The Littlest Wonderful Neighbor

The Wonderful Neighbor woman told me I could put up pictures of their youngest girlie. They are really good about sharing. Of course if you have a baby and I am around, it is hard not to share, because I can be very aggressive about holding your baby. :)

Here is the sight that greeted us when we arrived. One of her big brothers was feeding her. I love his smile. His whole face lights up when he smiles.
Daddy was talking to her and getting her to smile for me.

Look at those dimples!!

She was hanging out with the adults at the table taking it all in. I love that drooly mouth.

In this picture she was directing the band. She did a great job at it. :)

At this point, this is one of my youngest friends. :)

2009 Lambs

Here are the lambs from this year with their names.

These are the twins. Jeremiah is on the left and Abigail is on the right.

This is Rachael

This is Josiah. He would not look at me. :)

Here is Kyle.

Here is a good shot of all 5. You can click on it and make it bigger.

I was trying to feed the sheep peanuts and take a video at the same time. Sorry about the goofs. :)

An Evening with the Wonderful Neighbors

The Wonderful Neighbors had us over for dinner last night. We had some really good home made pizza. It smelled just like a restaurant when you walked in. They also had a lot of cut up veggies with dip.

There was some good baby lovin' time and I got some great pictures of her, but I was not sure if they wanted pictures on here, so just KNOW that they are darling. :)

The bigger ones went out after dinner and threw knives. They have a target area set up and a set of throwing knives. They took turns and had a good time. Here is Brad trying his hand at throwing.

Michael had to give it a try as well. The audience was sitting on a low ridge of Mt. Froggy!!

Here is Brad giving it another try!

Here are some of the audience members. As you can see the young man is totally in awe of me. :) I told him it looks like he is singing.

Here is Kyle showing us how it is done.

My little friend had to show me how he rides his bike down one of the steeper slopes of Mt. Froggy.

Here is a video showing Brad taking another turn. I wonder if his Mom is going to beat me.

Lambs and Dogs

The sheep were outside playing around the swing set. They seem to enjoy them selves.



We tell Star to "Bow to the Queen" in a certain weird voice and she bows to us. :)

More of This and That

Today was a good day. I had not only the joy of Brad's company, but Brittany was here today doing laundry. Her and Brad had a nice long chat and visit. Brad has an older sister just a year younger than Brittany. He and his sister are good friends and they talk a lot together. Brittany has a brother just about Brad's age. I think this made it easy for them to visit.

We have had aspargus coming in hot and heavy. I decided to put some in the freezer, so we can enjoy it later in the year. We picked our first asparagus of the year on Friday evening. We have had it twice for dinner and I was able to freeze 8 quarts today. I also had a jar of beef broth and 2 jars of chicken broth in my fridge. I canned those, so they could go on the pantry shelf.

I think tomorrow I need to make cookies. I was going to make them and have here for Brad and have not gotten to them yet. Michael asked me about them today. Seems he is really glad Brad is here and thinks that BRAD really needs some cookies or at least that is what he is saying. :)

Here is a picture of Molasses and Clover.

Here is Buttercup. She is due to have her calf on May 15th.

Brad has been a real blessing. This morning my Sister-in-law called and I was talking to her. Brad had breakfast and then went out and did all the morning chores by himself. Here he is shoring up our movable chicken pen. Once he and Michael get it fixed up, we will put the chicks in the field.

Our pasture is very lush and looking good.

I found a couple of these today. I think it is Wild Mustard.

I wish my pictures of the Dandelions came out a bit clearer. They are so intricate when you really look at them. Our Wonderful Creator put a lot of detail into them.

Lamb Playground

I told you that the lambs might like to try out the sliding board!! :)

Farm Dog Frolics

The black dog in the video below is Leo. He lives next door at the Wonderful Neighbors. He loves to play with our dogs and they love to play with him.




Here is Leo showing his jumping abilities.

Most dogs fetch sticks. Sam, the Wonderful Neighbor's other dog fetches logs. :)

The dogs even got into the pictures....

Farm Scenes & People

Here is Brad taming the Wisteria roots. Do NOT ever plant one close to your house like I did. People warned me that it would grow all over my house and I thought I would just keep it pruned. They did not tell me that this thing sends out roots in all directions and that they sneak up under your siding and come out at the top. He had a machete out there chopping them off and hauling them away.

We had other guests as well. We were trying to catch "little bits" in a smile.

Here is another sweet sister. She loves animals... can you tell?

Here is another sweet sister. These four girls are the youngest daughters of friends of ours. There is one boy that would fall in the mix of these little ones. There is a total of 11 of them.

This is the first year for blooms on my Flowering Crab apple. Or at least I think it is the first year. :)

Here are the blossoms on one of our apple trees.

The sheep are cutting the grass for me in the side yard.

Only one of my lilacs is getting any blooms. They already smell wonderful.

Here are the three cows. Buttercup (lightest one) is due in about 2 to 3 weeks.

Count Your Blessings Monday!!

Here is an opportunity for all of us to give thanks unto the Lord for a blessing in our lives. If you would like to take part great. If not that is OK too. If you would like to share your blessing, just leave it in the comments. If you want to use the picture above and list a blessing on your own site, then leave a URL to your site in the comments. There is no pressure here. I just know that I am incredibly blessed and I would like to share that and give thanks to Him who all blessing come from. This is a way that we can encourage one another. I know that I am often encouraged when someone shares a blessing with me. I think that many times we forget that it is a blessing to be able to breath, to get out of bed, to hold a baby... Share your blessings with us. We can share so many other things.... special gifts, recipes, let's take the time to share how God has blessed us!!

Today, I am thankful and blessed by Brad being here to help us. He has already blessed us like crazy. He helped split wood, move fences, feed animals and many other things. He is a hard worker with a great attitude!!

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Our Apprentice Has Arrived!!

Our farm apprentice has arrived. Michael picked him up at the airport yesterday afternoon. We hope he learns a lot during his stay and that he has a good time!! :)

After supper we went out so he could see the baby lambs. We caught one of the lambs for him to get some lamby lovins' in. :)

Like Sheep to the Shearer...

Many of you asked me about how the sheep do during shearing. Do they struggle, etc. My friend who gave me my first two sheep has shared with me before about this. In fact her daughter and her do a Sheep To Shawl presentation and tell about this. I was going to have her write something up, but she is swamped scheduling shearing for her sons and their crews. She gave me another brief synopsis over the phone and I will try to write it out here.

Once they sit the lamb back on its rump, you can pretty much do anything to it that you need to and it will sit there and let you do it. I have Shetlands which is one of the more primitive breeds. That just means that they have not had their natural instincts bred out of them for production purposes. The Shetlands will struggle a bit more at first than other sheep, but they too will end up just sitting there against the shearer. They don't make any noise. They will even let you bleed them out and they will just sit there silently. This is the only animal that does that. They often have to tie down the alpacas or llamas they shear because they will not sit still or be still.

Isa 53:7 He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He did not open His mouth;
Like a lamb that is led to slaughter, And like a sheep that is silent before its shearers, So He did not open His mouth.

Jesus was that perfect lamb. He went to the slaughter without a word for my sins and your sins. I love the pictures that He gave us in nature.

A Peek Around the Farm

We have a very special guest coming to our house. Sharri is sending her son out to spend a couple of weeks with us. He wants a taste of farm life and he also wants to bless us by helping around here for a bit. We are thrilled to death that he is coming and have saved some jobs for when he gets here so he can help.

One of the jobs he will help us with is to get the chicks from the brooder to the field. It has been really cold here until yesterday. Yesterday it went up to around 60. Today it might even hit 80. That is so weird because we had possible snow and rain on Tuesday. :) However, because it was so cold, we still had the cover over the brooder. Yesterday we took the cover off and today we will turn one light off. We want to get them used to being in cooler temperatures. The movable pens will have to be fixed up a bit for the season. Then we will take the chicks out to the field and put them in the pens. Here are some pictures of the chicks. They are now 2 weeks and 2 days old. They sure look a lot different than they did the day we got them. You can see a picture of them here.

I love this picture. It shows how big their feet are.

This is one of my little ewe lambs. I have to figure out what to name all my lambs. I had a couple of people ask me if I was going to do a contest again. I am not sure. I told the Wonderful Neighbors that I ought to name them after their children, because the biggest and smallest lambs are both girls with 3 boys in between. That is how their children are in order of birth. :)

This is the above ewe lamb's twin brother.

Here is another picture of him.

This hen hangs out in the garden and in the sheep shed. We have to grab her each evening and put her in the coop. She is a Golden Buff.

Here is Gino the cat. He loves to hang out on the porch. I keep telling him to go catch some mice.