Zoritta Joins the Family

On Monday afternoon our long awaited Zoritta was delivered to join our farm family!
She is a lovely and statuesque addition to our pastoral scene. Her job is as a guard for the sheep, but she will just be adjusting for a little while right now. She comes to us from Greenbriar Llama Karma Farm in North Berwick, and has spent many years living in the company of other llamas. Here at Pondview Farm there are many new creatures to discover, chickens, cows, sheep, a pasture near a heavily traveled road, so she is decidedly unnerved at it all. In true llama stoic nature, she does not really show this, just quietly humms when she is nervous.
The sheep also are not quite sure about her, and are not the most welcoming group, but the more time passes, everyone slowly relaxes as they realize this new, large, stranger among them is not as scary as they thought. We are thrilled to have her, and hope that soon she may feel the same. For now I talk to her gently and she looks at me with disdain. Good thing I don't take it personally!

Enjoying the spring pastures

Never ending fencing

My husband complains all I blog about is the sheep, and what about his cows?
Okay, the cows are fine, calves are growing well, and we are going to be bringing two new bulls here soon, one for beef and one for possible breeding. There, that's the news on the cattle!
We have been working diligently on fencing for the sheep, every possible spare minute, the fence has taken priority, because they need to eat the grass, (there is no more hay!) and be outside, and can't do that without fence. We have invested in really nice high tensile 6 strand wire fencing and putting it up was challenging if you have never done it before. I give all high praise and genuflect to my husband for the heroic work done thus far. Now it's all up, looks impressive, but not charging enough to keep them inside it, and the frustration involved in trying to figure out why has been torturous. Jasper, the black mouflon badger faced ram lamb is the most adept at escape!
Meanwhile, the lambs are growing beautifully! They all have been putting on amazing gains and filling out to be strong and stocky, with glistening, silky fleece. We had everyone sheared the other day and now can see just how much weight is taken off of those ewes that are nursing and providing the lambs with all that growth! Most look skinny, but okay, a couple look really bony and I will be happy when weaning time arrives and they will have the chance to recover.
My ewe that is raising triplets look pretty good considering, and I'm glad for that.
It is a blessing to my eyes to watch them all grazing in the green field; to see the lambs running and playing king of the tractor bucket. Our long, brutal, record snowfall winter seems very far away these days.