Meet...

The 1st lambs at Outback Farm for 2014!

                                                    From Adele Belle, twins! Her first.

                                                           #14, a ram lamb. Isn't he cute?
               

                                                             And # 15, a little ewe lamb! She looks like her momma, doesn't she? Looks like she's thinking about something.

She must of just had them around 7 this morning. The little ewe lamb was still a little wet. Adele is doing great so far. I had taken all the other sheep back next door and she was baaaaing like crazy. So April, Leelah and Gracie were all standing at the gate and I let them back over with Adele so she wouldn't freak out being alone. And of course they all promptly went in and ate all her hay for her. What great friends and mother.

Those 3 ewes should be lambing any time as well, so I'll leave them all over there for now.

These lambs are 95% Finn, so I'll have to dock tails in a few days. I went to the co-op this morning to get lots of bands. So I'm ready for all these little woolie lambs.

So here we go! Let the lambing begin!

Knitting again

My mom signed me up for a knitting class with a group at her church. It's at a home not too far from me. There are 7 of us, counting the girl teaching the class. I had taken a few knitting classes before and kind of know the basic casting on and knit stitch. But I forget between classes. So I thought I might learn a little more here as it's a 10 week class. The first project is a prayer shawl. We just cast on between 50-60 and go from there, just a knit stitch. Pretty boring when I'm doing this alone, but with others it's fun. Because all of the others are beginners. And I am the only one using these needles. Everyone else likes the round needles. I don't like them because there's no place to put the needle to wrap the yarn. I am not comfortable using them. I use my leg to hold the right needle when I wrap the yarn around. Anyway, I know I'll have to use the round needles to make hats, which I have made a few already. I will get the hang of it I'm sure. So we are all knitting at our own pace and when we get done with this project, we will move on to a hat I hope. Anyway, it's fun to be knitting again.

I hope to be learning to spin all this wool I am washing and carding. I'll be shearing again soon and will have at least 7 fleeces to do.

No lambs yet. When I went out to feed this morning, Adele was the farthest. I didn't think she was going to make it over to the feed pans. She is really slow and laying down a lot. They all are the past few days. But she's really slow. I hope she'll be ok. I wish they'd come on with these lambs. I stayed home to keep an eye on them while my husband goes to the wound care doctor. He's been so sick with whatever is going around. He was fine last week. Then I think it was Thursday evening, he went down fast. I mean, fine one minute, deathly ill the next. He was in bed for days. He's finally feeling a bit better, but not out of the woods yet. There are a lot of people with this, whatever it is.

I hope everyone is out of the snow and having some nice weather. It's been so nice and warm here, we let the fire go out and have open windows! We are in for some nasty storms though for later tonight. Tornado warnings for middle Tn. which we are very close to.

Have a great day y'all!

Lamb watch!

 It's coming back to me now. I remember when I took John Henry down to my friend Stephanie's does, that I put Abraham in with the ewes. And that was Sept. 17th. I was thinking it was the beginning of October.

So I just went out to check on Adele and all the sheep except Adele are laying down. I got closer and they all stayed put. Unusual for them. They see me and come running. So I go to check Adele and notice Leelah. Go over to her and she gave a little push!

These 1st 3 photos are of Leelah Belle. She had Adele 2 years ago and this is Blossom from last year. She has so far only had single ewe lambs.

 I hope no one is grossed out by close ups of sheep vulvas and udders. But she's getting pretty floppy and loose. Also noticed a little stringy goo. So she is really close to lambing!


This is Fiona. She's Bonnie and Bridget's mom. I hope we don't have a repeat of last year! That'd be great if she had her lambs first.

And Graicie. She's got a nice udder there.

Adele is just fooling me I do believe. I thought for sure she'd be first to lamb. But who knows? They always fool me.

Poor Bilbo Baggins. The only ram left. I took Abraham to the butcher yesterday. Really hated to do it but he got sick so much. I need to find a good healthy wool ram soon. I will keep Bilbo for the hair ewes though.

April is the big fat white one laying down next to Bilbo, the black ram.  When I got her she was already bread so she should have full Katahdin lambs. If these are ewes, I will keep them. I didn't realize how big she is til she lays down.

This is Adabelle. She was born here several years ago to my doe Ocho. I sold her to my friend up the road when she was just about 5 months old. She had a hard time getting pregnant but finally had twins last year. I went over yesterday evening and she was barely walking, poor girl. S this morning, Stephanie called and said Ada had the kids. She had triplets but one died. Or was stillborn. She had a white doeling and a black and white buckling. They are adorable!

They also have another doe, Jessie Belle, who is HUGE! She should have triplets too in the next few days.

It's warm here. We let the fire go out and have windows open. We also have tons of flies. All over. I have been killing them like crazy since last night. I hate flies! So here we go. Lambs, kids and flies! Yippee!