Hello world!

Yesterday Star gave birth to two little chocolate lambs - a boy and a girl. She is such a sweetheart, having spotted her just after the babies were born she let me pick them up from her corner of the paddock and carry them to the shed following me quietly the whole way. We've had fox problems and nights are quite chilly so it just wouldn't be great for her to stay with newborns out in the paddock. She finished passing the afterbirth in the shed.

I'd meant to crutch (trim the wool around the bum and udder) as well as clean up the scruffy bits on her head, face and legs but having not felt great this wasn't done which means it's harder for bubs to find the milk. Patient girl that she is she let me just lay down on the straw near her, tuck the bubs under and help them attach for their first drink with me crawling halfway under her with them to see despite cold fingers goosing her poor udder. Now THAT ladies and gentlemen is a very cooperative ewe!

She even let me trim most of her icky bits the same way... standing up and just getting treats. It's not the prettiest haircut but it did the job and without stressing her while she was still bonding with her bubbas. I just have a pair of hand shears and let me tell you I have a whole new appreciation for old time shearers who had to do hundreds of sheep a go without electric clippers! Thankfully Star is very docile and loves her treats!

Here's a video of mum and bubs at 1 day old


And while not quite "aw" worthy as lambs, I finally got around to choosing a colour for my hair - that's a Cinnabun tucked in my arms btw

Just a 'normal' day...

Last night I let the sheep up into the middle yard to munch the grass down a bit because it's been too wet to mow. Now the middle yard is the same yard where our veggie patch is, so I very cleverly ran a temporary fence as a barrier between it and where I wanted the sheep to be. With a nice big area of untouched, long, lush grass surely they'd be too full to worry overly much about what was behind the barrier right?

Needless to say this morning I was greeted by Cadbury and his son Verona, Boo, Star ("Hi mum, we've left some fertilizer behind for you!") and her daughter Astra contentedly and unrepentantly munching away on the capsicum plants. "Shoo you lot! Get out, look what you've done to my poor beds! Do you know how much work that is?!?" Cadbury lifted his head, still munching. Star sniffled the air a bit, trying to work out if I had a bucket of goodies on me. "MINT SAUCE!" I glowered at them, the effect totally spoiled by their looking utterly concerned. "Mah?"enquired Star. "Fine... fine... where's the BUCKET!" Five sets of pointy ears swiveled attentively in my direction and trotted back to the paddock.

I then came in to make myself tea and hear Hope slurping. Odd, she's not drinking from their bowl. I ponder this a bit... I can see the bowl from the stove and there's definitely no black dog near it. Where has she found water? Has La secreted a cup away somewhere? (Please oh please let it only be water and not one of his interesting "I'm a chef!" concoctions!) Has he poured a puddle to be the 'dam' for his toy farm animals? I look around and spot her... at the FISH TANK. Standing up and helping herself very daintily. "Um. EXCUSE ME. That water is for the FISH! Go drink out of your own bowl!" She hops down and wanders away looking at me like, "What?!? The cat does it all the time mum!"

The scarey thing? It's only 10am. The crazy hasn't even begun in full swing...

Pics from yesterday - Lily, Hopie, Matilda and lambs

My Lilypillie at 6 months...

Cheeky baby!

Hopie leaning in on the action for a cuddle with Lily

Lilypillie and Dada

Little miss chatterbox

Hope and Si

One of those cute little oops shots! I caught her winking. LOL


Please note the NAUGHTY muzzie where she shouldn't be... Honey has taught Matilda her wicked ways! LOL

Twins Stella and Luna (above and below)


The lamb races! (This is what happens if you shake the food bucket!)

EL ewe and her EL/Corrie ram lamb (for sale)

Astra and either Luna or Stella... it can be hard to tell anymore!

I live...

As usual time has gotten a bit away from me. I'm still very wrapped up in my own head at the moment. This has led to much badness in terms of keeping up with correspondence, in that I sit down to start replying to someone and walk off a dozen times and then feel awful for being about a week late and probably making people wonder if I'm mad at them or don't like them or something. Meh. I need to get my act together.

In the midst of this here's what we've been up to:

• The kitchen is back to normal after the tree crashing through it and is now a nice sunny yellow instead of the dark green it was previously
  
  
• We've spent some time restructuring two raised veggie beds out back, making them six slightly lower beds and spent time planting out some of my little seedlings.
  
• After getting up the large (10 bay, each bay being 1.2m wide x 2 m deep) aviary for the chooks, we're now working on the fencing for it a bit each weekend as funds permit.
  
  
• We also went to the Melbourne Royal the other day to watch the Australian Shepherds. It was lovely to catch up with people but I'm afraid I rather put a damper on the day for Nic and La as I wasn't much in a festive mood. I did learn that a breed that had been on my wish list some years back, the Petit Basset Griffon Vendeen, IS actually in Australia and spent awhile patting one though.
• La's lobby for a hermit crab won and we brought home "Crawlit" the crab the other week

• We've also welcomed ChaCha the chook, also named by La. She appears to be an brown layer cross of some variety and came from a neighbor as she was getting bullied by the hens there. She's rooming with Tiger, one of my friendly little SilkieXs.
  
  
• With the house repaired I've finally been able to test my incubator! I have a dozen std Australorp eggs in it as well as a few Partridge Wyandotte eggs to give it a trial run! 20 days to go!
  
• The lambs are growing well, except for poor Luna who came up with a bum leg last week. She either pestered one of the other ewes or it's polyarthritis but either way she gets an injection every day for 5 days to help. A few of the lambs and ewes may be looking for new homes in the future, though I'm not 100% final on my decisions yet.
  
• La has been veerrryyy excited about his birthday coming up in October. He's singing himself (a very off key) happy birthday song every day, has decided on his theme (it's going to be a brachiosaurus party... not just any old dino, a brachiosaurus specifically), planned his cake (it's got to be 'berries, mango, strawberry and mandarin dino cake that's green') and would like 'a lot of kids, his Hopie and a lot of people and Ana' there. Ana is a local Aussie breeder for anyone not in the breed and La has a wee crush going on. LOL
  
• In keeping with his party, Lily has an actual dress. You may now all die of shock - the child owns something overtly GIRLY and I even think it's cute. LOL We also got her lovely amber teething necklace in the post the other day.

I've also done a few projects which I've forgotten to post pictures of so here they are...

this scarf was actually completed ages ago but I never posted it as I was trying to find yarn for a fringe and haven't found any so.. eh... it's being called completed.

this one is a ribbed neckwarmer in handspun overdyed coloured corriedale thick-n-thin paired with a vintage French button... for when you need a scarf but don't want to be dealing with the wind blowing it up in your face or a baby grabbing it.

And for my KAL group, the September "ABC" dishcloth. I use them for burp rags for Lily and they are the most fantastic burp rags as they absorb heaps without looking gross like face washers do!

Rally, Lily, Hoopie, Veri, Spinning and other Stuff

I keep meaning to sit and write and I have no focus at the moment and even less quiet time to organize my thoughts.

This week has been a full one... on Monday I had hoped to be in Canberra, at the Mother of All Rallies, protesting with thousands of other women, children and their families for the right to choice and equal treatment in birthing options. Unfortunately between vet bills and what we had to pay towards the repairs on the house from storm damage, my funds were down to a dribble. To boot my original lamb sitter and the place we were going to stay bottomed up as well. (Not their faults and I completely understand of course.) I was crushed not to be able to go though.

I was somewhat heartened to hear that it was well heard. There were around 3000 people, who traveled from all over the country. Just before the rally, a 2 year exemption period was announced which is encouraging even if it does rather smack of an appeasing sound byte instead of definitive action. It does rather seem to illustrate they've finally realized the tiger they've grabbed by the tail has teeth and is unwise to continue ignoring though. Some good round ups are at Ilithyia Inspired and Midwife Mutiny. I rather liked this segment of the second reading of the Health Legislation Amendment Bill, spoken by Ian Macfarlane also!

Instead I was at home, caring for La and Lily of course but also working on getting our house sorted, cleaned up, repaired etc. I actually kicked butt on my to-do list... never fails, whenever I'm upset I go on a cleaning-fest, I guess some sort of strange mental link with being able to gain order in some area if I can't tidy my emotions. All things being equal though I think some of the shock of Veri being gone has worn off and the finality is really starting to hit. The wobbles get the better of me several times a day and I'm finding myself absent minded and short of patience with having to have the repair people interrupting me a dozen times a day or people constantly nattering at me over the trivial and innane. Even stuff like a FB ap 'giving me a puppy' ap just days after annoys the crap out of me atm. Laurent is dearly not helping in this area either as he's been especially trying this week, though half of that is probably reacting to the upset he senses in me.

It wasn't all as doom and gloom though. In the tradition of counting ones blessings my beautiful Lilypillie turned 5 months old. Easy-going, full of smiles and giggles and quickly growing into a sunny little person this child is my bliss. Her warm little weight snuggled into my shoulder is heaven. She's teething up a storm which means she's a drooly little gummyshark. She desperately wants to figure out this mobility gig, she is rolling and scooting around on the floor and fascinated with shaking any toy that rattles or crinkles. She surprises a lot of people with how interactive she is, she wants to play and chat and pat your cheeks while squealing delightedly.

It's also was Hope's birthday, which we celebrated somewhat quietly though she got cake and pats a plenty, especially as her birthday fell on the Australian Shepherd Club of Victoria's meeting night, which happened to be at my house. The weather was too soggy to take her out to work on the sheep, so we did that the next morning and as her birthday 'gift' I am actually getting up off my slack post-partum bum and working her more often which she adores.

We also had the last lamb of the season born, a Corriedale x EL single ram lamb who is black and white with brown frosting courtesy of his EL heritage. That makes a total of 9 new lambs, 4 ram and 5 ewe lambs, 2 sets of twins and 5 singles, 5 pure Corriedale and 4 Corrie/EL, more moorit than black.

Last but not least I decided to brave attempting to go to a Spin/Knit-In in Lang Lang. Those of you who know La will appreciate my bravery in entering a room with 40+ women and their spinning wheels, not to mention knitting, felting, drop spindling, weaving, dyeing and machine knitting. We did survive however and got to meet grandridge from Ravelry, as well as winning a cross stitch in the raffle and after 2 years I have my very own spinning wheel! She's a little Tara upright and I loves her! (Still have to think of a name for her!) Apparently the owner had gone into a nursing home and her family was taking them to the tip (!) but were happy to donate them. The club decided to sell them very inexpensively to buy proper looms for some refuges living in the area who have no proper looms at the moment.

Newfound admiration for mums of multiples...

Well after the enthusiasm of having new lambs, there is also the reality and that reality is that sometimes things go wrong. Last night Soot, mother of Stella and Luna, was attacked and killed. It was horrific and I'm undecided how to deal with it, so that's all I'm going to say on that topic atm.

My vet Dr. Cook is one of natures good souls. It took me 2 years to find him after moving but he reminds me why I love him every time I deal with him. I rang him first thing on a Sunday morning on his mobile to query about milk replacer and better ointment for Luna's eye since our stock store is closed on the weekends. Bless him he just said no worries, he'd meet me at the clinic in half an hour. When I got back Stella and Luna were hungry enough it didn't take them anytime to figure out the bottle and are doing well being a few days old and having had the benefits of colostrum the first few days, small blessings.

Our morning wasn't over yet though. Checking in on the ewes DH discovered Rommie, Boo's lamb, cold and unresponsive. Her mum is a first time mum and hadn't been feeding her. So Rommie got bundled in a towel with heat packs near the fireplace as we coaxed her to take some milk replacer.It's amazing how they can go from looking like they're at deaths door and after a few hours and a bottle they seem almost normal. With three bottle babies and a 4 month old human pretty much someone is always hungry... but as they say necessity is the mother of invention...

Looks like it's set to be a busy few days until they're doing well enough to put on a bucket.

An overdose of cuteness

We're in the middle of a lamb explosion at the moment... as predicted, Boo wasn't far off dropping her lamb. I spotted her off from the group this morning and we watched through the window as her lamb arrived over breakfast.

After Astra was born I'd written Cadbury's breeder as I suspected he was throwing the black and white babies and if so, the 'black' and white babies might actually be moorit (chocolate) and white, which would be fabulous for me because I LOVE choccie sheep! That'd also mean Star was black carrying moorit for Astra to be moorit. Raylene kindly confirmed my suspicions as moorit babies can be nearly black looking when born and the fleece lightens up as they grow into dark chocolate, then milk chocolate, carmel and finally a pale cafe au lait colour.

Boo had her lovely little girl this morning and double-confirmed everything though... her baby, Andromeda, is a stunning JET black. (And as an aside - GO CADDY... all these little ewe lambs!)

Here is little 'Rommie taking her first steps with her mum Boo snuffling her. Boo is a black ewe but the outside of the fleece gets quite brown from the sun. The sheep behind the wire are young moorits.

If you look close, you can see the umbilical cord, freshly severed.

Aw... too cute!

And here is where you can really see the difference! Rommie on the left is black, Astra on the right is definitely NOT... she's self patterned moorit. :)

And just because they're cute... Astra 2 days old

Luna and Stella, 3 days old

Now we're just waiting to see what the other two English Leicester girls do. :D

As far as my knitting, I'm finding I really like the challenge of something new or different. It's a bit odd for someone who spent the better part of a year too intimidated to figure out some of the very basics but there you have it. So for my next few projects I've chosen things that, for my experience, are going to be a challenge. For my sockyarn, I chose this - the "Spring Forward sock". It is more difficult and fiddly than anything I've attempted before. My Ixchel Laceweight is going to become the Cashmere Merino Energy Wave Shawl. As it's my first time with true laceweight yarn, I wanted something I could take back easily if I flubbed. (I still suck at fixing my mistakes.) I've been looking at cast ons for that and I think I might use the one which is like a normal cast on except there is a crocheted chain between each stitch. Sounds weird but it looked nice and stretched well when I test knitted one on fatter yarn today.

And completely unrelated... I went and looked at what I'm hoping will be my new car today! I'm waiting on the RACV inspection but pending that I'll have wheels of my own again! *excited squeak*

Another new lamb!

Early this morning "Star", one of my black Corriedale ewes had her sweet little girl who has been dubbed "Astra".

We knew Domino would be the daddy to Mocca-Chocca and Latte's lambs Macci, Cino and Verona because they were black and white. Moorit is recessive, so if Cadbury was their father they would also be moorit coloured. Since Star and Peekaboo didn't lamb at that time we figured it was likely they'd been bred by Cadbury after we bought them though. However little miss Astra is black with a big moon shaped white marking on her rump and a sprinkling of snowflake markings. Interesting!

Star is one of my favorites even though she is a cheeky piggy brat (okay, because she IS a cheeky piggy brat!) and her daughter looks to be as sweet as she is.

First little steps, still wobbly on our feet. Awww....

And a picture of the white marking. It's a little hard to see but the white saddle is uniform over the rump creating an almost perfect black moon. Gee there should be some lovely soft wool coming off these guys coming sheering time! :D

New little lambies! :D

Meet "Stella", with the spotty face

and "Luna" with a dark face but white freckles all over her ears!

These are our newest residents, their mum is Soot the English Leicester ewe and their daddy is Cadbury, my chocolate Corriedale ram who can be seen watching in Stella's photo. These are Soot's first babies so I'm quite happy with twin ewe lambs! Cadbury being their daddy, they should carry the moorit gene. Their fleeces ought to be quite interesting when it comes time for their first sheering. :)

Names and Noms

Lucy, from Blue Mountains Menagerie, came up with names for the twins - the little ram is Macchiato and the little ewe Cino. Mocca-Chocca's little ram lamb has a name from Florence whom my ducks Matilda and Magnolia came from. Black with a dollop of cream and possibly carrying chocolate - he's Vienna.

"Lucerne is nom! What else is nom?"

"How about buckets? Are buckets nom?"

"Are fingers nom???" (That's my finger he's trying to nurse, he's actually rather fond of trying this any time he sees me!)

"Hello Auntie Star!" (Mind you Star is FAR more interested in the lucerne, she is part piggie!)

"Gee, you're a funny looking sheep!"

Latte is still a bit skittish and wanting her space, so only one picture of them at a distance. I figure it's only fair to respect her instincts telling her to keep them apart from everyone for the moment.