I have promised myself to begin posting again on the blogs as part of my resolutions for the year. Halfway through February, and I'm just starting to follow up on some of my intentions. It is always busy on a farm, even a very small one. Right now I have a few ewes lambing, and nine small ones already on the ground. These lambs are by the Scottish Blackface ram. It is very difficult to find Scottie breeding stock right now, so we've decided to just cross our hair work sheep on Scottie rams and see what we get. So far they are incredibly cute speckled faced lambs with nice boxy bodies and heavier than the hair lambs.

There are four lambs by the St. Croix ram that will be ready to wean March 1st. Then there is another batch of ewes bred a little later, that can begin lambing any time. The Scottie ewes should lamb in March or April. I tried to spread the lambing out so that I wouldn't run out of work sheep, but I hope to get it a little more organized so that I still have some puppy sheep available.

Sandy is due with her foal in mid-April. This baby is by Shiners Dew, a homozygous black Shining Spark/Grays Starlight bred Quarter Horse. Hoping for a grulla filly to join our two red dun mares, and Mouse, the grulla filly we bought last fall.

We are considering breeding the mares to a Highland Pony stallion this year. I have fallen hard for the Highlands, but like Gypsy horses, they are extremely expensive. They are much more rare than the Gypsies, which could make finding enough genetic variety difficult, but I am going to keep researching this and find out if breeding them is a viable option.

Highlands are like small drafts, nothing tiny about them. They are short, 13 to 14.3 hands, but very thick, with great bone, big manes and tails and feathering on their legs. They are considered strong enough to care adults and have a quiet temperament. They excel as driving ponies and trail horses, and have been used as farm animals and pack animals in Scotland as well. They are hardy and grow a great coat resistant to bad weather. And the icing on the cake is that they are often duns! Our special fondness for dun factor horses draws me to these little horses that come in colors like mouse dun, cream dun, and yellow dun.

Guess I don't pay attention to what I tell myself because I haven't blogged more. Things happen every day, good, bad, neutral, interesting, boring. I wish I'd write more because there are things I shouldn't forget, things that change gradually until they're gone and you didn't notice them leaving, things that you hate that disappear and you forget, things you love that fade.

Here's one thing: the other day I saw a young bird on the ground, a meadowlark I think, with two of the dogs stalking it. I went over and told the dogs to desist, and the bird flew up and landed on my arm. I held as still as I could, and after a few moments it flew off. I can still remember the feel of its little toenails digging into my forearm. It seemed magical, though.

Okay, that was the sublime. Here's something earthier: last night Lasca threw up the number eight. She was heaving and I went to her to see if she was ill or just getting rid of something indigestible, and she vomited half an orange sheep ear tag with the number eight still on it. Don't know if it was 08 or 18 or 28, but here's evidence that ear tags don't break down in the canine stomach.

I have been fretting with the appearance of thunderstorm clouds around us every afternoon and our hay still down and unbaled. It is causing a low level anxiety that I would like to have relieved by seeing the hay stacked in the barnyard! We are running out of hay quickly and I'll have to go buy some in a day or so if we don't get ours in. I may have to buy some grass hay anyway to transition the animals to the new hay if it is rich. The work sheep broke out of their pen this morning and ate the last half bale of alfalfa I was saving for the horses. Guess they were tired of getting grass hay and cubes lately. Sheesh. Want the hay situation to resolve.

I tell myself I need to blog more, to save my everyday work and thoughts, and I intend to, truly. But today is starting out as a more or less typical day. A friend called at 6:30 to say that we wouldn't practice with dogs and sheep at her house today because it rained all night and it's too wet. I poked my head out the door--still dark out but I saw no puddles, so none of the badly needed rain here, only wind. But as I stepped out the door to do chores, the rain began and the wind blew it into my face as I went out to the pens.

Found a new set of twins and the mother rejecting one of them. Went into the lambing pen and put a rope on the ewe. She's gentle and calm, one of my best puppy sheep, and previously a good mom. She loves the white ewe lamb and has been nursing it but rejected the black ram lamb. Got the lamb fed, both lambs navels dipped and injected with BO-SE.

Fed the horses hay. They've lifted a gate off its hinges and the only thing holding it up is the chain fastening it closed and a piece of twine the previous owners had tied around the gate and the post that I haven't gotten around to cutting off. Maybe this happened before? Went back and mixed grain for the horses. Lexie is bred and getting extra vitamins and minerals.

Fed the sheep. There are four pens now, not counting the two lambing pens: The ram and whether, the Scottie pen, the ewes with lambs, and the work sheep. Got the Scottie lamb fed whose mother doesn't love him. She's a first time ewe and he had crawled through the fence after birth so she really doesn't think he's hers. The lamb is six days old now and I no longer have to rope and tie the ewe, just stand and look menacing at her and she lets him nurse. But she won't do it if I don't stand there.

Fed the geese, ducks, and chickens. Checked the new chicks that arrived yesterday and found I'd lost two more. I've always had wonderful luck with this hatchery and wonder if these chicks got too chilled or were roughly handled. I've lost four now and rarely lose any.

Ran the dogs, raked up some loose hay and put it over the fence for the sheep and fed the chickens some kitchen scraps.

Came in the house and noticed one of the young pups had chewed up a tumbleweed on the couch overnight. It must have blown over the fence into the dog yard. Finished putting dishes away and filling the dishwasher, started a load in the washing machine, put some paperwork away and watered some house plants.

Now, it's 8:30 and I'm sitting here blogging, and I've barely gotten started on the day.

Today I need to do some work for a client, look at the insurance claim papers to make sure I do things right with the contractor on our old house, pay some bills, get a thank you note sent to the Cooks thanking them for having me over for their shearing. Need to get ahold of the vet to castrate the colt, contact the stallion owner about breeding two of the mares, and water the pasture if it doesn't settle in to really raining.

If there is time, I badly need to work dogs, but I've been hauling grain, talking to contractors, talking to prospective fence builders and fencing material sellers on the phone, buying grain and hauling, and dealing with the bank on my husband's retirement account. Maybe if I had a lighted pasture I could do it in the dark?

Looks like we'll have another mild day. With the last two winter lambs born yesterday, I have a break until the spring lambers begin. We'll get the Scotties shorn in two weeks and then be able to tell how far along or even if they're pregnant.

Had one ewe hang back at feeding time this morning. She lambed a week ago and should be feeling okay, so I gave her some penicillin in case she's working on a uterine infection. She has beautiful twin ewe lambs and I hope she doesn't have a serious problem.

The horses have started shedding some hair, even though we have lots of cold weather left before spring. The colt is so woolly still he sweats a lot whenever he runs. He's ten months now and very tall and stout. His dam is bred back but hasn't gotten very large and I'm hoping she'll have a nice little filly this time.

We have accumulated a number of doves who come for the chicken feed and a pair of ravens that stop in once in a while to see what's going on.

I really want to work the dogs again so I don't forget what I learned over the weekend, but I have to meet with a contractor at our old house and do a major grain run today. Yesterday I was just too beat after the big weekend and spent most of the day putting things away and getting everything back to normal.

Hope the weather holds for practice tomorrow and then maybe in to Gardnerville on Thursday.

I've posted a couple of photos from last week's snow: Bun toddling along; Vider, who'll be 10 next week; and a picture of Lasca loping with Nan really turning it on in the background.

We had a great weekend at the farm hosting lessons with Dianne Deal. Dianne flew down from Idaho and gave individual lessons to a bunch of us, plus she handled a few pups for those of us with very young dogs.

It was cold and windy on Saturday but the attendees hung in there and participated. We worked in the front pasture, the field on the north where Gloria and I had set up a mini course of panels and pen, and in the newly set up round pen.

A lot of Border Collies, some Aussies and a McNab came with their handlers. Dianne is a patient, perceptive and kind instructor and helped me a lot with Dub, my best hope for starting with USBCHA trialing this year. She also gave advice on Nan, our young Buzz pup, and helped with Lasca and Bird.

Gloria was a great help throughout the weekend, putting fresh stock out and keeping things running smoothly. De'Lila came on Sunday and put lunch together so I could spend more time outside watching other dogs and handlers. Ann helped organize the event and Dianne stayed with Mary in Dayton. Everyone here just pitched in whenever something was needed. I'm grateful for all the help. I had a lot of fun talking with everyone and meeting new people.

There were new lambs Saturday and Sunday morning and then finally, this morning, the last lambs for this bunch of ewes were born, twin ram lambs. These were sired by the purebred Katahdin ram we got from Morgen and are a nice bunch of lambs, 21 in this batch.

We'll be getting the Scotties shorn mid-March and hope we can tell if they're pregnant or not then. They have so much wool they are almost round. We're hoping to buy some registered St. Croix females now that we have a registered ram, and start a small flock of registered St. Croix, to eventually replace the Dorper/Barb/Kathdin/St. Croix crosses we have now.

Sunday was a warmer day and great just to be outside. Spring will be coming along, with a few spells of snow and cold yet, but these mild days make us hopeful, especially with the meadowlarks back on the fencing, singing when the days are nice.

January 2011

Above, frost on the fields this morning, the owl I had to search for in the neighbor's trees, today's sunrise looking west, and last night at sunset looking east.

So much for resolutions for the New Year to maintain this blog! Six degrees this morning but sunny and frost everywhere. My hands got cold breaking ice on water tanks, which takes a bit of effort with thick ice on 20 tanks and tubs. Looks like it will be a beautiful day though cool.

Sold the Katahdin ram Christmas Eve and I am supposed to pick up some free ewes this afternoon. I have avoided wool sheep for years because of the difficulty getting them shorn, but now that we have the Scotties, we have to find a shearer anyway and might as well accumulate some wool sheep. At this point I have some kind, quiet, older ewes, some light almost panicky lambs, some slightly reluctant older wethers, the Scotties who run or face off, and a few sheep that haven't been worked much. My goal is to keep a variety of sheep to work a variety of dogs on.

Our club is discussing where we'll have the Karen Child clinic planned in March, and I'm hoping we'll get to host it here at the farm. Don't quite have the arena and round pen up yet, but we could probably get it finished by March.

I've just barely started Nan and Biddy. Nan is very driven, very fast, and circles sheep going 9-0. She will stop and change directions, though, so I think she's going to be quite biddable. Biddy is an anxious pup and has been working the other dogs for a while, so she has been hesitant to attempt to work the sheep. Her third brief introduction to sheep last week, she began to balance on the sheep from the other side of the pasture as we moved the sheep back and forth ourselves. She gradually came closer and I could see that her eye had turned on for sheep, but she was a bit shy about really trying to stop or turn the sheep. Just seeing her balance and watch the sheep seemed enough for the moment, so we let the sheep out of the pasture to run back to their pen on their own, not having one of the trained sheep dogs handy. Biddy ran after the sheep out of the gate and overtook and stopped them! Her instinct kicked in and told her it was wrong for sheep to be out of control and she needed to control them if there weren't any other dogs around. (We tried moving the sheep with a trained dog and she just went off and refused to engage.)

We are buying out another friend's sheep setup. Two trips to Reno to bring back sheep, panels, and water tank, with two more trips to go. We should have enough panels to at least build a small arena back behind the house. There are two crossbred ewes with four St. Croix cross ewe lambs, and we bought the papered St. Croix ram as well. This gives us two purebred hair sheep sires (the other is Katahdin), so we can maintain two flocks without having to buy a new ram every year for a while. Everything goes so slowly in getting a farm set up almost from scratch.