February

February has been loaded with work, fun and excitement! The most thrilling thing is our new fence! You know the saying if life throws you lemons make lemonade, well here is my lemonade! 3000 feet of five foot no-climb horse fence. This encloses our 10 acre parcel next to us and the 4-5 acres at the top of our property we live on that was never fenced.

A big Thank You goes to Juan Padilla of "Juan's Lawn Service" for a job well done. We would have never done this, but when our Livestock Guardian Dog Jake was "arrested" for being a dangerous dog we went looking for money to hire a lawyer. When Bob's Mom passed away about 8 years ago and we sold her house bought this land and had a small annuity. Well "Wall Street" was spending the annuity for us so we took the money and invested in our own economy and built a fence. Jake has 21 acres to run and the peanut JoBeth can't even get out.

This property has loads of grasses brush and perennial plants to feed my flock all summer! There are also large Poplar trees on the land for shade in the summer and leaves to eat in the fall. The picture below is my new gate from the sheep pen to their new acreage.

Speaking of sheep on February 28, last Saturday there was a large flock reduction happening! David Armer sheared my shetland flock, reducing their size to about half! With the help of my friend Jeannette the three of us spent from 9 AM to 7 PM shearing 28 shetlands. David is a student at UNR and has been involved with llamas most of his young life. Jeannette raises alpaca so I was the only sheep person. We sheared them on a stand. It was slow going but no major cuts happened and they look wonderful.

These picture were taken today, one week later and the temperature is 25 degrees. We got a foot and a half of snow the other day and the sheep are all doing very well. They have straw in the barn and the sun is a blessing in the mornings.

Their little bodies are so darling!

Hattie, below, is just the cutest thing! She does stand square and her shoulders and butt are so broad. She is a coming two year old and should have a lamb or two in there somewhere.

Oma's straight top line broad stance and full of babies. She will be three and this is her second lambing.

This is Pepper like in Pepper Potts "Iron Man's" girl Friday. She is not bred and will be one year old this April.

Now meet Hazel. Also a yearly this April. I completely lost her hogget fleece. Well almost all. What happened? Poor David could not get his clippers threw most of the fleece so he sheared above this tangled mess. There is what looks like about a half inch of fleece that is stuck down to her body. If I sit and pull on it the fleece puffs up to about two inches. Now it is loosening up on its own somewhat. This is her hogget fleece and very soft. We don't get much rain and she was not coated. There is one other ewe, Kess a dark moorit, I have that had a bit of this happen. This is her second shearing.

When the weather warms up I'll need to give them a bath and re-cut their fleeces.

I have some new pullets. They came to live here about three weeks ago. Jeannette traded some of her Egyptian Geese for these young just starting to lay pullets. Five Barred Rocks and one black hen maybe a Black Australorp?

We've been getting two to four eggs per day, I share with Jeannette, and Sally the emu is still making a showing every third day!

Lastly I've been dyeing roving to sell on my new Etsy Store and I must say it is selling very well.

The "Feed the Flock Fund" paid for the shearing. Now with the new land to graze I'd like to be able to save enough money with the sales of my roving for next winters hay.