No Matter How You Look At It

Backwards...

Or forwards...

We all have so much to be thankful for, even when it's sometimes hard to see.

Happy New Year!

In Case You Were Wondering...

...why Comby was all by himself way out in the field on the Christmas card.

Because Comby is frequently out there all by himself!  In fact, pretty much every day.  The weather has to be awfully awful for him to stay holed up in the condo.  Eli, on the other hand, hibernates all winter.  At least during the day.  

Actually, Eli hibernates all year now that I think about it ;-D.  And that's why he hasn't made the card in a few years ;-).  He does make almost every night trek out to the barn though, so I'll give him points for that.  Maybe I'll paint a night time card some year :-).

On The Fourth Day Of Christmas...

We gots teefers!

Too bad I didn't check my camera settings quicker.  I was just so excited to see a teefer moment that I snapped first and checked second.

"What do you mean my face isn't in focus?"

I guess you'll just have to look cute again tomorrow!

On The Third Day Of Christmas

...the barnyard gave to me...

...three adorable lambs in fleece collars...

Can you believe this is little Mop Top from just last week?

Isn't he handsome!

I am in love with this sweet little smiley white lambie.  And her brothers... ;-)

I am embracing the TWELVE days of Christmas this year.

If you'd like a festive Christmas puzzle :-).

Enjoy!

The Annual Punkin's Patch Office Party

Or eight minutes of me getting jumped on, knocked around, stepped on, bitten...condensed down into about three minutes.  Wish I could include it all.  Some of it's just more of the same boring mugging, but there are always little tidbits I'd like to remember.

Merry Christmas!

Babysitting

"Hey!  How come I'll always the one who has to babysit?"

This ewe does not have triplets.  Only the black lamb on the left is hers.  The other two belong to her mother, who frequently drops the kids off.  I was go to make some sort of reference to "Grandma drinking too much eggnog..." but I'm sick as a dog and have taken way too much cold medicine and decided maybe I should just let that one go ;-).

More Christmas Lamb Camp!

A pile o' lambies!

Look at that adorable little mop top :-D.

Sweet momma :-).

And a set of twins.

These two are interesting.  The one in the front is coal black with long curls and the other has short, tighter, finer, tiny curls...and I don't think she's black.  I think she might be dark gray.  Will be fun to watch them grow up.  As soon as they move outside I'll try to get a better comparison picture.

"Momma?"

"I'm right here."

Love the eyelashes :-).

*     *     *     *     *

There have been a few good guesses on "the rest of the stories".  A couple are still missing.  Most have occurred during the past year...

There's Always A Bit More To The Story...An Easter Egg Contest

I won't continue on whining about the Christmas card.  Most of them are now in the mail and I've moved on to other last minute/how could Christmas be this weekend (?!?) panic attacks.  Plus, there are new lambs at The Training Center and they are even cuter just as cute as the first three!

In the meantime, there really is always a bit more to the story of the cards, even if only I know what it is.  Turns out there is a name for that - Easter Eggs!  This year there are quite a few stories within the main story.  Some are pretty obvious (Maisie eating the garland), some not so much maybe (the cardinal).  

How many can you spot?  Leave a comment with your found "eggs" and after Christmas I'll have Comby pick a winner and send out a box or two :-).

I'm headed out to "Santa's Workshop", then to check on/check for lambs, go to the post office and when I get back I'll share some new lamb pictures.  Think "mop top"!  Oh, there's nothing cuter... :-D.

I Still Haven't Made It To The Post Office...

...and after the THREE HOUR ordeal last night trying to do a stupid mail merge so I could print address labels, I'm half afraid to even get in the car this morning!  Well, and that won't be until after I seal the envelopes - and now I'm having a Seinfeld flashback :-o.

Most years have some "issue".  Either the design is hard to come up with, the painting takes forever, we can't come up with a name, the story on the back doesn't flow, we can't get the colors to print to our satisfaction OR the post office runs out of the stamps I want...  This year the only thing that's gone smoothly is the stamps.  After they ran out of holiday stamps last year, I bought early this year...and that's probably where the trouble started.  The ole Christmas card jinx ;-).

*     *     *     *    *

We are rapidly running out of winter scenes - skating, sleighing, sledding, caroling, decorating barns and trees, knitting sweaters, baking cookies, snowman building, snowball fighting, live nativity play...  Eating Christmas dinner seemed like a perfect choice, especially for this year.

With so many of our flock getting up there in years, we are now special feeding 13 of the "old guys".  How on earth did cute little Keebs get old?  Ewen McTeagle is going to be 10?!?  Jester is 17!  We also feed the two lambs separately.  Dinner time is, um, exciting, with everyone fighting for a spot at their respective troughs.

Okay, that's a cute idea.  There could be a main "table", a "kids table", Ford and Jester at the, what, "grandparents table"?  Uh oh, so now we have yet another problem.  For the story on the back, is it kids table?  Kid's table?  Kids' table?  Seriously?!?  A grammar dilemma?  Grammar guides were consulted.  Online searches were made.  Phone calls to grammar police were made.  

It was rapidly approaching the end of a very long day at the print shop and we were not going home empty handed.  There was no solid consensus so we finally went minimalist and are now just waiting for a grammar judge to hand down a verdict.  

Wait, let's back up to the painting problem part (see, even this blog post is becoming an ordeal!).  As usual, I sketched the card out pretty quickly and was pretty happy with the layout.  I should have stopped there.  I then spent/lost an entire day (basically) screwing up the background...that I Paint The Same Way Every Year.  Sigh...

I'd been feeling bad about the new kids always hogging the cards lately so a design featuring the classics was perfect...until I painted everyone in...and somehow lost Buddy.  What the heck!?!  Can't do the card without Buddy.  Okay, B. Willard's been in several cards.  I'll trade him out.  

Wait...

I can't bring myself take B. Willard out...

By this point I've put so much paint on the canvas that I had to Sand It All Off...and start over. 

I need to start this whole blog post over!  Or move some paragraphs around like a hard puzzle.  It's going together as well as the card did ;-o.  Actually, I need to go out and feed (because every day is Christmas here ;-), so I'm just going to wrap this up with the finished card and everyone can pretend it all went smoothly...but I might seal those envelopes with a wet sponge just in case ;-).

Merry Christmas!

Oh for crying out loud!  I'm trying to scan the back of the card and the scanner won't turn on! :-o

Let's try this again.  Merry Christmas!!!

Sigh...  Now I'm getting this error.   www.blogger.com’s server DNS address could not be found.

Okay, let's try this One. Last. Time.  MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Tough Sledding

I should have used a big hill in this year's card because the painting (and writing and printing!) of the card this year was some sure tough sledding!  I'll do the full reveal on Monday, but for anyone who's finished with their decorating and shopping and making and baking and has their house clean and laundry caught up and bank deposits made and gas bills paid.....or is just looking for something to do instead of all that and would like a sneak peek...

Nope, I didn't make it easy on you, but hey, we are all fighting through the deep drifts together here, right?  ;-)

Enjoy!

Hank's Nest

It was 14 degrees this morning.  Much as I love cold weather, if the sun hadn't have been shining, I'd have been pretty cold.  The sun makes all the difference.

This is where I found Hank this morning as I headed to the barn.

A couple years ago, I guess the manure spreader was broken, we had to pile up cleaning from the horse stalls.  Hank loved sleeping on that pile!  We've made him a "muck pile" every winter since.

I think it gets him up off the cold ground, probably heats up a little as it composts, he can snuggle down into it and with the wind usually coming from the west, the old Grahaminator2000 provides a little wind block as well.  Plus, with his sheep all tucked in behind him, he can keep an eye on the rest of the farm.

It was cold enough that Baba slept in the barn last night.  That doesn't happen very often.  She's back out this morning.  The sun...

Hank has several other places he can sleep, inside the barn, inside the barn on a deep straw bed, inside the barn on a deep straw bed inside an insulated dog house...  This is his favorite spot.

Of All The Things I've Lost...

...I miss my mind the most.  ~Mark Twain

Found it - the picture...  Baba, Rebecca Boone and Renny.

Pretty sheep, pretty background, pretty light.  Funny that I took this pretty picture one day and the next a picture of her wearing a huge rose bush branch with a tuft of wool at the top.  Looking at this realizing I painted her body dark and her 'do light and it's the other way around.  This Christmas card is never going to be finished :-o.

Rebecca Boone has come in with some funny things stuck in her wool, but this Cotswold Wool Flag takes the cake. Love Baaxter sniffing it :-) #cotswoldsheep #fleecewithcharacter #whatsalittleVMamongfriends #ilovemysheeps

A photo posted by Sara Dunham (@thecrazysheeplady) on Dec 13, 2016 at 3:41pm PST

Tongue Out Tuesday!

I was going to post a pretty picture I took yesterday of Rebecca Boone and Renny and I think Baba is in there too, but I must have saved it in a weird place because now I can't find it.  Argh!  So then I decided I'd post this picture and title it "Argh!", but that didn't seem right even though that's how I feel right now.

This cute little lamb doesn't care about misnamed files, lost emails, Christmas card painting not going well, no Christmas crafting getting done, no presents being made, the days just clicking by like a CPW (Canadian Production Wheel) chattering on and on and on and for crying out loud it's the THIRTEENTH of December :-o.

So Argh...but those are my problems, not hers.  I went to Google and typed in Pffft to see exactly what it meant, thinking maybe that was a better title and saw all the tongues sticking out and thought "Hey, I should save this for the next Tongue Out Tuesday"...and realized that today was, in fact, wait for it...Tuesday..........

In the meantime, I've lost an email with an shop order.  Yesterday got away from me so I was working on them all this morning (on only one cup of coffee...which may be part of the problem...).  I've got orders from KM, SW and KZ.  I am 98% sure there was another one, maybe E somebody?

If you've emailed me in the last 48 hours and I haven't responded, please resend your email.  I am so sorry that my inbox looks much like my desk office.  I did straighten up the Wool House wash room/work area last week thinking that would help me organize the Christmas card better....  If that DID help, we were in REAL trouble if I hadn't done it :-o.

Here's a short video of everyone stressing out about the painting last night...

Burning the midnight oil. Getting ready to wake everyone up to go to the house. #goodhelp #Christmascard #notgoinggreat #theusual #woolhouse #gooddogsofinstagram #catsofinstagram

A video posted by Sara Dunham (@thecrazysheeplady) on Dec 12, 2016 at 7:51pm PST

Today is a new day...even though it's not off to a great start so far ;-).

Here Comes The Sun...Or Not

Sure wish we'd have gotten all this rain a couple months ago.  Sigh...

Here's a little procrastination for you :-).

Enjoy!

How To Take A Nap...Lamb Style

And always the best sleeping with your mom watching over you :-).

Here are a couple new puzzles for everyone who is too cold to go outside and play.  Not me!  I love this weather...well, without the wind maybe ;-).

Enjoy!

What To My Wondering Eyes Should Appear?

Could it really be?

A little Christmas surprise???

"Yep, that's me.  Merry Christmas!!!"

Not a surprise though.  The Training Center brought in two "colored wool rams" from Nistock Farms over the summer.  Since both boys had been "on vacation" for a year or two, she wanted to make sure they were going to be up to the job this fall, so put together a small group of test ewes.  

There is at least one more ewe expected to lamb soon...and the rest will be Christmas Surprises and after seeing these first three lambies, we all have our fingers crossed that there will be lots of happy surprises :-D.  In the meantime...

"You chickens keep it down over there.  My kids are sleeping and they'd better stay that way!"

"You'd better watch your step over there, too, lady!"

Shhhh ;-)