The 2021 Calendars

From the back cover...

"As most of you know, I really struggled with creating the farm calendar this year.  2020 was a year of incredible loss on and off the farm and I've heard so many folks talking about how much they are looking forward to welcoming the new year and putting the old year behind them. I can't help but agree...and yet, in having to look back through all the photos I took throughout this strange, sad year, I actually found so very much to be grateful for. I hope I’m not alone in that.

So, once again, Miss Tilly is still keeping our feet warm, but now Kate is mostly just trying to keep herself in line.  Salt has taken on as many of Hank's duties as she can and hearing her deep ba-roo makes me smile.  Betsy is still on house arrest for not only the menacing of birds, but now also sweet little Possum out in the barn. Every so often I catch a glimpse of orange out of the corner of my eye and can't help but hope that Comby is napping in the sun somewhere nearby. 

As always, a very special thanks to Saint Tim for doing all the hard work and heavy lifting and a grateful thank you to all of you who have become such an important part of our farm family.  You were spot on in voting to give everyone a Victory Lap.  I hope you enjoy welcoming the new year with this calendar."

The Victory Lap was hard...but it was the right thing to do...if for no other reason than to force me to go back and look at pictures from when the year was new and some of my oldest and dearest friends were still pretty young at heart.

I like the new format.  The calendar is a bit larger, but not outrageously so.  It was a bit more expensive to print, but luckily I "know a guy" ;-).  The shipping will be a bit more too, but hopefully not outrageously so.  

The big pictures are a little bigger...but so are the little pictures and I like that.

There are more columns (7 days) the rows (weeks) which left a gap at the bottom, so I filled that in with a little something, sometimes a story, sometimes just some thoughts.  I like that, too.  The calendar feels maybe a bit too personal at times, but as the only place it will be for sale is here with us, not at a random crowd festival, I think that's okay.

Of course there's Hank...

...and Early and his adopted moms and dads.

...and Comby with some of his oldest and dearest friends.

The Lamb Camp calendars are comfortingly the same.  Lots of cute lambs and good mommas...

...and Early doing what I hope we all remember most about him.

The Lamb Camp calendars are still $10.00.  The Equinox Farm calendars are $16.50.  The shipping, which has become the bane of my existence these last few days, is where it gets a bit messy.  

For the past couple of years I was able to use the USPS flat rate envelopes no matter where in the country I was shipping. The new calendar doesn't fit in those envelopes.  This could be good news if you are close by because it may actually be cheaper shipping to you now.   If you live in California, the shipping could cost around $15.00...if I'm understanding everything correctly.

To make this even more exciting, I'm going to try to do all the shipping from home this year rather than stand in line at the crowded post office every day.  Also, I realize that UPS or FedEx might possibly be cheaper...but I don't have those options in my small town.  Thank goodness for the USPS.

While especially in this year of no fiber festivals, these calendar sales are going to be an important fund raiser for the farm, I also know that the farm calendar is important to many people who look forward to turning the page on each month.  

2020 was hard on everyone.  I'm sorry the costs have gone up.  If you are not in a position to pay for a more expensive calendar this year, send what you can.  It will all work out somehow and 2021 will be better if we all have Hank, Salt, Tilly, Kate, Comby and Possum at our back.  Maybe not Betsy so much ;-).

As always, if you are interested in buying a calendar or anything else from the farm shop (except for the felted pumpkins that I just can't seem to get made this year :-o) just drop me an email and tell me what you would like to order.  Don't forget to include your address.  I'll send everything out from my "on farm postal desk" (:-o) and include an invoice and return envelope and you can drop a check back in the mail.

The 2020 Tour de Fleece

The 2020 Tour de Fleece starts this Saturday.  I've had my plan set for months...but I'm not ready.  It's been a rough year.  It's been a rough week.  I'm going to need some cheerleaders to keep me in the race.  To get me to the starting line.

Obviously Early would have lead the team...so Cheeto and B. Willard have stepped in.  They are wearing hand knit wool crowns that were gifted to me and Auntie Reg.  We had planned to wear them at the spring fiber festival...but Cheeto and B. Willard have stepped in.

For anyone not familiar with the Tour de Fleece, it is a spinning challenge that usually follows the Tour de France, but this year the actual bike race has been rescheduled to a later date I believe.  

Here are the specs from the main Tour de Fleece group on Ravelry: 

Challenge Yourself.
Spin.
Have fun.

This year, the Tour de Fleece starts on Saturday June 27 and runs until Sunday July 19, 2020.

Guidelines (NOT RULES):

Spin every day the Tour rides, if
possible. Saturday June 27 through
Sunday July 19th. Days of rest:
Monday, July 6th and Monday, July
13th. (Just like the actual tour.)

Spin something challenging on the challenge days (usually the toughest high mountain stage: this year, the first one is Stage 9, on Sunday July 5, when the mountainous program of the day starts with the discovery of the Col de la Hourcère which will immediately precede the climb to the Col de Soudet. For the seventh time since the beginning of the Tour, the riders will ride at an altitude of over 1,500m. They will then battle it out on the extremely steep climb up to the Col de Marie Blanque before heading back down to Laruns. The second is stage 18, on Thursday, July 15th, when the course of the day is made for the most enduring climbers. Indeed over 4,000m of climbing will be on the menu. In the following order, the peloton will lead up to the Cormet de Roselend, then the Col des Saisies followed by Les Aravis and finally the Plateau des Glières, a key location of the French Resistance, before continuing towards La Roche-sur-Foron.

Wear yellow on Sunday July 19th to announce victory. Why not wear yellow on any day you feel particularly successful? (Yellow is the color of the race leader in the Tour - but here we are all ‘race leaders’) Other colors if desired: Green (sprinter - think FAST), Polka-dot (climber - as in uphill), and white (rookie).

You do not have to be a member of Ravelry to spin with the Punkin's Patch team.  That's where most of the daily fun happens, but feel free to spin on your own and challenge yourself.  Drop me an email or leave a comment if you'd like to keep us posted :-).

I'll try to get some fleece pictures tomorrow later today and outline my goal, but for now I'm headed to bed.  How did it get to be Wednesday already?!?

It Don't Do No Good To Get Angry

I went to the grocery yesterday to get some Epsom Salts and canned food for Comby...and I left my billfold at home.  I pulled out my car wash change stash and it looked like I had a little over $5.00.  Surely I could make that work.

Epsom Salts were more expensive than I thought, almost $5.00.  I added one can of cat food and headed to the cashier, hoping for the best.  "That will be $5.58, please."  Yikes, I might not have that much and I started counting, preparing to put the cat food back.  I had exactly, to the penny, $5.58.

"Someone was looking out for you!"  Things like that happen to me frequently enough that while I have no actual idea how the universe works, I do feel like there could be "guardian angels" and usually I take a deep breath and say "Thank you."

That was not what I was saying as I walked out to my car.  I felt like I was going to explode.  In my head I was yelling "You can count (blankety) change, but you can't watch out for a sweet little lamb?!?  I don't care about the (blankety) money!"  And I felt like an asshole.

Of course Auntie Reg got the brunt of all of this and the pretty well incoherent angry sobs of not only the meanness of the loss of Early on top of Abby, but of all those weeks of more great pictures and videos that I can no longer bear to look at and how I don't remember...anything?...anymore about Abby and I already can no longer "see" Early out in the yard or in the barn with Willard and Cheeto  and all the people all over who who were now as heartbroken as me and how much extra I hurt for each person as I read so many kind, but sad words and maybe I shouldn't have posted so much and drug everyone in and then I said something about well maybe everyone else could still go back and look at the pictures and they wouldn't all have been for nothing...and as I was saying those words to Reg, amyfibre was typing "We will hold on to all the good memories for you until you can bear them again."

.

.

.

So my guardian angel, who, honestly, probably feels as bad as we do, couldn't save Early...but can count change...and send me an "Equinox Community of friends" who can all "sit with you on the porch, as the tears run down our cheeks. Imagining fetching you another beverage, patting a dog, looking out at the martins flying and the sheep grazing and the horses napping..."

I can't bear to look, but Early's probably out in the middle of the yard.  Or if he's not there, you might find him under the pine tree eating brambles.  Or checking on his chickens.  Maybe he's taking a nap with Cheeto or butting heads with Willard looking to see what he's eating.  Maybe he's strutting down the hill to go graze with the big boys or standing at the gate talking to the horses.  Maybe you'll get lucky and see him racing, leaping, skipping and spinning up the road.  And maybe one day I'll get brave enough to go back and watch the video of him jumping into the back of the car.  He was a wonder.

You can gaze out the window get mad and get madder,Throw your hands in the air, say "; What does it matter?";But it don't do no good to get angry,So help me I know.    

John Prine

The Pieces Of My Heart

I slept in the kitchen with Abby because she was always so sick I was afraid to be in the other room and not know if she was in trouble.  It was one of the nicest parts, waking up with her right there every morning.  Or at least I remember that I loved that.

Because I remembered that I loved that part, I didn't hesitate to pull out my bedroll and sleep in the kitchen with Early his first couple of nights.  He'd had a stressful start to life.  Having his "mom" nearby all night would be a comfort.

Early never slept in his crate.  He'd go in there to hang out sometimes, but he always slept out in front of it with my bedroll and pillow flanking him.  When he got hungry, he'd wake me up.  We'd fix a baba, he'd go pee on a towel and then we'd lay back down in our beds and go right back to sleep. 

When he was tiny I'd wake up to find his tiny nose tucked in the corner of my blanket, next to my pillow.  As he got bigger, I'd wake to his sweet face up on my pillow.  And it seemed silly to sleep on the floor in the kitchen with a lamb, but it made me so very, very happy to wake up like that that.  And even if the world hadn't gone crazy and scary and so incredibly sad, I'd have slept there. 

I tried several times to take pictures of his face tucked in with mine, but it was always too dark.  And one click of the camera would alert him to me being awake and he'd jump up, ready for a baba and then we'd hit the ground running. 

Two nights ago the weather finally broke enough that I decided we could both move out to the porch.  I rearranged the furniture, set up our beds.  It took him awhile to settle in and go to sleep.  So long that I almost gave up and moved us back inside, but with my hand resting on his back, he finally fell asleep.  We had a good night and I woke to find his head snuggled on my bedroll.  And I took a picture.

Our morning started like normal.  Baba, coffee, cereal on the sidewalk while he happily grazed in the yard.  By mid morning something was wrong and we headed to the vet.  By mid afternoon he was gone.  Autopsy showed a fast acting clostridial infection even though he'd been vaccinated against that. 

Was the vaccine bad?  Did he not get enough colostrum when he was born?  I try to be so incredibly careful feeding lambs because of this risk.  Is it our grass?  Did I stress him too much by making him sleep out on the porch?  I can't stop it.

It took months to get over losing Abby.  Many months.  Two years later, I still can't look back at her pictures and videos.  It's all I can do to post this last picture of Early today.  I am so angry.  And so hurt. 

"...the pieces of my heart that have been ripped away from me..."  Iris Dement

Early Foggy Morning

Or Early, Foggy Morning ;-).

We woke to heavy fog this morning.  A complete white out.  As I walked around the yard with Early while he did a little early morning grazing with Willard, I snapped some pictures with my phone...and thought to myself, "Sigh, I wish I had my big camera."  

Um, the big camera is just inside the house.  So I trekked All The Long Way Back In...which I can do without upsetting Early because he's just that good, and took some pretty pictures this morning.  I have a nice horse shot that I'll post tomorrow. 

I've been wanting to do a blog all week, but thought I didn't have any new pictures to share and I feel a bit weird reposting Instagram pictures over here because I figure if anyone wanted to see Instagram pictures...they'd be following or at least watching the Instagram feed already.  Maybe that's not the case.  Let me know.

Anyway, as I was scrolling back through my phone last night looking for something, I found a whole series of pictures I took of a bee swarm Stella and I picked up a week or so ago and had already even forwarded them to my computer specifically for a blog post.  I can't get out of my own way sometimes.

Sorry for the long break in blog posts.  This is my diary.  I'm going to regret the missing posts.  I already do. 

A Funny Story About Early...And Maisie

I've had several questions about what Maisie thinks about Early...and there's a funny story there.  

"This is NOT a funny story!"

I know she's seen him playing in the barn aisle.  There's no way she's missed that.  He's in and out all day long and usually at least once at night.  She's the barn guardian now for crying out loud.  

One night last week I was putting out minerals in the feeder in the outside stall and I heard a loud commotion in the barn aisle.  My first fear is always the short dog.  Tilly hates lambs...and Early LOVES Tilly.  Not a great combo and I try to never be out of sight when they are together.

I raced back in and found Maisie frantically running laps in the aisleway, Early close on her heels doing his very best "Hi!  I'm Early!"  Her eyes were as big as saucers and I'm pretty sure she was using some grown up words.  Very grown up words.

There has never been once in her life that she's ever done anything I told her to do.  I opened the cross gate and called her name and she raced back in, tail twirling.  And I'm pretty sure she'll never sneak out that gate again ;-).

A Tale Of Two More Beds

This may be hard to see, but I know what it is and it's a good and fun memory.  I'll try to explain it.  What looks like one leg and house slipper is actually both of my legs and feet smushed into a tiny space between where Early wants to sleep and the comfy, spacious cage where he could sleep in front of the sink. 

This is Early's spot.  This is not my spot.  If he decides he wants to lay down and take a nap while I am standing in his spot, he unapologetically wedges himself in there pushing me out of the way.  It is His Spot.  We have adult sheep that sleep in the same spots every night, but I've not seen a lamb do this.  It's very hard to wash dishes this way...but it's darling so I let him.

I don't have a picture for the second tale.  I wish I did, but it's too dark to try to take one.  Early is in good order and a good, quiet, happy lamb.  He could easily sleep in the kitchen at night by himself now, but I'm having fun camping out with him and the dogs so I'm still there.  

My bed is just to the left of where he's sleeping in the above picture, my pillow where the blue towel is.  Because Early reliably sleeps in front of the sink, I haven't locked him in the dog crate at night. He curls up and sleeps there all night (we get up for a middle of the night baba still), but in the morning I turn my head to look for him and find his nose up on my pillow.

There is nothing better than waking up sharing a pillow with a sweet lambie :-).

I'm sorry most of Early's pictures and stories are being posted on my "quick" social media feeds (Instagram, Facebook and sometimes Twitter), but between taking care of him, the baby chicks, Lamb Camp and daily work here, I just can't seem to pull it all together right now.  Whew!

Here is a cute video of Early when he's not sleeping.  He's a very bouncy lamb and might be able to run faster than Maisie!  Must be the tails ;-).

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Silly Early showing off his hops 😍. “I DO do more than sleep you know!”

A post shared by Sara Dunham (@thecrazysheeplady) on Apr 20, 2020 at 6:56pm PDT

A Tale Of Two Beds

Most of the sleeping pictures I've posted of Early on Instagram are of him sleeping on a cat bed in front of his crate and under the kitchen sink. 

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Now you’ve got it! Good night 😴.

A post shared by Sara Dunham (@thecrazysheeplady) on Apr 13, 2020 at 8:25pm PDT

This is his preferred sleeping spot and it means I'm in the kitchen with him. 

When I need to go do something in the rest of the house or make a quick run to the barn without him, he moves over to the dog bed next to the gate (top picture) and sleeps there until I come back.  It's fun to watch how each lamb decides what they think is the right thing to do.  They are all different.  

Lamb Camp - Kitchen Edition

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“Hi!”

A post shared by Sara Dunham (@thecrazysheeplady) on Apr 12, 2020 at 6:42pm PDT

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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Mobile day care set up. This is why I try to not bring home a lamb until the end of lambing 🙄. . #workingmom

A post shared by Sara Dunham (@thecrazysheeplady) on Apr 13, 2020 at 7:53am PDT

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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Playing in the barn 😍

A post shared by Sara Dunham (@thecrazysheeplady) on Apr 13, 2020 at 7:39pm PDT

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.