Archives for animals/wildlife

Spring Appearances

May 7, 2010 | 7 Comments

It feels very strange to not be packing a van to head to the NH S&W Festival today. Family circumstances, a book to finish on the heels of lambing season and a general energy lag are all contributing factors in this really tough decision. Sometimes you reach a moment when you say to yourself, "whoa – something's got to give." I send my love to everyone there and look forward to being back in my usual spot at the festival in 2011. Here's where you can find Foxfire Fiber this spring: – WEBS Fleece Market and Tent Sale, Saturday May
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Video – Morning in the Garden with Lambs – And Word about Sheep Shares

May 6, 2010 | 9 Comments

For you: Another morning with lambs in the garden. In yesterday's post I was mistaken about the timing of the school bus – you'll see it in this post. You can hear the bus rumbling down the road from 1/4 mile away. When it swooshes by, the lambs go flying. Same for motorcycles and tractors. Fortunately, we don't see much road traffic here. The slow-moving chunky little lamb tagging along after the others have taken off is Zap. Poor little guy is always getting left in the dust. His mom, Thalia, is great about staying near his side. You'll also
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Video – Garden Lambs

May 5, 2010 | 11 Comments

I'm immersed in shipping Sheep Shares this week so I'll be posting a series of short videos of the lambs enjoying the yard as we let them out each morning. You'll be able to spot the bottle lambs – just look for the ones congregating at the picnic table! At the beginning of this clip, the school bus rolls by which always sends the flock running for cover. Enjoy!
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Evening Chores!

May 3, 2010 | 24 Comments

Some scenes from this evening: three frantic bottle lambs at dinner time! I promise, this is the last post about the bottle lambs for a while, but couldn't resist sharing these pics. After playing in the yard all day, they are crazy hungry. Mistral wanted to skip the bottle and eat the powder milk replacer directly from the sack. Georgia and Garamond lost patience and demanded counter service. Dinner is served. Storming into the house is getting to be routine for this group – it's so funny to call them in from the yard and have them come flying through
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Sunday’s Lambs

May 2, 2010 | 9 Comments

Time for Sunday visitors. The lambs enjoyed their first outing into the yard surrounding my studio this morning. The bottle lambs followed me in the front door and stormed right into the kitchen demanding lunch. Fun! Hope you're enjoying this lovely weekend. copyright 2010. Barbara Parry. All rights reserved. Feel free to share a link to this website. Please do not take content or images from this website without my explicit written permission. Thank you.
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Lambi-dextrous!

May 1, 2010 | 5 Comments

Bottle lambs, from left to right: Mistral, Garamond, Georgia There's no asking three ravenous bottle lambs to take turns, so I approach each feeding equipped with three bottles. Which makes this little trio very happy. A little tricky getting started, though, as they're all lunging at once for the nipples. I end up dropping a bottle or squirting milk all over their faces. It's time to cut back on the amount of each feeding to encourage them to explore other dining options. I just today purchased another 50 lb. bag of powdered lamb milk replacement and that stuff is
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Lambitious

April 30, 2010 | 6 Comments

The lambs are feeling more "lambitious". Scaling straw bales is their newest challenge. Each morning while we're cleaning the barn they compete to see who's king of the straw bale. After breakfast, we send everyone out into the pasture for the day, except for the triplets, and Mistral who likes to hang out with the triplets. And Thalia and little Zap, who is so much smaller than the rest and still catching on to life in the barn. The pack of lambs tags along with Crackerjack in the field. He's the lamb nanny. While it's been crazy windy here over
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Morning Chores!

April 27, 2010 | 7 Comments

Some of the lambs are getting a little tubby. Time to adjust the spacing on the creep panel. Holly had some help from Verbena's triplets: Georgia, Garamond and Gigi. copyright 2010. Barbara Parry. All rights reserved. Feel free to share a link to this website. Please do not take content or images from this website without my explicit written permission. Thank you.
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Lunch with Mistral – Video

April 26, 2010 | 13 Comments

Here's an update on Mistral. As you can see from today's video, she's getting leggy and also filling out quite a bit. In the barn, she's fitting in well with the other lambs, racing and exploring the pasture. I saw her sampling hay at dinnertime yesterday, a very good sign that she's on the right path. It's not unusual for bottle lambs to be very keyed in to people but it's been years since I've had a lamb this imprinted on me. I think spending her first night in my bed may have had something to do with it. She
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Lambed Out! Celebration GiveAway

April 23, 2010 | 68 Comments

We're all resting after a long journey . . . . . . and breathing a huge sigh of relief this morning. Our last lamb of the season arrived yesterday evening. Thalia delivered the sleepy ram lamb pictured above just as I was heading to the barn for Mistral's bedtime bottle feeding. It was really considerate of her to lamb before I went to bed for the night. Since he is our grand finale of lambing 2010, I've named him Zapfino – "Zap" for short. He had thirty two curious little noses poking through the slats of his pen to
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