We’ve got this little lamb - who’s mom decided she wasn’t ready for motherhood - so we’ve adopted her. She’s a little black and white lamb, with this little black dot on the tip of her nose - that from a distance looks like a fly sitting there. I wanted to name her “Bugsey” but Rach wouldn’t have it…. so we finally, after about 15 choices, agree upon Ellouise (at least that’s how I think it’s spelled). We’re calling her Ella for short.

Yesterday, Frank decided she needed some tender loving care - instead of the barn all day - so we baby-sat. We sat out on the porch first thing in the morning, and worked on Rach’s 4 H books while we watched the lamb. She likes the dogs pretty well. We took turns keeping an eye on her all morning, because as soon as we would all go inside, she’d start “baaaah-ing” her head off. Later, when I had a little work to do on the computer, we had to bring her inside, and let her lay in the corner so that we could tell her everything was “ok” every time she’d wake up and be lonely. It was pretty hilarilous. Not sure if she’ll ever figure out she’s a sheep. But it’s pretty cute to answer her everytime she baaaahs. It’s pretty much the exact same thing the momma’s and babies are doing out in the field. Cracks me up.

I’ll try to get some current pictures up - and a couple of her.

Gigi, our little Great Pyrenees puppy is getting big. When we first got her, at 8 weeks, she was able to easily walk underneath our Australian Shepherd without even having to duck. Now - she’s over 25 pounds and about 4 inches shorter than Kaya. They have been having a ball playing. Gigi came around the corner of the house this morning - with brown frosting on all of her hair - she and Kaya apparently found some really cool mud to roll around and play in…. The good news is after laying on the concrete this afternoon and drying out, she’s just as pretty and white as she was this morning.

She’s really adorable, having started almost to look like she’s grown into her feet. They’re still about a third again bigger than Kaya’s feet. And she’s got the most adorable personality. She loves it when I sit on the floor with her, and let her lick my face. She just wags her tail and wags her tail, and grunts in my ear. It’s enough to make me giggle every time.

She’s going to turn into a great big dog one day, but right now, she’s just the sweetest, little cuddly thing you ever saw!

The lambs have started arriving. Frank said the first lambs arrived on Friday 3/28, with the arrival of 10, a set of quadruplets, and 3 sets of twins. There are some really beautiful babies - black and white, brown and white and just plain white. Frank has now converted the middle of the barn into a lamb “nursery”. After a couple of days verifying that the moms are going to take care of their own babies, he puts them together all in one pen, then the babies start being all cute - jumping around, climbing on their moms. It’s really adorable.

Frank’s also been doing a little bit of bottle feeding, making sure the lambs are not hungry. So far - most of them aren’t interested in the bottled milk, it’s just not the same as Mom’s milk. At least we know their getting enough.

For those of you tuned in a couple of weeks ago, we got our little Great Pyrenees puppy this weekend. Gigi seems to fit into the household pretty well. She and Kaya hit if off immediately, and except for Kaya being a little too rough yet when they play, things are going well. The first thing Kaya does when she comes in after being outside is to go find Gigi and make sure she’s alright. It’s pretty adorable. They’ve been playing together outside as well, where Gigi really like to attack little piles of hay.

It’s still a little bit too cool to spend much time outside, but it feels like spring is on the way!

This little red squirrel ran up the tree in the back yard. I think that it must enjoy teasing the dog. Anyway, Kaya began barking - and the squirrel just sat up in the tree, casually looking around like Kaya wasn’t even there. So, silly me, I think, I’ll go out and call the dog - I called her and she didn’t even look at me. So I walked out to the tree, and grabbed Kaya by the collar, pulling her along. As soon as I started away from the tree, that silly squirrel started down the tree, and Kaya started pulling on me. Well, since I didn’t look back so see what was going on, and just continued to pull Kaya, I didn’t realize that the squirrel was coming down the tree. Kaya lunged when the squirrel was about 2 feet off the ground, broke my hold and charged back toward the tree. Crazy squirrel dashed around the tree trunk to fake out the dog, dropped to the ground, and made a mad dash toward the woods. Kaya runs like crazy, is temporarily slowed by having to crawl under the fence, but catches up with the squirrel as it launches into the air - bullet style - toward the closest tree. Somehow, once airborne, the squirrel managed to get out of reach of the dog - makes a quick once around the tree trunk, as the dog is vaulting upward, and narrowly the squirrel escapes, only to scamper up to the closest branch to the ground, where she proceeds to chirp at the dog! Now, 45 minutes later, the dog is still sitting at the base of the tree, eyes locked on that squirrel, who is again casually looking around like the dog isn’t even there. It’s pretty funny. I’m surprised that squirrel could run so fast!

Hey ya’ll!
It’s Rachael here on the farm. My mom told me to write a blog for her about what we did all day (allegedly saying to “help me to practice being a writer”).

Yesterday, my mom and I stayed in our pajammas until right before 11:00 a.m. because every once in awhile everyone needs a lazyday(about once a week for us). Then we went outside and I went a bit crazy from being in the house all winter. The dog and I jumped on a row of hay bails and ran up and down them. I then jumped into a pile of snow,which wasn’t a very bright idea, because I’d dug a tunnel through that pile of snow the week before. Needless to say, I fell through and was picking snow out of my boots for quite a few minutes.

Next, Mom and I went down to our pond. We sat down and stuck a stick into the water slowly, lazily moving it. Then I stopped moving the stick noticing we had an audiece. Our audience watched us very closely,with their bugged out eyes. Suprisingly, our audience was a group if fish. After some fish watching we got some little motor boats, but then my mom helped my dad get some eggs ready to go to the store. Later we raced boats occasionally spouting out commentary on the boats.

Then we picked up pizza and drove to my grandprent’s house to ead dinner. Then we drove home. As we were brushing our teeth, my dad and I somehow got into a water fight. He squirted me and I threw a cup of water on him. Then he threw water on my back. I retaliated by grabbing a marker and drawing on his back before he could stop me.

All-in-all, a rather boring day except for a few instances.

It’s been wild here the last 2 days. It started snowing yesterday morning about 8:30, and has been snowing since. This morning when we went out - Frank to plow, and me to help shovel walkways, there was about 12 inches, and I think we’ve gotten about 3 more today. It’s absolutely beautiful outside, and quiet when you go stand outside except for the wind blowing.

The birds have decided that Mother Nature isn’t being very nice to them. We have several bird feeders in our yard, and there must be over a hundred birds hanging around like they’re starving to death. Makes you wonder what they eat on a normal day. Anyway, it’s been a lot of fun to watch them in the tree while they hang out. Just a few minutes earlier, I looked outside and there were cardinals, junkos, blue jays, sparrows, rose crown finches, gold finches, red-winged black birds, grackels, morning doves and even wood peckers. It was beautiful. Frank said if you could get a good picture of the tree, you could call it a Christmas tree.

Rach and the dog had a romp in the snow also. We walked around the pond - well, Rach ran falling and tumbling in the snow, and Kaya bounded like a rabbit. Then Rach found a place where we’d piled the snow this morning while shoveling, and started digging a little snow cave. We got cold and eventually had to come in out of the wind, but it was fun while it lasted.

Yesterday, we had our first calf of the season…. I told you just the day before we were due to start having calves. He was a little male calf, born to a first year heffer. She had a normal birth, and everything at home is fine. Frank and Rach, with the vet on the premises delivered the calf. If you have any interest in suggesting a name for our new baby, fill out our contact us page. I’ll keep you posted about his name…..

We are adding a new member to our family soon. We’ve made arrangements to become the proud new parents of Gigi, a Great Pyrenees puppy born in early February. We’ve been without a Pyr for a couple of years, now (our last one sadly got killed by the school bus), and we’ve only had our little Australian Shepherd, Kaya, since then. While Kaya is a really cool and wonderful dog, we’ve had Pyrs for so long, and have gotten used to their protective behavior, that we’ve been missing one.

Pyrs are bred to be guardians of livestock – primarily sheep, and are the absolute most fabulous dogs to have on the farm. They are giant, loveable, but very independent creatures. They also are very observant, and will let you know if they see anything that they think you should be aware of – by barking. They have a very intimidating, deep bark, but at the same time are comfortable with their abilities, so consequently don’t get aggressive, just watchful.

Our little Aussie brings a different set of instincts to the farm – and while being very obedient and happy to please, she can’t resist chasing (herding) things – which makes all of the animals nervous. Pyrs, on the other hand, don’t chase the animals, but rather chase the predators.

We expect to bring home our new family member about the end of March – and will be really happy when she grows up enough to bark when someone comes up our driveway. I too often miss knocks on the door, but never missed the change of tone of the barks from the Pyr telling me someone had arrived.

This is such a cool time of year - we are just now beginning to thaw out of the long winter - and we’re now keeping a real close eye on our remaining hay - knowing that sometimes spring brings lots of new grass, but sometimes spring is a little slower in coming than we’d like it to be.

We have new arrivals for the spring on the horizon though. Frank brought the cows in yesterday, because it was cold and rainy and he’s got a couple that are due to calve in a week or so. I’m looking forward to having a couple of calves. Hope not to have one in the house again, like we did last spring - but still will give up my entryway gladly if it helps the baby survive.

We also are anticipating the arrival of the little lambs. Lambing probably will begin the last week in March - and run through the middle of April. We have about 40 ewes at the moment, so expect to have over 70 babies. It should be a busy season for Frank. Frank expanded into more of the barn and planned his lambing this year so that he’ll have about 6 ewes in a given space. He’s hoping that will help the ewes be more tame - no panicing every time he steps into the pens, and also will keep the babysitting to a minimum - meaning he won’t have to set up individual pens for the newest mothers so they do a better job taking care of their babies.

Lambing is still one of my favorite seasons on the farm, and I’m planning to be home the first full week in April, and hope to become elbow deep in lambs, and take some more pictures for the website.

Give us a call for more information or visit our photo gallery for pictures.

Frank also has a small building project planned, which is to build a shed off of our garage for housing the overflow of equipment that he just recently kicked out of the barn to make more room for lambing sheep.

Just wishing a happy 3rd birthday to one of my neighbors! We’re hoping the birthday party at the Weston House is a huge success for the family, and they find it comfy, cozy and a nice place to celebrate birthdays. The neighbor celebrating the birthday night not even notice, but that’s ok. I just hope all who are visiting have a nice family get together, and have some memories because of it.

It’s going to be cold for the birthday - but Frank will go over there and make sure there is a rip-roaring fire to keep them all happy. It’s a great place to entertain.