Fuzzy Friends

Other than Rebecca Boone trying to sit on Graham Lamb last month (he deserved it) when I thought she might be a good babysitter for a couple rambunctious young boys (she loves to run, jump and play), all our sheep get along. I have a friend who raises goats and she just can't get over that. Apparently goats, not so much.



From back to front - Heidi, Popcorn PeePee Pants, Elizabeth and her daughter Allie.



Behind Beanie Baby is Emily and her youngest daughter, Caspar Belly (aka Spooky Tooth).



Another shot of Allie and Elizabeth. Allie is five or six years old and still hangs with her momma. Jacob families are tight. If you look back to the first picture, you'll notice poor Heidi is a bit off by herself. Always :-(. That might be the saddest part of losing Sunshine. She still looks for her.



This is Clover Belly, Boudreaux the Biter and Peabody. Peabody frequently hangs with Boudreaux... until people come around and then he hides behind Boudreaux. Other than Buddy, Boudreaux is the only other sheep out there big enough to camoflage Peabody's rather, um, robust figure.



And here are my favorite friends to visit. Elizabeth and Crazy Esther. The old ladies. The matriarchs of the flock. They both came from the same farm in Indiana and I don't know if they are related or just good friends. I regularly find them off by themselves discussing something and if things are quite the way they think they should be, Elizabeth gives me "the eye" or a hollar and she knows how to make sure I hear her even in the house.

Hope your weekend is filled with friends. I'm hangin' with my best bud Saint Tim. I love the weekends...and not just because he helps me catch up the mowing.

Solo Shots

Some days I head out with my camera and come home with nothing good. Some days I'm really happy with my pictures. Yesterday I came home happy. I am not "good". I am "lucky". The light was nice, the grass is still green and lush here and my sheep are beautiful (of course ;-). By the way, I took the latest poll down because a. it seemed wrong to be picking favorites and b. I have a surprise coming (if I'm clever enough to pull it off).

I have too many pictures I want to share. This blog is primarily a photo diary for us (I love to look back at the different "chapters"), but still I try to not overload the pictures on any one entry. As I looked through these latest photos, I noticed that I had great shots of some best friends (yes, our sheep have friends) and some nice solo shots. So, here are the solos:



This is Rebecca Boone (in the foreground). She is popular and has lots of friends, but no one I would call her best friend. She does like to play with Keebler through the gate that separates them (until he gets bigger), so we'll see.



Beanie Baby. I'm not sure anyone really likes him. Even his momma (Heidi) doesn't seem to care much about him. He's a wether now, but maybe this is a "ram" issue and the way nature intends it.



Ford-o. Also an ex-ram (better than being an ex-Packer - don't even get me started on the whole Brett Favre playing for the Vikings thing! ;-)



Uncle Jester. Definitely not a loner. Well, he's sort of a loner, but he's very concerned about the entire flock staying together. I tried to separate out the older sheep that needed some extra chow once and he worried himself sick. Literally. He adopted Emily when she was a weanling and has continued to look after her and all of her babies too. I love that about him.



I just love this picture, but I don't think Buddy is actually looking at the bird. I think he's looking off towards the barn trying to figure out what's going on with the new building (we're all trying to figure out what's going on out there, but don't get me started on that either.)

Headed out to lunch with some of my (2 legged) friends. Tomorrow I'll post some picture of some sheep friends.

Extreme (ly Stupid) Beekeeping

This is what happens when you get other people's bees taken care of, but not your own, and wake up at 2:30 in the morning and realize that when you did get a break in the pouring rain yesterday you forgot to run out and add the second hive body to your new hive, and they say it is supposed to really rain today and you know that after a couple days of rain, a too cramped hive might make a run for it and swarm, and it's already starting to lightning and if you wait until daylight it's going to be pouring....

I continue to prove that my main purpose in life is to be an example of how not to do things. I obviously lived to tell about it or I wouldn't be sharing this story, so at this point you can pretty much guess what happened. I got up around 3:30, suited up, grabbed the large super, a bee brush and a headlamp and headed out into the approaching storm.

I wished I'd had a recorder as I walked out to the Frog Pond. Between the frogs and the crickets and the distant (and closer) rumblings of thunder, it was actually sort of fun to be out hiking in the dark. The lightning was beautiful (and illuminating), but I'll admit, just a tad too close for comfort.

I knew the bees would not be happy about being awakened in the middle of the night, but tried to explain it to them all "friendly-like". They didn't buy it one bit. However, I was able to quickly open the hive, brush the cluster of bees from the inner cover, set the new hive body down, replace the cover and the lid and beat it out of there. Several bees escorted me back to the barn and I'm not completely sure that one or two didn't make it all the way to the porch.



All's well that ends well though. Not only do my bees have a little more room this morning (with some honey drizzled on the frames to encourage them to go up and check it out), but other than some heavy storms that blew through before dawn, I managed to jinx off the all-day rain that was predicted and the trusses for the workshop/studio are here and they've been able to work all morning.

Things are pretty noisy up there, so let's return to the pond.



Deep breath. Can you hear the red winged blackbirds calling from the adult cattails?



(The old man's starting to look old :-/).

I lucked into some really nice sheep shots as I was walking back as well.

Tomorrow.

Lichen Logs

I not only collect bird nests (shhh - don't tell - did you know you actually need a permit to do that?), but I collect bird houses as well.



This is one of my favorites. It's wedged into the main fork of a very old red bud tree and I walk past it on my way to the barn. No one has ever used it (many of my houses are used, surprisingly) and I noticed the cobwebs on it this morning and felt right at home. In a comfortable sort of way and not in any way implying that our house is full of dust and cobwebs - no, not at all ;-).

If you click to biggify, you'll see that not only is it dusty and cobwebby, but the lichens are moving in as well. I think that's neat. And pretty. And at very least I can say, "Well, I don't have lichens in my house."



Here is another yard shot this morning. The bird house in the background is full of chirpy babies.

And what is up with weeds? It's like they just keep coming back or something. St. Francis is just to the right.

Progress

Okay! Okay! Here are some construction pictures. With a corgi picture and some sheepie toes at the end (for those of us more interested in fur and fuzz than 2x4's and plywood ;-).



View walking up to the barn. This is the exact floor plan of the old building (16'x20'). I guess it looks bigger (at least in real life) because the walls are taller.



Looking back towards the house. There is another window behind the ladders. The door on the right hand side will open out onto a screened in 8'x20' porch with a drop down skirting table, plenty of room for spinning wheels, some comfortable chairs and two ceiling fans, because it's freakin' hot here.



View out the front window. I'm planning on placing my work table here so I can see what's happening out back. On second thought, maybe that's not such a great idea...



There is a 4' wide open storage loft covering the two sides and back (towards the house - the two smaller windows).



Today they poured the concrete for the wash room. This too is 8' x 20' and will have built in drying racks so the hammock can be retired to...well, who am I fooling...the only thing that hammock will ever get used for is drying wool.



I had the brilliant idea that all the animals should walk through the concrete on this side as it was drying. Wouldn't it be cute to see all the sheep and dog and cat and chicken and horse shoe tracks throughout the wash room?

Not such a great idea in real life.

I made a couple attempts - that didn't work and would have been awful to live with - that the builders kindly fixed. I really had my heart set on it though, so in the end, I had Keebler and Graham Lamb come over and make their mark right inside the doorway. That way, if it didn't work out we could just cover it with a doormat. It's cute. At least to me. And that's what's important.



The main part of the building (which will be insulated and climate controlled) and the enclosed wash room are going to covered with these boards and battens.

Weaslie's going to be crushed when she finds out these aren't really her own giant chew toys.

Tomorrow they are enclosing the wash room and Thursday the trusses come.

Pretty exciting!