Holly Sheep!!!

Last one! Is she going to pop or lamb???

(click to biggify for complete affect :)

WIP, second post of today...

This is the lace scarf I have been working on, it doesnt look much like the one in the magazine, but then they seldom do! After it is blocked though it should be a bit closer...

Five Down, One To Go!

This is the latest addition to Rockin' T Ranch. He was born late yesterday afternoon. This may be the only ram I keep out of this years crop to sell as a breeder. Here are some other pics of older lambs...

sunnin... while out side the wind whips and roars...

Then, there is this guy. I have never seen or heard of anything like this, but have been warned of the possibility that this ram lamb may have what is called Border Disease, or hairy shaker disease. I am inclined to believe it is genetic though, because I have read up on BD and don't see how we could have possibly contracted it here (it is viral), as there are no other reports of it in this area, and the only real symptom that he is showing of BD is his ...fur. All the rest of our lambs are fine, but this guy has fur. Not to mention a bald nose and half bald ears. Oh, and he was born with no teeth... could he just be a premie?

See how silky he is (click to biggify)? I don't get it... this ewe had perfect twins last year, this year I bred her to Gus instead of Carmine. All the other lambs out of Gus are fine. The only way I can find out if this is BD is by blood testing the ewe, and I cant afford to do that right now.

Any input would be welcome.

Full Swing!

Losing Tug has kinda put me in a tail spin. I mentioned in a previous post that I was teaching a spinning class last Sunday; that was the day before Tug died. When that happened, nothing else seemed very important.

But that Sunday night coming home from Elko was a total white out, and I wrecked my car. Kinda played ping-pong between the guard rails. I'm fine, didnt even hit my head on the window, the car is dinged up, which is really unfortunate since we just got it back from being worked on after it was hit in December.

Now lambing is in full swing, and this year is moving so fast it doesnt seem real.

We had four more lambs yesterday, Scarlet and Babs both had twins, so the count is 6; 2 ewe lambs and 4 ram lambs.


This guy is out of Babs, she is a brockle, a dorset/suffolk cross, so hes a mut :) love that piebald face! His sister is a bit darker than him with a white tuft on her head.
This is one of Scarlet's boys...

Honey and Vanilla are all thats left out there, both look ready to explode, I think we'll be done by the end of next week.

Thanks everyone for your heartfelt comments about Tug, we miss him very much.

About a dog...

We lost one of our family today.

Tug was born in 2004, he came to live with us in July that year. He was one of 5, born to a toy chihuahua that weighed 4 pounds. His sire was also a toy, he weighed 6 pounds. Full grown, Tug weighed 13 pounds.

Tug was a very unique dog, he was black with a white blaze on his chest; his legs were sturdy, his body a barrel; he was made for a farm.

I had begged Derek for 3 years to let me get a chihuaha, but he kept telling me he didn't want a yapping, ankle biting, miget of a dog. About a month and a half after bringing Tug home, I had to go to Alaska on a fire assignment, when I came home two weeks later, Derek belonged to Tug. He jokingly told me one day, after Tug went to him instead of me, "You know, you really ought to get you one of these dogs...". Tug was my husbands best friend.

He did this cute little dance, standing on his back legs and pawing at the air when he wanted you to pick him up, or wanted to go for a ride. He loved to play fetch and of course, he loved to play tug with an old knotted sock, for which he got his name. He would sleep at night between Derek and I, keeping warm and returning the favor.

He never yapped, he never nipped, he was a 'big' dog.

Sometime this morning, he was killed by coyotes.

Our lives will never be the same.

Baby Grace

I just decided her name is Grace. Not sure why. I do that, a name comes to me and it seems to fit.

Little Grace (as in 'by the grace of God') hasn't been doing so well the last couple days. Granted she is better than she was...

Thursday morning, I slept in a bit, knowing that Little Grace had been fed around 7:30 I wasn't too concerned about getting in there earlier than I did. I went into Jari's room and couldn't find her, I lifted the covers that were wound up in the middle of the bed (typical teen), and out fell Grace; she was over heated, her breathing was labored, she was shaking uncontrollably and couldn't stand. I immediately thought of pneumonia. After giving her 2 ccs penicillin and another shot of B0-Se, I went in search of Vit B Complex, couldn't find it; or my B-12, or LA200... they were all together last year, so assumably they are still together, somewhere.
By this time Grace's fever was down and she wasn't shaking as hard, but she still couldn't stand up or relax. Eventually, after talking to Laura in Oregon (what would I do without you?), and asking if sheep had panic attacks, we came to the conclusion that Grace wasn't suffering from pneumonia, she had panicked under all those blankets and had a seizure.
Little Grace is now back to normal, except now she has mini panic attacks where she will run around the house baaing at the top of her lungs, dodging here and there as if she were being chased by all the hounds of hell. Nothing I do has any affect on this. When she is in this state (no other time) and sees me coming, she jumps and runs away from me and I have to corner her to catch her and try to calm her down; it really doesn't help, she just has to get over it. I am hoping this too goes away soon, DH is on graveyard and the crazed baaing isn't really conducive to Little Grace's health.

I finally got my swift fixed and got started on the lace scarf. I have realized the scarf in the magazine was severely blocked, so it really doesn't look much like it now. And, my 'lace' isn't quite as 'lacy' as theirs is :)

I'm teaching a spindling class tomorrow in Elko, I made up a bunch of baggies with different types of fiber in them and spun samples, then made the spindles. I am starting them off with top from Brown Sheep. Wish me luck!
I contrived a trade with gypsyspinner in Canada, she got a pound of my delectable moorit romeldale and she sent me a pound of alpaca... awwwww, dreamy! Thanks gypsy!

Update

Here is Crimson and her boy, little one is in the house now in diapers and will be until she gets a bit stronger. She is walking really well now, like she was never weak. Here are some pics of her.

I was spinning and felt something on my foot, dont know whether it was the repetitive motion or the noise that knocked her out lol

Hmmm, whats this???

Zonked!

Sansa, our little calico didnt know what to think of her, she kept reaching her paw out to touch her.

New Arrivals

Crimson lambed this morning, around 5:30, a ram lamb and a ewe. The ewe lamb is closest to the wall, she's not doing so good. I am pretty sure at this point that Crimson is rejecting her, but at least she is alive, we didn't think she would make it this long. Neither were very strong, and both had very cold mouths when we got them into the jug, but after drenching with nutri-drench and colostrum, they are both warm now. The ewe lamb is still having a hard time standing, her back legs are weak. They have both nursed, we had to hold Crimson still while standing the little one up, but we managed. The ram lamb nursed on his own.

I went to Elko yesterday (should have bought some lamb replacer in retrospect), and picked up this roving from Carmen. We had made a trade last year of some of my moorit from The Wool Ranch, for some of the finished mohair blend. Carmen raises angora goats and likes to do a 50/50 blend with moorit wool
I had some silk on my wheel (last picture) that I needed to finish before I could start on that, so I was up late last night, as well as up very early this morning...

The price we pay... I love it :) (yawn!)

Family Fun Day!

We haven't done this in quite awhile, and I almost didn't go. I decided to when I got to thinking about how few things we do together as a family since the kids are getting older; Kevin into getting ready for the millitary and Jari interested in friends and boys. We all enjoy shooting sports, and although we usually just kill plastic bottles, we have a very good time :)
Derek, in back with his AR-15; Kevin shooting the 22-250

Derek did the camoflage on the 22-250 himself. Click to biggify for details.

Jari shooting the 10-.22, this is also one of my favorites, you can almost shoot it with no ear protection, not that we ever do, but it is so quiet and has very little kick. Kevin also took his deer rifle, a .270, out with us, that thing is so loud it made my ears ring with ear plugs in, I had to tell him to move over aways so he wouldn't deafen me!

Here I am shooting the AR; this is Dereks baby, with our new president, it has been exceedingly hard to find these, and soon may be impossible to buy... IF you are a law abiding citizen.

Kevin with his boomer .270

Obliterated Clamato juice bottle; I think we got it! The Clorox bottle didn't fair well either...

When we go out we always take every thing home with us that we brought, and usually some of what was already there, hoping that my kids teach their kids and so on, as my Dad and Mom taught me.