Plop, Plop, Fizz, Fizz..

Oh what a relief it is.
The first day of lambing is so exciting and the last day of lambing is a relief.
Although, I’m not quite sure that lambing is over, but we’ll see …

Patchwork AnnieRose jumped into third place with twin ewes by Wicked Child Sten. Both have ice blue eyes. Dahlia is four horned and Elowen is two horned.

Patchwork Ripley is a small ewe and a first time lamber. She is a great mother and doesn’t let her size keep her from being fiercely protective of her Belle Ridge Excelsior son, Ferris.

Holly fell behind again in the running as Patchwork Sylvie came in at fifth place with twin lilac ewes by Excelsior. Sadly one lamb wasn’t strong and wasn’t able to thrive. I named her Hope which, after two years of getting bit in the butt by hope, probably wasn’t a great idea. But I am grateful to have her 4 horned twin sister, Garland.

Future finished in sixth place (and Holly falls into last place) with twin ewes by Excelsior, including a four horned lilac ewe. I was really hoping for a lilac lamb from Future to get some of the Broken O Melodie daughters represented in my lilacs. Future’s sire is a lilac carrier, so I had my fingers crossed. Welcome to Indigo and Joslyn.

Future loves her lambs

AND the grand finale… Holly finally lambs with twin lilacs, a four horned ram and a two horned ewe by Sten – worth the wait!. I’ve never seen twins born in such rapid succession. The second twin’s feet were on the way out as the first one hit the ground. First time lamber, Holly, was not confused and quickly cleaned and fed her new lambs, Krista and Logan

Two and three…

Despite Holly being anticipated to be the first to lamb, she has now lost her chance at first or second. I think she finds it amusing to be frustrating.

Gleann Ull Lyla lambed while I was watching Holly. Lyla was fine without me hovering (she probably prefers it!)
These are the first lambs by Belle Ridge Excelsior and I am pleased.

Patchwork Barley

I’m still sticking with the A, B, C …. naming theme, but it may change. His name is Barley because he’s barely – get it?

Patchwork Colter has plenty of color. He’s quite the handsome boy with all the right markings. While the JSBA standard is flexible on markings, I still love to see all the standard markings. I just read a Colter Shaw book, so the name stuck in my mind. I hope he won’t be quite as adventurous.

Definitely not a baby, this garter snake was visiting today. He’s a big one!

The crawfish didn’t want me to mess with the creek, but I needed to fix the intake hose going to the sheep. He gave up his antagonistic pose and buried himself. It is amazing how fast a crawfish can bury itself.

It begins…

I have two ewes that I don’t have a breeding date for. During shearing, Al said “this one is going to be first”. And I agreed. Since she was one of the two and she has quite a bit of udder development (photo from nine days ago) and today was 147 days from the day the rams were introduced, I’ve been keeping a close eye on Holly.

I’ve been watching her during the night on the barn cam since day 145 so I wasn’t surprised to see that Holly hadn’t lambed this morning.

I was surprised to see that the other ewe without a date was in the process of lambing! Patchwork Poppy had no trouble at all delivering her handsome son sired by Wicked Child Sten – even with those horn buds!

The last few years I’ve named lambs in alphabetical order trying to find a theme based on the dam’s name. I don’t know if I’ll do that this year. But for now, this boy is Patchwork Arden. Arden has nothing to do with Poppy, but rhymes with garden, so that’s close enough for me.
Poppy is a very enthusiastic cleaner and Arden was not allowed to dine until she was satisfied that he was clean enough. I don’t worry when a ewe moves away from a newborn lamb while she is cleaning it. She was still doing some touch up cleaning while he checking for breakfast. He got it right a few minutes later.

Cleaned and fed, Arden shows the cool offset large muzzle patch of both his parents.

Arden’s birth fleece is an example of an open birth fleece with pink skin showing through the curls. You can also see some of the primitive birth hairs which will shed out.

Holly is still under observation. She can be ornery and I expect she is waiting for a more inconvenient time to lamb.

Lambing approaches

Wednesday (oops, Thursday – time flies) was shearing day. Thanks again to Al Potter of Merciful Hearts Shearing. It was a pleasant day with perfect weather, good company, and (mostly) polite sheep. I even managed to catch one sheep with my new shepherd’s crook. To be honest, she was just standing there and made no attempt to escape, but still – don’t knock the small victories.

It was a short breeding season as I didn’t want to drag out lambing. I started the fall by thinking I wouldn’t breed any ewes. Then decided to breed five ewes. And finally just tossed all ten ewes in with the rams. Of the ten, seven are definitely bred, one is definitely not, one is probably bred, and one is too early to be sure.

Gleann Ull Lyla is one that is definitely bred. She should have the first Belle Ridge Excelsior lambs somewhere around April 6

I knew Patchwork Holly was pregnant as I’d checked her udder a few weeks ago. I never saw her bred so don’t have a date – but I’d say she’s going to be the first for Wicked Child Sten lambs. Every time I looked out there, she was beating him up. I guess it was a short romance.

I have Patchwork Sylvie down for another three weeks with Excelsior lambs. She may pop!

Patchwork Diva is uncertain. Her due date wouldn’t be until early May. She’s a small girl. After shearing she is mostly head and horns.

The boys have nothing to do now until next fall.

Spring!

My thoughts on winter are no secret. I’m ready for it to be over the day it starts. Spring 2024 is bittersweet without Dave here to share it with me, but is welcome being that I don’t have to haul firewood anymore!

Daffodils are always the first flowers to bloom, starting the first or second week of February and continuing to bloom for about a month.

The periwinkles are just now blooming.

The lizards are starting to change from dreary winter brown to their summer green.

I saw the first bluebird today.

Mud is not my favorite sign of spring even though I appreciate the spring rains. I’d rather have mud than dust, but it would be nice to have spread out that 4″ of rain over a few days.

AND my favorite sign of spring – lamb bellies! AnnieRose has over a month until lambing, but she’s already got a bit of a waddle.

Looking About

A sunny day after a week of cold, overcast, and damp days was a treat and I enjoyed just looking about the farm. I’m ready for winter to be over. WHAT? It hasn’t even started yet? Well darn.

This big fat Southern Toad was happily sitting on my steps. He didn’t mind me stepping over him.

This really tiny guy was in the road by my mailbox. He was safely moved to the grass. He has a bright red belly, so I’m going to guess he’s a Redbelly snake. It’s hard to pick up such a tiny snake – he was so wiggly, but so tiny I was afraid I might hurt him. He made it.

This Fence Lizard is a little different from our usual Anoles. I think he (she?) is pretty cool – and very fast!

I wasn’t too pleased to come across this Joro Spider. Although they are reputed to eat stink bugs, they also take over from our native orb-weavers. But they are pretty.

What’s NOT for dinner? Although I’m not completely sure, I think this is a death cap mushroom.

Bugs, Boys, and Life Goes On..

The loss of my husband/soul mate/best friend of almost 40 years in early July was devastating, even if it was not unexpected. Life will never be the same, but it will go on.

Life abounds around the farm.
I cut down thistles except for this patch at the end of the driveway. I love seeing the pollinators at work.

It’s not too soon to start thinking about new life next spring. Belle Ridge Excelsior is a handsome four horned lilac boy from Belle Ridge Farm in Excelsior Springs in MO.
He has the horn formation that I really like in a ram, along with a lovely fleece and quiet temperament. He even goes back (way back) to my Patchwork Abraham via Oregon and California.

I had planned for Ex to be my only ram as it will be a small group of ewes this year. But when I saw this lilac boy at Wicked Child Farm in Toccoa GA (just down the road from me), I couldn’t resist. I seldom use a two horned ram, so you know I think this guy is pretty spectacular. Welcome to Wicked Child Sten. Sten also sports a Patchwork ancestor (Patchwork Finalist and also way back) via some Washington bloodlines. It’s fun to see Patchwork show up when I pick a ram.

F, G, H, I

As our reduced lambing season comes to an end (barring surprises), we meet the next four in the alphabet soup of the 2023 lambing year

Springrock Mission spent lambing eve in a clean and nicely bedded barn, but a wind storm brought down a large branch next to the barn. It didn’t do any damage, but must have spooked the ewes as the gate was pushed open. Taking advantage of more options for lambing sites, Mission chose the compost pile. She had her work cut out for her!

Happily she is a diligent cleaner and her two ewe lambs by Meridian Gold Rush were soon sparkly clean.

I had expected there to be many choices for “woman with a mission” names. It turned out to be harder than I thought when restricted to F and G.

Meet Florence (Nightingale)

And (Germaine) Greer.

Gleann Ull Lyla lambed a couple of days later. It was the kind of lambing I like – “oh look, she has lambs.” Last year Lyla’s lambs got space names, Quasar and Ripley, just because I liked the names. This was getting harder and harder! Lyla means dark beauty, but that didn’t give me many choices if I was going to go with themes related to the dam’s name. So I stepped back a generation and went with Lyla’s dam, Rosemary, for inspiration.

Meet Heather

And Ivy

Those pesky horns

This post was first published in 2019. I’m republishing some posts because I’m too lazy to write new ones 😀

Trimming horns is a question that comes up with talking about Jacob Sheep. Often the question focuses on ewe laterals which can spend a few months going any which way. Should I trim? How should I trim? Where should I trim?

Luna was kind enough to donate a large top horn for educational purposes. This is the second top horn she has lost. To be honest, I didn’t much care for the growth pattern of her top horns and I didn’t shed any tears over the breaks. While not growing in a pattern I liked, they were definitely very strong horns and the breaks were accompanied by copious amounts of blood (not pictured). While these were breaks and not trims, the horn I saved serves well to illustrate what lies beneath the surface.

Luna – one broken – one to go

In this picture, she is a few months past the break of her right top horn and a month or so before the left horn break. You can see the strong regrowth of the first horn. Note the folded look to the left top.

The broken
horn

She was 8 months old when she lost this second top.

The other side of the horn

Note the folded area. This is not a fused horn. This is normal folding of the keratin before the core comes in. The folds are on one side only. There is no core or blood supply under the folds.

The core area measures 1 1/4″. You could safely cut to that point without hitting blood.

A Walkabout

After an expected (and unwelcome) five days of daily trips off the farm, it was good to have a more relaxed schedule and catch up on some chores.

No laundry photos, although that took some catching up!

My stone garden path needed some serious weed eating so I could walk comfortably to my daylily bed. They are just starting to bloom.
This was the first one to bloom

And this one just bloomed today. Lots more buds waiting to open!

I found one bud nibbled and I think this lovely girl might be enjoying a daylily treat. I hope it was a one time thing.

I don’t do many ornamentals, but I also enjoy my hostas. So does this thoughtful guy.

I had some time to check fence so the sheep could do some weed eating of their own. Although dock is considered a weed, it is nutritious and the sheep love it.

The butterfly weed is appropriately named (but the bees like it, too)

Staycation

I’ve never really understood the term staycation. I guess it means time off from an off site job where you stay home instead of spending six weeks in the Turks and Caicos? I have to admit that six weeks in the Turks and Caicos (before it was popular) was fun, but so is staying home.
There is much to see when checking fence lines and doing chores.

I love these “Woody Woodpecker” Pileated Woodpeckers!

“Woody” is a good wood chipper

Not for the squeamish so I won’t post all the photos, but it was pretty amazing to watch Malcolm, our resident rat snake, swallow something bigger than his head.

The mountain laurel (ivy) is blooming

And I have Sylvie’s lovely fleece to play with. Home is the best place to be.