Amazing

When I was putting together the Hug A Sheep Day post last week I googled "hug a sheep day" to see what would be the best link to share...and couldn't get over how many links were posted to not only the daily calendar sites, but also from farms from all over the world!

I watched several and then found a video The Fiber Pusher posted from our farm party in 2019.  Grab a cup of coffee and some tissues and give it a watch.  It's so nice to see so many familiar faces and old friends.  

  

Oh those good old dogs and sheep.

Sweet Petunia

I had to make a hard, well, it wasn't hard...a sad call on Petunia today and here I sit trying to decide what I want to say about one of the very best sheep ever.  

I thought I knew what picture I wanted for this post, but as I scrolled through all the old blog posts looking for it, it became one of the nicest trips down memory lane and I could have easily pulled out 20 favorite pictures.

Her "Mug Shot"

She'd been here so long that I'd almost forgotten some of her stories.  I'd forgotten how she stepped up as lead ewe after Elizabeth had died.  I'd  forgotten how she was one of the main chicken sheep who helped the old hen get to her favorite high perch each night.  

Her official baby picture back in 2008.  She came from Nistock's along with Woolliam that year.

I remembered how much she enjoyed wearing the flowers for the 2012 Tour de Fleece.  I knew that she would be happy to wear the bell because of how she acted with the flowers.  I don't think she thought she was special, but she understood special and humbly accepted it...like any great leader.

I'd forgotten about this sweet picture with 20. Almost every picture on the blog is captioned either "Pretty Petunia" or "Sweet Petunia".  

Checking in with me during a lunchtime nap last month.    

So many good pictures and great stories.  There will never be another like her. If you'd like to take a stroll, you can follow this link or any of the labels on the right side of the blog.  

Sweet, pretty Petunia

2008-August 10, 2022

July

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A pretty good month :-).

Tour de Sheep

 

My Tour de Fleece is more of a Tour de Sheep this year.  So far I've spun 10 sample skeins.  Let's see if I can remember them all...PPPP, Henri, Petunia, Boudreaux, Woody, Buddy, Rebecca Boone, Count Chocula, Miss Ewenice and Hershey :-).

I have really enjoyed pulling out these old friends.  I'd forgotten how soft Boudreaux was, how luxurious Hershey was, how...everything Miss Ewenice was.  She's been gone 10 years now.  I have some Renny set aside for tomorrow.  I can't spin Ewenice without spinning some Renny :-).  

The Right Words

I'd been thinking about my Tour de Fleece for several weeks and was not getting super excited about any of my possible plans.  I knew Pinto was going to be the captain, but had a ton of trouble coming up with his graphic.  The weather is miserable.  There will be no peaceful porch spinning around here this year.  Honestly, I was feeling a bit of dread thinking about putting it all together.

Tim and I like to play a few of the currently popular word games each morning.  I play Wordle, both Word Hurdle games and the Quordle, which is trying to guess four words at one time.  It took a good while to talk me into trying them, but now I'm hooked.  I sit on the Wool House porch with a big cup of coffee and start guessing. 

The Wordle for July 1, the first day of the Tour de Fleece was...

Can you even believe it? :-o

It gets better.

The TdF plan I was most leaning towards was doing a deep dive into some of my most treasured fleeces.  I'd just finished spinning a bit of PPPP and was feeling sentimental.  I have Woody's lamb fleece, Daniel's lamb fleece, some special Ford, Henri, Petunia and for a really deep dive, some young(ish) Miss Ewenice.  

I was still not completely convinced...but I couldn't come up with any better ideas.  I really needed to find some inspiration or it was going to be hard to cheer lead the other members of my team when I couldn't even cheer myself along.  

I started working on the day's Quordle.  

As you can see from the PINTO graphic above, as you guess words, you almost always get some correct letters and sometimes even get them in the right locations.  Yellow means the letter is in the mix, but in the wrong position.  Green means it's the right letter in the correct location.

Three of the four words in the Quordle game behaved accordingly and I ended up figuring out each of those three words.  The fourth word...

The first guess yielded me no correct letters.  Neither did the second guess.  I did finally get one letter, but in the wrong position on the third and fourth guesses, but back to zero correct on the fifth.  In case you are wondering about my word choices, remember I'm trying to guess three other words at the same time.  STAID, BASTE and RAMEN were the correct words in the other quadrants.

You get nine chances to guess the four words.  I'd used up eight chances and only had two letters and both in the wrong positions.  I had one chance left, but I knew it was hopeless.  Still, a game is a game and I decided to make a wild guess and see how close I could get.

With only one vowel possibility, the O, I knew there might be a chance they were going to use it twice.  Y hadn't been used, so I tossed that in there as well.  Two Os and D and a Y...I had to go with WOODY.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

And I won!

How's that for some inspiration :-D.

It was pretty crazy just to get PINTO, but also WOODY on the same day?!?

 So I started my Tour spinning some Woody :-).

February

 It's hard to spell February after a month of spelling it Fiberuary!  All in all it was a pretty good month :-)

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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.

Lead Vocals

I was trying to get a cute picture of Cheeto's green nose from where she'd eaten some alfalfa leaf dust this morning, but what I got looks more like her and Salt's new album cover, which is kind of extra funny because of something else that happened this morning.

Remember when I posted the video of Big Moose going "Mmm mmm mmmm" when he was eating grain back when he was still a lamb?  Cheeto frequently makes that noise, too, when she's eating and I've heard B. Willard do the same on occasion lately.  I'm wondering if Cheeto taught them all to do that.

Other than "Mmmm mmm mmm", I seldom hear anything from Cheeto.  Oh, she communicates well enough (see above disappointment ears and eyes that she didn't get as much alfalfa as she wanted this morning all the time ;-), but she doesn't use her outside voice very often.  She did this morning.

Cheeto and Willard come out and eat in the aisle way along with Petunia and Clover Belly from the main flock.  Petunia and Clover Belly then go back in with the main group and Cheeto and Willard go back to Easy Breezy where they then split a flake of hay.  The rest of the flock is expected to trudge out to the fields each morning (up hill both ways) whenever there's not inclement weather.

Due to the deluge of rain all day yesterday, the main flock got hay both morning and night.  They were hopeful they'd get breakfast in bed again this morning and when they didn't, a couple of them started complaining.  Cheeto answered back...which I thought was odd, especially as it sounded like she was talking to Biscuit.  

Biscuit?  Surely that's not right...  

"Baaaa."  

"Baaaa."

Then I heard Biscuit, but alongside another really deep voice...and I remembered that was Big Moose!  So even though he's been weaned for almost two years (?), she still hears him even though his voice is completely different than when he was her little baby.  I think that's interesting on a couple of levels.

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A Wool(ish) House

I found a super sweet bird nest the other day.  It had blown down during a wind storm.  I love all bird nests, but this one is extra special because of all the wool in it. Buddy and/or Woolliam, Petunia and/or Daniel and Chocula, Salt and/or Hank and probably some others as well.  Here's a quick tour:

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Thank you for all the calendar orders! I hope you know how much that is appreciated.  They are still "at the printers" waiting to be assembled, but luckily Tim's been busy this month.  That's appreciated as well ;-).

Some neighborhood news - there appears to be another stray cat hanging around.  Both my neighbor and I have been blaming the sightings on each other's calico cats and two days ago I broke up a fight next door in which "Betsy" took off running towards our farm...but then I found the real Betsy asleep in the house.  "Betsy's Stunt Double" was spotted between the two farms again last night.

Four bossy calico cats in one area is probably going to make for a long winter.  Why couldn't it have been a sweet orange kitty :-(.  Sigh...

Our 15 Minutes Of [Snow]

We enjoyed it while it lasted :-).

Mini Moose and Chocula

Big J aka Jared

Mini Moose and the little darlin' ;-).  

Big Moose.  He's just so fun to photograph.  What expression.  

Chocula, Tessa and Tabitha.  Chocula was picking hay of Tessa's back.  I'll have to up his pay :-).

Liddle

Petunia and Tessa

And a new puzzle!

Peeking In

Several times a day I go peek in on everyone to make sure all is well in the barn.  This is one of my favorite things to do, especially on a sunny, but chilly "winter" day.  As I quietly walked down the barn aisle I noticed Maisie cashed out (one of my most favorite sights) so I quietly walked out, grabbed my camera and snuck back in.

The little darlin'.

Jared, aka Big J, soaking up some sun.

I seldom catch Kaala asleep.  She's always "busy".

Petunia, with Tavia and Clover Belly on the left.

Andy

Rebecca Boone, for the first time looking like she might be happy(ish) moved into Easy Breezy.  I've been trying for several days to get her settled in there.  A Cotswold with an opinion... ;-).

Good afternoon!