About Last Night

I feel like we've gone below zero before, but maybe because of all the snow and ice it felt even colder.  It was miserable.  

I kept hay in front of everyone and they all made it through, but when I walked into the barn this morning feeling around for the light switch and heard a tiny little voice respond "Momma?" to my "Hey guys, just me." and knew that Maisie had stood all night in the skirting area, I nearly cried.  I'm as tired of it as they are.  -7 is just. too. cold.

I took 48 pictures this morning.  Pictures I thought would tell a story.  They probably do, but the pictures themselves weren't worth sharing.  This one is cute though and does tell me a story.  Crazy old Burrnie has fully embraced sneaking over to the gate for handfuls of the Easy Breezy alfalfa or cookies.  

We've had lots of cookie parties to not only help with morale, but also to make sure everyone is acting right.  Tabitha looked better yesterday, but was a little off again this morning.  She's due for her second dose of antibiotics and the weather is sort of breaking so hopefully she'll be on the mend.

Hang in there, southerners.  It's got to end eventually...and then we can all go back to complaining about the heat ;-).

Solstice Sheep Of The Day - Murphy

As we drew near the end of the Solstice Sheep this week I started counting who was still out.  Five to go.  Who were they...Liddy, Tavia, Tessa, Burrnie and Murphy.  Then I was down to three and I drew Liddy and then there were just two.  Ooh, wouldn't it be fun if Murphy was the last one?

I fed Bea and the cats and put the kettle on and finally got up my nerve to pull today's tag...Dang it,  Murphy!  Wouldn't that have been a great story if the sheep who is best known for being the first out every dang day of the year turned out to be the very last sheep on the Solstice calendar?  Oh well, it's still a pretty good story.

I've been sharing everyone's favorite treats and at first glance this picture doesn't appear to be a treat picture, but it is.  Besides being the leader of the flock, Murphy's main claim to fame is opening gates.  So much so that there were some many times I toyed with sticking him in a big cardboard box with, or sometimes without, air holes and shipping him back to New York.

Murphy's motivation for opening gates is always food related and his main goal in life these days is to move into Easy Breezy (on the other side of this gate).  Oh, he doesn't want to move into a retirement home.  He just wants to steal their food.  

Murphy is obsessed with any treats, but is especially fond of the chopped alfalfa fed to the Easy Breezy sheep.  

Solstice Sheep Of The Day - Liddy

Liddy's claim to fame?  She got kicked out of a fiber festival!

"I did?"

Well, they didn't make her leave early, although I'm sure they wanted to, but we were asked to never bring her back.  Why?  Liddy is a talker...and she has the voice of a three pack a day smoker.  People complained that she was "growling".

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Volume Up

I had a question about Andy's bell back at the beginning of the Solstice series and I thought I would just answer it when Liddy's turn came about, figuring she'd not be far behind...and here we are three from the end.  Liddy is the other belled sheep.  There are just two even though it sometimes sounds like more.

The bells do a couple of jobs here.  First I can always find the sheep, just by listening for them.  They don't go out in the dark, but we can have some really foggy mornings and because of the bells I've been able to tell which field they are in even when it's so thick I can't see them.  

The other thing the bells do is tell me what the sheep are doing.  If they are just grazing or walking back in from the back fields, the bells just jingle.  If something has spooked the sheep and they are running in, the bells CLANG CLANG CLANG and I know to go check.

Sometimes the bells also tell me when Liddy is into something she shouldn't be.  Liddy comes out for an extra breakfast in the mornings and sometimes stays with the Easy Breezy sheep longer than she's able to keep herself out of trouble.  

Liddy loves all treats, but especially loves her special breakfasts.  She could just move into Easy Breezy...but she doesn't stay out of trouble.  Ever.  That bell is always ringing.

And One More Thing

"I'm just going to head out for awhile.  Don't wait up."

In my late night effort to not get a week behind on the SOTW I forgot to tell Baba's most unique behavior.  I'm not sure if I just raised her to be extra independent or if she would have turned out this way on her own, but on the rare occasion I leave the farm, I always have to leave a note for our farm sitter.

"If you find a sheep left all by itself in the barn when everyone else goes out to graze, this is normally a sign of trouble.  However, if the sheep is a fat, fluffy white one who also has a big black dot on one ear, that's just Baba...and she's most likely just fine."

Baba could not care less if everyone else has left her to go out to pasture.  If she's not hungry or is enjoying a particularly good nap, she's not going.  She also does not care if everyone is bedded down for the night in the cozy barn.  If she's hungry, she's going to go out and graze.  In the dark.  By herself.

She has always been this way.  Her favorite place to graze used to be down by the creek.  This could be due to fond memories of hanging out there in the evenings with me, Hank and Betsy when she was a lamb.  

I used to not worry about her doing that when Hank was alive.  Now I don't let her (or any other sheep) go down there at night.  When she moved herself into Easy Breezy this winter, she was happy to find she could now go out into the securely fenced yard all night if she wanted...until Rocky started having so much vision trouble.

Rocky stays out in Del Boca Vista during the day, but I bring him into Easy Breezy at night so he has some company and a warm, soft bed and can only get a little lost.  Jared really doesn't like being in DBV and prefers to be indoors.  He takes care of Rocky during the day so he gets to choose where they sleep at night ;-).

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Because I don't want Rocky to wander out the front barn doors at night and either get lost or tangled up in something he can't see, I've started putting gates up to keep everyone safe inside.  This is not making Baba happy.  

This is bothering her so much so that she and I had a big knock down drag out about it last night.  A literal knock down, drag out.  She kept trying to knock down the wooden gates or at least drag them out of the way so she could go where she wanted.  I felt a bit like I was trying to put a toddler to bed.

The incident reminded me that I'd missed sharing this trait in her SOTW post.  Putting the February end of the month photo compilation reminded me that I had a good picture of her at night.  And now typing it up here has reminded me that I forgot to post the month end on here as well. 

Two posts in one day, twice in a week. I wish I was just really ambitious and not just disorganized ;-).

Troublemaker, Guardian, Meteorologist, Friend

Spud is having trouble getting around and I thought if he moved to Easy Breezy he'd be able to just walk out the side door, straight onto the grass rather than all the way down the aisle and across the driveway.  He could also have access to hay all day and night with no competition.  

He's been used to eating breakfast and dinner with Short Round and that's already her favorite place to sleep.  She likes to graze the yard as well and I knew if I set them up in there she would love having all day access to an open gate to come and go as she pleased.

The other member of their breakfast club is Maisie, but I didn't even consider moving her to the other end of the barn.  She'd be lost if she couldn't sit in her normal spot and watch the back of the barn.  

The first day and night went okay.  Short Round was happy with the arrangement and Spud seemed okay as well.  The second day the weather changed and rain started blowing into the EB end of the barn so I closed the roll down door.  This makes for a cozy spot out of the wind.

At evening feeding time Maisie was not in her normal watchdog spot in the aisleway.  She'd moved into the middle stall.  I wondered if she knew the weather was really going to turn ugly and we needed to add meteorologist to her resume.

By the night check, winter had definitely arrived.  As I walked into the barn, Spud hollered at me.  He doesn't say much unless he needs something so I always go find him.  Before I could answer back, Maisie hollered.  Maisie always has something to say these days, usually involving wanting more food ;-).  Spud yelled, Maisie yelled, Spud yelled, Maisie yelled...

Spud wasn't in any sort of physical trouble when I got to him, but it was windy and he wasn't used to being in that part of the barn and the north wind was whipping at the door and I think he was scared.  I turned on a night light for him and Short Round, gave them some extra hay and everything settled down.

The walk through door on the side of EB isn't as wind proof as I'd like.  I'd blocked it with a feeder that night and  Tim was going to rebuild it in the morning.  The wind, rain, freezing rain and snow yesterday made working outside a miserable chore and since I knew Spud would be happier back in his normal spot, at least until this nasty weather moved on, I let him move back in and put the door rebuild off for a nicer weekend.  

At the night check last night this is where I found Spud and Maisie.  

When the weather is bad, Spud prefers to move into the middle stall.  I think Maisie moving in there the night before had less to do with the weather and more to do with wanting to be nearer to her friend, maybe more to comfort him than herself. 

The most interesting sheep in the world apparently does have a sweet side.  

Oldies But Goodies

I think I've talked about "Easy Breezy" on the blog, but in case I haven't, it's the bigger version of Del Boca Vista, utilizing the end of the outside stall and the level paddock next to the barn.  DBV is perfect for a couple sheep, but when the population as a whole starts getting older, more and more sheep needed to move into "assisted living" this fall.

Silly Lila, one of my very favorite bottle lambs from quite a few years ago.  She's not exceptionally old, but she has some arthritis issues that make it hard for her to keep up with the younger sheep.

Popcorn PeePee Pants.  Her birthday is in January, but I don't remember the exact day.  I'd look it up on the blog...but she's older than the blog!  She will be 14 next month.  

PPPP is the lamb on the bookmarks we hand out in the festival booths :-).  She makes a nice puzzle, too ;-).

Renny the invincible.  She's not old and definitely not skinny, but she's starting to have trouble with her horribly damaged back legs and can't negotiate the hills on the other side of the barn any longer.  She's loving the Easy Breezy life ;-D.

Billy Belly and Heidi.  Heidi is another of the old girls.  She'll be 13 this spring.  Billy Belly is only 11 this year, but he was a bit thin heading into fall so I moved him into Easy Breezy so he could get some extra food.  He's also loving the EB life ;-D.

Ewen McTeagle (11), Woolliam (10) and Allie (12) do still come out and graze at least a little bit.  Ewen can usually be talked into grazing in the yard for a few minutes after breakfast if I stand out there with him.  Allie likes to go out in the afternoons and Woolliam does a bit, but he's also quite happy to hang out indoors and eat hay and wait for the next Bingo game ;-).