Just farm stuff.

Fall is here, this is what is left of my garden. Yesterday I gathered up the remnants of withered vines and dehydrated sunflower stalks and piled them up....kind of sad.
There is definitely a chill in the air, and according to the forecast it will be in the 20's overnight in a couple of days. Gary put the heater in the horse stock tank, but I need to get some for the sheep tanks...this weather is reminding me that I have a lot to do before it gets really cold.
Cinnamon and his brother Junior usually find a nice sunny spot in the sheep barn on the straw bales every afternoon, but now that there is more of a nip in the air.....

Junior has found a cozier spot. I like to use these covered cat boxes filled with straw as nest boxes for my free range chickens. The boxes work really well and are easy to clean. Lately I have heard the hens cackling and fussing in the afternoon when they are ready to lay their eggs. When I went to investigate the first time I heard the ruckus, I found Junior all snuggled up
in the nest box paying absolutely no attention to the protesting hens.
I guess I need to get more boxes for the girls since Junior is unwilling to vacate.

Daisy and Willow are on the lookout for boys.


" Hey, look at this face! When are you going to post about me????"

Yikes, it's November!

November 1st already! What??? How did that happen??

Like most of my "sheepy" friends I have been contemplating which ewes to breed for 2008 lambs since....well, since the 2007 lambs hit the ground in April. Now that romance is in the air, (or maybe it's just ewes in season aroma in the air) here is my "final" list.Sommarang Daisy. Friendly, pretty girl, nice fleece and tail....really friendly, did I mention that she is friendly? Modified.

Thistle Keep Teleus Longtail "Willow". Very nice ewe. Soft crimpy fleece, very tiny tail, nice rear and legs. Ag grey. Selectively friendly...she is not an "attention hussy" like some of my other girls that will do anything to be the center of attention, she is much more dignified.

Sheepy Hollow Lovey. Black (iset)krunet ewe, good fleece and conformation, also very sweet.


Sheepy Hollow Trillium. Pretty girl, good conformation, very nice tail, shorter staple fleece but soft and crimpy. She is my least friendly ewe, but she had one of my nicest conformation ram lambs this year.

Sommarang Dolly "Lilly" will probably not be bred this year. She and Thistle Keep Sagebrush Vole (below) were allowed to wean their ewe lambs on their own, and they were nursing for quite a bit longer than my ewes that had ram lambs, so unless I push back breeding they wouldn't have much of a rest between when they weaned this year's lambs and breeding again.
Sagey did give me some really nice lambs this year though.
Crosswinds Sophia. She is just a lamb, so she won't be bred until next year.....She is such a pretty girl, I can't wait to see how she matures! Love that wool on the poll.

Crosswinds Isabella. Isabella is one of this years lambs she will not be bred this year. I will have to decide after she matures. She has really long, soft, crimpy fleece, unfortunately she has a longish tail. She is a "Rocky" lamb, so she may carry polled genetics.

"HMMMM, all those girls look GOOOOOD"!

Sorry Rock, remember that trip to the vet? You won't be romancing the ladies anymore.

I will be leasing a ram this year...seems kind of silly with all the ram lambs that I ended up with this year, but we will be hanging on to a couple of those boys until next year to see how their horns turn out.

Princess Vilka

It would seem as though Princess Vilka is not nearly as distressed as we first thought.....she now owns our house.

The kids will be allowed to go into their old apartment on Monday, after the insurance company has done their investigation, to see if there is anything salvageable. They found a new place that they can move into on Monday, so back to Iowa City with "Larry" the pick-up truck, to shuttle things back and forth.....the kids opted for a "main floor" apartment this time : ).

Justin and Nicole

Well, I guess that it is about time that I updated my blog! We have just had too much going on lately and I haven't had much time to keep up with everything.

Yesterday afternoon I got a phone call from our 21 year old daughter, Nicole, in Iowa City. She was hysterically crying and all I could hear her say was, " Mmm..muwfffffffffff..pffffaaahhhhh.. FIRE...muhwahhhhhhhhhh". The one intelligible word that I got out of that made my hair stand on end. After I got her (and myself) to breathe, I got her to tell me what was happening. She said that the apartment that she, my son Justin, and another room mate share was on fire. Our kids were not home at the time that the fire started, and thankfully their room mate got out okay and was able to get all of their pets to safety....no small feat considering that they have a third floor apartment and share it with 2 cats, 2 bunnies and a ferret. The important thing was that everyone in the building got out safely. I knew that our kids were fine, but I am a mom so needless to say, Gary and I jumped in the car and made the normally 45 minute trip in considerably less time.

By the time we arrived the fire was out. Most of the fire damage was to the roof and the third floor where our kids live, and of course, lots of smoke and water damage. Since the building was deemed uninhabitable for the time being, none of the residents were allowed to retrieve any of their possessions. The Red Cross was there and offered help to anyone who needed it, which was really nice.....especially since one of the guys that lived in the basement was standing out in the parking lot barefoot, in a tee shirt and shorts and it was really cold out.
The kids made arrangements to stay with friends while they look for a new apartment.........BUT, there were homeless kitties and bunnies to contend with........oh yeah, you guessed it, a few furry refugee friends made the trip back to Eldridge with us last night.



This is Simon, he actually started out living here when he was a tiny baby. Simon and his brother Baxter were thrown out on the gravel road near our house when they were only about 2 weeks old. It was October of last year and it was cold, they were not even weaned from their mother, so of course they had to live with us "until we could find them a home". Long story short, Baxter stayed here and Simon is now Nicole's baby.

Simon has adjusted to his little vacation home with us just fine, he is familiar with our house and seems to think that our other cats and the dogs must be as thrilled to see him as he is to see them....not true. Now, this is embarrassing to admit, but we already have 4 house cats. Yes, I am a hair net away from being "the crazy cat lady". So, if you are doing the math, yes we sadly now have 6 cats in the house until the kids find a place..... shoot me now.

This is Justin's friend Vilka. Vilka is less than excited to be here. She looks cozy in this picture, but in actuality she had wedged herself underneath our rocking chair between the legs of the chair and the springs. I think that she is protesting, she can't understand why she has to be in this house with all of these undignified boy kitties, she feels that she deserves much better.

Baxter is just hoping that the spoiled princess and his long lost brother are going to become long lost again.

These pictures are of Simon and Baxter last year. They start out so cute, don't they?

I am happy to be able to give my kids one less thing to worry about, knowing that their pets are here safe with us...........but boy do I hope that they find a new place quickly! : )

Rocky and Teddy

After a lot of consideration I have decided that tomorrow Rocky and Teddy will be going to the vet and returning with a couple less body parts. Rocky is a very sweet ram with exceptional fleece, unfortunately he has aberrant horns, and at this time I am not breeding for polled genetics, so he will not be used for breeding. I had contemplated selling him to someone who does breed for polled, but he has such nice fleece (which is already spoken for for next year), that I will, at least for now, be keeping him as a fiber pet.

Pay no attention to his muddy nose, I am not sure what he was doing!

This picture doesn't do his fleece justice, but it is quite yummy and lustrous.

This is Teddy, I had hoped that he too would go to a polled breeder, but things didn't work out that way. He had only tiny 1/4 inch nubs as a lamb that broke off a couple of times and then never grew back. He has a tiny little tail, nice wool on the poll and is spotted under all that gorgeous fleece. Teddy has been sold as a fiber pet and will be going to his new home in Iowa City sometime after he is wethered.

I think that his new owner will be very happy with this pretty fiber, but I am sad to see him go : (.