Hide and Seek

April 1^st, 2010

On a warm spring morning, I hitched up our two dogs to go check on the new lambs and goat kids in the barn born the day before. I hadn’t seen them yet, so was curious as to what they looked like. Our sheep are Jacobs which are spotted black and white and all different, and the goats are unique too. When I went out to the barn with the dogs, I found the goat doe and her buckling kid. I took a couple of pictures of him, while looking into the next pen and asking the ewe where her baby, who weighed about five pounds, was. I started to get a little worried, looking around. I let the dogs go and was hoping they would help look but they didn’t, they just sniffed everything in sight. I started looking even farther away from the ewe, didn’t find her baby in with the other animals, who either had older babies or needed extra food. Looked all around and no lamb! I went back to the house, and knocked on the window of my daughter’s bedroom and hollered that I couldn’t find the new lamb. She said, “Well it was there the night before. “ I went back to the barn with the dogs, looked all over again, looking a little more thoroughly, but still no lamb. I went back to the house and my daughter got up sleepily, and came out with me to look. We started to move things, looking inside the tipped wheelbarrow, under a pallet, behind a board, in a couple of buckets on their side, but still no lamb. By this point, we were sure we were going to find a dead lamb somewhere. I asked Marie is she could have gotten out that little tiny place that was about two inches wide where the sun was shining into, and she said no. After looking another couple of minutes, I said to myself that that lamb is not in here, that I was going to go walk around the outside of the barn, just to make sure she wasn’t out there. As I went around the front side of the barn, where the sun was shining so nicely, there she was, basking in the sun, perfectly content, not knowing we had been frantically looking for her. She was playing hide and seek and she won!

Electra electrified!

So, I go out to feed and water the chickens in the coop this morning, and I see a ewe in the electric fence. I run over to the battery and unplug the charger, and run over to look at the ewe. Her eyes look really gross, like she had been dead for a long time or something and she didn't move. I ran inside to wake my 11 year old daughter and said a ewe was in the fence dead and I wasn't sure who it was. Rosemary came out and went over to her and then yelled back at me (trying again to do the chickens) and said "It's Electra and she moved!" so I ran back over, and she said that this ewe is very skittish and she usually is afraid of us. So we tried to untangle her (4) horns out of the fence. We struggled for a little bit, though Electra did not struggle as I think they can sense when they are being helped. I didn't think I was going to be able to do it so I told Rosemary to go in and get Marie (my oldest, who owns the sheep) so they came out. By then I had her out and she was just sitting on her legs, but holding her head up OK. I hollered for the girls to get Rescue Remedy and we sprayed some in her nose (Rosie couldn't find the liquid kind.) Marie also expressed some of her milk (she has a pretty young lamb that was near by when I first went out) and rubbed it in her eyes - because we have pink eye going thru the flock - which is why her eyes looked so awful when I first saw her! We then led her to the water because she can't see with the pink eye, which is also most likely why she "walked" into the fence and then tried to win the fight! Whew, from a "dead" ewe to a live one was a much better start of the day!

Teenagers CAN be terrific!

So, my 17 year old daughter and her best friend and I were coming back from the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival today, with 7 Jacob sheep in the back of the van. We stopped at McDonald's for one last stop (6 hours straight driving) and I saw a mother with her daughter and a younger son who was blind. She was helping him into his seat and she looked at our van and realized we had animals and asked if they were goats (a typical question as their faces look goat like, but they have wool and heck, she was from NJ!! :-)) and I said no, they were sheep and we were just coming back from the festival and she said to her daughter "Look at the sheep" and her son said "I can smell them!" LOL So when we got on the road, I told my daughter what had happened (she was getting in the van on the other side while that was happening) and she said "oh, I wish I had known, I would have been happy to take one of them out for him to feel." Brings tears to my eyes just thinking of how special my teen really is (most of the time!)

Bangs for Obama

So, for my fortieth birthday I dyed my hair in 4 stripes and bangs with hot pink dye (Special Effects from Evolution on the Commons in Ithaca) and then I put the bottle away.....somewhere......and I couldn't find it...for almost 4 years! Well, i found it a few days before the Inauguration, so I decided to dye my bangs in honor of Obama! :-)

Obama's books

So I have just finished reading Obama's two books - "The Audacity of Hope" and "Dreams From my Father" and they were both really good! I decided that if you want to learn more about the person Barack Obama, read the Dreams one and if you want to know where he wants to take our country read Audacity. I had a hard time getting into Audacity one but once I did, I really felt so good about where he wants to go. The Dreams one is facinating about his struggle with his races, and how he became comfortable with himself, which is so obvious now to see him. It gives me so much hope to think we might actually come out of this alive...

Also I read a biography about Obama and one of his wife, and they were very good too!

Felted sweater with a new life!

So, I found this sweater (probably at the Unitarian Recycle Sale where I am co-chair) that was already felted, and I loved the colors. I brought it home and washed it a few more times, and tried to figure out what wanted to do with it. I thought about making something for one of my girls with it, but I decided they all pretty much hate pink, so that wasn't a good idea. Then I thought that maybe my almost 6 year old niece, Emily might like something with it as she loves pink (just like me!!) So I decided making a "bag" (that's what my 16 year old calls anything she uses that you and I would call a purse...LOL) for her to carry a notebook and other stuff in it. So I asked around if anyone has made anything like it, because I was a little afraid of ruining it... So my friend Wendy said she hadn't made anything like it but looked up patterns for making one and said she would help me with it. So I took it over to her house and she and I talked about it and she sewed the bottom seam after she cut it. I then took it home and finished it. I think it turned out cool! I just hope my niece likes it as much...

Boy, am I pissed!!!

So, the other day my 16 yo daughter calls me at work and tells me that the brand new fence she and her dad and a couple neighbors helped put up this summer was broken and folded back. I told her that I would guess someone cut it, because it wouldn't get folded back by itself and wouldn't just break. Sure enough, she called me back and said indeed it was cut and not only that, but cut in two places! So my husband called the sheriff's who took the report but said they didn't think they would be able to do anything. We have two theories about it - some of us think it was hunters wanting to let the deer out that jumped in. The others of us think it was animal rights activists wanting to let the Jacob sheep out - who weren't even in there! In any case, we are pissed because we put a lot of money and time into it and now it has to be repaired.