Dreaming of summer

The Shepherd is just going nuts with too many things to do right now, and then there are all these little plants that need transplanted out of the seedling,flats.  A farmer's work is never done

Here they are

Here is a first picture of the tribe.  Two ewe lambs and a ram lamb who will soon become an "it" . They are all doing well.  Mama's udder was a little blocked from being so distended for the last week, but the lambs had pretty much taken care of that by this morning.  He bottle fed some colostrum and will get some milk replacer for the littlest one just to make sure she thrives. Vanessa didn't seem to mind and even gave the babies a face washing afterwards. 

There was a reason.

Everyone kept saying, "is she having triplets?"  But we didn't think so, never have had triplets born on our farm.  Well we have now.  The Shepherd just called me at work and Vanessa had two girls and a boy this morning.  Pictures soon! 

Fleece judging at Black Sheep Gathering

We are at The Black Sheep Gathering in Eugene Oregon this weekend.  The Shepherd has three fleeces out of 19, entered for judging in this class , lamb fleeces.  Judith McKenzie is the judge this year.  Judging starts in a few minutes! 

Even Though it's Pumpkin Time again...

Yes, even though it's Pumpkin time, this pretty blossom is in bloom in the nursery.  

 Not a big crop this year - this is about half, and we normally have about 2 dozen - just as well, we still have many packages left in the freezer from last year. It was just too hot to bake this summer. 

Some of the pretty leaves that have fallen from our many trees. 

And here's the proud gardener with one of this year's pumpkin crop.  He has a birthday next weekend - I found a biography of Red Cloud on Amazon last night - I think that it will have a couple of $20 bill bookmarks in it.  He's a very hard guy to buy for...

Hope you all have a good week.   

Happy Sunny Sunday!

 The Shepherd, Outstanding in his Field...

He put a fence around it today because the critters are after his corn.  And they don't just pull of an ear, here or there, they pull up the whole darn plant, little buggers...

We went to an open house and potluck yesterday afternoon - he took our hostess a broccoli that was almost twice the size of this one.  She was so impressed that she put it in the center of the table.

I put 4 quart bags of broccoli in the freezer today.  It will be nice to put in soups and stir fry next winter.

I wish you could smell how sweet these sweet peas smell - truly delicious.  

And the coral runner beans are out producing his wildest dreams - I may try freezing some of them - maybe just a quart or two - that way, if they end up mushy, I won't have wasted too much  

Our Rose of Sharon is in full bloom!

I'm off to make cream of broccoli cheese soup for dinner.  I made 5 bean salad to take to my potlucks this weekend - I'll give you the recipe next week - it's the best I've ever made!  

HAPPY SUNNY SUNDAY!!!

.

It's Caturday!

Hello effury Kitty and effury Body!

It's ME, George and I'm happy to announce that The Shepherd is the guest photographer for today's Caturday report.

Mummy has been busy keeping up the blog for the 2012 Squalicum Valley Artisans Faire that she will be participating in next Saturday. Not only has she been working on that blog (and ignoring ours!), but she has been working at her string machine or sitting with the little metal hook night and day to get things ready for her sales table.


The cool thing that I heard today is that she will be home almost all next week from the Salt Mine! She'll be doing the last minute things for the sale, but just maybe we'll get a little extra snuggle time in the mornings!

Speaking of snuggle time, The Shepherd says the Miss Bella and I find the darndest places to sleep.  They are really nice and shady, and we are cooled by the earth under the barky stuff.

It has been pretty hot here in the Northwest - it has only rained one or two times since the first of August.  The lawns are all drying up and brown.  The Shepherd is not very happy about that, because that is part of what he does for a living - mow lawns - and if the lawns don't grow, he don't mow, if you know what I mean...

The Shepherd doesn't use the computer at all, so when he brings in his camera, and Mummy dumps the pictures out of it into her computer, he says they enter a black hole and he never sees them again.  So Mummy sat at the computer for the longest time this morning, organizing the pictures that he took over the last 9 or 10 months and sent them all over the interwebs to a place called Walgreens Photo Shop - they printed them all up (144 pictures!) and they were ready for her to pick up this afternoon.

She says technology is marvelous - what ever that means.

These are some of the pictures that were hiding inside his camera.  The broccoli is all gone now, but there is some in the freezer, and the corn that the raccoons don't get will be ready in a couple of days.  It is so good that Mummy says she doesn't even need to put butter on it - and Mummy is the butter queen, so she ought to know! 
 





 This was another thing that happened earlier this summer - on the 4th of July, I remember, because both Mummy and The Shepherd were home.  They heard a big crash, and thought that the neighbor guy was doing something with machinery.

Turns out, it was someone who missed our corner (see those black tire stripes where he hit the brakes?)

 Well, he didn't hit them fast enough and crashed right into our fence and then he backed out and drove away!

The Shepherd was really mad.  Look what it did to the fence! 


 





These last three pictures are from a place where The Shepherd goes to do his yard keeping work.  Isn't it pretty there?  Looks like a wonderful place for kitty to sleep, under all those ferns -

 And look at this - dinner on the fin -

A guy could really enjoy living here. 

Mummy says she gets all these great blogging ideas while she is driving around doing errands, and thinks that she will remember them when she gets home - nope, they fly out of her brain the minute she hits the driveway.

We're going to make her start carrying a little note book to write her great ideas in. 

We hope you all have a great week -

XOX  George

.

Did I mention...

This is the handsome sweater that our friend Denise knitted for The Shepherd out of all the yarn I spun from Moni's fleece.

I love how the cable goes up the front and splits & goes to the shoulders.

Next we're working on one with all our Shetland colors. Yikes!

His Valentine's Present.....

Well, I figured I'd better show you his new sweater before the natives got too restless.

You may remember last fall when I spun and spun to make all this yarn for our friend Denise to knit The Shepherd a new sweater vest. She brought it to our guild meeting on Saturday, so he was able to wear it to church on Valentine's Day!








One of the ladies from church is also a spinner and knitter - she gave it her full approval!


















Denise used a pattern that The Shepherd picked out from looking at MANY, MANY mens vest patterns that we found on the internet.

She also used the vest that he has worn for the past 20 years or so that his "ex" made for him. He asked me one time if it didn't bother me that he wore it - "heck no"- it is a beautiful vest made from a gorgeous brown Navajo Churro (I think) wool - (really it is a work of art with cables and everything) - but he has practically worn the poor thing out. So it was time for a new one.

Thank you Denise for your wonderful skill and care that you took - I think he's already planning which fleece he'd like made into the next vest.


Olympic Update: The Chinese won both the gold and silver in "Pairs figure skating" tonight - both couples were just fantastic - how the heck do they do that? - & Congrats to the Canadians for their GOLD medal won by Alexandre Bilodeau in the men's moguls - (he'll need that gold medal to pay for the knee reconstruction surgery they'll have to do when he's 30...)

Yes, it was PURPLE cauliflower!

It's been a colorful year in The Shepherd's garden - first, there were these beautiful beets -

And then the purple pole beans, and the green beans and the broccoli -








Then came the purple cauliflower. LOTS of purple cauliflower - enough to share with five of our neighbors and one of my coworkers.







And the plant's were HUGE! - They obviously like growing in composted sheep poop!









Isn't he cute peeking out from behind these huge leaves? Unfortunately the sheep didn't like them, so they just got loaded up in the trailer to take to be composted.









Here is one head with a teaspoon to give you perspective.

And one of the neighbors traded for this handful of yummy tomatoes - now that's what I call a great deal!

Miscellaneous farm "stuff"

"Oh, oh, Violet, she's in here again - what awful thing do you think will happen now?"

Pearl and Violet (in the front, isn't she pretty?) are surmising that since The Shepherd's Wife is in the barn with him something nefarious is about to happen -

"Don't worry girls, it's only worming paste - and it tastes like green apple, I think you'll like it."

With the barn door shut, everyone is easy to catch with the help of the shepherd's crook that I got The Shepherd for Christmas a year ago. He wonders how he got along so long without it It certainly makes things easier on the back (his, that is) I stand, pressed against the wall so I don't get knocked over and when he's got someone caught - "Blurp" there's your worming paste for the spring - on to the next one.
The swallows have nested in the barn again - I couldn't quite reach high enough to get everyone in the picture. It's only been 5 days since I took this picture and they are already out flying with their folks. I love watching baby swallows learn how to fly.





So, with worming fait accompli, the girls were turned out into their new pasture - but they couldn't help munching down a bit of grass along the way.

Speaking of munching, this year we've had a huge problem with bunnies munching everything they can get their little lips around. It is very apparent that Neelix kept the bunny population at bay. We sure do miss him.

He probably kept the raccoons out of the corn too - They have cleaned out The Shepherd's first planting. He is very discouraged!
He was also surprised to see a yearling buck bound into the girls pasture this a.m. The young fellow stood around and munched on some cherries for a bit and looked like he was going to make his way into the barn to see what was in there - but The Shepherd waved his arms and shouted and the little guy decided the better of it and bounded back out of the pasture an on his way. Cleared that 4 foot fence like an Olympic hurdler.

No, the new sign is not for the deer, it is for the neighbor's grand kids who had beat a path down the creek and were throwing sticks into H.B.'s pasture and taunting him. All we need is for one of those little buggers to get hurt - so we have two new signs on the creek to let them know that they are not welcome on our property. I think we should string some electronet along there, but, then again....

The whole creek bed behind our house is full of cherry trees. They are a tart cherry - but we never get to harvest any because the starlings seem to sense when they are coming on and beat a path to our back yard. They sure can get rid of a cherry crop in a hurry. Darn things.

I loved this picture of the cherries though - and yes, I picked that dark one and ate it right after I took the picture.

And a parting thought -

Do you think we should change his name from Cooper to Flash?

Happy Anniversary to us!

Here's to another 15 years of peaceful co-existence.

We celebrated with a dinner of leftovers and fresh baked rhubarb pie.

Saturday we'll go on a trek, ending up at Gretchen's Wool Mill Spring Fiber Frolic and Spin-In. Should be a fun afternoon.

Happy Anniversary Sweetie.

Hair today, gone today

Sinda has heard that the vishus sheeps were getting their furs clipped today - she has come out to snoopervise.









Life as you know it is about to end H.B. - you will suddenly be a scrawney looking rascal.








Whoa, I was right!











Our friend Margot came with her son William and daughter Emily, who is our goddaughter.









Marsha Adams has been shearing our sheep for many years. This was her last shearing for us. She is retiring. We are sorry to have this happen. She has become a good friend.




Margot is trying out her new video camera while the kids looked on.

It was really sweet, when Marsha was shearing Moni, who is very pregnant, she stopped and asked the kids if they would like to feel Moni's belly. She thought the baby/babies had been kicking at the sound of her shears - but they apparently had stopped - just soft and warm tummy to be felt.




While The Shepherd was otherwise distracted, our friend Diane, who had also come to watch, snuck into the feed bin and offered H.B. a little handful of sheep kibble. He gladly accepted - she now has a friend for life.






















Marsha is showing off Violet's fleece. It is really beautiful and incredibly soft.

Eight fleeces - two of them are pre-sold. Pearl & Luna were just 6 month fleeces, so they were very small and will be combined with the rest of the white alpaca that we blended their fleeces with last fall. Taylor's fleece will be featured at the Spindrifter's Sheep to Shawl at the Skagit Highland Games in July and Moni's fleece was sold last fall at our spin-in.


Danny's fleece will be blended with an fawn colored alpaca cria fleece that he bought last fall from our vendor neighbor - they are very close in color and it should make for nice spinning.





Hope you enjoyed your little slice of a "day on the farm"