Lamb updates

I thought I would do a quick update on the lambs now that they have all arrived and are growing by leaps and bounds....quite literally. As an added bonus, I actually have names for them all, which is highly unusual for me...normally I keep something around for months before a name comes to me.

Crosswinds Lunar Eclipse, "Luna". Luna will be staying here.Titan. Titan is a little tank of a guy. Titan has been reserved.
Phoebe. I haven't decided yet if she is staying permanently or not, I will have to evaluate her further....she is so stinking cute!
Ariel. Nice little ag/grey ewe. Ariel will be for sale. Reserved

Cassiopeia, black flecket ewe."Cassie", she is definitely staying.

Callisto, nice musket ewe with very soft fleece. Callie is a very....umm...."sturdy" girl. Callie will be for sale. ReservedMagnus. Nice ag/grey ram. Magnus has been reserved pending horn evaluation.
Halley. Moorit gulmoget ewe......duh, of course Halley is staying!

Sagan. Really nice, square, flecket (spotted) rammy with awesome fleece.

And then there is Ferdinand. I don't know quite what to make of Ferdie. He reminds me a bit of a Shetland mule, but he has got the most incredible fleece ever! He looks to be half polled at this point. He had little horn buds that only grew about a half and inch and then fell off. I knew that his dam probably carried polled genetics, but I was hoping that Khazar's genetics would dominate. My first inclination was to wether him, but with that fleece I am hoping that someone could use him in a polled breeding flock.

Ferdinand's fleece.

Random lambie pics.

Phoebe, Luna and Sagan.

"Hey, buddy, you have this horn thing stuck on your head, let me chew it off for you."

"Back off you little pip squeak, I am not a jungle gym!"

"You're not so bad, for a little sister."

And now for something completely different.

I promised a non-sheepie post, so here it is. I'm not sayin' that this will be easy to do, mind you, I have 120 sheep-related photos on my computer from just the past two days....and I started lambing April 6th...so you do the math.

The past few days have been devoted to lawn and garden. The ground has been so wet here this spring that there have not been many opportunities to get the garden tilled between the rains. Finally we had a break in the weather over the weekend and my brother-in-law was kind enough to bring out his tractor with the tiller and go over the garden areas....of course, I did bribe him with a fresh strawberry rhubarb pie, but he's a pretty good guy and likely would have done it anyway...I'm just sayin' the pie didn't hurt anything.

Today I was able to get a good portion of the main garden in. I planted 24 pepper plants and left space for 30 more, I usually put in somewhere around 50 of them to supply me with peppers for Farmers' Market all season. I planted 4-40 foot rows of green beans, 2 rows of peas, a row of cucumbers (I am trying a bush variety this year). I only put in 12 tomatoes this year, I planted 50 or so last year and couldn't keep up with them all.......of course that is nothing compared to the 70 that my good friend, Miss Effie, planted last year...or was it 90? Yeah, and Miss Effie doesn't do Farmers' Market, she just has a canning addiction problem. The rest of that garden will be melons, pumpkins and some yet undecided somethings that I might find at market. The second garden will be devoted to potatoes and sweet potatoes. I bought 1o pounds of seed potatoes; 5 pounds of Kennebec, which is a nice baking potato, and 5 pounds of Yukon Gold. Both varieties did well for me last year and I was so sad when we used up the last of them in January. So, now I have a table in the garage full of cut up seed potatoes. They should be dry enough in a couple of days to plant.

We also were able to do a big spring cleaning on the barns, and dismantle the lambing jugs to put them away until next year. Another thing that has kept me busy.........I have been at war! I have been doing battle with an unseen enemy for the last two weeks. Oh, sure, the evidence to prove that he had been there was quite obvious, but he was never brave enough to face me to do battle. Every morning when I would go out to do chores, there it was, freshly piled dirt and tell-tale tunnels through the lawn. So I would stamp down the tunnels and replace the dirt hoping that he had decided to pack his little moley bags and go on his merry way. But every morning it was the same routine....Ok, Mr. Mole, I've had enough......it is ON!Now, I am a live and let live kind of gal, but seriously Mr. Mole, you can go anywhere out here.... ...Or out here, but nooooo, you want to dig up my yard?? That won't do!I can't see poisoning the critter, or using those medieval spiky traps that snap down on the tunnel when he is crawling through to shish-kabob the little varmint. So, I had to come up with another way to banish the little beastie. When I see a fresh hill, I stomp down the tunnel leading to it and then ( I know, this sounds mean) put the garden hose into the hill full throttle......this won't drown the little booger, don't worry, he just pops up out of the hill..or somewhere close by..and then I scoop him up in a bucket and release him somewhere that his efforts will be more appreciated. If you are thinking that this is some cute fuzzy little cuddle-bug...let me enlighten you. This is a photo of my arch nemesis!
Still feeling sorry for him???? Yeah, go ahead and biggify that picture why don't cha? The stuff nightmares are made of! Sorry Jenny, you probably are the only person alive that actually would think he's cute!
Right about now you are probably wishing that I did post some sheepy pictures after all, aren't you??

The last lamb.

Lambing has come to a close here at Crosswinds farm. Guinivere delivered a single ag/grey ewe lamb last evening at about 8:30 pm, and happily everything went well for her first lambing. Happily for me, baby was up and nursing quickly and Guinivere seemed to have a pretty good grip on what her new roll in life was, so I joyfully relinquished control to her and was able to crash into bed at the very reasonable hour of 10:30 pm! Now, if I can just get myself out of the habit of waking up in the middle of the night to check on sheep, there is a good chance that I may regain some of my sanity....stop laughing!
I am planning on keeping Guinivere and her lamb in the lambing jug for an extra day or two. Guin is not a very friendly ewe and I have found that it is much easier to get a lamb with a skittish mom to be tame, and friendly, if you can handle them in the jug for a couple of days, otherwise if you turn them out they tend to follow mama's lead and it is much harder to build trust with them.

We have been trying to let the pastures rest and get off to a good start before we let the critters out on them, so the rest of the ewes with lambs have been lustfully gazing over the fences wondering when they would be allowed to munch on the green goodness on the other side. It has been a slow spring and has taken an inordinate amount of time for the grass to take off this year, but during the past week we have gotten some warmer temps and more than our share of rain so things are finally looking more like spring. Over the weekend, we started letting the sheep spend a little time each day on the grass to let them acclimate to their new diet. I get such a kick from watching the lambs in the fresh, green grass.


Cassiopeia, "Cassie", just relaxing in the sun...I never noticed until I looked at this picture....what is up with the beard????

Cassie's twin ram (no name yet).

I decided to name this ewe, Crosswinds Lunar Eclipse....kind of a mouthful, so she will be "Luna"...didn't mean to steal your name, Claire!

Below is Crosswinds Titan (10 weeks minus how many days, Connor?).
Below is Edrea's super friendly ram lamb. It is so hard to resist the urge to love up on the ram lambs, some of them are so cute and friendly, but handling them too much as a lamb just invites trouble as they mature...makes me want to wether them all so that I can play with them!Lilly's ewe lamb checking out the dandelion that Gary held for her.
And Jordan is just worn out from watching those little lambs play all day.

Ok, you are probably all on sheepie overload, so my next post I will try to keep ovine free.

New lamb and updates

Edrea had her lamb yesterday, a nice ram lamb....singular. I'm not sayin' I'm disappointed...but my fawn Katmoget ewe that carries spots, bred to my wildly spotted ram...and I get one SOLID BLACK RAM LAMB......what the heck is up with that?? I was really hoping for a nice spotted ewe lamb....or a katmoget ewe lamb...or a spotted katmoget anything from Edrea since she has the nicest fleece of any of my ewes. Oh well, c'est la vie!

He is a very nice little rammy, and I am not sure if you can tell by the photo, but he has the craziest tightly crimped fleece.That just leaves Guinivere left to lamb, and she is certain to have a single.

All of the lambs are growing like crazy! Little gully girl has a hard life...
I am using names related to astronomy/astronomers this year...this little girl might need to be called Eclipse since both sides of her face are completely different!
Below is Daisy's ram lamb. I love his goatee.And his twin sister...

They both have very nice fleece (so far), this is from the bum area, I had to stretch it out to photograph it because it is crimped up so tight! You should see the neck!
Below is one of Lilly's lambs. Very cute, a bit of a longer tail, her fleece is very soft and single coated but not especially crimpy.
This little guy below is already spoken for. He is Fallon's ag/grey ram lamb. I let his new owners think of a name for him-sticking with the astronomy theme-and one of their choices was 'Titan'....I think it is a perfect name and will be very fitting when he is a big strapping ram with magnificent horns, but....being that he is smaller than my roosters and my barn cats right now, we kind of chuckle at the irony.
Willow's rammy lambie.

And now for some gratuitous cute lambie faces....
Awwwwwwww! Don't you just want one??

Khazar's spotted lambs have arrived!

Finally my long awaited lambs have arrived out of my ram Khazar!
Daisy apparently gave in to my threats of squeezing her, if she didn't pop pretty soon, to get those babies out, and went into labor yesterday evening. Everything went just the way I like it, completely uneventfully; discharge, panting, pawing, pushing, 15 minutes later, by 7 pm, lambs. First she delivered this handsome little ram lamb. He has amazing fleece already. I love his markings, although one of his yuglet (eye patch) markings is not complete...but with this kind of fleece we overlook those minor details!Then I got this spectacular little ewe lamb! Also fabulous fleece-soooo crimpy neck to breech.

Both lambs were up and nursing in short order and hopping about the jug within minutes.
Not to be outdone, Lilly decided that she might as well join the party when she saw that her sister, Daisy, was in labor, and started showing early signs of impending birth. I put Lilly in the lambing jug next to Daisy, which may have not been the best idea, Lilly was so anxious to have her own babies that she was trying to steal Daisy's through the bars of the jug. I ended up placing some towels in between as a visual barrier and that quieted things down considerably. I sat and watched Lilly for a couple of hours. Lie down, stand up, paw the ground, lie down, pant, pant, pant, circle, circle, lie down........yeah, I know how to party on a Friday night! I knew that these were early signs and it could be a while before we saw the fruits of labor...so to speak. Those of you that know me know that I am not, by any means, a late night person...we pretty much roll up the carpets here in Eldridge around 9pm, so long about 10:30 I am thinking that maybe I should bring my blankie out and sleep in the barn. Then I got a text message from my sister Marie, who had been out with some friends ( Whaaaat?? people do those sorts of things? Go out on a Friday night?) wondering how things were going. I told her that Lilly was in labor and since Lilly is Marie's ewe, Marie decided to come out and hang around at the "bum watching party". Long story short, we didn't see the first lamb until around 1:30 am ( I KNOW).

Two ewe lambs! The first one looks like two different sheep...here is her right side.....And here is the left side. Again, really nice crimp to her fleece (thank-you Stephen).
Next this little princess made her debute. Her fleece is incredibly soft, not super crimpy, but soft and single coated. Her little well defined spots are hilarious.

She even has one hoof that's half black and half white.

So...now we are down to two ewes left to lamb. Guinivere, my solid moorit ewe bred to my ag/gulmoget ram (she is a first time mom and likely to have a single), and Edrea, my beautiful fawn Katmoget ewe bred to Zar.....I can't wait for the grand finale!