She's Baaa-aack

After the sheep were shorn back in the spring, the Sheep Chicken had to stop sleeping on her ledge.  She couldn't get enough traction on the slick sheep backs to make her jumps.  About the time their wool started growing back to an acceptable length, the days got long and hot and the sheep stayed out grazing in the evenings, well past the time when she wanted to go to bed.  

She slept in the coop all long summer.  A week or so ago I noticed she was back on her platform perch.  I caught an occasional picture of her on various sheep's backs, jumping for her ledge, but hadn't had time to post them and then forgot. 

Two nights (or I should say late afternoons - chickens go to bed early!) ago short little Clover Belly followed a couple of the older sheep in hoping for an evening snack.  She didn't get one, but poked around the stalls for a bit looking for anything that might have dropped.

She was standing at the doorway between the inside and outside stalls (the right side of the picture) when the chicken hopped aboard.  She stood there for a couple seconds and then walked straight over to the ledge and the chicken jumped on up.  If you look closely you can see her next to the fan on the back wall. 

Sometimes I just "live in the moment" and watch what goes on without recording it.  Sunrises and sunsets are always better in real life and should sometimes just be enjoyed.  Bees working flowers...well, they are good either way.  A chicken and sheep so deliberately working together, especially one I've never seen helping the chicken?  I wish I'd turned on the video camera.

*     *     *   In other news  *     *     *

Hank and June are now best friends.  Other than taking a walk yesterday where she shouldn't have, June is doing really, really well.  I'm putting up some more fencing today to hopefully stop her from future exploration missions.  If the Adventure Chickens figure out they could ride her to town... :-o

Cecil Aguilar's been back and made something extra special for us.  I'm telling you, drystone work is like tattoos.  Once you start you can't stop.  I of course took lots of pictures including a very cool one with Eli, who is trying really hard to make the calendar next year.  I'd say things are looking good for him ;-).

Tonight is the big neighborhood Pumpkin Carving Party.  I had planned to try to do a special felted pumpkin to carve, but...I'm now spending my day putting up fence :-/.  At least I can think about my real pumpkin design while I work.  I'm guessing it will be a Biscuit and Muffin design.  Stay tuned!

I don't know how it could possibly be almost the end of October, but it is and next Saturday is National Hug a Sheep Day :-D.  We are once again hosting a farm party to celebrate and would love if everyone could come!  Needless to say if I can't find time to post blog pictures, I probably haven't had time to work on the teleporter either, but June is all about some cookies as are Biscuit and Muffin and Mrs. Pepperpot and everyone else.  It will be a fun afternoon :-D.\

*     *     *   One more thing   *     *     *

When I was looking for a link for the words "Sheep Chicken" above, I found the post about Baby Belly and Spud helping last year.  I'd forgotten that had been Baby Belly.  Clover Belly is Baby Belly's daughter.  While Muffin may have ditched me and Mrs. Pepperpot, Clover Belly stayed very close to her momma her whole life.  We lost Baby Belly last week. 

I am quite sure we don't have even an ounce of understanding about what goes on between animals, especially animals in a close family.  I was amazed that a sheep who I had thought had no previous experience with the chicken routine was helping out.  Now I'm extra amazed.  Remember Tilly stepping up after Iris died?  Something else to ponder while I'm stringing fence today.

SO, as I did with the long post about Tilly, let's see who made it to the end of this epistle.  Leave me a comment on the main blog saying which sheep you'd love to hug most and I'll have 20 draw for a winner at the end of the weekend.  There's a 2018 Farm Calendar in it for the winner :-).

More Rockin'

The wet weather creek running through our farm travels all around our neighborhood from pond to pond.  Our original "contractor" had put in two bridges for us so we could drive tractors and trucks across to easily access the entire farm.  He'd also buried the overflow pipe from the Frog Pond.  All this had basically served the intended purpose, but we've fought erosion issues for years.

After Cecil repaired the two bridges this past winter with well placed dry stacked stone (as opposed to ugly rip rap, bags of concrete, Hank's coffee cup collection... ;-) and they not only worked perfectly but also looked so nice, we knew he'd have to fix the culvert pipe as well, as nearly eight feet of that pipe had eroded out and was quickly making its way through the Frog Pond dam.

This ended up working out well for the folks from KET (Kentucky Educational Television), as they were wanting some footage of him working.

They also asked Saint Tim the Clean Shaven some questions. 

"Those rocks fish were THIS big!"

Hank greeted everyone upon arrival and positioned himself at the gate between them and his sheep.  As the temperature rose, he decided it might be best to move to a closer vantage point...

...under a shade tree :-).

Not-A-Spring-Chicken

I've been told this March is going down as the coldest March on record. I don't doubt it. Neither do the sheep.  It was warm (albeit wet) leading up to shearing, hot the actual day of shearing and at the time, the 10 day forecast looked like a normal March.  We decided to have everyone sheared, even ancient Elizabeth.  Bad decision.

Missing several teeth, she is skin and bones even with the extra grain and soft cookies, crackers, Cheerios...we try to give her.  Unlike, say Boudreaux, she only eats what she feels like and then walks away.  And for sheep's sake, don't tell her she has to do something.  Elizabeth has always had an opinion.  Usually a loud opinion.

The weather turned for the worst and she looked miserable.  She needed that wool back on and there was nothing we could do about that.  I tried putting a dog coat on her and the rest of the sheep lost their ever-loving minds, which in turn upset her as well.  We finally rigged up a small pen in the inside stall and hung a heat lamp over her and hoped for the best, but felt awful for her.  She was Not Happy about being locked up even though she was surrounded by her friends and family.  (See loud opinions above.)

For the last couple of days I've been forcing her to stay under the lamp.  And it's been a struggle.  So we have an ancient sheep, barely hanging on, looks like she's starving, shivering hard...  It becomes "the question".  The sun came out yesterday though and while it wasn't warm, it was pleasant if you could stay out of the wind.  And here is where I found Elizabeth.

Soaking up the warm sun, in a sheltered spot, surrounded by her friends, looking pretty darn happy.  So I guess that's the answer. 

This chicken is sure I'm taking her picture.  So vain ;-).

Buddy and Jester, another old timer.  Only he and Elizabeth are left from the original flock.

And Cecil's been here too.  More later.

A Step Up

I think I mentioned before that stone work is like tattoos. Once you get one, you've got to get more. I don't have a tatt, but seriously, have you ever seen anyone with just one?



Cecil and Rigoberto Aguilar of Aguilar Stone Masonry were out earlier this week building a couple special projects for us. Blossom quickly signed on to help.









She loved watching Rigoberto and the noise didn't bother her one bit. Heavy machinery and lots of noise? She's there!







But by the end of the day, she was pretty tuckered out.

So what were they building? Well, I was going to title this post "Growing Old In Style", but I have a few reliably smart mouthed friends who'd just take that and run with it. Shut up, Debbie! ;-)



They were building me and Hickory a mounting block. Doesn't he just look thrilled!



Good boy Hickory for standing still while this old lady steps on.

Blossom Rocks

What is Blossom into now?!?



This is another "test" post. Still dealing with the stolen blog content issue, but this morning it looks like while she (we have identified the person) won't respond to my attempts to contact her, she may have taken down at least some of my most recent posts. We'll see if this one shows up.

Interestingly, in trying to figure out who, what, where, when and why, I came across this interesting search result...



Uh oh. That might explain a few things ;-).

Between A Rock

Cecil Aguilar, Aguilar Stone Masonry, and his crew are here building a wall under the porch of the new studio. He lives just up the road and we've driven past his place, with it's beautiful stonework out front, for a couple years and each time talk about how we'd really like him to build something for us. He's here and the drystone work is so interesting it's actually kept me off the mower...some ;-).



I'm very excited about the studio, but not so much on the actual building process. To be honest, I'm so tired of trying to make the right decisions about questions throughout the day(s) that I doubt I'll ever build anything again. And while I can truly appreciate the usefulness of a nail gun, I am tired of the noise. The tap, tap, tap of the stone hammers though are a different story.





Outside



Inside





How the big stone is split - very interesting.



How the stones are placed - very cool.