New Fencing for "my girls"

 Today Tim and I got up early and set out to complete our final fencing project. This is the end of adding fencing! It's a lot of hard work. In this picture the fence running in the front is about to come down and open this whole hill to "my girls".

Here is Lily with both lambs, hers and "Baby Baaa". She is always with both lambs who are inseparable. This is moments after they have discovered their new space... 

 The alpacas even got in on some of the action, we let a few in on the other side to check things out. Angus cannot have anything going on without his approval!

Another shoot of the lambs checking out the new space which total almost 100 new feet of fencing and a lot of vegetation. I scoured the area for any toxic plants and everything checked out fine. It makes me happy to see my sheep have more space and privacy from people who drive by, now they can get away if they want and get some much needed privacy!

Poor Baby Baaa goes to the Vet

A couple of days ago our first lamb born, our little bottle baby seemed sore all over. I assumed he got stomped on by my ewes and wanted to give him time. However, he began holding his right rear leg up, toe touching and I thought the worse. So off to the Vet we went, a small Country Vet at the advice of a friend(thank you Dave!), as my mom held him on the front seat of my Jeep. The Vet examined him and took some x-rays and of course in my head he had a million things wrong with him! Even with my worse case scenarios it ended up being a possible torn ligament or soft tissue injury, 4 x-rays concluded that we had no fractures or pelvis injuries! 

So we took "Baby Baaaaaa" as the Vet so named him home with a little pain relief and much relief for me who had visions of a cast and whatever!
As you can see him in the picture resting after his ordeal at the Vet. So much thanks to my mom, the staff at Dr Elwell's and all the folks who came in and had to pet and wish him well. This little guy has been through so much and now he is going to get much rest so he can romp and play with the others!

A swarm goes and comes right back!

 Last Friday much to my dismay while having visitors here on the farm, my bees signaled a swarm which I thought may happen and was awaiting my swarm kit to arrive in the mail. I watched this unbelievable phenomenon and hoped that they would swarm in a reachable location--not so much! In the first picture is the swarm starting to form...

and in the picture to the right you can see the swarm big and heavy. Much to my surprise the bees formed way up in this tree and as we watched they returned to the hive. I have never seen such a thing! Did they predict the bad upcoming weather? I will be in touch with some bee keeper friends and see if they have ever seen this...

A gift for a special baby...

 My newest design inspired by an old rug I saw at a friends house. It had other animals on it but gave me an idea for a gift for a very special baby. Their nursery was designed with farm animals and while sharing her pictures with me, gave me this idea...

...so to the needle board I went. The horse was inspired by another friends Palomino horse. I came up with the ideas for the animals by cuing them up on my smart phone, looking at different poses and dimensions and the rest just went with the flow from there. Tim made the frame which came out so nice. So with all my love to these two new parents, I hope they enjoy this gift from my heart and the best to them and their new son.

...and it's a girl!

Today we welcomed a little ewe lamb born to Lily, her first lamb. She arrived at 12:30 this afternoon healthy and perfect! I knew she was in labor and went up to the house to watch and listen. Here she is moments after birth...

 

"Belle" was very vocal and went out of view of the camera so I listened to the goings on and could not help to hear that "Belle" was very vocal and heard the lamb cry out. When I went down to the barn I found "Lily" (on the left) and "Belle" (on the right) cleaning the lamb off together. "Belle" was so proud of her new granddaughter and was quite maternal in getting her cleaned off. I put "Lily" in the stall by herself to bound with her new baby, but "Belle" kept a vigil watch and kept crying out to her... 

it was quite a tribute to this closely knit flock and family...

The little hive that could...

Today I opened the little nuc hive from a couple weeks ago to see how it is getting along. The bees have been buzzing about and working their little hearts out. 

When I opened it and pulled out what appeared to be an active frame, I saw two queen cells. When I turned it over, 2 more queen cells! If you look closely the two "peanut" looking cells are baby queen cells. It takes 16 days for them to hatch, therefore it should be a couple of days. 

As I was looking and accessing the amount of bee ratio and additional brood that still need to hatch I thought they really needed a boost, so I went up to my big hive and went to retrieve a frame of brood. As I was looking thru the frames for the best one I came across this one that had a queen cell on it. It is not in the picture but it is at the bottom of the frame. I kicked all the bees off of it and brought it down to the nuc hive which I keep right by the front door so I can watch it. I am keeping my fingers crossed that this will be a successful hive!

It's a boy!

 Well it has been a very stressful 24 hours. Belle gave birth last night around 9:30 p.m. I could have sworn that she had twins on board but so far just one large ram lamb. In the pics, right after his birth trying to get him sea legs...

 As time went on the lamb nursed so I decided to get some shut eye for a couple of hours, getting right up at sun up. I immediately noticed when I went down that he was weak. Well come to find out "Belle's" milk was not coming in. So, off I went to the feed store and got some Colostrum and lamb milk and got him started on the bottle asap. He perked up and was fine. I have been on the phone with a few people and have many opinions and suggestions but my friend Liz has never seen this in all her years. I have been massaging and putting hot compresses on her utter to give her relief as well as antibiotics...

and here is the little guy, resting after his bottle.

Houston, we have labor!

 This afternoon when I went down to feed the animals, I found "Belle" in what appears to be early labor. She was in the barn, staring at the wall and when I offered her food, she was not interested...

...

 So, armed with the trusty "Lamb Cam" monitor...

 A clean, safe and private place to give birth...








Some clean towels and blankets...

I safely put "Belle" into the birthing area and went up to the house to wait and watch for the little ones to arrive!

The making of a new Hive

On Wednesday of this week I traveled down to the Nature Center where I work and love, to check on our Observation hive. As I suspected  they were becoming completely over run so it was time to take some out, so I placed a few frames of bees and brood (baby bees) into a nuc box (pictured).

 I brought them home and set them up, locked inside for a couple of days. This morning I opened it up. This gives the bees a chance to realize that they don't have a queen, select a baby bee or two and make a new queen.

I gave them some sugar water in a feeder and also supplied a pollen patty. At first a couple of bees came out and started to eat. Even though I did provide them with some food inside they were hungry... 

and had to use the bathroom! If you look close see the yellow streaks? That is bee poop! They are so clean and will not use the bathroom in their own house! So I am keeping my fingers crossed that this works and we get a new hive from it!

Post shearing and all that fiber!

 Now that shearing is behind us the animals have settled in and are getting used to their new looks. We have such a hard time telling the sheep apart, we have to get up on them and check their ear tags to determine who they are. People driving by give a little chuckle at how funny the Alpacas look!

...and now to figure out what to do with all this fiber and wool! This stack as well as 4 boxes stuffed to be shipped is also from last year. I still had so much fiber and wool that I never sent any out for processing last year, but this year the wheel has been non stop and I am kicking out some beautiful yarns whick I am stocking up on some upcoming events and projects.

Shearing has come and gone...

Shearing was underway today in our usual fashion with some great helpers, BilllieJo and Sydnie here to help us out. It started out cold but the clouds gave way to sun.

 Angus, gave us his usual hard time by immediately getting his harness off as his way to tell us he was not going easy!

 What a suspicious crew it was! There was a lot of humming and pacing going on in there...

 however, our shearers, Rick on the left with "Fred" and Jeremiah on the right with "Mo" got right to work...

and were done with 7 sheep, 7 alpacas and 1 very stubborn llama in one hour and 45 minutes. This also included vaccines, worming, hoof trims and bagging each fleece appropriately. We all worked together as a team, with great precision and I think this was an all time record set by our amazing shearing team!

The return of the "Lamb Cam"

Well it's that time of year again, time for spring lambs and the return of the "Lamb Cam". Our greatest tool to keep tabs on what is going on down, the camera and monitor keeps us posted!

Here is "Lily" who we confirmed to be
pregnant last week. She is a little behind the other girls but she is without a doubt "with lamb"...and here is "Rose", she is so close, it's anytime now! Stay posted and we will post as soon as the lambs get here!