I'd hoped the greenhouse rosemary would either send up some new growth from the bottom this spring or that the cutting it tried to give me would root, but neither happened. I carefully cut off the two spider cocoons and pulled the rest out.
The greenhouse sheep doesn't look quite so lonely now with two tiny new friends...and Possum.
The rosemary in the front is a trailing variety. The rosemary in the back is a more cold tolerant plant, but I'll have to go check the tags to remember the names. I'll try to do better this time around. I miss my huge old friend :-/.
For the last few weeks we've had some skunk activity, not in the barn (the norm), but in the driveway between the barn and garage and possibly the garage itself. As anyone with a dog knows, this is not ideal.
I've not found any sign of the skunk living in the garage, but the other day I noticed freshly dug dirt between the garage and the outhouse. On closer inspection, there is a hole dug under the concrete floor.
Yeah...but what can you even do about it?
A few days later I looked again, still trying to figure out if there was anything to be done and noticed that there was even more fresh dirt...and now a tunnel leading under the outhouse.
I carefully opened the outhouse door and peeked inside. No sign of the skunk, but it did have a new distinct smell...so I peeked down the hole.
The skunk is living under the garage...and using the outhouse...as an outhouse.
You can't make this "stuff" up.
A couple of weeks ago I walked out late one night to check the back gate and turned around to find that Krista Two/White Krista/New Krista/K2 had walked out in the dark to come see what I was doing and we stood out there together for quite a while. We do this a lot. She's just. that. sweet.
Having two Kristas though is just. not. working.
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20 and I went to see The Sheep Detectives movie yesterday. We both loved it. It was so good and so fun that we are going to probably see it at least one more time and I've promised the sheep that as soon as it comes out in DVD (I think they still make those?), I'll get a copy and we'll show it in the barn so everyone can watch.
In the meantime, one of the main characters is named Lily. This is not a spoiler as she's in all the trailers ;-). By the end of the movie, as I watched how she and her shepherd interacted, it was obvious that Lily would be a perfect re-name for a great little sheep who deserves her very own special name. I told her she'd understand when she got to watch for herself.
In the meantime, meantime, if you are not aware of the new Sheep Detectives movie, I've included one of the trailers here. There are tons of clips all over and it's currently sitting with a 93% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and I saw somewhere that it's Hugh Jackman's highest rated movie. It's that good!
I decided I wanted to go to the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival this year. It only took me over 20 years to get over the extreme heat from the first time I went when I swore I'd never go back ;-). Anyway, I thought if I was going all that way, I should challenge myself to enter something in the Skein and Garment competition.
My favorite class is the Spinners Yarn Basket and from there it was an easy jump to figure out some way to include Jared. If you are going to put that much effort into making something, it needs to be with a good friend.
In 25 words or less, you spin at least one pound of yarn, tell how you processed and spun the yarn, include the pattern you are going to use the yarn for and a swatch to show how it will work. My favorite description for everything after that is "flower arranging for yarn".
I'd hoped for the last two years that I'd be able to pick up a neighborhood swarm and feel pretty sure that I had at least some descendants from Stella's bees. That didn't work out and I finally decided to just start over. Of course, now that I've gone to all this trouble and expense, I'll probably find a swarm next week.
While a friend and I were waiting for the stragglers to move from the package into the hive box, we were able to watch some of the bees start to fan and talk to each other and then saw some take orientation flights circling over the hive box. A few even started exploring whatever these flowers are.
By nightfall, all but a few were tucked into the box and I was able to pick up the last 10 or so and deposit them at the entrance. Hopefully they'll be happy here. They've had a long couple of days I'd guess being packaged up and moved. I promised them that tomorrow will be a better day.
The front or "right" side.
All in all it was very fun and I'm looking forward to my next project. And it was nice to hang out with one of my all time favorite sheep for a bit :-).
I just added a cute picture of Bullseye to yesterday's post. I'd saved it...and then promptly forgot about it.
On a crazy note, a video of Possum and Archie with a little bit of Bea went viral on Instagram last week. Not millions of views viral (thank goodness), but as of this morning, 230,000 views.
Leave it to Possum, the Murphy of the cat world here.
I think part of why this happened was a short poem by Carl Sandburg that begins "The fog comes on little cat feet." I wasn't aware of that, so am happy I got something of value from the 318 (!) comments that the post received...most of which I don't believe were bots.
Does anyone remember Henrietta? She came here with Heidi back in 2006, before the blog even started. She was a grand old sheep. A friendly Jacob who enjoyed a good back scratch and didn't need to be bribed with cookies. She was a farm favorite.
I'd saved a bag of her roving from 2013 and in that bag was a big ball of yarn. I'm not sure why I stopped spinning it, but I'd saved it for years thinking I really should finish it and a couple of weeks ago, when I was looking for my next Thursday spinning project, I pulled it down out of the loft.
I reviewed the thickness and twist from back in the day and did my best to try to match it. I was shocked at how much VM (vegetable matter) was in it, but decided maybe I didn't know any better back then? I thought I did, but there it was. I didn't care. It was Henri and I could pick it out.
