Country Living (warning:chicken death scene)

* I read a statistic today that half of rural dwellers don't have smart phones. Well, of course not, because we don't have reception, so why bother? I have what you might call a "nearly nonfunctional smart phone." My phone has an IQ of slightly above average. 101 IQ points. 

* We had a mean little chicken. She was very little. She looked like a little brown dove, but so mean. Every day, when I went out to feed her, she would peck at me. She jumped up and pecked my legs over my boots. I couldn't stand it. Every day! Pain! Finally, Thursday morning, I grabbed that little chicken by the neck and put her in a cage. I had things to do. I left her there. Later in the day, I got my big knife, the one Grandpa Alvin gave me (he was a chef at Mel's drive in in San Francisco.) I asked Z (age 8), "would you like to witness a brutal murder?" 

"Well," she said, "Yes. Yes, I would."

And so she did. 

We went out to the killing tree. The day was warm. The cone was ready. I had to pick my way through the poison parsnip through to the cone. I had the chicken by the legs. I put her in the cone, but she was too small. I apologized before I slit her throat. As I returned her to the karmic cycle, head thrown to the bushes, she slipped through the cone, and headlessly bounced around the grass. Cloudy the sheep came to take a look. Cloudy has four giant horns. Cloudy said,

"Bah." (What else would he say?)

Z said,

"Can I touch the dead chicken?"

"Yes," I said, "But I think it might move."

She walked up to it, and it did move, headless though it was.

"Wow," she said.

"You know," I said, "there is a saying, 'don't bite the hand that feeds you.' That chicken won't be biting me, any more."

* Z (age 8) will be showing our sheep, Candy Darling, at the county fair. Every day, we walk out and catch that silly little sheep, and Z puts it on a leash and walks it around the pasture, practicing for her fair presentation. I have never even watched a sheep at a county fair, but every day, Z asks me questions, and I have no answers. I do have some faith, however, in the goodness of a girl and her favorite sheep.  Are blue ribbons in order? Perhaps not. But, you know, you have to spend your time doing something. Why not walk a sweet little sheep around in circles?  Our sheep are so rare, we have to be in the "exotic animals" category. 

More Sheep

Temporary home of Yoshimi and lambs:

When you have two nipples and three lambs:

Candy Darling came to say hello.

Chyoko would not let me come near her lambs.

Ah, the life pastoral. 

Yoshimi Has Triplets on Mother's Day

Yoshimi with her three lambs- one on the right, two on the left.
They are all three black with white spots on their heads, and
hard to get a good picture of.

Yoshimi has been looking so huge and so miserable! We've been thinking she was going to blow up. And then today, three giant lambs!

When I first went out there to check on the sheep today, I was late because I had my Mother's Day breakfast and all that. Yoshimi was just having the the third lamb, and one of the first two had run off with Chyoko, and then one of Chyoko's twins had accidentally stayed with Yoshimi. This caused me to run around for a few minutes saying, "Oh no, oh my, oh no, oh my..." because if they don't bond with the lamb right at birth, they reject it and you have to bottle feed it every three hours and it's annoying as hell. And expensive! Formula for lambs. What a drag. But, luckily, they figured it out on their own! It was kind of fun to watch them make the trade. Lots of bahing. The lambs were switched back, but then Yoshimi wandered off to eat grass, and two of her babies went with her, and the third didn't, he just lay on the ground crying... so I surrounded them all with electric fencing and kept getting closer and closer, into a smaller and smaller circle. Eventually, I got her into this tiny area with her separated from the other sheep, and a nice little shelter from the sun. Last I checked, she was taking care of all three of them.

Phew!

Two ewes, one ram. We can make black top hats out of their wool!

Lambs!

First lambs of the season (we were pretty late, borrowing that black ram from Mo last fall. It was basically winter).

Both of them are rams with a little tuft of white on their heads. Sweeties with giant balls. One of them already rammed a full grown sheep! To no result, because the lamb was tiny and an hour old. Z named them Cole and Black Mamba. 

I used electric shears for the first time this spring, also borrowed from Mo (like the ram). Mama Chyoko was poorly shorn because the sheers flew apart while I was using them and I never sheared her neck! 

For those of you who follow sheep genealogy, Cole and Black Mamba are half brothers to Yoko of "Whoa Yoko!" fame, and to Candy Darling, whom Z is showing at the county fair with 4H Club.

We have four more sheep that we expect are expecting. 

What does Yoko have to do with deworming sheep?

We have this sweet little sheep named Yoko. This morning, I noticed that Yoko had some dingleberries, which meant she needed to be dewormed. Joy!

Later in the day, I corralled all of the sheep into a small area. Then, I went to catch Yoko, and she jumped high into the air! Which made me yell, involuntarily,

"Whoa! Yoko!"

Yoko, standing in front of her mom, Chyoko.

Now, some people say Yoko's talent is overrated, but I saw how high she jumped, and it was HIGH! Yoko has a great talent, if you ask me. Then I grabbed her, and she struggled, and I said,

"I'm never ever ever ever ever gonna let you go...

"...until you swallow your medicine and I clean around your bottom."

And now I'm covered in poop.

Love,

Shoshanah

Winter Mornings

A New Sheep In Town

Today, we borrowed this large, mellow Corredale to cross breed with our little, fiesty Jacobs. I'm hoping we'll get some nice big meat lambs, and perhaps a few female lambs with dark grey wool, so we can make felted top hats!

Z took this picture of him while we were driving and singing (to the tune of Winnie the Pooh):

 "Driving *Mo's sheep

Driving Mo's sheep,

Going around the round-a-bout 

And down the Main Street!"

This ram got right to business, the second we let him loose. 

The lady sheep are still in shock.

* Mo is my friend who lent us this sheep. Thank you, Mo.

Mustache Taxidermy Forever!

I'm having lots of fun making more mustachioed sheep-deer-like creature heads lately. I even made a little movie of the process:

For sale here. :)

The end result is a silly and fun loving faux taxidermy piece, reminiscent of childish dreams and imaginary places where anthropomorphized animals with mustaches gladly lay down their lives to become wall decorations. 

Bah

Sheep!

Carl Fredricks came by and took pictures of our sheep a few days ago.

King

King is the only survivor of Viola's triplets-the very first lambs. Z named him "King" because she said that kings usually have their two brothers die. I did not take the opportunity to lecture her on exactly why so many princely siblings often have met a young demise. I just said,

"Yeah. He's been through a lot."

He sure is pretty for a King. Can you see his little horns growing?

3 babies

I've finally figured out how to feed all three of them at once!

Three bottles in a bucket with three holes.

It was disturbing me, before, when I fed them and I only had two hands, two at once. They all fought to be fed! But now they are happy. No one has to be patient. None of them are patient, anyway.

Here's looking at you, lamb.

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs

I have not been keeping up with my regular postings here due mostly to some large fluffy beasts in my life and their small, hungry children.

Little Lamb took some coaxing to be a mother, and now she's a possessive psychopath. We all have different parenting styles, I guess. Other sheep wander near her, eating grass (as sheep will do) and she head butts them. 

But she only accepted one of her twins, and now we have another bottle baby. So that makes three! I only have two hands and two bottles, but the third one is already learning to be patient.

We had some friends over to see the lambs. Big Z said about the new bottle lamb,

"Let's name him Cloudy."

"But he's a boy," I cautioned. "So we might eat him. Are you sure you want to name him?"

"Yes," she said. "I want to name him Coudy."

"How about, 'Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs'?" Said our friend Marca, "and that way, if you eat him..."

"Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs! That's perfect."

And thus it came to pass...

It seems pretty unlikely, the chance of meatballs part, but you just never know.

Music Monday: Yoshimi

Her name is Yoshimi
She's a blackbelt in Karate
Working for the city
She has to discipline her body...

A couple of years ago, we named a sheep after this song by the Flaming Lips:



Now, Yoshimi just had twins! Two girls:

The big question: What do we name them?

The Bottle Babies are Outside, Now

But I made them wear a sweater...

These sweaters are called woolovers. Mo from my yoga class lent them to us. It's the height of spring fashion this year.

More Lambs

Sevilla had twins yesterday. It's not the best weather for it- cold and rainy. 

This one was shivering. It was raining out. I took her inside to dry her off. 

The cats were curious, and somewhat horrified.

I was delighted.

I hope her mom starts taking better care of her soon! Now I'm going to go out and try to heard them into an area more sheltered from the weather. Wish me luck! I have notch clue what I'm doing. 

Book Party with Special Guest Star Professor Batty

I had a book release party today. 

I was surprised, awed, and overwhelmed when none other than Professor Batty (flippistarchives.blogspot.com) walked in the door! 

And then, before I even got over my star struck excitement, I introduced Professor Batty to someone as Jon. Which is not his name, never has been his name, but my brain consistently insists that is his name. He drove five hours and I called him the wrong name.

A weird guy once said to me, "there's an asshole in every crowd, and sometimes it's you."

Nevertheless, he didn't say anything to correct me, and we had a good time, anyway. I couldn't just let him go straight home after the book reading, so we wandered around my little town and ate dinner. 

Not there. Here:

He took lots of pictures for maximum internet embarrassment later, I'm sure. 

**************

When I got home, I talked on the phone with my wild and crazy mother, and then I realized I had sheep to look after. I walked out and discovered Sevilla the sheep had had twins! They seem strong. It was starting to rain, and I felt it was important for the newborns to have shelter. I opened the gate that leads to a small shelter. Sevilla and her twins were as far from the shelter as they could possibly be. I figured that if I took her babies to the shelter, Sevilla would follow. So, I put one little lamb under each of my arms. One of them was still wet from being born! They started squirming and crying,

"Mwaaaah! Mwaah!"

"Mwaaaah! Mwaah!"

And I started marching across the field. Sevilla followed, with a deep,

"Baaah! Baaah!" And the little ones kept squirming under my arms,

"Mwaaaah! Mwaah!"

"Mwaaaah! Mwaah!"

"Baaaaaaaah"

"Mwaaaah! Mwaah!"

"Mwaaaah! Mwaah!"

Going across the field... And then Sevilla had to stop and get herself a drink. She took her own sweet time, too, (she did just give birth, twice) while her twins squirmed in my arms,

"Mwaaaah! Mwaah!"

"Mwaaaah! Mwaah!"

They have high pitched cries, almost like baby humans. 

Sevilla finally decided to follow me again. I put the little newborns in the shelter. 

"Mwaaaah! Mwaah!"

"Mwaaaah! Mwaah!"

Sevilla followed. Everyone else followed, too. Sheep everywhere! 

We now have four live little lambs, total. Three still pregnant. 

All the Little Creatures, Living and Dead

One of yesterday's lambs died last night! I was worried about it, yesterday, because it seemed so small and weak. But it was nursing, so it seemed okay. I called a friend who has lots of sheep, and he thought the lamb (whom we had already named "Chong") would be fine. He even came over and looked at it, picked it up, checked it out. And then I was worried that its mother was ignoring it, but last I went and checked on them, she was licking its head. So I thought it would be fine. Mama was taking care of Chong. And then in the morning, it was dead.

I'm all torn up about it. I should have bottle fed it a little bit, and taken it in for the night. But I have heard of them giving birth in the dead of winter when the temperature is in the negatives, on the ice, with this breed... so I thought the little lamb Chong would be fine. Hindsight is golden.

We still have five pregnant lambs.

The thing about it is, it was actually triplets, and one just never was alive. So triplets are risky business, I suppose. It's hard for them all to be healthy.

I really hope my daughter doesn't take it too hard. She named the poor little lamb.

This is our first lamb, ever. Damn. (That would explain, though, why I had no idea what to do. Some things require some experience.)

Right when I was having a good cry about the poor little lamb Chong, the phone rang- our ducklings, goslings, and poults were at the post office! (We ordered them a month or so ago.) So that cheered me up.

Little Cuties.

Of course, one of the ducks died, too. What can you do?

Duck

Duck

Goose!

Enjoy the living.