Why This Is The Best Christmas Gift Ever

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Merry Christmas to me and all the rest of the sheep who are dang tired of walking through mud this crazy weather year! A huge heartfelt thank you to everyone who bought calendars...this fall. We will always do what we have to to make sure our/your sheep, dogs, cats, bats, birds...have what they need. It’s just so much easier to order 26 tons of gravel (!) when there’s room in the account to do so 💗. #bigtruck #lotsofrocks #nomoremuddygates #sograteful

A post shared by Sara Dunham (@thecrazysheeplady) on Dec 11, 2018 at 8:50am PST

While mud is ugly to look at and irritating to slip and slide through, this is the real reason we are putting done so much fresh gravel.  There is probably a proper term for this, but I call them mud clods.  The sheep walk through mud, it sticks in between their two "toes", dries into a rock hard and usually sharp clod and then is very painful to walk with.

I picked these from between Beanie Baby's feet last night.

If this happens to the front foot of a friendly sheep who will let me just walk up to them and pick out the clod, it's not a big deal.  If it happens to a sheep who's not willing to be field caught, I have to bring them into a confined area in the barn to catch them.  That's too is not a big deal and I can't stress enough how important it is to have a catch pen area so you aren't having to chase your sheep down to catch them.

Picking clods from front feet is an easy job.  Picking clods from the back feet is a challenge even with a friendly "pet".  Liddy had mud clods in both back feet the other day.  I had to set her down on her fat butt (like for shearing) to reach them and pick them out.  This is has become a daily job and I had to catch, set down and pick clods from eight sheep's feet last night.  

Time to take care of the mud...since it doesn't seem like it's ever going to dry out.  I didn't say that.  I'd always rather deal with mud than a drought!

Sunlight

I had big plans to do a New Year's Day post and even took some project pictures throughout the day, but I just don't have the gumption to put that together this evening.  I'll give it a try again tomorrow.  

One of my "goals" for the new year is on days when I can't pull together a full blog to at least post some pictures, sort of Wordless Wednesday style.  Writing blog posts takes energy, clarity and concentration, all frequently on short supply by the time I sit down in the evening.  Pictures can tell stories...and if they can't, you can have fun making one up :-D.

The morning sun was lovely.  Cold, but lovely.  We are headed down to zero tonight, but I'll take that over -31 any day.  Stay warm out there!  And enjoy some pictures from the barn this morning.

Blossom

Baaxter

Beanie Baby and friends

Petunia

Don't do it, Muffin!  (click to biggify ;-)

"What?"

Hank and Murphy

Gotta love a June photobomb ;-).

The 2016 Fleece Report...so far

As I was well prepared for after the winter hay season, the fleeces could have been better...but they could also have been way worse.  Several have been quite nice, so I'm rather encouraged about some of the rest left to skirt.  

The entire month of May has been either raining, cold, windy, some combination of the aforementioned or else a brief window where we can jump on the tractor and try to keep up with the overwhelming grass growth.  So yes, Bullwinkle and I are scrambling to have enough fleeces ready for the festival this weekend.

Quality Control Officer...for the plastic bags.  What is with this boy and plastic?

Kate babysitting.

Beanie Baby

Lila.  There's a lot of Lila to love again this year.

And a lot of Baaxter as well!  I divided his fleece down the middle to offer as two halves.   

While a pretty color, it's not super soft.  However, it's Baaxter, so someone or two someones may want to spin a fleece of great character. 

More babysitters.  Betsy keeps working on him and he loves his Auntie Reg.  Speaking of Auntie Reg, she's making quilted project bags and has four really cute sheep/knitting themed bags ready to add to the booth.  

Did anyone see Talladega Nights?  If so, remember the part where Ricky Bobby gets to drive the race car for the first time and his buddy Cal runs over and says something about "remember when we got kicked out of biology for playing with match box cars?  Who's retarded now!"  This is Andy, the why would you want that rogue sheep?  What a pretty fleece!

Nap time - what a good lamby.

One more.  It was getting late and both Bullwinkle and I were tired.  Spud had had an emergency re-shear in the heat of the last summer and I figured his fleece was going to be a throw away this spring. He's an over achiever.  Look how much it grew in just a few months.  No wonder he nearly had a heat stroke!

Today Bullwinkle, Kate and I are headed to Channel 36 to help do a promo for The Kentucky Sheep and Fiber Festival and The Bluegrass Classic Stock Dog Trial on the noon news.  We'll skirt some more when we get home.  I'm looking forward to more happy surprises and hopefully some local folks will find some happy surprises this weekend as well :-).

Everyone Shines

"Everyone shines given the right lighting."  Susan Cain

Even Buddy, who's never had a glamorous day in his life.

Super cute, yes.  Glamorous, no ;-).

And then there's Beanie Baby, who doesn't have much going for him except his good looks and fancy fleece.  

Daniel, the complete package - sweet, cute, kind, handsome, soft, shiny...  Not that I pick favorites ;-).

Another favorite, Renny.  And no, I haven't started knitting her sweater yet :-(.  I'm hoping today is my last super crazy day.

The glamour couple - Baaxter and Blossom.  I don't think Blossom was really that into having a boyfriend, but Baaxter was pretty sure she was ;-).

Yarn Along - The Mystery Knit-a-long

I would say "It's still Wednesday somewhere!", but geography ain't my strong suit and probably it's actually already Friday there...  

I really don't have time to be knitting anything right now, as anyone who's ordered a t-shirt can tell you as it's not showing up in their mailbox.  However, as anyone who's ever raised a bottle lamb or lambs in general can tell you...it's always something.  

Poor Liddy started acting punky the other day.  I knew something was wrong, but couldn't figure out what it was.  No temp, but she wasn't running and playing like she normally does and just looked like a lambie who didn't feel well.  I gave her a little banamine (like aspirin) and put her to bed, but by early morning she had a fever and was coughing, so the vet and I assumed she had a summer cold and started some antibiotics.

This morning, after I sat her back up from her morning shot (when I'm by myself, I sit her on her butt like she's being sheared), my hand came away with blood on it.  Not from the injection site, but from her lower right hip.  Huh???  Upon closer examination, she had a nasty abscess that had just burst. Back to the vet!

Of course, being sweet little Liddy, she hopped herself into the car, jumped up on the back seat and settled in for the ride over.  She hopped out, tootled into the vet's office, sat on my lap as we waited to be seen and charmed everyone in the waiting room.  

They said it looked like a fence nail prick.  I know my kitchen's a bit treacherous, but... We'll probably never know.  Hopefully now though she's finally really on the mend and will be feeling better very soon.  In the meantime, while she was needing extra momma time, I got to knit the entire first clue from the Hole and Sons Isle of Purbeck Mystery Knit-a-long.

I ended up choosing some Jacob yarn I'd spun during the Tour de Fleece last year.  This would have been a top choice from the beginning, but I didn't have enough yardage.  I finally decided that in the grand scheme of things I'd probably take forever to get through even that much yarn (if at all!) and if I did, I'd just spin some more, maybe a darker gray.  If I'd actually had enough yardage, I can tell you that I'd still be on row 8, not 58.  

The medium gray is some early Jester and the almost white is some very early, maybe lamb shearing, of Beanie Baby.  I love the little hint of gray mixed in. We'll see if I keep cooking along, but the pattern is fun and pretty and I'm excited about working on it.  And, stopping for a few minutes to knit some lace is a good exercise in focus...that I'm sorely lacking right now.

Isn't this pretty?  And those petunias?  They are all volunteers from last year!  I've never had so many seedlings come back up.  

Speaking of so many of something, if you live in an area with fireflies, chime in if you are seeing way more than normal this spring!  And if you haven't noticed, go outside tonight and find a grassy field.  I've stood outside for the last three nights and just been amazed at the thousands flying over the front field.  It's the most I can ever remember and I've enjoyed them tremendously.  Don't miss it!  

And just to make this as random and scattered of a post as possible, here is a close up of my brand new knitting needle.  I loved knitting with the Addi Natura needles I used for the Maisie sweater and treated myself.  The yarn started catching on the end...and I noticed a "perfect" little chomp mark.  As long as she's feeling better... ;-).

For my book this week, I'm listening to Bill Bryson's Notes from a Small Island and he actually mentions the Isle of Purbeck!  As are any of his books, hilarious :-).

Joining Ginny...

Wool Festival Guest Post From Hershey

"Yeah, well, it was kind of a long weekend.  We had to go and be in some sort of hugging booth.  Mom said there'd be some cookies, but we got hosed on that because they figured out Baaxter was going to be too rowdy.  I could have told them that before it ever got started.

It poured rain all day on Saturday and about every hour the tent roof would overflow and it was like someone poured a bucket of water on our heads.  Our wool got so wet that wherever we touched the red gates, we got red stripes. Luckily a nice guy came by and fixed it so that would stop happening, but we were all pretty wet by that point and just wanted to go home.

Luckily the next day was nice and sunny.  It was kind of hot, but not too bad in the shade.  Baaxter said he was done hugging people if they weren't going to give him cookies.  Murphy and Spud eventually joined him in the hugging boycott, so for the rest of the day, I got all the hugs.  That was fine by me.

Mom's booth looked nice and she sold a bunch of wool, tshirts and coffee mugs.  I know she was happy about that because she's made some sort of goal about paying for all of our expenses this year, not just our feed bills.  She said none of us can get sick this year, but I don't know how she expects that when she takes us out in a monsoon.  Good thing we are all tough!

20 didn't get to come out on Saturday, but he was there on Sunday. He helped with the drop spindle instruction.  Auntie Reg was there both days and our friend Miss B was there on Saturday and then Grandma and Grandpa helped tear down the booth Sunday afternoon.  It takes a lot of help to do these shows and I know Mom is really appreciative.

Liddy did a great job all weekend.  We'd all heard the story of how rotten Maisie was two years ago when she had to "work".  Baaxter said he was good last year, but I overheard Reg telling some people that he was pretty naughty, jumping out of the pen and knocking chairs over and such.  I tend to believe Reg on that count.  

I know everyone was really excited about winning some ribbons at the wool show.  I didn't get to enter my fleece because someone had already come down to pick it up earlier in the spring.  I'm going to make sure that doesn't happen next year because I think I can give Murphy a run for his money.

The really exciting win was our friend Karen's win at the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival earlier in the month.  She had taken Beanie Baby's fleece last year and spun it into yarn, designed a shawl to showcase all his different colors and won first place in the Spinner's Yarn Basket.  This year she took the finished shawl, you remember the one, from the Hug A Sheep party, and won first place, best in show, most innovative design and best hand spun.  Dad made a nice poster to tell people about that.

The new Lamb Camp cards.

I think Mom was a little worried about hanging up Maisie's sweater.  Something about how the tent might fall down or something.  I can totally see that happening.  That is one crazy sheep.

I don't think people were convinced.

Nobody bought Chocula's huge fleece so I think Mom is talking to Sheepmom about dyeing it.  I'll believe that when I see it.

We all really love Auntie Reg.

Especially Baaxter.

And Liddy :-).

By the end I was pretty tired, but I still loved visiting with all the nice people, especially this young lady.  It was actually a pretty fun weekend, now that I look back on it."

I couldn't have said it better myself, Hershey :-).

A Fleece Appreciation Post

I've been slowly working my way through skirting the 2015 fleeces, mostly trying to get the "sold" fleeces done first as I know people are looking forward to receiving them, but picking some for fun too because I can't wait to see what they look like.  

In years past we've stuck a name tag inside the sheet bag.  This year we stuck a tag inside and pinned one on the outside.  Why that took so many years to figure out...I don't know.  

Is that really you, Woody?  I knew he was dark under there, but wow!

Yep, I'd know that white spot anywhere :-).

How pretty is that!  I believe Woody is headed to the fleece competition at the Kentucky Sheep and Fiber Festival this year.

Here's the most exciting part.  This is the top of his back BEFORE I started picking out hay and straw.  This post should be titled A KATE Appreciation Post.

Beanie Baby, again before picking.

When we were looking for a new Border Collie, I was mostly looking for a nice companion dog...who could also help me learn more about sheep herding.  I don't have any interest in trialing, but thought it would be nice to be able to do some things like move my sheep from field to field during the summer rotations.

Turns out there are all sorts of jobs a well trained dog can help you do :-).  Figuring out adding the two gates to the end of the sheep stalls and having Kate move everyone outside when I was setting out hay has paid off huge in fleece quality this year.  Our fleeces are, well, fleeces to be really proud of.  

Beanie Baby folded over and ready to roll.  He's headed to the KSFF as well.

Daniel.  I wish he'd stayed darker red/brown, but he's still beautiful.  See how he's getting lighter and lighter as his fleece grows?  He's almost white at the cut end (from next to his skin, the newest growth).

I think I'll call this "still life with treats and fleece" haha.  Note the "dirty" wool touching my apple. Yep, I ate it anyway ;-).  Oh, had a couple questions about the Cheerios yesterday.  Yes, sheep love Cheerios.  I can't remember how we got started on Cheerios.  Was it just for Maisie (who Will Not Eat Cookies - could she be any wackier? ;-) or was it for the old sheep with no teefers?  Anyone?  

Renny

I've had the same awesome shearing "crew" for the last few years.  As we were getting ready this year, Karen started looking through the stack of sheets for "Renny's Sheet".  I told her I wasn't going to pull that sheet out for Renny this year.  I felt like Renny was just one of the sheep now and her past wasn't part of her present and she shouldn't be singled out.

When it was her turn for a new 'do, I started to second guess myself.  Maybe it was important to keep Renny's sheet her special sheet.  Oh well, nothing to do about it now - we were up to our knees in wool and moving too quick to go searching for it.  As Renny stood back up, Stella handed me "her" sheet.  Thank you, Stella.

One of Renny's black spots.  I'm not sure if these spots over much of her back half are naturally there or if they are remnants of scarring.  I sometimes wonder if Renny ever thinks about what happened to her years ago.  I still can't help but look at her and just be amazed.  I guess you never truly escape your past.  Your story is your story.  Your sheet is important.

I listened to a great TED talk a couple years ago about a young lady who lived through a bad illness and lost her legs - wait, here it is, Amy Purdy.  I remember her saying something like "How do you want your story to end?"  I think Renny knew she didn't want her story to end in that muddy pond. That fleece is full of power.  I haven't decided if it's for sale this year. 

That's Renny getting ready to walk through the gate yesterday.  And yes, the grass is that green. We got another ton of rain last night so it will probably be even greener this afternoon :-o.