Farm Photo 3/12/08: Cary Babies?

Room For Two In There?

Wondering who Cary is? Meet her in A Tiny Tail For Mother's Day.

Cary is a twin, and her father is a twin, so there's a good chance that Cary could have twins. This photo was taken back on Febrary 22nd, when I realized that Cary had begun to look wider than all of the other sheep.


There's Definitely More Of Cary Than There Was This Time Last Year

And now that she's been sheared. . .


It Looks Like There's A Very Good Chance cary Could Have Twins

Some of you might remember my mentioning in December's Cary update that within 24 hours of putting Studly Do Right Jefferson in with the girls to do his One And Only Job last fall, he'd jumped Cary's bones - which means she'll be one of the first ewes to give birth this year. And it should happen any day now. I wonder if she'll hire The Nanny Bear to help out.

Pregnant Pause

Don't worry - she's more excited than she looks.

NEWSFLASH! Make that should be any minute now. It's taken me a couple of days to get this post up, and meanwhile Cary has just gone into labor! Needless to say, we're both a little frantic. Cross your hooves and fingers everything goes okay!

Want to see more?
Cary Stories & Photos
Sheep Shearing Photos
Lambing Season 2006
Lambing Season 2007
More Sheep Photos

© 2008 FarmgirlFare.com, the award-winning blog where just because my baby is having a baby (or babies!) you can't start calling me Granny.

Farm Photo 2/19/07: I Love Black Sheep!

Suffolk sheep (which is what I mostly have) are known for having white bodies with black faces and legs, but Suffolk lambs are often born covered with adorable black spots and splotches. (Chip and Chip, my 11-year-old pet wethers, were so named because curled up together as newborns they resembled two scoops of chocolate chip ice cream.) Some lambs, like Cary and her twin brother, are actually born completely black. But the spots quickly fade away, and even the fully black lambs eventually become white.

When I started raising sheep, my goal was to have a naturally colored flock that would provide me with gorgeous wool to spin into yarn for knitting, and so I bought a Border Leicester ram who had wonderful long black wool. I bred him to my white ewes, and because the ewes I have now are all related to my original flock, many years later there is still some of that black Border Leicester blood flowing through their veins.

My plans to learn to spin have long since fallen by the wayside, but I am always thrilled whenever a true black lamb is born on the farm. There is just something about black sheep that I have always loved. Unfortunately that jet black wool quickly bleaches to brown or grey in the sun (which is still very nice).



But unlike the faded-to-white Cary, that original dark color is still hiding under there.




And when shearing time comes around, these gorgeous girls are back in black (well, except for the big pale spot on this one's back, which started out about the size of a quarter and just keeps growing as she does). This is one of Snugglebunny's 2006 twin girls. Her sister is Lucky Cherry, who was born all speckled but faded to white (and now that she's had her little woolly face sheared, bears an uncanny resemblance to Cary).

Click here to see more photos and read more about Sheep Shearing Day 2007. (Note: I've started using Blogger's new labels for my posts, so this link will take you to all the recent posts labeled "sheep shearing," including this one. Just scroll down past it to reach the others.)

A year of Farm Photos ago:
2/19/06: Same Scene, New View
And WDB#22: Winter Spring

Farm Photo: 2/18/07

One-month-old Baby Cary spent Sheep Shearing Day 2006 safely tucked in a makeshift playpen adjacent to all the action.



This year she was right in the thick of things (for the entire time, since she was the last of 55 sheep to be sheared), but the faithful Nanny Bear kept her company. . .



When he wasn't guarding the gate to make sure no sheep escaped unsheared! (Is it 'unsheared' or 'unshorn?')

Don't know who Cary is? Click here to read her story. And click here to see more photos from Sheep Shearing Day 2007.

A year of Farm Photos ago:
2/18/06: He Could Have Slept In His Hut
2/17/06: Up For The Winter Look
2/16/06: Poultry In Motion
2/15/06: Take A Favorite Photo, Add New Camera & Splash Of Sunshine. . .
2/14/06: Happy Valentine's Day To You
And: O Val-en-tine!
2/13/06: Big Chip Doesn't Like Lambing Season
2/12/06: It's A Girl!
WCB#37: For Some Reason I Thought They'd Be Safer Indoors
And WDB#21: Lucky Buddy Bear Entertains The Newest Member Of The Flock

Attention Dog Lovers! It's time for Weekend Dog Blogging!
To see more fun dog photos and discover yummy new food blogs, head over to Sweetnicks each Sunday night for the roundup. Cat lover? My pal kitchenMage and her lazy cats are hosting Weekend Cat Blogging this week. Starving for something more filling than fur? Don't miss the always delicious (& highly informative) Weekend Herb Blogging, created by Kalyn's Kitchen and hosted this weekend at In Mol Araan. Click here to learn how you can join in the WHB fun.

Welcome new visitors!
Click here for a brief introduction to this site.

Farm Photo 2/11/07: Cary's First Woolcut

Scenes From Sheep Shearing Day 2007

Cary Before. . .




Cary During. . .









And Cary After. . .













Ta Dah!

Don't worry, it'll grow back. But don't get too attached to that snow white wool. Less than 48 hours after being sheared she jumped right back into her recurring role as. . . Dirty Cary. My kid cannot stay clean.

Despite a few frigid nights, I'm still very happy that we decided to shear the sheep before lambing season started. So far our little experiment is working out well, and I think we made the right choice. The first three or four days after the sheep are shorn are the most critical, and fortunately it stayed dry and didn't get too cold (freezing rain is the worst). Our shearer also used a different cutting comb than he does during warmer months, so more wool was left on the sheep. And it's already starting to grow back.

It's really helpful to be able to look at my three dozen (!) pregnant ewes' bodies without all that wool on them, and the books were right--the sheep know to head for shelter to keep their shorn bodies warm. While they normally love to sleep out under the stars in the farmyard, the last few nights when I checked on them, everyone was tucked into the barn--including Dan with his winter fluff (not because he's a wimp, but because he's guarding his sheep of course).

This will become even more important when there are bouncing baby lambs all over the place (starting next month!). Super woolly mothers might not think to come in from the cold because they don't really notice it (especially those with woolly faces like Snugglebunny), but a shorn sheep will feel that arctic blast and lead her much-less-insulated baby to the barn.

Many of you have asked me about the shorn fleeces. Because we raise meat sheep (as opposed to wool sheep), the fleeces that come off our sheep when they are shorn aren't the kind desired by handspinners. Our sheep are mostly Suffolks, and that breed is known for having wool that is coarse and short (and even shorter this time since we sheared five months earlier than usual)--not usually desirable qualities for spinning. Add to that the fact that our sheep regularly tromp through the woods and brambles and do not wear little cloth coats to keep their coats clean, and let's just say that Cary isn't the only dirty one. . . (though I did of course save Baby's First Fleece).

Oh, and then there were the bright red blotches of raddle marker on the backs of all the ewes. . . (This paste-like stuff was spread on Studly Do-Right Jefferson's chest last fall so we would be able to tell when each of the ewes had been bred--very helpful since I never would have guessed how, um, efficient Studly Jeff was at his One And Only Job. I just had no idea the girls were going to be permanently marked.)

I'm still catching up with your comments, and I thank you for your patience (and for taking the time to write). I did have a chance to answer the Cary and sheep shearing questions on February 7th's farm photo--click here and scroll down to the end of the comments section if you'd like to read them.

Don't know who Cary is? Meet her in A Tiny Tail For Mother's Day.

A year of Farm Photos ago:
2/11/06: Fortunately For Dan That's Not Fat, It's Fluff
2/10/06: In This Spot. . . A Miracle Has Occurred!
2/9/06: Same Scene, New View
2/8/06: There's Something About A Sunrise
And WCB#36: Decisions, Decisions

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© Copyright 2007 FarmgirlFare.com, the award-winning blog where Farmgirl Susan shares stories & photos of her crazy country life on 240 remote Missouri acres.

Farm Photo 2/7/07: Cary Coming At You!

Carybunga!

Baby Cary is 9 months old today--and she's about to get her first haircut!

Don't know who Cary is? Click here to read her story.
And click here for links to lots more Cary pics.

Late Afternoon Update: So, um, I messed up for the second month in a row. Cary actually turned 9 months old yesterday. I thought about just trying to let this totally embarrassing screw up slip by, but I figured somebody would bust me (yes, that would be you, Yellow Dog).

As for all that lovely snow and ice? Yesterday it was a freaky 67 degrees (with lots of sunshine) and everything melted just like that. Today it was back down in the 30s. Weird.

The biggest news of the day, though, is that Cary and the other 54 sheep have been successfully sheared. But photos will have to wait, as there are treats for the sheep that need to be passed out, and treats for my visiting mother (aka Vital Member Of The Shearing Crew) to be made. I've promised her a dinner of garden haricots verts (by way of the freezer), warm crusty bread, and lamb ribs (yes, we do eat some of the lambs we raise, it's the best lamb I've ever tasted, one of these days I'll get around to writing more about my meat eating practices and opinions as people are constantly asking me about them, and don't worry--nobody is ever going to eat Cary!). Tomorrow night we'll be having her favorite pizza (my mom's, not Cary's).

Then an hour or so ago she casually mentioned she'd never had one of my Emergency Chocolate Cakes, so there is frozen butter softening by the woodstove. Oh, plus there's been a request for cranberry orange scones for breakfast. (Her motto when she visits is, "I work for food!" and over a lunch of Spur Of The Moment Summer Squash Soup--hers topped with thinly sliced Monterey jack cheese & tomatillo salsa, mine with a dollop of sour cream--we mapped out our menu for the week). Okay, I've just been informed that it's 4:30, the living room is still cold, and there's no more firewood on the porch. Now I hear Cary calling to me from outside. I guess I'd better get going. . . (I hope to answer more of your questions soon!)

A year of Farm Photos ago:
2/7/06: My Seed Starting Headquarters (check the comments section in this post for some helpful tips on starting your own seeds). And click here to read about my two favorite seed companies, plus my favorite edible gardening book for the past six years.
2/6/06: Tree Sock Laundry Day?

Farm Photo: 2/3/07

Stock Dog Extraordinaire

Slight change of plans. Since this is about the least treacherous stretch of our steep and curving (and very icy) driveway, we cancelled last Thursday's scheduled sheep shearing session. We didn't want our sheep shearer to make it down the driveway and then not be able to climb back out.

The last thing I want to do is annoy him in any way--sheep shearers are few and far between around here, and this guy is really good. When I heard he was out of commission last year due to a broken leg, I started making panicky phone calls looking for a substitute shearer and came up empty. Fortunately he was a fast healer, and late in the season I managed to sweet talk him out of his convalescence and into coming out and shearing our overheated sheep.

I'm trying to reschedule for next week, when these single digit temperatures and wind chills at zero or below will hopefully be over. Meanwhile, after a couple of days of serious procrastinating, we decided we couldn't put it off any longer, so this morning we bundled up, headed down to the barn, and gave wormer shots to all 43 ewes.

The original plan was to do this after they'd been sheared, as it is much easier to catch up a smaller, sheared sheep than a giant woolly one. What makes sheep catching such a challenge is the fact that--much as you would like to--you cannot grab a sheep by all that handy wool. If you do, you will permanently tear the skin from their body, which, as you can imagine, is a pretty horrible thing.

Anyway, wool and all, things went better than expected, and--much to our surprise--we were finished in under two hours. This is mostly due to the fact that we finally bought ourselves a shepherd's crook. Who knew they were so handy? You simply thrust out your crook, nab a nearby sheep by the neck, and reel them in.

Well, in a perfect sheep catching world that's what you do. And although our world this morning was mostly perfect, there were a few times when the sheep were definitely winning.

At one point Joe was forced to snare a feisty yearling lamb using what can only be referred to as The Tackle Method. He lay on his side, clutching the little darling who lay on her side, panting and holding up her front leg to reveal the bare patch of skin underneath where the shot is given.

"This is a warning!" he bellowed from his spot on the barn floor. "I can and will catch you all!"

Unfortunately it was one of the few times I didn't have my camera with me. The lamb's horizontal position made my job extremely easy, and I said, "I think you should catch them all this way."

Meanwhile, Lucky Buddy Bear was wishing it had taken us an entire week to work the sheep. Half English Shepherd and half Australian Shepherd, he was in his element and having the time of his life this morning. At five years old, Bear has become a huge help when it comes to catching up the sheep and working with them in general. The times we want to strangle him for herding everyone in the wrong direction or doing the exact opposite of what we'd told him have become very few and far between. On top of that, he has an enormous, smiling personality, incredible good looks, and of course he absolutely adores his sheep. We are the ones who are lucky.

A year of Farm Photos ago:
2/3/06: New Digs
2/2/06: New Purpose--Visual Pleasure
2/1/06: Reflecting

Farm Photo: 1/31/07

You Won't Be Seeing This In 2007

Oh, there'll be bouncing baby lambs of course (so you can stop hyperventilating, Vickie). In fact, if all goes well there may be as many as 50 of them racing around here by the end of April. What have I gotten us into? What there won't be, though, are big woolly mamas, because The Plan this year is to shear the sheep before lambing season starts.

There are several reasons to do this, most of which will benefit us at least as much as they will the sheep. First of all, shearing them now will eliminate the need to "crotch" all of the pregnant ewes. Crotching--for those of you fortunate enough to not be familiar with the term--is where you snip off all the dirty wool around the tail and udder of a pregnant ewe so things are cleaner back there during the birth, and access to the milk bar is free and easy. Picture me on my knees, holding a large pair of scissors (I don't trust myself with our large and loud electric shearer in those delicate areas) and staring at the woolly back end of an indignant sheep being held in place by Joe. When I've finished with that area, he flips her over onto her rump so she is resting against his legs in a sitting position. This leaves her legs free to kick the heck out of me if she feels like it.

We've never sheared this early before. Most years we don't get it done until late spring, and then it's usually during some record-breaking heatwave. I have to admit we're a little nervous--especially since the temperatures have been dropping into the single digits at night. But we manage to keep coming up with some really good rationalizations to reassure us--like the fact that the people down the road already have a pasture full of newborn lambs who appear to be just fine out in the cold, our sheep have a nice comfortable barn to cozy up in, etc., etc. But this morning Joe pointed out the best reason of all to implement The Plan. "Anything is better than shearing when it's 95 degrees outside!" And I'm sure that even the sheep would agree with him.

There's only one small glitch. The shearer (who lives about 60 miles away) is supposed to arrive at 10am tomorrow, and the latest weather forecast has bumped the one inch of possible snow up to a 90% chance of 2 to 4 inches of accumulation. I believe I've mentioned before that scheduling anything in advance around here is an extremely iffy proposition. So first thing in the morning we'll poke our heads outside and assess the situation.

Tonight there is nothing we can do but grill the lamb chops, check the last of the homegrown potatoes that are simmering on the stove, and heat up the haricots verts (from the garden by way of the freezer) and a hunk of crusty bread. I've been busy breaking in my fabulous new bread pans, so as soon as the oven is hot enough, I'll put in the three rising loaves of Farmhouse White--at least one of which is earmarked for the shearer. Cross your fingers that he'll get it.

Speaking of sheep and baby lambs, I haven't yet heard from the Menu For Hope III winner of my donated prize--honorary ownership of this year's firstborn ewe lamb. The darling lamb you see above (lounging on her mother, Clare) is Rose, named by the daughter of last year's Menu For Hope winner, Jennifer New. I'm sure this year's lamb will be just as adorable. If you are "ext212" please leave me a comment here or email me (farmgirlfare AT gmail DOT com). Your prize should be born sometime around the 10th of March! And for those of you who ordered other items from the Menu For Hope back in December and don't know if you are a winner, you can click here to find out. Many, many thanks to all of you who donated to our food bloggers' fundraising campaign. Because of your generosity we raised over $60,000 to support the UN World Food Programme.

A year of Farm Photos ago:
1/31/06: Being Adorable Is Thirsty Work
1/30/06: So Do You Think Martha Is Pregnant?
1/29/06: The Latest Additon To My Collection
And WDB#19: Robin Knows Every Warm Spot On The Farm

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