16 Bags Full

Spring has sprung! Almost overnight, everything is either bright green or covered in yellow or purple blooms. Good friends in the flower beds and around the native plant pond are sending up tender shoots and the greenhouse is full of vegetable, herb and flower seedlings.

Yesterday the sheep shearer was here. There is nothing better than watching someone else shear your sheep! Shearing is hard work even if you are not the one operating the shears. Just getting 'ahold' of each one and directing them to the shearing area five feet away will wear you out. Not to mention gathering each fleece to tag and bag. Thank you Stella and Deb!

After everything quiets down and the sheep are relaxing outside, I go back and skirt (pull off the undesirable wool from the edges) each fleece. This might be my favorite part. It’s not every day you can sink your hands into Crazy Esther’s wool :-). Other than Henri, those Jacob sheep are a wild bunch. The Cheviots are just as bad – and PP lived in my kitchen and slept on my lap as a baby!

Ewenice is a welcome addition to the family. Punkin might have been the BEST sheep ever, but Ewenice is the SWEETEST sheep ever. She’s a four year old Border Leicester ewe and was the last sheep left in a spinner’s flock in Frankfort, Kentucky. She was lonely by herself and they wanted her to have a sheepy home with sheepy friends. It’s a little hard to make sheepy friends, however, when you’d rather be drinking coffee on the porch with people. One sentence I thought would never come out of my mouth is, “Go around to the back door, Ewenice”.

Ewenice seems to enjoy spending part of her day doing sheepy things (eating and napping near, but not with those spotted things), part of her day doing Ewenice things (exploring and pushing Miss Tilly around the yard) and the rest of the time helping me. She’s good help and it's so nice to have a curly friend by my side again.