Heartbreak and Disappointment

I wasn't going to get my hopes up this time. I knew it could go either way, all I really wanted was a respectable showing - not a blow out.  But when the Vikings had possession with under a minute left in the NFC Championship game, and all they needed was a field goal, I really thought they would win and be on their way to the Super Bowl.  And then came the 12 men in the huddle penalty and then even worse, the interception that put the game into overtime.  Oh yes, heartbroken again!  Thankfully there are lots of other exciting things in life to concentrate on until the sting goes away...

The disappointment in my title comes from Greyson's fleece.  I parted it a week or so ago and found the dreaded cream colored band at the base that is characteristic of his Ag genetics.  I can only hope that it's just a seasonal band and his fleece will retain at least some of his beautiful grey color as it grows out.  I know that is wishful thinking.  But I can hope.  Just like Vikings fans keep hoping that someday, maybe someday we will get to the big one and win it. :-)

A Serendipitous Typo

It's another cold morning here in Mora (-17F), but things are finally supposed to warm up in the coming days - yay! 
I have to feed the sheep and then get on the road to my first Minnesota Lamb and Wool Producers meeting, 116 miles away.
Just wanted to share what I found when I went to check my Gmail account for messages.  I inadvertently typed in gamil.com.  There I found a blog with wonderful cut paper art and a cool video. I love pop-up artwork - so this was like a treat from the universe to me. For those of you who never make typos, here's a link.  Enjoy!

http://www.gamil.com/

I'm adding it to my blog list. :-)

Welcome to 2010! Goodbye 2009

Well here we are at the start of a new year!  I always love New Year's Day because it's time to start over and get organized, clear out the clutter of  the previous year.  Time to start fresh.

BUT my goodness, it's COLD out there!  We had -22F this morning and we got up to +2F this afternoon, the forecast is for -26F tonight.  The sheep take it in stride, in fact the ewes have been kicking up their heels quite a bit lately.  So far the chickens and the geese are taking it well too. Last night was the first time I've closed up the chicken's barn all winter.

Diamond and Opal, two BFL/Shetland cross ewe lambs, left this afternoon to go live in Alexandria, MN -- it's even colder there!  Mabeline will join them on Thursday.  She's Opal's mother and Diamond's grandmother. I'm glad to see her go to a good home with other sheep in her line. She's my last white Shetland ewe. I always loved the fact that she rooed easily and carries spots and is an all around friendly sheep with great fleece. 
I'll probably be in the market for a polled white ram lamb next summer to use on my Shetland ewes next fall. Preferably one who carries moorit, modified genetics and spots and has a low micron 3-5" staple.  It goes without saying that he would need excellent conformation too.

I've got all my rams together again and I'm hoping Greyson (the Shetland ram lamb) will be okay.  We've still got open ewes cycling in another pasture and that makes the rams edgy.  Granite was really going nuts the other night.  I had him all alone for a few days but put Harwell in with him when the cold temps were setting in. Late in the afternoon of New Year's Eve Granite was really agitated.  So I decided to get Harwell out of there and let Granite cool his heels alone again.  Well, you know what they say about the best laid plans, it turned out that all the rams wound up together again. It was amazing how high Socks and Greyson leaped though the open gate to get in with Granite and Harwell. And little Greyson didn't back down from Granite this time around.  I've kept an eye on them and they seem to be getting along well now.  Finally! We have one more Shetland ram lamb to add to the group when he gets back from breeding ewes in Isanti, MN.  I'm not looking forward to that.

Shachah is doing well.  I've seen no sign of his arthritis acting up in this cold weather.  He stays with the ewes most of the time now.  I found out that he loves warm water on his dry dog food.  So usually he's happy to run to his calf hut while I follow with his food.  The blue moon we had this week made the nights so bright, I could see Shachah barking out in the moonlit, snow-covered pasture.  Not sure what he was barking at, but having him out with the ewes eases my mind.


I want to wish all my blog readers a peaceful and enlightening new year.  If you are a shepherd or an artist, I hope you create things that make YOU happy.  If your creations turn out to be what you are striving for and give you satisfaction, don't worry about what other people (or judges) think of your choices.  But always leave room to grow and change your mind as you gain experience and insight.  Life is not stagnant, it's a flowing stream.  We never know where it will take us.

Last New Year's Day I would have never imagined that we would have a big white LGD living at our house.  I would have never imagined that I would be the Secretary of the Minnesota Lamb and Wool Producers Association and the Treasurer of the Bluefaced Leicester Union of North America.  Yes, the year ahead is already full of new challenges for me, and who knows what else I'll manage to squeeze in there!  Here's a hint though, I'd really like to get some calves this spring. :-)


I'm sorry to say that I've had to enable comment moderation on this blog due to recent spamming.  I guess that's the way things go these days...

Merry Christmas!

Damian in the aftermath of gift opening this morning...

The ewes heading out when they saw me coming this morning.

Finished up Alex's handspun handknit socks this morning.  It was a good thing we got snowed in so I could finish them.  I'll put a turkey in the oven this afternoon. We've got a puzzle to work on  and of course the wet sticky snow would make a great snowman.... :-)

Here are the finished baby sweaters before I delivered them on Tuesday.

And I have to include these photos of Camille on Christmas Eve day.  She's such a ham.

Wishing everyone a very merry Christmas!

 

How can I say No?

I just can't. 

So Shachah still comes in for his daily nap.  He just wants to be part of the family too. He looks deceptively small in this photo because Ozzie's on the top step. The good thing is Shachah can't stand to stay in the house very long.

 He here is on duty this morning.

I put Greyson in with the other rams. Granite was chasing him so I tight penned the whole bunch of them overnight.  Look at how little Greyson is compared to them! (The only panel I could find for the end of the catch pen was a cut away creep feeder panel.)  I let them out this morning after taking this photo, but they are still confined in the lean-to which is 8 x 16 feet.  I'm going to run out and check on them now.  I sure wouldn't want anything to happen to Greyson, but I don't want to run three pens of sheep if I can avoid it.

Last week we lost a Barred Rock hen, of course it had to be one of the Barred Rocks, it couldn't have been one of the old girls I need to cull.  I'm pretty sure a young fox  got her. I found tracks and feathers in the snow. Usually a fox doesn't leave much of mess, just a few feathers.  But there were about three small clumps of grey feathers in this case so I figured it was one of the young foxes that mother fox raised out by the pond last summer -- you may remember that I found the kits chasing my sheep in the pasture one hot summer day.  The foxes bug Shachah at night too. He's penned with the ewes so he can't go chasing after them or protect the chicken pen, but he barks and they call back to him.

We had been gone and didn't get home until after dark.  Stan fed the sheep for me and closed up the chicken pen not realizing that FIVE hens were not inside. I'm not sure what exactly happened, the chickens always come in before dusk.  I found a Salmon Faverolle hen huddled in the snow the next morning and two Barred Rocks and a red sex-link hen in the rams hoop house.  The red hen was missing her tail feathers, which I later found in the snow too. Now my remaining 13 hens and the Shetland geese are locked up in a covered pen 24/7.

The Shetland geese seem plenty big to me. Here they are this morning.

They very seldom go into the shelters I have provided for them - only once have I seen them come out of their dog house when it was about -10F.  I bring them a fresh bucket of water every morning and evening. I have noticed the females will go inside the barn for the chickens heated water every once in a while, but the ganders stay out.

Sheep Pottery, etc.

Here's a photo of some things I wanted to share with you. First is the beautiful sheep pottery.  You may recall that I got the two sheep mugs in trade this past year and now I've been gifted with a matching pitcher!  I will get better photos later.  These were done by my friends Paul & Denise Morris.

Also notice the cute little felted baskets/bags given to me by my new friend, Bro.  The one on the left has a wire handle. They have wonderful little leather labels inside and a hang tang complete with a photo of their makers.  Very cute and a great idea for labeling.  I've been pondering how to label my felt pieces for a while now.

I finished the diagonal lace alpaca scarf a couple weeks ago. It's really long.  I don't know why I made it, I can't wear alpaca, it makes me cough.  Same thing happens when I wear angora.  I found that out way back in high school when I bought the cutest soft pink angora sweater.  Anyway, I've had this alpaca yarn for about 4-5 years so at least I've finally used it up and this scarf can be a gift or put up for sale.

And you can see in the photo, I broke down and bought myself a cute little RED poinsettia.  I always try to resist buying poinsettias at Christmas time because they never die!  I've had a plum/mauve one for a couple years now. I put it outside in the summer and it gets big and bushy.  It's blooming now too...but I wanted a real red one, so now I have yet another thing to take care of.

And last, but not least in the photo are two balls of combed top ready to be boxed and shipped out to my friend Di in New Jersey. I love that musket combed top!The white is Shetland Mule fiber (50/50 BFL and Shetland).  The Shetland mule has luster thanks to the BFL genetics.

I made jams the other day. I always freeze my raspberries in the summer and fall since I have everbearing plants. My usual raspberry jam went perfectly according to plan/recipe.  Raspberry jam is my favorite. 
But I also had odd amounts of blueberries and wild blackberries in the freezer too, not enough for a whole batch of either one, so I mixed them together and made Black and Blueberry Jam.
It turned out very tasty despite all the mistakes I made.  I couldn't believe how many things I did wrong on that batch!  I used 2.5 cups of crushed blueberries and 2 cups of crushed blackberries.  Instead of seven cups of sugar I put in NINE!  So I decided to add water - what the heck.  And then it boiled over (just took a quick glace at my email), oh my, what a mess!  But it's jelled and tastes great, so all is well in the end.

Sorry this is so short and rambling, I've got to get out and feed the sheep before I head to work.  Thankfully our temperatures have risen overnight. I don't mind the snow, in fact I love it, but the cold temps and blowing wind-- no thanks.

Collecting Data

Well, I've finally gotten a few things done around here!  The  BFL breeding groups have been broken up and the boys are back together.  Granite was kicking up his heels with the snow and cold temps this morning. He's top dog in the ram pen.

The biggest project I got done is the 2009 NA BFL Breeders Survey . This is the second year that I have collected data from North American Bluefaced Leicester breeders in an effort to determine production characteristics.  The idea sprung up on the BFL Friends list when several breeders were posting their lambing results in spring of 2008.  A small committee of new BFL breeders (Jody McLean, Linda Wendelboe and myself) developed a short questionnaire which was sent out the members of the Bluefaced Leicester Union of North America along with the Flock Book.  This year's survey was a little more involved than the first year because we included lambing data from crossing BFL sires on other breeds of ewes.  I think the results this year are very interesting and informative.  You can download results on my website, www.riveroakssheep.com  or click on the link above.


The other thing I finally finished was a basket I started way back in August of 2008.  It's been sitting around for over a year!  I can truthfully say that basket weaving is NOT for me. I never wanted to do it, but our art group was making them one day and I thought I might as well see what it was like. But I had to leave early that day and didn't finish the top edge.  It didn't take all that long to finish it up once I had it well soaked.  But still, I'll leave the basket weaving to others.

We got some snow overnight which reminded me that it's time to start thinking about Christmas. I finally dragged out the little artificial tree last night. I'll have to decorate it and the house in the coming days.



Shachah comes in for daily naps now.  However he's been taking longer and longer naps lately.  Last night with the blowing snow and dropping temps I didn't wake him to go back outside when I went to bed. Well, when Shachah wakes up and wants out, he wants out! Stan woke up when he heard all kinds of rustling and panting by the patio door in the kitchen.  As soon as Stan opened the door OUT went the BIG dog. Then Stan had to get his boots and coat on and open the gate so Shachah could join the ewe flock in the pole barn. 
I know, I'm such a sucker! I need to be firm and not let him in (the dog, not Stan!).  At the very least I need to make him go out before I go to bed . But with the upcoming below zero temps that will be hard, he's just so darn lovable. So far his arthritis doesn't appear to be acting up.  And it's amazing how little he eats.