The Morning Commute

The drought here wears on.  Since the second week of May we've had less than 1.0 inch of rain.  The only things green now are the trees and the thistles.  :-/

The sheep are in the south pasture again.  Stuff they left last time looks interesting now.  We've also started to feed hay in the barn feeders at night so they have something to munch on if it's too hot to graze much during the day or pickings are too sparse.  It's leftover hay from last year.... we'd really like not to dip into this year's hay since it doesn't look like second cutting is going to happen.  We should have juuuussst enough of the first cutting to get us through a normal winter.

Since the pasture isn't green and yummy the trek out of the barn in the morning is a sedate affair and the girls were easily distracted by me standing by the fence.


If anybody knows a good rain dance we'd sure appreciate you doing one on our behalf.

Weird Weather

We are having abnormally warm weather and while it's not normal and may show its downside later on, for now I'm just going to enjoy it.

The warmth also brought out insects - this beetle is really this shiny, even more than the picture captures,  hence the name 'Metallic Wood Boring Beetle'.  I love it when things are named sensibly.

Honey bees appeared in droves when Andy started up the sawmill and cut some blanks for grade stakes. We don't know where they came from.  The bees in our tree aren't stirring yet.  Apparently honey bees will take tree sap before pollen is available and these bees were putting sawdust in the pollen baskets on their legs.  There were hundreds on the actual sawdust pile behind the mill.

The sheep are too warm but shearing is delayed (a death in the shearer's family put him far behind) and won't commence for another week.  Things always happen as they are supposed to - if we had bred the flock we'd be freaking out about the ewes getting dangerously heavy to shear but the flock isn't bred and so the delay isn't critical.

The ewes are in full fleece and so far we're keeping most of them pretty darn clean.

There are a few that seem to attract hay chaff but the bulk are either coated or don't mind me fiddling around picking junk off them occasionally.  Of course, when it's hot and they melt it's going to cause some VM contamination.  :-/

We've had the fans on in the barn and they really enjoy standing in the air flow.  They kind of orient like seagulls on a beach facing into the wind but there's always one that likes to get the air up her skirt..

It's a pretty hefty fan and it ruffles the long locks on the Cotswolds.  Of course Fortune has to come see what I'm doing.


When not eating or standing in the fan the ewes sit in companionable groups, sharing gossip.

When we separated the ewes into smaller groups for better managment Flopsy and Snubby landed together.  Having been bottle babies together they are fast friends.

Flopsy's ears are still mounted wrong.

and Snubby would have qualified for braces if she was a two legged kid.

But their purpose is fiber and friendship (and comic relief some days) so it's OK.
Peanut is doing well and is still cute as a button.

"Being short is the pits!!"
Little old Ruby is in with the youngest ewes and looks like she wishes she wasn't at the kids' table.  No one roughs her up but I think she's tired of being the hall monitor.

"Pleeeeease, won't you put me in with the adults? I want to have a conversation with someone my own age!"
Pretty soon!  I think I saw a tinge of green on the south-facing ground behind the barn.

The "Un"-Breeding Season

For the first time since.... let's see.... about 1987 we aren't going to breed any ewes this year.  We certainly aren't giving up sheep (we have coughcoughmorethanevercough) but we decided to declare a moratorium on creating any more, at least for a year.  There are several reasons, none dire, but we both need a break to catch up on things.  I need to make a dent in this mountain of accumulated wool.  Andy needs to put a new roof on a chunk of the house, make repairs (or just finish started projects) in house and barn, we still have 2 standing silos that we'd like taken down (they have to be cleaned out first) and breeding season, lambing season and growing the youngsters eats up a lot of time and mental energy.  Further, I always seem to keep back several more lambs than I intend because they're friendly or just what I want fiber-wise or bottle babies or been nursed back to health or good quality for breeding stock or whatever. Add to that the fact that it's getting harder emotionally each year to send loads of lambs to slaughter.  Andy pointed out that if lambs from this spring stay in the flock and live their usual double-digit lifespans he'll be into his 70s by the time they go to greener pastures and I think he'd like to not be putting up hay and handling big animals by that time.  We aren't selling any of the rams so we can always rethink things by next year when we've hopefully gotten caught up on at least the big jobs.

The rams are acting rammy with each other but not making a big fuss.  There's a little more pushing and shoving and growling at each other but very little head butting.  They already have a pecking order and there are no ewes anywhere near them to get thoughts stirred up.  This morning they were all standing in the sun (sun! yay!) waiting for us to let them into the larger pasture.

Nigel is one of our home bred Cotswolds.  He carries color and can throw colored lambs when mated to colored ewes.

I still haven't replaced that dratted ear tag but he's not going anywhere.......

Neville is our other home bred Cotswold but he has all white genetics in his background.  His fleece also has smaller curls.  He's super sweet tempered, politely standing next to you until you rub his back and tell him he's a good sheep.

One of my half-British boys from our AI venture several years ago.  I like his square back and rump.  His fleece is very lustrous but lacking in curl, having loose waves instead.  I've been working to get both that shine plus improved curls.  That's one of the most intriguing things about having your own flock (or herd of anything) - trying each year to get the right blend of his traits plus her traits to produce offspring better than either parent.

Here is Titan, left, and BB (aka Mr. B) on the right.  Titan is a colored Cotswold from Break Loose Farm.  He's not as friendly as my homegrown boys but he's certainly not aggressive.  (Middle guy is another half-Brit of ours. Small locks and quite white but not so much luster.)

Wee Little Guy, who was a very sad orphaned lamb who is now a big love bug.

Castillo, also sweet and with really cool hair.  ;-)

The ewes seem rather put out that there are no manly men around.  Mickey, a wether about 3 years old, will talk dirty to them but there isn't much action involved.  The good part of our 'un'-breeding season is that the whole flock can still go out to pasture.  Granted, there isn't much grass left but at least they can get out of the barn and sit in the fields and get some fresh air.  We fill the hay feeders every night and by morning most of it is gone so they're getting plenty either way.

It was so warm (to them) that they all came in off pasture at midday to have a drink and stand in the shade. They saw me in the barn and came storming in, probably thinking I was going to open a side gate and let them into another pasture.  Three days in a tired pasture creates boredom apparently.

"Hey, what's everybody looking at??"

Soon we'll have to really bring them off pasture for good.  Coats will go on and hay will be the only item on the menu.  I love seeing them right now before they get hay trash on their faces and covered up by the coats.

Lots of Cotswold curls.

And not Cotswold.

And lots of sheep with character.

Bunny

Flopsy

Daisy (chewing)

Ashes and Tuxedo

 Angelica

Nugget

Bacardi

Tiffany

Minnie

Matilda

Salsa

Fortune

Lovey

Madeline

Fuzz

Kim

Yup, everyone has a name.  Maybe with more time next spring I'll be able to post everyone's baa-ography.

Sub Zero

Minus eleven degrees F to be exact.

January has been a rollercoaster of above freezing temperatures which then drop to single digits within a day.  This morning was one of those deep cold ones.  The sky was pretty but you didn't want to stand still long to admire it.

The snow underfoot squeals and grunts with every step like angry geese.  You can gauge the temperature within 10 degrees by the tone of voice the snow uses.

We take hot water from the sink in the wool shop up to the ram barn and mix it with the cold well water to keep it liquid longer.  Some of the boys like it lukewarm but for those who don't it gets chilly pretty darn quick.  You know it's cold when the hot water bucket is empty and still steams like mad.

When it's very cold and windy we close the barn doors to keep the temperature tolerable - for us that is.  The sheep are fine with cold.

Bunny.   "Since you're here, are you going to feed us now?"

Foxy, Mickey and Fortune.  "Yes, please, yes, please, feed us now, we're starving!"

Coconut, still with the crazy eyes ;-)

It's a pretty comfortable place to spend the day if you're a sheep.  Sit around, eat, chat with friends....

Star in mid-chew and Flower

Then Flopsy charges over for petting and disturbs the peaceful mood.  She looks downright demented in this picture but it's just the way her bangs are hiding her eyes (and the crooked ear set doesn't help).  She's really very sweet and loves attention, even hugs, which some sheep find too touchy-feely for comfort.

The sunset was quite pink so hopefully we'll see an increase in the temperature tomorrow.  Banging ice out of water buckets multiple times a day is a chore we could happily skip for a few days.

Halfway through January...... at least three months to go.