A Little Christmas Cheer

I think 20 misses going out to all the festivals and events (except probably the part where all the little kids want to stick their fingers up his nose ;-).  When I saw that the vet clinic was offering pictures with Santa I knew he'd be excited to get out and go visit with his old friend.

You may not know that 20 is one of Santa's helpers.  When Santa gets too busy to keep an eye on everything that goes on around here, he relies on 20 to be his eyes and ears.  Usually 20 just reports in with a letter telling Santa who's been naughty or nice.  Being able to tell him in person this year was much more fun.  

20 always sees the good in everyone so he's really hasn't fibbed when Maisie gets a good present each year ;-).

This was the year he got recruited, 2011.  Look how young 20 looked back then!  

Bea went along, too.  She was concerned that because her full name is Naughty Bea that Santa might be confused and that she ought to go put in a good word plead her case.  He assured her that he knew how hard she was trying and that her stocking would be full on Christmas morning.

"Ho Ho Ho!"

Still Watching Out

I mentioned a "fun, surprise gift" in the post describing the yarn and ornament gift boxes. 

Wait.  This is a spoiler alert for the people who haven't received their boxes yet (and there are also two boxes left if anyone is interested - yarn or ornament) so I've blocked out the surprise part and will trust anyone to look away if they will be disappointed to not be surprised.  

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It's just something silly and small, but I love fun surprises and would totally wait to read this if I thought I had one coming.  However, the story is so good and I've been dying to share it so I'm going to go ahead. 

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Tucked in each gift box, yarn or ornament, is a mini pack of the sheep's (and dogs and chickens) favorite cookies, Vanilla Wafers.  In the conclusion of the booklet it mentions that the sheep are mostly okay with sharing their cookies, but would really prefer that you just bring them back to the farm for them (aka an invitation to come visit the farm :-).

I initially only bought three cartons of mini wafers because I thought that would be a good start.  When I ran out of cookies I headed back to the store to buy more and the shelves were bare.  Tim checked in Lexington and Georgetown and Auntie Reg checked Winchester.  We looked online.  No. Cookies.

I sent one yarn box out with a sad apology and no cookies and  and continued to look.  Tim continued to look.  Reg continued to watch for them.  I needed one more carton to complete all the orders.

Then came the call I was hoping for.  "I found a box of mini wafers!"  Reg had found one box of cookies on the bottom shelf of the snack pack aisle.  

"It was tucked in behind a box of dog biscuits!  I have no idea what dog biscuits were doing in the snack aisle."  

Dog biscuits are sold on the complete opposite side of the huge store.

I knew immediately. 

Hank had guarded those cookies for us.  

{{{heart}}}

Baa-shing Through The Snow...Or Rain

Well, the weather outside is looking a bit frightful, or at least damp, but we're all wearing wool anyway...right?  If you were thinking about coming out today to see the sheep, come on out!  The barn is actually quite cozy even on the nastiest of days.  

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A...um...few years ago my friend Susan and I tried to pull one of our trusty sleds like this (sort of ;-) with Handy. I don't think I even got a turn on the sled before it went a** over tea kettle and broke into a million pieces. That wasn't our first sledding wreck...and it wasn't our last. Those are some of my most favorite-est memories.

I'm not sure Maisie would agree, but I think I can almost hear her laughing...or maybe that's Susan or possibly 20, my other favorite sledding buddy ;-D.

If you'd like to work this as a puzzle, here you go :-). 

Merry Christmas!

Happy Halloween

"Yeah...they dressed me up as a spider."

"A spider."

"But wait...don't spiders bite people?"

"You better give me a bunch of cookies!"

"I prefer to think of myself as a super hero!"

While you sure don't want to see your deluxe Halloween costume destroyed, I'd be lying if I didn't admit there is a little part of me that sort of misses the Maisie who wouldn't even wear a wizards hat.

The February Photo Diary

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Snow Foolin'

The ice was not fun, and not really the 3" of sandy sleet on top of that and then a little more ice and then some snow, but the snow that came after that snow was pretty fun.  I love winter and I'm glad 20 wanted to go out and play yesterday afternoon.

"Let's see if the pond is frozen!"

I knew it wouldn't be, but I humored him and Pip.  We brought the sled as a fallback plan.  

Frankie and Lancelot were very interested in the sled and Frankie pushed 20 for a little while, but Lancelot thinks he has a better idea for sledding.  More to come on that!

As I suspected, the pond was not only not frozen enough to skate, but with all the recent rain, definitely not something you'd want to fall into right now.

Good thing we brought the sled!

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"20!  You steered right into the thistle patch!  Here, let me show you."

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"Yeah, how'd that work out for you?"

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Sheep down!

 One last run.  

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Sledding was as much fun as I remembered.  I'm glad we went out to play :-).

We sure startled some sheep as we headed back in for some dry clothes and hot cocoa.  Liddy was the only one even remotely interested in what we were up to.  I love the look on Petunia's face ;-D.

All Together Now

"Yum!  Icicles!"

"Dude, you better be careful.  You know what can happen!"

"I can't believe he's doing that."

"I tried to warn him."

"Spud, it's okay.  I'm just using..."

(All together now)   

"...my teefers!"  :-D

You Keep Making That Face...

"You better be careful, Bullwinkle!"

"Why?"

"Your face will freeze that way!"

 "Thweally?"

"Huh."

The Birthday Girl

Today is Maisie's birthday!  She'll be stomping out her number 8 candle around 2:00 this afternoon and we're planning to share her party live on Instagram if you'd like to join her :-).  

It's hard to believe she was ever this tiny.  It's not hard to believe how sassy she was!

Guess What Frankie And Lancelot Have Been Doing

They've been counting sheep!

Hopefully a new puzzle will make up for that one ;-D

Happy Halloween!

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What a star! Once again Maisie rose above her reputation as a hooligan and not only let us fix a “pointy bonnet” to her head, but also strap a broomstick between her legs and she wore her witches cape with...well, probably not pride 😆. I can’t wait to go back and watch this later and see all the stuff I missed 😀. #hugasheepday #sheeptrickortreat #crazymaisie #equinoxfarm

A post shared by Sara Dunham (@thecrazysheeplady) on Oct 31, 2020 at 12:33pm PDT

More pictures later!

It's A Party!

Our Hug a Sheep Day farm party will be a virtual party this year.  As long as I can get the tech stuff figured out, I think it's actually going to be pretty fun :-).  The sheep's schedule is grazing and socializing in the early morning, napping for the rest of the morning, a cookie party at 11:00, more napping, another cookie party at 2:00 and then hiding while Maisie has to gets to dress up in a Halloween costume at 3:00.

For the rest of us, there will also be a fleece "show and sell" at 1:00.  We still have several Punkin's Patch fleeces needing a good home before winter and I picked up the Rocky and Jared bred fleeces from Tring Farm the other day and there are some really pretty ones that would like to be adopted as well.  I thought it might be fun to set them all out on the porch and take a little peek :-).

Against even my own best judgement, we are going to dress Maisie in her costume live at 3:00.  We aren't going to do a test run ahead of time...mostly because I haven't even made it yet.  There is no telling what will happen, but I'm sure it will be hilarious, no matter which Maisie shows up this year.  We are probably tempting fate on this one.  I hope I don't need to add a trip to the ER to the schedule :-o.

Everything will be happening live on Instagram.  I think I'll be able to share a link to Facebook after each "event" is over, but if you want to watch it live, you'll have to use Instagram.  I'm hoping I can post them all over here as well, but I've got to get that all figured out.  

I'm estimating each event will last 10-30 minutes. Feel free to join in at any time and come and go as you please :-).

Hug A Sheep Day - 2020 Style

The only complaint I've ever received about our Hug A Sheep Day farm parties is that out of town folks can't join in. This year? Everyone gets to come to the party! :-D

National Hug a Sheep Day is this Saturday...which is also Halloween...wink, wink.  While we mostly aren't up to hugging Maisie, you know we are probably going to make her dress up ;-).  As far as hugging goes, we are going to try to do several fun live online events throughout the day.  There will not be an on farm party this year :-/.

The tentative schedule involves a couple of flock walks, a cookie party, a spinning demonstration, a fleece show/sale, a surprise in the Wool House...and Maisie's Halloween costume, which might be our most epic yet.  "There may be no survivors."  That book quote is not just a prediction, but also a clue.  Any guesses?

The live events will be hosted on Instagram.  I should be able to record them and post links over to Facebook and hopefully on the blog as well.  I'm not super tech savvy though, so the safest (and most likely funniest) thing would probably be to watch them live. 

I'll post the firmed up schedule on Thursday.  We'll be doing some live audiovisual tests on Friday, so there may some opportunities to give it a try ahead of time if you need/want to.  My best recommendation is find a kid somewhere that can help you get set up.

Stay tuned!  

By the way, 20 wanted me to assure everyone that he had absolutely nothing to do with 2020 and he hopes no one is holding it against him.

A Word From Possum

"Did you hear about the cat who swallowed a ball of wool?"

"She had mittens!"

I Hope Everyone Is Using Their Time Wisely

I know I am (I'm not :-/).  I took the biggest horse on the farm and shrank him down to Breyer Stablemate size and taught him to balance on a fence plank.  So there!

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I have tons I want to post, the most important being our new baby chicks!  That was my plan this morning, but I got sidetracked by this funny picture of Lancelot.  If I'd gotten the chicks posted earlier in the week, I'd have said they were the "cutest" thing to post, but now Lamb Camp has started ...  :-D.  

I will do better!  I will try to do better.  Everybody hang in there.

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Two sets of triplets today! 🥰 . #lambing2020 #lambcamp #finalfrontierfarm

A post shared by Sara Dunham (@thecrazysheeplady) on Apr 2, 2020 at 4:33pm PDT