I Lost..No, I Won! Thank-you Vickie ~

Vickie Fears & I had a friendly blogging competition on who could eliminate the most underground varmints in a year.Vickie and her family farm suffer terribly from the devastation groundhogs cause, and my husband and I ( and our property) suffer from mole destruction. Please do not take this lightly because it is pretty bad. Anyway, Vickie Fears is a fearsome ( pun intended) foe of the varmints and she won 2 years in a row. I intended to send her a prize and she told me "no", she was sending me a prize for being such a good loser. I like the sound of that...being a good loser, well, if that includes a prize I can deal with it. Little did I know that when I opened my prize I would cry because it was so perfect, and so precious.Look at the ink & watercolor above I received in the mail from her.How did you know Vickie, that this would mean so much to me? Vickie, you truly caught the spirit of Abel here and also, you portrayed the eyes of a ram perfectly, a feat I do not see often. The eyes of a sheep or goat are hard to capture just right, but you did! Abel was a ram I loved, a triplet lamb from my very first Jacob sheep, Joy. Joy died of old age ( 17 years old) in our garden, and Abel was a very good ram who never displayed the bad behavior rams are notorious for. Abel also seemed to be constantly adorned with greenery in a way no other ram I have ever had has displayed.Most of the sheep I have now are in some way related to Joy & Abel, and I appreciate them more now as the years have gone by .Vickie, I do not think I can adequately express how much your gift / prize has touched me, and how much of a treasure it already is. Thank-you, very much.Please check out Vickie Fear's blog* and be sure to click onto her web-site showing her art.

Spot on Spotted ( Jacob ) Rams

~Above is a picture of one of the first Jacob rams I kept here on Cedar Pond. Cedar Pond's Abel,( only a few months old when this picture was taken ) on the left, was a triplet son of my first and oldest Jacob sheep ewe, Maple Creek Joy.Joy died of old age when she was 17 years old. Did you know sheep could live that long ?I had Joy here at Cedar pond for 15 years of her life and still have some of her great-grandchildren. Anyway, look closely at Abel. For some reason, this ram was always decked out in greenery. I used this picture one year as my Christmas card photo. " Deck the horns with boughs of blackberry, baa ,baa ,baa ,baa ,baa....

~Here is Abel, several years older, again decked in greenery!~

~And again! I don't have any other rams who will walk around for days wearing their boughs of fir, blackberry, etc. For one thing, any sheep wearing greenery immediately finds flock mates walking alongside them , munching on the greenery until it is gone. So Abel needed to keep clear of snacking sheep to keep his finery.Note Abel's horns. My daughter-in-law Breezy called it the "Elvis thing going on with his horns". ~This is another ram I purchased from Swallow Lane Jacobs when he was only 5 months old. He grew very large horns very fast. I named him Swallow Lane Torque, and I named him Torque, meaning "a necklace, amulet, or collar, worn especially by ancient Gauls, Britons, and Germans, twisted collar" Funk & Wagnalls. I think a collar of horn qualifies as a torque. However, the many men who viewed Torque at the Puyallup Fair thought his name represented 'torque' in other ways.

~Cedar Pond's Thistle, a son of Torque, was killed by his brother.....~

~Cedar Pond's Goth. This is Goth at only 4 or 5 months old.~

~This is Goth now. He is the father of........~

~Cedar Pond's Vandal! This is Vandal at only 7 months of age. He looks very much like his grandpa Torque.~

~Goth says: " I am still THE ram on Cedar Pond!"

"Then Abraham raised his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him a ram caught in the thicket by his horns; and Abraham went and offered him up for a burnt offering in place of his son." Genesis 22:13

A Chosen Road

"Few can foresee whither their road will lead them, till they come to it's end." J.R.R.Tolkein~~~This is a painting by my Aunt Ruby Crawford. I love this painting and was overjoyed when she gave it to me. I had admired it in her home. It reminds me of her home in the Albany, Oregon area, and is remarkably like much of the area here in Western Washington. The sheep grazing in the pasture , with the road to the barn and onto...where ? The valleys, and mountains beyond. What lies beyond the mountains ? Rivers, towns, more farms ?Maybe the ocean...you see farms in valleys, with mountains AND the ocean bordering them in many parts of western Oregon and Washington. ~~~What road are you following ? What road was a determining factor and path in the life you are living now ? Would you have chosen another path if you could go back to the fork in the road, or are you content with your choice... are you wiser because of the wrong path that led to better choices and decisions? Did you take the rocky and winding path and make it a beautiful journey or exciting adventure you look forward to every day?

~~~This is Maple Creek Joy. The picture is not very good because it is a picture of a picture. Joy was my very first Jacob sheep and she was one of the paths I chose , and believe to have been a wonderful journey and adventure I am still exploring! Joy was the beginning of my flock of Jacob sheep, and that has led to so many other things that have enriched my life . ~~~Joy died last Fall. She lived here on Cedar Pond for 15 years. She died of old age ( I think) She was 17 years old. Joy was always a very shy ewe, and preferred to stay just out of reach, but always interested in the comings and goings around here. I have some of her grandchildren. Joy was my teacher in the ways and differences of Jacob sheep compared to other breeds we had kept. ~~~This is Joy in 1999 with 2 of her triplets. The smallest lamb was a ram lamb I named Abel. Abel is still alive and is magnificent. He is one of the few rams to keep a mild disposition as he got older. That is probably why he still lives !

~~~Thank-you Joy, you were a blessing!~~~