MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Merry Christmas to all!

Let it snow, let it snow

Headed for the barn

The sheep have moved to the barn for the winter.  They still have a small area of exercise in the grass, and spend most their time lying in the sun.  Chuck is still putting finishing touches in the inside of the barn.  Now that we only have 5 sheep, we've got a brand new 30x60 barn for them with new fenceline hay/grain feeder, and all new gates setting up the loafing area, and a couple large pens to keep anyone who needs to be kept separate.  We also got a loading ramp, and put in water and electricity to the barn this year.   The sheep use about 1/3 of the space, and the remaining is used for hay, grain, the tractor, and storage of other "farm" supplies.

Sure sign of Spring

Here are a couple of February scenes, taken at the bottom of our driveway.  Beautiful.......but don't try to beguile me, February, you know I hate you!

The new place - first snowfall of the year.

The TRUE harbinger of spring

Forget that silly groundhog!
Dead skunk in the middle of the road, stinkin' to high heaven.
Kinda ironic that its covered with fresh snowfall.
Its skunk breeding season, so y'all be careful out there, ya hear?

Ode to February

Yes, its February.  The snow has melted, we have snow in the forecast.  The days drag on, short on sunlight, long on clouds.  The sheep's beautiful glittering white wool is getting mud tipped; more and more hay chaff appears on their necks and backs.  How does this happen?  We try to be so careful.  Do they?

Are they pregnant?  The ram has long since stopped courting them.....they seem fatter, don't they?   Any sign of an udder?  No, its too early yet, stop obsessing.   Wait, I think that one's vulva seems a bit puffier, don't you think so?  How many days is it 'til lambs are due?  Let's see, 16 more days of February, 31 days in March.  Seems like forever.....47 days....... WAIT!  Do we have enough CD&T?  BOSE?  What about Pritchard teats?   Where is the box of old towels?  How many bales of straw are up in the mow?   Check the box of baby lamb tags, count syringes & needles.

Only a month 'til we need to see about shearing.  Better call the shearer and make sure we are still on his list of farms.  Lambing pens are set up - after twice being filled with mud, sticks and leaves from flood waters this past summer.  Still have one less hay feeder than we have pens....better do something about that this year.

Yeh, its February.  Dark and dreary.  When will it end?   No wonder they only made it 28 days, we'd never make it through a full month of this.

BTW - Happy Mardi Gras!

What shadow?????

One of the new Dickens scenes in downtown Cambridge.
This is the likeness of our local newspaper's main photographer, Mike Neilson.

A close-up of his face.  This REALLY looks
like Mike!

Dickens Victorian Christmas is back in Cambridge

This is the window in the Penny Court in downtown Cambridge.  Once again, the village has been invaded by hundreds of manikins dressed in victorian garb, posed in vignettes depicting life in Charles Dicken's England.  Penny Court is an antique mall housed in the former JC Penney's department store on the main street in town, Wheeling Ave.  Several of the local businesses have begun decorating their windows in the Dickens spirit, carrying on the theme of the Christmas season.

Oh joy, snow

Yes, after over a week without it, we have snow cover again.
Should be melted early in the week, though.

I was remembering 3 years ago this weekend, when we were lambing several ewes bred to CH R1 and Barlaes Titus.  It was the only storm of the winter - snow, gale force winds, sub-zero temperatures. The 3 sets of triplets we had that weekend were not fun, although they all survived.   Since we have several ewes bred to Llwygy X1 due starting March 17th, I'm hoping for some decent nearly spring weather for those few days. 

The way home

View west down Horse Creek valley along Chapel Drive. We live on the other side of the hill to the left.

This is just too cute not to share!

Spectacular Sunrise

Cold, blustery day

The day started out fairly warm and rainy.  Spent the morning cleaning the rabbit cages and moving rabbits here and there.  Oleander has weaned her kits, and I moved her to a cage of her own.  She looks beautiful, and will be ready for the New Years eve show.   Gave Maybelline a "harecut".   The 2 New Zealand does are due to kindle this week, so they got nest boxes.  Just as I left the barn, it started to snow hard, but we did not get any accumulation, and the 2 inches we had melted away in the rain last night. 
I made an apple pie after lunch - what a wonderful smell filled the kitchen.  Then tried my hand at rabbit liver pate.  What I licked off the spoon tastes GOOD!   Once its chilled, I'll post a picture of the finished product.  If it turns out well, I'll make a batch to pass out to customers at the farmers market this coming Saturday.  This will be the last market of the year, since the next 2 Saturdays are holidays. 
Chuck is down at the barn, moving the BFL ewe flock from the far pasture close into the barn area.  Its time to start feeding them hay, and remove the breeding rams.   The 3 rams will get moved into a pen in the barn to hang out together this winter, and the four remaining ram lambs will move across the road into the feeder lamb barn.  
The sun has dropped behind the hills to the west, and the wind is really picking up.  We are to have 17 degrees tonight, and that is the high for tomorrow, so the wind chills will be unpleasant.    A dinner of rabbit and dumplings, with apple pie for dessert sounds pretty good right now! 

Getting ready for winter

12 Katahdin wethers went to the auction at Mt Hope today.  The remaining 14 are in the small barn eating hay and grain and growing into nice lambchops.  Between my regular customers and the farm market, I will need them this winter.  I also have 3 BFL ram lambs that are not breeding quality that still need to put on a little more size before they are ready.  Several others have already entered the food chain.  :^)
We had fun on the trip to Mt Hope.  After we unloaded the lambs, we stopped by Lams restaurant and had a wonderful Thai buffet.   Then a stop at Yaggi's cheese shop for some sharp swiss, farmers cheese, and some smoked cheddar/bacon.  
We have 2+ inches of snow, and its cold, cold, cold.   A snow/rain storm is predicted for the weekend, and then colder again for next week.  
Soon the BFL breeding groups will be combined, and the rams moved back into their batchelor groups.  It will be good to have fewer groups of sheep to check on  - but soon we'll have to begin feeding hay to the adult BFLs. 

The calendar may not say it, but winter has arrived.

A Dickens of a Christmas in Cambridge

Each year, downtown Cambridge comes alive with folks from another time and place. Busloads of people from all over Ohio and surrounding states come to see and photograph the Dickens figures. There are 184 of them in the downtown area. For more info on the display, follow this link.