A month of rain and projects and obligations have kept me from taking the time to blog. Still no time to really write a blog. How about just a few pictures ?
Patchwork Gideon enjoys a brief (very brief) period of sunshine.
Patchwork Madeleine has such pretty blue eyes.
Patchwork Wonder, the last lamb of the year, proves that some things are worth waiting for!
A sign of spring – snakes return. This handsome milk snake is one of the good guys.
Spring!!
zip-a-dee-ay
My, oh my what a wonderful day!
Plenty of sunshine heading my way
Lambing came to a wonderful end on April 23. Tardy Twinky (AKA Patchwork Twinky), as she had planned, had the spotlight all to herself for the delivery of her son. Following this year’s themes based on the dam’s name, he is named Wonder. And he is!
Wonder is a four horned lilac ram lamb sired by Kenleigh’s Casanova. He not only reinforces the discovery that Casanova carries lilac, he proves that Twinky does too. It’s wonderful to see how Casanova put some facial markings on Twinky’s lamb. She is a bit lacking in that area, with barely enough to pass registration. She’s done a good job of producing nicely marked lambs with the right rams. Judging by the fleece on this boy, I’d say Casanova was the right ram in all ways.
It was a great and wonderful lambing season! 25 vigorous lambs, up and nursing quickly after birth. One rather unusual experience that August will talk about later, but all is well.
12 ewes, 13 rams. 1 two horned, 24 four horned. 8 lilacs. Both Unzicker Abbott and Kenleigh’s Casanova turned out to be lilac carriers. Pretty good year.
Time for a nap…
Mister bluebird on my shoulder
It’s the truth
It’s actual
Everything is satisfactual
Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, zip-a-dee-ay
One more ewe left to lamb. Twinky thinks she’s pretty special since she got her own blog entry awhile back. So she’s making us wait. Things have been happening while Twinky gets ready for her moment.
Patchwork Fortune gave us the lovely Patchwork Favor, our first lamb sired by Kenleigh’s Casanova on April 3. She has some flash!
Patchwork Badger followed a few days later with twins by Casanova. Badger was so big
I thought she might have triplets. I was happy when she settled on twins on April 6. And especially pleased when one turned out to be a four horned lilac ram. I had hoped that Abbott or Casanova might carry lilac as they each have a parent that does. Finding out that both carry lilac made me giddy and jazzed. Since I could not find any good names based on Badger’s name…
Patchwork Gideon – lilac 4 horned ram
and his 4 horned twin sister, Patchwork Jazz
Jazz’s fleece makes me a little giddy 
Broken O Melodie followed with twin ewes by Unzicker Abbott on April 7
Patchwork Jingle – a light melody.
Patchwork Tempo- 4 horned – and she lives up to her name. She’s got rhythm.
The next day Palmetto Acres Lucinda presented us with a striking blue eyed 4 horned ram by Casanova, Patchwork Beacon. Lucinda followed her usual method of tossing her lambs, which is a story in itself. As usual, all is well although it is rather unsettling to watch.
On April 9, the much anticipated cross of Blue Ewe Alicia and Moose Mtn Hawk arrived. A handsome 4 horned lilac ram. Alicia means noble and his name is August. He will have his own blog post soon. He had a bit of an adventure.
Patchwork Sasha presented a 4 horned Abbott son on 4/11
. 
Sasha means defender and Diamond means bright defender. Or maybe bright fleece
We are at 24 lambs, 12 rams and 12 ewes. Twinky – it’s up to you to break the tie.
After a break of just over a month, Patchwork Farm moved on to Round Two. This was especially exciting as lambs from our three new rams were expected. Patchwork Nicollette was ready!
As expected, Nicollette lambed first with Moose Mtn Hawk’s first lambs for us on March 28. He dallied abit on the trip here from Colorado leaving a daughter in PA.
Going into Round Two with 6 ram lambs and 3 ewe lambs made Nicollette’s twin lilac ewes especially welcome.
Hello Praline!
Hi, Madeleine!
I’m using a naming theme this year based on the dam’s name. Sometimes the theme only makes sense to me Nicollette, daughter of Macaroon (daughter of Craft’s Praline), was called Snickerdoodle as a lamb. And her new girls sure are cute cookies.
Patchwork Lacey followed that night with her first set of twins, her first ewe lamb, and Unzicker Abbott’s first lambs. I think the cross worked quite well.
Patchwork Limerick
and her smiley faced lilac twin brother, Patchwork Dresden.
I was pleased to find that Abbott carries the gene for the lilac color as I’d hoped.
The naming theme for Lacey’s lambs is an easy one.
The next day started out with another set of Abbott twins from Springrock Stacia. I couldn’t be happier with the fleeces on these two.
Meet Merlot, Stacia’s ewe lamb
And her brother, Concord
Finding a naming theme for Stacia was rough. I found three meanings for the name “Stacia” – resurrection, to stand, and good grapes (really – I read it on the internet). Grapes it is.
Finishing the day with probably the most anticipated lamb of the season was Baby Elsa (Patchwork Elsa) presenting her own baby, a lovely lilac ewe lamb by Moose Mtn. Hawk. Elsa is a triplet daughter of our foundation ewe, Craft’s Ruby’s Belle x Jacquee’s Junco. She left here in 2oo5 as a lamb and returned last fall.
We are happy to welcome Patchwork Joy
There is a naming theme here. It is rather convoluted. I think without a naming theme, I’d still have named her Joy.
Patchwork Fortune is nearing the time to present us with our first lamb by Kenleigh’s Casanova. He dallied alot! on the way here from Oregon and has lambs in PA, NY, and NC. I’m anxious to see some in GA!
Patchwork Badger still has a week to go…
Lambs begin to establish their flock statuses early.
Twin brothers, Altair and Orion, don’t play fair, ganging up on younger Sundance..
Oops!
All is quickly forgiven..
Round 1 of lambing is finished. The six ewes bred to departing senior rams have lambed. It’s interesting (and I have no idea why it would be interesting to anyone but me) that Comet bred his girls one week and Boyd bred his the next. The first week was all lambs from Comet and this week was all lambs from Boyd.
Peck’s Annie started the second chapter of round 1.
Hard to believe this tiny baby is now a mother.
She was a bottle baby, rejected by her dam. Her dam is a ewe I sold and is from a very good line of mothers. Vivianne raised her first lamb fine, but didn’t do so well with twins the next year. Due to the work schedule of her breeder, Not Really An Orphan Annie came to live at Patchwork. Because I wanted her to be around sheep, but didn’t want her to be injured by ewes that might not like her anymore than her mother did, Annie spent her early days in the sheep carrier. She looked so small! She was with sheep, but couldn’t be hurt. During the first few weeks, she spent the nights in the house in a crate. I think bottle babies do best with small frequent feeding for the first few weeks and I am way too lazy to suit up and walk to the barn every two hours during the night!
Two years later (2/21), in the same spot, it was time to see what Annie could do.
I think she likes him! Hello Sundance! Four horned blue eyed ram.
Patchwork Bling followed soon after, lambing just before midnight on 2/22. She’s quite fond of her four horned son, Glamor.
Hillside Holly is an old hat at this lambing thing now. Saturday, with no fuss, she did her part to balance out our ram/ewe ratio by presenting twin ewes.
Tupelo (standing) and Poplar. One of these ewes will stay at Patchwork to bring Boyd’s lines into our lilacs.
Lambing round 1 is over until the end of March, when 12 more ewes will be lambing.
Maybe..
.
The lovely Loretta may yet surprise us.
