Well, that's a fine turn of events!

 When I was playing at being Shepherdess, (or, when I was Shepherd-Less, as the case may be)  I sneaked these two pictures of our ladies with the baby bumps. 

That's Vanessa, front and center. 

 And Donna is the one "at 12 o'clock" in this picture - (the little blaze face peeking around the feeder is Garnet) 

These were taken the end of March, and I was really hoping that births weren't too imminent - as I have said before, "I don't know nuthin' about birthin no babies"

Well, Vanessa, who we thought would go first, seemed to slow down - apparently she was waiting for her sister Donna to catch up -

which she did -  and yesterday on the hottest day of the year so far (84 degrees! in Bellingham! in April!!) she popped out this cute little guy.

His name is Carson - a sturdy little fellow, and 'fraid of nobody!

Or, his full "proper" name is:

                         "Marietta's Carson"

And then tonight, these two little ones were born - a ram and a ewe -   He hasn't named them yet.  
But, I'll tell you one thing for sure - these two came out HUNGRY!! 









Sometimes lambs weenie around trying to find the milk bar - not these two - they were right on the spigots. 

So all hands (or hooves, as the case may be) are on deck, so I don't have to worry about The Shepherd wandering around in the dark with his oxygen bottle - (shake your head all you want - yesterday he was out mowing someone's lawn - and it made him realize that he still needs a few more weeks of recuperation too.  Pooped him out good.) 

So that's the baby report for 2016.  Two ram lambs and one little ewe.  They will go out front in a couple of days to entertain and delight the neighborhood - life is returning to normal. 


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The Essence of Spring -

 There is a particular "fragrance" about spring in the Pacific NW.  It's called Cottonwood.  Sweet, slightly musky, not really a fragrance you would necessarily wear, but it's oh, so enticing. 

More than any other, the smell of cottonwood really signifies spring to me.  And it reminds me of a walk in the woods, ostensibly to look for mushrooms, with a crush from one of my Soc/Anthro classes. 

Ah, spring fever. 

This little hawthorn is over 60 or 70 years old.  It was gifted to The Shepherd by a lady from our church who was dying of cancer.  She said she  knew he would take good care of it. 

And he has. 

I don't work at the salt mine on Friday.  It "used to be" my day off - Today we had Dr's appointments and hair appointments  - got groceries and took the wool over to our friends house for the Wonderful Woollies Wool sale that is happening tomorrow.  It is our 5th year of participating in this sale - of course I'll take pictures.  

Someone I know is pretty pooped out tonight.  Hopefully he'll take it easy tomorrow.

I hope you've enjoyed this little tour through The Shepherd's bonsai garden.

I have to finish getting things ready to take along tomorrow - we have a pot luck lunch for the people who are "selling" - I think there are about 10 farms involved.  I'm taking a chopped salad with chicken & sunflower seeds, plus some banana bread that I just baked up.  I finally found THE quintessential banana bread recipe - on Pinterest of course.  I'll get you the recipe here in the next week or so. 

Til then - have a great weekend! 





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It's Caturday!

 Hi Effurrybody!

George here, just lubbin the spring sun on ma belleh.

And the gravel on my back - sort of like a massage...

Sort of, but sometimes it puts my furs out of order, and we wouldn't want that to happen.  

Mummy says to tell you that The Shepherd is getting a little bit better every day.  He's out working in the greenhouse this afternoon, planting seeds to transplant into the gardens.

We hope YOU are having a good Caturday and a great weekend. 



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