Category: Blog

Big sheep weekend!

First off, I went to help with shearing day at Schoonover Farm on Friday-

It was a good time, and I came away from it with a lovely medium-dark brown fleece from a wether named Coco:

Mmmmmm.

Then today was sheep maintenance day here at home-

We did hooves, CDT vaccines, dewormer, and CoSeCure boluses

And then I hung on to Felix so we could relieve him of his winter coat.

I almost got done. But he’s still got a hula skirt hanging low on his ample hips 🙂

And as for the Peeps-

Meet the Guinea girls!

They are just little- about 4 weeks old, and so a re too little to go into the pasture with the sheep and chickens,
so we’ve made them a little pen under the eaves of our old dilapidated chicken house.

They have a heat lamp in there, so hopefully they will be nice and comfy hanging out there while they gain some size and strength.

Welcome Peeps!

Meet the Monkey.

I think I’m naming him Seth.
He kind of looks like a Seth, doesn’t he?
Not sure his eyes are right yet. The green centers don’t stand out very well.
Might take another shot at them sometime this week.
But Seth thinks it’s pretty cool that I’m knitting myself a sweater so I’ll look like him.

Maybe once I finish my sweater I’ll make him some clothes too.
What are stylish monkeys wearing these days?

Anyway, I’m almost to the point where the arms join the body and grow into the yoke.
Exciting stuff!
It’s all going according to plan so far, but I am a little anxious to get to the shoulder shaping.
I’m working at a smaller gauge than the pattern, so my stitch count is higher and I’m having to do some math to adjust the pattern, but I’m pretty sure the ratios are about right.

Me and the Monkey signing off for now-
Have a good week!

We started with the lawn chair method

But had to progress to the halter to get the haircut completed

Chone put up a bit more fuss, and went straight to the halter.

Crazy little bugger was ok through the shoulders and back,, but as soon as I got near his little tush, he turned into a bucking bronco!
We wrestled a while, but it was going nowhere, so I finally let him go and now he’s got a messy, shaggy haircut with a straggly butt.

Oh well. Suppose I’ll get him cleaned up later. (I think he kind of likes being a a mess)

A couple of weeks ago we changed up the chicken management scheme.

And everything seemed cool for about a week.

The girls settled in fine, and I set up a special little dust bathing area for them.

Then the hawk showed up.

We lost two girls before we realized what was going on and who the culprit was. 🙁

We moved the chicken house out of the pen and set the girls back to free-ranging.

They seemed to get over the shock of the hawk attacks and went back to their old routine of sitting on the front porch and pooping on everything 🙂

Which meant that the free-ranging thing was not going to last.

So this weekend we moved the girls into the pasture.

The fencing is to keep the sheep away from the chicken house (they know there is chicken food in there).

They’ve got their nesting boxes in there (with a little bit of makeshift tarp to keep the crazy sideways rain out)

And they can access the pasture through their special little chicken-sized doorway (between the rebar arches).

So far, the sheep have been pretty cool about sharing the pasture with our feathered friends.

But they I’m not sure they know quite what to make of the new decorating scheme.