Wednesday, March 23, 2011
It has been a busy spring. All my ewes have successfully lambed out and Precious my favorite ewe produced twins. Or so my daughter thought when she came racing into the house to phone me. When I got home and saw the third bundle of joy I began to wonder about the value of her mathematical education!
Roger, Garnet and Floppy are quite the characters. Floppy was born a bit weak legged (hence the name) as one would expect considering how much lamb Precious crammed into her uterus. If you doubt me look at the above picture. Here are the boys and they are not even 24 hours old yet! My hat is off to Precious, but not too long, it is cool in the mornings here!
Yes they are wearing wool coats. Some of my non animal friends questioned me on this and secretly wondered if I had lost it. Most people would probably agree that dressing farm animals up would be a foolish pastime but for this woman it is the easiest and cheapest way to ensure your lambs survive.
Believe it or not a new born lamb is born with very little in the way of fleece. Our winters/springs can be pretty brutal here especially if you have just left the warm comfy confines of your mother and are exposed to the harsh realities of a -20 degree windchill with a snow bank for a bed!
An old wool blanket (trust me the irony of it is not lost on me!) is easily sewn into a little lamb sweater and voila, instant warmth and skyrocketing survival rates. No heat lamps and it is all chemical free. No sheep were harmed in the making of these blankets and another generation of lamb gets to bound joyfully through green pastures.
For those of you who don't believe me try it. I have a friend who has been a Shepard all her life and she blankets everyone of her Romney lambs. She told me she hasn't used a heat lamp in over 20 years. Considering we lost our chicken shed to a heat lamp I was thrilled to try out the blankets and trust me when I say I have never looked back.
Now all I have to do is find a way to put them on my day old chicks!
Sunday, March 20, 2011
I love my family. I feel sorry for people who don't love theirs.
My family has informed me that I have been lax of late in filling the quota of amusing tales of life around me. As you can see my girls and I have been busy and someday I will write a book about it but for now you will have to bear with me while I stumble along.
There are paintings on the easel, chicks on order, lambs bounding about and of course family to deal with! My astrology claims that after Venus leaves my sector things will improve.
He's a bit behind the times! Things are improving.... rapidly. Too rapidly for this domestic Goddess to keep up with.
I have learned that while I am pretty special, time will not stop upon my whim and so I have to adjust my needs to what a mortal woman can accomplish in a 24 hour time span. Doesn't seem particularly fair. Father Time is ignoring my requests for a delay or extension in regards to the amount of available minutes a human can productively create in. That is soooooo not fitting in my plans.
The only thing that makes me feel somewhat better is that Einstein, Da Vinci and Edison all had the same constraints.
And I'm a woman...aren't we supposed to be more efficient???? LOL
Have a great day and stayed tuned!
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