Scenes from the barn…

We’ve been crazy busy with lambs~hope to give more of an update soon! 

Cosmo and Tori

 

Attracting more attention...

 

Teigen~ a real cowboy, shorts and all!

 

Butterscotch with a snazzy hair style...

 

Ewes in waiting...

 

Dugur checking on the lambs...

 

 

Sweet babies asleep in the straw...

Fellowship…

The sun dipping down low...

Sunday after church we had to hustle to get all of the odd jobs finished up that we had left from the week in order to make it to a fellowship gathering that night.  Several times we thought there was no way we would be able to make it, but with a little extra oomph we finished all of our chores with time to spare and enjoyed a wonderful evening getting to know everyone a little bit better.  The children enjoyed playing together while some of the adults played volleyball and others had a wonderful time in fellowship.

A beautiful evening to fellowship...

 

A dill field lit up...

 

A lovely flock of Buff Orpingtons...

 

A handsome herd of milk cows...

Later that evening they had a sing around a bonfire, unfortunately we had to leave before they started so Mark could go scout for midge but maybe next time…

A bonfire at the sing...

 

Thanks to our gracious host for sharing your beautiful home with us!

Winter Wheat…

Last fall Mark no-tilled in a grazing variety of winter wheat to see how the sheep would do on it.  It has been growing like crazy this Spring and we turned the sheep out on part of the seeding earlier,  just to see how well it would regrow…

Winter Wheat growing back in...

And right now it looks beautiful!  The rest of the wheat is just starting to head out…

Winter Wheat heading out...

So we decided to turn the sheep out on it a couple of days ago…

Icelandic Sheep on winter wheat...

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Dugur wading through...

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Maddie hanging out...

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Icelandic Lamb eating her way through...

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Bruno turning out to be so handsome...

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Lil Briar enjoying being out with the rest of the flock…

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Butterscotch is convinced she is a lamb!

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Eating down a patch of Shepherd’s Purse…

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A Brown Headed Cowbird hitching a ride on Auðráð...

Just this past week I have noticed that we have had some Brown Headed Cowbirds around.  They are a terrible bird, according to Audubon…

The Brown-headed Cowbird (Molothrus ater)is North America’s most notorious brood parasite. Instead of building their own nests, incubating their own eggs and raising their own nestlings, Brown-headed Cowbirds have a different breeding strategy. Cowbird females use other bird species as hosts — laying their eggs in the nests of other bird species and relying on these hosts to incubate and raise their chicks. Scientists have now recorded that Brown-headed Cowbirds have parasitized over 220 host species, ranging from the Black-capped Vireo and Wood Thrush to the Blue-winged Teal and Red-headed Woodpecker. While not all hosts make good foster parents — a number of species reject cowbird eggs — cowbird chicks have been successfully reared by over 150 host species, with songbirds comprising the majority of hosts.

The boys are not allowed to try out their BB Guns on birds, but we may have to make an ammendment to the rules for this parasite.

Bianca munching on tender new regrowth...

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Grizel chowin' down...

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Badger eatin' away...

I think it was unanimous that sheep are enjoying the winter wheat, this weekend we will take them off  and see what type of regrowth we can get from it again.  Hopefully we get more moisture as it has been really dry the last two months and our pastures are already starting to stress. Yesterday we did recieved 1/10 inch of rain, not much but every little bit helps.  We have some cooler weather lately but not much in the amount of precip, the clouds just sort of tease us and dance on over.   Hopefully we’ll get some more…

Storm clouds passing over...

Pasture perfect…

That doesn’t exactly describe our pasture, but rather where the animals prefer to be… ;0)

Dugur watching...

~Bliss~ enjoying the pasture...

~Blush~ eatin' it up...

~Butterscotch~

Blue Andalusian hen...

~Breve and Bistro~

~Bruno~

Lambs enjoying...

A brief mountain snow...

Soon to happen...spring shearing!

Spring Pasture…

With Sundays beautiful weather and the pasture grass up and growing well, we decided that after the sheep had a hardy breakfast of hay to let them out onto green luscious grass.  The sheep were almost in disbelief, wondering if it was to good to be true as they ran out on the grass…

Lambs racing off dry lot to...

 

...green fields!

Some of the lambs wouldn’t cross where the electronetting once was, afraid they would get shocked.  They would just stand there at the border and call out for their mamma’s.  After a while they finally worked up enough courage to go out on the strange new green stuff!

Working up the courage to go out onto the pasture...

Mark watching sheep, after fixing the fence.

One of each color lamb enjoying grass.

Dugur watching the flock...

Butterscotch out enjoying the pasture too!

Sheep on pasture...

...with the mountains in the background.

At night they get moved back behind the electronetting to keep them safe from coyotes and other dogs roaming about.  After loosing 5 sheep last year to coyotes or a mountain lion,  it still makes me nervous even to have them out in the pasture behind 7-strand electric fencing that has 7,000 volts running through it.  It didn’t seem to deter the critter too much from a lamb dinner.  Another thing to make me nervous was the spotting of a  Bald Eagle today while out checking sheep, and then a few minutes later a larger bird flew over that must have been a  Golden Eagle!  ~Yikes!~ 

While it’s unlikely an Eagle would kill and fly away with a lamb, as it sounds like they can only fly with about a 5lb load they could still kill a lamb and feast on it there in the pasture.  Hopefully Dugur will be enough of a discouragement to them, even though he is only a puppy and not quite ready to totally defend the flock on his own yet.

Friday Farm Daze…

Catching up on the week…

Sawyer...

 

Rechristened Butterscotch...

Grey Badgerface Icelandic Sheep in need of shearing…

Our Australian Shepherd, Bellah's beautiful eyes...

Girls and Butterscotch...

 

Spring underway...

 

Busy bees...

Speckled Sussex feathers...

Dugur (Great Pyrenees) and Hayden and Garrett...

Do you smell what I smell?

I hope not, it’s good thing they haven’t invented a device that lets you smell through your computers yet!  But I suppose it is that time of year again.  Last night Maddie and her daddy got to go pick out fair pigs…

Here is the pair of barrows...

They each weigh around 60 lbs and will grow to the market of weight of between 220-280lbs, all in 4 months time!  Maddie will show the better of the two hogs and sell it at the market sale at the fair.  The other will…well let’s just say he’ll take up residence in our freezer.

What do the other animals think….

What *are* these things?

Aside from their awesome meat, pigs are great little tillers of the land. They push up the dirt in search of little tidbits and gems to eat, leaving behind a well plowed path.  Our plan is to let them into the lambing jugs after the sheep are done lambing and let them clean that up and then let them clean all the bedding out of the barn that has accumulated through out the winter.  When they are finished in there we will then composting the rest for our garden.

What *is* that smell?

They really aren’t that bad…right now…the poor neighbors, hopefully the breeze will blow away from their house!

They're even sorta cute...right now anyway.