was all too familiar to me. It was a pack of coyotes – probably about 10 of them – and they were working their way around the perimeter of the property – screaming, calling and howling as coyotes do. For all of you who have heard a pack, you know what blood curdling sounds they make. If you have not heard a pack of coyotes, just image 10 children all screaming at the top of their lungs all at once. It raises the hair on your arms.

 

I knew they coyotes couldn’t get into the sheep area, but I didn’t particularly want 10 of them harassing my sheep. My eyes snapped open and I leapt out of bed – broken collarbone or not – I wasn’t just going to let the little bastards terrorize my sheep! I ran downstairs, turned on all the lights, as I exited the house MADE SURE I slammed the door really loud, and headed toward the pen and the garage.  I opened the garage door and grabbed the shovel with one arm and started slamming it against a cinderblock I had in the driveway – making loud noises. It turned deadly silent. It was about 40 degrees, and crystal clear, the sky was loaded with twinkling stars, with an almost full moon. No more coyotes, Poor Willie and Rosie were standing out in the middle of the meadow when I went into their pasture. I don’t think they had ever heard coyotes before in their young 5 months of age – and they were trembling and puffing. I sat with them a while, and then went back in. I found late in the day there was a dead deer on the far right end of my property which probably drew the coyotes as it appeared they had been working on it for a while. I called the highway dept. and had them take it away. The coyotes have not been back.

 

Wille and Rosie had visitors on Saturday! They were enthused for a while, then sauntered off to eat more apples on the hill. Inez, Line and Inez’s son visited and fed the little ones – they all seemed to have fun, and there was lots of laughs!  See pics!

 

The motorcycles are on the mend – parts being replaced that were broken in my tipping over on oil in the road on Labor day – my collarbone will be looked at on Wednesday by a surgeon – as it is mending crooked and is uncomfortable. Hopefully a simple repair –a pin – day surgery – in and out in the same day will occur soon.

 

It has been a little intense – I was told I needed cancer screening and follow up from the cat scan that Yale New Haven did the day of my collarbone injury. So it has been a liver MRI, a visit to the Oncologist, now Tuesday it will be another MRI for my shoulder, then follow up for the surgeon. Happily, the Oncologist feels I have nothing cancerous on my liver, spleen, kidneys, uterus, and ovaries. All the little cysts, fibroids, lesions, and “whatevers” he feels has been there for a while. The MRI  is precautionary.

 

More updates and photos to follow as I get the upstairs pulled together and slowly decorated!

 

Enjoy!

Oxox

Stacy