Monday, November 8, 2010

This and That

I've lived here most of my life and I am still blown away by the ever-changing weather. Last year it was warm...almost HOT right into the beginning of December, this year we were trick o' treating in a blizzard. You just never know. Luckily no snow has stuck to the ground; I still need to get out there and winterize everything and put away the bikes and summer stuff. WAY behind schedule this year. Too much rain I think. I just don't like being outside working for hours on end when its cold and rainy. Yuck. Good news is the end of the week looks sunny and dry, so hopefully I'll get everything done!

The shearer didn't call me this fall like he said he would, so I have 12 very shaggy sheep that I'm trying to figure out how to get through the winter without ruining their CLEAN fleece. I might actually have to get jackets for them...not an expense I really want to deal with, but the cleaner the fleece is the less you have to skirt out of it which means you retain more leading to a better yield of yarn or roving. Now I just need to figure out how to get 12 persnickety sheep to put on their jackets! :P lol

It's also time to put sheep into their breeding groups. It's looking like Baa'rack Orama will be getting the majority of the ewes in his pen this year. He has grown out to be an OUTSTANDING ram...and the two lambs he threw last year are gorgeous.
In other farm news, we slaughtered a couple of the ducks and ate one. It was AWESOME! Not something I would eat every day....mostly because the plucking was such a pain in the butt that we ended up skinning the thing....but certainly something I'd like to have a few times a year. So yummy.

Seven lionhead babies living in my house. There are two in the bunch that look the way lionhead's should; with short hair along their back, shorter ears, and wool around their faces and down their sides. Three are woolly all over and look kind of like angoras; and two have no wool around their faces, they look like regular run of the mill short haired rabbits. Weird. I knew I wasn't getting great stock, but this makes me doubt whether they are 100% lionheads or not. disappointing. But the babies are still uber cute! Now if someone would just come and get them out of my dining room.

5 comments:

Gayle said...

What a bummer about the sheep. I hope you don't end up with a bunch of nasty wool for all your hard work.

You should just count your losses, get rid of all the bunnies and find a new breeder if pure bred is what you were aiming for. Sounds to me that you're frustrated and if that is the case it will only get worse.

Now get out there and yell at those kids to pick up those bikes! :) LOL

Chai Chai said...

Jackets for sheep, are you sure trick-or-treat is over? Clean wool is great if you can keep it that way, I know we can't.

Bunnies in the house? The cats and dogs here would have collective heart attacks.

How do you handle those Icelandics, by hand or do you have pen/restraining equipment? Clipping the hooves are our little sheep nearly killed us.

stace41971 said...

Our dog and cats leave the bunnies alone...luckily. I'm just trying to make them cuddly for their new homes :)
We handle the Icelandics all by hand....and it pretty much kills us every time. ALthough the chair we got for flipping them from premier1 helps a little :)

Anonymous said...

I want videos of you trying to put jackets on your sheep! LOL!

I'm so envious about your homegrown ducks. Duck meat is my favorite...but yeah, I know that plucking is a total bear. That and the fact that we don't have a creek or pond on our property is why dh won't agree to raising them yet.

Firefly Mom said...

I'm with Teresa - I wan't to see video of you trying to jackets on them! Actually, I'd be happy of pix with the jackets ON, as the thought of clothed sheep makes me giggle. :)