If Anyone Can Help, It's 20

Back in the summer my neighbor bought a Serta mattress pad and sent me a picture of the box because the sheep pictured was 20!  It's hard to be just a farmer.  Most of us have second and third jobs or pick up extra work whenever we can.  20 is no different.

"Oh, wow!  Can I have the box?"

"Oops, I already got rid of it." 

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I really didn't need a mattress topper...  But it had 20's picture on the box...  I guess I could put it on the spare bed...  And it IS on sale...  I got a mattress topper ;-).

I'd planned to do a post sharing the cute box, but I never did.  And while it would be fun if there was now a baby lamb or some kittens in there...it's not.  It's my camera.  Yeah...  The deluge rain I was complaining about yesterday?  My camera and favorite lens was sitting out in it.  I am beyond sick.

20's helped clean up several messes I've gotten myself into.  Okay, I was going to link a couple posts here, but there are so many fun 20 posts that I'm just going to suggest following this link to read/reread all of them :-).  

In the meantime I've got my camera and lens inside this perfect big, vented box with a space heater running.  Everyone cross your fingers.  

The Wethers Outside Are Delightful...

...but the weather forecast is looking mighty frightful :-o.  And last year it was so hot we had to turn all the sheep back out early to get them out of the sun.  Sigh...

The Hug a Sheep Day Open Farm Party is still on!  We are going to move everything indoors out of the wind and any residual rain.  Saint Tim's weather app says the rain should be done by noon.  Not that cloudy and 45 is much better than raining and 45, but at least we can say "Could be worse.  Could be raining."  Go ahead and click the link.  You know you want to :-D.

"Will you still come and feed me cookies?"

Yes, Woody, I think the real sheep lovers will still come and feed you cookies.  And they'll be nice and warm because they'll be wearing wool!  And warming up around the fireplace in the Wool House or next to Uncle Phillip's big barn heater.  And drinking hot cider and eating some special cookies Auntie Reg is making.  It will still be a fun party :-).

If you need directions or have any questions, just drop me an email.  Hope to see you this Saturday!

Well It Wasn't An EPIC Fail...

...but if I have to keep explaining that it's two cute sheep, Biscuit and Muffin, eating a pumpkin and NOT a skull...  

By the way, that's Stella in the background wearing a bats in the belfry headpiece, courtesy of Auntie Reg ;-D.

It was another great Pumpkin Party.  This is really a highlight of the year for sure.  The amount of work it takes to put on a party of this size and cook at that good food and set up all the tables and chairs and bring in all the pumpkins and have carving tools and buckets for everyone to share and a big tobacco wagon to display them all and candles to light them...  We have awesome neighbors!

It's a little less scary in the daylight, or porch light.  And now that you know the bottom is a pumpkin and Not Teeth, it totally looks like Biscuit and Muffin...right?

Shirley won the calendar drawing :-D.  I don't think I have your address, so if you could drop me an email I'll get it sent out right away.  And I'm hoping to get the farm shop updated today so if anyone else would like a calendar...

Hug A Sheep - Preseason Party

"Why do we have this new pen?  What's a Hug a Sheep party?

We had an impromptu neighborhood party this afternoon.  Auntie Monica let me know she was bringing her usual bag(s) of treats for everyone, along with her mom, so I decided to set up a practice Hug a Sheep party.  Like preseason football!

"Oh!  A cookie party!"

Biscuit:  "Hey, where are you going?"  Muffin: "I think she's getting some of those nasty apples out."

"Um, ladies?  Isn't this supposed to be a hug a SHEEP party?"

"Hey, new cookie lady?  Can you help me?  That other lady is trying to make me eat apples."

I wish this picture more clearly showed Muffin's disgust about switching from cookies to apples, even after watching Biscuit and Mrs. Pepperpot gobble them up for weeks now.  She actually makes a face just like a little kid being forced to eat broccoli. No health food for her!  It's sugar all the way.  

Mrs. Pepperpot LOVES apples.

And parties!  

I wasn't sure what she'd think about all the attention and commotion. She thought it was great fun :-).

Luckily someone had the good sense to save some extra cookies for Muffin.

And now she has a new friend for life!  Biscuit was the first to bug out when the cookies ran out. Muffin stayed to visit for a good while.  She really is very sweet.  I guess it's all the cookies ;-).

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We are once again hosting a Hug a Sheep Day farm party this year.  National Hug a Sheep Day is October 28th.  Our farm will be open from 1:00 to 4:00 that afternoon and it looks like Biscuit, Muffin and Mrs. Pepperpot are ready!  

A Little Off The [Muffin] Top

Long wooled sheep (Cotswolds, Lincolns, Border Leicesters...) can get pretty uncomfortable around here with our "lovely" summer heat and humidity.  A couple here, namely Hershey and Spud, have had a great deal of trouble with the heat in the past.  

While I've been told the wool acts as an insulator against the heat, I feel comfortable calling shenanigans on that.  A few years ago Spud started acting off so I took his temp thinking he was sick.  108!  Remembering how much shearing helped Hershey his first summer, we did a quick emergency shear while we waited for the vet.  Within an hour his temp was back down to an acceptable 103.

Since then we've re-sheared Hershey, Spud and Murphy in late May, early June.  While Spud has still had an occasional heat stress issue, we've learned how to watch and deal with it.  Heat stress is nothing to fool around with, people or animals!  We were all glad to see Bill the other day.

Well, except maybe B. Willard ;-).  That's him trying to open the gate and get out.  Willard is a clever gate opener.  He knows how to push or pull each gate with his foot.  I added him and Rebecca Boone to the re-shearing list because both fleeces were a bit felted this spring.  Not sure if this will help or not, but worth a try.

Remembering heat stressed Hershey, who was at the time a dark colored (now gray) long wooled lamb, we sheared little Muffin as well.  I hated throwing away her sweet little lamb fleece (the fleece I held on my lap while she napped as a tiny lamb) and cutting off her cute little muffin top and chubby cheeks, but I knew the summer heat would be way too hard on her.

"My mom is right over there so I guess I'm okay."

"I thought I didn't have to do this until I got older."

This is a bit long because Bill took so much extra care with her tiny non-B. Willard sized body.  I love her mom keeping a close watch on them both.  You can hear Biscuit in the background (higher pitched baby voice) and Jester weighs in a couple times too (deep quiet baaa).  

We picked up everyone's 'too short to do anything with other than make some wool balls' trimmings. Muffin got her own "bag" and look, it's a baby sheet!  I guess someone must have known we'd eventually shear a baby here.  There is a good amount of wool in there for a two month old lamb.

"Jennifer told me I had to go tell Muffin her hair looks good even if I don't think it does."

It does look good though and momma looks even better.  She had a fiber break that was causing her to look a little Velveteen Rabbit-ish.  She'll be ready to become a sweater by next spring.

They both will! (Insert positive thinking, rinse, repeat...)

And she really is that black underneath.  And she feels like velvet :-).

But you can tell by her droopy ears how much that took out of her.  (Insert positive thinking, rinse, repeat!)

A new Biscuit and Muffin puzzle :-).  Click here or on the picture of the puzzle to play.

Enjoy!

Okay, So It's Been A Crazy Couple Of Days

I was going to start this post with a let's walk up to the barn and see what's there...and realized it was quickly going to get really confusing.  So, let's back up, what, 36 hours, no 48 hours ago and start there.

Friday night 20 loaded up the truck and prepared to head out well before dawn Saturday morning. He's ambitious like that and isn't "afraid of fog" ;-).  

Obligatory fog shot for Auntie Reg...who is actually more afraid of having to get up too early ;-D.

And yes, those are mountains.  20 took us all the way to West Virginia, to Painted Rock Farm.  For long time followers, that name should sound familiar.  That's the farm Heidi, Henri and Ford came from, turns out many more years ago than I'd like to remember.

For anyone who's seen Ford out in Del Boca Vista and wondered why he was so old and feeble looking...turns out he's 15 years old!  How the heck did that happen?  And Annabelly?  She's 14.  So is Allie and Billy Belly and Baby Belly.  Heidi and Henri are 13.  And of course Jester, clocking in at 17.

I could go off on a tangent about how old Saint Tim and I are and how many more years we can reasonably expect to be able to maintain a farm and flock, but it's getting late and I'm going to cut that portion short so I can finish this post, go make a final barn check and go to bed.  

Suffice to say that if we were going to add any new Jacob sheep, this would be a good time to do it. Getting an odd mid-January "break" in the weather enabled a safe run out there and Mike and Cheryl had exactly what we were looking for.

20 made sure everyone was securely tucked in and reassured that everything was going to be okay and we headed home.  Five or so long hours later we pulled in our driveway to find the lights on out front, the gate open and some friendly faces waiting for us.  Whew!

And now we've come to the point in this story where things get a little weird getting new sheep is completely overshadowed by other awesomeness.

Yes, that is a giant metal chicken.  A 7' tall metal chicken to be exact.  He was waiting in the dark behind the closed barn doors for me :-D.  I was startled, but not scared.  I was more excited that it was finally my turn to get surprised (he's been making the rounds of the neighborhood since Thanksgiving) and his sign completely made my day :-).  

Everyone quickly settled in for the night, the next morning came too quickly and before I knew it I was walking up to the barn in the fog and we are back to where we started with the first picture. Except now you'll not be thinking "What the heck?  Is that a giant metal chicken???" 

He stood guard all night :-).

And yes, those are Christmas lights and yes, he's exceptionally awesome when he's plugged in and all the lights come on...which they don't do so well anymore, but I'm guessing we can should get some new ones on winter clearance.

His sign :-).

Welcome, new sheeps!

"And when do we get to meet them?"

You won't get to meet them for a little while, Petunia, but I'll better introduce them all to everyone else tomorrow.  

Is It Really Over?

The next morning.

 

"Is Hug a Sheep really over?  I didn't get any cookies!"

Bullwinkle.  Everyone offered you cookies and you wouldn't eat them.  Even Aaron, who can do anything with wool and even got Burrnie to eat cookies a couple years ago, couldn't get you to do anything more than take a cookie...and then spit it on the ground.  I will give you lots of credit for being friendly though.  You boys did a good job.

"But we could still have some cookies today, though, right?  'Cause every day is a good day to give a sheep a cookie, right?"

"I think we are just going to have to eat boring ole straw, Bullwinkle."

Kate's sure there might be some crumbs left.  And Baaxter knows she won't share.

"Did somebody say Burrnie?  Am I going to get some cookies, too?"

"I think she's just taking pictures."

We've had some crazy Hug a Sheep Parties in the past, but this one really took the cake.  For almost the whole week leading up to the party, Tim was completely taken down by a kidney stone.  I realize that's probably TMI, but if I just said "Tim was at the ER three times over the last five days", it would have sounded much worse.  It was bad enough as it was.

Normal preparations that would have gone off seamlessly just couldn't happen.  The hopes that the nightmare was finally over late Friday night were dashed the next morning when it was obvious he needed to go back to Lexington once again.  There was no way to not do that.  There was no way to cancel the party.  Phone calls were made and within minutes help was on the way.

Friends and neighbors rallied together and the theme for the day was "We've got this!"  Tim was dispatched to the big city, animals were cared for, the barn tidied up, road signs put out, hugging pen assembled and filled, tables and chairs set out, cider iced down (it was 80 degrees!), questions answered, drop spindle and wheel spinning lessons given, cookies (but not too many :-) were fed and lots of pictures were taken...but none by me :-/.

I've seen a few pictures posted on the Ravelry page and Instagram.  If anyone else has posted them anywhere and would like to leave a comment with a link for others to see or if you'd be willing to email them to me to share...I would be so grateful.  In the meantime, here are just a few highlights:

1.  Obviously, pulling the whole thing off was the biggest highlight.  A huge thank you to everyone!!!

2.  Bullwinkle seemed to like visiting with everyone even if he didn't want to eat "contaminated" cookies.  When it got too hot to leave the sheep out front and we moved them over to the shade on the side of the barn, Bullwinkle stayed out in the driveway for a couple minutes to work the crowd hang out with his mom.  Just to be silly, I made a show of me feeding him cookies just to prove he did indeed like cookies. 

3.  We pretty much picked who was going to be in the hugging pen by which sheep were near the gate.  Somehow Woody and Murphy got left in the main flock.  This actually worked great as they both worked on everyone who came into the barn so many of the other sheep got cookies just like the party sheep.  Even Jester and Ford got cookies :-).

4.  When it got too hot and we moved the sheep over to the shade, the entire flock became the hugging pen.  Daniel came up to someone and gave them a sheep hug.  He is just. so. sweet.  The link back to the "sheep hug" post is fun.  Wow, look at how young those sheep were.  How did everyone get so old :-/.

5.  Annabelly's yarn.  I love how someone (especially a new spinner) buys a fleece, processes it themselves, spins the yarn (especially well), brings it back to show me, comes to the farm and by the end of the day is a new old friend.  

Annabelly is the only Jacob we have that I thought I could probably catch out in the field for a hug and yarn picture.  Annabelly has become one of my favorite sheep over the years.  She's kind of a silly sheep and not the fanciest Jacob in the world (read, probably least fancy Jacob in the world ;-) and I've always thought she's kind of known that she wasn't one of the cool kids.  

For someone to show up and say "Oh, she's beautiful!" and pose for a picture with her and really, really pretty yarn spun from her fleece...  Sheep are not dumb.  As I tricked her into letting me catch her, she tried hard to get away.  I told her why she was being singled out.  That she was special.  That this was a Big Deal.  She stopped and it was clear she understood.  Every mom wants their kid to be successful.  Thank you for making Annabelly feel really special :-).

6.  SO...when we moved the sheep to the shade and they all became the hugging pen...oh you know it.  Maisie.  I went out with everyone who wanted to go in and hug some sheep.  I did my best to keep an eye on the little darling, but even though she wasn't looking for trouble, there is something about her that draws everyone in.  One of the neighbors who knows quite well to "stay away from the sheep with the tail" would discreetly refocus my attention and I'd go intervene ;-). 

7.  We had a great group of spinners and knitters.  I kept trying to get over there to join in and kept getting drawn other directions.  When I finally brought my wheel out, it was almost "closing time".  A few folks stayed on so I could at least sit down and visit for awhile.  It had been a long week and that was a much needed treat.

8.  As always, I got to visit with so many fun and interesting people.  And as usual, I missed visiting with too many folks as well.  If you had questions or comments or missed getting a picture with your favorite sheep...please feel welcome to correspond with me or make an appointment to come back out.  

Remember - every day is a good day to hug a sheep!

Edited - Pictures being added to main blog :-).

Pumpkin With A P Party

There are three highlight of fall around here (besides just stupid summer being over ;-).  The first is the Kentucky Wool Festival the first full weekend of October.  The second is the neighborhood Pumpkin Party that falls on the Saturday about a week before Halloween.  This year was the 10th!

I wish everyone lived in a neighborhood like ours.  I can't help but think that the world would be a kinder place.  I realize part of this is due to living in a farming community, but I do know farmers in other places that might know who's driving that truck, but not how old their kids are or that their mother has been sick or that the chili supper starts at 6:00 so the pumpkin carving will be in full swing by 7:00 :-).

I took my camera so that I could take pictures of the over 100 people that gathered to say grace, eat awesome chili (and everything that goes with it) and carve pumpkins.  My design (that I'd worked on in my head, but not on paper...again) ended up taking so long that by the time I finished, pretty much everyone else was finished, too.  I think Auntie Reg got some pictures though.

I once again carved a design on the outside without cutting through and scraped the inside as much as I could so the light would shine through.  I'd planned on carving Bullwinkle, but it turned out looking more like Liddy.  That's okay.  She'll always be my special girl...and she's sort of shaped like a pumpkin anyway ;-).

Get it?

The third highlight of fall is the Punkin (without the extra P) Party to celebrate National Hug a Sheep Day.  This will be our 7th annual farm party!  I don't really remember now how Hug a Sheep Day got started, but the first year was fun so we've kept it going and it's been fun watching everyone join in, not just here, but around the world :-).  International Hug a Sheep Day!

The farm party here is this Saturday, the 29th, from 1:00 to 4:00.  Everyone is welcome to come out and enjoy the farm, the hopefully beautiful fall weather, the sheep (and cats and dogs and horses and chickens), and the great company.  We will also have some leftover pumpkins (with a P) if you'd like to carve a sheep pumpkin for yourself!

You may bring treats (vanilla wafers, saltines, corn chips, Cheerios) for the sheep if you'd like, but once again we will all need to do our very best to monitor how many treats everyone (especially the C.O.R.G.I.) is getting so no one ends up with a tummy ache or in a sugar coma.

We will have some of the most huggable sheep set up in front of the barn and you can meet and greet with most of your favorite sheep.  Most meaning Not Maisie.  Oh, I might be set her up in a Hannibal Lecter cage somewhere, but as always when visiting the farm, stay away from the sheep with the tail haha.  She hates cookies anyway ;-).

Bullwinkle and Levi have been practicing for Trick or Treat, but on an interesting note, Bullwinkle may not be in the hugging pen this year.  We'll have to see how he does.  We've had several groups of visitors lately and he is, I guess, shy.  

He won't eat treats from anyone but me and would rather go hide around the corner.  Levi, on the other hand, who I was sure was never going to tame down enough to approach strangers, has zero problem yelling "Tricks or Treats" and will be happy to mug you for cookies :-).

I'm hoping to actually join the group of spinners this year, so bring your wheel/spindle/current projects/show and tell...  Want to learn to spin or knit?  This is the perfect place to get started!  Have questions about keeping sheep?  Bring 'em!  Have questions about Livestock Guardian Dogs?  Bring 'em.  Border collies?  Bring 'em.  Corgis?  The answer is always food.  Remember - Don't Feed The Corgi ;-).

If you have any questions or need directions, shoot me an email.  If you have the address and your GPS wants to send you off the interstate via US 32, don't fall for it!  I'm serious.  

We hope to see you Saturday!

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P.S. This has turned into an epistle, so I'm going to post the next winner (and answer the question) of the calendar giveaway in the post I'm planning for tomorrow.  This give everyone an extra day to enter both drawings!   Today is Integration Day for the two boys and the weather is gorgeous so surely there will be some good pictures!

Faux Fall - And The Final (For Now) Freebie

Every stinking time I think "Okay.  Whew.  All I have to do is make it three more days and it's going to rain and cool off and summer will finally be over." It teases me with a cool down and then right back into the 80s it goes.  We hit 86 the other day...in the FOURTH WEEK OF OCTOBER!  

It sure looks like fall...

Even sort of like a pretty fall...

This is Baaxter hogging the fan like he does all summer...at 7:30 in the morning...on October 20th. Hershey looked so miserable the night before (how on earth could it be that humid when it's so dry and crispy?!?) that I finally had to do the ole cookie test to make sure he was okay enough that I could go to bed.  If you don't perk up when the cookie box comes out, we call the vet.  Highly scientific...but actually very accurate ;-).

These pictures were taken yesterday morning.  It's cold and raining today.  We'll see if it lasts or if it's just a fake cold down for the big neighborhood Pumpkin (Pumpkin with a P) Party this weekend.   The 10 day is encouraging...but I've seen that before.  

The Punkin's (no extra P) Patch Hug a Sheep/Open Farm Day is next weekend!  I thought about trying to take a new "promo" picture this year, but how on earth can you beat last year?

Actually, that whole post is pretty cute.  I love to go back and revisit the good times.  Even some of the bad times.  The link to the Ewenice and Renny tree had me crying this morning, but it was such a beautiful gift.

You know what - leave a comment on the main blog telling us one/some of your favorite old posts and that will be the third calendar drawing.  Petunia can draw for that one Monday or Tuesday.  And for anyone wanting a calendar but didn't win one, I promise I'll get the Farm Shop updated this weekend!