Daisy delivers....sort of.

Knowing that Daisy was due to lamb on Thursday, I put her in a lambing jug that afternoon where she proceeded to dig up a storm, spewing straw to the far corners of the earth, but was not showing any signs of active labor. I checked her before I went to bed Thursday night...nothing... got up at 12:30 am to make sure she was okay, still no change. I went back to bed sure that she was just toying with me, making me get up to check on her, and then laughing-her little sheepy laugh-as I stumbled around in a sleepy stupor. By the time I got up.. again.. at 5am she had already delivered twins that were cleaned up and nursing with full bellies.

AND... I sort of got my spots.

This is Daisy's ram lamb. A very nice black Smirslet, sokket. 2 rear socks, and a white tip on his tail. Not exactly wildly spotted, or one of Nancy's fancy HST's, but pretty darn cute and will carry enough spots to hang around here. He also looks like he will have nice fleece.

Daisy also had a ewe lamb. Yup, you guessed it, a dark moorit (brown) with a small krunet marking and ridiculously crimpy fleece. Hmmmm, I think there is a theme here. This is dark moorit/krunet lamb #4...well... I wanted brown! Sage is due at the end of the month, she is musket and rent-a-ram was dark moorit, so more brown babies to come!

I already had plans in place to take my raw fleece from this year's shearing for processing to Abi's fiber studio on Friday, so after I was sure that Daisy's new family was settled in, my friend/fellow chicken hoarder, Cathy, and I set out for Abi's. After an accidental, and then an intentional detour (not my fault, there was a road missing...never mind) we arrived at Abi's, and unloaded my truckload of fleece.

It is always fun to visit with Abi, she is one of those people that has an endless flow of creative ideas and exudes artistic energy. So when Cathy and I left her place, we felt like we should go home and create something. We didn't, we just felt like we should.

Some of Abi's "pretties".

The trees at Abi's farm were beautiful. Boy, I thought that I had a lot of blooms on my trees. These were just loaded. I just missed a photo of a hummingbird tasting the blossoms.
Abi and her husband, Michael, also have a parrot rescue . Many of the birds that they take in have very sad stories and have been abused or neglected, some are turned over by people who can no longer care for them for various reasons, but once they are at the rescue, life is pretty darn good. Some of these birds get adopted out, but many have special needs and end up staying at the rescue so that they can be cared for properly. I admire the dedication and patience that Mike and Abi have in caring for their birds and all of the issues that come with them.
I am so thankful for all of the amazing people that I have met through my sheep and our little farm. I just can't imagine doing anything else.

Daisy..and random stuff.

I am trying to determine what color Daisy, "Sommarang Daisy" truly is. She was registered as a black and white flecket by her breeder. When I bought her as a lamb, she looked more like a dark moorit with consistent color all the way to the skin, although her face has always been much darker than her fleece.

This year she lightened quite a bit, which I attributed to age and bleaching from our extremely hot summer....until I parted her fleece to take a closer look.



This is what her fleece looks like today, almost a grey/brown color......charcoal/pewter??? She does have some modified colors in her pedigree. Any ideas? I should add that Daisy was bred to my Moorit flecket ram last fall and her resulting ram lamb Ace appeared to be black/white from birth....he has lightened a bit, but if he is a true black then Daisy can't be brown ( brown bred to brown=brown)...she looks brown toned to me! ?????



Random.

After weeks of suffocating heat and monsoon like precipitation, Our weather here has turned absolutely gorgeous. It was 78 degrees here today with very low humidity and it is expected to remain just as nice for the next week or so. It is amazing how much the weather can affect one's frame of mind....at least mine. Instead of simply doing chores, filling water, filling water, and, oh yeah, filling water, I have been able to spend some time enjoying all of things that make me love this place so much. Yesterday, I took my quarter horse, Jake, out for a ride without us both ending up in a puddle of sweat!















My next project is to get Morgan, (the little pony behind Jake) "started" now that the weather is getting cooler. Morgan is 3 now, I have done tons of ground work with her, but I should have started her under saddle this spring........my excuses?? Time and weather......plus, I have to gear myself up for it, she definitely has the "pony attitude", so she will be a challenge and I am not as young as I once was!

I had to post a picture of Jasmine, our Arabian, too. Jas technically is our beautiful daughter Nicole's horse, we have had her since she was two and Nicole was 11. Nicole is currently a very busy neurobiology major at the University of Iowa without much free time, so Jasmine has always lived with us....and we pay her vet bills....and farrier...and feed bills...but it's Nicole's horse...I'm not sure how that works.















The garden is winding down for the season. Remember my pumpkin plants that were taking over Eldridge? They finally succumbed to squash vine borers, (my fault, I don't spray anything) but I still got a respectable crop, all things considered.














Ande looks like he is busy getting ready for the Labor day weekend....I am not sure what that entails for a llama...but, whatever.