2/28/2006

Cold Snap

A cold snap has arrived, finally. The ground is truely frozen now. Ernie has been able to log and cut more trees out of the new pasture area, up by Cranberry Cove. He’s gotten maple, spruce and pine out, cut into 12-16 foot lengths and dragged them up to his saw mill. The milling will take place when the weather is at least tolerable in the 30’s. While this weather is helpful for logging it’s also good for the sheep. They all have at least 4 months of wool on them and some are into 10 months of wool. So I’m not worried about them at all, even when the temps get below 0!

Last weekend we crutch all the ewes behinds, gave CDT shots, trimmed hooves and gave a good look over the bred ewes to see how far along they appear to be. It’s looking like there are some ready in the next few weeks, while a couple will be longer. Time will tell. We’ll try to be prepared for whatever comes our way.

Thanks for catching up with us. I’m sure to write when the lambs start to arrive. Oh, we’ve looked at some guard llamas and have been reading alot of them. It’s looking like we’ll be holding off however. The border collies here,there are 3, are way to important to us to risk their being displaced by the llama. They do a good job of perimeter patrol throughout the day and at night sleep in the adjacent leanto of the sheep paddock, which helps with nighttime threats. I’d like to get a llama someday though.

2/14/2006

Happy Valentine\’s Day

A lovely February morning, bright skies, snow coverd ground and relatively calm flock today. The pregnant ewes are about six weeks from lambing, their bellies deepening and bulging with their precious cargo on board. The ewe lambs are doing quite well, growing both in wool and size. I can’t wait to shear their lovely coats! Gotta wait until June. Until then, I have a few more raw fleeces to work with. I’ve been busy washing and dyeing wool, carding and spinning wool, and buying wool. I have had some very interesting wool customers of late. The uses of wool are unlimited. I have been getting requests for my freezer lamb already, for this coming December. Only time will reveal what I’ll have available, but for the most part the ram lambs will be designated for that harvest. This is the quietest winter I’ve had in awhile, due to the lambing being put off until early April. It’s an unusal feeling of ease, but I can get used to this. All for now, Lisa