Happy Valentines Day

Del and Katie having a little snuggle time :)

Little Dude and Bailey will do anything for Kristy!

Bailey and Katie bug, two of my four 'grandpuppies'.

...and Alicia caught mid yawn last lambing season.

Mitts are done

Obligatory Snow Pictures

The planter is on the patio, the gazing ball is on a pedestal in the garden
at the end of the patio.

This is my driveway. I did not go out there with a measuring stick and see how deep it really was. I was too tired from wading through it to the barn several times a day to check on Oso.

Just a few of the pictures from around the farm and driveway before Matt came and got the tractor out to clear the driveway. Bless him, he obviously had to climb through all that mess to get here to help me, and he worked into the dark clearing me a path down the driveway. It was a huge job and I'm grateful!

Bringing Oso Home

I can hardly thank you enough, Herbert, for allowing Oso to come home with me! I'm sure you and your family must miss him as I've already fallen in love with this beautiful dog.

Here he is in the hotel in Gallup, NM. We didn't have a bit of trouble getting him to find a comfortable spot inside with us. He slept at the foot of the bed nearest the door and I can't remember feeling more safe on a road trip (unless it was the last time I had a maremma guard force).

It snowed while we were sleeping, just a hint of things to come!

Welcome to the blizzard of 2011 Oso! Thankfully we had a couple of wonderful young men who came to the farm and set up an emergency shelter for Oso when we all realized that the weather outlook had changed after we left on our trip. They fixed him a nice house that is well insulated with bales of hay and plenty big enough for me to be in there with him while he eats.
It isn't exactly what I had planned for his welcome home but it will have to do as this picture is just the beginning of the snow. When I went back a few hours later I had drifts well past my knees and it was still snowing.

Progress... ??

This is the beginning of the mitts.

I like the cable and ribbing, it matches the hat nicely. The only problem is,
I didn't weigh out the yarn and am worried I won't have enough to make
two matching mitts. So...

I ripped it out and started over by taking it all to my scale and
weighing, then dividing in two piles.

I'm all ready to go and I've swatched (ok, only if the
ripped out first attempt counts -grinning-)

Motivation

Today the miracle may be to simply complete the short 'To do..." list.
I've about got the mess cleaned up from our last snow, with a little
effort the last of the laundry and floor mopping will be done today.

Liz's new hat is done and I'm hoping to have enough yarn left over
to make some matching fingerless mitts.

Moving on

Little did I know when I was writing about changes, what was just around the corner for me at that time. I had been thinking of my husband's return to school, working towards completion of his Masters Degree and what that would mean as far as reducing the work load around the farm, changing our vision of what God had for us to accomplish...

There were other changes in store than what I had been expecting and after spending well over 30 years becoming one with my husband, I'm now learning how to be single again. My husband went on to be with the Lord. What I am sure of is the faithfulness of God, the love of my family and I know I am blessed with wonderful friends and church family. As for the rest of life's little details, I'm taking that a bit at a time.

Changes, Changes.....

We're making changes here on the blog as well as on the farm. Sorry it's been so long since I've updated the blog but life happens and this wasn't on the top of the list for a while.

Some shearing day moments...

One of the shearers giving Demi's daughter a massage. She put this little lamb to sleep while mom was getting her spa treatment.

Chocolate Bar and Magnus after their haircuts

One of the new boys on the shearing table. It was much easier on the humans to be working at table height and the alpacas didn't seem to mind any more than in the past when we didn't use it, I think we may have even been done a little earlier this year.

I've been spinning some of this fleece and MMMmmmmmmm it's nice!

Playing Catch Up

This is a little of what I've been doing instead of blogging.

It's raining, there must be a new lamb in the barn :)

It's another ewe lamb! We've only had one ram lamb from Chocolate Bar so far this year. Their fleeces look nice and consistent front to back, and a couple of them are soooo plush. MMMmmmmmm, I can't wait to see how they turn out!

Only a couple of ewe's to go now. There are so many things I'm planning on doing better next year but over all it's been good.

My special little lamb cookie

Do you know how sometimes you just know that God loves you!
I mean, not in a generic,
I've been raised to believe this, kind of way - but - more personal.
When you know He's paying attention to all the details of your life
and anticipating your needs,
like when I see my kids working really hard
and getting tired or discouraged so I do something extra
to love on them...
like that kind of love. Some special thing that shows them
I'm paying attention to them... I'm listening to them...

Since this is our first lambing season, I don't have anything
to compare it to but it has been really easy
other than the sleep deprivation :)
Nothing dramatic, just plain and simple births.
Yesterday morning, I finally "slept in" (all the way until 6)
... anyway, I woke to the most frantic barking from Basa so
I slipped on some shoes and ran to the barn in my pj's.
-not recommended by the way-
before I was even really awake. When I got there,
I was looking around trying to figure out what
was causing her such distress but bless her heart,
Basa seemed to assume that since I arrived
I would take care of things and she quieted down.

So I'm looking around, counting sheep and lambs
and trying to wake up enough to figure out
what the problem is,
when I realized there was an 'extra' white lamb
and it was in a water bucket right near my feet.
Without thinking, I reached down and scooped
to lift it out but my hand got tangled.
There was a piece of twine around its jawline
holding it's head up, so I untangled us and when I lifted,
well, you know how a wet towel feels
when it can't hold any more water and is just SO heavy,
that's what this little lamb felt like.

I started feeling like God loved me so much as soon as
I realized, my hand wasn't cold.
The lamb had gotten in the only heated water bucket
on the sheep side of the barn.

I'll never know how she got in there!
but I do know, that piece of twine
(that I was sure we'd cleaned out of the barn)
was holding her head out of the water.
It wasn't around her neck to choke her in any way,
it was just below her jaw at the perfect height
to keep her head up out of the water.
Remember, we raise Shetlands,
so even the smallest heated buckets are about
chin deep on a lamb and this was a newborn.

We had just emptied the lambing jugs and
prepped them for their next guests the night before
and I had even left a clean towel in the barn
no, we don't provide maid service :)
the towel was there from a previous birth
when it wasn't needed, so
everything I wanted was right there.

I was able to get mama and baby under the heat lamp
in a nice, deep bedded, clean lambing jug
after soaking up as much water as I could with that towel
and by then Del had already walked the dogs
and come to check on me in the barn.
He went back to the house for the lambing bag
and the hair dryer(and a cup of coffee! what a guy!)
while I stayed with our newest lamb.

We were able to get her dry and warm and
she's had no trouble at all.
As a matter of fact, while she was figuring out where
to nurse, she stamped her little hoof at her mama
for shifting away from her.
She's a pretty determined little lady,
and I just love her to pieces.

Did you notice the spot on her hip?
It's about the size, shape and color
of a Nilla Wafer cookie
and since this is an "N" year for us ...

Lambing Continues

Margie, this one's for you :) a close up of the lace project. It's just pinned out so it will look better once I get it all done and wet finish it.

Basa and her girls out enjoying the sunshine and grass for a bit.

Louise just can't seem to get that little lamb to come with her to the field! He wants to check out everything else, including Del. Basa decided to see if her help was needed...

This is our first little ram lambs first day out of the lambing jug and Alicia just couldn't resist comming over to check him out. I think he liked that attention, he kept running back to the fence every time Louise tried to get him to follow her to the thick grass.

I can never quite catch Demi and her little girl sleeping but this time I did snap the picture before they got up.

Our newest lamb

Just a quick picture of our newest little lamb.

More Lambs

Actually, this is a better picture of Basa our WONDERFUL maremma, but you can see the lamb behind her in the small pen. Basa is so good with the lambs! She helps the ewes keep track and the first time one of the lambs figured out how to escape the pen (of course in the dark of night and yes, a black lamb ;) ) Basa made such a racket we came rushing out to the barn to check things out and were able to get the lamb back with mama in just a few minutes.

This is Demi and her new ewe lamb. She looks especially messy but she's mostly soaking wet! We haven't had a downpour like this in a while and so, of course, another lamb. Thankfully my daughter was here and helped me get mama and baby in the barn with a heat lamp and some deep hay and we were able to make sure she was nursing and not just sucking on wet fleece . . .
I was trying to get this picture up while she was still the newest lamb. . . but that was a couple of days ago and we now have another sweet lamb. Can someone please tell me why the ewe's think the nasty weather is the time to lamb??? On the up side, I've heard we might get snow this weekend, maybe we'll have another lamb or two :)

Our First Lamb!!

What a darlin' lamb! We heard Basa barking and went out to check what was going on. Look what we found :) Honestly, I knew they'd be little (we raise Shetlands after all) but my goodness, when she stands next to the fence she's not as tall as three of the squares on the 4"x4" cattle panel fencing she was next to.

After we got mama and baby set up in their own space and took care of the necessities we came in for a quick lunch and then back to check on everyone - with the camera this time. She's been nursing like a champ and was taking a nap when I started taking pictures. Mama didn't seem too happy with me waking her up so I'll try and get more pictures tomorrow

How do you like it now??

Remember back in December when I got some beautiful roving in a swap? Then I spun it up into about a sport weight 3 ply with one being alpaca? Well, look what it's going to be. This scarf is similar to the Morning Surf Scarf. I'm using size 10 needles and the picture below is much more accurate as far as color goes.

I'll get better pictures when it's all done.

Spring is Here!

My niece came out to visit the other day. We met for lunch in town to deliver some Girl Scout cookies with my granddaughter and decided it was a wonderful day to see the alpacas and hike to the bluff. I don't think you can see it too well with the sun in this picture but Jake had 'greeted' her by jumping up and his paws reach almost to her shoulders! Muddy paws on a white jacket and she's still smiling. I just love this girl :)

My little Muffin makes an extraordinary guide :) I don't think she was trying for camouflage when she chose her outfit though. She just can't help that she seems to be part wood nymph.
Oh, I do wish I still had her energy. She kept wanting to go the "interesting" way - translate that the longest, winding way possible without doubling back.

I couldn't get the pictures in this post to work the way I wanted and so some of them are fuzzy but this is my 'backyard' and on a beautiful spring day I can't think of much that I'd rather do than hike around out here!

You can just start to see the water from the river through the trees here.

This is overlooking the Katy Trail but I wouldn't want to climb down there from this vantage point.

Finally! The view from the top of the bluff. You can just about make out the next bluff
hanging over the trail and that's the Missouri River winding along it's way to the state capital.
When I was a girl, not much different than Muffin, there were still trains running on the tracks.

and looking back towards Rocheport a little more of the river.
I just love being home!

Making Mittens

I made my friend a pair of mittens. They aren't blocked in this picture but now they're on their way to their new home so this is the picture I have.

I ran across this blog post and immediately thought of my friend who loves owls. Since I already have too many projects on the needles to make a sweater in a reasonable amount of time, and with all the doggie daycare at my house a sweater isn't guaranteed to survive anyway... I decided on mittens.

This pattern is so quick and easy! I loved knitting the owls and thinking of my friend. I hope she likes them as much as I do.

Puppies!!!

Don't they both look ever so sweet?? Bailey is a Beagle Boxer mix and she was an early Christmas gift for my granddaughter. They had been looking for just the right puppy for months when they found Bailey. It turns out, Bailey is happier when she's not alone so she comes to our house for doggie daycare :) Then, shortly after Christmas, my other daughter got a puppy, she's the sweetie napping in my arms. I won't get to spend quite as much time with her so I'm making the most of it.