Feeling SpRiNgY!!

Today I decided that I would  move the rams from the back pasture, to a small pasture closer to the ewes; that way they will all be in the same general vicinity when we shear tomorrow...in theory this should make things go more smoothly tomorrow...in theory. This maneuver meant that I had to move the horses from their dry lot, out onto their pasture so that I could usher the rams across the dry lot to their new destination without any 'help', a.k.a. interference, from my equine friends. Now, keep in mind that the horses have been on the small dry lot for the past month. They were allowed out on the pasture most of the winter since the 150 feet of snow (slight exaggeration)  protected the ground underneath from the wear and tear of heavy horse hooves, but since the snow disappeared a month or so ago the horses were banished to the smaller lot until the grass comes in. Let's just say they were getting a little bored in the dry lot.

So, this is what happens when horses have a lot of pent up energy and you release it.

 Even 18-year-old Jake was feeling frisky....Yes, I know they are filthy, they have been mud-bathing to pay me back for keeping them off the pasture.

 Morgan wins the Chorus-line contest!

After I got the rams and horses situated I started taking pictures of some of the roosters. I want to put an ad on Craigslist to find new homes for some of them....heeeey.......do any of YOU, my dear friends, need a rooster? These guys aren't show birds, by any means, but they are nice boys.

I have a gorgeous Golden-Laced Wyandotte.

A nice Black Copper Maran (Marans lay REALLY dark brown eggs).

A handsome Blue Orpington.

A Blue Laced Red Wyandotte (Black variant) with a tail that is waay too long, but, so pretty,

AAAaand this creepy little Rhode Island Red.

His name is Gonzo. And he's a little weird. He follows me around everywhere...in a stalker sort of way. Every time I turn around he is inches from me, expressionlessly staring at me with his battle-scarred little featherless face.

Then he follows me all the way to the house, stopping in his tracks every time I turn to look at him, sizing me up the whole time, and then waits quietly on the porch...seriously, I don't know if he wants to kill me, or date me....

Wouldn't you like your very own stalker? Let me know.

I'm seeing things. Why doesn't that surprise you?

I thought I wouldn't, but I'm gonna say it again- the snow is still kind of pretty, and the past few mornings I have awakened to see the added sparkle of Hoar Frost that, with a bit of imagination, transforms every surface that it touches into something else.

Many of the tree branches look as though they are adorned with soft feathers.

Or tiny white butterflies.

Sometimes the branches appear to be covered with sharp thorns.

The dormant apple tree almost looks like it is covered in spring blossoms......OK, maybe it's easier to imagine if you don't look at the snow-covered ground.

The old tomato plants are skeletal soldiers standing guard over the deserted garden-that I never cleaned out in the fall-thanks for noticing.

A wooden fence post becomes a strangely-decorated cupcake. Work with me people, it's winter in Iowa, you start seeing things.

And Jasmine becomes....

Lady GaGa.

Then, as the sun starts to warm the air....well, warm is a relative term, when I say warm I mean it gets up to about 20 degrees....I digress. When it gets warm-er, the frost comes tumbling down and the show is over.

Then it's just back to regularly scheduled winter in Iowa again, and I am still just a little off-center. OK, a lot off-center. Thanks for noticing.

Horses-gone-wild!

I am a gate closing fanatic. If you go through a gate check it, check it again, and then go back to make sure, for certain, that it is unequivocally, completely, totally latched. If I were to write ten commandments, of course the first one would be: "Just be nice!", the next nine would be: "Close the gate!!". This post is somewhat of a red-faced apology to all my friends and family that have been scolded, by me, for not closing the gate.

This morning I went about my usual morning routine. I fed the barn cats and roosters, went around back to throw the rams their morning hay, fed the horses and filled their water, carried hay to the ewes and llamas and gave them their grain ration, and lastly, checked on the hens. What a beautiful day it is today. Warm sunbeams shining down, little bits of green starting to show through the grass, and the birds are in full voice welcoming in this lovely weather.

With my chores completed, I headed down the driveway to retrieve the morning newspaper, thinking to myself what a glorious day it was.......that feeling of euphoria was shattered when I turned back toward the house just in time to see our 3 horses running, bucking and generally frolicking around the yard.....the gate to their pasture wide open. This was not good. I threw the paper down and headed for the barn to get a bucket of grain and some halters. Normally my horses will come running to me if I call them, but knowing that this was a lovely spring morning and they were already in a very frisky mood, I knew that this was not going to be the case. By the time I grabbed lead ropes and halters they were already off on a little adventure, gleefully trotting along the road to who knows where. I threw my ropes and grain in the truck and headed down the road after them, Gary jumped in the other vehicle and followed behind. Luckily several passersby stopped and alerted cars to slow down as I got out and went after them on foot. One very nice lady wanted to help and asked me, "What do you call them?"...that was probably not the time to ask me what I called them because, I believe at that time, I was cursing like a sailor. Eventually they got away from the busy traffic and headed into the neighbor's neatly manicured lawn, and continued to the edge of the corn field where they stopped and looked at each other like, "Dude, we're lost". They stood and thought about it for a moment and then they promptly turned back toward me, and my daughter's old 4-H leader who had joined the chase somewhere along the way, as if to say, "OK, we're done, get us home now". We haltered each of them and Gary and I walked the 3 knuckleheads back home, which was now about a quarter of a mile away, through the exceedingly muddy corn field where our boots accumulated upwards of 20 pounds of mud to add to our already dragging feet. I then reminded Gary that life is never dull being married to me....he muttered something...still not quite sure what he said.

This is what happens to soft spring ground when 1200 pound horses go running around on it.

After we got the horses put away, we spent the next half hour replacing the divots in the ground....like they do on the golf course..I guess..I don't think I've ever actually been to one, but I have, however, seen "Pretty Woman" and I remember Julia Roberts doing that. What a mess!
The now very tired and muddy horses, in a very unapologetic manner, peeked around the corner to watch us work.

"We were framed I tell you!"

I apparently didn't latch the gate completely the night before, and being the little tricksters that they are, one of them decided to push it opened....probably Jake. Again, my fault, I taught him how to open and close gates, which is a very useful skill when you are trail riding but obviously it can backfire.The moral of the story? CLOSE THE GATE!

I want to poke 2008 with a stick to make sure it's dead.

Here I am. I am sorry that I have been so neglectful of my blogging duties as of late. Not only have I not been updating my blog, but I haven't been reading the works of my fellow bloggers. It is winter, and frankly, I have been in a poopy mood, which needs to come abruptly to an end (winter and poopy mood). Right. Now. I will leave out all the details of the poopiness provoking events that have been happening, because I know that 2008 was less than stellar for most of us, soooo....

Okay, let's see....just to catch you up to date...it's been cold here. More specifically, cold, ice, snow, ice, freezing rain, snow, cold...and repeat...again.

This ice covered branch, which I thought looked like an ice covered skeletal hand reaching out from under the snow, is kind of representative of how I have been feeling this winter...ooops, there's that poopiness again. Okay, done and done.The horses never seem to be bothered by the cold weather, in fact, Morgan especially seems to relish the brisk temperatures.

As does Jasmine.

Wide load pony, Morgan, covered in snow.

Sheepy news~ The rams were introduced to the girls in their separate breeding groups in the beginning of November and spent a romantic month and a half frolicking about, spreading the love. The girls initially were quite pleased to have the attention of their handsome suitors, but after a few weeks, they were equally happy to have the boys removed from their pens and to be reunited with their girl friends.
I was just as thrilled to have everyone back in their rightful places.
This is what happens when love is in the air and there are girls on the other side of the fence that a rammy thinks he needs to meet. These are 2x8 inch boards that were securely screwed in, plus a hog panel for an added barrier....all I have to say is that I am glad we added the hog panel 'cause there were 4 girls on the other side that have no business reproducing.
Oh, something else fun I did on my winter 'vacation'....
I took a ram lamb in to the vet about a month ago to be castrated. It was a frigid day and when I arrived at the clinic they were finishing up with some cattle, so I waited outside in the cold for several minutes until they were ready for my little guy. The livestock surgery area at the clinic is a large room behind the main clinic with a concrete floor, because, well, they run livestock in there and it can get a bit messy. When the cattle were finished and loaded into their trailer, I brought my little rammy inside for his procedure.

As the vet and his assistant readied the table and equipment, they asked if I was cold, and kindly offered to kick on the big propane heater to thaw me out. We got rammy on the table, and after removing the offending body parts, we were having a bit of difficulty with one of the cords bleeding and it was taking a bit longer than usual to "tie things up", so to speak. While I stood there holding on to poor rammy, the heater that felt so toasty in the beginning was now making me feel rather overheated. I asked if anyone else was hot, and started to take off my coat. Suddenly, I started feeling a little woozy and my ears began to ring, so I stepped off to the side to get away from the heat. For a moment I thought about sitting down on the floor to try to regain my composure, but I looked down and saw that there was cow manure on the concrete from the previous clients, so I stupidly thought, boy I really don't want to sit in that! Stupidly, I say, because the next thing I remember was hearing a loud crack and opening my eyes to find that I had passed out and I was now face down in the very same cow manure that I didn't want to put my behind on. When I awoke from my beauty sleep, and took inventory of my ouchies, it took me a bit to convince the guys that I was alright. After they were sure that I was fine, one of the guys commented on the lovely 'natural makeup' that I was wearing...A.K.A. cow shtuff. I love it when people know me well enough to not take me too seriously.

Other than the bruises and the fact that I put my teeth nearly through my bottom lip (those of you who have seen my teeth understand this), oh, yes and being completely embarrassed, I really was fine.

So, the moral of the story is; if you feel like you are going to pass out, don't think that you are too good to sit in cow crap 'cause it's better to sit in it than eat it.

Here is the resulting prettiness (ignore the overgrowth of eyebrow, it hurts to pluck when your face is purple and green).

Misty morning

While I am trying to get lamb updates together to post, this is my way of shamelessly wasting blog space. It was very foggy this morning, which always makes for some interesting photos....not much to blog about, but here they are.

Jake, Jasmine and Morgan out in the pasture....probably a good thing that they are obscured by the fog. I gave them all a bath last night and they weren't entirely dry when I returned them to their pasture. Those of you who have horses know how the rest of this story goes. As I turned them loose, one by one, I purposely herded them out onto the long pasture grass, because I am wise to their devious plan. They did not disappoint me. As expected each of them trotted back into the dirt paddock and promptly threw themselves into the powdery dirt and proceeded to roll until every inch of clean, wet, horse was covered in caked on dusty goodness.

"You should have dried us off first, mom".

Sheep