Heat Wave

We humans have been enjoying the warm temperatures here.  The sheep have not.  It's like being heavily pregnant and wearing five wool sweaters and a windbreaker.  The ewes spend most of their time seeking out shade and lazing about. 

Calico's personal shady spot is between the mineral feeder and the barn.  Every time I've been outside in the past few days, she's been there.  Unless, of course, it's feeding time.  Then she is at the feeder.  This is Calico we're talking about after all.

"There's only room for me here." Calico

The chicken coop is a favorite shady spot.  Usually, there are quite a few sheep around it.  Today, however, Hazel was taking up nearly all the shade.  Hazel is getting enormous.  We're not sure if it's all wool or if Hazel's pregnant.  (More about that in a later post.)

Hazel is filling out the largest sheep coat we have.

Most of the other ewes have been hanging out in the barn.  Poor Elsie was so hot today that we took pity on her and turned on the fan.  Doesn't she look happy?

The fan keeps you cool and makes you look glamorous.

Filly liked it, too.

Filly might be shy but she certainly is a ham.

Everyone here is looking forward to shearing day!

5 1/2 Weeks to Go: Sandy, the Mother Sheep

I've gotten tired of typing "almost three years-old" so I thought I'd write about Sandy this week.  Sandy is almost nine years-old.  She'll be having her 100th lamb this year --just kidding!  She's had at least 9 lambs-- including last year's lamb, Almond.  She is the grandmother or great-grandmother of most of our original seven sheep and their lambs.  In other words, Sandy has experience.

Sandy is the leader of the flock, keeping her undersheeps in line with a lift of her foreleg.  When the other ewes are butting heads and otherwise acting scrappy, Sandy does not participate.  Everyone already knows she's the boss.  Even Barack O'Llama.  Sometimes.  She's also calm for a sheep, which is a really good quality when the other sheep are taking cues from her.

The sheep in charge: Sandy

Last year, we were fooled by Sandy's ample belly.  We were convinced that she would be having multiples, but she gave birth to a single white ram, Almond.  He struggled a bit in the beginning because Sandy had so much milk.

Last year's lamb: Almond

Almond is now one of two wethers (castrated males) who keep our ram company.  His fleece is keeping him in the pasture and off the table for now. He looks a lot like his mama!

Almond, almost grown-up

Sandy is looking quite round again this year, but now I know that she looks round throughout most of the year.  I will not get too excited.

Breakout

 Some loud baaing woke us this morning, and when we went outside, we found the ewes out of the barn.  They weren't out of the field, just out of the barn, and their llama was with them.  Hopefully, they won't try it during lambing season.

Was the mastermind Calico or Czadas?

Another exciting weekend event: Filly tried her first peanut.  She's so shy that we thought it might never happen.

Crunch!

 Barack thinks the most important weekend event was his (ahem) new hay bale.

"I know it's a present for me because it is still wrapped!"

 His proof?  Even the neighbors were excited.

Moo.

6 Weeks to Go: All about Elsie!

Elsie is our Icelandic-Shetland cross.  She and Hazel are half-sisters, on their Shetland side.

Sisters Hazel & Elsie

 Elsie is a big girl, and she's quite the stunner.  She's the second in command, after Sandy.  She is very alert.  Although generally friendly, she is hard to catch--not only is she fast, but she is strong as well. 

 Like everyone else so far, Elsie is almost three years-old.    Last year, she gave birth to twins: a black ram (Pecan) and a mioget (light brown) ewe (Pistachio).  She did a great job lambing, but she was a bit freaked out afterwards.  It didn't help that Calico kept trying to steal her lambs.

Last year's lambs: Pecan & Pistachio

Elsie with Pistachio.  Pecan is in the boy field.

Any guesses for Elsie?  I think I can see a rounded belly under all that wool!

Sled Riding with Llamas

Meanwhile, in the back field....

Snowball, with snow

We decided to risk sledding in the back field rather than attempting the cow pasture.  This guy was standing there:

Giant cranky bull.  Eek.

Gunpowder*, Pecan, and Sally were too busy eating to notice that anything was happening.  Almond looked at us carefully and had a sheepy look of concentration come over his face, as if he was considering joining in the fun.

Almond is thinking hard.

Snowball ate for awhile, inspected the sledding hill, ...

Llama crossing.

... and kept me company.

Keeping me safe from the crazy sledders.

*Although Gunpowder is small, cute, and often silly, we wouldn't have allowed any sledding to occur had he not been preoccupied.  He is a ram, and any type of male farm animal should be taken seriously.  Our children are definitely not permitted in either pasture without one of us.

Gunpowder looks less scary than the bull, but...

Snow Day: Front Field

We woke up to six inches of snow this morning.  It's by far the most snow we've had in the ten years I've lived here.

Barack is excited to see us.

The chickens didn't know what to think.  Some of them didn't want to come out.  The others attempted to fly over the snow.  Although quite a few of them are excellent vertical flyers, none of them are too skilled at horizontal flying.  There were a lot of wipe-outs.

"Nope, not coming out."

We made Snackman the Snowman for Barack O'Llama.  All of the accessories are things he generally likes to eat, like peanuts, carrots, and pine tree twigs.  He, however, was not terribly impressed.

Maybe he should have been llama-shaped...

Sandy was the first ewe out of the barn this morning.  She has a bit more experience than the other ewes with this kind of thing.  The others followed cautiously. 

Sandy, the leader of the flock.

Elvira wasn't far behind.

Henrietta had a little bit more trouble getting around than some of the bigger girls, but she managed to come running for peanuts.

Henrietta: speedy sheep.

They all eat snow.  (The snow goatees make it obvious.)

Elvira, Filly, & Elsie.  Filly is sporting a snow goatee.

But Elvira and Peanut preferred clean snow.

Yum.

Lucky Boys

It is a bit of a miracle that Colonel Brandon, our blind rooster, made it back out of the chicken feeder.  He's a pretty lucky guy all around, though.

 Almond should be feeling extremely fortunate.  The hot pink feeder is Snowball's (our first two llamas were girls, so our current boy llamas must eat out of hot pink feeders).  If it were another llama (ahem) or if Snowball wasn't feeling forgiving, it wouldn't have ended quite so well. 

7 1/2 Weeks to Go: Meet Tricot!

Tricot is one of the three Shetland ewes we brought home in October.  Tricot is all black.  She's almost three years-old, and this will be her first year having a lamb.

Tricot

Tricot has a bit of a nervous disposition.  She ground her teeth the whole way home, and for the first few days,  she stuck close to Czadas.  Tricot is becoming mellower, and she's been spending more and more time with the rest of the flock.  Despite her nervousness, Tricot is not shy at all.  She comes right up to us for treats, and she will even beg for treats...although she sometimes looks a bit awkward when she does. 

When this begging face doesn't work...

...she tries this one.

"Hmm, why is everyone else back there?"

Any guesses for Tricot?  I think there's a 100% chance of black!

Filberta's Busy Weekend

Filberta (a.k.a. Filly) posed for a picture.  The other lambs try to nibble on the camera, but Filly knows what to do. 

A bit later, she tried to crawl under the chicken coop.  Hazel, her mother, was not impressed.

Scott went into the barn to gather lambing supplies so we could do an inventory.  All of the other sheep ran to the barn just in case he was getting food.  Filly was not fooled.  She sat in the pasture by herself, chewing her cud.  (It's not that she doesn't love food; she's the loudest female baa-er at their morning mealtimes.)

Good news: We found nothing shocking or horrible in the storage room (yet...we still need to go through the towels and the heat lamps).  Even though it's on the early side, Scott decided to do an udder check.  Remember what I said about Macadamia during udder checks? (If you don't read the second paragraph here.)