| Pollen doesn't usually bother me, but the pines are spurting out yellow haze all over me and everything else. Making me sleepy and my feet feel like they weigh a ton. The sheep and goats are covered in it and their noses are yellow too. They seem to be drowsy and lazy. Maybe we should give in and nap. I love this weather. I could take it year round. Forget the nap, got to get back to the salt mines. Forget skirting wool under the shade tree, all those little fuzzy things are falling like crazy. |
It felt good to spend the afternoon in my office. The weather was perfect and the oak tree is almost through dropping all the pollen, so I got set up for skirting wool fleeces, later this will be where I set up for drying wool. The shade of this oak tree is also where beans are broken or shelled, corn shucked and tired feet rested. At dinner (lunch) time, many a pick-up truck tries to squeeze under the shade. I had many trees in the yard when we first built here, but time, wind and disease have taken all but the old red oak, one leaning hickory and a few young trees I have planted. The old black jack oak tree used to chain hound dogs over the years came down with a scaly bark disease last year and had to be removed. A good hound has to be chained or he will run himself to death, hit by a car or get stolen by someone that knows you have the best squirrel dog in the county. |
Started skirting the freshly shorn fleeces, this is a BFL-Cotswold fleece, washed up real nice, a silvery blue and very clean. These sheep have grass to graze even in winter and the fleeces are extremely clean and take very little washing. Also washed a BFL-Corriedale fleece from Midnight that I will card into roving and spin into yarn. Midnight's mama, Punkin, was my favorite fleece for 14 years, so many shades of gray and silver. Punkin was the smallest lamb in a set of triplets, and had many sets of triplets herself. The last set had to be removed by C-section, she was just too old to carry that many lambs. She lived several more years and became old and feeble, but still had a nice fleece. |
| When technology works it is great, but when there is a problem, I can't handle it.I really don't know what to do. Yahoo, at&t and verizon must have been on spring break last week, everything is working fine today. Just as well, everyday of last week was a total over load. There were more goats to shear on Wednesday, rained out Thursday and finished Friday, with the help of the grandkids. All the new goat kids are born and doing well so I am sleeping all night again. Those every few hours barn checks get harder every year. |
| Got sweet corn, seed potatoes, cabbage, broccoli, and onions in the ground last week. We used to always plant the garden on Good Friday, but with all the bad weather we have had we chose the first dry and warm day. Lettuce, garlic, spinach and carrots finally started growing last week, I think it was the lack of sunshine that has slowed their growth, since cole crops like cool days. Hard to believe it is already April but I love the long days of sunshine. It would be great to have a real spring and not go right into summer. |
| Callie has more personality than most people. Not afraid of anything, she thinks she is a mountain lion. She will tackle small dogs, birds, hens, rats, snakes and any cat. A true barn cat. About 32 more goats to shear. It's getting warm fast, so hope to get them done this week. Baked a turkey and ate with the family then had to leave before the egg hunt. Just in time to help Ruby, who gave birth to the last angora kid, a big buck. Ruby kept waiting and waiting while the other does kidded, her date to kid went by, and her kid kept growing and growing. But it's all over now. Except for Tanner that went another cycle because the angora buck doesn't think she is as pretty as an angora doe and held out until all the others were bred before he courted her. |
| This is great weather for kidding, Tara had her twins with a lot of screaming but Sassparilla did not want the papparazzi around to photograph her private moment, so she hid in a ditch and head butted me when I tried to get near her baby. She knows more about birthin' than I do. More shearing,hoof trimming,worming and vaccinating today, only 40 more to go! I wonder if it will ever be done. Didn't worm and vacc the sheep when we sheared them, so, have to catch them back up and get the job done,soon. Now that spring is finally here there are forty eleven things to do, as my mother would say. |
