A "few" new sheep...

When I told Wyatt last week we were going to get new sheep that day,

his response was "how many?" 

When I told him "4" he held up his finger and said sternly,

 "No, one!  JUST one!" 

 However, when we got to MaryAnne's -H&K Farm,

Wyatt seemed ok with us getting more than "JUST one" 

(thank goodness, because we were getting these

and I didn't want to hear about it all the way home!) 

This moorit ewe lamb (above and below) is Penny. 

 I think Penny likes to have her picture taken.

 Below is our new gray moorit ewe lamb, Gin.  

(short for Ginger of course)

 This is Tipsy.  

She is a mature black spotted ewe. 

She was the first one sheared, for fear she might not readily go back in the barn real soon! 

She  might be a bit skeptical of us.

The last 2 photos here are of our new ram lamb.  

Wyatt asked if he had a name and when I said "do you want to name him?"

he readily said "Let's name him Littlefoot"   ?

(where in the world did he get that?)

Meet Littlefoot.  

(and Wyatts new nickname will be "boy who name sheep")

 

Big Zig

I love this fella.  He will always have a home here.

Wool Harvest

First step in preparing for fall shearing - take photos! 

Above is #70, a yearling

 Daphne

 

 Sweet Roxy



 

Josiah- yearling ram

 

Carlie

Hazel.

 

I had to throw this picture in.. this handsome lamb has beautiful wool, but seems to have got out at some point and found a burr bush- arh!   I will have some time in picking through this fleece.

We have worked on ridding burrs from pastures but if one slips out, well.. it is certain they are going to find the burrs.  

 

 All in all though, looking forward to the wool harvest!

 

 

 

 

Sheep Yarn Bowls Are Back

I was thinking back the other day about how long it had been since I had fired the kiln,  

and realized that it had been nearly a YEAR since the last glaze firing!

No doubt these sheep were wondering if that's all there was to life... just sitting on a shelf, positioned where they could see the sheep next to them.

 

Feeling terrible about their long stay on the shelves, I will be taking them on a vacation this fall to the Ky Wool Fest

(I'm so glad they didn't ask to go to Disneyworld)

 This will be the only festival we are setting up at this year, and while I am little behind schedule on getting things ready...

 it is a great excuse to work in the pottery room!

 

 

 

Yet Another "fun for the whole family" project.

Or, well, at least fun for Wyatt!

 With the help of the NRCS, Jack, my sweet Dad that helps us with any and every project we jump into,  and George, (the excavator), we are putting in a few automatic waterers for the sheep. 

As you can see, Wyatt can find fun anywhere.   The first time I caught him going down this hill, all I saw was feet straight up in the air and he was headed for the ditch.  He was very sad when the dirt here was pushed back in.  He kept saying "I can't be king of the mountain ANYmore".  We had been planning to make a playground, or playhouse for him, but looks like a mountain of dirt would be a hit.

The sheep came to do their inspection.

The line went down the hill, across the field and up the hill.   About 650 ft from where we started, yet maybe 100 ft from the water line that runs down the road.  (but who needs an extra water bill?)

 

We still have a lot of work to go, but looking forward to this being finished, so we can get back to hay, the house, and ... whatever comes up this summer!   Maybe some pottery even.   ?

 

Hay Season

Fun for the whole family

Well it has been a morning long process trying to get pictures of lambs and sheep posted here!

For some reason, windows is locking up while attaching photos.  arh.

Since computers issues are not my specialty, I am just going to post the few pictures that did attach and wait a while (ok, tried that already) and see if maybe my computer just needs a break.

That's as technical as it will get.

The above lambs are Roxy's babies.  (april photos)

Carlie (in April) with her twin ewe babies

This beautiful ram lamb is one of the ram twins out of Jolee, taken recently.  (one of the doublemint twins from an earlier post

white yearling

Sweet Didi

Gray Moorit Ewe Lamb (one of LeAnnes twins)

White ewe lamb (out of Lambie)

More photos to come!

Spring Review

I remember the moment I overheard the words on the news "the unofficial start to summer is coming up this Memorial Day".  Well, this was breaking news to me.   I just had to stand in amazement and wonder where my spring went, and why I wasn't prepared for this news.   Time passes so quickly. 

I don't know where to even begin on why spring was such a whirlwind, so I will just not think of it, and post pictures of sheep!  Hope everyone has had an enjoyable spring and is ready for summer. 

 Now the above picture was taken back in April.. our Ali (named after the fighter) and his sister.  Ali is aka "pond lamb" as he ended up in the pond a few hours after he was born.  Not sure how he got so far out in the pond, but just glad it all worked out.  He had symptoms of hypothermia, his mother said "oh no, he's not mine, my baby smelled good" as I got him out of the pond, and well... it was just a bit of sheep / field drama going on for a few days, but he is well, and as you can see (he's in the corner of the pic below) he's still hanging out with his people (his momma took him back thanks to Vicks.. aka "smell like your baby now?" gel)   

 Below is number 70.  She is apt to get a name here soon.  She has a sweet personality, as every pic I have taken of her, she seems so content.  Maybe its because she takes the time to stop and smell the thistles.   (They are cleaning up some areas outside their pasture for us in this shot.. not that the thistles are completely eradicated in their pasture... that's another job coming up far too soon!)

 This little black/gray lamb is out of our gray mouflon yearling.  (we really need to make a point to name the yearlings!)

 Below is our black/gray yearling. (alice's daughter)  I am still loving the gray pattern that we got last year from Val.  I am hoping to make some fun scarves from this fleece.  

 Same ewe.. just without all the scarves!

Sweet Annie.   (black gray yearling)

 

well, that's just a few spring shots from here on the farm... I had an opportunity to take several lamb photos today, so will be putting a post together soon of those - hopefully before the unofficial start of fall!

 

Motorcycle Melvin

We have an orphaned lamb.  Unfortunately, we lost a ewe to bloat last week.   It's never easy when there is a loss.. especially when there is a little lamb looking for his momma.   This little guy has been very hard to catch too.   I have stalked him at all hours (can't get him in the barn with the others) and it's not been uncommon for me to be out at 3 in the morning trying to catch him asleep.  He will run to another ewe to say "i'm not the one you are looking for.. see? .. I'm with her!"   He had been stealing milk from the others as well, sneaking in from behind where he can make a quick getaway if the unsuspecting mother were to catch him.   He finally warmed up to our attempts to feed him and willingly drinks from a bottle.   I was thinking he should be named "Melvin" and Wyatt wanted to name him "Motorcycle"   so, Motorcycle Melvin it is.   Likely the only lamb around with that name.

Wyatt is at the age where he says the cutest things.   Like "Mom, it's really hard"  what? "It's really hard waiting on my sausage"   or "Dad, it's really hard"  what?  "It's really hard waiting on mom"  (as they were in the truck Sunday morning waiting on me so we could leave for church)  or "I don't want to close my eyes... it's DARK in there!"   and then he has some sayings about getting big and then not getting big, like "I don't want to get big, if I get big,  my bike will be too little"  Then today, while hanging out in the recliner with Motorcycle Melvin, he said "Mom, when I get bigger, I want to shear the sheep" 

Quite possibly my favorite yet!

The Doublemint Twins

A few new faces

We have had 7 lambs born in the past few days, so we have some cute faces to share.  These twins was from another first time mother, Girlie.

 Same twins here with Momma... and what a good momma she is.

 And speaking of good mommas, sweet Myrtle had her babies Tuesday.   I have been watching her for several weeks now, because she has been off to herself a lot the past few weeks, not coming in to eat as normal,  and acting as though she was going to lamb at any time.   Looks like maybe she just didn't have a lot of room for food in there, packing all these babies.   So far, she is taking care of all these little guys (yes, all boys) and she is a very attentive mother.  

 Sadly, it doesn't always work that way.   I have been really pleased with the mothers caring for their babies, and have had only a few occasions over the 5 years we have had sheep where a mother didn't take her lamb.  This adorable lamb, Nells, was born Tuesday as well, and her mother (first time mother) left her in the field when she had her second lamb.  I had been out to check on the sheep and noticed that Myrtle was in the shelter and was talking quite a bit.  I went to check on her and I couldn't tell that she had started labor, but felt the lambs would be coming soon. (of course, I had been saying that for weeks with her)   I went to check on her a little over an hour later and she had all 3 lambs and was cleaning them up.   I took them to the barn and noticed what looked like a new lamb with a mother in the pasture where the other sheep were grazing.   It was just about dark, and I was surprised that another sheep had lambed, because they had all been grazing just a short time earlier.  The lamb looked small to be a single, so I started looking around in the field and there about 20 feet away was Nells.  She was laying lifeless on the ground and my first thought was that the lamb had died during birth.  I reached down to touch the lamb and she had just the slightest movement.   There was hope for Nells.

I brought her to the house and started to warm her up.  The wind had been blowing outside, and it was somewhat chilly.  Her feet felt frozen.  She barely moved.  She couldn't hold her head up, and barely opened her eyes for that first hour.   I honestly didn't know if she would make it.  After being in the house over an hour, she began shivering, so I put the hair dryer on her again.   Once she warmed up, she came right to and held that head up, opened those eyes and started crying for some milk!  I had some colostrum in the freezer (thanks Marlene) and she ate.  After she got back on her feet, I took her to the barn to try to reunite her with her mother.   I had high hopes of the mother taking her, even though several hours had passed.   long story short, she didn't.   It is so hard to see a lamb being rejected by her mother, but I am not giving up yet on that.  The mother is still in the barn, and I am taking the lamb down often for feeding (I just hold the mother)  Wyatt is a whole other story.  He wants a bottle lamb, and hasn't held back in letting me know how he feels.   When we take the lamb to the barn, he gets upset and says "that's not fair mom!"  ?? where does he learn to say things like this, and what does a 3 yr old know about being fair?   I have walked in the room and seen him rocking her in his little rocking chair, and then saw him sitting on the floor, reading her a book.   I guess it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world to have a lamb in the house for a while, but if the mother would somehow take her back, we could surely take the rocking chair to the barn with the books, right?     

Back up a week ago

so, back up a week ago and I was scouting for lambs out in the snow.   We had a set of twins born last Monday morning.   I got out there just as the second one was born and took babies and momma to the barn where it was much warmer. This new lamb is a ewe,

and here she is out in the sunshine with her brother.

Below is a set of twins that was born last Sunday, both ram lambs. (Boog and Elliott) 

The most recent lamb born was a little ewe lamb.

 

It's so much nicer to see them laying on greening grass and enjoying the warm sunshine opposed to the wind and snow where today's post started!     

New Lambs

Here's one of the 4 newest lambs.  He was a day old in the picture, and smiles right on que.  Looks like Wyatt has a new buddy (as does the lamb).

Returning from hibernation

It's been over 3 months  since I have posted here to the blog, so I feel like I have been hibernating.  With the looks of the weather today, it's not time to come out quite yet.

 

Our lambing has started.  (a little earlier than I had expected) 

 

This was our first little lamb born (a few weeks ago, in the snow of course)

 

She is from Hiccup, one of our meat breed ewes. she is crossed with Icelandic.  

This was taken when she was a day old.

 

In the past 24 hours, we have had 2 sets of twins born.  Mostly little ram lambs.  

 

Wishing everyone a great spring!   (and hoping for warmer days!)