September in Pictures

And maybe a few words of explanation here and there.  The fact that I at least TOOK pictures throughout the month reaffirms that I intended to be blogging along, it just didn't happen.  :-/

The fall flowers bloomed, such as our purple coneflower.

Our vigorous honeybees swarmed for a third time - usually a bad move as the swarm can't hope to make enough honey to sustain themselves through the winter.  Luckily they went into a bush two feet off the ground and a beekeeper came and collected them so they'll be cared for and have a better chance of surviving.

Not sure what he's going to be, but this pretty caterpillar was hurrying over the hot concrete on our side porch one afternoon.

The sheep enjoyed about three weeks in the south pasture which had regrown nicely.  There were many days in the nineties and the flock would graze until mid morning and then come into the bunk and hang out under the big fans.

One day Peanut wasn't feeling well and was slow to go out with everyone else.  The heat likely gave her a touch of pneumonia.

Some of the oldest ewes kept calling to her to come along which was sweet and kind of remarkable since she's a bottle lamb with no real "family ties" but she must be everyone's friend.  A few days of antibiotics helped a lot and she's fine now.

We had enough dry weather that we could get our second cutting of hay.  Woot!  Now we have enough for winter.  Then we got some good rains which made these butterflies happy...

...and pushing along an awesome crop of apples off our old trees.  This is a Pound Sweet.  I've got applesauce in my future.

Stewart Little did some growing!

And got shorn along with all the other lambs.

Alexi....silly kitty. Sigh.

I had an order for six half fleeces going to Israel.  That's a first for me.  I managed to get them all in this box. (Cat not included).

I did a fair bit of dyeing for the Finger Lakes Fiber Festival.

Then it was the festival weekend and our spot (in a brand new building!) went from this.....

....to this.  I think it looked pretty good and nobody knows what we didn't get finished to put on the shelves except us.  ;-)

And now the month is almost over.  The woods are changing fast.

And tonight is both a super moon AND a lunar eclipse.  And we don't have clouds!  Whee!

The next big jobs will be cleaning out the barn before the sheep come off pasture (still several weeks away, I hope!) and of course firewood.  Oh, and picking corn.  And still skirting and dyeing wool. Yardwork, yeah. Someday I have to do dishes.........  well, a whole shiny new month is coming up and I have high hopes!

Alexi

5/4/2002 - 9/17/2015

Farewell to a most excellent cat.  Congenial with the other barn kitties, a good mouser, appreciative of petting and scritches and friendly through the screen door to the indoor cats.  Sadly missed.

Waiting on the.... Oh, They're Here!

Saturday was day 145 since putting the rams in with the ewes.  Gestation in sheep varies by a few days among breeds with 145 to 148 days being the accepted 'normal' range.  Everyone stayed quiet that day - yesterday - so I was able to get to my spinning guild meeting.  Thanks, sheepies!  The 2:30 AM check showed no activity, ditto the 5:30 check, but by 7:30 we had a nice pair of twins already born, mostly cleaned up and toddling around.

 
Mom is a Cotswold ewe named Jolly and the lambs are both rams.  Each weighs 9.5 lbs and are quite active and vocal.  The one on the right was quick to nurse but the other guy was a little slower.  He'd push hard on the udder and baa in a frustrated way but wouldn't. take. the. teat.  As it was only 15 degrees out this morning I figured that was too cold to fiddle around so I striped some colostrum from the ewe and fed him with a bottle.  Getting the stiff plastic teat into his mouth was no problem and once there he would suck - which proved he was capable - so he had a good meal.  He still didn't want to nurse an hour later so I gave him a bit of an enema with lots of "return" and five minutes later I had him latched onto a teat and sucking.  Getting a 'full' lamb to evacuate the bowel seems to trigger the "oh, I'm hungry" response.  I suppose that walking around might eventually stimulate him to 'go' but there was nothing good to be gained by waiting so I helped the issue along.

Mom is being very steady and diligent.  Sooo nice to work with animals that are calm and not concerned about the humans.

One of the two has especially fuzzy cheeks and looks chipmunk-esque.

The other ewes don't show immediate signs of lambing but then again one could decide to start anytime.  There are some pretty wide loads here.

Nibbles has a fun 'do going on - fringey ear wool.

"Good grief, I'm creating the miracle of life here and you think my ear wool is cool?!"

Lovey has cool hair going on.  She's still a ways off for lambing.

Gilly, on the left, appears to have not caught this year.  Since she is 9 this year I likely won't attempt to breed her again.  She'll stay on as a fiber ewe - she has a lovely fleece.

She's always had a strong chin and it makes me think of Chester the Cheetah from the Cheetos commercials.

Besides being barren this year she's showing some age in her eyes - both eyes have a bright white cataract showing in the center of the pupil. It doesn't seem to bother her, or else she's just so good at getting around that we don't see a deficit.

Isabelle is 7 this year.  She's the only ewe lamb I got from doing AI with a British ram.  

She still looks like she did as a lamb, at least to my eyes, but then I'm better with animal faces than people faces.

This ewe is carrying her lamb load lower - a sign that she's getting closer to The Day.

Luellen is still fairly symmetrical. 

Then there is the rest of the flock which I didn't breed.  We only exposed 35 ewes this year - down from my all time high of 79 (when I must have been temporarily out of my mind) - and of the 35 it looks like there will only be 29 or 30 who are actually carrying lambs.  It's OK - we're decreasing the lamb crop by design so I have more time to work. on. wool.  Which was the whole point of my having sheep in the first place!

"Didja hear that?  No multitasking - just grow da wool real good!  Woohoo!"

Large Marge - "Suits me.  I loved my babies but I don't neeeed to have more."

Alexi -

"I neeeed somebody to turn up the heat around here!  Sheesh!"

Yeah, me too!

The Sun Before The Snow

The weather forecasters are wetting their pants over a big snow storm headed up the east coast tomorrow and Tuesday.  One of them said that this will very likely go in the record books as greatest snowfall for the NYC/Long Island.  Ever.  In history.  I've heard dire predictions about loss of power, inability to travel and conditions akin to those suffered by the Donner Party.   While a blizzard is nothing to laugh at and preparations are prudent the weather people have become nearly apopleptic issuing warnings.  If the storm is less than Biblical in scale they are going to look rather foolish.

You would never know from the weather today that anything ominous was headed our way.  In fact, our area is on the northern edge of the predicted route and we may get nothing at all.  It did get a lot colder though and the sheep were enjoying sitting in the sun.

Daffodil, who will be 13 in a couple of months

Alexandria and some young friends

Alexandria, at 11, is showing her age.  She has lost all her front teeth and has a hard time keeping weight on despite getting grain twice a day and a private stall to eat nice hay overnight without competition.  I like the way the young ewes are keeping her company while she chews her cud in the sun.

"I was a lamb once.  That was a long time ago.  Sit down, kids, and I'll tell you a thing or two."

Coconut popped up to see what I was doing.  I really must try to get a flattering picture of her - she's cute and not at all wild like her eyes lead you to believe.

"Oh!  Hi!  I didn't know you were there!"

Gilly, down in the bred ewe group, also popped up to see what was going on.  The bedding is building up a lot, making it easier to put front feet on the edge of the hay feeder and look over the side of the pen.  We'll have to clean the barn sometime soon.  

She makes a terrible mess of her head with the hay but the rest of her fleece is pristine.  I do pick a lot of stuff off the ewes twice daily while I'm in the pen to pull the uneaten hay stems out of the lower portion of the feeder but she rarely has more than a stray timothy head on her back.

Alexi was on hand for some lunch kibble.

"Pleeze may I has some kibble?  I has been a gud cat today."

Clem......

"I didn't know I had to be good.  Oh man, I'm in trouble........."

Dexter.......

"I'm better than good.  I'm inside.  Heh heh."

Where ever you are, hunker down and stay warm.