radish

This is a radish grown as a cover crop and to aerate the soil. It made a very pretty crop for early spring. Only my cotton board calendar has the date for spring listed as March 20th. My other calendars do not list the days of the changing seasons, no spring, summer, fall or winter dates are on them. The changing of seasons are probably not that important to most people. I'll admit, it is hard to tell when they change, since we hardly had a winter, and not even a spring, but fast forwarded to summer. I love having four seasons and enjoy seeing the changes of the earth, the trees got leaves and some bloomed over night just last week. It came a soft gentle rain and everything changed. I can no longer see across the creek with all the tree coverage. It's like spring came and left in just a few days.

today

It was a much nicer day today, cool dry air, lots of big blue billowy clouds sailing by. Decided to take a break from the same routine, so I headed to the woods to gather trees for the does with kids. There were dogwoods and dewberries blooming, lots of honey suckle and muscadine vines with leaves coming on, plenty of privet and young pines. The older kids and does have been turned out into a dry lot with all the hay and grain they need, but were very excited to get some leaves, bark and wood to chew on. It was the first time for the new kids to eat something other than mother's milk and they relished every bite. I can see this becoming an everyday chore. But it really is good for them. I also spotted the poke sallit popping out of the ground, going back down for my own treat.

Little Lambs

Jewell's lambs are growing everyday, time to band the tails, think I'll wait and see if the temp will drop a little. The past two days have been June like and miserable. I have two more bred does to shear and hope to get that done tomorrow. Finally got smart and moved the shearing stand to the does instead of dragging does to the shearing barn. The shearing doesn't wear me down, it's the draaging of stubborn does from one pasture to the shearing barn. Needed several drop cords to make it work, but I found them and ran them along the barn rafters from one barn to another to be safe. It makes me feel better when they are shorn and I know they feel better, once I get started most of them realize what is going on and they enjoy it, especially the older does. I hate being behind on my shearing but who knew it would be in the eighties in March. And what about that late cold spell? Well, they are all in good shape, fed well and have good shelter, so we should be fine. No kids have been born since Sunday, this is where I removed a buck and placed another in with the does, a buck that didn't breed any does, never ever had that to happen. The kidding will pick back up soon as I didn't leave him in for very long.

Jewell

I didn't know we were going to have heavy, blowing rain all night. I left the barn windows open and I had put two does with only a single kid each on the stock trailer so I would have plenty of pens for anyone that kidded in the night. When I heard the rain I took off to let up the barn windows, getting soaked, then put a kid under my rain coat and dragged the does back in the barn. The rain was blowing in the trailer. I made my check every two hours as when weather is bad sheep and goats will pack in the barn and if a kid or lamb is born in a crowd it can get unclaimed or stepped on. I knew Jewell was thinking about it, she was standing up all night. My last check was just before daybreak and she had one lamb out cleaning her up, shortly after she had the second lamb. Jewell is 11 years old and I was a little worried she might not be able to support herself and lambs. She did fine as she has always done, had two ewe lambs with plenty of milk and she can't stop baaing about it. She's as proud of herself as I am.

Slammed

Been slammed the past few days. Had some bad luck and some good. It's always going to be that way in the birthing business, you try to accept it and keep going. God keeps you humble and you pray alot. Cookie Doe had her kid this morning, he came back feet first, considered a normal presentation, but when the kid or lamb gets so far out, you need to get it out fast before they breath and suck in amniotic fluid and drown. Fortunately I was there and it was an easy pull, they are both fine. A very nice kid. Like her mother Tara, her milk is slow and thick as egg yolks, but it's the good stuff to grow a healthy kid.

Venus

Venus is one mean doe, but she wrote the book on how to kid and get those kids off to a jump start, just stay out of her way, she will bite and butt you. She wants no help, perfectly capcable of birthing those babies on her own. And she has real good hair and passes it on to her kids. She had two doe kids that will probably carry the mean gene. Just got up from the barn, Jewel, the doe, had a nice single buck kid that is a little slow getting started. Heard her screaming when I went out to do the midnight check, she had him almost out, I finished getting him out and laid him in front of her so she could clean and claim him. Being a first time shy Mom it is important to give her a pen to claim her kid. Sometimes a first timer will leave their kid if there is too much interference from another doe, a young guard dog or the shepherd, or just afraid of the kid trying to nurse her. All the signals have to be right, so she needs time to sort them out, and as soon as that kid talks to her that bond is solid.

Jingle Bell in her jammies

Jingle Bell is a ding a ling. I tube fed her four times a day for two weeks before she learned to nurse her mother. She has never been right. Looks like I could have seen it from the beginning, so who's the ding a ling? Now, two years old and still tiny, she follows me around like a puppy. What can I do with her? She has the finest fleece I have ever seen on an angora goat. Hopefully I can make a couple of scarves from her hair to cover the cost of her upkeep and she can continue to jingle. She got sheared last week when it was in the seventies, then the temp dropped yesterday and she was shivering. She was smart enough to get behind the bales of straw and get out of the wind. I put Magi's old sweater on her and she is happy again.

Kids

Curly had two small doe kids, just like her, so she has enough milk for four kids, Murphy's law. The other does had bigger twins that seem to keep them nursed down to the point I am checking to see if they are getting enough. They are. There were tornadoes all around us last night but fortunately, we only got much needed rain.  Dropped off some roving and locks at the art gallery today and found out our rent is going up. There is really no profit in selling handspun, handknit or handwoven items when you consider all the time involved. It takes months of work, feed and care of the fiber animal, shear it, wash, dye, card, spin, knit, weave or felt it. Selling a few items at the gallery brings in money for feed and hay, but with a fifty-fifty split I am keeping someone elses dream going, not mine.

Here a chick there a chick

This hen came out from under the shearing floor with about 20 chicks a few days ago. I think all of them have made it so far. Badger is feeling a bit better today. I let her in with her flock after she stood at the gate all morning waiting to get in. She stayed with them and grazed more today than yesterday and later in the day I saw her chewing her cud. She came to the feeder tonight and nibbled a bite or two with Sunshine and Jewell. I bedded the barn down good with wheat straw, hoping she can keep her incision clean. Sheep need their flock mates and familiar surroundings to recover. Heard a curdling scream after lunch, I had been watching Ruby all morning and it was time to help. She had a big buck kid almost out, I pulled one leg just a little and he came on out. She has been moaning all night for the last few weeks, I new she had a big kid in her. He is dark red with a white stripe on the side and a white foot. Then she dropped a chocolate, almost black, doe kid.

The good, the bad, the ugly news

Tara was first to kid with two nice buck kids, one dark brown and one red. Then Curly with twin doe kids, one brown and one red with white spots. Old Tipper, this maybe her last kidding, had twin brown doe kids. All very nice and healthy. The bad news is my favorite ewe Badger has been sick for the past few weeks and yesterday she made a turn for the worst. Took her in to my vet and my fears were confirmed, her lambed had died in her and she couldn't get it out and I couldn't get my hand in. He did a c-section and I brought her home. She was on her feet this morning and sipped lots of warm water. When her flock mates came by her trailer she got off and followed them on her side of the fence and ate a few nibbles of grass and wild onions. She is bright and alert but no cud chewing yet. Just before dark she put herself back on the trailer for the night. Fortunately, I sheared her when she first got sick to make her feel better and to save the fleece from a break. It is beautiful. I'm glad there are no other lambs born yet as she has called for hers over the last few days. Sheep get the blues same as us when things go bad. Until one has loved an animal, a part of ones soul remains unawakened.