Sheep shenanigans

Do these look like the faces of hardened criminals to you? Well, they may not, but there is a reason that they are behind bars. Don't let the sad eyes and fluffy faces lure you into sympathizing with these evil-doers. The are baaaaaaaaaad news!

                                       " Eye ^didn't do it!"

Note: there are no photos of the actual event in question, because at the time, this shepherdess was too busy thinking of new curse words to supplement the ones already in free-fall from her mouth....seriously, I think I heard a collective gasp, and felt the warmth of the blushing faces from the truck-drivers at the Iowa 80 Truckstop 12 miles down the road.

When I went out to feed my lovely flock this morning, I was already in a less than jovial mood. It was already hot and sticky, and I was thinking about all that had to be done to get ready for tomorrow's farmers' market. I was also dreading the possibility that we might be dealing with some flooding in the downtown area where the market is held because the towns North of us, along the Mississippi River, got about 15 inches of rain on Wednesday, sending a deluge of water down river. In addition there are two major events going on downtown this weekend, which will make parking a nightmare. So, while my mind was aflutter with deciding whether or not I wanted to even bother going to market, something caught my eye. I saw several chickens wandering around the horse pasture, and then my attention was drawn to a few more chickens in the sheep pasture. I immediately panicked, thinking that some predator had gotten through the chicken fence and had scattered the frightened chickens. As I rushed to the gate, expecting to find chicken carnage all over the place, I was greeted by several of my sheepie friends....IN the chicken run.  Yup, it was better than chicken carnage, but still, this couldn't possibly be a good thing. 

There is a gate between the sheep pasture and the chicken run, to which we have been intending to add a more secure latch....intending to...for months. Somehow my crafty little fuzz-butts opened said gate and had gotten into the chicken run. Upon discovery of this troubling situation,  my first thought was for the safety of the sheep. Was there anything they could have gotten into that might have harmed them? Did anyone get stuck in a fence, or the chicken coop? Then as I surveyed the area, my concern for my little ovine friends turned to shear anger ( this is where the bad words came in..I will spare you the particulars).

First I noticed something different about my Honey Crisp apple tree. I planted the tree three years ago in the chicken run to help shade the chicken coop and allow the chickens to eat the windfall apples that I couldn't use. Something was strange, the tree was looking all shiny. Now, normally I am drawn to shiny things so, of course, this captured my attention. What I was seeing was the shiny trunk, devoid of any bark.

At first glance, you might think, as I did, that this doesn't look so bad.

 But, upon closer inspection....no bark, all the way around, as high as my little darlings could reach.

As if this weren't bad enough, they did the same thing to a newly-planted Cleveland Pear....a tree that I have been carrying buckets of water to, every day, during our drought, in 120+ heat index.

....and they ate a Pussy Willow all the way to the ground. Side-note; Apparently chicken wire fencing only works for chickens.

The Pussy Willow should be find, but the trees will die. The bark brings the nutrients, gathered by the leaves during photosynthesis, down to the roots to feed it, so without the bark, the trees will starve. Now I am going to have to find some replacement trees, at the end of the season, while the garden center's stock is all depleted...and carry buckets of water to the new trees. D@mn sheep!

They also discovered a tasty treat in the chicken coop. I have been buying these mineral blocks for my chickens and I really like them. I just bought this block the day before this incident, and I was going to mention how well I like them in one of my chicken-related posts, but I guess the sheep can tell you how wonderful they are, they have reviewed them, and they give them two enthusiastic thumbs, or hooves, up.

I fed and watered my woolly, little, tree-killing sheepies this morning, but I am ignoring them for now, until I am less angry. I guess I should be mad at myself. Rest assured, that new latch is going on the gate this weekend for sure!

" What do you mean, 'it was my job to watch the sheep?' They told me they were going to surprise you by pruning your trees for you!"

It's gettin' hot up in here.

It's been about a month since we've had any measurable rainfall here, and daytime temps have been stuck in the upper 90's for some time, yesterday was 100 degrees. Today we are supposed to hit 101 with a heat index of 120+ and unbearable humidity. It has been a  huge challenge to keep the animals cool. I have several fans in the sheep barn, and we added two more high velocity fans a couple of days ago. The fans help, but they can only do so much when they are just moving hot, soupy air around. The sheep keep their noses plastered to the fans all day and then go out to graze at night after the sun goes down.

I also have sprinklers running all day over the barns to cool them down.

The chickens are having a very difficult time as well. I lost my big Blue Cochin rooster and one of my Easter Egger hens in spite of my efforts to keep everyone comfortable : (. 

The chickens are all walking around with their wings up, trying to cool themselves.

I have a sprinkler going into the chicken run, and over their barn to cool it too. The chickens find some escape from the oppressive heat by picking around in the puddles.

Even my little Barn Swallow baby is lifting himself up out of the nest to stay cool. He is an only child so he is doing pretty well....no siblings to heat the place up.

Rooster Cogburn and Swagger seek shade under the apple trees....and beneath the weeds in my overgrown garden during the heat of the day. That's why I left all those weeds in there....yeah...that's it.

The horses are a little tougher to keep cool. I have fans in their barn as well, but the fans don't offer much relief in this weather. I hose the horses down with cool water a couple of times a day. Jasmine feels the need to taste the water as it comes out of the hose, making it kind of difficult to spray the rest of her body down.

Then, of course, after she is all clean and fresh, the obvious thing to do next is to roll around in the dirt and replace all the gunk that just got washed off.

  Dead horse.

Aaaannnd shake it all off.

.

Ande has his own way of keeping cool. He has his sprinkler...

...and his swimming pool, albeit a little small for him.

Sometimes he likes to combine the two for that true 'water park' experience.

He is, however, not too excited about the prospect of sharing his water park with Emma and Jolly Ball.

We have chances of rain in the next couple of days and temperatures are supposed to be more bearable....like 95.....it had better cool off because I promised my critters that if we can just get through today, we will be OK.

I hope it's cooler wherever you are!

Now I have to make jam for Farmers' Market. YAY! Boiling water and hot, molten fruit!

Animals with antlers-you should have seen this one coming.

I know, I do this every year and I am sorry about that, but somehow this just never gets old.....for me anyway....I think my animals may disagree.

" Oh. My. Gosh. Here she goes again. Somebody call the Humane Society pleeeeease!"

"Don't worry, Jolly Ball, I know where she sleeps!"

"Really? Do we have to do this every year? Really? Really?"

"Why can't we just go to the dog park like normal families?"



"Seriously mom, this is asking a lot, even for an  easy-going Golden Retriever."

"Don't be so grouchy, you guys, I think this is kind of fun!"

" FUN? You WOULD think this is fun, you big dorky llama! This is NOT fun! Look at me! I am a chicken with antlers for sheep's sake! A chicken with antlers!"

Happy Holidays from the critters at Crosswinds Farm.

The boys are back in town.

Once again I am behind on my postings, but you are probably getting used to that by now. We have had quite a bit going on and I have been feeling a bit overwhelmed. I won't bore you with the details, but I am going to use it as justification for my lack of blogginess : ).

As you may have gathered from the "Lamb Watch" gadget on the right side of the blog, breeding groups were put together last weekend. I started out this fall with only one ram available for breeding- Sommarang Gilroy, who I used for breeding last year. He is an awesome ram. Great conformation, good horns, fabulous fleece that microned last fall at 20.7, AND he is spotted. I am repeating some of those same breedings, but I have several ewes that are related to Gilroy, so I needed at least one other ram to diversify my flock genetics. After searching much of the fall for new rams with no luck, I ended up with FOUR boys here for breeding quite unexpectedly. So, here is the fall line-up and introductions. I am still waiting on some micron reports and will probably post them on a separate page on this blog in the interest of sparing my non-sheepy readers the monotony of having to read a bunch of seemingly nonsensical numbers.

Gilroy and his lovely ladies.

Daisy. Although Daisy is single-coated, her fleece microned very high (30) but when paired with Gilroy last year she produced two nicely fleeced ram lambs.

Willow. Willow is my only Ag (grey) ewe. I generally don't keep any Ag in my flock, but she has awesome conformation and she is one of my favorite ewes. Willow carries spots and solid as well.

Gilroy's last mystery date is Mira. I love, love, love this ewe. She is dainty, feminine and super friendly. I was not planning on breeding her last year, but she took matters into her own hands and jumped two fences...twice, to get to Gilroy...little hussy! That breeding resulted in a beautiful gulmoget ewe with delicious fleece, so I am hoping for more of the same in the spring.

Much to his dismay, my old wether (castrated ram), Rocky, has also become the object of Gilroy's affection....poor Rocky...I think he needs to change his perfume.

Below we have Hero. I got Hero from a fellow Shetland breeder that was dispersing her flock. I love his smaller size, wide horns, square conformation....and his spots. Hero has nice, soft fleece but he is dual-coated which is not what I breed for....not that there's anything wrong with that, I just prefer the single-coated fleece, he does have a lot of really nice qualities, so  I decided to give him two ewes with very fine, single-coated fleece to see if I can get some lambs with great conformation and fleece.

Hero's two lady-loves~

Holly is a very fine-fleece katmoget ewe with beautiful conformation. Holly carries polled genetics, so I am pairing her with Hero since he carries no polled lines and has nice, wide horns.

 Menemsha is bachelorette #2. She is a lovely mioget girl and I hope that I get some nice modified lambs from her. 

Next we have Avyt and his harem. Mr. "A", as we call him...mainly because I have no idea how to pronounce his name, is a bit camera shy so he is standing in the background in most of the pictures. Poor guy lost a horn before he got here in a ram scuffle through a fence. I was very lucky to be able to lease this boy for breeding. Here is his fleece. Yup, you might want to biggify this picture!

He has a high percentage of UK genetics and also has outstanding conformation and he is spotted. This guy is yummy!

Here are his 7 luscious ladies. Luna decided to bedazzle herself with pieces of straw...I told her it wasn't the best look for her.

 All of these ewes are spotted or carry spots.

 So there will be lots of nicely-fleeced spotted lambs in the spring.

 I am especially excited to see what Luna (below) has in the spring. This will be her first lambing and I love the look of this girl. She is standing funny in this picture, but her conformation is very nice.

 I would love to get a spotted moorit gulmoget out of Halley (below). She had a solid ewe lamb last spring, but she does carry spots, so hopefully I will get something more flashy this time around.

Lastly we have...ummmm, 'new guy'. He doesn't have a name yet. I kind of fell in love with this guy because of his nice wide horns. Although I do like fully polled ( hornless) Shetlands, that is not what I am breeding for and I have a couple of ewes that carry polled genetics, so I am pairing him with one of those girls hoping that the lamb(s) might inherit his lovely full-horn genetics. He is a very masculine looking ram and is quite a contrast to Hero's smaller size and....well, cuteness ( technical sheepy terminology). He also has a decent percentage of UK genetics.

New guy's fleece.

He will be paired with Edrea.

" Mmmmmmm, she's pretty!"

I am breeding waaay more ewes this year than I normally do, but I already have a waiting list, so if you are interested in any spring lambs please contact me so that you can get on the list. Also, Hero will be for sale after breeding, only because I don't normally keep a bunch of rams.