All This & Heaven Too

 Ella & Fella, my Sebastopol geese, were enjoying sunshine this past week. Warm sunshine untypical of our usual January weather. But no worries for us, the rain and high winds are back tonight. "It was a dark and stormy night".

 I cleaned out the goat pen on that rare sunny day and rewarded Thorin with his favorite treat after I was done hauling out 3 wheelbarrows full of manure. Something seems amiss here though, I did the work and he got the treat ? Oh well, he is a very old goat, going on 12 years of age.

 My husband finished the 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzle we received as a Christmas present. Do you see that all the pieces are in varying shades of black & white ? The puzzle became an obsession with him. He would drink his morning coffee while working on it, eat dinner while working on it , and go to bed way too late because he could not let it go. The puzzle dominated our home for a little over 2 weeks. But look, it is done ! I am now declaring we will only have jigsaw puzzles to work on over the Thanksgiving through Christmas season. ( He finished a 1,000 piece Christmas puzzle on Christmas day,then quickly began this one.)

 

 I cleaned two sheep pens last week during sunny and rainy weather , after I cleaned the goat's pen.

I finished weaving 2 rugs ( not shown ) and spun up several skeins of yarn. This is some of my hand-dyed Jacob Sheep wool. I also spun up a few skeins of natural color Jacob Sheep wool, then set the ply . Maybe I'll sell this wool yarn, maybe not. I can think of a few weaving projects this wool might be perfect for.

January has thus far been both restful and hard work. I love the feeling I get after a very hard day of physical work, even if I do smell like sheep and I hurt all over. I love seeing my baskets and bins fill up with the yarn I spin up from the wool of the sheep I love. I love seeing the rugs I weave especially after I cut them off the loom and finish the ends. I love having work to do that is not really work because I still count it all a blessing and a privilege to be able to do these things. And I really love a hot bath after a day of working here on Cedar Pond, and then spinning up yarn on my spinning wheel as I spend a quiet evening with my husband, watching our favorite shows and simply being together. I love my husband. Thank-you God for all these blessings. " All this and Heaven too." au

"The sleep of the working man is pleasant whether he eats little or much." Proverbs 5:12

Preparations For Spring....

This is Swallow Lane Barnaby. He is 11 months old and he has been having a lot of fun with a small flock of ewes ( female sheep ). Barnaby needed to be sheared and then moved to a pen away from the ewes who are due to lamb ( have babies) anytime now. So this afternoon my shearer, actually Lanny's* shearer & husband, came over to shear Barnaby and a 3 other sheep.Barnaby is now a very naked ram lamb and I decided to spare him the embarrassment of displaying his nakedness online, but I am happy with his condition and he appears to be a ram that will out-ram Goth, given the chance. We'll see.....

Here is my Grandson, also my first grandchild. Hallelujah and thank-you Lord, he is a hard worker and he is now old enough and big enough to do hard work for ME ! Here he stops to pose for me by the goat's house and pen.

As you can see Thorin & Bombadil can really make a mess of their place. CT has been working hard to keep their place fairly clean, they do not cooperate though. So this provides CT with a job. And this is a job that needs doing every few weeks, so one could say Thorin and Bombadil are providing CT a valuable employment opportunity, very definitely steady income.

See? And Thorin and Bombadil also provide manure and rotted hay for compost and garden fertilizer. Once in a while I spread all this around our fruit trees and blueberry bushes. You could even say Thorin and Bombadil are regular producers of a valuable commodity in one way or another.

CT is quick about the job, wasting no time to dilly dally.

Younger sister MN is feeding the goats their favorite treat, soda crackers.Here Bombadil eats out of her hand.

Thora , Goth's sister peers over Naomi's back as I snap a picture of my two newly sheared girls. Naomi and Thora have both uddered up and Naomi looks ready to have lambs any day. Spring is in the air....

Goat House

~This is the goat house my Hubby built for my goats because I requested it as a Christmas present. My Hubby would probably prefer not to have so many animals around, but he loves me and when I brought 2 little , tiny baby Nigerian / Pygmy goats home he allowed me to keep them. He also designed and built this deluxe goat condo for me and them! Above is a picture of Thorin, gazing out of the 2nd story apartment . ~Here is a picture of the first floor , it is a hay feeder with standing / reclining space on either side. This is a perfect feeder for goats in the rainy Pacific Northwest. The goats can keep their feet out of the wet and mud while eating and napping. There is also a mineral / salt block in a special holder attached to the inside of the first floor post. ( Bombadil looking toward the camera) ~Thorin climbing the ramp to his apartment, Bombadil looking out. Both Thorin and Bombadil sleep in the 2nd story. It is cute to see them peek out at night when I am outside. They like to sleep in too. During the day they nap by the feeder or on the stumps placed in their pen for jumping and standing on. ~This is the back side of the goat condo. This gets the afternoon sunshine and often both goats will nap here so as to soak up as many rays as possible. You can see they get a good view of the sheep, and what you cannot see is that the busy- body goats also get a full view of our front porch, the drive way and Goth's pen next door to them! ~Blessings: watching goats play, a husband who will build me a goat house to keep goats he did not want in the first place!

Christmas, I Love It!

~This Santa was made by me a few years ago, and he hangs on the wall. I usually hang him on the front porch post, but this year he has joined all the other Santas on an upstairs windowsill.~There is no particular rhyme or reason for my photo selection today except these are pictures that make me happy, and they are seasonally appropriate, and I like being seasonally appropriate......no Easter bunnies here yet!~

~Leah, my 9 year old Jacob sheep ewe peering through another ewe's horns. Leah has a funny face, her teeth make her look like she is sneering, or smiling inward at a funny sheep joke...hmmm, what would be funny to a sheep ?Actually the word that comes to mind when looking at my Leah is 'sardonic', what do you think ?

~This is another Santa I made years ago. Some of the toys originally piled around him have disappeared, maybe he delivered them to children on the other side of the globe....

~Thorin, one of my 2 Pygmy / Nigerian dwarf goats begging for crackers. He too has a funny smile, don't you think ?He always appears to be wearing fake teeth or badly fitting dentures and wearing an odd grin.~

~The birdhouse outside our big living room picture window.Every year we have swallows raising at least 2 broods of young in this. I have been watching the chickadees and juncos perch on the steeple but could never get a picture of them perched there. Look at the snow on top, kind of looks like frosting.~

~The little village veterinary clinic. Don't you wish your veterinary clinic was this picturesque ? This little clinic draws the grandchildren to it. I have watched all of them just sit by it and gaze. Although you can't see from this picture, there is a scene inside the little clinic as you view it from outside the window. I have a barn and farm animals around the clinic, and the whole shebang is sitting on our breakfast bar, little animals, and people in the snow. Trees behind them. And room on the bar to eat and drink hot cocoa while looking at the village scenes and talking to Grandma. ~I wore the grandchildren out. They asked to go to bed, after playing with playdough, my Rudolph toys and baking cookies. #1 Grandson went outside with Poppa to track coyote footprints through the snow and ALL around our property and house, on the ice in the pond...down our road. He and Poppa are on 'coyote watch', because lambs are due anytime and we have discovered there are a LOT of coyotes regularly prowling around here. I have been awakened every night lately hearing coyotes on our front lawn, under the bedroom window. ~Tomorrow, we decorate cookies, do some crafting, playing in the snow and reading more stories. And of course, playing with puppies and cuddle time!Enjoy your winter and the Christmas season, it only comes around once a year!