She's Not Fat

She's well insulated!  :-D

As I walked into the barn tonight to check on everything, I thought about how much I missed seeing sheep sleeping behind the barn like normal.  Frequently Maisie is sleeping up against the gate, B. Willard is usually next to the lamb pen fence, Lila's in the corner and Graham is, well, Graham could be anywhere.  Renny likes to sleep out back.  Blossom's almost always back there and every now and then Petunia.  

Some sheep always sleep in the barn.  Buddy, Woolliam, Boudreaux, Ewen McTeagle, Peabody, PeePee, all of the Jacobs...  And they are usually in the same spots every night.  Buddy and Woolliam sleep so soundly that I can walk all the way up to their door and even turn the lights on and they may never open their eyes.  I love sleepy sheepies :-).

This cold though has everyone tucked inside.  Or does it?  As I looked out the back door to see how Jester and Elizabeth were doing, there was Blossom (or as I now call her, for a reason I've long forgotten, Baba) comfortably sleeping out in the open, with 20 mph winds blowing across her!  

She got up and came inside when I set out a little more hay and when I stopped to talk to her I noticed she still had frozen snow from the storm the other day crusted down her back.  Her fleece has her so well insulated that her body heat has never leaked out enough to melt that snow!  No wonder she was so happy outside :-).

So, if you need an extra warm sweater or blanket for next winter, she's your girl :-D.

'Night all!

The Enforcer

Rebecca Boone:  "Hmmm, what's going on out there?"

Daniel:  "I'm just going to keep my mouth shut and try to stay out of this one."

Woolliam:  "I don't like this one bit!"

Baby Belly:  "Me neither and I'm gonna go take care of it.  Chocula needs to stop bothering my (five year old ;-) baby!"

Woolliam:  "Step aside little lady.  Let me handle this!"

That's Clover Belly and Baby Belly standing together off to the right :-D.

With the rest of the peanut gallery gathered around.

Ewen:  "Kids..."

I ended up leaving Elizabeth in her "own home" last night.  I added some more wind blocking plastic around the north and west sides and more cozy straw on the inside.  Jester is in there with her.  He's not super happy about it, but he's easily bought off with graham crackers ;-). 

A Little Sunshine...From The Other Day

It's too cold to sleep outside like this today. The sun IS shining this morning and Hank's out there, but he's curled up with his nose tucked under his tail. Still happy though.  He and I love winter...most of the time.  

Here are a couple shots of his buddy Miss Maisie.  When she's not sleeping with him, this is her spot in the big stall :-).

"I'm still pretty stinkin' cute :-)."

I took a bunch of fun(ny)  pictures (and lucked into a really nice one of Rebecca Boone) on Monday. We have more/better snow now, but it's so finger freezing cold that I've let my camera sit.  Monday's snow was more fun, so I'll keep posting those pictures.

The furnace is limping along and the house is warm.  Elizabeth and I are fighting about where she wants to live.  She's miserable in the heated pen and is adamant about staying in her own home.  I can understand that.  What do I do?  Force her to move into a "nursing home" or let nature take its course "at home"?  She's a tough old bird, but the forecast is just not great.

While we're all thinking on that, here's another silly video that will make you smile.  This one is a little longer and some of the super boring stuff could have been taken out, but there are a couple priceless close ups mixed in and I decided to let it ride. 

I do these by setting my camera up somewhere (this time it's on the Grahaminator), turning it on and walking away.  I've figured out how to cut out the beginning and the end, but haven't had time to figure how to cut out parts of the middle and the middles mean something to me anyway... 

The first foghorn you hear is Buddy.  Of course :-).  Then you can hear me clear my throat and Maisie wicker back at me.  I think she's so cute following me around.  It looks like I'm wandering all over setting out random piles of hay, but really I'm looking for any openings that allow me to get through with the least amount of spillage on fleeces.  I think it's funny how they keep moving to fresh piles like maybe this one is better...  Sheeps ;-).

And that's why you should always keep an inexpensive UV filter lens on the end of your not-so-inexpensive lenses ;-).

Sunlight

Quick post from the land of no furnace.  Well, the furnace is fine (I hope) but yet another thermostat has tanked (I hope).  Regardless, it's as much fun as you can imagine at MINUS SIX this morning :-o.  Not to worry, the repairman has been called, but while I can put on a warm wool sweater, our water pipes can't.  This normally wouldn't be a big concern in Kentucky...

Since I think we could all probably stand to soak up some sun, here's Betsy in the barn rafters a couple  mornings ago.  I'm sure I could have framed this better, but I still like the shot.  The colors are pretty and the white contrast with the dark loft background provides something a little different. 

I used my "spot" metering setting to take this picture.  That's a simple manual setting that I'm pretty sure every camera has (check your manual or look your camera up online ;-).  What spot metering does is read the light just off her rather than trying to read the light throughout the whole picture.  

Under normal circumstances, our cameras do a pretty good job balancing everything out, but in this situation, with a bright white cat in full sun and a dark shadowed background, with "matrix" metering (the whole picture area), Betsy's white got blown out (glaring white and no detail).  You could see much of the barn rafters in the background, but since I wanted the picture to be of Betsy, I wanted Betsy to look her best. 

I play around with this setting when I'm taking pictures of something going on in the barn, when I'm trying to take a picture of something with the sun not at my back, if it's sunny and I'm trying to take a picture of bright white(ish ;-) Hank...  Give it a try sometime :-). 

Speaking of pictures, I posted some early morning shots on Twitter today.  I wish I'd had my big girl camera.  It was a stunningly beautiful morning.  As the sun rose over Stella's hill, it was so cold that our ponds were steaming.  And the steam was sitting in layers over the water.   And the sunlight turned it pink.

The horses had frosty noses and eye lashes and even T-Bone's neck hair was frosted.  I've never seen that before.  Hank was still curled into a tiny ball in his straw bed.  He looked up as I brought him some breakfast, but decided he might sleep in a little bit longer.  Maisie was ready to start her day!

About The Bells

"Who has bells and could you show me what a good bell and collar look like? Who would you like to see have a bell? :)" 

I originally purchased three bells from Premier1.  Mine are the Swiss Bells.  I didn't feel comfortable using their nylon collars in case they got it caught on something, so picked out simple leather (breakable) dog collars from Tractor Supply.  

I knew right off who two of the "lucky" bell wearing sheep would be, for two completely different reasons.  The third bell?  Well, I thought maybe Annabelly would like to be special...but NO!  Rebecca Boone was my next choice, and while she was okay with it, three bells was a bit much.  Two is pretty.  Three is noise.

"I have to wear this stupid bell because they said since I aggravate them all the time, it was my turn to get aggravated.  Whatever.  Now they use it to track my every move.  They say they are amazed at how much I eat, where I eat, how late at night I go out and eat...  

"The collar is the worst.  They use it to drag me all over the place.  "Stand over here, Graham.  Get out of the feed room, Graham.  Stop trying to knock the ladder over, Graham...""

"Whatever."

"I get to wear this pretty bell because I'm special.  I like bling.  One time I got to wear flowers in my hair to get my picture taken.  It was awesome.  You can't really see my bell because I have so much pretty wool.  My wool is almost the same color as my bell and I think it would be cool if someone used my wool to make a cardigan sweater and put brass buttons on it."

Interestingly, as soon as I put the bell on Petunia, something changed with her.  Before that she'd always just been part of the flock.  She was one of those sheep that never caused any trouble or did anything to stand apart from the rest and if you didn't think to initiate contact with her, you might never know how neat she was.  

As Elizabeth has aged, I've wondered who would take her place as the flock matriarch.  Petunia never crossed my mind.  The bell changed that.  With a calm grace that is Petunia, she assumed the duty.  Assumed is probably the best word.  There was no question, no power struggle.  She just stepped up to the plate and is now the leader of the flock.