Thinking Ahead to the Holidays...

Here's a shot of our newest additions with Ivan and Angus, they are turkey poults from the Minnesota State Fair Miracle of Birth Center. My friend Denise's daughter worked there five days and was awarded with several babies to take home afterward. When Denise stopped by my house Tuesday night looking for chick feed, I told her I was desparately in need of newly hatched chicks for my broody hen. (I don't keep a rooster so my poor broodies set on empties unless I buy them some fertile eggs.)
Denise and I decided that I should take the turkey poults and see if the hen would accept them. They were already 5 or 6 days old and picking at the smaller chicks.
I picked them up the next morning. When I got them home ,they were sleeping pretty hard and the hen happened to off the nest eating. They stayed quiet and sleepy when I put them in the nest with a few eggs. Then I chased the hen back in. It was so cute, one of the poults started peeping when she came in and she looked and looked in her nest at the peeping stranger. Then she hopped in an adjacent nest and settled herself over those eggs. So I put the peeping poult under her wing. That went well , so I popped another one in and another and another. They were quiet as mice and poked their heads out of her feathers. I wish I had the camera then! After a few hours I moved the new family into a dog kennel on the floor and all has been well since. The hen kept her new babies in that kennel for three days before taking them out into the big, beautiful world. That's when we realized that they are imprinted on humans and have a tendency to follow us as we do our chores. They also love being near the rams, much to their mother's chagrin. Fortunately, the rams are curious about them and none have been hurt yet.
Our kitty may be their biggest threat. But so far she's been good.
If all goes well, Denise and I will each have two turkeys for our families in time for the holidays. Just so we don't get too attached to them in the meantime...

Home from MFF

I just got back from my first trip to the Michigan Fiber Festival in Allegan, Michigan. It was so much fun! Seeing all the shetland breeders again and checking out all the breeds of sheep on display. And the shopping was great -- so many vendors.
I was able to get all my fleece samples from 2006 micron tested and I learned lots of new things from the workshops I attended and other sheep and fiber people I talked to over the weekend. I bought a couple of good books so I can keep on learning more too.
Kim Nikolai and I arrived on at MFF Thursday morning and camped on the grounds of the MFF. The campsite was great, but our camping neighbors were quite the partiers so we didn't get much rest the whole weekend.
Since I was picking up my new mioget ram from Heather Ludlam, I decided to show him in the shetland show as well. He has grown a lot since I first saw him back in June at Heather's. His "rose mioget" (thanks to Theresa Gygi for telling me that) fleece has gotten really long. I was so happy to find out that he is a very mellow, friendly ram too.
It was my first time in the show ring and fortunately he was pretty well halter trained by the Ludlam children who showed him in late June. I wasn't sure what exactly to do in the show ring, I tried to do what everyone else was doing. Imagine my surprise when he won first place in the large ram lamb class! He would have done better in the Champion competition if only he would have stood up straight. He was too mellow for his own good and his handler has a lot to learn to learn about showing.
It seems that our new kitty came into heat while I was gone and she hasn't been home since yesterday. Hmmmm....I wonder if she will come back...we may have to get some healthy kitties from Kim and keep them in our barn instead.
All the sheep are present and looking good -- thanks to my guys here at home for taking care of them.

We've been Adopted!

When I got home from work on Friday night I found a snarling young calico cat in my chicken pen. The door had been left open all day and the chickens were out scratching, doing whatever they like to do. We have a problem with chipmunks and mice in the barn, so I wasn't too worried about the cat as long as she wasn't going after my birds. I'm rather partial to calico kitties and we haven't had a cat for over a year now since we had to put down our little Destiny, a stray who was the sweetest cat we ever had.

Anyway, this little calico was snarling and trying to look ferocious so I locked her in the pen and went to call our neighbors with cats to see if they were missing one. Sure enough, one neighbor was missing a calico kitten. They said they were coming to get her.

While we waited, I gave her some yogurt and that's when we noticed she looked injured in the left front leg. Upon closer inspection, the poor thing had had a compound fracture at some point and the bone is still sticking out. She's all healed up and is able to use the paw on that leg, but she can't walk with it since it's completely broken up near the shoulder.

When the neighbors arrived, they said she wasn't theirs after all. So now what to do? By that time my cat lover son was already making plans for her. We left for a few hours and when we returned, she was still there, sitting in the doorway of the barn. Okay, we got her some cat food and introduced her to our Australian shepherd. She's been on our deck ever since. Like I said, we can use a cat around here and what an ispirational cat we got! Talk about being a survivor and dealing with adversity.

Tomorrow we'll bring her to the vet and see what to do about that leg...in the meantime it's kind of nice to hear that little meow by the screen door...

And Life Goes On....

I can't believe how fast the time has flown by since my last post! Things have been busy with the funeral and all insurance claims after the fire.
A few night ago, I took this photo of the new green growth over at the land. Yes, they're just weeds in the burned out ditch, but definitely a sign of good things to come.

The heat has been absolutely oppressive this past weekend. The sheep are definitely stressed by the weather. I wish I could bring them all in the house to cool off when it gets this hot. Thankfully they all made it through the heatwave, and this morning a cool front has moved in. Temps are in the 80's again. Yay!!!

We sent two sheep to the butcher this morning and poor Willy, my big Shetland/Border Leicester/Finn cross wether, is beside himself with concern. He's been bellering away for his buddies. So I'm going to use this opportunity to wean the ram lambs and put them over with Willy and Minwawe Donder, their sire. The ewes need a break from the lambs so they can get back in condition for fall breeding.

I've included a photo of me with Donder and Willy taken back in June. They are such friendly boys and they photograph much better than their shepherdess.

Overwhelming!

I am simply overwhelmed right now! The events of these past few days have brought me to the depths of sorrow and to height of gratefulness and thanks. Just two days after the fire at our land, my mother-in-law quit breathing and was rushed to the hospital where she died the next day. Even though she had suffered with Parkinson's disease for 10 years, her sudden passing was quite unexpected. Poor Stan has had a lot to cope with...
The outpouring of support and concern from my fellow Shetland sheep breeders has been absolutely amazing. I am so fortunate to have such a great group of people offer to help us out at this time. Thank you all so much! Mary Ellen, Rebecca and Kim for getting the wheels in motion and organizing the Fire Benefit Auction at the MSSBO blog. I really couldn't have stopped you all if I tried! And thanks to Nancy K. for all your support and spreading the news through your blog and your generous donation of a beautiful framed photo of your sheep. And Bill's blog had me crying as I read it, Bill you have such a way with words!
I haven't been able to stay online long with all the insurance and family calls we've been expecting. So I'm sorry that I haven't responded to everyone personally. But I hope you all know how grateful Stan and I are that there is such a great group of sheep people out there willing to help out. We're going to be just fine.

Devastated

Today was a pretty good day, I did well and had a lot of fun at the Pine City Arts Fest, despite the near 100 degrees temps. I got home around until around 4:30 p.m. which is the time the sheriff said the fire call came in.
Stan and I were hot and tired after the Arts Fest, but peacefully oblivious to the fact that our pasture and hayfields were burning as well as our pole barn and entire 2006 hay crop.
We didn't find out until around 7:10 p.m. when our hay man called and told us. We raced over to find fire trucks all over and our less-than two year old pole barn burned out. We may be able to salvage some metal, but it's not useable anymore.
Thankfully the firefighters pulled out the tilt-trailer and 4 wheeler in time to save them, except for some severely melted areas.
Witnesses said the fire was amazingly fast and hot. As I mentioned earlier, the temps were extremely hot today, and the winds were strong from the south. That, along with our lack of rain for so many days, was enough to bring on red flag warnings for fire outbreaks in this area. We don't know how the fire started, just that once it did, they had very little time to stop it.
We heard they used helicopters and closed off the road. We have no electricity or water out there, so I'm sure it was difficult as well as exhausting for those poor fire fighters in this heat. I know I was wobbly when I finally got into my air conditioned van after the arts fest.
I'm not sure what this means as far as my flock goes. We'll have to see what the insurance covers. But with absolutely no hay for the winter this year, I'm going to have to drastically reduce my flock numbers, that's for sure...

Haying and Horns

Well, I finally got a chance to get back here and post! The Garden Tour demo went well last Saturday. It got me determined to gear up for next week's solo booth at the Pine City Art Festival. So much to do before then!

Tonight we stacked the first load of our 2006 hay crop in the pole barn over at the land. Our portion was 115 bales from the front field. We will get lots more from the back field which has more grasses that the sheep prefer.
It was hot and humid today, but apparently the worst is yet to come. They say we could be in the triple digits this weekend. Oh I hate to think of the sheep in the heat! Especially when I'll be away doing a booth at the Pine City Arts Festival. It's my first time there and I was hoping for a good turnout. If the weather is that hot, I'm sure the crowd will be smaller.
And imagine trying to sell wool yarn, hats, mittens, etc. in that kind of heat. Oh well, at least I'll get to advertise my sheep for sale that day.

I took a few photos of the sheep on Sunday. Poor Ace has broken off both his horns now. He just has two 1/2" cores left now. I'm not sure if this means he carries at least one polled gene or not. He's such a great looking ram lamb in every other way...HST, moorit single coat...I'll have to keep an eye on those horns.

Also, our Bluefaced Leicesters finally have names! I am proud to introduce Beechtree Dougal, our ram (in front in the photo) and Beechtree Lanora, our ewe (in back). They are such wonderful sheep, with fantastic fleece. And did I mention that BFLs wag their tails when petted too?