Sunrise and her brown badger face lamb in front, with Unix and her white patterned lamb in back
Just a few photos to document that the new lambs are finding their way. We’re enjoying a mild day and the sheep are out back catching some sun and wind.
Archive for the ‘Sheep’ Category
New lambs settling in
Saturday, May 1st, 2010Shave and a haircut
Monday, March 15th, 2010
Newly shorn Icelandics enjoy their lighter look
It gets cold in Texas. Not the relentless, soul-numbing cold of the Northeast, but cold enough, thank you, for two transplants to remember Marches gone by when it seemed as if Spring would never arrive.
This week, Spring did. And with it arrived Danny. For tenders of flocks from Kansas to Arizona, Danny may even be a more welcome sight than Spring. Armed with a kind soul, an efficient technique and industrial-grade electric shears, Danny moves from farm to farm a few times a year to lighten the load of woolly sheep.
This was the first time our current flock met Danny. We have four friendly souls who are hand-raised and four who are a bit more distant but generally amiable. None of them were very interested at first to go under the knife but Danny has his persuasive ways. One-by-one he marched them over to the canvas. Click, they were standing. Click, they were sitting down on their bottoms. Click, the shears glided along hidden contours. In a matter of minutes, each sheep had shed its coat and Version 2.0, sleeker and cooler, was revealed to the world.
And what interesting wool they shed! The big Suffolks provided bags full of thick white wool. The diminutive Icelandics provided more modest amounts. But their fleece was lustrous and quite spinnable. Frances can’t wait to get her hands on that!
New lambs in town
Wednesday, February 24th, 2010
Milo, left, and Downy get acclimated to their new digs
Our two Suffolks, Molly and Daisy, have two new friends! Downy, a Southdown wether lamb, and Milo, a Hampshire/Suffolk cross (also a wether lamb), have arrived at Sun and Wind Farm. They wear coats (since they’ve been recently sheared) and follow Molly and Daisy around with adoring eyes.
Although we have it on good authority that both lambs won ribbons at the north Texas FFA shows, we can tell you that Downy’s real forte is eating; he can out-eat any other lamb his size. Note to visitors: be careful hand-feeding Downy unless you want a 100 pound lamb in your lap licking your face and begging for just one more treat. (Milo is much more sedate although he does enjoy a Fig Newton now and again).
Stepping into 2010
Friday, January 1st, 2010
Frances out on a walk with Molly and Daisy
2009 was the year the rains came. After 18 months of pond-evaporating, cough-inducing aridity, the rains were a satisfying sight. They replenished the ponds, put a fresh coat of green on the grass and produced food aplenty for the sheep out back. Had they left it at that, the rains would have been a very welcome addition to the year. But of course they continued, flooding the creek, washing out parts of the driveway and leaving low-lying parts of the property a mucky mess.
Now that winter has arrived, the colder air has locked into place some of these changes. Tire grooves in the long driveway look as permanent as cement. But it’s never as cold as the weather we left back North. And we know now that with the new season and the new year, other changes will arrive that undo everything we thought we knew in the past and that create opportunities in corners that once looked bleak.
Some of the changes this year at Sun and wind Farm have included:
– As previously reported, the Shetlands have moved on to another owner. But in their place, we have been blessed with two personable Suffolk lambs – Molly and Daisy – with whom we now enjoy our daily walks, accompanied by the faithful Freckles. Although Freckles’ job is to be a guardian dog for the livestock, she’s really more of a sidekick. Molly and Daisy scarcely know they are sheep and we have come to think of them as our second and third dogs. If all goes well, four Icelandic sheep will join us in February — two bred ewes, one ewe lamb and a little wether who goes by the name of Warlock. That means new lambs in May!
– It was a tough year on the chicken front as all but one of the commandos -– the indomitable Miss Herman — were taken this fall by a hawk who lives in the back pasture. Herman continues to thrive, catching free rides from Molly and Daisy and sneaking out of the pasture into the back yard on occasion. She will be joined in early February by a fresh corps of recruits, Rhode Island Red chicks who will assist in her strategically important role of pecking and scratching at imaginary bugs.
– Freckles continues to patrol nicely for predators, a more important role than ever as hungry coyotes test the border and — we suspect — a lone bobcat may be roaming the adjoining property. But she may not have to pull solo duty much longer. We’re in research mode and plan to choose either another Great Pyr from a breeder or work with a North Texas rescue organization to welcome into the fold a livestock guardian dog who has been abandoned by its original owners.
– Evenings are spent on rug hooking, quilting or spinning – we are bursting at the seams with fabric and none of it goes unused, particularly our hand-dyed wool that’s found its way to ebay.com.
Here’s wishing you all a happy and healthy 2010!
New ewes
Saturday, October 10th, 2009
Molly and Daisy snack out back
Nature abhors a vacuum and pastures abhor the absence of sheep. And so, just weeks after shipping the three rams and their entourage off to a more suitable local ranch, we thought we’d try again. Molly and Daisy, two eight-month-old Suffolk ewe twin lambs, arrived this week. They are very gentle and yet adventurous enough to go on a walk around the perimeter of the ranch on their second day here. Like all Suffolks, they are notable for their creamy white wool and black heads and legs. Their neighbors out back — chickens and dog alike — are quite pleased with the new additions. The chickens have found that they are welcomed atop the sheep, and have set about hunting and pecking flecks of nutrition from the wool. A new equilibrium has found its way to the pasture.
The Great Flood of 2009
Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009When we moved to the farm in the spring of 2008, our two large stock ponds were full to the brim. Eighteen months passed and both were dry. How sad to see the frogs and turtles slowly disappear, although truth be told the frogs were noisy and the turtles were not always very nice either. (See http://sunandwindfarm.com/wordpress/?p=72 for details.)
Also pulling a disappearing act was the great white heron and family, who fled for friendlier fishing elsewhere. Miss Freckles, the livestock guardian dog, actually welcomed this development, since the big bird drove her to distraction.
The garden was so parched that not even daily soakings with the hose could keep the veggies from drooping under the hot Texas sun. Cruel TV meteorologists mocked us by starting their nightly broadcasts with the tantalizing, “Summer storms in the area? We’ll have more when we return.” But each time they returned, they brought news only of rain hundreds of miles away.
And then one day the rains came. It rained — and rained — and rained. For four days, the rains fell steadily upon the farm, quickly filling the two ponds and spilling over the banks of the dry streambeds. The waters found a way of their own outside their historic paths. The chickens, usually dry and comfy in their part of the run-in shed, were suddenly surrounded by water and we had to create little bridges with wooden planks so they could escape from their tiny island of straw and mud out into the pasture.
This seasonal transition brought to a head another lingering issue. The two ram lambs were growing up and we now had three intact males, all beginning to jostle for position as mating season loomed. We would need to build a new facility to separate the boys from the girls. And in the rams’ quarters, we would need further separation to keep them from butting the living daylights out of each other. And further, once spring came ’round, we would need to repair the pens for each late-stage pregnant ewe.
The scale of it all was, frankly, more than this pair of 50-somethings cared to undertake. For a few weeks, we grappled with the issue over dinner, throughout the weekends, and by phone each day. The sheep needed more than we could provide, but there were others who by experience and disposition could offer a happy home to Firefly and his tribe. And so we sought a farmer with expertise in breeding sheep and building fences. One recent Saturday, he arrived with an empty trailer and left with a small flock, destined for their new home in Joshua, Texas.
Can we pile any more transitions on top of the autumnal equinox this week? The sheep are happy in their new digs. The pumpkins are ripening nicely out front and vegetable seedlings are pushing up from the ground. The chicken commandos immediately spread out in the shed once the sheep left. And Miss Freckles is back on Orange Alert status, protecting the chickens from the return of the herons, who are flying just a bit too closely overhead for her taste.
Shave and a haircut
Tuesday, May 26th, 2009
Stella bravely endures her haircut
As May transitions into June, we are preparing for the long hot months ahead. First up: sheep shearing!
The four adult fluffballs were good and ready for their biannual shearing. We called upon our able assistant, Sarah, who arrived one Saturday morning with razors in tow.
Corralling sheep for a hair cut is a bit like lunging for greased pigs at the state fair. Sheep do not want to be caught, as a general rule. Firefly the ram was the one easy exception. He always struts amiably over to us, although usually it’s because he is mulling whether or not to butt us into the next county. We surprised him with a halter and muscled him up onto the fitting stand. One down, three to go.
The ewes, well, they were another story. We boxed them into what looked like an escape-proof corner, but they sure could move fast when motivated. One by one they met their match. Perhaps the most outraged were Pixie and Page’s two sets of twin lambs. As each mother faced the music, she and her lambs performed an energetic call-and-response to each other, one profoundly maternal “m-a-a-a” met by two high-pitched “m-e-h-h-s.” In that way they kept in touch until the ordeal was over.
Since then, Frances has been spending her spare time cleaning and carding the four fresh fleeces, then hand-spinning the wool into yarn. This is the perfect ending for a cycle that began with free and endlessly renewable solar energy, continued on through a grassy growing season and concluded with fuzzy, warm, beautiful wool.
When epochs collide
Monday, April 13th, 2009
When Nosey met Beaky. No contest.
Shetland sheep have been around for a while. It’s believed that Viking settlers brought them to the Shetland Islands about 1,000 years ago. But on the evolutionary timeline, they’re babes compared to snapping turtles, which have been hanging out since the middle Miocene period. For those of you keeping score at home, that makes them about 10 million years old. Give or take.
So when epochs collided today out back, it should come as no surprise that older and wiser had it all over younger and woolier. It all started when Frances went to put the chickens in around 4:30. There, sitting in front of the run-in shed, sat Mr. Turtle. The chickens, who normally exude a mellow, amiable vibe best summed up by the word “chillin’,” were clearly overwrought.
Soon the sheep, led by the new lambs, let curiosity get the best of them and came over for a look-see. Frances’ heart was in her throat because she knew that snappers were capable of lashing out with unexpected and violent speed. She chased the lambs away, but of course this only made Firefly, the ram, more interested and so he sauntered over.
Firefly and his horns see the world much as a hammer does: full of things to pound. So instinctively, he put his head down low to the ground and investigated. Immediately the turtle snapped and caught Firefly’s nose. The ram lifted his head up instinctively, raising the turtle for a moment before it fell back to the ground. Incredibly, rather than running away, Firefly went back in for another round. Frances quickly interceded and separated them with the only available means: She turned a wheelbarrow over on top of the turtle. A quick first aid session ensued as Firefly wisely let Frances clean his injury. When John arrived home, the snapper was transferred from his prison to the tractor’s front end loader and taken for a little ride out to the pond in the back of the pasture. We hope his case of wanderlust is settled!
A rush into spring
Sunday, April 12th, 2009
Two sets of twins get to know Dad
It’s been a busy few weeks here on the farm. We’ve endured fluctuating temperatures that have tested the optimism of our early vegetable plantings. Violent spring rains have provided a soggy hint of storms yet to come in April and May. And Page delivered twins, one week after Pixie. Together they have doubled the size of our modest flock of Shetland sheep.
Page emulated Pixie’s wonderfully low-maintenance brand of birthing, wandering off quietly to a corner of the run-in shed before producing with no fuss her lambs, Goldthorn and Silversage. For more information — and a cute video — on this season’s crop, please visit out 2009 lambs page.
The lambs are full of energy and show absolutely no sign of respect for their sire, Firefly. That is all to the good, since Mr. Firefly has grown rather full of himself of late, as most rams do.
We soon will celebrate our first year on the farm. We have gone from zero to sixty in that time, from a suburban-focused Northeastern couple with a few house pets, to a Texas homestead bursting with sheep and chickens. Life is too big and mysterious ever to predict what is just around the corner, but insofar as the last 12 months are concerned, we’ll happily stay with the cards we’ve been dealt this year.
Babes in the barnyard
Monday, March 23rd, 2009
Family portrait: Swiftthistle, Pixie and Mageroyal
For the last few days, all the signs were in place that Pixie would soon give birth. Her back end dropped and an udder suddenly became visible. She walked stiffly and on several occasions would start to wander off. We kept the sheep in the shed Friday night but Saturday arrived with no lambs. By Sunday morning, the ram was getting edgy so we let him out into the field with one of the ewes, leaving just Pixie and Stella in the shed. An hour later we checked again and Pixie was lying down in the back corner of the shed, ready for her moment.
For people like us, with no previous experience with pregnant livestock, research can be a mixed blessing. Although it theoretically prepares you for all the various outcomes, some of those outcomes are not so pleasant. So you can imagine our immense relief when shortly after 10 a.m., Pixie produced two spunky little lambs au naturel. For an hour we watched from the other side of the shed as she carefully licked each lamb clean, all the while reassuring them with breathy murmurs. With each passing minute, the lambs gained strength and soon they were groping instinctively for Pixie’s udder.
The rest of the day was considerably less dramatic as mother and lambs alternated naps with get-to-know-you encounters. By this morning, they had ventured 5 or 10 yards closer to the front of the shed. There’s a lot out there for them to discover.
For a short 12-second film of mother and lambs, see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDKmDF_IYnw
Mom carefully licks newborn lambs clean