Herriot and his 'ladies'

Breeding groups have been put together, and I have finally gotten everyone sheared that I am going to shear. So here is Herriot and his group of 'ladies'

Herriot, a yearling black grey Icelandic ram. I was concerned about his horns last year, but they have turned out very nice. Not real big (which is fine), but there seems to be plenty of room between his horns and his face.

Hazel, a yearling moorit Icelandic ewe. She grows a nice heavy soft fleece. This will be her first breeding.

Hettie, a yearling black Icelandic ewe. Her fleece has a lot of crimp to it. This  is her first breeding. I hope she calms  down a little after she lambs. She is quite the wild child!

Heidi, a yearling black badgeface ewe. She has incredilble soft fleece with lots of crimp to it.  A very nice ewe, but another wild one! She was very good for me to shear her though, so that makes me happy!

Evra, a four year old black badgerface Icelandic ewe. She is the mother of Heidi and also has some incredibly soft fleece, It is not quite as long as Heidi's, but still a nice length. She is one of my favorite ewes

Back to reality

We have just returned home from a week long trail ride in south central Missouri.
Here are some pictures from our trip. Now maybe I can get back into a regular blog entry! LOL!
With trying to get the horses in shape for this trip and getting sheep and goats sheared this fall time has been limited.
But, boy was it worth the hours conditioning the horses! It was beautiful!!

We went to Big Creek Trail Rides . It is about two hours east of Springfield, Missouri.

One of the beautiful river crossing. This is on the Current River.

Max and Barach (our two horses) cross tied to some beautiful lodge pole pines. This is  at the  'lunch on the trail' on Tuesday. So much fun riding out on the trail and eating lunch. They staff did a great job of getting everyone fed. And ALL the food was delicious! Will have to start the diet now.  :)

This is David and Adele, the couple we went with to the camp. 

This is Starman and Cruise, David and Adele's two horses.

The water making those little 'rapids' is all coming from an underground spring!! This is also on the Current River.

Trying to get the fall colors

A picture just doesn't show how beautiful the colors were.

This is our camp site. With David and Adele enjoying the warm fire on  a cool foggy morning.

Our sleeping arrangement for the week. It was great. A bed, a fan and a heater  makes a great  setup.  Needless to say we had the 'lowlyest' of camping set ups.  :)

Horses waiting at the hitching post while we look at a neat old cabin.

History of the cabin.

More history.

This cabin.

This neat old barn.

And their corn crib.

The horses waiting patiently. (Actually, I think they were praying for no more hills to climb.)

One of two eagles we say on the ride. We rode directly under this magnificent bird and he just stayed their watching us. It was one of the highlights of the whole ride!! He couldn't have been more then fifteen feet above us! 

This is a small water fall between two ponds. There were three pond right in a  row and they were spring feed. A very neat site!!

This is how the 'other' end of the riders slept!  LOL!!!

A bad picture, but I these are like 5 x 5 'cages' that are filled with rocks. have never seen anything like it before so had to get a picture.

The most unusual horses we say on our trip!

These were infront of a bank in Mountain View, Missouri.

Just so cool!!!



Hope you enjoyed the pictures. We had a wonderful time. But so glad to be home, take a shower with GOOD water pressure, sleep in my own bed and not have to put all my winter clothes on to just of potty! LOL

Luck!

I usually am on the wrong side up luck. But today we went to an auction and I was very lucky!! I wanted to buy three different things they were offering at this auction and I had a set budget.

I stayed in my budget AND got the three things!! Unbelievable!! I should have went and bought a lottery ticket!

The first thing I bid on were 5 welded wire horse panels.

They are a little mis-shaped, but nothing major. I plan to cut them into more manageable pieces and have my husband weld them onto some angle frames so they are sturdier. Great buy!

The next thing I bought was two mineral feeders.

 I am hoping these will work better than what I am using now. They are fairly light weight so they should be easy to move when I move the flock. I will try it with a small amount of mineral at first to make sure that they will keep out the weather. Another great buy!!

The last thing I bought is a Billy Goat Gruff head gate!!

It has the stand to put it on but no ramp up to it or at the other end. Those should be easy enough to build (Love you honey!!) It also has a hole in the floor that will need attention. Probably will just replace the floor.
The front of the head gate has a piece that I am not sure what it is used for.

I am just not sure what that square thing is for. Can anyone help me out?

I am so excited to get all this stuff!! I plan on mounting the head gate to a small trailer I have so I can move it around to the paddocks as needed. Will build a ramp up to the trailer (very short trailer) and then a ramp up to the chute. The welded wire horse panels (after they are made into smaller panels) will be used to make a catch pen leading up to the ramp and chute. And the panels will be able to go onto the trailer for easy moving! Can't wait to get it all set up! This is going to make thing soooo much easier!

I will try to get lots of pictures of the whole process.

:) Can't hardly sit still!  :)

Bad Dog!!!

We have had Hailey for about a year and a half. She was dumped as a puppy on our property.

Well........ If she wasn't so darn cute, she would be finding a new home!!

Not really, but she really crossed the line last night!

So a little history first. She was a very hard puppy to house break compared to the Great Prynees I have always had. We would crate her when ever we weren't with her and take her out often, but she just could not get the idea she was suppose to ALWAYS go potty outside!  Finally after about 4 months she figured it out. So slowly she was allowed to have a little more freedom in the house when we were not there, just like our other two dogs. It worked pretty good until one day we came home and she had the cushions off the couch with two of them with big holes in them!! Well, that ended the all day freedom!!

Then we gave into those poor little puppy dog eyes and let her stay out of the crate during the night IF she had a lot of time outside that evening. Well, again, that went good for while until the voices started in her little brain again. 'chew me, chew me'  And the couch was the victim again! Not so bad this time, but still! I was not planning on buying a new couch any time soon!

So now she sleeps in her crate and spends the days we are at work in her crate (if it is too hot or too cold for her to be outside). And most of the time when we are home she is outside with us. But it has been so hot lately I don't want the dogs out when I am moving the sheep and goats electric netting. They just get too hot and then they go swimming in the pond to cool off and then want back into the house! So the solution to not having wet dogs in the house was to not let them get so hot in the first place.

So last night I left the dogs in the house while I tended to the sheep and goats. All three loose in the house.
This is part of what I came back to!!!

All my hard work!! She even eat through my Addi Turbo circular needles!! Bad dog!!! Bad dog!!!

I am so upset about this! It has been such a challenge for me the last couple of months to get any knitting done! These where the last of the KAL with Michelle Hunter at Knit Purl Hunter. I could have gotten two pairs of little footies out of the yarn.

Bad dog
Bad dog.........

Harder than it looks!

I had some time the other day to sit and take some pictures of the sheep in goats. I see all these wonderful pictures others post on their blogs and websites and WOW!! Getting really good pictures is much harder than I ever thought it would be. So your stuck with my mediocre pictures of some of the sheep and goats.

This is Biscotti, a grey morrit icelandic ewe lamb out of Evra and by Herriot. She has little bity scurs which was a real surprise since both mom and dad have nice big horns.

 This is Brizben, a black badgerface icelandic ram lamb. He is a twin to Biscotti so he is also out of Evra and by Herriot. He looks like he will have nice wide set horns and his fleece is really nice with lots of crimp.

This is my little Batman. He still has a rough go of it sometimes when he gets stressed, but he interacts with the rest of the herd and they all seem to know he is kind of a 'special needs' child. His fleece is incredible!

This is Hettie a yearling black icelandic ewe. She is a very alert ewe and is really tough to catch, even it a small pen, to check her eye lids and get her feet trimmed. Her fleece is coming in good and so far is staying fairly dark.

This is a ram lamb that is out of Kate, a shetland, and by Herriot, an icelandic. The cross was not planned, but the out come produced two very nice lambs! His horns are nice and he is a coal black.

This is Heidi, a yearling black badgarface icelandic ewe. She looks just like her mother Evra. I sometimes have to look twice to make sure which one I am looking at!! Very nice ewe, can't wait to see what she produces next year.

This is Hosta, a yearling white icelandic ewe. She has some incredible fleece and is very friendly.

This is Budster, a black badgerface icelandic ram lamb. He is still living up to his name! He has an impressive set of horns and a huge amount of fleece that is very soft. He is out of Garnet and by Hank. Nice, nice ram.

This is Hazel, a yearling moorit icelandic ewe. She has really grown into a nice ewe. I think she will be the largest of the ewes when she is full grown. She has a nice heavy fleece that has a lot of character to it.

This is Bahli, a black shetland ewe lamb out of Ester, by Cocoa. She is a very curious little ewe. When I am feeding Batman his bottle she always comes up and visits. I can't touch her but she stands there looking at me like she understands every word I am saying.

Here is Baxter, a black angora buckling.  He is turning out to be a nice buckling and should make someone a nice herd sire or and incredible fiber wether!!