A lovely spring day

Today was one of those days weather wise where spring feels like it is in the air here in New England. The mom's to be were enjoying the sunshine and nice warm temperatures after all of the rain and snow we have been having, and I think maybe it feels like fresh green grass is just right around the corner finally.

Amelia looks like she is carrying twins at least.

Jewel always gets very large.

Even Sunny looked on sporting his wonderful ram shield and soaking up the rays. He's all alone now and doing very well with it. Hopefully grass will arrive soon and he can go back out with the non-bred ewes.

The garden is also showing signs of spring with buds on the trees.

And the start of bulbs emerging.

Oh yes, and the flooding of the back pasture. What we affectionately call Lake McCann. If you look closely you can see Miss Kitty one of our barn cats sitting at the waters edge.

Although with the water beaded on the bush it sure looked pretty this morning.

I hope everyone is having wonderful spring like weather where they are. We of course will probably get rain tomorrow, but for today at least all of the sheep got to sunbathe.

Finally an update

It's been very busy here with lambs all leaving to go to their new homes and the flock finally getting back to normal. So of course I'm beginning to think of breeding groups.

This is Sunny he's a 2 year old ram and from Painted Knoll farm in New Hampshire.

He will be bred to Cammie a 2 year old ewe lamb who had twin ram lambs this year I'm hoping for twin ewe lambs this year lol.

And Jacqui this Fall. Jacqui is yearling and this is her first breeding.

Griffin is a April ram lamb from Windswept farm in Michigan and I am very excited to see what he produces this year.

He will be bred to Amelia a home bred 3 year old who had a single ewe lamb last year and a ewe and ram lamb the year before.

And Jewel a 3 year old from Bluff Country who had a single ram lamb and then twin ewe lambs. She had last year off as a break and I am looking forward to seeing this breeding combination.

Groups will be formed probably by the end of this month before I fly to Kentucky for the World Equestrian Games. Although I am hoping that lambs won't be born until March/April. Our back pasture was mowed yesterday and all of the flock are enjoying going back there to graze. We have had very little rain this summer so it's not as green here in Massachusetts as the sheep would like.

I did manage to grow 2 sunflowers this year. The tallest easily tops 10 feet! They are starting to form their seed heads now and droop but still look wonderful.

Hopefully it won't be so long between updates again.

Sheep Sunday

I spent a very productive morning cleaning out the chickens and then putting up some fencing for the lamb (and Jaqui) group. We have had such warm weather here that the grass is not happy. Luckily for us the past week has seen a few thunderstorms, and the rain has made for some better grass outside of the paddocks anyway.

Popular consensus is that grass is delicious.

Griffin and Isabella are doing great in their halter training and are very friendly now.

Sorry for not posting for a while. Life is busy. Hopefully it won't be so long between future posts. I hope everyone is having a great summer.

Another addition

Yesterday I drove a 650 mile round trip to pick up Twin Springs Dakotas Isabella, or just Isabella for short. It was a long, hot, and humid drive and I am glad it was the last long trip of the year for me.

She travelled very well, and is settling in with the lamb flock.

Griffin is also coming along very well. His halter lessons are going well and he comes over (respectfully) for attention now which is great.

Jaqui is a year old now, and is doing a wonderful job baby sitting the lambs. I need to work on some halter sessions with her as well before the fair in August.

Anyway that's all for now. I am still tired :) I hope everyone is staying cool we are in the 80's and 90's with around 70-80 percent humidity. Hope we get some rain soon.

Halter training (picture heavy)

This evening my partner and the kids took part in the ever fun halter training of the lambs. I try and get all of my lambs introduced to halter work before they leave, although I warn new owner that it is a work in progress, and something they will have to keep doing. This year I had quite a few leapers, although a couple of the boys also really behaved well which was nice.

This is Wilbur by far the best behaved of the bunch! He has what I suspect are small scurs which I thought was quite interesting.

And this is Winston another well behaved ram lamb who only assumed the napping position once on his walk.

Dixie did not like the experience at first....

although she got the hang of it eventually.

Diana thought that lying down and being petted was actually the aim of the game. Now if someone could bring her out her hard feed it wouldn't be a bad life.

Wallace threw himself around like a banshee until finally understanding life was better with 4 hooves on the ground.

Delia did pretty well and even tried some cookie.

Dakota didn't think much of the whole experience.

We even brought Jaqui out to show them how it is done. As a yearling I am hoping to show her this year. She is very solid, and has a beautiful fleece under that coat. On the plus side she also remembered her leading lessons from last year.

So that was this evenings fun. Now I'd quite like a nice glass of wine. All of the lambs will be leaving in the next few weeks. I will miss this group and their beautiful fleeces. I also have a couple of grown up sheep leaving for various reasons. But I have 2 new lambs joining my flock that I am very excited about. Now about that wine...

Naked sheep

The sheep were sheared on Monday afternoon and unfortunately for them it got cold on Tuesday. Today it was sunny (but windy) so everyone went outside and got to show off their do's.

Sunny looks wonderful and the shearer remarked what a great fleece he had especially for a ram. He has kept a good weight over winter and breeding season.

Dreamer looks very good too and spent most of the day stretching out in the sun. Dreamer is leaving us in the summer to go to a new great home. I am on the look out (and wait list) for a ram lamb lol.

Daisy Mae looked taller with her fleece off. And still skinny but not as far off height wise from Jacqui as I thought. Hopefully the spring grass will do her some good and she'll look better by the summer. That's Jacqui in the background her fleece was awesome. Can't wait to skirt it.

Jewel is looking good but plump. She is not supposed to lamb this year, I guess I know who has been eating Daisy Mae's food!

Amelia and Derry are doing well although I hope more lambs arrive soon for Derry to socialize with.

Lambing game for the pregnant girls will go up tomorrow. I need to think of a prize :)

Eck what a delay

Sorry readers for the delay. February got away from me, and March has been busy. We are just recovering from 5 and 1/2 inches of rain in the past 3 days. This is what my middle and back pasture look like today.

As you can see we are waterfront property right now. The Assabet river doesn't normally start until past the fence in the back pasture lol. We were told the pastures "got a little damp" when we bought the property.

My shearer is due to come on Monday afternoon (finally) and the girls and boys are looking forward to having last years fleece removed. The weather is supposed to be lovely in the next few days so they should have plenty of chance to dry out.

Still no sign of lambs :( I am hoping they will arrive soon, and should have a better idea for due dates after they are sheared.

That's all for now. I am off to go and practice trailer loading with Muppet.

Catching up

It's been a weird sort of month so far. First of all thank you everyone for the condolences for Mighty Mouse. The following Sunday our son lost one of his guinea pigs which was very sad too, and ou yard now looks like the start of pet cemetery.

Then I attended Equine Affaire in Springfield with my friend Alex, it is a huge horse event and we had a blast shopping, watching a clinic and collecting freebies. The next day I had a medical conference in Boston which was also good and I got even more free things. My son (been a bad month for him) also had H1N1, but so far everyone else in the house is well. He is better now and back at school thankfully. Oh and somewhere in that week I had time to break a finger and hyperflex a thumb on the same hand lol. However life is finally getting back to normal and I am looking forward to catching up on all the blogs I follow. So here are some pictures for you all.

A glorious sunrise from the start of November.

Christina the very broody silkie.

The brown breeding group of Sunnys. For some reason they all grouped into the shade.

Cammie looking like she is about the burst out of her sheep coat.

Sabrina taking in the sun.

Jacqui also enjoying the rare sunshine.

And the best picture I could get of Jewel who is sad not to be in a breeding group, and now insists on trying to be a close as possible to me.

Thanks again for your patience, I will try and update sometime soon. My daughters birthday party is the weekend and I have too bake a cake tomorrow for it before I take her to see "New Moon'.