The ID

At least that's how I think we'd spell this Muslim holiday in English. My Bosnian customers came to butcher rams today. They all had farms in Bosnia and are an education to watch. I learn something every time they butcher here. You should see the skins they took off. OOO lala. I already have them salted. One man and his son gave me fresh meat as a gift. Gifting some of the meat is part of the slaughter tradition. Never done anything with fresh lamb before so I asked them lots of questions and now have it slowly roasting with garden herbs. Smells good.

Beautiful Day of Sheep Hauling

Can't pass up an opportunity to take a ride so yesterday and I agreed to do some ram hauling to West Virginia. Tim offered to ride along AND drive. The day was sunny but windy so the cover on the cage flapped violently most of the way. When we were headed in the correct direction, the flapping stopped, giving us a short bit of quiet, but we couldn't go south the whole trip! Words cannot describe how beautiful the scenery was as we sped through western MD and into WV. I cannot explain how mesmerized I become watching America out a car window. What a beautiful place to live! The foliage was a little past peak but still showing dynamic colors. No desire to doze with such beauty.

The day went perfectly, meeting everyone on time and at the right places. The Black Welsh ram hopped into his ride home only to keep hopping into the front seat. Thankfully Andrea brought her dog along to eye him into his correct riding position. Tim and I were worried but they arrived home with no broken windows. Our only regret was that we couldn't "sit a spell" and visit. That's the best part of this sheep business.... it's filled with the most wonderful people that you love to spend time with. We always leave with a "see you soon and hope to spend more time on the next trip." There are so many of those next trips that I want to take.

Tim and I stopped for dinner in Berkley Springs, WV. HAVE to get back there for some walking around. It's like Leesburg,VA. I whizz through often always saying "next time I'll stop for coffee." It's a cool little town too. Molly and I always stop in Georgetown, CO though. That place just sucks us right off the highway. So many great places and too little time. Why am I always in a hurry?

Rob, Dusty and Andrea...... hope your rams are happy and working in their new homes. We'll get together soon.

When the phone rings at 2AM it either means that something terrible happened or the sheep are out! Thankfully it was the latter.
Off I went in my PJ's, flashlight in hand, looking for the escapee. All gates were closed so I had no idea which pasture was missing a sheep. After walking the road several times and finding nothing it was time to count sheep. Luckily, I hadn't counted many when I got to the ram lambs in the barnyard. Yup, one was missing. All gates were shut tightly and there were no holes????? At least now I knew I was looking for a white BFL, that's better than a dark wooled Shetland. How did he escape and why didn't the others go with him, as they usually do? Glad they didn't. Now in the car, I began driving up and down the road. Thankfully, the bridge has been repaired the our road is no longer a well travelled detour so there's no traffic. At this point it's getting cold and my flashlight is dimming. After an hour, he appeared ... right in the middle of the road like a four legged ghost that I was delighted to see. By this time, Tim had arrived to help. Our old house and barn are built right on the road so shuushing the big guy into the barnyard was easy but the mystery still remains unsolved. Did he close the gate when he left or was this a Halloween prank? Molly suggested that I check this particular sheep for opposable thumbs.

Tractors

Lancaster, PA is always beautiful so I jumped at the chance to drive there with Tim to look at mowers and tractors. Tim needs the mower and Bill and I need a smaller tractor. We have a huge Ford- New Holland that now longer pulls haybines and balers. All it does is bush hog and move manure. It's big and awkward for maneuvering in small spaces so Tim and I thought we'd trade it in for something a little more woman friendly . I'm the main operator now and have trouble hooking up to the PTO alone. Bill's knees wont allow him to get into the cab but he loves his tractor. Through my hours in the cab, I must have learned to talk tractor by "assmosis" because I could converse with the salesman relatively intelligently, or so I thought. (I'd like to hear the salesman's side of this story. He's probably still laughing. ) Home again with brochures in hand there's no response from Bill. Guess I'll be driving Big Blue for another season so I'd better get the AC fixed and learn how to hook up the mower. Guess I shouldn't interfere with a man and his tractor.

2010 Continues.... Murphy's Law Prevails

Brew a pot of coffee for this blog. It's a doozie! Today I had my ewes artificially inseminated for the first time. I had purchased semen and was happy that it had arrived just in time for my date. Good luck there but it all goes downhill at this juncture. I borrowed a trailer from my friend so I could haul my 6 ewes to the procedure site. As long as I am going forward I can pull a trailer. The trailer was parked in mud this morning so Bill and were like hogs on ice getting the thing hooked up. Bill walks with a cane but his cane wasn't any help stabilizing him. Finally hooked, we pulled out onto our little country road which is now the detour for 2 main roads. It's rush hour and passing traffic is not happy that we had taken up on side of the road to load sheep. My ewes, not being halter broke , do not want to lead to the trailer but with the help of my friend Bev we get them loaded. At this point we notice that the jack on the trailer is only inches from the road surface. We need to switch hitch balls. Out comes the hydraulic jack, which has to be used from the road side of the trailer since the barnyard side isn't level. More comments from passing traffic but I didn't care since their traffic has been a pain for us for the last year. OK now we have the correct hitch ball and are off. Still time to get there on time. The garmin took us on the scenic route but Bev and I were enjoying the barn arcitecture as were traveled. 3 miles from our destination we come to a bridge that is closed with no prior warning. Did I mention that I can't back up a trailer. After trying my charm on the road workers to proceed ... they said I was too heavy for the bridge... add insult to injury guys! So much for charm, I made a U turn in the front yard of the house by the bridge. Good thing we had that jack raised or we would have made a huge divot in the grass. Bev was hiding under the dash waiting for incoming fire as we made our getaway. The DOT workers yelled something but feeling like Jesse James in Northfield I put the pedal down. Thankfully the garmin rerouted us to our destination but we were late and lost our turn. I enjoyed watching the procedure on all the sheep in front of us. I even helped. I was so stressed by this time that being "gas man" took my mind off the day. Finally... our turn. I found someone to back the trailer in and we got my ewes ready to go. OH NO.. my semen straws are not in their containers. Somehow they had been dumped into the bottom of the nitrogen tank and are irretrievable. Choices now are
1. go home 2. use semen from another ram in the tank which I will have to pay for 3. or use semen from another breed of sheep Choosing option 2 we now discover that there are only 4 straws of Bluefaced Leicester semen in the tank and I have 6 ewes. Splitting straws is now in my vocabulary because that is what we did on 4 ewes. Conception is not 100% under the best conditions so I'm not looking at good odds right now. I choose to be pessimistic because a pessimist can only be made happier,right? Hopefully I will be pleasantly surprised when all 6 ewes conceive. Those 15 straws that I paid for are still in the tank but do I want to do this again? I don't think I can afford it financially or mentally. Bev and I did laugh all the way home. What else could we do? My Murphy's Law flag will be flying tonight.

Rhinebeck

Rhinebeck was perfect. Usual Autumn weather, which I love, and a really well attended show. It was so much fun seeing other breeders from all over the country. Robina and Shirley were in from OR. I only wish I could have spent more time with them. Shirley was amazed at the size of the Rhinebeck show! It is a fabulous wool show for sure. Lisa and I were so busy in the booth that we couldn't escape to get food on Saturday....NO complaints tho.... busy is good. We didn't get to party as much this year since everyone was super tired at the end of the day. That's good too, I guess. Thanks to Bill's lighting purchases, our booth was well lit and beautiful this year. Sending that man to a hardware guarantees more than anyone could ever imagine.

Got home late late night and had to get up at 5 to give hormone shots to my ewes being inseminated this Wednesday. Everything has come at once. Maybe I can sleep after Wednesday???

Pre Rhinebeck Fiber Frenzy

We leave for Rhinebeck NY show on Friday. Yesterday I got a wild idea to make Shetland roving with tencel and another batch of Shetland with silk to sell at Rhinebeck. Usually I have my roving done by professionals, but since this was last minute I fired up my Supercard. Now don't get me wrong, I like my supercard and it gives me the most wonderful batts to spin but it takes forever!!! Not getting empaled on the picker was a good start. But I could feel myself getting frustrated by the rate the carder was going, so I got a cup of coffee. This made me move faster but it didn't help the carder speed one bit. Tencel was in my coffee, my mouth and stuck to me everywhere. I was moving at the same rate of speed as I did when I took steroids a few years ago. Dinner thrown in the oven and I was and back to carding. By this time I had produced eight four ounce bags!! Don't know if I can take another day of this. From now on Biltmore Fiber Mill can do my carding and deliver it to my booth. So much for being cheap and trying to do it myself. My nerves can't take it! The only joy was spinning samples of the fibers. OOO La La. Dinner was so-so but each mouthful provided enough strands of tencil and silk to floss our teeth while chewing.