That's it, everybody out!

It’s amazing what can happen in just a few weeks of time. Not too long ago, we were pushing it, to move our first group of sheep out onto pasture for the first time. The pastures hadn’t truly bounced back yet from the winter, and our lambs had just hit the 30 day mark. It wasn’t but late April that we had the sheep shorn. Suddenly in just the past week alone, we sold a couple lambs for breeding stock, sold every single fleece we have on the farm, 6 skeins of yarn to a few different buyers and even took a deposit (yes we take reserves) for an order of lamb in the fall. Not to shabby for one week’s time.

In addition to the sales, there are alot of chores going on round here. Now that the rams were moved out of the barn for the season, we had to dismantle their temporary stall. Out went the boards and the gate and up came all the soiled bedding. Wish it were as easy as it sounds, then I wouldn’t absolutely loathe cleaning out the stalls.

From there we were able to move the rest of the barn group out to join their peers. All the lambs now, even the second batch, have reached the age that the can be taken out to pasture where they will truly flourish. It entails and ushering of sorts. We set up an aisle way of temporary fencing to escort the sheep from the barn out to the pastures. For these guys it was their first time outside their safe haven. However they were torn. While their instincts had them on high alert, their eyes and stomachs had them yearning to shoveling in the fresh grasses as fast as they could chew.



A view out the window



In just a few weeks time you watch the lambs bulk up with the limitless pasture that they pace themselves on. Nap, eat, nap, eat… repeat all day long. Still just a third of the height of an adult sheep, but truly starting to look more sheep than lamb in body build; it is great to get the sheep out on pasture where they are meant to be. Even better is the view from the house. I finally found something I can enjoy doing where I can just sit and relax. Milos moves over for me to share his couch (just a bit of course) and out the westerly window, I can gaze out onto the pasture and watch the sheep. It is such a site and definitely soothing for me, maybe thats why we count sheep to fall asleep.  My mind doesn’t race 100 mph about the next six tasks I should be doing, or how to build, fix or run this that and the other thing. I just exist. I drink my coffee. And exist. Silly as it sounds, it’s rare for me and quite difficult actually.

And so it begins.  The snow has long since melted, the rains have yielded to a few sunny days and we move onward toward summer.    

Take one on the chin.

Spring time may have finally arrived, just a little late.  This time last year every ram, ewe and lamb was out on pasture.  The temps were warm, the pastures had bounced back and the barn was empty.  Fast forward to today, and we still have rain, snow (believe it or not) and a packed barn; the pastures just aren't ready for 'em.  Our hay is running dangerously low, which meant I had to go back and buy more.  Luckily there was still enough to buy a few weeks of time. 

Hooves, deworming, and lamb weighing: all things that have to get checked off the list before heading to pasture.  We basically coral every sheep into the stalls (coaxing by shaking grain in a can).  Once inside it is grab who you can and check them off the list.  Repeat until all hooves, CDT shots and deworming meds are done. 

It has become an art. You get your feet shoulder width apart, squat down low, arms out wide and you have to be pretty darn quick.  The sheep start swimming around the walls of the two stalls, it's like watching fish collectively swim in a group.  Once you move, they react.  But hopefully you win and you have your hands on the one you wanted. 

I saw her coming, she had made it past me once, and I was lining up to catch her on the pass back.  One of our registered ewe lambs, Isadore; weighing it at 45 pounds, she made her way towards me.  She was being ushered with a few other lambs on her left and right, but I had her in my site.

Shoulder width apart, arms wide, bend your knees.

I jolted between a few to catch her, but my reactions weren't nearly as quick as hers.  I had already decided to go in for it, a split second after she decided her next move.  As I was bending down to grab Isadore out of the group, she (and her sixth sense apparently) was in flight mode.  Sheep are incredibly athletic.  Not all that smart (what's that say about me), but amazingly agile and quick. And oh, by the way, they can jump.  As I was bending down to get her, she began to leap up out of the small group of about 6 sheep.  All too quick it happened, I basically become a bullseye for her.  Her head clocked me square on the jaw.  I had just enough time to see it coming, and may even have winced before contact.  I took the shot, stumbled backwards and braced myself again the cement wall of the barn.  From there I slide down the wall, landing firmly on my rear.  With a face full of lambs now struting right past me at eye level.

I saw stars but never went out.  Definitely more TKO than KO.  Isadore 1.  Farmer 0. 

After the deworming and weighing was through, it was time to get the four adult rams out onto pasture.  The pasture can support four right now, but not another twenty seven.  A few temporary fences placed, open the barn door and gate, and away they went.  It is very satisfying to see animals out on the pasture again. Like a rite of passage, springtime on a farm is quite a landmark.  It's nice to see things returning to their prime.  Green grasses, buds beginning to grow, happy rams and chubby lambs.  Another spring at Windy Knob.

Lisa's fleece

Our fleeces have been shorn, and some yarns and other products available.  Be sure to visit out website, and yes we ship!  We even accept pay pal to make it more convenient for our buyers, just visit us at http://www.etsy.com/people/windyknobfarms .

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/

Calm before the storm



Omena and Oneida hanging out in the feeder

Not exactly half way... but getting there.  There hasn't been a birth on the farm in almost a week.  This is like a vacation after the start we had. Three ewes that all gave birth to twins within a 20 hour period, followed by a brief two day stint, than one ewe delivered one lamb.  Followed by silence.  Of course a barn full of 21 sheep is never truly silent.  There have been quite a few barn checks that prove to be quiet in that there wasn't much action.  Frankly, there's been none.  Other than the big melt down underway, in which I have to carve valleys to drain the water away from the barns and coop, this simply hasn't been the "lambing season" excitement I was expecting.  Has it been nice to sleep through the night and not have to worry about lambs at 2am?  Sure.  But I know it's coming, and with every day that Artemesia, Ella and Alaina waddle around the paddock, I know its one more day closer to Lady Bird, Martha and Rosalyn bringing udder chaos when all 6 remaining ewes deliver right about the same time.  I thought three was crazy?  Look out.

I guess its alot like watching the pot boil.   I wait and wait, and time seems to go by slow and it's just a matter of time.  Meanwhile, I get to enjoy the fun of having these week old lambs running around.  Still seeming like half cartilage at this point, the lambs buck and bronk around the barn often running into each other if not walls and feeders.  They play hard for mere minutes before grabbing a quick drink from Mom and settling in for a nap.  The lambs climb on top of eachother and huddle into a ball of perfect innocent baby wool; fifeteen minutes later...repeat.  It's peaceful to watch, even the playing can leave me quiet with a simple smirk on my face, watching it all go on around me. I hop up on the stall wall and sit quietly, trying to fall into the scenery around me as to not disturb the protective mothers watching over their lambs.  It's a little after Seven O'clock, the sun is still shining, the snow is melting and for the first time I feel like Spring is truly coming.  There's a lot that goes into running this farm, but these sure are the moments that I treasure the most.  There is something pure, something so natural, watching a completely dependent lamb nurse from it's mother.  The patience displayed, the vulnerability, the dependency all witnessed, it is truly something.   

Mary Jo and her little one.

Two in the morning comes awfully early...

In previous posts, I've mentioned the "marking system" to know when a ram has bred a ewe.  It's a simple mixture of crisco and chalk.  It helps in creating a calendar for timing when 150 days will mark the due date of the ewe.  The deed is completed, and you have a greasy colored chalk spot on her back side.  Every woman's dream for true romance I'm sure. 

However, there are a few variables that can occur; such is the case this year.  Clearly marked (and witnessed I must admit), the due date was set for this past Saturday, March 5th.  I began "lamb watch" on Thursday night, looking for the signs of an early labor from my three suspected ewes.  This led on into Friday night, which was a much more realistic chance of delivery, which created the need for a 2 am barn watch.

Two am rolls around and my cell phone lights up the room, with it's ever cheesy alarm call.  It's whatever the standard ding-a-ling ring is when you first buy the thing; I never was motivated enough to change it.   However, after four nights of this ringing, the jingle is now deeply embedded into my head.  I can't seem to shake it, and the annoying call is giving me anxiety.  Every bell, tone, noise seems to match some element of this tune, and I instantly sigh for another 5 minutes of snooze.  I find myself laying there in bed thinking... how long till the next barn check?  Thinking about it so much, I can't seem to fall asleep. 

Friday, Saturday and Sunday all came and went.  The girls continued to eat and eat and eat some more.  Entitled to? Of course they are, but it just means that labor isn't starting any time soon.  The entire household is growing tired of this now nightly routine.  The early morning wake up which used to have a vibe of a vacation no longer feels that way (remember the excitement of getting up early to leave for a trip?  I somehow have forgotten what it is like).  The dogs don't even bother to get up, they just lay there and gamble that I can stumble around them and out the door without stepping on a limb or tail. 

Then the fun really begins.  Without any neighbor's porches or city lights to light up the clear winter night, I am dependent on keen eyesight and cat like reflexes to overcome the pitch black darkness combined with the obstacles of ice patches on the driveway.   I have to walk downhill to the barn door, slide it open, flip on the switch, and listen.

All the ewe's have their own sounds. I can tell a Mary Jo from an Artemesia any time of day.  The light switch to them means eating time, so its no surprise the light is often followed by bellowing of hungry sheep.  However, at two in the morning during lambing season, its no ordinary call I'm listening for.

And there it was.  A few days late, and a few annoying alarm calls later, I hear the unfamiliar yet recognizeable fait "bah" of a new born lamb.  Like coming down the stairs at Christmas, I run to the gate and peer over the stall to see Lisa had given birth to a lamb.  She was vigilintly cleaning and pawing at it.  No enabling here, these sheep mean business and get their little one's up and nursing in no time.  In fact, I stood and watched in awe as Lisa, our veteran ewe, worked to clean her little one with another set of hoofs exiting her rear.  Her second lamb was already underway.  Labor, while cleaning and feeding. That's how we roll at Windy Knob.

Not exactly.  I stood there for a half an hour with my lambing equipment (stethoscope, Iodine, Cotton Balls, Scissors, Scale) ready to help out at a moment's notice.  Lisa just looked at me.  "I got this," she seemed to say to me with her eyes.  It's a miracle.  Life in any form is spectacular, and I get to watch it unfold through the seasons; time and time again.   And just like that, with these two born, the 2011 lambing season is underway. 

Their ear tags will read #1101 and #1102 (2011, order of birth), but their names will be more fitting.  The theme this year you ask?  After the highly anticipated inaugural year of Presidents and First ladies, I am proud to annouce the 2011 theme.  Something local, something to acknowledge the beautiful area I am lucky enough to call home.  In my opinion, it's one of the best counties in the country; with long winding roads, private little bays around every corner, and endless views of water and islands.  This years theme we connect to our roots here on the farm with all names refrencing places in Leelanau County.  Look for an "Omena" and a "Leelanau," perhaps an "M22," or "Manitou."  The lambs this year will donn names of some of my favorite county roads, bays, islands and landmarks of the county Windy Knob calls home.

Paperwork

February is coming to a close, and I have to say, it's been a rough one.  I have been dragging my feet on updating the blog due to the fact that I simply can't just write another post after the subject matter of the last one.  I've since lost a friend, gained a lot of support and have found out society is a lot better than I once thought.  Still, it is a loss, and to know the heartache others feel over losing a Husband or a Father or even a Grandfather... well... it just sucks.

You get caught in the game of time.  Time brings healing, but sometimes time brings guilt too.  Are you thinking of it enough, are you comforting others enough or are you too soon back in the day to day?  You have to find the balance of moving on with life, while at the same time taking time to grieve.  It is a strange dichotomy.

I have to say this time of year is tough enough as it is.  Taxes, paperwork, receipts, ordering supplies, it's all the mundane "stuff" that I have to do to keep the "business" running and the farm operating.  Funny though, because as I was sitting at the dining room table, I became distracted with the view and all I could do was think to myself, this would be a great photo for the blog.  ADD I know, but I did.  So imagine yourself doing taxes, ordering lambing supplies and organing paperwork while looking out this window and daydreaming of spring.  There are worse places to do paperwork I am sure of it.

Ella on the left, and our Moorit Rosalyn on the right

But, the good news is with the paperwork comes the best part of raising sheep; lambing season!  Four am barn checks aside, there is a constant excitment with March; from the anticipation of twins or even triplets, to what color the breeding pairs will produce.  Then after a few weeks, the flock doubles in size and soon enough we will have 30 some sheep running around Windy Knob.  This season is what I work all year long for.  And after playing the genetics game, you finally get to see which odds played out.  For now, we are still a week or so away before the first due date, but as you can see, the girls are round as can be.

Some very pregnant ewes waddling around the paddock.