Tag Archives: Pets

What happens when you innocently wander into the feed store to buy, well, feed, and you happen to hear some chirping and cheeping?

Apparently, if you’re me, you bring home 6 new ducklings.

They are Khaki Campbell, of unknown gender as yet.  They are still rather small and downy-soft, but luckily these babies come to the farm when the temperatures have turned summery, so I haven’t needed a heat lamp.

Oona of course is smitten.

She wants to name two of them Dasher and Nibbler.

Orzo’s pretty interested in them as well.

Hopefully these little guys stick around here for a good, long time.

Too corny?

Ah, well.  Yesterday the flock finally was freed from their heavy fleeces (just in time for temps to plummet and rain to fall all day today). But yesterday. Yesterday was glorious.  Later in the evening there was much more frolicking than I have seen since…..well, last spring.

I love watching Emily work, and I love seeing the wool coming off to reveal the little bodies underneath.

Wembley’s fleece came off in a solid, felted clump, not unlike a rug.  Poor thing. When a sheep has been as sick as she was, it’s no surprise.  I’m sure the three or four baths I gave her didn’t help. But, now she’s well and free of the old fleece and can start a new, healthy coat.

Now, this. This is what I love to see. The colored flock. The sun-bleached outer layer, the darker layer at the skin, and all the variation in between.

The pure Border Leicesters were mostly silver underneath; the Border Leicester/ Cormo crosses were more black underneath.

Our friend Amy came and helped out with hooves, while Emily’s dog watched (and snatched hoof clipping to chew on).. Seriously, she was a HUGE help. And unsurprisingly, Emily can easily manage a sheep one-handed while Amy and I struggled tag-teaming them.

The goats were surprisingly well-behaved for her.

Neve helped out, too, of course!

Cassie.

Lyra

Ursa – who is seriously the tiniest thing once you get her out of her coat!

Wembley the Wonder Lamb.

I know everyone is sad we were unable to have a party for shearing this spring, but trust me, we had a great reason (BABYBABYBABY) that Susan will update y’all with soon enough.

In the meantime, I hope all of your steps are as light and carefree as the flock!

Just when all was starting to return to normal around here (and all of my seed catalogs were calling to me, reminding me I need to start my seeds), we got another snowstorm.

It was quite lovely.  Of course, the town was in no way prepared for it.  People were trying to drive home from work in it and there were abandoned cars everywhere on our road. Paul was out on the tractor clearing our neighborhood until pretty late, but thankfully neither of us had to be anywhere.

I love when it’s just snowed and all of the trees are heavy with it; it’s very Narniaesque!

Today it’s bright and sunny and in the upper 50’s, so everything is melting off and I am back to thinking we actually see spring soon.

It also means I can let our little Wembley outside to get some sun and fresh air.

Wembley, you see, has been living in my bathtub for the past week or so.

“I know there’s a cat there, but I am going to stare you down for more treats”.

Right before I got sick, we found her at evening feeding time laying in the hay with her head pinned back. Susan and I agreed that this looked exactly like a thiamine deficiency. But, not having any pure thiamine on hand, and out of an abundance of caution, a trip to the vet was in order.

Dr. Davis gave her an IV with thiamine and some glucose to keep her blood sugar up. She couldn’t find anything else wrong with her, so home we went, with instructions to keep her warm and keep her blood sugar levels up.

Into the tub she went, with some hay, food, and warm water mixed with molasses.

She’s been getting many, many shots of thiamine and plenty of attention. Her head is no longer pinned back to her side and her appetite is monstrous. She’s been in the tub awhile, though, and her limbs are a bit unused to holding her weight, so I’ve been taking her outside when I can and trying to get her to stand up.  She tries all the time, but in the tub she cant get any traction to stand.  Otherwise, she is the picture of health!

“Seriously, lady. Make with the treats.”

“Hello, cat. Do YOU have treats?”

I’m hoping her strength returns soon and she can be back out with the flock. Keeping a lamb in the tub is just as adorable – and disgusting – as you can imagine.

I don’t usually sing the praises of warm weather in January; mostly because it’s enough of a tease that it makes those bone-chilling February days seem cruel after the fact.  Today, though, we were lucky enough that it was both a holiday AND the weather was nice enough that we could tackle some more important farm work with Paul home. And BONUS: I had my phone with me so you can see some sweet sheepy noses!

One of our lambs, Finchley, has been scouring (he has diarrhea), and since they can get super dehydrated, super fast, I’ve been giving him a supplemental bottle of lamb milk.  The dogs absolutely LOVE it.  Here’s Orzo having a bit after Finchley’s evening dose.

I’ve also discovered that I can’t mix this stuff up in the kitchen if the kitten is around or she will tear me to bits trying to get at it.

Lamb congregation. They were expecting me to produce their evening food.

Yeardley and Wimbledon seem to be having a conversation.

Mabel got moved to the back coop.

Fairfax is looking sassy.

Get my good side.

Fresh bale, delivered into the new shelter……

….which hopefully can withstand Caramel.

Check out Perivale’s spotted ears!!!!

Staunton.

Perivale.

Wembley still likes to get all up in your business.

Suspicious Wimbledon is suspicious.

We also finally got our Christmas tree out to them, and they dove right in.

Hannah loooooooves the taste of pine!

We also got some fresh bedding into the prison coop and discovered an egg had been laid.  Fingers crossed this means we will start seeing some production out of these girls at last! (We’ve been threatening them with the stewpot but they’ve been unphased.)

Now that we’ve had this lovely mid-50’s weather I wonder how long before I’ll be posting super snow pictures!