Soft place to sit

Sammie, our Great Pyrnees (the white one) came into the kitchen to help me cook dinner the other night and laid down in the middle of the floor. Hailey decided to come and see what we where doing and just SAT on Sammie's head! Sammie is such a tolerant dog! The two of them stayed like that for atleast 5 minutes while we got the pictures taken. That Hailey is such a silly dog!! And Sammie is so patient with her! I love them both!!

Have a wonderful Memorial Day!!

Icelandic's are coming!!

I am soooo excited! I put a deposit on my Icelandic sheep last week! Here are a couple of pictures of them.

Here is Evra and her two ewe lambs. She (and her lambs) are black badgeface in color. All three will be coming here. I can't wait to see them in full fleece this fall!

Here is Garnet and her ewe lamb. Garnet is moorit and the lamb is black. Look at those rich, rich colors! Mom and baby will both be coming.

And here is Harriot. A black/grey spotted ram lamb. I am hoping he matures into a very nice ram. Right now I am very pleased at how he looks. Finn is his sire from Red Brick Road Farm. He is the most beautiful Icelandic ram I have ever seen! He is white with magnifigant horns.

Terri, thank you so much for all your help! I can't wait to come pick them up!

Ok, now I need your help. The three ewe lambs do not have names yet and I am the worst when it comes to naming. They must start with an H. So, please, if you have some good H names let me know!

Finally!!

Matilda finally had the her kid. Yes.... only one. It looks like he should eat well! Her udder is very full. I hope she doesn't have a problem with that. I will keep a close eye on her and her udder. Well, I was hoping for twin doelings, I only got a single and it is a buckling! What is wrong with all these girls! Out of six pregnant critters only one girl out of the whole bunch. Atleast he is here and looks to be very healthy. And of course very cute!

And what would a blog post about kids be without seeing a current picture of Agatha!

Have a wonderful weekend!

Trail ride, Mother's Day, and....... worms?

Ok.... so I have been taking lots of pictures to put on the blog but I keep running behind on getting them up! So I am going to do several different 'days' today.

Last Saturday I was finally able to go on a trail ride. The first one of the year! Can you believe it! Usually by this time of year I have already been on a dozen away from home trail rides. Not this year. The weather has not cooperated at all. Snow, mud, rain, mud, and oh yeah MUD. I went with a good friend of mine and we had a great time the horses where wonderful and the trails where pretty nice. Only a couple of muddy spots.
Here is a picture of Linda and her horse Tom. Now if I tried I could never have gotten that tree in the middle of her.LOL!!

Then her horse decided he was done and was going to unbridle himself.

And this is me and Max.

On to Mother's Day! We had wonderful weather for Mother's Day so I was able to get a lot of flowers planted and veggie garden looked after. Here is one of my whiskey barrels filled with flowers.

Can't wait for it to fill out!

Then I have two of these containers at the end of the walkway. I know... I know... they really need to be replaced but I just can't find ones I like as well. I am hoping that when these fill in you won't be able to see the awful container anymore.

What a wonderful bunch of radishes. They wher delicious!

And then Rob and I went fishing. We caught a lot of perch and then he finally caught one of his catfish!

Ok... are you wondering about the worms yet?

Well the last couple of days we have had a ton of rain. Today at work I was walking two horses out to the pasture and just happened to look down and had to stop and look twice!! I have never seen so many worms! I know the usually come to the surface after it rains but I have never seen a 'pool' of worms!

There must be thousands of them there! I hope the did not all die!

Well that is all for now! Have a great evening and wonderful tomorrow!

shade shelters

I have been trying to come up with an easy way to create shade for my sheep and goats as I move them. I had 13 ten foot panels (heavy) that I moved everytime I moved the sheep and goats. Then I would attach a tarp on the top of one section to create shade.And since I am trying to move them every three days to help keep down the parisite load, that is alot of moving HEAVY panels. And VERY time consuming!! So I gave this challenge to my husband. Make me shade I can move easily. I needed atleast two portable shade, one for the goats and one for the sheep. So for the sheep they get the old manure spreader to get under for shade.

It is a working manure spreader that used to be horse drawn. Steel wheels and all. Since I do not have a barn it has not been used much at all so, this puts it to good use.

For the goats my husband came up with this.

It was an old hay trailer. He made the frame and welded it on to the wagon. Then he welded little spots for the pipe to fit into. We got ten foot 1/2 inche plastic pipe and bent them to fit into the frame. Then we attached the tarp. This is still a work in progress. I am thinking I want the tarp to come all the way down to the frame. But to do that the tarp needs to be 10x10. All the farm store had was 10x8. And I think white canvas would be better. Then it would look kind of like a covered wagon!

So let me know your opinions about them both. The good and the bad! Or any other ideas about portable shade that would be easy to move. These are both easy to move. We have a small tractor that works great for this type of thing.

Well, have a wonderful evening! Still waiting for one Matilda to kid!

What a beautiful day!!

We had the most beautiful day! Sunny, light breeze, and around 65 degrees (I think). Got a lot done today. I have been moving the sheep and goats every three days to try and stay ahead of the parisites. And today was the day to move them. I have three electic fence netting that I create two small paddock. I would like to get one more to make it a little easier. I have to let one group out and set up a new paddock and then get them back in and then do the same with the second group. Well, the shetlands decided to take a walk-about while I set their new paddock up. They usually just stay in the general area eating grass while I move things, but noooo, today they left the pasture, went though the dry lot, down to the house, up on the deck of the house, and around the pond! Luckily they are gluttons for grain. So a call for them and rattle of the grain bucket and they all come running! Wish I had a picture of that!
But here is a couple pictures of them all in there new paddocks.

I think Matilda is getting close to kidding! Here bag is soooo big and so is she!

The three shetland ram lambs. If you look closely you can see their horns coming in. And look at that crimp in their fleece!!!

Agatha, she is my wild child! I hope she settles down when I wean her. She is so funny to watch play. She can't just run anywhere or even jumb there, she has to run, jumb and twist all at the same time!!

Alex and Adian. Alex ducked down just as I took the picture. But it is a good color comparsion. I think Adian will stay darker much longer than Alex. Even though they both will have more of a silver fleece once mature.

I love their little devil horns!

I think I am getting caught up outside so maybe, maybe I can get some riding in and do a little weaving as well.
Hope everyone has a wonderful week!!

Where does the time go

I just love this time of year. The days are getting longer and warmer. Flowers are starting to bloom. And the pastures are getting thick with grass. But it also means I don't get into the house until dark. Where does the time go! Thought I would do a quick blog and hopefully get back on track with more frequent posts.

We finally got our water line in on Thursday!! Boy it was great having water pressure! It is almost to much! My shower felt like I was in a power washer! LOL!

Here is DeNozzio before I hand sheared him last week.

Then the after shot. He was really pretty good about it. But he was not very happy about being naked! He had to prove to the merino ram and the angora buck that he was still top dog. After several head butts the merino let the little guy have his way. It is really kinda funny to watch the two of them. The merino is over twice as big as the shetland but the shetland has horns. Makes my head hurt just thinking about it!

That is all for now. Hopefully lots of pictures tomorrow and maybe even new baby pictures. Matilda (the last angora goat to kid) has a very full bag.
Have a wonderful evening!!