Taking spring head on.

It finally feels a little like spring around here.  I have to rub my eyes and make sure I'm seeing things clearly, but now, when I look out the window to the pastures there is actually some green out there!  The pasture is beginning its comeback, Robins are out and about, buds on the treesp; ladies and gentlemen, we may have broken through to the other side!

The lambs all made it into the world safe and sound.  I will take the late deliveries when it means everyone is born healthy.  We didn't have one troubled delivery this year.  All the ewes and lambs are living life fat and happy in the barn.  There is quite a size difference between the lambs, mostly due to age; with our heaviest weighing in at 47 pounds and our young little triplets still in the teens.  More importantly, everyone is eating and everyone shows a great demenor while playing around the farm.

Now that lambing season has ended, it is time to move on to other spring chores which include shearing and hoof trimming.  The other day we had the shearer come out to the farm and shear the boys and a few of the girls that are off schedule.  We do two shearings a year; one spring and the other in the fall.   The freshly shorn fleeces smell so good, they glisten with the lanolin that I can feel just by touching the fleece.  A couple white fleeces, a couple grays and a moorit brown will all be available here shortly.  Send an email if you are interested and would like to know more.

The hoof trimming is where it gets interesting.  We started with the rams because 16 hooves (4x4) seems a lot less daunting than 40 (4x 10 ewes).  To trim, involves a headlock, a body check, a few wrestling suplexes and THEN you are ready to trim hooves.  In all seriousness though, it is difficult to catch these 200 or 250 pound rams and pin them again the wall, while the other one of us tries to steady their hooves in an unnatural position; steady enough to trim with sharp hoof shears.   I've definitely lost more blood than any ram has to this point.

The funny thing is the four rams all have their individual personalities, which until I raised sheep myself, never believed a sheep could have.  But they do.  Johnny is the giant that could hurt you, but is somehow laid back enough to not bother.  He intimidates you with his presence and that is enough.  George is the one of the two new adolescents.  He has a lot to prove for some reason and isn't afraid to start a tussle, be it another ram or with me.  Since he is only a year old, I can still take him.  Rutherford is also a year old, and much smaller than George.  He is the low man on the totem pole, he knows it, and is the most easy going of the four.

Then there is Ahgosa.  I have written about Ahgosa several times before.  First there was the body flip, where he left me laying on the ground staring at the sky.  Then the breakout out of the pasture, and now this.  While I was trimming Johnny, a feat in and of itself, I am basically bent over his rear, hanging my head upside down while I trim the bottom of his hoof.  While doing this, out of the corner of my eye, I see the top of a wool covered head back up, angle down and charge towards me.  I dropped Johnny's hoof, and turned to protect my head just in time to take a blow on the shoulder.  Ahgosa had reared back and took a charge to, no pun intended, ram me!  I bellowed at Dan for not giving me a heads up, which of course he has his hands full trying to steady Johnny through all of this.  I shoved back Ahogsa and stomped my foot at him to let him know I mean business.  From there on out, it was one eye on the hoof being trimmed, and one eye on any charging rams.

Happy Clouds, Happy Lambs.

Being a high school science teacher, I had the week off- er "off."  I didn't go into school, per say, although I did work on a few lectures, graded essays and worked on my timeline for the last month before the AP test.  But yes, I could have slept in, had it not been for the loud obnoxious ewe's bellowing for their food.  I don't recall downloading a hungry sheep app for a phone alarm for a reason, but that's just Mary Jo and Artemesia.  They don't even bah any more, it's more from the depths of their loins and sounds alot more like bah-getoverhere and feed me Seymore!  School work, sheep and a bathroom remodel; it was a productive vacation and I am grateful for the time off to get that much completed around the farm.  But... I also would have been grateful for a vacation down to someplace warm and far away; without my tools, without my books and computer but I'd probably would still take Mary Jo and Artemesia. 

One night during the week, I was able to meet up with some friends for trivia night in Traverse City.  There was a particular question regarding an artist who was known for painting his "Happy Clouds."  I jumped out of my seat on this one.  Dad, here's to you, and all those times you made me sit and watch PBS and Bob Ross with his big afro glistening under the single stage light of the low cost production set.  We would watch, (thinking to myself, who watches people paint?) while going through phases where, Bob, the artist would appear to have botched the whole painting; messing it up with some newly painted dew dad.  Then, just as quickly with a whisk or two of his fan brush, suddenly it became a stand of happy pine trees.  The man was genius.  Bob Ross; not you Dad.

From happy clouds to happy sheep.  All 17 of them!  Some came a little late, and made for some long waiting moments, but still, they all came!  This year was a little inconvienent as they were all spaced out over three and a half weeks.  With that, there really was never the chaoctic moment I expected where I pictured six ewes all yelling and giving birth at the time, and mixed up lambs all having to be bottle fed.  Instead, the little maternity ward of lambing jugs, never maxed out past the three spots we have.  Perhaps the ewes knew the space available and simply waited for it.  And better yet, no troubling births.  Ten ewes, some first timers, cold snow (yes...still) and no problems what so ever.  THAT, is a great lambing season.

Thanks to all the "ladies" at Windy Knob, and welcome to all the new ones, with ten ram lambs and seven ewe lambs now running around, we have over thirty sheep on the farm.  And still one llama who has somehow become a playground fixture for the lambs.  Like a tired parent, Drogo sits out in the paddock, where the snow has given way to the flattened remaining grass from last fall, and lets the little ones get away with things no one over the age of six weeks will ever get away with.  Do you think the lambs play hot lava or is it king of the hill?  Either way, the lamb(s) standing on top of Drogo's back seem to be winning.

And if you'd like to see the full list of names, or are interested in seeing the lambs that are available for breeding stock, please visit our website and click on spring lambs!  http://www.windyknobfarms.com/