Quartz & Friends

I was right when I said that Theresa and Gunpowder's lamb(s) would be cute!

Quartz

Quartz (with Olivine)

She's not the only cute lamb, although most of the lambs are starting to look a little more like big sheep (especially Galena and Zircon, who unfortunately, I don't have pictures of today).

Olivine, Quartz, Feldspar, & Chert

Olivine (with the back of a very dirty Feldspar!)

Granite

Muddy

It's been raining a lot here recently, and there's quite a bit of mud--on sheep.  I'm not complaining.  Our pastures really needed the rain, and mud, unlike hay, does wash out of fleeces. 

Feldspar: A little ball of mud.

Peat's dark fleece hides the mud.

Warm rainy weather means another thing for sheep farmers: internal parasites.  (Sheep, and especially lambs, can die from parasites so we take them seriously around here.  Even so, we don't worm on a regular schedule; we have fecal samples tested and worm as needed.) We took fecal samples to the vet last week.  (Sheep farming is glamorous, I know!)  Only the lambs needed wormed this time around.  Calico tried to tell us otherwise.  Oddly enough, she does love wormer--or anything in a drencher.

Claiming she has worms: Calico

On a less gross note: everything is looking greener.

Barack O'Llama, Snowball, & Filly

(Briefly) Homeless Chickens

When we went to the pasture this morning, we found this:

Even though there had been a storm, we were surprised.  It didn't seem that bad.  Fortunately, all the chickens were okay (even the mostly-blind rooster) and the coop itself sustained little damage. 

Tonight, we Barack O'Llama and Snowball fixed the coop. 

Now the chicken coop is ready to go!  I think the chickens are excited.