It's a sheep's life...

Dolly plays hide and seek in the garden.

Meet Dolly. She's a sheep. Dolly is without a doubt the smartest sheep I've ever met. If you stake Dolly out to graze, and should she be tied, say, to a tree...well, like most animals she'd go round and round until she had very little rope left. But unlike most animals, Dolly figured out how to go around the other way, thereby lengthening her rope again. Pretty smart for a sheep!

Dolly meanders casually across the yard as though she belongs out there.

Dolly is also an escape artist. Last year at this time I would sit down to the computer and look out the window. If I didn't see Dolly out in my front yard, I'd become worried. Not that Dolly was supposed to be in my front yard, and certainly City Boy didn't appreciate the natural fertilizer she left behind. No, Dolly should have been in the pasture with everyone else. But since she never was, and since she was always in my front yard, if I didn't see her I'd wonder what had happened and go outside to see where she was.

Dolly was always my first ewe to lamb in the spring. This was taken almost a year ago to the day. Look how wide her body is! Look at that huge udder! And she waited another week before giving birth.

Mory and Tevy were born March 26. Mory was just over 11 pounds, Tevy was just under. Dolly is an excellent mother!

Mory and Tevy visit with 'Uncle Walter'
They are approximately 12 hours old here.

Mory and Tevy, less than 24 hours, out grazing with Dolly.

Did you know that lambs were born with tails? Some sheep, such as icelandics, have naturally short tails. But others like Dolly (she's a suffolk dorset cross) have long tails. When the lambs are a couple days old, a band is put around their tails. As they grow, the band becomes gradually tighter, killing off the nerves. After about 14 days, the tail falls off. Now, don't get all squeamish! It's rather like sitting with your foot under you, and having it fall asleep. When the tail is small, it will grow into the band the there's minimal discomfort; even then, it's only a few moments before the lamb feels nothing.

Why would we dock the tail to begin with? Those tails have a lot of wool, and feces and urine will stick in it, drawing flies. This creates a problem known as fly strike, which can cause illness in your sheep. Better to have a pinching moment at two days than get sick later on from fly strike.

Tevy runs for joy!

Darling and Tevy.
Who wouldn't just snuggle their face down into that sweet lambs wool?

I hope you've enjoyed this glimpse into lambing here at Carpenter Creek!

My first full month of blogging is over (okay, just a little more than a full month), and I'm wondering...what post have you enjoyed the most?

My personal faves are:
True Confessions of a Desperate Horsewife
All That's Left of Walter
the Swimsuit Experience
Show me a Woman With a Clean House

That's me...alluring cleavage and all! (Okay...maybe not...)
If I go from the responses to threads, I'd have to say that the Valentine's Day post concerning owl poop (or barf, as we later found out) was a popular thread. I certainly got raked over the coals for the whole City Boy Cheating thread. You didn't seem to have a problem sharing your clothing malfunctions the other day when I asked for embarrassing moments!

Of course, I've already shared that the searches which find this blog appear to be after bottoms...big ones, at that; and I'm certain they're quite disappointed to find I was merely referencing my poorly manufactured teddy bear.

The oddest search that has shown up was 'she lay decomposing in the creek'... YUK! I'm not sure which page would have popped up in correspondence to that, as I don't recall allowing anything to decompose in my highly monitored watershed of a creek that flows through here. That would just be creepy, anyway. Blecky.

So... have you got a favorite entry here? I'd love to hear what it may be.

A Day in the Country

Another trip to Brigget's this weekend, and guess what I saw? The barn owl! She'd been in her nest box when Brigget went up the ladder to get my hay. I spotted her flying out of the barn over to this tree. She was rocking back and forth, as though breathing heavily; probably why that first photo is just a wee out of focus there. Hasn't she got the loveliest face?

A few years ago Darling and I went to Northwest Trek and saw these Snowy Owls. Very different looking than the Barn Owls. (What do you suppose Barn Owls were called before they began inhabiting barns?)

As long as I was at Brigget's, and as long as my camera had come along with me, I thought I'd get a few more pictures of the farm. Below are seedheads from last summer's sunflowers.

Okay, I'm not a huge data base of flower names...are these snowdrops? Or perhaps their name is Lovely White Flowers in Winter? I think that's what I shall call them.

The signs below were painted by Brigget's daugther, Rosie, before she left for college last summer. I think I need signs like that, only different. Mine would say Nasty Rooster, Wild Horses, and All That's Left of Walter.

After picking up hay, I decided to take the long way home and get a few pictures of the country side. I hope you enjoy them!

Okay, if you got this far, and you're still reading...here's a sneak peek at what's coming up! I'll be holding a contest on "Winsday" to name a new blog! The theme is barns...barns...and more barns! Pictures not just by me of my soggy, northwet barns, but you can submit your barn photos, too!

So put on your thinking caps and come up with the perfect name...Barn Again? Barn to be Wild? Hey...you're a clever group! Just give it a couple days and come back on Winsday to share your ideas! In the meantime, a bit of inspiration...

All That's Left of Walter...

I was so excited to get my new little ram lamb, Walter! Oh, what a cutie he was. Most of my sheep are naturally colored, meaning anything but white. Which is nice, and I like it, but I'd been wanting white so I could do some fun dying. And Walter was white.

Walter was a young icelandic, and at the tender age of 6 months he knew exactly what he was there for. The girls insisted on a bit of courting first, though...they insisted on knowing him at least 24 hours before allowing him to do his studly thing with them. And once he'd made the rounds, everyone was content.

I had a ewe named Dolly who used to get out quite a bit, and Walter realized if he stuck close to her backside he could follow along in her tailwind. So before too long, instead of just Dolly out roaming my front yard, Walter was there, too. Walter, unlike Dolly, began to get irritated with the routine of getting loose only to be put back into the pasture. He began to object. When a ram objects, you're in trouble, even a little ram. And this little ram had horns which were growing longer each day.

One day Walter and Dolly were out grazing near the barn, but of course on the outside of the fence, when I went out to feed. I went to get some hay to toss to the sheep on the inside when I noticed Walter staring at me. It wasn't a pleasant stare; it wasn't even a worried "Darn, she's caught us again" stare. No, this stare was a challenge; a dare; a "Go ahead, make my day" glare that I was receiving. I had in my hand the top of the grain can, which was just downright lucky as Walter lifted himself up on his back feet, then did what I've only seen the sheep on National Geographic do...he tucked his chin down to his neck and thrust himself forward towards me!

That was that. I don't need a mean, aggressive ram, especially one that's just seven months old! New fencing was in order, and I made certain that all the girls had been bred. Then I called my friends at the slaughter house and made arrangements for Walter to go to freezer camp.

We'd never eaten our own sheep before that. City Boy wanted to see what pepperoni would be like, so we had that and sausage made. Darling found the whole thing rather amusing (warped child that she is) and called it Wausage and Walteroni. She'd offer her friends Walteroni when they'd come to visit, and since these weren't kids raised on a farm (it is to a farm, City Boy!), they'd often gag, and we'd never see them again after that. I think it became a bit of a game to Darling, to see how many friends she could go through before running out of Walteroni.

City Boy decided we oughtn't waste that lovely head of Walter's, since he had such nice horns. He wanted to find someone to clean it up, but turns out it's a do it yourself type job. So City Boy took Walter's face out back and hung it in the trees by his horns. Yes, it was his face. The hide was still on that head, and the eyes were still in the skull. Disgusting, really. I don't recommend this for the weak stomach crowd. In fact, I don't recommend it at all.

Anyway, I wasn't really sure exactly where Walter was, just that he was hanging from a tree. One morning I walked back there with the dogs, who were busy chasing a coyote. I heard a little noise behind me and, camera in hand, thought I'd turn to find the dogs and their little friend. Instead I came face to face with Walter! Yuk! His eyes had sunken back into their sockets, and the hide was still on his skull, but a bit mangy looking. Totally gross! Be thankful I was too freaked out to take a picture. City Boy was dismayed to learn that Walter wasn't decomposing as quickly as he'd hoped, while I was left I wondering how many years I'd be stuck with the image of Walter's head swinging from a branch in my mind.

Once I knew where Walter was, I was sure to avoid him when I walked out back. But that didn't keep Walter from coming to me... One morning I got up after a huge windstorm and found one of the dogs with something in it's mouth. I called her up to the door to see what she had; it was one of Walter's horns! I ran out back to the tree to see the only thing left, the other horn still swinging from it's rope. The skull was no where to be found.

And that's all that remains of Walter...two horns, a host of bad memories and a couple packages of Walteroni!