Food Poisoning Slows Progress

Kirk and I both got food poisoning, of course, there is now way to know for sure what the source is. Kirk became very sick Friday night, was up all night, and then slept all day Saturday and marginally recovered. I was mildly ill Saturday and thought I had escaped the full brunt of it that he had. But Sunday night, I repeated his Friday night, so Monday I was pretty shot.

So, that has interrupted my big plans for a productive three day weekend. That, and work interruptions. I did get a few things done though, I weed-whacked the septic drain field. And I ran a lot of errands.

I am ready to mow the center field, but realized the brush cutter needs maintenance, its blades have come loose. It turns out, it needs a 1-11/16″ socket to tighten the bolts, a wrench won’t work because there is no way to brace the rotary part so it won’t turn under the torque from the wrench. So, after calling around, I found a socket at Napa in town. That, plus an extension was $75! I was able to borrow a 1″ bar from my dad, but will probably need to get one of those too. I am finding that the tractor, though easy to work on, requires a whole set of specialized tools of its own.

I found an ad today from some sheep farmers who are liqudiating their flock of Wensleydale sheep. They have potentially fourteen of them left, including a very nice ram. I was really set on hair sheep, because I’ve always heard that it’s hard to find shearers and the market for wool is drying up as fewer and fewer people hand-spin. But, I talked to this woman today, and it sounds like the sheep more than pay for themselves, that their wool is highly valued (if you can find a good shearer). She is emailing me more complete information on the animals.

So, maybe I would consider wool sheep after all, it sounds like a nice opportunity to take over an already well-planned breeding program. She was very helpful and shared a lot of information on how she markets the wool and runs her operation. The downside is, they are expensive animals, I would really lose sleep if I lost any to coyotes etc. Food for thought!

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