A fresh dusting of snow overnight speaks the undeniable truth: winter is here to stay. A flock of sharp appetites greeted me at the gate this morning. I am grateful for not having to shovel snow today – and for heated water buckets. Snow shovels are on stand-by. Now I need to get serious and put the plow on my truck!
Come back tomorrow for an important announcement about Sheep Shares 2011.
Until then, stay warm!
Your kind thoughts have been much appreciated here this week. Our home feels very quiet without Mishka. Even though she was 11 years old and had been sick for a while, she was her fun-loving, sometimes mellow, sometimes nutty self almost right up to the end. I can't tell you how much we miss her.
A wintery blast of weather has forced some quick re-arranging of the barn and paddock space. This was the scene in the back of my Highlander yesterday morning. Cinder, Cognac and Bailey hitched a ride back down to the big barns where the whole flock will be wintering. My car gets used for myriad hauling purposes: groceries, golden retrievers, rolls of electric fence and sometimes, sheep.Yes, we have a livestock trailer, but we decided it wasn't worth hooking it up to move three animals. Funny how mellow they were about it.
This week marks the end of sheep courtship. Our rams, Cinder, Chai, Parsley and Teaberry, are now sharing a pen in the dairy barn. Although initially not too happy to part with the ladies, the boys seem pleased to see each other, after some initial shoving and shouldering. Guy stuff. To be on the safe side we'll keep them confined to a smaller pen until we're sure they are all getting along with one another. If ornery rams are given too much room, they can do a lot of damage to each other's skulls. It will be interesting to see what happens when we bring down the rest of the boys this weekend.
Thanks again for keeping us in your thoughts. Hope all is warm in your neck of the woods.
A.K.A. Mishka
Chillin' in her favorite spots.
Celebrating Christmas '08 with her lambie (above) and sisters Emma and Daphne (below).
Words are failing me at the moment so I hope the pics say it all.
We gave Mishka the best possible day we could give her yesterday. She died peacefully at home.
She truly was our Queen of Hearts.
Thanks everyone, for keeping her and us in your thoughts this week.
Thank you much-ly for the great head start on Name-Storming the Lambs. Please feel free to chime in, even if you are "seconding" a previous suggestion; we'll see which themes are most popular.
I want to give you a heads up that we're having troubles with our "flock" of golden retrievers, Daphne (age 14, left) and Mishka (age 11, right). You might remember that we've been doing our best to help Mish battle kidney failure since last May. She spent last weekend in the hospital on IV fluid therapy, the second time in 4 weeks. We're trying fluid therapy at home, but she just isn't herself. I'm heading to the vet at 9 this morning for another assessment.
Our girls are our children so this is tough one. I will keep you posted.
Whoa, before you get too excited please know this is a photo from a few year's back.
It has been suggested that it's not too early to begin "name-storming" a list of themes for next spring's lambs – since the work is now in progress with the flock.
Here's a list of themes used in most recent years:
2005: Greek Mythology
2006: Herbs & Spices
2007: U.S. cities & towns
2008: Fashion Lambs
2009: Colors
2010: Computer Fonts & Typeface
We'll start a list of ideas now and then put it to a vote.
Let the name-storming begin!
Courtship time. Rams snicker sweet nothings into the ears of ewes who batt their eyes coquettishly. The pas de deux that will bring new lambs to the farm next spring.
And I'm telling you, with so many eligible ewes and four outstanding rams, it was very hard sticking to my original plan of limiting the numbers for next spring's lambing.
Ultimately, we made sure each of flock matriarchs (Cocoa, Buttercup, Pansy, Charlotte) is represented by either a daughter or grand-daughter (or in the case of Cocoa, grandson). And then we took a close look at ram lineage to avoid crossing back on bloodlines. For the first time, we've put each of the rams to work, taking care to keep sufficient distance between groups to discourage rivalry. Teaberry (right, above) is courting Belle and Aberdeen.
Moorit ram, Chai (below) is wooing several gals in the carriage barn paddock.
Parsley (below) is flirting with Chanel . . .
and then putting the moves on Donatella.
Cinder, our black ram "lamb" from '09 is courting the moorit ewes Bailey and Cognac. With luck, we'll have a moorit lamb this spring.
Naturally, it's hard to predict what this will mean in terms of numbers. I'm guessing we'll land somewhere between 16 – 20 lambs, depending on birth multiples. I'd be thrilled to have all twins and don't mind singles; I could live without the excitement of triplets and bottle lambs this spring. If all goes according to plans, our first lambs will arrive in the last week of March.
Wish the boys luck.
The group above is right outside my window. They've been eyeing me all afternoon as I bustled around the kitchen, but right now they're diving into their dinner.
I'm stopping to consider my many reasons for gratitude. It's a blissfully quiet holiday here, Mike, me, dogs, sheep. Family on the telephone. Patriots game.
Thank you for your friendship and support, especially this year. I'm sending my strongest wishes for a wonderful day to all – and a happy Thanksgiving to those who are celebrating.
Fred has made my day. With bucket loader and spreader, he tackled the monstrous pile o’ compost in yonder bunker silo. Two year’s worth of soiled straw, hay and sheep poop equals a mountain roughly the size of the Matterhorn. Amazingly broken down into rich, dark organic matter, it’s now put to use fertilizing our hay field down on the Long Lot.
This may not sound post-worthy, but trust me, it’s a big deal!!
The majority of the ewe flock is now stationed in the high pasture, well out of reach of our rams at work. We're intentionally breeding fewer ewes this season to lighten the load for spring. I'll tell you more about that in a bit.
Until then I thought you'd enjoy a glimpse of breakfast in the high field. Note the loaded apple trees; windfall apples are a sheep delicacy.
BTW, Cognac is doing well and appreciates your get-well wishes. Her nose looks fine.
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 permission. Thank you.
The calling card of an unwelcome visitor to the sheep paddock.
Poor Cognac had a close encounter of the prickly kind Sunday afternoon. Mike found her with a snout full of porcupine quills as he was putting away the mower. Just in time for the Patriots game. We spent the next hour extracting a mess of nasty little barbs. Cognac winced with every quill but was otherwise quite stoic and patient. But her poor nose – you can some idea of how painful it was from the photo below! She seemed quite grateful for our help.
Now, how to extract a porcupine from beneath the sheep shed?
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 permission. Thank you.
