The Airing Of The Lambs

I tend to be a bit spontaneous at times and don't think things through. Like with getting bottle lambs while it was basically still winter outside. Where were they going to live? They can't be outside in the cold with no mother to snuggle. As I write this they are predicting 28 degrees in the morning
I got the lambs home and thought, Oh where will I put them? Gee it's cold out.
So into the "green bathroom" they go. The green bathroom is the old bathroom in our house. Never go in there. You may not come out. I have been wanting to remodel this for years but as Hubby so proudly announced the other day, "Good thing we haven't remodeled that old bathroom. We have raised a lot of babies in that bathroom."
And he's right. Green ceramic tile goes from floor to almost ceiling inspiring the name "the green bathroom."
So in the green bathroom in a big dog crate the lambs go. They like it in there. It's warm and every few hours someone tall with three bottles comes in and feeds them.
Every day I take the lambs to the yard for a walk. It has to be one of the cutest things, seeing lambs buck and play in the sun. They tend to move in a flock.....a flock of sheep to be exact.
But when they've had enough they run to the "green bathroom" and jump in their crate.
They are still such babies.
Lucy Lamb


Little Bit


Tully

Little Orphan Lambies

I have fond memories of raising an orphan lamb as a kid. The sheep farmer not wanting to bother with bottle babies would call a friend of mine when he had an orphan lamb or two. One day she called me and said the farmer called and had a black lamb that needed bottle feeding and she couldn't do it, would I like it. Of course, I said yes.
So when it came to my attention that there were two brown bottle lambs, whose mother had died suddenly, and needed to be bottle fed I jumped at the chance. The sheep farmer went out the day after the lambs were born and their mother was dead. So off Hubby and I went Saturday morning to pick up the babies. They look like two little deer. They are purebred Katahdin sheep. A hair breed of sheep that are raised for meat and shed their wool so there is no need to shear them. Sure I like to knit but I can not ever imagine myself shearing, combing, washing, spinning and then knitting my yarn so no shearing works for me. And to be sure, they won't be eaten here either.
So this is what I picked up on Saturday.



But she also had this.



This could not be denied.



I went for this.



But Hubby said, "Well, as long as we are here, you might as well take all of them."
I figured that maybe someone else might want a little orphan lambie or she could stay here. Either way it seemed a shame to leave her all alone.

So we took her too.


On the way home we stopped and got milk replacer. I was taken aback at the cost of milk replacer. It has gone up in 35 years. I had also forgotten how cold it is in the beginning of March so the babies are in a large dog crate in the spare bathroom.




I feel bad for them because the farmer had banded their tails before I picked them up. I would have left their tails long. I know it is done for cleanliness but they will not grow as much wool on them as wool breeds do and a lot of Kathadin breeders leave them. Besides the brown ones have the cutest white tips on their tails that will fall off when their tails do.


Now the little brown ones are tiny and darling but the white one has personality plus. She is friendly and inquisitive. She will make a good pet lamb....for someone.

Rocky Mountain High-Colorado

We recently returned from a trip to Boulder to see #1 son and goldilocks. This is why they call it Boulder. These are everywhere.

Boulder sits in the shadow of the Flat Irons. My camera is working so much better so I had fun taking pictures of the mountains and anything else I saw.

We got to see our new grand-dog Chloe.

And our original grand-dog Faith.


There is nothing like reading directions and putting together furniture with a minimal amount of tools for family bonding.

Goldilocks and I took a hike.

Remind us next time not to take any Flexi-leads. In between many episodes of untangling ourselves from the dog's leashes we were able to take of few good pictures.



Oh how I love Colorado. The weather is good...most of the time. The people are friendly and I love the casualness of it. No one in too much of a hurry to be friendly.
And it has my two favorite people.

Pardon Me

One of the fun things about living with Hubby is you never know what he's going to bring home on any given day. Coming home from work on the country roads can be some good shopping. Right after we were married he came home from work and called me outside. He opened his trunk and nestled inside were two Muscovy ducks. I was thrilled. Now most of the women I know would not like this. One minute you are in the house minding your own business and the next you have a torn-up cat in your hands and Hubby is saying he is sure you can fix it. But I really like it. Surprise me with an animal any day. It was always my dream as a kid to open a box at Christmas and have a puppy jump out, two ducks in a trunk aren't that far off.
So the other day while he was driving home from work he just had to slam on the brakes when he saw a sign for live pheasants. Hubby is a pheasant hunter. He pictured one more hunt for the season. So he brought home four of the most beautiful pheasants.
Personally I have a very hard time knowing my dinner. So I whined, "Oh let's build a pen for them and then you can breed more birds."
Hubby, a few years back, had hatched out 100 pheasants and raised them. Half of them were taken and released on the neighbor's farm to live a long life. After taking them up to the top 40 acres, which is a beautiful grassland, the next morning they were all standing around Hubby's pheasant pen wanting in for breakfast.
Now he needs to build a new pen because a year ago I took over his pens for my chickens.

So the idea of raising more birds has given these birds a pardon.

Pig Pen

Remember the character in the Peanuts cartoon, Pig Pen? The boy who walked around in a cloud of dirt.


That would be Sunny. He loves to be dirty. After I groom him he finds the nearest dirt hole and rolls until he is covered and disheveled again.



See the resemblance?



I think this is very funny. The last horse we had for almost 20 years loved to be clean. Well, naturally, her name was Fancy Me. She kept her stall and her body clean.

Sunny is all boy.




He likes to look like no one cares.

Spoke Too Soon

Usually the case with me, I spoke too soon.

Got Eggs?

I don't. Not since Christmas. My hens are not doing their part to help out the economy. They are too busy.

Sunbathing.



Hanging out.



Looking pretty.



And just plain looking.



But no eggs.

So imagine my surprise when Stormy, our black Lab, brought the smallest egg I've ever seen to me and laid it in my hand.



And does this dog have a soft mouth or what?



Is it a chicken egg? While I was taking a picture it fell off the counter and broke...so I took a picture of it's yoke.



Chicken egg or not it seemed to start the ball rolling. Since yesterday, I now have 4 beautiful brown eggs in my fridge.

Sunny Sunday

Sunny and I have truly bonded. And I like him just the way he is. Aloof. No pressure to keep him entertained. I have started to see him choose to come see what I am doing...once in a while...but that usually involves food.
He is coming along nicely in his training. But best of all I can tell he feels so much better. Probably because he is in love.


Her name is Tipperary Dream and she is a Thoroughbred race horse. Owned by the jolly Irish man next door, he was fulfilling his life-long dream of racing horses through her and her younger brother. One day I opened the paper to see his obituary. He died suddenly, leaving his family to take care of the horses. I miss seeing him almost every day when we would be feeding our animals.



Luckily he was able to see his Tipperary Dream win some very nice races and he was in the stand when her brother won his last race of the season. That was his last race.
And much to Sunny's distress, they brought the young colt home to put in with Tippy. The colt is a handful. When the trailer pulled in it rattled with kicks and screams. To make matters worse, I think he is a stallion. Well, Sunny was beside himself. He started to perk up a bit and run along with the other horses and get quite upset when the two horses were out of his sight. In the past he never even raised his head when Tippy moved around, now he kept his eye on her. His pacing in a figure 8 came back.
One morning I went down to feed and there were two of my top rails down in Sunny paddock. They had put the colt in the pasture next to Sunny, separating the colt from his sister and he spent all night worrying the fences...and Sunny too.
Hubby and I repaired the fences and I worried what would happen next.
Because I worry about what could happen. I have worrying down to a science.
And I usually worry for not. The next day he was gone. They must have realized you don't put a colt in with a mare.



Sunny lowered his head and went back to not giving a rip. But his secret is out. He's athletic.
And he loves a girl named Tipperary Dream.

Honeymoon Suite, Revisited

Saturday was a beautiful day in the Pacific Northwest. The perfect day to give Lexi a ride back over to the honeymoon suite when it was apparent she needed to visit her beloved one more time. Lexi and Semi-Sweet being what you would call "mature" are having a difficult time getting settled.
Back over we went. But this time Lexi knew the drill. She jumped quite willingly into the back of the jeep, sang along with me to the radio, jumped out when we got there and led me over to the suite. She was so happy to see Captain again that if I didn't believe before in goat love I do now. She talked up a blue streak to him. It was all so gentle and loving it made me a little sad. What she said we will never know but she was really giving him a talking too.

"After last time you never called."

"Let's run away together."

"The other does don't appreciate you like I do."

She was clearly in love and didn't want to leave.
As I gently led her away, I told her he could never be faithful and that this would be her last trip to the honeymoon suite. She has been bred three times by two different bucks so if it didn't take this time she would remain childless.



I think she's fine with that.

Scenes Of Home