Miss Violetta

Violet, our youngest ewe, gave us a single ewe lamb yesterday. We just went to the barn Friday morning and there she was! Weighing in at 9.0 lbs., she’s off to a good start with her very attentive and protective dam.

The Lady Cordelia

Not quite as big as her twin brother, this little ewe lamb is showing impressive growth despite being rejected by her dam. She’s got some really good bloodlines in her and we can’t wait to see how she measures up to the LLSBA breed standard.

Sir Charles

Nearly one month old and this is one roly-poly little ram lamb!

Leicester Longwool Lambs

Our first lambs have arrived…twins! We awoke Tuesday morning to find our oldest ewe had quietly and skillfully given birth to two lambs, one ram and one ewe. Unfortunately, she rejected her ewe lamb and we are now bottle feeding her. The children are just gushing over the lambs. Okay…we all are! We are giving her the benefit of mother’s milk and she is thriving. We are watching our other ewes closely as we wait for their lambing to begin. The miracle of life is simply amazing!

My Favorite Winter Pastime

We are beginning to once again do the work of planning our gardens.  I recall the excitement of planning our first garden (pictured above) as the winter winds blew and snow drifts threatened to trap us inside our little farmhouse.   The snow eventually melted and we made our first attempt at planting potatoes (on the left), corn (far right), and peas, beans, tomatoes, turnips, beets and lettuce between.  Honestly, I had pretty low expectations.  After pouring over several popular gardening books, I was left completely confused.  I realized that we were just going to have to learn by trial and error.  This picture was taken August 1st, 2011.  What do you think?  We were very pleased with what our soil so generously brought forth.  (We did nothing to prepare the soil.)

We plan to greatly expand the gardens this year all the way to the road.  (Through the apple tree you can see the road.)  While we’ve been emboldened by our success, we now have the added work of making sure the right crops get planted in the right places.  You know you can’t just plant your potatoes in the same place as you did last year.  That would be too easy.  You need to know things, like which plants belong to which plant families so you can plan what grows where from year to year.  See what I mean?  This gardening stuff can get confusing!  Really though, as we plan things out again and get our hands back in the soil, I know we’ll continue to grow in our understanding of God’s ways …which are always simple.

In the meantime, we have a Berkshire boar working for us.  We turned him out on the gardens last fall following harvest.  He spends his days during this mild winter tilling up last years’ garden area.   He’s kept in by a single strand of electrified wire and enjoys the company of our three Embden geese.

So, here we are this winter, making plans for our 2012 gardens as we enjoy unseasonably warm sunshine with no snow drifts in sight.

Lambs!

Our Leicester Longwool Ewes - Winter 2011

Our Leicester Longwool lambs are coming!  The weather is sunny and warm which is unusual for an early Feb. afternoon in western Wisconsin.  Carline, our ewe showing all the signs of impending delivery, is much more experienced at this than we are so hopefully she’s got everything under control.  Stay tuned…

Minnie Mae

Meet our new calf! She is a purebred Jersey heifer. Ana named her Minnie Mae. Her mama, Lilah, calved sometime in the wee hours of the morning, away from our prying eyes. We milked out the colostrum and bottle fed Minnie Mae within a few hours of her birth. Lilah is a good mother and let’s us know she doesn’t like us messing around with her calf. She is patient though and didn’t mind our early attempts at hand milking. What a blessing!