It was a beautiful day yesterday!

It was such a beautiful day yesterday in Walla Walla, I couldn't believe it. Sunny, warm enough I had to take my coat off to work, with a lovely light breeze starting to stir the branches on the fruit and nut trees. Absolutely lovely! I didn't realize how much the gloomy late winter, early spring gray was affecting me until then--who would have thought I'd have a minor case of SAD (Seasonal Affectiveness Disorder). I believe there are tons of people who are affected by SAD, but don't even realize it. I grew up in WI, and I used to get "cabin fever" from time to time, but they didn't call it SAD. Now I know better. :?

No lambs yet, but it is getting closer by the day. I do believe my sheep, Blesa, will be the first to lamb. Her udders are as large as after she had her lambs last year...only problem with that is that the teats nipples are too large to fit inside her lambs' mouths and they hang almost to the ground. I had to milk her last year to get the colostrum out for the poor little lambs...and it looks like she'll have twins or triplets this year, so another year of bottle fed lambs. But I do love the bottle fed lambs dispositions anyway...they come when I enter the pasture knowing I have breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the few few weeks, then later in the coming months, it drops off to two bottles a day, then one bottle a day, then weaning. I follow exactly what the mothering ewes do so that the lambs don't get a short shrift of milk and grow properly.

Lance told me last night that he'd finish up my stanchion today so that I'd be able to milk Blesa properly for the lambs' milk because her poor udders get so sore that she really needs to get the milk out, not to mention that if I don't get the milk out, she could get mastitis (udder infection).

In addition, with the stanchion, I can milk, trim hooves, give the sheep their 8-way, vitamin, & BoSe shots, and in the future, possibly shear. Oooh...I feel like I am getting a birthday present early (Feb. 19 is my birthday).

Lance took me out to dinner at the Homestead Restaurant in Walla Walla for Valentine's Day, which also happens to be our anniversary (our 10th, no less)! We had a really nice time, but I wish we could have sat next to each other rather than across from each other. The pricey dinner included hors d'oeurves, dinner, dessert, a polaroil pic, a rose, and great service (we had to pay for wine, coffee, and anything extra). We ordered batter fried mushrooms and bruchetta, very rare filet mignon with garlic potatoes & veggies, & raspberry cheesecake for dessert....lovely and delicious, except for the mushrooms which had the batter being a little under done (the batter around the large mushrooms was still wet instead of fried) so I sent them back. Oh well, we all know nothing is perfect, not even 10 years of marriage, but we try to keep things going for each other with lots of "I Love You's" and hugs and kisses each day. Seems to work out fine considering what we both had with our first marriages. Guess those first marriages were our practice marriages to get ready for our marriage. ;)

So, yesterday... It was almost 70 degrees. Lance and I both worked on the trees that had been cut down (we lost 2 willows to 50+ mph winds in the fall and winter, then had an arborist take the rest of them down this spring). Cutting up the large pieces and putting the small branches and such into the burn pile (we haven't burned anything yet as we need a County burn permit). We've cleaned up most of the property since we moved here, so that we have gotten some additional land which I threw grass seed on so the sheep will have a bit more pasture where the original burn pile was. When I dug and hauled everything out of the corner, I noticed that one of the previous owners had actually tried to burn wood/garbage in that corner and several of the fence posts had chars on them as well as two posts almost burned entirely through. We also had a branch on the apple tree that we had to take off and when we did, we noticed a lot of dry rot and perhaps termite damage in the center of the branch. Of course, we were already aware that one of the previous owners didn't know how to prune trees either, so that left the cut branches parallel to the ground leaving a place for water/rain to get between the bark and the inner tree to be compromised. Oh well, we'll have to replace most of the trees anyway (we've already taken down 10 of the 14 apple trees, the two willows, probably 2 of the peach/apricot trees, and maybe one of the walnuts... What a waste. Oh well, we'll put in trees that are more appropriate (a couple of elms, arborvitae around the front pasture to replace the ones that are dying for bad pruning, put in a couple more apricot/peach trees to replace the ones that are almost dead--basically starting from scratch. It really upset me to see how poorly those trees on the property had been taken care of and I knew that this would happen, but I didn't think we'd still be here to deal with them... But isn't this what life is all about. I do have 2 tulip trees coming though for the lawn area, so we'll see how fast they grow; and we've got volunteer elms coming from Dale's Dad's farm (Dale is Lance's partner in Zydax). But I'll still have to buy the peach and/or apricot trees and maybe get a few bush cherries and sand cherries to provide a nice privacy screen near the front pasture, but I don't want them to grow so tall that I can't see my sheep and alpacas when I'm looking out the front window.

So, today, I'm a little sore, but I'll go out and work a bit more in the pastures scooping alpaca pucky and sheep sh*t to put into the back pasture's compost heap. You'd never believe just how much accumulates during the winter when I can't get out to shovel it each day, but the lovely compost I have for my gardens is wonderful. I can hardly wait to see how my garden grows... Mary, Mary, Quite contrary. How does your garden grow? And all of that nursery rhyme.

Today, the wind is a bit stronger and I see clouds encroaching in the SW, so I'd best get my behind out there to finsh what I can before the clouds get out here and I lose the day.

TTFN!

A bit more about my animals and poultry

So, we have a small 2.3-acre farm with 9 sheep, 4 alpacas, 11 free-range chickens, 3 guineas, a ranch dog (a dwarf Great Pyrenees named Bud), and a barn cat (name Norphan because she was “an orphan” = “‘norphan” like in the Pogo comix strip).

Alpaca names (they’re all male):
Alpacas are part of the Camelid family which includes camels, alpacas (Huacayas & Suris), llamas, guanacos and vicuña. Today, the llama, alpaca, guanaco, and vicuña are found in South America. There are 28 different colors of alpaca.

• Koko is a Huacaya (cinnamon with a white Harry Potter stripe on his front locks on his head)
• Earl Grey is a Huacaya (rose grey which is a grey with reddish/brown in the grey that looks rose or purplish)
• El Dorado aka Eldie is a Huacaya (a beautiful sparkling white boy and very handsome)
• Al Paca is a Suri (with white dreadlocks and fiber so fine it feels like silk)

Sheep names:
Icelandics are a primitive, dual-coated breed originating from Iceland and have been there for over 800 years first brought to Canada in the late 1970’s-early 1980s, then brought to the U.S. shortly thereafter. The fiber grows from 8-14″ long in one year, so I shear twice a year to have fiber I can spin without too much trouble.

• Rocky is our Icelandic ram–lustrous white fiber will be 2 yy in spring of 2007 and is our flock sire
• Sandy is an Icelandic ewe–dark grey mouflon lamb will be 1 yy in April of 2007
• Blackie is an Icelandic ewe–charcoal grey, 5 yy
• Blesa is an Icelandic ewe–reddish brown, aka moorit, fiber that’s almost as soft as a lamb’s wool & she’s 4 yy
• Whitey is an Icelandic wether (a wether is a castrated male)—ivory and tan and he’s about 5 yy

Finnish Landrace or Finnsheep:

• Madge, a white Finn ewe–4 yy in May

Cotwold

• Emmy, a multi-colored brown, gray, black ewe–1 year old in April

Crosses:

• Sophie, an Icelandic/Finn cross ewe–3 yo in February
• BW aka Black Wether, a Lincoln/Shetland cross wether—2 yo in March)
• Little Bits aka Bitsy, a white Romney/Icelandic ewe—1 year old in May
  

This is a picture of Sophie & her two lambs below. Quite a color difference in the lambs, isn’t there? (The lambs are sold.)

The lamb below is Ralphie, one of the bottle-fed wethers. Bud’s only 14 weeks here. He was 2 yy now and is a little bigger now, but he’s gotten more chest on him and more weight. Ralpie was sold.

It’s fun watching all the animals interact together. Bud and Eldie (Eldie is about 30-40 times Bud’s size) play, is spite of the huge differences in size, for as long as an hour or more, just chasing each other, then Eldie pushes Bud tail over teakettle, then they rest and start up again. When the other male alpacas, usually Al and Earl or Earl and Koko, start their dominance actions, Bud thinks they’re playing so he gets right in their amongst them. I love watching all their antics: sheep, dog, and alpacas. It’s one of the reasons I love living on the farm!

All the ewes should be lambing soon...usually near mid-February. SOme of them are large enough around the middle that I think several will be having triplets or very large twins. We'll have to wait and see what we get though. I'm also planning on buying 25 Americana chicks from McMurrays Hatchery as the people at the local hatchery I used to buy from retired after their entire flock came down with a disease and they had to be put down...and as they were fairly along in age, they decided to retire instead of starting over again. It makes sense to me, but I miss them dearly. They referred us to other people who hatch chicks, but I don't like them that much.

I’ll chat with you again soon and I’ll tell you about my endeavors with a Kertzer cardigan pattern that I’m making for a friend.

TTFN...