Winter's found her groove. Last night she dumped another eight inches of snow on us, but it was a fast moving storm and this stuff is light and fluffy. Not so bad. And it was an awesomely beautiful morning – quintessential New England winter. Although I am feeling a bit under the weather this week, I couldn't resist playing in the snow with my sheep & camera during chores. Please come back early tomorrow morning for a special announcement! Happy Thursday to all.
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Isn't he a beauty? Sol, our rescue llama, loves his sheep but people can't get within 15 feet of him – that's his comfort zone. I wonder if he'll always think of us as scary. We've caught him a few times, just for the exercise of catching him and letting him know we won't hurt him. It's less stressful if we do it in the barn by crowding him in a pen with the sheep. If there's no where to run, he knows it and somehow that's less frightening. Like the sheep, it's the chasing part that's scary. So we
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Another Snow Day . . . Driving in snow doesn't scare me. Eating outdoors in a snow storm doesn't bother sheep. Mike and I did morning chores today during the "snow" portion of today's storm. Even though the photo looks grey and dismal, it was lovely, really. Just four inches of flour-y powder. Wind, not so bad. The "ice" portion of today's storm is hitting now. Crystal pellets are pinging off the windows in my study as I write. I'm sure the sheep have retreated to the barn where we stashed extra servings of hay. It saves us another trip
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This was the scene yesterday morning after our first bonafide, rip-roarin' storm of the winter. The snow started Tuesday night and fell thick and heavy straight through the day on Wednesday. After driving mostly sideways down Patten Hill to get to the farm for chores Wednesday morning, I got stuck on an unplowed road and had to wait for a town plow truck to bail me out. The sheep stayed in by choice, happy for snow day. And after I finished chores, and Mike and Fred dealt with plowing and shoveling, we all stayed put for the day. Storms are
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My simple gift this week came from Butch, my Angora goat.He likes to play "steal the hat" while I do morning chores. The game: For two players: one shepherd, one impish goat, is a hybrid cross between Keep Away and Capture the Flag. The play: Shepherd moves as quickly as possible down the line of feeders, depositing hay flakes. Then attempts to clean and fill water buckets without getting gloves wet or losing hat. The object: Shepherd's objective is the feed the sheep, goats and llama as efficiently as possible and to keep warm on a cold winter morning. For
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Woke up to a frosted farm today. Very pretty for morning chores. Sol, our new llama, and the lambs dined al fresco on clean snow. Sol studies everything. Nothing escapes his attention: the Belties (Belted Galloway cattle) next door, tractors, mail truck, UPS deliveries. Today he'll get to watch Mike shovel snow. He just takes it all in. The straw delivery truck earlier this week proved spooky. Sol stood in the paddock some distance from the barn and watched with his ears cocked forward while the bales were tossed off the truck. The lambs clustered around his legs. He is
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I buy straw in bulk for bedding critters. Clean, dry, chaff-free straw is a precious as gold mid-winter when we go through tons of it. We go through tons+ in lambing season. Fresh, dry bedding is a must for keeping clean and healthy sheep (and for raising good wool). The stuff has to be trucked in dry weather, since the trailer isn't airtight. Usually this happens in December but this year there were glitches. Holly and I were getting anxious, down to our last 30 bales. The semi pulled in yesterday morning and we took half the load, stashing some in
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Big Day! Our new sheep coats arrived. Check it out. I've been long searching for a well-made, good-fitting sheep suit to replace the some-what tattered sheep covers we've used for years. At this time of year, it's especially important to keep the fleece clean. Hay and bedding straw mess up fleece faster than you can say "VM". Our "husky" rams and large wethers have been especially tough to outfit. Even the largest of our old coats aren't big enough for our big guys in their super-sized fleeces. After poking around and talking to other sheep-people I found the website for Rocky
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Attention Sheep Shares 2010 members. Here's a peek at your color choices (all new colors!) for the winter yarn and fiber shares. Please let me know your preference via email. Shares begin shipping next week. Happy New Year! Cormo Alpaca Lace, left to right: amaryllis, marigold, purple coneflower celestial, cactus flower, squash blossom, granny smith And some close ups: squash blossom cactus flower granny smith purple coneflower marigold amaryllis celestial
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This morning I combed through my iphoto library while sipping coffee and watching daybreak. What struck me most is that in a year of challenges and some major crashing and burning, stuff got done. Sheep were fed, shorn, lambed. Yarn got dyed, shipped, shared. Through Flock For Healthy Hearts we raised over $3500 for the American Heart Association's Go Red For Women, a campaign to promote awareness of the serious but often overlooked risks of heart disease in women. I can't thank you enough for your support. (If you would like to make a donation, please follow the link in
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