Back by popular demand

It has come to my attention that I have not been keeping my dear readers up to date on the latest goings on in the town of Eldridge. So here are some of the latest additions to the Eldridge police reports published in every one's favorite small town paper, The North Scott Press.
Now, this one is completely understandable. I very often find myself in the same situation, thinking...hey, I've been involved in some illicit activities this week, I think I will call and see if I am a wanted subject.
If you are going to come to Iowa you better make darn sure that you have an Iowa vehicle. We don't allow any out-of-staters hanging around causing trouble.


I heard that they may have been one of those out-of-state cleaning crews!

I am guessing that if someone would have approached this subject before calling the police, they might have figured out that he/she worked there.....oh, but wait, they did have a skateboard after all.

Here on the mean streets of Eldridge, population 4600, kids grow up hard. Wearing their gang colors, John Deere green and uhhh.... John Deere green. Always better to have the officials handle these dangerous, volatile situations.

In defense of the Muskrat, was he just innocently wandering by, or was he doing the creepy stalker thing and peering in the window at her? If it was the creepy stalker thing, she was totally justified in calling the authorities.

In farmy news, Ande had a visit on Monday morning from the veterinarian. She came and gave him some "sleepy shots" which caused him to take a nice little nap, after which he awakened to a couple less body parts in his nether regions. Here he is trying to wake up enough get his lips to move in the appropriate direction.

Sadly, he is still not speaking to me.

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.

Spring blossoms

It was an absolutely gorgeous day today, 80 degrees and sunny, such a welcomed change from the dreary weather last weekend. I have such a long list of chores that have been waiting for just this sort of a day that I had to narrow it down and prioritize my projects.

I decided to start with my garden, taking a cue from last Saturday's 40 degree daytime temperature, I thought that it would be best to first get in a few of the cooler weather crops until I am sure that the danger of frost has passed. I planted 2 long rows of peas, 200 onion sets, 4 rows of green beans and I threw in some garlic bulbs....although I think that it is best to plant garlic in the fall, I wanted to see what they would do...'cause I just don't have enough stuff to do.

I was very excited to see that, not only did my fruit blossoms survive the frost, the trees are absolutely laden with blossoms. As I was planting the garden the fragrant flowers were wafting their scent into the breeze reminding me how much I love springtime. Well, there was also the occasional hint of liquid hog manure being sprayed on the neighbor's fields, but I guess if that is a sign of spring as well....I'll take it!

Pear blossoms

Blossoms from one of the apple trees.

As I was taking pictures of the blossoms, I discovered this robin nest nestled tightly in the lower branches. Such stunning blue eggs.

Speaking of things that are laden.....Daisy is due on Thursday, I am fully expecting more solid babies.............but it would be nice if she surprised me with a few spots. C'mon Daisy it is almost Mother's Day.

Floods and frozen farmers

Ah yes, the first Saturday farmers' market of the season.

I am signed up for the entire season of market, which entails getting up between 5-5:30 in order to get all the critters fed, myself ready to go, and driving into Davenport to set up to sell my wares before 7:45 am every Saturday.

This year there have already been a few challenges to the normal flow of the market. It started with a disagreement between the two preexisting markets that shared a common parking lot owned by the city, and the city's levee commission, over changes in the rules for the new lease of the lot (referred to in the local papers as "the green bean wars"). Somehow it ended with 3 separate markets, 2 combining and heading to another location, and part of the original market staying in the established spot down by the river.....which is where I decided to stay....I just want to sell my stuff.

With that all settled, there was one problem remaining. As I mentioned, the market is, well, down by the river.............which happens to be flooded right now.

My booth is supposed to be, oh, somewhere in this general region.

In spite of the deluge, a decision was made to carry on with the market anyway, simply moving it up onto the road north of the lot until the water recedes, which seemed like a reasonable alternative. After watching the weather forecast last night (it wasn't pretty), I had a LOT of hesitation before deciding to go ahead and load up the truck and hope that the weather report was as unreliable as usual. Unfortunately, it was fairly accurate for a change. It was 40- something degrees with 15-25 mile an hour winds and raining/drizzling steadily all morning.

My friend Jean, huddled for warmth in the back of her car.
Sorry about the fuzzy pictures...I was trying to keep rain off the lens...plus I was shivering so hard that I couldn't hold the camera still.

Considering the inclement weather, many vendors did show up with some wonderful items for sale.

My friends Tom and Nancy always have beautiful hostas. These guys had a sense of humor about the flooding situation, they displayed many of their bedding plants in this bass boat offering free delivery...downstream.

Darci has some awesome handmade goats' milk soaps that smell Divine.

YUM!

As I was leaving market (I wimped out and packed up early..I couldn't feel my hands anymore), I saw these pelicans hanging out along the flood waters, yes, we do have pelicans in Iowa :). They are so beautiful to watch especially when they are in flight.

Next Saturday is sure to be better, after all it is May!

More baby pictures

I just wanted to share some more photos of the lambs. Enjoy.

Willow's ram lambs.

Sommarang Edrea's ewe lamb

Sheepy Hollow Red Trillium's ewe lamb


Trillium's ram lamb

Sheepy Hollow Lovey's ewe lamb
Those are just a few of the pictures that I took of the lambs today. I will have more pictures of some of the others soon.