Gosh they've grown!

They are only 4 months old, but they know who brings out their hay.  Our little girls love their Shepherd.

Let the wailing begin

 One of my least favorite times (well, really my VERY LEAST favorite time) on the farm is weaning day. 

Everyone is gathered up, and moms go into one pasture and babies go into another.

 Our friend Nancy G. came over to help.  We coincided the weaning with ear tags for all the babies. 

You see, in order to take an animal off our premises, it MUST have an ear tag.  The Shepherd got a rather nasty letter from the feds for taking a couple of ram lambs to the auction without them last year. 

The feds want to know where our sheep are at all times.

Hmm - too bad they don't feel that way about immigrant babies.  Sorry, I digress...

   So, we have 22 sheep, 12 babies, 6 mamas, 3 yearling ewes and one auntie who is a non-breeder.

The have all been screaming ever since Friday night - the lambs wanting to know where there mommies were - the mommies, whose udders were getting tight, wanting to know where their babies were - and the teen-aged girls and Auntie Donna wanting to know what they were missing out on...

 Hey, you, where'd you put the lambs? 

Actually, the moms and yearling ewes have quieted down significantly, but the baaabies - Not so much -

I'll be very glad for Monday this week. 

Moooommmmm, mooommmmm, where are you? 

A little thistle salad for breakfast anyone?

The sheepies have been out in the pasture right by the front gate the last few days when I've been leaving for work.  The lambs are growing so fast right now! 

Growing like Topsey

Oh my.  These lambs are growing so fast you can almost see them change from day to day! 

They saved the best for last

With one more ewe left to lamb, on Monday afternoon The Shepherd told our friend Nancy that he wanted a "Panda Girl" - or a ewe lamb with a white head, dark eye patches and white socks. 

Well, what do you know? 

His wish was granted.








Meet Cali - or, "Marietta's California Girl"

Her dark color is Dark Brown, and she's cute as a button, don't you think? 

He let mom's and babies who were born last weekend out this morning - Pure Pandemonium!  But so fun to watch, and listen to.

Pictures soon.   

One Busy Day

 It's been a nerve wracking time waiting for the lambs this year - after Vanessa having triplets and taking so LONG to do it - The Shepherd was starting to get just a little bit sleep deprived.

So even though he was thinking that Lyla and Katie might have babies today we still went ahead and headed off to church this morning.

 Sure enough- when we got home - Katie was in full labor and a little freaked out - the little one would not pop out - he had to pull her out.  Turns out her elbows were kind of compressed and when he got them straightened out - plop, out she came.  Katie is a new mom, but just fabulous - got her up and cleaned off. 

We had planned to drive down to Skagit county to look at the tulips in bloom and have dinner to celebrate our 24th anniversary (actually tomorrow)

One more check on Katie before we left and discovered she'd had another one.  All seemed healthy, so we went ahead and drove out the driveway.

 Dinner at The Outback Steak House was delicious.

And the tulips were quite beautiful.

An added bonus of a flock of snow geese - picking up some extra calories before they head out for summer nesting grounds.  

Here's a picture of Katie with "Colleen" her second one - has about a half dozen white hairs on the top of her little brown head.  

 And this was our surprise when we got home - Lyla had a set of twins too!  The littlest one was still wet, so they couldn't have been more than a half hour old. 

That's 4 more ewes!!!

Happy Earth Day and Happy Anniversary to US!

That's 9 lambs, 2 rams and 8 ewe lambs - Now he has to decide who goes and who stays - that's the hard part.

Happy week to you!  

Out in the wide world

The triplets got to go outside yesterday.  Two moms down, 4 to go!!

First lambs

Well I'm a little late with this, they are a week old today. We still have 5 more ewes in waiting.  It's going to be a long month. 

A little halter training

The Shepherd had started halter training before Fiber Fusion, but when Annie got sick that was put aside.  He had a couple of the boys sold and it is infinitely easier if they will walk on a lead.  Sometimes it goes well and sometimes it's like dragging a dead sheep behind you.  These lambs seemed to take to it pretty well and just hopped up into the trailer when it was time to go.

Quite a scare

We had quite a scare with Annie last week.  The Shepherd was getting ready to go to Monroe and Fiber Fusion NW with our "teen aged girls" and he realized that something was wrong with Annie.  Called the vet and loaded her into our dog crate not knowing what was wrong...did she have pneumonia like Jefferson had just had or what.

She was in very bad shape by the time he got there - they sprang into action and a quick diagnosis determined it was most likely sheep polio, caused by a deficiency of vitamin B1. Which causes swelling on the brain which leads to blindness.  They started   B1 shots immediately and something to stem the swelling in her brain.

Long story short, we almost lost her and she did go blind, but she began eating the next day and more shots here at home plus pills for pain and isolation from her sisters and brothers miraculously she has recovered.  No blindness that we can tell and she seems to not be any worse for wear.   Shetlands are genetically hardy little sheep, they have to be to live on those cold windy islands in the North Sea. 

Now we just need to stop the bullying that happens when you reintroduce a sheep that's been out of commission into the flock.  Poor little thing. 

He's for sale - with prize winning fleeces in his background

 The Shepherd calls him #1 son, I call him Lamar - but we're both calling him "For Sale"  He even comes with a little brother wether buddy.  (that's a must) 

He has awfully nice horns and his fleece is like silk - Judith McKenzie said his dad's fleece felt like cashmere and he's inherited that fine trait.

So if you are interested, please leave a comment on the bottom of this blog, or you can email us at marietta_shetlands at hotmail dot com. 

We also have some ewes available - you'd need to talk to The Shepherd about which ones, but I know one of them is white. 

Meanwhile, out in the pasture

Did anyone see what happened to the month of July?   The lambs are bigger, the pasture is browner, but I sure don't remember the days going by...

I think part of it was the smoke.  About mid month, there were fires burning up north in BC.  The smoke, however, doesn't respect borders and soon our skies were filled with dirty brown haze.

Not only making it hard to see, but hard to breath as well. Happily it rained last weekend and the skies cleared. 

The Shepherd has been working on socializing his crew of lambs.  They are coming along quite nicely.  Next is halter training.  That is always fun to watch - (not for The Shepherd, however)  Most of the time they will do the "flop" until they get used to having that weird thing around their nose.  He is taking them to Fiber Fusion in the fall and needs to have them halter ready to show. 

Here's Mr. Jefferson, looking Oh so Regal, and proud.  His fleece won blue ribbons at the NW Washington Fair in Lynden this past week.   

    
It is hard to believe that he is not even a year and a half old.  He's probably one of the nicest rams we've had, temperament wise - his mom Jennie did a good job when he was a baby. 

This is "Number One Son"  (what can I say, that's what he calls him)  He's looking for a new home where he can have his own flock of girls, since his dad has the job here all sewed up...

Some of the older girls, looking as brown as their pasture.  You can see the haze in the air - these pictures were taken during the time of the BC fires. 

Sorry for the long absence.  I have been more active on Instagram - you can find me there as "menolly44" - hope to see you soon.

A.J

A.J. is a carbon copy of her mom.  The Shepherd is very pleased.

Garnet and little ones

This handsome little guy is named Cal ,- he and his sister were born yesterday morning.