Number 62

Our sheep with ear tag number 62 doesn't want o be just a number. She has decided to be different from the other sheep in our flock. She is smaller, the only one not in lamb an walks through the bars of the sheep's feed rack. To make this difficult she is now the only one wearing a wooden frame.

Goat family

Svätý Mikuláš in our village

Saint Nicholas came with his angels, devils and witch... This well known Saint in the Netherlands (Sinterklaas)also brings presents to Slovak children. A nice guy since he even made it to our village, you should expect him on his name day the 6th of December but I think he came all the way by foot because we finally met him today the 10th.

Winter work

The year is advancing and in February 2012 we will start milking the first sheep of our herd. Arnold has been constructing a simple milking parlor and we even managed to find a second hand one/two sheep/goat milking machine! Our sheep seem interested but have decided that is not yet time to enter the milking parlor. The only one who wanted to climb the ramp is our ram.... We will have to explain to him that this new construction is for girls only!

Bonifacius

Billy goats swapped, Titus gone to Northern Slovakia, Bonifacius has arrived. Greetings to his former owners who follow this blog and drove all the way to our 'end of the world'.

How do you catch a deer

A deer got trapped in our electric fence, we had to cut three expensive electric-nets of his antlers to set him free. The whole herd of sheep and some goats were running free but easily found and directed back home. Now they have moved to their winter accommodation. Most are bearing and first lambs expected around February 19th. The yellow bums will be first followed by red and blue. We have seen 21 out off 22 mated therefore we expect between 20 and 30 lambs coming spring.

Goat cheese

Goats are still milked and our chef cheesemaker is getting better and better in the art of making cheese! He now makes a type of Gouda cheese and a soft fresh variety. Yummy! And even people who disliked goat's cheese like what he makes. Slovak friends have asked if he could make cheese of their milk.

Two!

Two years old and still 'driving' wheelbarrow.

Autumn colors

Autumn has started coloring trees, grass, herbs and goats!

Breeding season (III)

We got an e-mail from the breeder of our ram with the question if he is taking his job serious. He is! All but one sheep have been mated. He is now serving the other species in his herd ;-) What will we get out of this? Geep or Shoats?

Home made

We met this nice man in a nearby village and we got invited to visit his wine cellar and to taste his lovely creations.

Tarmac!!

Road work finished, we now have a higway-look-a-like path going to our house (and to our neighbours).

Back home

Our billy-goat was on 'reproduction holiday' at a nearby farm. Very nice since we don't want kids very early when it is still cold and we also didn't want to have a smelly guy next to one of our camp site fields! Now he has six weeks to ensure that we will get kids with nice floppy ears and more interesting colors. After that he will move on to a new home again.

Road work

Some Dutch visitors tell us that life in Slovakia is cheap compared to Holland. May be, we pay less tax, incomes are however much lower not to say that pensions are too small to live of and if the road is in bad condition you have to repair it with your neighbours. Our road was really in a bad state and since camping season is over our neighbour took the lead to mobilize all 4 house owners to start working on it. So far 12 trucks of stones, 10 with loam and 1 with gravel have been loaded and unloaded. Most work is done by hand, all neighbours participating. A formula, taking into account frequency of use and financial means have been worked out to divide the costs among us.

Some girls just have fun

Constructing winter accommodation

With an increasing number of animals we need more winter accommodation for them - or is it for us because we humans don't like to feed our animals in the snow! Goats and horse will be in a half open shelter, sheep will get a large open front stable.

Staying

Since ten days our horse is putting his best foot forward. He finally starts acting as a grown up horse not the adolescent he used to be. We had put an advert on the net to sell him, not seeing the use of him at our farm or campsite. But now he starts to earn his residence permit. We are teaching him to pull objects, so he can be used to drag wood logs out of our forest.

I also go on daily rides with him, which is with autumn coloring the forest around us something magical. Today we met a large group of mouflons and a lonely fox...

Breeding season (II)

Working hard to get us a nice crop of lambs next spring, our new ram is doing his job.

Killing a tree

It was an old and sick one, however it is still terrible to cut a tree. The biggest cherry tree is gone - making space for our new sheep fold.

Breeding season (I)

We got our ram! Arnold collected him by car in the Czech Republic. "Don't they have good ones in Slovakia?" you might wonder. They do, however few Frisians and we suspect most of this breed to be related to our two Frisian ewes. So fresh blood had to be imported from the other site of the border. He is a half year old but already ready for 'his job'. He is wearing a harness which enables us to fix a piece of colored chalk on his chest. Now we daily note which sheep have a colored bum to know when to expect his first offspring. This morning we counted six yellow bums!
I just calculated the expected lambing dates with this tool: lambing calculator +/- 19 February 2012.

In typical Slovakian range sheep operations ewes usually do not get in heat the first year and thus first lambing occurs at two years of age. We however want to achieve that most of our ewes lamb for their first time at one year. This requires a higher level of management and feeding than if ewes are handled more traditionally. Breeding an ewe as a lamb will increase her lifetime productivity significantly.

Ewe lambs can be mated successfully without negative affects on future reproductive performance providing they achieve a threshold body weight within the breeding season. In general, ewe lambs must weigh approximately 65 percent of their mature body weight at the start of the breeding season in order to insure a high percentage of them breeding. With good management, this should produce conception rates of 75 to 90 percent. We hope to get at least 20 out of our flock of 22 lambing next spring.

Lazy

'Lazy' is not only the name of our campsite. In Slovak it means something like 'rural place'. In/on Lazy live Laznicks 'rural people' which is something like a 'boor' but for those living there (including us) also a proud nickname.
In/on Lazy life is pure and can be rough, it is not like some of those 'Country and living' or 'Landleven' (Dutch) magazines delude of country life. You wont find design benches and wrought-iron gates, flower arrangements and tables set with the right crockery.
Living in Lazy is about growing potatoes, chopping wood for long and cold winters, milking at five in the morning, eating your own produce, not being bothered by fashion or interior design, often some poverty but also a certain freedom. After ten years working in a environment where careers and politics where more important than people and solidarity we longed for a different lifestyle. Being Laznick suites us. Maybe it is just a phase but at present I cannot imagine returning to that part of the society where I was supposed to fit in.

Growing

This month we will collect theit husband in Czech Republic!

Thanks!

Our goat mow grass, produce kids, milk and entertainment. They have earned their weight in gold this year!

Rural campsite

With 14 occupied pitches by 44 satisfied guests - camping season is going great. And since we have 100.000m2 land every body has a super large place for his tent or campervan.

Water

We got a new well drilled. We now have the highest quality clean spring water. Great for our camp site and Katinka's swimming pool.