Soooooon

Thursday morning

  

Hoping today's the day

  

not her best side

  Still waiting, less patiently today than yesterday. Callie seemed more comfortable this morning than she has in days, so I hope that means she is getting closer. From the looks of her hind end, which pictures I do not dare post, she is going to have those lambs today.

waiting, waiting

Callie still has not dropped her lambs. The past two nights have dropped down into single digits, and so I have been up and down checking on her throughout the night to make sure she was fine. She looks so uncomfortable.

The wee lambs are doing well. Just beginning to jump around and wiggle, which is just so fun to see. I am smiling more these days. It's pretty impossible to feel sad when you're holding a two pound bundle of wool with a little beating heart inside.

The rest of the flock is doing well and adjusting to having Bill back in their space. He was really a nuisance  for the first day or two, and he is still a typical ram - not sure why I expect that he will behave any other way. He will need to go eventually, since there are no more ewes for him to breed. So, I will be looking around for a new home for him and hopefully will find him a family of ewes to stay with. He's a proven ram now and doubt I will have a tough time placing him.

Mercy and Grace

Bella gave birth to twin ewe lambs on Saturday morning. Mercy and Grace are tiny but doing well, and Bella seems to be doing well, too.
Callie is huge and very uncomfortable - up and down a lot last night checking on her. Hopefully she'll lamb out this afternoon. More later.

Hopeful

I have finished knitting for the season - just can't bring myself to knit now with anything other than my babydoll yarns, and I have run out. Will be shipping off a sample of roving to the Hope Spinnery this afternoon to see if the fiber is acceptable to him (question is whether it is too fine for his machinery). I am feeling hopeful and eager to hear his feedback.

It would be wonderful to establish a working relationship with a Maine mill, and I really like everything that I have read about the Hope Spinnery. They use wind power and environmentally friendly dyes, and the products that I saw at the Common Ground Fair were gorgeous. So, I am keeping my fingers crossed that he will accept my fibers and spin for me.

This hat was finished using a lot of leftover bits and pieces of wool, and while I love the final product, the hat is primarily Jacob wool; it itches my head. I have become so accustomed to wearing the soft, non-scratchy babydoll wool on my head that everything else feels too rough.

Monkeytown Camo

So, it will be exciting to get more yarn spun. I hope that the sample I send up will be enough for him to determine if my sheep's wool will work for him, and even more hopeful that he'll agree to process my wool for me in the future.

some captivating hambone models wearing salty ewe hats...hotlanta style

four legged lovies

I have always had a thing for animals. As a child, I remember finding wounded birds and bringing them home to try to nurse them back to health. Housing them in cardboard boxes in a small back room on a porch we had on the back of our home, I would create nests and try to feed them and keep them warm and safe (ironically, it was probably our cat - one of several - who maimed the poor birds). I always seemed to be wanting to bring animals home as a kid.

poor freckles. 1968. amsterdam, ny

We always had cats, and I loved dogs. My mom's parents always had dogs, and I loved going to visit them two blocks away and playing with their beasts. Don't get me wrong - I loved the cats we had very much. All of them (and there were many, it seemed). Fluffy the huge, grey cat. Tiger, my cat. Then a string of them it seems.
One day, a neighbor's dog wandered down the street and I decided in my little brain that he was lost; but, I think I knew very well who she belonged to...the Quiri Family from about three houses away. To a four-year-old, I guess that was a significant distance to be wandering.
I captured her with my jumprope and brought her into our garage and closed the door. I remember walking her around in circles (had I seen Westminster?) and thinking that maybe I could keep her. This is about all I remember. I don't know if the adults were angry or amused. I am not sure if Freckles was traumatized. I have no sense of how long this whole episode took - was it minutes or hours?
I just think about this story and smile inside thinking that the more things change, the more they stay the same. My jumprope's been replaced by real leashes and the animals in my life are really my own (or am I theirs?). And so it goes.

One hundred one

snowflakes on wool

Feels like we have had 101" of snow. But, really, this is my 101st post to the blog. Felt like there should be some prize or something. My prize is in the writing - am enjoying the blogging way more than I ever expected. Knowing there are people reading it from various corners of the world (hello you people!) is a little strange sometimes - since I know no one in some of the countries where I see I have readers - but it's a great way to keep family and friends abreast of the little happenings in my life.

The snow came down yesterday, off and on, all day. We also had rain, freezing rain and sleet. The sheep were out for a while in the morning before it turned to ice and rain, but then I shut the doors and kept them in for the rest of the day. This morning, the barn doors were frozen shut again. Poor design on my part, as the sloped roof dumps whatever snow accumulates on it right in front of the sliding doors - and, in weather like this, the track can and will get jammed up. Some days are easier than others to get it open. Just like life.

Callie has been in a pushing position two of the past three mornings when I have gone down to let them out, and when I felt her udder yesterday afternoon, it had definitely grown and firmed up. And, Bella is starting to lay around a lot more. If all goes as planned (ha! have I learned nothing?), then we'll have some new additions in a week or so. Hoping all goes smoothly - as it has in past years. These babydolls are great mothers and all of their lambs have been healthy, hardy little things. May we be blessed with more of the same this year.

getting closer

good snowy morning

Woke to a beautiful snow yesterday morning - just enough to cover up dirty snow and slick ice patches. The sheep are still not wandering outside of the paths that I have cut for them, so although we've had some melting and minimal amounts of new snow, there is still a pretty deep pack out there. I am starting to really look forward to seeing some green (even brown would do) and smelling earth again. The winter has been long.
The two pregnant ewes are really starting to show now. I caught this great shot yesterday - Bella's balancing is impressive, and her lamb(s) look a lot more pronounced in that position. And, Callie just looks round. Will take a closer look at the calendar and also recheck their bellies/udders this afternoon to get a clearer idea of when the lambs might arrive. I definitely do not take this part as seriously as many other sheep people I have met. Not sure what that might say about anything. You have to choose your battles as a shepherd, too. Animal behavior and human behavior...more lessons to be learned.

my first two babydolls - bella and callie