Boys

Unlike our good pal Pinto* who moves out of and back in the field at will, Christopher can only figure out how to get out.  When he realizes everyone's gone in without him or the horses come charging up and scare him half to death, he starts crying his eyes out until I come rescue him.  

This happens every day.  

Yesterday it happened three times. 

I feel like that funny little kid marching through his yard, yelling at the crowing rooster.

This morning I stood out back to spy on him after I let everyone out.  

Bea helped.  She agrees with the little kid as well, but mostly in a farm rules enforcement capacity...although she's probably as tired of listening to him as I am.

He stayed with the flock for awhile and then started easing back our direction...but, while too stupid to figure out how to get himself back out the way he came in, he was smart enough to know we were spying on him.  

We relocated to a more stealth location...sitting in comfortable chairs on the porch with Archie making uncomfortable muffins on my lap...

...so I missed the shot of him crawling under the fence down at the creek.

As I type this he's standing at the gate nearest the Wool House, once again yelling for help at the top of his lungs...for the last time**.

(Grabs spare fence plank...)

*I think I'm going to add a new category to the blog - a "fer crying out loud" label.  Unless I tagged it wrong, I don't think I've ever shared Pinto getting out and back in the barn lot :-o.  Don't let me forget!

**Famous last words

I Am Not A Robot

Long time readers may remember the year I made a coupon for a free gift if you stopped by our booth at the Kentucky Wool Festival and voted for your favorite sheep.  

I enjoy making these simple "cartoons" and this has been one of my favorites. She is such an easy character :-).

In trying to get our team prepped for the upcoming Tour de Fleece I decided to create a Facebook Group for the race this year.  Even though I don't enjoy FB, I realize that there are many people who only use that app and I hate missing out on their Tour updates.  The main discussion group will continue to be on Ravelry, but I'll do my best to check in with FB as well.

There are several steps you go through to create a group page and one is deciding if your group will be private or public.  Another is setting up your group rules and making sure everyone agrees to follow them.  

I guessed decided that making the group private would be the safest thing.  Anyone can join the group, but you'll have to ask.  To prove you are not a robot or troll, you'll have to answer a security question. I'm sure you can guess what the question is ;-).

Regarding rules, you can set as many as you want.  I didn't feel like trying to figure out a bazillion rules when I felt like one simple life rule should always suffice.  Be kind.  I trust that anyone who'd want to join our group is already living that, but just in case, there is a consequence for straying.  I'm sure you can guess what that is as well ;-).

The Tour de Fleece is strictly for fun and is open to anyone interested in spinning or fiber work in general.  You don't even need to know how to spin.  You could use the race time to give it a try or just be a cheerleader and enjoy watching everyone's yarn pile up.

If you'd like to join the FB group I think all you need to do is click the link above and then follow the prompts.  If that doesn't work, please let me know.  I am not good at Facebook and frequently can't figure it out and find it very frustrating.  I'd like to turn Maisie loose on it...but I'm afraid she wouldn't follow the rules ;-D.

 

B-eautiful

I was worried the B Garden was going to be a bust this year after Blossom and friends basically mowed it to the ground...twice...back in the early spring.  Thankfully it survived and is really beautiful right now.  I did a video tour this morning.  Besides being here, that's really the best way to see everything.  Well, almost everything.  Here are a few pictures of some things that I missed.

I think this same butterfly has been here for almost two weeks.  It's not a monarch, but still quite pretty.  I've wondered if she's laying eggs on the milkweed as I'm pretty sure that's what I'm seeing and I'm even more sure that I haven't seen a monarch yet.

We added a second purple martin house last month.  No one has moved in, but at least they know there is more room to expand.  They have been very busy this summer.

Here is a link to the video tour.  For some reason it won't let me embed it here directly like normal.  It's worth a watch :-).

My Favorite Tree...Of The Week...Or All Time

The Crowing Hen and her tiny friend Blondie have been here for almost ten years.  There were originally two tiny hens and the two tinies hung out together and the Crowing Hen, now affectionately called "Yaya" because that's what the bantams sound like when they're talking to me bossing me around, was brave enough to mingle with the big hens.

The two tinies slept each night side by side on one of the beams just over the cart stall in the barn.  Yaya chose the Sheep Chicken's perch in the outside stall.  The big hens are locked securely in the coop.  I've always wished all the chickens would sleep in there, but the bantams have never wanted to do that.

Something happened one night and the two tiny hens moved from their normal perch to way up into the rafters for a few months.  They eventually moved back down and then the silver hen started having trouble getting up into the lower perch.  She let me help her for awhile and then one morning a year or so ago I found her dead.

Blondie continued to sleep over the cart stall for quite a few months and then one night she wasn't there.  I eventually found her sleeping in the rafters over the Easy Breezy stall.  I'm not sure what scared her over there, but she seemed okay with that spot and that's where she's slept for many months.

A month or so ago I found the Crowing Hen with a bare spot on her neck (!).  I'm not sure what happened, but I feel like something had tried to grab her, luckily unsuccessfully.  Because I knew that a. she was pretty comfortable with the big chicken and b. she was in a location I could easily get to, I started picking her up and locking her in the main coop at night.  She still makes me move her each night, but at least she's basically okay with it.

One night last week Blondie moved back over the cart.  There is a nest of fledging barn swallows near where she had been sleeping and I wondered if they'd told her to get lost.  The next night I found her in the tack room.  I made her a perch in there and hoped she'd move in there at night, but the following night I couldn't find her anywhere.

She did show up the next morning (whew!), but that night I again couldn't find her.  That went on for several days.  I tried to be as stealth as I could, watching her every move, trying to clue in to where she was going, but she kept eluding me.  The fifth morning she showed up looking very tired and cold. I really needed to get this figured out.

Tuesday night she walked into the Wool House and looked around, eyeing the loft.  I love this little chicken...but not that much ;-).  I'd seen her poking around a little with the big chickens recently, I think trying to talk herself into moving in to their secure coop, so I tried to stick her in their with them, but she was too scared.  I set up a small cage in the wash room like she'd slept in during the Polar Vortex and she settled right in.

Last night I propped the door open and hoped she'd go in there on her own.  As I walked back up to the barn after dinner I found her heading across the yard.  I stood there quietly, watching, thinking at least now I was going to find out where she'd been sleeping every night.  She headed for the big pine tree and just as she was going to make her big leap, I scooped her up.  

My first thought was how scared she must have been to move out of her long time barn home into the "wilds" and how scared she must have been out there huddled in a tree all night.  No wonder she looked exhausted.  

Then I thought about finding blind Rocky out there after the night he wandered out of the barn and got lost.  And Salt always sleeping under that tree and Ewenice and Renny and Kate and Tilly and sitting out there with bottle lamb after bottle lamb and who knows who else has sought shelter in and under that kind tree.

It's had a rough life.  The top has been ripped out of it time and again by wind and ice and lightning.  Because it's lost it's ability to grow up, it's grown out.  Way too far out.  We've tried pruning it back a few times, but I know it's days are numbered.  It maybe does as well because it's setting a bunch of pine cones this summer.  

I'm hoping I can harvest some seeds from these cones...but I mostly hope I don't need a replacement for a very long time.

A Picture Of My Cat

Back in the early days of blogging when we were told it was Really Important to make sure you were posting every day, the rule was "If you don't have anything new to post, post a picture of your cat."  I still wish I could post Every Day, but I just can't seem to pull it together anymore.  However, I do have a picture of my cat and something new to share about it!

Last night Possum came into the living room with us while we were watching tv and jumped up on the back of the couch for a few minutes :-o.  She didn't stay long and she was obviously a bit nervous about it, but what a big step for her!  

Speaking of cats and things I can't believe have never made it to the blog, I never shared the story of Archie falling out of the barn a couple three weeks ago.

He fell from inside the barn, out the soffit from the height marked, bounced off the two lower roofs and hit the ground.  I think he must have gotten his leg hung up as he fell from inside the barn to the outside.  The neighbors heard him hit the two metal roofs (the one shown and the lower roof on the new add on).

I'd seen him up in the rafters and heard him crying about not being able to get down when he heard me filling Possum's food bowl, but before I could do anything to help him...out and down he fell.  

I'd initially thought he might be up there going after a stray cat because of the squalling (that the neighbor also heard) as he disappeared over the side wall.  As I rushed around the side of the barn to see and found him crumpled on the ground and no other cat in sight and with a good scrape on one of his back legs I pieced together the leg hanging up as he started to fall.

We initially thought he may have broken or dislocated his hip and possibly had a concussion, but it was late on a Friday night so there was no local emergency vet service available.  We kept an eye on him for several hours and he appeared basically okay so decided to hold out until morning.  

By morning he was walking around, albeit a bit gingerly, and eating and drinking and using the litter box so we continued to just watch him.

And by afternoon he was already back considering another trip up into the loft.  

There is a funny IG reel about all orange cats having a complex network of cells to share one collective brain cell between them all, allowing then each just enough intelligence to keep them alive.  

I'm afraid to think of how many lives he's used up.  Just the number of ones we know of is frightening.

May

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Sara Dunham (@thecrazysheeplady)

I'm glad I finally got this put together.  Every month I say I'm not going to leave all the photo sorting to the end of the month.  That I'm going to do a sort every week.  Sigh...

My Favorite Sheep...Of The Week

Since Bullwinkle shared the top picture with Tessa last the other week, I picked him for this last week's SOTW.  I'll hopefully be back on track now.

"I really wasn't in the mood for a photoshoot, but whatever, lady."

This was one of his first baby pictures.  He loved sleeping on the fleece dog beds.  

Or out in the grass with me :-). 

He was a complete grump about cats and hated Betsy for some reason, but did ally himself with, of all cats, Claire Bear.  She may have taught him to hate Betsy and that's why she liked him.  We used to call him her little henchman.  That's a pretty fun post.  I'd forgotten about Comby schooling on him :-).

He loved riding in the car, but his favorite thing in the whole world was riding in the Unit (UTV/side by side) and the faster the better.  He'd jump into anyone's Unit and one neighbor took him for rides.  Another about had a stroke because a sheep jumped into his brand new Unit.  I'd try to take him for a ride now, but I'm not sure he'd fit.

Bullwinkle was always very "helpful", especially on the Wool House porch.  I'd forgotten about locking him off the porch.  I can't remember what he kept getting into long after he should have been living in the barn.  His "educational" video about the Proper Use of a Skein Winder was a classic.

His wool is very soft and very springy.  His mom was one of the "Texas cross" sheep over at Final Frontier Farm.  I prefer spinning the coarser long wool crosses, but I really enjoy using his wool for needle felting.  The finer texture helps with creating details in faces... Everyone else would probably spin it.

Bullwinkle is always one of the last sheep to head out in the morning.  He usually stops to check in with me as he goes through the gate and any time something is going on - sheep checks, foot trimming, shearing, he likes to stand right next to me.  I'll always be his mom :-).