The Mia sized version of the Boudreaux sized blog. This is mostly a BACK UP BLOG and a smaller version for smaller screens if the main blog is too hard to navigate. For complete posts, giveaways, corrected grammar and punctuation, the "rest of the story" and any additional posts that might not make it over here for some reason, please check the BOUDREAUX SIZED BLOG :-).
I've been enjoying baby Big Moose's picture in the 2020 Lamb Camp calendar this month. Look at those big eyes and big ears! He was such a handsome and silly lambie. Still is :-). I'd like to say that's all the fun December Lamb Camp Calendar news...but it's not.
I ran out of 2021 Lamb Camp calendars a week or so ago. No worries, I just ordered some more from my maybe too local printer. He brought home a fresh stack and I promptly sent them out to fill the waiting orders...and on Saturday afternoon noticed that he'd re-printed 2020 calendars.
I think I've emailed everyone who may be panicking about having to go through 2020 all over again, but just to be safe, I'm posting it here as well. Double check that you received the correct Lamb Camp calendar and let me know if you didn't. The cobbler's kids...
While you are checking your orders, please make sure you received everything you wanted. I ended up with an extra drawstring bag and possibly an extra felted wool pin when I tidied up the shipping area. Hopefully I just miscounted, but at this point I'd say anything is possible. Sigh...
Summer is always trying. This summer seems to be trying extra hard.
The latest trouble, skipping over several things, was a stray dog coming on the farm Saturday. He made a run at the horses in the morning. I chased him away. He appeared back in the evening and came in on the sheep. We tried to catch him that time, but he got spooked by some fireworks and bolted away.
Without a good guardian like Hank, we are going to have to take extra measures to try to keep our sheep safe until a time when we can find a new dog. And finding a new dog may be nearly impossible because of a situation with the new house built right on our front field fence line. I set up a camp.
The first thing we did was lock the sheep up in the secure paddocks near the barn. A dog or coyote could still get in if they really worked at it, but hopefully it would be too much trouble or at least slow them down enough to give me a chance to intervene. We put the tent on a clean(ish) patch of level gravel.
Big Moose was immediately involved so we moved the tent back to straddle the short fence and took two jug panels and built a wall around the front half.
He is so silly. I just love this sheep :-).
From there it deteriorated, because you can either laugh or cry, and Biscuit is ready to welcome everyone to the Equinox Farm vacation B&B. The sunsets over the barn roof are stunning!
You can have an up close and probably personal encounter with Maisie. What a face, eh? (Click to biggify)
You can watch the full moon rise and travel over the farm. Definitely a highlight!
A slightly better picture, but not much. The moon was so big and so bright. A cell phone just can't capture it. I never needed a flashlight and as it reached it's peak height over my tent, maybe 2:00, it was so bright that every time I woke up and looked across the barn lot, I could see everyone and everything. So much better than fireworks.
I thought of Hank off and on throughout the night. He and I would often sit together on the hill and watch the farm on bright nights. It was one of my very favorite things, even in the winter. The last picture I took of him was him resting next to me under a bright full moon. I wish I'd thought to camp out with him all night even just once.
The next morning I woke to the sound of Petunia's bell and turned over to see the sheep grazing in the arena. They'd quietly tiptoed past me and let me sleep in.
Good morning!
I watched for the dog on Sunday and did not see him again. That evening a neighbor found a promising post in the missing pets group on FB. I contacted the owner to make sure it was indeed the same dog, now safely at home and back in his electric fenced yard. It had been scared by fireworks. Fingers crossed we never see him again.
Other than the gorgeous full moon and the fun of sleeping in the sheep yard (which was actually fun even with the bugs and hot weather), the best story from all of this was what Rocky and Jared did to try to protect their flock. I told it on an IG video post last night. You should be able to follow along.
I opened the gate to let the main flock graze the side field over the weekend. I do this fairly frequently. We don't follow an actual rotational grazing plan, but when a paddock needs to be grazed down a little, the sheep are willing partners.
During an afternoon barn check I found Big Moose hanging out with his mom in the Easy Breezy stall. He hasn't shown any interest in her in months. I guess those were his independent teen age months. Looks like they had a lot to catch up on. She was really happy to see him :-).
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My name is Early. I was born on Saturday. I wasn't early. I was actually late. My mom had my brother almost four hours before she had me. That's very unusual. Of course by then no one was watching for me and my mom was pretty confused and it was pretty cold out and I nearly died.
I got cleaned up and tube fed some warm colostrum and held on a warm lap in the "warming oven" also known as "the old blue truck" with the sun shining in on me and I finally came around. I have a warm wool jacket to wear, too.
Of course, between my strange birth and the time it took to get me revived, my real mom decided I was better off in the truck so thecrazysheeplady brought me home and now I live in the kitchen with her. I'm doing okay now she thinks, but I know everyone was pretty worried about me.
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We still go to Lamb Camp farms during the day and I stay in the back of the car when she's busy. I have lots of snuggly straw there and she comes out to check on me and give me babas and when there's a good break, I get to come to the barn and play with my cousins.
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Last night I got to go to our barn and play for awhile. I met some of the big sheep and they seem pretty cool. A sheep named Big Moose was really excited to play with me, but my mom said I was too little and I'd have to wait until I got bigger.
Another spring shearing is in the books and this may have been our best shearing yet. The fleeces are a little messier than I'd like, but they aren't terrible. The weather, with the excessive rain and several high wind events, has been extra challenging this winter.
Bill, our shearer for the past...many years...has stopped shearing. Without his big shearing trailer with it's ramps and chutes to rely on, both Tring Farm and Final Frontier Farm had to set up in-barn working systems to handle their big flocks.
I watched how both set ups worked out and decided to set up a similar system over here. Tring Farm kindly loaned us all the gates and panels we needed and helped design the areas and angles and it worked a treat.
The sheep were all penned in the aisleway stall which funneled into a small catch pen which funneled into the chute which fed into a tiny catch pen where the sheep were then turned around and backed out onto the shearing board.
The fleeces might have been messier than I'd like, but the shearing itself went great. Taylor Schwartz came over from Mayslick, Kentucky, and did an outstanding job with our, um, challenging interesting flock. I've got more pictures to post tomorrow.
Cheeto
Big Moose marched into the holding pen...and then decided maybe he really didn't want to be the next sheep in the barber chair.
All those beautiful baby curls :'-(.
Even prettier on the inside.
Mini Moose watching. I have a video to upload of Big Moose being sheared, but the internet is so slow tonight that I barely got these pictures loaded. You can hear Mini Moose calling to him. First hair cuts are probably a bit scary.
"They are."
Remember Mini Moose's dark gray stripe running down his shoulders as a lamb? It's still there! I'll try to remember to take a picture tomorrow.
Tabitha
Count Chocula
Big J aka Jared
Good old Salt. I think I've taken a shearing day picture of her at Final Frontier Farm every year for the last...many years. Seemed kind of funny to be taking a picture of her on our farm. Seemed kind of funny to not be shearing with Bill, too, but that worked out as well.
As I was starting to do evening chores the other night and the sheep were filtering in from the back field I heard a strange "ba-a-a-a-a". Low and gravel-y.
"Who was that?" I called out.
"Ba-a-a-a-a."
Hmmmm... "Who said that?" I asked again, hoping to see someone's lips move, but it was nearly dark.
"Ba-a-a-a-a."
I know pretty much every "baaaa" in the flock. Rarely does someone say something that I don't at least recognize as a familiar voice. A deep voice does not necessarily mean a ram or wether; a high voice doesn't necessarily mean a ewe. Liddy can growl with the best of them and Jared sings soprano ;-).
I called out one more time. The sheep looking most intently at me was Big Moose. He was standing just outside the door though and it was too dark to see his black face...and besides, I knew his voice. Still... I pulled out the lamb dinner call.
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Speaking of big voices, if you missed this video the other day, that's Biscuit with the Big Baaa hollering as the sheep run up. And you definitely don't want to miss Maisie racing everyone in with her propeller spinning :-D.
Contrary to Comby's opinion, Big Moose is not really a brat. He's actually a very sweet sheep. He's just exceptionally curious...and tall ;-). New puzzle!
I have been working on this post for over an hour and I just can't get it to flow. I need to get back to work, so here is just the series of pictures from the other morning.
This is Jared and Big Moose. I'm wanting to tell the story about why Jared is grazing in the yard and how Big Moose idolizes him and followed him out there and how Big J reacts to that and how their two personalities and even appearances are so similar even though the chances of them being actually related are pretty slim and how...blah blah blah...
"We're out of time. We'll try to do better the next time."Tony Kornheiser, PTI
I posted five pictures to Instagram and tried to just embed the post here, but I don't think all the pictures were going to come through so I've copied and pasted it over here mostly to let you know Rebecca Boone is still fighting and maybe showing a little improvement and also a little Liddy to make you smile ;-).
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First an update on Rebecca Boone- she’s still fighting and maybe a little better this morning. Thank you for all the prayers and concern. I love how we take care of each other. It matters. ️ . . If I’d read forward on the Fiberuary list I would have held off on my pictures from the other day because I actually nailed several challenges that day . So I’m not just sharing the same pictures for days, I’m going to combine a few challenges with this post, which also gives me a little more room to keep my focus on sheep care. . . Days 4, 5, 6 and 7 - Close Up, WIP, Outside, Technique. . . The close up of my work in progress that I was knitting outside looks complicated, but it’s not! Only one color per row and the patterning comes from a simple slipped stitches technique . . . I included a picture of Liddy because... Liddy . The two Moose thugs pillaging my knitting bag while I was rescuing the short dog who was on the wrong side of the gate. And the muddy hoof print at the top of the super close up . Oh, and that’s Woody, the king of close ups . .
