Sunday Muse

"...thinking of driving again the gravel roads of America at thirty-five miles per hour in order to see the ditches and gulleys, the birds in the fields, the mountains and rivers, the skies that hold our 10,000 generations of mothers in the clouds waiting for us to fall back into their arms again."
from "Cold Wind" by Jim Harrison

Happy Mother's Day!

 

While We Were Lambing

During lambing season, we decided to take the back way home to catch a glimpse of the wildflowers.  The beautiful show of white trillium, red trillium, trout lily, wood geranium and violets made the trip up the steep, narrow, rough road well worthwhile.
Each time we come home this way our thoughts are drawn to what must have been going through the minds of our Great-Great Grandparents Andrew and Amy and our Great Grandparents David and Hannah as they made this trip by horse and wagon carrying all their worldly possessions to our high mountain home.
What a blessing it is to have the opportunity to travel so often in their 'footsteps'.

{this moment}

A Friday ritual.
A single photo - no words - capturing a single moment from the week
A simple, special extraordinary moment.
A moment to pause, savor and remember.
Participating with the SouleMama blog.

Winding Down

Lambing is winding down, with Dolly hanging in there and Charity who was marked very late still to go. The pasture is filled with the wonderful sounds of lambs calling and mamas answering.  The grass finally got tall enough last week that we were able to open the bottom of the barn paddock up to the ewes and lambs.  We're hoping to keep them in this area at least until we can get through the first round of shots.
If you have a craving for more lamb pictures, take a peek over here.

Sunday Muse

Just as we lose hope
she ambles in,
a late guest
dragging her hem
of wildflowers,
her torn
veil of mist,
 of light rain
blowing
her dandelion
breath
in our ears;
and we forgive her,
turning from
chilly winter
ways,
we throw off
our faithful
sweaters
and open
our arms.

"Spring" by Linda Pastan

Scenes From the Pasture

{this moment}

A Friday ritual.
A single photo - no words - capturing a single moment from the week
A simple, special extraordinary moment.
A moment to pause, savor and remember.
Participating with the SouleMama blog.

Birthing

Lambing is moving along at a nice pace.  The barn and pasture are busy and full of new life.  It's always so interesting to observe the different way each ewe experiences labor and birth. There is Jill who attacks the whole process with much the same energy that she attacks daily life.  She will have given birth within a couple hours of showing any outward signs of labor. Then there is Julie who has a much more zen-like approach to birth, slowly stretching and pushing a little off and on for eight to ten hours.  Every birth different... each new life, a new little personality.
Please check out our Lambs of 2014 album on Flickr for more lamb photos.

Lambing Time

Lambing has begun in earnest, with the first little group let out into the pasture yesterday afternoon. Temporary fence building to divide the pasture, moving troughs, setting up mineral stations, mucking out the lambing jugs, rebuilding jugs to get ready for this bigger group of mamas who are ready to pop... it was a full day.  In the midst of everything two sets of twins were born.  It's busy but we're happy things are underway. It's worth every exhausting minute to have the opportunity to see moments like this... when Little Miss 1402 discovers the big, beautiful world.
More lamb photos here.

Sunday Muse

"True hope is swift and flies with swallows wings..."
~ Richard III, Act V, Scene II, William Shakespeare

Lambing Season Summary

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

We hope that you will enjoy this slide show of lambing season.  The last ewe had twins about a week ago... at 3 a.m. ... at the bottom of the hill... of course.  Here is a little summary of the season that will be known as either The Year of the Big Lamb or The Year of the Ram (we haven't quite decided which).

Lambing Ratio  1.5172
Average Weight Per Lamb  11 lbs  8 ozs
14 singles, 14 sets of twins, 1 set of triplets
16 ewe lambs, 28 ram lambs
29 white lambs, 15 black lambs

We only had two lambs that weighed under 8 lbs.  We had four lambs that weighed over 15 lbs.  The smallest lamb weighed 6 lbs 14 ozs and the largest 16 lbs 13 ozs.  We were a little disappointed in our lambing ratio this year, but hopefully we'll have a summer filled with big, healthy lambs growing beautiful, curly wool.

{this moment}

A Friday ritual.

A single photo - no words - capturing a single moment from the week

A simple, special extraordinary moment.

A moment to pause, savor and remember.

Participating with the SouleMama blog.

Open House

Please join us for an afternoon of music, visiting with old friends and making new ones.

Learn about wool!  Meet the triplets ~ Merry, Pippen and Samwise!

OPEN HOUSE

Sunday, June 2nd from 1:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.

Music by Aurora Celtic

Pony rides (weather permitting)

Wool, Spinning Batts, Roving for Hand-spinners

Naturally-dyed Yarn and Hand-Dyed Yarn

Photographs, Note cards, Mugs

Spinning Demonstrations

Bake Sale benefits historic Mt. Olivet Church

Keeping Watch

It was another quiet day on the lambing front.  Hebe had a wonderful set of twins, a ram weighing 9 lbs 14 ozs and a ewe weighing 10 lbs.  The old pro that she is, Hebe had the little ewe standing up while her first born was beginning to nurse.  She is a great mama.

A large storm front moved through late afternoon with fierce winds, thunder, lightning and a lot of rain.  By that time Hebe and the twins were settled quite nicely in the barn, snug in their lambing jug.

Just as we waited on the storm yesterday, we feel we're waiting on another... a lamb storm.  As we keep watch over the bulging bellies and swelling udders, the number of ewes that could go anytime keeps mounting.  Here's hoping all those lambs don't decide to come at once.

Surprise

You may remember the big October snow.  All the interior fencing was down for weeks, as we waited for enough snow-melt to dig out.  It was inevitable that the rams would find the only two ewes that were not to be bred this year.  Really, who could resist the romance in this snowy October sunrise.

And so... while lambing will not begin in earnest for another couple of weeks, Hannah surprised us with beautiful twin rams yesterday afternoon.  When we went to feed yesterday morning, she was the only ewe at the top of the hill, so we suspected that it might be the big day.  Last evening she had her boys tucked snugly in the barn when we checked on her.  Hannah's twins were large - 1301 weighed 11 lbs 7 ozs and 1302 weighed 10 lbs 6 ozs.  Mama and twins are doing well and snugly tucked into the first lambing jug... an early nudge into lambing season.

Welcome Spring!

Aurora in Spring from Bruce Dale on Vimeo.

We hope you enjoy this video of spring in our neck of the woods by Bruce Dale.
Happy First Day of Spring!

Weekly Top Shot

linking with Madge at The View From Right Here for the Weekly Top Shot and A Rural Journal for Your Sunday Best

please don't forget to comment on Wednesday's post before 8 p.m. today- it's a give-away!

Sheeps and Peeps Calendars!

Well, they're here... our first farm calendar!  It's 8 1/2 X 11 inches, spiral bound and printed on high quality paper.  The good news is they are now available in our Etsy Shop, but wait... there's even better news.  We are giving one away to a lucky blog reader. To enter the give-away simply comment on today's post.. Comments will be closed on Sunday at 8 p.m. and the winner chosen by Random Number Generator. Good Luck!

Connents have been closed... a winner will be announced tomorrow.

Comment #10 was chosen by the random number generator - congratulations Wendz!

solstice to solstice

"Keep a green tree in your heart and perhaps a singing bird will come."
~ Chinese Proverb

response to week ten of spring
the solstice to solstice project with urban.prairie.forest
please visit the flickr pool for all the wonderful contributions to this project