Sparkling White

...and gray and brown and ......

Tuesday gave us two inches of rain.  Thankfully, it was a warm rain that came and went throughout the day with no dramatic wind, hail or lightning.  Andy has been on a barn cleaning marathon and with the weird cool spring we've had, the flock can be locked out all day and not need to come in for shade.   Keeping the barn well bedded doesn't stop wool from getting dusty and grimy so I love having the sheep cleaned off by the rain.

And of course, especially with the Cotswolds, if you are standing on food you might as well keep eating it.  Being "hungry" doesn't really enter into the equation which is why we slowly acclimate the flock after a winter of dry hay.

Peanut, standing with her feet up on the curb of the feeder in the bunk which exaggerates her full gut, but still.....  Geez, Peanut.

Stewart and Luellen came to say hi..... and beg for beet pulp pellets even though they are clearly stuffed.

 Ophelia's dark spot shows right up when the rest of her is clean and white.

And everybody has to poke around in the fresh bedding to see if there's anything good to eat even though they have just been eating. all. day.

The boys also were shut out all day and came in sparkling clean and rolling with fat good health.  In order of appearance they are Brick, Neville, Castillo, Nigel, B.B., Titan, Wee Little and old Isador who has to grab one more mouthful coming through the gate.



Neville must be carrying a bushel basket of grass in that rumen.  It's called having a lot of capacity and it's a good thing - a body built to carry a lot of feed or a lot of lamb is a plus if you're a sheep.

Both Neville and Nigel are Cotswolds and their curls are starting to show up already.

Nigel has coarser curls but they carry well down into his lower hind leg which is a hard place to get nice wool to grow.

Brick says,

"I'm not curly but I'm so clean I squeak.  I think some of my gray washed off!"
After the day's heavy rain I took Holly for a late walk and enjoyed some dramatic skies.

And the frogs in the wet spot in the lower field (which we not-so-cheerfully refer to as 'Lake Wheeler') were really happy.  It's loud but peaceful at the same time.  

All in all, everybody had a good day.

We Interrupt This Shearing......

Friday was Round Two of shearing and we managed thirty-four before the power went out.  Ugh. We've had a lot of rain and a tree probably tipped onto a line up the road somewhere.  Andy fired up the generator and we could have proceeded but Brian had to leave at a certain time anyway and honestly, the sheep were giving him a workout.  Whether it was the phase of the moon or what, the sheep were stiff and balky and resisted being manipulated during the process.  It seemed prudent to quit rather than risk fatigue-caused injuries to man or beast.

The girls are looking good this spring.  They might be carrying a few pounds more than they need to be but I'd rather have them fleshed out than too thin.

The broom is always a source of curiosity.

And of course watching the other sheep be shorn was alarming interesting.  Actually, Fuzz has a natural look of perpetual surprise.

"That just CAN'T be good!"

The sheep coats continued to prove themselves a good investment as all the Cotswold fleeces look great beneath them.

We took Peanut's coat off and she leaned against me in a sheep hug.  She is so sweet.  One can see the difference in cleanliness and condition between the coated fleece and that which was uncovered on her neck.

And with the coat taken off Fuzz you can picture what a mess her wool would have been without it.

Rupert, one of our young Cotswold wethers, was quite dejected after shearing.  I think he was not happy at all to find himself without clothes.  

 "At least they let me keep my hair."

 A few more days and another group will get nekkid!

X Marks The Spot

I choose to believe this big X over the farm is like a rainbow, marking it as the best place to be, and not marking it as a target!  Yikes!

The leaves are coming off the trees fast now with mostly the rusty browns of oak and some yellow beech and maple still hanging on.  Basking in the late fall sun the landscape is still pretty and  the sheep are able to go out every day.

Wee Little Guy is showing the typical wrinkly ram nose the boys all get this time of year.

There is some grunting and head butting but for the most part they aren't being too crabby with each other right now and troop out in the morning in a lazy group.

The girls are more energetic in the morning and queue up at the gate, then spill out into the pasture.

Andy heads down to the lower gate to let them out into the north pastures.

They tend to follow the worn paths rather than walk through the grass.  Creatures of habit, we are.

Peanut always sees me no matter where I am in the barn or barnyard and now she's thinking maybe I'll come along out to pasture with the flock.

 "Aren't you coming?  It's going to be a good day."

I'd love to wander around out there with the girls but there's just too much to do.  I feel guilty disappointing her.  Eventually they decide to start on the middle pasture and she follows the flock.  I know she has friends out there but I still feel bad.

They disperse to the far end of the field and will work their way back as the morning goes on.

As evening chores approach they rest near the back of the barn and watch for us to let them back in for the night.  Full and comfy sheepies.

It's a pretty sweet November so far.

International Hug a Sheep Day!............Was Yesterday

And I knew it was and hugged a lot of sheep but didn't get the post up until now.  Maybe we can think of it like the Twelve Days of Christmas and make it last.  After all, every day is a good day to hug some sheep!

Salsa got a hug.......

So Gem and Snubby had to get one too.

Two hugs at once.

And Peanut gets her own hug.

And Brick and the other boys get hugs too.

https://www.daysoftheyear.com/days/hug-a-sheep-day/https://www.daysoftheyear.com/days/hug-a-sheep-day/So if you didn't get to hug sheep yesterday you still have time - like sending a thank you card, it's never too late!

Yarn Along (A Day Late) - Goodbye July

The drought continued on through the end of July and into the beginning of August.  We switched the sheep over to the pastures that lie to the south of the barn and let them have free range over it all to try and stretch their time outside.  We did finally get one day that gave us a half inch of rain and some misty conditions that lingered into the next morning.  It felt like a monsoon after such a length of days without rain.  As there was no lightning with the rain we locked the sheep out in the pasture so they'd get a decent bath.  It made a huge difference!

I usually carry beet pulp pellets in my pocket as treats and Peanut hung back hoping for another serving as everyone else trooped out to the field.  I told her I'd give her more later and she then followed the flock.

It's almost foggy enough to lose sight of them in the tall brown grass.

The mist also showed lots of spider webs in the flower bed.  These are sheet weaver spiders and they are quite abundant this year!

This one is a high achiever!

 I can imagine this web as the setting for some children's story about a spider, since it looks very home-y and inviting.  If you're a spider.....otherwise I guess it's more like a Brothers Grimm children's story.

The owl hasn't been hanging around much lately, at least not during daylight when the birds would alert us, but I did find a calling card in the grass.  I just love the tawny, rusty colors.

Andy completed a four day clean out of the lower barn.  It was quite overdue but first the skidsteer needed repair necessitating dismantling many components and installing new parts (which we were lucky to find considering how old it is), then the tractor needed some parts, and finally the manure spreader needed parts too!  And of course none of it was on a shelf somewhere - each thing had to be ordered and 'we can get it in tomorrow or Monday' which required extra trips to town.  Thankfully, the sheep were still on pasture during those 4 days so there wasn't any shuffling from pen to pen required.

But.

The rain we did get wasn't enough by any means to reverse the drought and so the flock was confined to the barn/barnyard/feedbunk complex and put on dry hay starting last weekend.  To say they weren't happy is to put it mildly.  The hay is leftover from last year - not unwholesome but tired and not as nutritious as it once was - but it will work as a maintenance diet since we aren't feeding lambs or moms needing to put condition back on.  Thank goodness we don't have a bunch of lambs to try and give really good nutrition to - we'd be buying something.  The sheep complained loud and long and ran to the gate anytime we went into the barn but after much grumbling and a few days time they settled into the new routine.  We hope it won't be more than a few weeks and that we don't have to dip into the new hay in August.  That is ALL needed for winter, especially since getting any second cutting is looking pretty iffy.

The old ewes get a separate pen where we can feed grain, alfalfa pellets and some of this year's hay on the ground so it's easy to eat.  They might have a couple of full mouths of teeth between them all.  :-/

We're using the 'picnic area' out in the feedbunk which gives more room for everyone.

And having more bodies outside and fewer inside keep the barn as airy and ventilated as possible when it's in the 90s as it is now.

While Andy did the grunt work in the lower barn I've kept plenty busy in the wool shop.  I've gotten out  over a dozen more reserved fleeces in the last few weeks as well as the occasional order for roving or a few pounds of raw Cotswold, and I've still managed to get fiber washed and dyed to send to the mill to be processed into roving.  This is going to be new batches of Wine Country, Blue Jeans and the black and white fiber is a combo of black alpaca and white Cotswold lamb which will give some pleasant shade of gray (I'm not real picky there - I'm sure it will be nice!).

There's been blessed little knitting going on here but I have been listening to books while I worked.  I've gotten through The Ridge which was interesting and had some plot twists I wasn't expecting.  Then I went to Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children and immediately followed it with the second book of the trilogy, Hollow City.  I'm loving this series!  The action is fast, the characters are interesting (besides the obvious peculiarities, like being invisible or having a swarm of bees live inside you) and the language is rich and satisfying.  I'm dying to listen to the third book but the library doesn't have it to download as an audio book yet.  Curses.   I'll have to see if it's available on CDs instead.  I must find out what happens!

Joining in with Ginny.....

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.