a colloquial term for “that’s the way the cookie crumbles”, “s… happens” or, in today’s case, a more literal term…..

handsome Patchwork Belvedere posed nicely for me just last week. We’ve had a cool summer and the rams have been working on their hierarchy for close to a month.

This is what greeted me this morning…

The lateral was flopping as he walked, so there was not much to do besides take it off. Fourteen years ago, I had an 8 month old ram lamb that had knocked a lateral loose. He’s already been submitted for JSBA registration so I did have pictures with good horns.  I taped it (much like a splint) and it did heal firmly attached, but at a droopy angle as it had slipped a bit while healing. Belvedere’s broken lateral was pressing against his ear. Even if it had managed to heal, I felt it would have been a problem.  He’s a pretty placid fellow, so it was a minor deal (physically, but I sure cringed at what I was doing) to catch him and twist off the lateral. The core had also been broken and I don’t see that there is any possibility of regrowth.

The new alpha ram, Jedd, can’t hide the evidence…

It doesn’t show as much in Belvedere’s picture, but you can see Jedd’s “ram bump” on his nose.  This is not a roman nose and Jacob rams do not exhibit the swelling except during breeding season. It’s caused by hormones and is a sure sign that it’s breeding season, whether the shepherd is ready or not.  I’ll be working to set up breeding paddocks tomorrow – a little earlier than I’d planned.

It goes without saying that “rams are rams”. I find the definitions of ram interesting. “any of various devices for battering, crushing, driving, or forcing something, esp. a battering ram.” “to drive or force by heavy blows. to strike with great force; dash violently against”

The definitions of bull are gentle in comparison.

I’m doing something a little different this year with my ram lambs. I have three that I really like and want to see what they will produce, but don’t really have the room for five breeding groups. I’m going to put up small pens with one ram lamb and one ewe in each. One ram lamb will go to a new home the end of October.

help from Sharon .

Patchwork Martha, the daughter of Craft’s Ruby’s Belle and Yakob-Tson Zeppo, has produced some great lambs for us and others.  She’s a primitive girl with an independent nature.

She also has a lovely demi luster fleece. For the last few years, her fleece has been purchased by Sharon Grist, who is the resident weaver, natural dyer, and spinner at Foxfire . I quit selling fleeces a few years ago, except for Martha’s fleece to Sharon.  Sharon excels at everything she does – weaving, spinning, dyeing, and knitting.  Since I can’t knit worth a darn, it’s her knitting that really blows me away. I love to see what she’s going to produce with Martha’s fleece. I can’t knit, but I can raise a nice ewe

Sharon, wearing a sweater she knitted, with her “Martha” afghan.

Each block is gently shaded. Sharon spun a precise amount of colors A, B, and C, wound the bobbin into a center pull ball and plied from the ball, giving her a two ply yarn that shaded from light to dark.

Martha, with a little help from Sharon, did a great job

so why did he die?”

(ETA – none of mine died.)

I wrote and posted this entry a few days ago. I deleted it, as I felt it was an angry post. And angry is not my goal here. Strong opinions? you bet! Maybe even abit (and then some ) opinionated? right again!

But, the statement, “I just wormed” , drives me up the wall. Take a breath, Linda, and relax.

I’ve heard more times than I want to count, “I just wormed, so why?”  Deworming is not a cure-all, even if your dewormer is still working for your flock.  All diarrhea is not due to parasites. Barber pole worms (haemonchus), one of the most common causes of death in lambs in this area, cause anemia, but not diarrhea. All anemia is not due to parasites (although, it’s a good guess in our area) Diarrhea can often be caused by coccidiosis – which is not treated by the usual dewormers and can be a real lamb killer.  I had an adult ewe a few years ago that picked up a bacterial infection which caused diarrhea. I saw nothing in fecs (fecal egg count). It took a trip to the vet for her (well, actually her fecal sample), who was able to diagnose her problem. I could have dewormed her forever and never made a difference.

Dewormer resistance is a huge problem here in the southeast. This is largely a result of scheduled whole flock worming .  My first sheep were some crossbred meat sheep. I purchased them from a local Suffolk breeder. He told me I HAD to worm every six weeks, which is what he did. But, the reason he had so many crossbred lambs for sale was because his high dollar Suffolk ram was so out of condition due to a heavy parasite load, that the Hampshire clean-up ram he picked up at an auction caught most of the ewes. Hmm….? That was 16 years ago. Since then, I’ve taken the FAMACHA course at University of Georgia and the fecal testing workshop at SAFF and read and watched alot. I’ve seen flocks that had a parasite population that was resistant to all three classes of dewormers. I’ve purchased sheep from a NY flock that never wormed. I’ve learned the difference between parasite resistant and parasite tolerant.

Politely, not angrily…
If you deworm, take a few minutes to be sure the sheep needs worming (I love my cheapie $125 microscope), take a few minutes to see if the deworming works – 10 or so days later.  Immediately after deworming, you’ll see about a zillion (okay, I do exaggerate) parasite eggs in a fec. If you do scheduled dewormings, I would prefer (I’m being polite here) that you deworm three days before I come to get the sheep.  If you’ve got a lamb looking kinda dopie off in a corner, consider more than parasites or the heat. If you’ve got two sheep with the same fec and one looks great and one isn’t thriving, think abit about selecting for a hardy sheep.

And here I come to the finale – still politely–

Please – do not think that deworming is the answer for every time a sheep is abit off color.  Please – don’t jump to deworm everytime a sheep has diarrhea. Do you deworm your children or yourself everytime you have a tummy upset?  Don’t think that just because you dewormed that you don’t need to monitor your sheep.

go barefoot. And the carpenter’s wife has curtains instead of cabinet doors…

Or did until this week.  The builders in this area are being hard hit by the economy and work is scarce for carpenters.  Well, paying work may be scarce, but there is plenty of work here at Patchwork for a carpenter. Dave may  not be getting paid, but he is working.

Last week, Dave put a floor in what used to be my rabbit barn. It’s now my wool sorting area. Siding will be added at some point, but for now, it’s wonderful to have a dedicated space for sorting and drying wool.  And I imagine Dave is happy that I’m not sorting wool in the living room anymore.

This week began a project that it just as exciting – Kitchen Cabinets!!. I suppose if I were a proper housewife, I would say more exciting

(really, this is straight – just couldn’t get the right angle to show that in the picture!)

He’s halfway through the kitchen cabinets and will start on the other side soon. I still have to make some design decisions for that side. The doors will be stained lightly darker than they are now and Dave has made some neat wooden handles and pulls.

Gosh, it looks so nice, I think I’ll stay here! No kidding .. I am NEVER going to move again

~~~~~ or, A Dog’s Tail

I love this guy

His name is Sam Colt and he is one of my neighbor’s LGDs. Unlike Bandit (aka “The Oaf”), Sam is not a people dog.  He has to be cornered in a stall to be caught. He is not aggressive towards people – just not interested. His job is to protect his goats, not to be your friend. He will sometimes accidentally brush against me when I feed him, but is not one to come up for a scratch.

Perhaps because my dogs tend to have skinny snake tails, or in Dobie’s case, a bob tail, I find Sam’s Great Pyrenees tail fascinating. It’s so expressive.

On high alert…

I’m watching you..

Don’t take my picture! (Sam does not like the sound of gun fire and, for some reason, he seems to associate me pointing a camera at him with guns. He always barks at me when I have my camera.

Having a chat with Stinky the buck

EGADS! What is that smell!!!!

This is the first time in awhile that I have fed for my neighbor during breeding season.  I have tried to, but have not been able to, forget the smell of a buck. Stinky (not his real name) stinks!  Years ago, one of Jennifer’s bucks needed a shot while I was feeding for her. No problem – he was a gentle guy. I did have to hold him against the fence with my knee.  Not realizing at that time just how smelly bucks were, I went from feeding to the grocery store.  In the closed environment of my car I got a good whiff, but wasn’t sure what the smell was. I stopped and checked all the fluids in my car – continued to the grocery store, bought groceries, stood in line to check out, smelled something bad – wondered what it was, noticed the funny look the cashier gave me, got home and realized….the smell was on my clothes from touching the buck!

A big thank you to Marie Roenke from Trumansburg, NY for allowing me to post this picture. Check out Marie’s flock at  http://www.freewebs.com/spothollowfarm/

I saw this picture on Marie’s website and it immediately caught my eye. It’s one of my favorite sheep photos ever! Marie was kind enough to allow me to share….

I got this one via email this week from daughter, Alina….

The new horse, Shawnee, and son-in-law, Greg, share a horse laugh about something I can’t help but wonder what in the world they’re talking about.

I started this post a year ago. I’d started a hummingbird post this morning, but decided to curtail that for awhile – little flying  rats  – but beautiful and went back to see what drafts I might have in the wings.

I just love how the internet has opened windows to Jacob flocks all across the country.  I would never have thought to request sale lists from as many breeders as now have sale lists online. I do research bloodlines and backgrounds, but also want sheep that  “grab” me, so I can’t always explain just what I’m looking for when requesting photos. I’m looking for more than bloodlines. A breeder’s website with all the flock pictured gives me a chance to zoom onto the sheep that I am interested in, as well as giving me a more complete look at the flock. Back in the old days, we waited for photos to arrive in the mail.  And then we asked for more pictures and waited for those to arrive.

I want to take my time when considering flock additions. I want to ponder each picture – maybe run to http://www.jsba.org/search.html to do some research on the background. It’s useful to see just what the sisters/brothers/cousins/uncles/aunts produced. I like best the websites that picture ALL the breeder’s flock and a hyperlink to the pedigrees. Second best are websites that include picture pedigrees on the sale sheep.

I’m a geekie sort and I do enjoy the technology that can put up a slide show of sheep pictures with fancy fade ins/fade outs.  Music? no, I’ve never enjoyed sound tracks on websites. We may have the same taste in sheep, but we don’t always have the same taste in music – and I want to focus on what’s important to me – the sheep. Flashy intros just take up more time that I care to spend. I like the “skip intro” feature alot!

As Sgt Joe Friday said “All we want are the facts.”

Curling up with a good book is one of my comfort activities…unless I happen to be in bed with a virus. Then it loses some of its cozy appeal.

Books still make the involuntary bed stay more bearable and I got the chance to spend some time with some new books.

I’ve been spinning for 19 years and I have a pretty good sized spinning library. I just can’t seem to resist books of any kind . If I were recommending just one book to a spinner, this would be it. Very concise and very well written.

My fiber tip…
putting a washed, dry fleece in the clothes dryer for 20 minutes on no heat/air fluff will take out an amazing amount of tiny vm (little bits of plant stuff). This works best for the really tiny stuff that is hard to pick out manually. Larger pieces of hay/straw don’t come out as easily in the dryer, but are easy enough to pick out manually. Now, here’s the caveat —- it’s been said to me that this practice can be dangerous and can cause a fire. It’s not going to catch on fire while you are running the dryer on no heat, but those little bits of vm are flammable. Clean your dryer after fluffing fleece – not just the lint trap, but under the lint trap to the bottom of the dryer. And the exhaust hose. Since I tend to never clean out the pockets of my jeans before washing them, I probably get as much straw and miscellaneous flammable bits in the dryer with regular laundry as I do when fluffing fleece.  I am a serious pocket person – I never wear anything that doesn’t have pockets -EVER. By the end of the day, I’ve probably gained 5 pounds just from what I’ve put in my pockets.  Once I donated an old jacket to the thrift store and found, when checking pockets – two syringes, three elastrator bands, miscellaneous bits of yarn and fiber, some dried leaves, and an egg. So I clean the dryer often anyway.

I’d just gotten this book the day before I took to bed. It’s a hands on type of book with step by step workshop lessons, using the author’s photos. When I looked at the first photo to fix, I thought – geez, you ought to be a good enough photographer to take something better in the first place.  I was browsing this book away from my computer. Computer is upstairs – bed and bath is downstairs. I stayed downstairs. Once I got back upstairs and worked through a few of the lessons, I saw the wisdom of the author’s teaching methods. I’ve  had photoshop for probably ten? years, moving from PS7 to CS3 over the years.  I think I’m pretty good with it, but realized working through this book that I get good results by trial and error more than by really knowing what I’m doing.  That said, this book does not really explain in detail why you should use an adjustment of such and such, but you can see what’s happening and intuitively “get it”.

My Photoshop tip…
This book talked about using threshold to find your brightest and darkest spots, but I learned to do it abit differently. Open your photo – click “new adjustment layer” and choose threshold. Move the slider all the way to the right until the image goes completely black. Move the slider to the left until you see a white spot. Place the furthest right eyedropper (the highlight picker) over the white spot.  Press shift and left click.  A little gunsight will appear. Move the slider all the way to the left until the image goes completely white. Move to the right until you see a black spot. Place the furthest left eyedropper (the shadow picker) over the black spot.  Hit shift and left click. Another little gunsight will appear . Then hit cancel because we really don’t want a threshold layer.  Now do another new adjustment layer and choose curves. The image will come up with the two little gunsights. Number 1 is your brightest point and number 2 is your darkest point.  Click the appropriate eyedroppers (shadow/highlight) into the centers of the gunsights. Why is this different from using the eyedroppers to chose your white point and your black point? Because you want your brightest/darkest point, which might not be your white/black point.

Try it – it’s fun

Sheep tip…
sheep will eat zucchini.  Anyone that has ever raised zucchini knows that a 4 inch zucchini grows to  about the size of a small submarine in three days. Neglecting the garden for a few days made me desperate enough to toss a few to the sheep. They love them!

Dave’s working at home this week – building a door in his shop for the log cabin he just worked to reassemble (and add to). He wanted to go check some measurements and I rode along. I wanted to see the cabin and take some pictures – and he told me there would be horses there. I don’t want another horse and I’m not going to get another horse, but horses will always be my favorite photographic subjects.

The log portion of this cabin is a reassembled smoke house from the owner’s grandparents’ place in Tennessee. The logs were moved from TN and have been stored here in GA for years – as logs. Reassembling is much like legos, except that each log has its special space – positions are not interchangeable. Logs are marked upon disassembly. Dave’s boss does the chinking, as did his father, in the traditional way.  Dave worked for years as  a boat carpenter and his special talent is working with things that aren’t quite square and making them look right. If you can visualize a boat on blocks (out of the water), you will notice that a boat curves from top to bottom (keel to deck) and also from front to back (bow to stern).  A wall (bulkhead) in a boat not only requires a scribed cut from top to bottom, but also along the longitudial axis.  Adding a porch, loft and hip roof on a handmade log cabin and making it look right is a talent that few have. I’m proud of him!

Here’s my favorite house that Dave built (and I helped!)

That speck on the porch roof is Dorothy. It’s time for her vet appointment and she doesn’t want to go.  I rescheduled

I had fun photographing the horses.

This pretty mare is laughing. The horses are in the area where the carpenters worked and Dave tells me this girl likes to bite his truck – there are tooth marks on his door to prove it!

As much as I’ve been enjoying my dslr, it was still a little sad to pack up my old friend, the Panasonic FZ28, for a trip to its new home.  I recommend this camera to anyone wanting a great small camera. Zoom goes to 486mm (35mm equivilant) which really makes it fun. Bye, Panny.

HELLO, OLD FRIEND~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Not old, but a long time friend

I met Patrice over a decade ago when I purchased my first Jacob ram from her.  I called him Maximilian, as I thought he was the greatest. Dave called him Maxwell Edison, after Maxwell’s Silver Hammer on the Beatles Abbey Road Album.

“Bang! Bang! Maxwell’s silver hammer
Came down upon her head.
Bang! Bang! Maxwell’s silver hammer
Made sure that she was dead.”

Max ended up living up to his Maxwell Edison name and was later called Mad Max and eventually was known as Sausage.

If Max did not endure, my friendship with Patrice did.  When I met Patrice, she told me she was an artist, which I thought probably meant she did some painting and worked at a “real” job to support her art “hobby”. Like being an actress while working as a waitress.   Patrice, rather shyly, told me that no, she made her living as a painter. Over the years, I have been wowed by her talent over and over again.  Some of her work can be seen at: http://patricelynneyoung.blogspot.com/

We met up at http://www.georgiaartists.org/ last week for a lunch date. The Georgia Heritage Center for the Arts is located in Tallulah Falls, next to the Gorge. The work displayed is a eclectic mix of talents, subjects, mediums, and styles.

I LOVE this hat!

This is my favorite Patrice Lynne Young painting…. (and it’s mine – a Christmas gift!!)

Small Meadows Groucho as a lamb. Craft’s Hershey to the left, Craft’s Lorelei and Craft’s Praline in the background.

HELLO, NEW FRIEND~~~~~

We’ve been having fun wandering the neighborhood.

I love this handsome boy, who lives down the road from me…..