Snow-pocalypse!

"I'm nowhere near as excited about this as you are."

Outdoor Recess

The sun came out finally and Maisie got to enjoy some outdoor playtime. I have a fun series of pictures with her and Eli, but she has other plans for me right now, so here are two quickies.

I am the boss of everyone.

Mom says it's a good thing I'm cute :-).

"Baked With Love"

A Harrison County Homemaker group came out to visit the farm this past summer and, of course, brought cookies.  As we talked about the sheep, wool, spinning, coming up with the ideas for all the Christmas cards...someone suggested cookies should be part of the design.  Of course they should!  Brilliant :-D.

Getting pencil to paper is sometimes a challenge, but after numerous re-draws in my mind (Does Hank bake the cookies?  Are the sheep stealing the cookies?  Maybe they should be baking for Hank? Thecrazysheeplady setting the kitchen on fire?...), the actual sketch came together pretty quickly. 

Until I drew in T-Bone and Gato.  And Not. Handy.  And not Miss Ewenice this year.  No Marcel...

Wow.

And Maisie?  Should I add her in?  She's just a couple days old and not doing exceptionally great.  Would it jinx her if I put her on?  Should I go with the power of positive thinking?  Am I going to let myself get attached enough to her that I'd be sorry if she wasn't included.  Of course I am.

And she slept at my feet or snuggled on my lap as I painted and thus became truly a part of this year's Christmas card.

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Funny Maisie

Quick post. Having a special needs bottle lamb right before Christmas? What was I thinking... ;-)

Maisie's doing great.  She weighs over six pounds now and her bald spots are starting to grow back. Have tried three different kinds of leg braces though and not having any luck. One more in the mail hopefully today or tomorrow, but if those don't work, we're just going to have to hope she grows up big and strong and everything straightens out. 

In the meantime, here are some cute Twitter pictures in case you missed them and I'll share a funny story.  

Maisie, like all the lambs except Naughty Keebler, went to church yesterday. All except Naughty Keebler seem to enjoy going to church...and we can now add Maisie to the Naughty list.  Her first Sunday she only wanted to be held by me.  While I tried to play the piano.  I do have to admit that holding a lamb while playing Away in a Manger might have made that the sweetest Christmas song of all time, but you are three weeks old now, Maisie.  You love your Auntie Reg and can sit with her quietly for a few minutes.

Maisie doesn't usually say much.  I have to set my alarm to get up to feed her at night because she's never figured out she can yell at me to wake me up when she's hungry.  Trust me, that's a first.  There's usually nothing louder than a hungry lamb.  Maisie though?  Quiet as a church mouse...until she gets to church.  Even though I was right there next to her, she yelled through the songs, the prayers, started in on the sermon and I evacuated her to the crying room aka front porch.

"Thank God!" she said as she hopped off the stairs, down the sidewalk, across the driveway, and Right To Our Car.  Very deliberately and not by accident.  She knew which car was ours, where we'd parked and she stood there at the driver's side door, waiting for me to scoop her up to Go Home.  Lambs are not dumb.  They might have to answer some questions when they get to heaven though! ;-)

The now obligatory "teefers" shot :-).

Checking out Peabody's food bowl.  Peabody is an old Border Cheviot wether.  She completely bosses him around.

Obviously not taken today. 

Maybe this cat will work out for her ;-).

Have read a couple excellent books while babysitting.  Will try to share later this week.

All lambs have their own sheep quilts, right?

She's slept through the entire Christmas card experience, from painting to mailing.  And she's of course on the card this year :-).

Queen Of The Wicker

Maisie had a great day yesterday. She's been getting stronger every day - finally - and when the sun came out she happily wandered out on the porch to play for awhile. I took advantage of her happy exploring and swept up loose hay and steam mopped the kitchen, periodically peeking out to check on her.

Where's Maisie? ;-)

There she is :-D.

"I'm right here!"

"Defending my territory from those naughty cats!"

"I had to wear braces on my legs and they didn't fit good and I couldn't get up or down and I couldn't sleep and momma was not happy about that cause she said I needed to sleep more than any lamb ever so she took them off and I was real happy about that, but then today they put some different braces on my feets and yuck, they're better, but I sure wish I didn't hafta wear them but maybe just at night when I'm sposed to be sleeping but what I really want to do is duck through the gate and race around the house really, really fast chasing my mom until she says she's too old for this craziness and then I hafta go back to bed but here's a secret, when it's the middle of the night you can get by her pretty fast and run around until she catches you ;-)."

Probably influenced by Betsy.  Sigh.  I'm getting too old for this craziness.  We're headed back outside to play and nap in the sun before the rain comes back tomorrow.  She ought to sleep well tonight ;-).

Not So Grate Akshully*

So we had those darling pictures of Maisie sleeping with Betsy a couple mornings last week. How nice that a cat with no kitty friends and a lamb with crooked legs and falling out hair could find each other and snuggle down for a long winter's nap. It was like the Island of Misfit Toys! Awwww... 

Until two nights ago. When Betsy lost her mind.

Around midnight I heard Betsy at the door. I got up and let her in and, noticing there were only about 30 pieces of kibble in her bowl (oh the horror), she decided to let me know about that and took off ripping around the house, jumping in and out of the kitchen (not quietly I might add), clawing carpet and couch and back thundering in and out of the kitchen, rinse, repeat. Maisie was scared half to death. 

I ran to reassure her that the world was not crashing down on her (like it sure seemed...to all of us), tried repeatedly to catch Betsy (who was having none of that), finally Betsy settled down (I thought), we all went back to bed.  More thundering in and out of kitchen, baby crying, run to comfort, try to catch the psycho cat, save discontinued fabric (read irreplaceable) couch, comfort baby, finally grabbed Betsy by her tail as she flew past...and tossed her outside. Back to bed.

Two o'clock feeding. All is calm... Climb back in bed and Betsy comes to the door. I figure she's gotten it all out of her system and let her in.  Again. Big. Mistake. Here we go again. This time when I finally caught her I maybe didn't gently toss her out the door. And this is where she was found the next morning (taken through the window).

Apparently Betsy's good behavior is directly proportional to how much it's raining...

She made two attempts to get in last night.  I just pulled the covers over my head and went right back to sleep.  

And didn't feel the least bit bad about it. 

*lolcat speak

Frosty Morning