Love is in the Air

Well, it's breeding season again for the sheep. We have some excellent matches this year and I am almost as excited as when it is lambing season! I am probably not as excited as the rams though.
Everyone is in separate love nests, a ram with one or two ewes, for a period of 3 to 4 weeks depending on when the business gets done. I make checks on them a few times a day to see if the ewes have finally stopped running from the ram to settle down, and I can record the date for the upcoming blessed event.
Then in December it starts all over again with the ewe lambs, who will not be ready until then.
If all goes as planned, lambs will start arriving about April 1st, and the last ones will come in May, hopefully mid May, before it gets too hot.
We have posted all the pairs on the Our Flock page, so you can imagine how the new lamb crop will turn out! Stay tuned!

Shearing Day!

Well, shearing day went off with no problems, everyone is naked and funny looking, getting
reaquainted with each other and their new extreme makeover looks.
I have bags of unskirted fleece calling out to me and I will spend many hours picking out tiny pieces of hay and vegetation. But, it will all be worth it to have that lovely, silky, shiny, soft and warm yarn to play with and offer to our customers later on this winter!
This picture is Elaine, our ewe lamb who was shivering on the first cold morning without her natural blanket of warmth, so I took pity on her and loaned her my vest!

Border Patrol
So Friday afternoon, I've just come home from work and am preparing to spend a few hours focusing on making a delicious lamb chili recipe to wow the crowds at the farmers market the next day, when there is a knock on the door.
The cows are out. They are happily grazing in the neighbors pasture a few houses down the street.
I grab a bucket of grain and head out to start the long process of getting them back where they belong, needless to say, the chili plan went out the window.
Saturday afternoon the chore list called for finishing up the ram pen so we can move the boys away from the girls and plan for breeding. Instead, we do border patrol.
Our fenced area for the cattle is a mixture of grassy pastures, woods, swampy swales and an area we call the clear cut, although now it's more like thistle and wild rose hell. All of this is surrounded by a fencing system that consists primarily of very old barbed wire and cedar posts that are floating free of the ground in many places.
We go through it a couple times a year (usually when there is a break out) to yank on the wires, nail them to trees, twist up the tension with sticks, prop up posts with rocks, lift up fallen logs, and do what ever it takes to keep the cattle where we would like them to stay. On this day it is hot and muggy, not the nice cool dry September day you would wish for when planning a stroll in the woods. The mosquitoes are feasting on us as we slog through swampy, boot sucking terrain, getting scratched and gouged by vicious thorn bearing rose branches, searching for the the elusive escape routes.
You would think in such nasty difficult areas, the cows would stay out, lazing around on the grassy slopes, livin the good life. But no. There are plenty of large hoof prints to tell us they also participate in border patrol. Thing is, they do it almost daily, so when there is a crack in the high tech security system that we use for fencing, they go for a walk! We find not one, but many places of cow adventure opportunity, so we do the usual repairs and call it good.
As we walk along the ridiculously flimsy fence line, I think to myself, this would never contain my sheep, nor would a sheep predator give it a second glance before raiding an attack on them.
I know I don't talk up the cattle much, but they are easy keepers, bless them, and that gives my husband more time to turn his attention to helping me with the sheep!

Late summer evenings

The field is lush from all the rain.
Yes, it has brought an unusually bad parasite season for shepherds, everyone has been complaining, it has dampened vacations, mine included... but tonight, after a few days of sun and warmth, it is as green and thick as late spring. The animals are gorging themselves, having just been let into a new area to graze. The sky grows dusky, the crickets sing, the air is cool and fragrant. As I walk through my pasture talking to my flock, I am filled with happiness at the sight of them. After weeks of being wet and muddy and ratty looking, they suddenly are clean and fluffy, with fleeces blowing in the breeze. Lambs are filling out and showing me their promise for the breeding season to come. These are the moments I offer thanks for the blessings of a farming life and the friends discovered with it, both 2 and 4 legged.

Summertime and the Livin is......

.....Easy?
Not around here. Our song should be "The heat is on", and I don't mean temperature. The heat would be pressure, to complete a myriad of projects with the list never getting any shorter. Kind of like pulling a weed that sprouts three more shoots the next day. We are making hay at the moment, racing the clock with a stretch of dry weather, the same game played every year. Maybe this year we will get a good crop of second cut as well... we can only hope!
Mums are planted for fall deliveries, 400 pots, ever thirsty in the sun.
There are so many projects we have to do it makes my head spin at wee hours of the morning, my only comfort is getting up and writing lists, as if somehow putting it all on paper where I can read it will help take it out of my brain so I can rest.

The animals are the only sensible ones. They casually graze when its cloudy or cooler, and in the heat of the day they lay in the cool barn, or under the poplar trees. Chickens take dust baths and cows wade slowly in the pond cooling their bellies.
I guess we need to take lessons from them and work on chilling out and not stressing out.
It will all get done eventually!

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