The Collie Farm Blog

I have had a nagging chore waiting for a long time- rearranging my dog show van. This van exists mostly to drive the dogs around to shows and training, but I also use it a lot to haul other things-lumber, furniture, and now this last weekend, the llama. I anticipate I’ll be hauling sheep in it now too.

Probably a year before Chessie died, he stopped being willing to ride in his crate, so I’ve long owed the van a good cleanout and the removal of one dog crate. Hauling the llama was the final reason I needed, as I had to remove a lot of stuff to make room for her.

 To the left is the configuration I’d had for a very long time, to fit four dogs, a lot of show gear. Behind the lefthand crates, I had excercise pens and a dolly. I realliy liked this setup, and it was important to have it efficient in the days when I was competing every other weekend. I have been struggling with how to change it now that I’m down to three dogs, and also not showing very much. It is obviously a mess, too, I hadn’t cleaned it in a LONG time, even after hauling bales of straw and hay in it!

Tonight I took almost everything out, swept it, and came up with a way to fit three crates along the side wall. This will be nice, leaving me more room for lumber. But, I have yet to figure out what to do with all the rest of the gear. Some of it is piled back into the back of the van, and the rest is in the usual place for dumping projects-the living room!

In my van, safety for the dogs and me is aprimary concern. All of my crates are held down by cargo straps that hook to eye bolts, attached to 1×4s in the floor. If I got in a catastrophic accident, I wouldn’t want things flying around hitting me,  nor the dogs getting injured. On each crate, there is a laminated info tag on a clip, and an extra leash. So, heaven forbid I ever get in an accident and am incapacitated, a good samaritan could leash all my dogs, and take them, with instructions, to the nearest vet for care. The cards have guarantees that I’ll pay for care, the dogs’ tattoo and microchip info, and emergency contacts.

I came up with this after hearing accounts of several dog show friends who were in car accidents. I’ve heard of loose-in-the-car dogs flying through the windshield, other dogs running loose on the highway in a panic, and one person’s dogs got stuck in an out-of-town shelter in limbo for 48 hours until they were “put up for adoption” and her friend could go buy them back! Everyone I know who’s gotten in an accident with crated dogs reported that the dogs were unscathed. So, I’m pretty religious about dogs riding in crates. They prefer it too, they feel much safer when they are not sliding around in an open vehicle.

Here are the three remaining crates along the side wall, behind the driver’s seat. And  clean floor!

I’ve been keeping my eyes peeled for a llama to use as a livestock guardian for the sheep. I found this one nearby, from a man who had her to keep his horse company, but his horse had passed away.

Her name is “Maggie” but since we already have a dog named Maggie, we think we’ll call her the Dolly Llama. The name isn’t so important, since I don’t expect we’ll interact with her enough that she’ll learn it. But I guess it’s convention to name the permanent residents of the farm, anyway.

She is around 13 years old. I was able to speak with her breeder, who offered to breed her in the future for me, so I can have a replacement for her (since she’s “getting up there” in age).

I think she’s a reasonable quality llama, she’s a little cow-hocked in the rear, and her teeth are a little crooked. But her fiber looks really nice. She is pretty well behaved, we were able to catch and lead her without much difficulty. I transported her in my cargo van, and she rode calmly.

Here is a photo of her meeting the sheep. They pondered each other from a distance for an hour or two. But she seemed anxious to be close to a herd, and kept tailing the sheep. By the end of the day, it looked like they had mostly joined up. Hopefully she’ll be well-bonded to them by spring, such that she is motivated to defend the lambs.

Another llama seller I corresponded with on craigslist told me an interesting tale- she had a llama injure some of her lambs. She learned, in retrospect, that it’s not good to introduce a few sheep to multiple llamas in the llamas’ pasture, as they may perceive the sheep as intruders and drive them out. Instead, it works better to leverage a single llama’s lonliness in a pasture that’s new to them– they’ll be more likely to behave in a solicitous manner to the sheep herd in hopes of joining up.

This next tax return I’ll need to start writing off farm expenses. I have a lot to learn and read up on in this regard. I know there are many tax advantages to being a farmer (which still hardly offset all of the financial disadvantages… but hey, you take what you can get!).

We are already enjoying one advantage, and that is the “open space agriculture” tax break that is available in our state and county. The rule here is, if you show an agricultural gross income of $200/acre/year every three out of five years, the county will calculate your property’s taxable value based on its “current use” and not its “best use.”

This is intended to help offset the fact that (at least until now) property values were skyrocketing, such that farmers could not justify keeping the land in agricultural use and paying high property taxes when the land was worth so much for residential development purposes. Add to that the falling profitability of traditional family farms and farmers’ kids not wanting to carry on their family’s legacy, farmers were selling land like crazy to developers in the last two decades.

The state and county realized they had to stop this trend, or there would be no farmland left! So, this tax break was invented-no matter how much your land would appraise for as commercial or residential real estate, it is taxed as if it’s only value is as cropland or graze.

Now that the farm is up and running, I think we’ll be able to meet the $200/acre/year rule with little difficulty. We have 12 acres in open space, so we have to bring in $2400 a year—if we have a good lamb crop, that will do it right there. Note that this is gross profit, not net, so you don’t even have to show that you are making money on your farm. But I had been starting to feel some pressure, as it has taken two years just to get the place back into farming condition, so technically we must show this profit in the next three years. But I also don’t think anyone checks real often, as I’ve seen many farms in open space status where clearly no farming has been done recently. It’s probably one of those laws where unless someone turns you in, like a nasty neighbor, it does not get noticed….

So, anyway, back to income taxes. I believe that I can start writing off the tractor, tractor fuel, fencing expenses, feed for the ducks and sheep, and many other expenses. I’m also wondering whether I can write off the dog and cat food, since the dogs work on the farm, and the cat is a mouser. I’ve started keeping better categories in my Quicken records to break down all the various farm expenses, to make for easier reporting in the long run. But I feel as though I probably have a lot of reading to do, to master the subject of tax write-offs available to farmers.  

Today, I got up early so I could feed animals before work. I think I’m going to have to shift to these “farm hours” for the winter. This will enable me to make sure the animals have thawed water in the morning, and that the sheep have all day to eat their grain. I’ve been getting by with feeding them after work, but now it’s getting dark, and the sheep won’t eat then.

It felt good to be up and about; knock on wood, hopefully I’ll keep thinking that. Normally I’m not a morning person, and get up at the last possible moment. This is turning over a new leaf for me.

On the subject of grain; I’ve sure been pondering how I want to feed the sheep. It’s working out well feeding them grain now, they are acclimating to my presence, and I can take a look at them up close while they’re eating. They are about at the end of their flushing phase, and the bag of grain is running out. So, I may let them go without for a little while. It seems the cost of grain can quickly add up to the cost of a lamb or two, so I feel that I want to be conservative on how much I utilize.

Some sources say to start adding grain in the last two months of pregnancy. That would be in the November time frame for the ewes that came already bred. Yet, the ones that were bred this month shouldn’t be allowed to get too fat during the early stages of their pregnancy. So, I don’t know what I’ll do.

I’d so far been feeding a bagged sheep ration, but I don’t like the idea of all those processed grains. I think I’ll switch to dry COB (corn, oats, barley) when I buy the next bag.

Phew, we got a lot of work done this weekend! We spent the whole weekend working on Kirk’s house, getting it ready for sale. We are really hoping to have it on the market by the end of the month. This weekend, I painted the entry, stair, and upstairs hallway; those areas had really dirty yellow paint that HAD to be fixed. Kirk refinished the bathtub in the upstairs bathroom. Now we are both tired!

I did manage to squeeze in some baking tonight-snicker doodles! But, most of my other weekend chores were left undone-vacuuming, cleaning the dog’s fenced area, and the like. It’s just hard to fit everything in sometimes.