Useful piece of advice for the day..

If you are going to leave your 'barn shoes' out on the porch overnight........

Just make sure you take a quick peek inside before you put them on.

Just sayin'.

A few ewes and a flea market.

First of all, I am not dead, thanks for the inquiries ; ). I just haven't been very bloggy as of late.

I  have added some of my ram lambs to my 'Shetland Sheep for Sale' page on this blog.  Some of the ram lambs are still being evaluated; it takes a while to figure out what those darn horns are going to do! I have been trying to take pictures of the ewe lambs in between the rain storms, but haven't been very successful thus far. All of my ewe lambs are spoken for...so I almost hate to post more pictures of them...it's kind of like saying, "Hey, look at these sheep you can't have!"  Hopefully next year I will have more ewes lambs than ram lambs to offer.

Here are a few of the girls that I did get pictures of.

What? I said, 'I ALMOST ' hate to post pictures of them.

This pretty spotted ewe is going to an unregistered flock in Indiana. 

These two black ewes, Juno and Forseti, will be living with a nice family in Iowa.

The new owners picked the name, Juno, for this solid black ewe.

 And Forseti is this pretty girl's name.

Freya will be moving to Decorah, Iowa.

This little moorit ewe will be going with Freya to Decorah...I always like it when they have a buddy to go with them.

I will try to get pictures of the rest soon.

About the flea market.

Those of you that have been following my blog are familiar with the Flea Market routine. We (my sister Marie and I) get up before the crack of dawn and meet so that we can make the hour and a half road trip to West Burlington, Iowa, for the monthly flea market. You are probably thinking, "Wow, there must be some great stuff there to make it worth getting up that early!" Ummm, not necessarily, it's just the possibility of some really great stuff that keeps us going back.

So, this time, my husband Gary was brave enough to join us for the trip. Sunday morning we were on our way before 4:30.....yes, AM.

Note the age of my truck by the fact that I have a cassette tape player in the dash board.....more about my aging truck later.

We arrived right around 6 AM, and Marie started finding bargains right away. Large Coleus plants for $2.

 Annnnd a few accessories that we opted to not purchase...

 We found these purses that would go with...well....umm, nothing that I own, but here are some purses.

 And some fancy beads....it was like Mardi Gras- without the nudity.

 ?????

I've been looking all over for this stuff!

And this, apparently, is a Bunny vacuum cleaner cover...to hide your vacuum...'cause this is more attractive than a vacuum?

Nothing says flea market like a heart-shaped hot tub!

We met some interesting people. This guy was nice enough to model his hats for us.

I thought it was adorable how this man and his dog kinda had the same expression.

This kitty picture is for my son-in-law, Andrew, because the only thing he loves more than a squishy-faced cat, is a squishy-faced cat wearing clothes. Not joking. He loves this stuff.

I found an old table and a bench that needed a little TLC, but with some sprucing up they might be kind of neat. Hey, they were a dollar each, so what the heck.

At this point we had wandered around for about three hours and were starting to accumulate a few things. Gary was holding up pretty well, his job was to keep an eye on Marie so she didn't wander off too far; there were shiny things there, so it is sometimes difficult to keep track of her. 

Pay no attention to the pink Barbie Christmas tree.....it has a special purpose bwahahaha!

By the time we had wandered around for almost 4 hours, Gary started looking at knives...I am not sure what that was about....hmmm. I think he had reached his 'fun' limit.

When we were just about to leave, we made an astonishing discovery. I thought I was pretty good at geography, especially when it comes to the great state of Iowa, but something we found told me otherwise.

Apparently, Iowa is farther West than I originally thought...like, West, as in, the desert, West.

And Iowa is much larger than I thought-stretching all the way to the ocean. I must live a sheltered life because I have never seen dolphins in Iowa. Good to know.

And who knew that Iowa reached all the way to the South Eastern part of the U.S.? I had no idea that Iowa was in the land of Dixie! 

OK, now I am really confused.....

 I better study my geography.

After we had just about all the fun that Gary could stand, we headed home. After leaving the flea market we made a brief stop to gas up and hit the road. We only got a short distance from the market and my truck (Larry) started making strange noises. The RPM needle was going up and down and the engine seemed to be "missing". We wondered if we should try to baby the old boy home, or try to find an open service station in one of the tiny towns ( most of them with populations of less than 300) along the way...on a Sunday morning... we opted to try to get him home....which we did...still waiting for a damage report on that one....I think the mechanic is afraid to call me.

More lambieliciousness

I realised today that it has been three weeks since my last blog post, so I guess it's time to do an update on the lambies -  they have changed so much since then.
I promised my cousin Steve that my next blog post will be about something other than my woolly friends...so I lied...that's OK, Steve's wife appreciates my sheepies. So today we are going heavy on the sheep photos. First I will show my 'keeper' ewes.
This is Luna's ewe lamb, she was the last lambie born this year. I am using a Mythology theme for names this year, so this little girl is Crosswinds Athena. She is amazing, and will be staying here.

This is Ashumet's black ewe lamb, Lucina (Lucy). I wasn't planning on keep any solid color lambs, but how could I resist this little girl, and that fleece?

Cassie's daughter, Bellona (Bella). This girl has been a show-off from day one. Pretty girl, with nice, single coated fleece.

Now, the rest of the crew...or at least some of them.

Crosswinds Thor. (sold)

 Amazing fleece. No britch wool. Fine, crimpy softy soft soft....did I mention that he is soft?

 Thor is scurred and one of his little scurs fell off the other day, so half his head is neekked.
 He is going to make some lovely lambs : ). For those non-sheepie readers, my friend Juliann has a wonderful website that explains polled/scurred/half-polled genetics if you are not familiar with the terminology.

Thor's twin brother, Apollo. ( reserved pending scur growth)

He's a fancy boy too!

Below is Loki, he has some of the nicest fleece of any of the lambs. Loki is a half-poll as well. Loki is one of Lilly's triplets so he has matured a bit slower than some of the other rams, but he is coming along nicely. At this stage, my only complaint about him is that he could use some width, but I think that might come as he matures.

The longish looking end of his tail is just baby hair, he actually has a nice tail.

OK, I guess I need to post fewer pictures of each lamb or we are never going to be done here.....

Holly's katmoget ram, Atlas, with Loki. If I can't find a nice, fine-fleeced, spotted ram to use this fall I may use Atlas on a few girls if his horns continue to look good. He would be for sale later in the fall in that case. Atlas carries spots.

Gunnar is Willow's boy. He is ag (grey) with full horns and very fine fleece. He has a tiny little tail like his dam. Gunnar carries spots. He is on hold right now, may be for sale.

Zeus is a really nice, solid-sided gulmoget boy. He looks like he will have full horns, but his sire is a half- poll so I am not sure yet. Gorgeous conformation, nice fleece. I may use him on a couple of my gully girls this fall before I sell him.....if he has full horns. He carries spots.

These are Lovey's boys, Neptune and Helios. Both of these boys will be for sale. Carry spots.

Helios looks to have full horns. His fleece and conformation are gorgeous.

Neptune is a tank. Big. Wide. Tank. Nice fleece and conformation. I am not sure if he has slow growing horns or if they are aberrant.

                    "MOooooooooo!"

This little guy ( below) is Crosswinds Pegasus, I am still waiting to see what his fleece is going to do before I offer him for sale.. You may remember that he was born with very straight "dog hair". It looks like there is crimpy fleece coming in underneath-finally. I should know in a few weeks.

This is Daisy's ram lamb. He will be going to an unregistered pet flock.

OMG, I forgot I had so many sheep.....with the exception of my 'keeper girls', this blog post only included most of the ram lambs! This could take forever! Sorry, Steve, I will have to have a another separate post about the ewe lambs.
I will try to get my "for sale" page on this blog updated.
For some reason, blogger comments seem to not be working. The only way I have been able to leave comments is by using the "anonymous" button in the comment section.