Home with Quinn and Alicia

Sorry this is so fuzzy. Alicia and Kristy both seem to keep moving ;) I have some great help with the alpacas these days! We'll be moving Alicia into the boy alpaca pen later today because she's still well under a year old and I want to set her up to succeed. Keeping her with the females when it's cria season just isn't the best plan.
Now that Quinn is here to guard the sheep, I'm able to move them out into further pasture. They'll still be somewhat close to the house for a few weeks, we're not far from the Missouri River and have seen some flooding recently which is pushing the wild life a little closer to the pastures .
This is the picture I see most often when I look out the window. I can barely make a noise and Quinn looks up to make sure it's just me. I love these new additions to the farm!

Quinn and Alicia have arrived

This is Quinn, trying to get comfortable for the night. Can you see how tall he is? He was sharing floor space with Alicia and another litter mate that was traveling part of the way with us. I have to tell you, if you ever thought about getting a large guard dog for your farm, you won't go wrong by calling Jackie Church at Windance Farms! These dogs are WONDERFUL!

They travelled like pro's and had wonderful manners. It didn't take hardly any time for them to learn to get their leash clipped on and follow us where we needed to go, then hop back into the truck and let us unclip their leashes.

But the real treat was getting home.

Bye Bye Susie

You'll be heading to your new home soon.

I Love Spring

Can you see the turkey? just to the right of the little cedar tree, he's really big. This is the field out back of the barn, I'm really bad about estimating distances but I know he was at least 50 yards from me. I guess he was feeling pretty safe in our field, I generally don't allow hunters here so even though it was turkey season he still strolled around the field like he owned the place.

I just love it when the redbuds are in bloom, the mayapples are up and the pastures get green. Soon everything will be lush and the dogwoods will be blooming with the peonies not far behind.

If anybody knows what this plant is, please leave me a comment. The leaves remind me of a slow growing, variegated mint but I've never seen these flowers before. It's really happy under a big old elm tree. I'd love to know what it is.

New Year's Day on the Farm

Sorry, no pictures of this adventure. We found out early in 2008 that Chocolate Bar had figured out how to open the gate latch. He's very talented with his horns. I'm hoping he can't figure out how to get the new carabiners off. Yes, plural, he also generously opened the gate for the girls.

I looked out the office window and what did I see? 6 sheep wandering around the orchard, exploring the new space. They were quite content and if they weren't so close to a place with no fence between them and the road, I probably wouldn't have been so concerned. As it was, we all grabbed our coats and boots and split up. My granddaughter and I headed to the road to come between them and any traffic, while my husband headed to the barn for a little pan of oats.

I barely had time to get to the driveway, much less the road, when I saw the sweetest sight. A nice single file line of sheep following my husband into the girls fence. Once they were all in, it wasn't too hard to get Largo and Chocolate Bar and move them back into their own pen.

I knew we were completely smitten with these little cuties when, even as we were working to get them back in the fence, we were laughing about how cute they are and how much we love them. I've worked with farm animals off and on since I was a child helping my parents and I had never before enjoyed a day when the livestock got out. Something about the difference between a sheep that I can pick up and a 1000 lb cow trampling the landscaping around the house . . .
Give me a little Shetland sheep any day!

Now it's off to the studio to spin up some yarn for that hat I promised to make.