Still Trying to Catch Up

Well, the major portion of this year's lambing is complete. We bred about 65 ewes - Polypays, Coopworths, and Shetlands with a few terminals and one Clun Forest thrown in for good measure. We have over 90 lambs on the ground, about a 50 - 50 split between rams and ewes, five ewes yet to lamb, about five who look as though they were not bred. Of course, they have until early June (technically) to lamb, so maybe those five who have not bagged up will lamb very late. We put all five breeding groups together at the same time last fall and all five rams settled the majority of their ewes within their first cycle - meaning 85 percent of the girls lambed within the first 17 days of lambing season. A very hectic 17 days, but it got it over with.

Lambing went fairly smoothly - I assisted with a few deliveries - one girl wasn't lambing fast enough the day of the FFA banquet, so I nudged her along a bit with a gentle tug on her big single.

One of my best moms (Cappuccino - Shetland ewe), decided this year, that since she was about to go into labor, she would try to steal someone else's lambs. She has never been a problem for me, but this year she chased one poor lamb all over creation until I corralled her in a private pen where she delivered the first of twins just before I wanted to call it a night. Then she presented the head of the second and continued cleaning off the first. Apparently one was enough for her this year, as she ceased trying to deliver the second. Thinking that maybe the second delivery was too hard for her, as the front legs appeared to be back, I gave a gentle tug on him. Well, he "splooshed" right out - I guess Cappuccino only wanted a single this year - maybe she thought if she didn't deliver the second, he would just go away. Actually, she is normally the most laid back mom I have ever seen in the pasture. She has delivered a lamb backwards, no problems. She always twins and, although her lambs are always the "rebellious" ones, she usually has her head in the feeder until you ask "where are your lambs?" and she looks around like she's just remembered she's a mom. But her lambs thrive. Probably because her milk is good since she has no nervous issues.

I do have five bottle lambs this year - five too many. I have two sets of twins whose moms just do not have enough (or any) milk. Both moms are already on the "cull" list. And I have a triplet - born in the wee hours of the morning, Larry discovered them when he went out to the barn very early about a week into lambing. I was still in bed, as it was a Saturday and my intent was to sleep in a bit. He woke me to let me know I had a lamb to tube. So he brought her into the kitchen, near death, very dirty. This is what she looked like after I fed her:


That is our Lab mix, Kipper, being the good mom and cleaning her off (she was the cleanest lamb you have ever seen when he was done). Well, I got a few ounces into her, popped her into the playpen and went back to bed. Unfortunately, since Kipper claimed her and I fed her, Mom would not take her back. But "Spot" is our pet now and follows Kipper all over the yard. She tries to nurse off of him, tries to jump up on his back if he sits down. He hangs his head and gives me this look as if to say, "Mom, do I have to put up with my little sister? She's so annoying!" But he did a good job - I think she looks a lot perkier now:

Yes, she has a black eye patch and, no, we weren't very original in naming her "Spot"!

So, now I am attempting to get back to the rest of life as we wait for the stragglers to lamb. I am still trying to catch up on dishes - although I have actually done a little bit of cooking again (during the first 17 days, we ate fast food and sandwiches mostly) - laundry doesn't suffer too much during lambing, as Nicholas has to have clean clothes to wear to school, so I'm sort of forced to take care of that. The playpen is still up in the kitchen, just in case we have any more lambs that need to come in for 24 hours. That will stay up until the last ewe lambs. I did vacuum the living room last weekend, as Nicholas was having a friend over. But the rest of the house looks like a tornado has gone through. That's why I'm blogging - so I don't have to look at the mess and contemplate cleaning it up! I think I'll go out and admire the lambs now!

Finally, Another Shetland

This is the little girl that greeted me just before I went to bed last night:

The best shot I could get this morning, as Abra (her mom) was being the typical Shetland and not letting me get near her. Of course, that's what I like about the Shetlands - their primitive responses to things like lambing. Don't let anyone with a camera get close to your lambs! The lamb looks to be grey yuglet katmoget - sired by Psalm 23 Edinburagh, now gone from the farm, as he tried to kill one of his ewes last fall.

Now to finish my cup of coffee and back outside. We had a set of Coopworth twins early this morning and I want to check on them. One of our Polypays is soon to lamb. And Nutmeg, another of our Shetlands, had a difficult lambing this morning - I ended up having to corral her and pull the lamb. Lamb is a ewe (I think) and appears to be nursing, but Nutmeg is very skittish and I wanted to back off and let them do their thing without me hovering. I thought that was a good excuse to come in for a few minutes and have my first cup of the morning.

Busy, Busy, Busy

We are just over a week into lambing and we have 35 lambs on the ground. 21 ewes have lambed, with 44 (I think - I have a tendency to lose track at this point and the farm records are on another part of the computer, so I'm winging it here) yet to go. The majority of these lambs are Polypay, Coopworth and crosses. Here's one little guy - or gal - I can't tell from this angle:



This little one was either just getting up from a nap on Mom's back or is using her as a springboard in a game of lamb tag. It's very hard to get action shots, in the barn, at dusk. This was the best I could do.

Nap time in the nursery - our only colored Coopworth lamb so far this year - I can tell you that this one is a little ewe:

And another nap group, this time being watched over by Mom.

So far, only one Shetland lamb. This is Maia's little moorit ewe:

So far, it has all gone fairly smoothly. I do have one set of twins with a good mom, but she doesn't seem to have enough milk, so I have been supplementing them. And on Saturday, when I thought I was going to sleep in a bit, Larry woke me at about 5:30 to let me know that one of the ewes had triplets - two were with her in the barn, one was out in the barnyard. She lost count, apparently, and one was in need of tubing. So I threw my coveralls on over my pajamas and tube fed a lamb on the kitchen floor. She revived, but Mom would not take her back, so she is a full-time bottle lamb. Cute little thing, with a black eye patch. She lived in the "playpen" in the kitchen for about 24 hours - now she is in the nursery with the other moms and babies. I'll try to get a picture of her on here the next time.

Back out to check on sheep again now and do mid-morning chores. Or maybe one more cup of coffee!?!?

Lambs

First lambs, born last night between 7:30 (when we noticed she was in labor) and 10:30 (when I decided she was only having twins and they were both nursing). Purebred Polypays. You can see one nicely - only the nose of the other one.

Second lambs, born this morning - around 10:30. Clun Forest x Polypay. I think she was only having twins - once I got her in the jug, she refused to turn around for me so I could check to see if more were on the way. She is very skittish and I don't like stressing her too much when she is in that tiny space with new lambs - so I try to stay out of her way. Fortunately, she is one of the best moms in the pasture, so I don't worry about her too much.

So, two jugs full - many more to go!

No Pictures of Spring Break

Spring break was last week. We took five days and went to San Francisco. We took some really nice pictures and I wanted to show you some of them. However, they were taken with our new camera, which has a much higher resolution than the one I use to take pictures for the blog and the web site. And, since we have dial-up, it was taking forever trying to get them loaded. So I'll just hit on the high points -


We stayed right in the Fisherman's Wharf district - very nice. We rode cable cars and trolleys. One cable car we took to the cable car museum, where we saw the continuously running cables that make the cable cars move. When we attempted to get back on a cable car to continue on our way, they were very crowded, so we decided to walk for awhile. We ended up in Chinatown. I'm glad the cable car was crowded. Chinatown was fascinating - all the shop signs were in Chinese with no English translations. We turned down a little alley and found a little "factory" making fortune cookies (it's actually written up in all the guide books, but I had sort of forgotten about it until we came upon it). I had a nice picture of Chinatown to insert here, but too many pixels.


We took a ferry to Alcatraz - the night tour (meaning we took the ferry over about 6:30 and returned to Fisherman's Wharf around 9:00 for a late supper - I think Nicholas really wanted to take the NIGHT tour, so he could look for the ghosts he had seen on "Ghost Hunters"). Very interesting place, kind of depressing, though - although I guess that was the whole point in putting the prison there. I had pictures of that too.


In Golden Gate Park, we stopped by the Academy of Sciences, where we took in the Planetarium show. We had tea at the Japanese Tea Garden (Nicholas took a perfect picture of the tea garden framed by gorgeous flowers - rhododendrons, maybe - too many pixels).


One morning we took a cab out to the San Francisco end of the famous bridge (picture of that too that you are not seeing). I took pictures at Fort Point, pictures of Sausalito and Alcatraz Island across the Bay, pictures of the Pacific on the other side of the bridge. Lots of pictures, as we walked all the way back to the hotel - must have been 10 miles or so - just kidding - it was probably only 3 or 4 miles. We visited the USS Hornet, had ice cream at Ghirardelli's, saw the port of Oakland - one of the coolest things was just before we landed back in Milwaukee - our flight followed I-94 and I got a picture of Johnson Creek and even saw our farm from the plane (although, in all honesty, the picture of the farm didn't turn out, so you aren't missing a picture of that).


We ate lots of good food, although I didn't take pictures of that, so nothing missing there - salmon, clams, calamari, dungeness crab - we had an absolutely fantastic lunch at a little hole-in-the-wall Japanese restaurant - Kitchen Kura, I think it was called - probably a few health code violations there - but I actually ate my whole meal with chopsticks - they didn't offer stainless (although we did get Nicholas a fork so, as Larry put it, he wouldn't starve to death). We actually do have a picture of the outside of the restaurant, but - oh, you know by now. And I made it to one yarn store - no pictures, but I do have a picture of the yarn I bought - I took that after we got home with my very old, 1.3 mega pixel camera!



Lambing should start any day now. Hopefully not tonight, as we are getting rain at the moment, which sounds like it is turning to sleet and is predicted to turn to snow before morning. I'll try to blog once in awhile after the lambs start arriving.

I Guess I am "Blogger Challenged"

I would just like to say that the weird double spacing I sometimes get in my posts (see the post below) are not of my doing. I don't know why it appears that way and, although it bothers the perfectionist side of me, it does not bother it enough that I want to figure out how to fix it. It just bothers me enough that I need to point out to you that I did not pick that particular layout on purpose. Thank you for listening.

What Happened to February???

Here it is, the middle of March, and I haven't posted since January! What in the world happened to February? I know I was here - I watched the Olympics. And I did knit during the Olympics, although I never really got myself signed up for any of the Knitting Olympic events that were going on. I signed up for Ravelympics, but after popping over to their website, was a bit confused and never made it back to figure out how to really participate. But I did finish this scarf, which I had put aside before the holidays to work on holiday knitting -

I thought it fit right in with the Olympics, as it was knit up in the colors that were on all the bibs that the athletes wore and adorned the banners along the sidelines of the events. I'm not sure what they called their colors, but mine are Toe Jamz "Lavender & Sage" and Dream in Color Smooshy "Some Summer Sky". Pattern, "Chevron Scarf" from the book "Last Minute Knitted Gifts" by Joelle Hoverson. I made my scarf much shorter than the pattern, as I just wanted to hang it over my neck, not loop it all around - an advantage of being short, less yarn used on a scarf! And I have enough of both yarns left that I could do socks to match.

Although the Olympics are no longer a timely subject, I just wanted to say that I thought Vancouver did a lovely job - I would very much like to visit someday, so their tourism board was successful in this household. And I noticed that Canadians all seem to know the words to their national anthem. And they sing it out proudly. Why don't we do that in this country? I suspect that most of us don't really know the words to our national anthem - my excuse is the wide range of notes and my really lousy singing voice. It's quite embarrassing to try to hit those high notes of "the rockets' red glare" when no one else in your part of the stadium is doing more than, maybe, moving their lips. If you need to refresh your memory, or if you want to read the history of our national anthem, see here.

In other news: Well, there really isn't much "other news". February was a quiet month. My excuse for being lazy - resting up for shearing in March and lambing starting in April. We shear next week - lots of rain lately, but fortunately most of the sheep are smart enough to go into their barns/shelters when it is pouring. I was out yesterday feeling of fleeces and they were fairly dry. We now have forecast several dry sunny days before the shearer arrives. If that changes, I will be locking them into their shelters.

Here are some pics of the Shetland girls still in full fleece - can't wait to get those fleeces on the skirting table!

Gaia is the grey ewe with the dark stripe down her back - her fleece is always lovely.

The big news yesterday - I am now officially a "Loopy Groupie"! I not only scored a skein of the Sanguine Gryphon's Bugga Sock yarn (that was what I ordered, it's the dark yarn on the right - the rest is Loopy loot), but I received my Loopy Groupie welcome pack, full of lots of nice gifts. Thank you, Sheri!

Well, Nicholas has a cold and he has just informed me, that in spite of the fact that doing chores would allow him to drive the riding lawn mower around the property, he does not feel up to doing them. So I guess I better have another cup of coffee and maybe a long john and get my own self out there to feed the sheep. At least the hoses are again connected and I don't have to haul endless buckets of water out to them.