Catching Up again

Whew! It's been a busy few weeks! I got the arts grant submitted on the 15th and did the Majestic Pines Art Festival in Nisswa, MN the 17 & 18th. I was so busy last week trying to get everything in order for both projects. Now I'll just have to wait and see how the grant proposal goes.

And as far as the arts festival, I should have stayed closer to home and done the Pine City Arts Fest instead. The weather was cold with some misty rain (thankfully I had an indoor booth), and sales weren't the best. Oh well, live and learn. Stan and I had a great time meeting the other artists in the festival. There were some really interesting artists up there! I made a few trades which helped too. The sponsoring group had a great reception on Friday evening for the artists with appetizers and wine. I was glad that Stan came with me for this one, those wine glasses were bigger than I realized! It didn't help matters that I was so tired after getting only four hours of sleep the night before.

The lambs have been weaned here - all except the youngest two. This was the first year I took ewe lambs away too. The noise was awful for a couple days and nights, but things eventually died down. The lambs look fat and sassy on the good hay they're getting (I took all the sheep off pasture because of our lack of rain). The ewes seem to be doing fine without the lambs. If I had time, this would be my opportunity to collect milk for sheep milk soap.

We wormed the lambs and weighed a few when we separated them from the ewes. The oldest 3/4 BFL lambs (twins) weighed 62-65 lbs at 93 days. Devlyn, the natural colored BFL ram lamb weighed about the same (89 days). We didn't get a chance to weigh them all, just a few -- using the bathroom scale method. Opal, a Shetland mule twin ewe weighed 40 lbs at 80 days.

The Shetland goslings are out of the garage and into a chain link pen in the back yard. They have a section of the back yard for grazing and their own pool. We had to keep them off the sidewalk.. so far they are pretty quiet compared to other breeds of geese we've had.

And here's a shot of Camille, our Ag gulmoget ewe lamb. She has stolen my heart. What a sweet petite little lamb she is.And I love her fleece...
I will try to get some decent photos of our ram lamb's scurs, they are still quite small. I'm starting to be hopeful about these boys as polled breeding stock.

This photo was taken on July 6th - you can click to biggify it. Their horns are still about the same. The Ag grey lamb (River Oaks Sebastion, out of Bramble Cordelia and Kimberwood Harrison) is on the left and the black one (still thinking on a name) is on the right. The black one's right horn is about 1/2" tall, so his could still take off and grow I suppose.