Relatively Normal Bahaviour

I have discovered that it is without a doubt that sheep are dumb. The day that Ukelele and Umeko were born we had a ewe who was feeling that her natural instinct was to freak out about impending lamb birth and in an effort to avoid passing a bony bag of slime through her birthing canal she would like to steal a lamb from some other momma and take it as her own. Aha! Fanny was having twins she would miss one of hers.

This caused great anxiety in Hubby as he knew that when the inevitable happened and she bore her own, the one that she adopted/stolen would be denied and the real mother would realize the pleasures of only feeding one and said adopted/stolen lamb would have to be bottle fed by moi and Hubby which means late night feeds.... ouch! Hubby insists that this does not happen as he does not like his sleep being disturbed.... (neither do I come to think of it)! The antics were on to interfere with nature and have the lambs feed from the natural mother. For a while there it was like some kind of comedy show. Here's how it went......

Hubby jumped the fence when he discovered Queen licking the new born lamb. I'm quickly trying to enter via the normal way... by the gate.... Hubby picks up a stick and bats Queen away from the lamb so that Fanny (who is the real mom) can lick her baby and not be stressed about some fat old bag trying to steal her baby. Queen is now running around and around the pen trying to get back to the lamb she was trying to steal with Hubby chasing her and wacking her on the bum with a stick. I come along and he gives me the stick and insists that I should do this job while he goes and sets up a heat lamp for the new lambs. (New lambs born in the evening when it is cool (near 0 degrees) get a heat lamp in the barn). While he was doing this, and let me tell you it took a whole lot longer than it should have, I was having a face off with Queen who had now stopped running but was staring intently at the place where Fanny was now giving birth to lamb #2. Queen would take a step to the left and I'd move that way too. Queen would try a faint to the right and I'd head her off. If I turned my back for a second she'd run past me and I'd have to start wacking her again. Meanwhile all of the other sheep were baa-ing and making a general racket since Hubby was carrying something (a heat lamp) which must mean it was feeding time for oats and minerals. What a racket! I was roaring at Queen and generally trying to scare her off from Fanny who was trying hard to assert ownership over the lambs. The ram and withers were in an uproar and the alpacas decided they should fight over who got the best view of the general chaos in the far paddock. Once we got Fanny and her lambs in the barn which was the easiest part of all (just pick up the lambs, and it must be both of them at the same time, Momma will follow you anywhere. We settled her in the barn with the lamp and a gate across so she'd have peace and privacy and Hubby felt he should give her a bucket of water and sweet feed. Water of course because all nursing mom's need access to water and sweet feed because it will enrich her milk. Well that was when all hell broke loose. Sal who is half cow I think decided that no bucket would make it to the barn without her getting her head in it and so every time Hubby got in the paddock and headed for the barn Sal would thump the bucket right out of his hand. The air was turning blue and my job was to keep Sal from toppling Hubby and the buckets. I'm telling you Hubby must have felt like the mulberry bush because I was going around and around and around and around..... I almost fell down because I was getting so dizzy. I even tried going the other way but Sal wasn't having any of that. She just wanted the bucket of sweet feed.... I tell you those sheep are like the worst kind of druggy with a serious case of d.t.s going on. The whole gong show lasted a good 45 minutes and I'm sure the neighbours thought we were butchering them all in one go.

Vango (named for Vincent Van Gogh) was born a black boy (meat) on Saturday sometime during the day when no one was looking. He slipped out of his momma's butt with neary a to do and that was that. Queen is still waiting but learned that perhaps stealing a lamb was not going to get her out of the inevitable..... she didn't try to steal that one. She is the last ewe that we are waiting on. So far we have five lambs, 2 white girls and 3 black boys.

Saturday was spent doing chores in FSJ, as we prepare for shearing season. I picked up the blades for my electric shears which were being sharpened for another season of cutting. One set of blades for all the sheep and a set of blades each for the alpacas. Sheep have grease and so keep out all the dirt. Alpacas roll in the dirt and when the blades hit the dirt they go dull in two seconds flat. I wish I had an alpaca shower where I could wash them and then shear them clean.

Meanwhile we have found ourselves a dog. Her name is Jiggs. She is a Siberian Husky cross. She is much smaller than Duff but has similar colouring. She has a pointy nose like a coyote and is about the same size as one. She has a very quiet nature about her and she is a little aloof until you pick up a squeaky toy and throw it for her.... then she loves you. We spent an hour with her on Saturday afternoon and felt really lousy when we had to leave her at the SPCA. She will be released to us on Thursday after she has been spayed. She is 11 months old. I am looking forward to bringing her home.

I still miss Duff terribly and can't talk about her without crying. Hubby and I discussed bringing a new dog home and feeling slightly guilty about Duff. But I said that just because you bring home a new dog doesn't mean that you love the old one any less. I don't think Duff would want us to be lonely for her. We are an animal family and our family feels incomplete without them. Cats, dogs, alpacas, sheep, I even miss the chickens and wouldn't mind having my ducks again. So here comes Jiggs.... real soon.... this should be interesting. I wonder if she will like us.

I don't have pics of her yet but I do have pics of Ukelele, Umeko, Vango and me at the historical fair last Thursday.... so here you go... I'll try for better pics tomorrow......

Vango and his momma.....

Umeko and Ukelele with their momma.....

This was my demonstration......


Look how interested those kids are..... I had lots more come along later in the day....

I'm off to bed after a full day of weaving.... I'm bushed.

Ukelele And Umeko

Ukelele is black and a boy so more lamb chops in the fall but Umeko is female and white. Born last night, they are both happy and healthy wee lambies. Queen who is a pregnant ewe tried to steal them from Fanny, who is the mom, so we had quite a hassle trying to get her to leave Fanny and her babies alone. We finally had to put her in the barn with her babies last night so that Queen would leave her alone. Queen, I expect will have to wait a day or two till her own baby comes along but the mothering instinct is certainly strong in her.

I have been a busy lady over the last few days. On Thursday I went to our community school for the historical fair. I was demonstrating spinning and weaving. The kids, as you can see, were more than interested and all day I had small groups of kids coming by for an opportunity to look at, touch and feel, and learn about all things fibre. By the end of the day there was quite a line up to try my hand cards and learn how to card yarn... a lot of the kids wanted to try turning my spinning wheel but I had brought my old wheel along for them to see and it is not east to treddle so I felt that I wouldn't let them try treddling. I showed them different kinds of wool fleece and I showed them different kinds of spindles. It really was quite awesome. At one point Daughter #2 came through with a little girl from kindergarten and stopped and had a chance to have a little look too. It was nice to see my girl in her element teaching the little girl about what I was doing. I was really proud of how nice and thoughtful she was of the little kids.... even one of the teachers commented on how good she is with the little kids. (er hem, I taught them everything I know : )

Yesterday I took a drive south for an hour to do a little grocery shopping for fruit and veg that was actually edible. Our grocery store here in town never seems to have top quality produce. It was nice last night to eat salad for supper that didn't have brown tips on the leaves of the lettuce that needed to be removed. It was nice to get good red peppers and tomatoes that were not starting to shrivel. I even bought black berries and raspberries. Ahhh delicious!

Today we are going to FSJ to have a look at a dog that Hubby is interested in. The dog that I mentioned the other day is gone to someone else but we will see if this one would be ok. I also will pick up blades for my shears since I need blades for shearing and shearing season is upon us. Hubby and I talked about the fact that shearing time is here and I need supplies for that so that is another job to be done.

I had better get back to getting ready to go because everyone else is almost ready and once again I am not. I'll post pictures of Ukelele and Umeko tomorrow.

Awesome Are The Wonders Of Nature

If this wouldn't make you think twice about a greater power than man, I don't know what will.
This is a lightning storm last week over the Icelandic volcano eruption.... you can read all about it here.

No Lambies

We arose this morning to no new wee lambies.... I'm still waiting for Fanny to produce.... she's fit to burst. I think her belly must be dragging on the ground. In the meantime I've made a discovery. Our white ram is not a ram. I have been wondering. Last year when we got him he was not quite six months old. Well the dangly bits don't always show when they are that young. Then when November came and we put him in with the ewes and you could almost hear the ewes laughing at him I knew something wasn't right. We watched for two weeks while the gals bumped him around and generally ignored him. That is unusual behavior for ewes when a ram is around. I thought that it was just because he was young. Two weeks went by and not seeing him jump any of my gals, I began to panic about not having lambs in the spring.... so even though I hadn't planned on using Oscar, who is black, I felt that black lambs were better than no lambs. Ipwitch was removed and Oscar gave those girls the low down on how thing were going to be run in his harem right away. All winter I was troubled about Ipwitch. but since it was winter and he was young I let things slide. Until yesterday. Hubby went out in the paddock where Ipwitch lives and caught him and promptly turned him on his butt. We had a really good look... no dangly bits. So Ipwitch is a dud. He is a wither. Somehow the lady who sold him to me made a mistake which is really weird. Because she doesn't usually make mistakes. Hmmm....

In the meantime our two new lambies are doing very well. Jonas is running, and jumping around and Twinkle is starting to.

Last but not least we are hoping that we have found a dog...... and that is all I am willing to say about that at this time since I don't want to jinx ourselves.

Oh, and one sleeve is finished for the big j.c. and I am now working on sleeve #2. Will I ever finish this thing?!

BBG

Little Red produced for us, first thing this morning, a bouncing baby girl (BBG).... and she's white! She has the cutest pink ears and I'd show you a picture but my batteries in my camera need charging. I left it on yesterday after uploading the pictures of Jonas, stupid me. Our new lamb will go by the name of Twinkle.

If you are wondering how we go about naming our animals then let me enlighten you. There is no hard and fast rule for naming animals... you know.... the barnyard type.... not the house pets... but a friend of mine who I bought some of my sheep from named her animals by assigning a letter from the alphabet to each year and all the animals born that year would have names beginning with whatever letter was assigned to that year.... so lets say that 2001 was "B" then all the animals that year would have a name beginning with "B". Using the method, she was able to keep track of which animals were born when, and how old they were. But she had a much larger operation than I do.

Naming my animals kind of happened by a happy accident. The first animals that I purchased were Axton, Benny, and Coal, which are my three alpacas, already named by the previous owner. Notice that their names begin with "A", "B", and "C". I would call them my ABC guys. Well from there it went.

The next animals I bought were also alpacas but they had names that didn't fit with my ABC guys so I renamed them. Here's the names of my animals as it stands now.

Axton..... male alpaca, 4 years old..... white.... likes to spit and gave me my first full frontal... aaak!... recently gelded... ha! the dirty bugger... that will serve him to spit at me and give me a full frontal.
Benny.... male alpaca, 4 years old.... fawn..... very pleasant manner but likes to be the boss.... recently gelded.
Coal..... male alpaca, 4 years old..... black.... my favorite alpaca because he is so mild mannered and curious.
Dexter..... male alpaca, 3 years old.... fawn.... has a testy attitude.... but smiles a lot and spit occasionally... likes to "talk"!
Eddie..... male alpaca, 3 years old.... fawn... smallest alpaca and has the nicest fleece but aloof.
Fanny..... female sheep, 6 years old.... white Shetland/Merino x... excellent mothering skills... aloof.
Griegg.... male sheep, (withered), 5 or 6 years old.... soft grey, Shetland x.... stubborn but I like him.
Honeydew.... female llama, age unknown..... brown and white.... likes to run away but has a really great attitude.... but skittish and aloof.
Ipwitch..... male sheep, 1 year old.... white, BFL/Merino.... untried ram.... aloof.
Jonas..... male sheep, 1 day old... black.....BFL/Merino/Shetland x..... cute but food.
Kracker and Krunch ... both female sheep, 2 years old.... Shetland/merino x... black.... nice gals.....good moms... Fanny's twin offspring from 2 years ago.
Lulu.... female sheep, 3 years.... brown to black with grey in it... Cotswold/Merino x.... sterile.... lovely fleece.
Mishka..... female alpaca, 2 years old.... white..... lovely curious creature.... who wants to be a mom to all the lambs being born... will be bred this summer.
Nelly.... female sheep, 2 years old..... white, Cotswold/merino.... gorgeous fleece but crazy skittish... and wacko... probably sterile.
Oscar.... male sheep, 2 years old... black, BFL/Merino proven ram.... love him to bits... very nice fleece and wonderful nature... loves to be scratched, but bit of a pig... (can you tell he's my favorite sheep).
Palmer.... male sheep (withered), 1 year old....first lamb ever to be born on Nicholsville farm...black..... Romney/BFL/Merino x... nice little guy but kind of stupid.... I think that is a trait of the Romneys.
Queen... female sheep, age unknown... quite old though.... pure bred Merino, obviously white.... nice old lady.
Red, (also known as Little Red)..... female sheep, blond to brown.... pure Shetland.... awesome Mom.... but fleece sucks.
Sal.... female sheep, 3 years old....Canadian Arcott/Merino.... she is the fattest old cow you have ever seen a total hog but wow what a fleece.... probably sterile.
Twinkle..... sheep, born today,..... Shetland/BFL/Merino x.... cute pink ears.... keeper....

So the next lamb(s) born will have to have names beginning with "U" that will be a hard one to come up with....

Any ideas?

Finally!!!

Here is our new mom.... and still wet from the sheep's hind quarters, making his debut and what a gorgeous day for his debut, comes Jonas....

Damn... it's a boy and he's black..... he's also supper..... well, next year anyway.....



Kracker: Hmm.... something just fell out of my butt.

Mishka: Hey did you know something just fell out of your butt..... that's weird.... what is it? It looks like a very short necked alien.

Jonas: Arggghhhh!


Kracker: Hmmm... what is this thing? It smells like me.... it looks like me.... hmmm... maybe I'd better lick all this gunk off to get a better look.

Mishka: I wanna see too..... I'm coming around to look.

Jonas: Waaahh!!! I'm cold and I can't see anything. Oh wait now... I think I see something... what is this thing licking me.... oh! ah!.... I think I smell something yummy!



Jonas: Could you stop licking me?! I'm trying to get to the nice smelling part of you. I can't get these long things under me to work. What's happening?

Kracker: It's trying to move.... gak.... it's trying to lick my belly.... hmmm.... that's weird.

Mishka: I still can't figure out what it is.



Jonas: Gak! What the heck are you..... I sure hope you are not my momma.... hey what is this.... ahhhh ... what's going on? One minute I smell milk, and the next I'm getting checked out by this big woolly white thing.

Mishka: See I told you something fell out of your butt..... it is kind of cute though.

Kracker: Slurp.... I think it is a baby.... Oh my God..... it's a baby!?!!!!!.... how did that happen... I bet that big black balogna butt with the curly horns had something to do with this last fall. He kept jumping on me and shoving something where the sun don't shine.



Mishka: Hey you guys come and look at this..... uhhh... ain't it cute....

Jonas: Whaaahhhh..... I want milk..... I wish these stupid legs would work.

Krunch: Hey.... I'm an Auntie.....

Kracker: Yeah well... you wait.... I saw that big curly horned balogna butt jumping on you too!

Sunday Morning Relaxation

This is the second week of relaxation on a Sunday morning. Retirement is great. Now I can decide to go to church when I want. I, at the moment, am having a self imposed exile from church. That doesn't mean that I am no longer interested in God or anything to do with Christianity. I am just basking in my Jonas-like lifestyle away from my local church. For the last ten years I have been a lay reader here in HH. I started out ten years ago as a help to our half time minister. Over the years there has been an escalation in my duties as a lay reader. I also have taken on many other positions to the point where I am worn out. So when I decided a few weeks ago to resign from all my positions as a church leader I wasn't quite sure what my reaction would be. Would I feel good about it or would I feel a sense of loss. So two weeks has passed and I am realizing that for the first time in years I feel free. Sunday is now a day of choice and not a day of obligation. Now I can choose which church I would like to attend, now I can choose whether I want to attend or whether I would like to stay home and enjoy Michael Enright on CBC radio. It is a pleasure that I have fore gone for many years.

I am hoping to enjoy a day at the shooting range later on with the JCRs. There will be hot dogs for supper and I may bring a pot of soup along. Hubby will be heading off momentarily for a birthday party and bringing along a gift for a little guy who is the son of a friend of ours. Sunday without the obligation of church is strangely different.

Yesterday I headed over to Alberta for a day of learning about Temari balls and recycling for spinners and weavers. I started my first Temari ball and didn't get very far. So I will work on it when I get the big j.c. finished. Speaking of the big j.c., I am working away at it. I have now got one sleeve half finished. I probably would have more done except yesterday was lost to my workshop. So today I am back at the big j.c. and sleeves which need to be finished, then, the lining needs to be cut and sewed in, collar sewed on, embroidery finished and buttons dyed and painted. Almost there. Just a little more effort and I will be done. I will be glad.

So what am I doing, sitting here writing? I should be weaving. And so it begins. Once again the day has begun and so should I.