It's Spooky......

Really it is..... He isn't actually my cat, but his name is Spooky....well Spookytoo, to be more accurate. It seems there is a forever and endless supply of homeless cats and kittens around here. I have six cats at the present, and I actually 'picked out' one of those---the rest have been the homeless and needy. If cats interest you, you can read more about the cat population on the farm at my website at http://www.fairlightfarm.com/ Pictures are slow to be put up, but the stories are there.

Back to Spooky, who isn't exactly homeless at the moment, but is on the verge of it. I love black cats and have had several over the years. Next to Siamese coloring they are my favorites. One of my first cats after I got out on my own was a beautiful huge black cat with six toes on each front foot. His name was Shiloh and he was something else indeed. Much later came Gideon--a strange blackish-grey fellow with odd ears that flippped up on the ends. He was wild and rarely let me touch him. He showed up the day I buried one of my orignal collie girls, Mara. He was mean and tough, but loved little kittens, and soon enough began enjoying the easy life. Even though he was nuetered after showing up here, he ended up having to euthanized later, when a roaming tom fought him and ripped a hole into his throat. Pretty bad stuff. Several years later, another black tom showed up. He was sleek and gentle and I soon found out belonged to neighbors--his name was Spooky. He enjoyed hanging out at my place and I enjoyed him. However as is the fate of many roaming toms, one day he just didn't stop by anymore. His owners had previously moved and abandoned him and I was intent on trapping him and getting him nuetered---but it didn't happen in time. I really liked that cat. A year or two more went by, and one day a sleek black Tom appeared once more. I was excited---on one level I knew it couldn't be Spooky, but I hoped. I soon realized that this 'Spooky' was a much younger fellow. For the past couple of years Spook has stopped by, periodically for a meal and some petting. He is wise enough to time his visit at feeding time. Piece by piece I started learning his story. I was pretty sure he wasn't a 'stray', since he looked sleek and well fed, and he was affectionate and gentle with people. Evidently he belonged to a neighbor a mile or so down the road (at least we think this is the same cat!), who also happens to be an Aunt by marriage. The thing was--they were rarely home as they are transistioning to a house by the lake for retirement. And Spooky isn't nuetered so he does what toms do. Sometimes I won't see him for weeks, and other times he is there for several days. I've also found out that my Aunt has decided that 'they probably won't take him to the lake, because they know I'll take care of him!'....argh....... In the meantime Spooky has aged some, has acquired many scars, but is still a handsome, healthy fellow. Once I find out that "I'm" his new caretaker and finances ease up a bit, he will be off to have a visit with the vet. Then I expect I'll have a mostly permanent resident. Now isn't that a 'spooky' story? :-)

Paperback Swap

Almost a year ago I was introduced to a great Paperback Swap club. I still can't believe how easy it is! To join you have to list nine books (paperback or hardback) and you get a couple of 'credits'. With the credits you can 'purchase' books. Once you purchase a book a credit is then deducted from your total. To gain more credits you can either buy them or wait until another person selects one of your books. Once someone requests your book, you send it out and they recieve it you then get a credit added to your account. What does it cost? There are no fees to join this club at the present time, all the cost involved is your books plus 1.59 in media mail stamps to send out the books that people request from you. All books need to be in good shape and have an ISBN. You can also list audio books (which are two credits). This is such a great way to recycle those books you don't want to keep--plus add to your stash of must reads. The selection is enormous, and if a particular book isn't there when you want it, you can add it to your wish list and you will be automatically given a chance to select that book if it is every listed. Mailing books is easy too---the orignators of the site have forms you can print on your computer (two sheets per book) that already has both the sender and recievers addresses, the media mail stamp plus the postage amount. They also have a handy dandy diagram that shows how to tape these two sheets of paper around the book and mail it--and it works! I've sent/recieved bunches with no damage! If you like to read I really recommend this club. Plus if you contact me that you want to join I can send a link where I'll get a free credit when you join! ;-)

Trust me---this is one great club--I'm as happy with it now as when I joined and have saved close to $200 by 'shopping' for books this way! And its just down right fun!

First Fire of the Season

Its that time of the year again. The leaves are changing color, there is a crispness to the air, the house is suddenly damp and chilly. Time to light a fire! Pictured is the first fire of the season. This was after cleaning out the interior of the stove, (and the glass), and checking pipes and chimney. Starting the first fire is fun, there is just something good about it, the second and third fires aren't too bad either, but along about the fifth or sixth, its not much fun anymore, and you realize that winter is setting in and there are going to be lots of fires to keep going and ashes to clean out! I love my wood stove though. Its a Vermont Castings and the glass front was 'mandatory' as far as I was concerned. I saved for several years as my old Ashley died a slow, ugly death. I shopped around, compared prices, talked to 'experts'--even measured my house to make sure I would have the square footage. Things I like about my stove--it holds alot of wood, its a tough little critter, the glass front and the tremendous amount of heat it generates. Things I don't like (and 'if I had it to over again') ---too small--it could be a little larger, front loading ashpan--what were they thinking? (love the ashpan, but you have to open the front double glass doors to empty it instead of the side door and it makes an awful mess when you open the double doors--plus allows more ash to sift into the house). I probably would have gotten a little more of an 'industrial' size stove with a glass front if I had known what I was doing at the time. But all in all I like the stove. Someday I hope to get something like an electric fireplace to help warm up the front. My house has two large long rooms connected by a narrow hallway, so the front part stays a bit nippy in the winter. It sure is nice though to curl up in my leather recliner (a marvelous yard sale find!), next to the fire during the winter! Despite all the mess it creates you can't hardly beat wood heat---its warm! I find it hard to adjust to most central heating systems, as I'm used to a more direct warmth. Enjoy with me the start of the new season, gaze into the fire and dream of resting beside it with a good book! :-)

More Vacation...Tackling the Firewood Stack

Well, I finally got the firewood stack under control! I have a very nice place to stack the firewood---its concrete flooring and has a concrete wall behind it. I buy a year in advance so the wood has a chance to season out. I have a wonderful wood supplier who is honest, reliable and cuts the wood to whatever specifications you need--plus he builds a mean stack--the ends are all 'just so' and look very neat. Because I buy a year in advance and usually have some left over from the current year I have to keep two stacks going--which means I have to clean up the last years wood pile and move whatever is left over to the wood pile I'm going to use this year, so there will be a clean place to have the new load brought in. I normally use three cords per year and this is my only heating system. Because of the very mild winters the last couple of years I haven't went through three cords, more like two and half. Moving the old wood to the current wood pile is a BIG DEAL. Not because its a hard job, but because, as usual I didn't get to it in the spring, so its been sitting there all summer---accumulating ants and slugs and...spiders. Its pretty awful. ( I don't deal with spiders well at all.......) These are not little bitty spiders either--most are about the size of a nickel with some quarters thrown in there as well, and there are thousands and thousands of them. So I carry two sticks at a time--one in each hand, held way out from my person. A few of the spiders crawled over my shoes and there were some wild yelps and dancing going on. It didn't take too long, maybe an hour or two. I also filled the woodbox which sits in the breezeway during the winter. This is very handy, as it keeps the wood dry and is right out the back door. My Dad built this many years ago and its simply a huge plywood box mounted on caster wheels. Then I cleaned up the kindling pile and filled up a large plastic tub with the kindling and set it in the breezeway as well. While I was doing this Ariel and Boone were working very, very hard as well...... It was exhausting just watching them.... Ariel (the blue merle collie) was working pretty hard on how to steal back her beef knuckle bone from Boone though. Boone found it and was thrilled beyond belief--he had quite a wild game of it for awhile. Ariel was standing on the sidelines with disapproval written all over her. She is a bit intimadated by Boone, although he has never been aggressive towards her. He is so powerful though that he has ran into her once before and made her yelp. Anyway, she waited very patiently til he was snoozing then crept over and took the knuckle bone and made off with it. Not that she ever chews it, but it is hers, ya know. Unfortunately she must have slightly miscalculated ( I think she planned to take it just past where the end of Boone's leash went and lay it there so he would see it but not be able to get it), and Boone was able to reach it from his leash and happily came toting it back some time later.......Sometimes it is hard getting any real work done, for watching the animal entertainment!

Vacation is killing me!

I love vacation! I can set my own pace, do what I want to do, well sorta..... Vacation is actully wonderful! Due to 'techincal difficulties' at home, I've had to resort to waiting and posting the blog after I was back at work. I had a very productive vacation and got alot of 'winterizing' done around the place. Its really hard to come back to work though! The bitterness runs deep, but my co-workers are all praying hard for me. ;-) (I think they are also laughing at me as well---)

Day one was spent mostly working on Boone's House. This was a small shed that I orignally built when I was awaiting the arrival of my first two shetlands. It was to shelter them and be their isolation pen. The shed itself is suppose to be around 6 x 6 ft interior, but due to twisted posts and faulty builder (me), it isn't exactly square. Anyway, the shed has served its purpose over the last few years, several times as an isolation unit or sick unit for the sheep. It is now a deluxe dog house after Boone appeared on the scene last winter. Unfortunately because Boone won't not chase the cats he doesn't get free run of the fenced yard. Maybe someday.... In the meantime he has a largish fenced area (to be expanded but I ran out of vacation time) and this shed. Since he arrived at the tail end of last winter and spent the first 5 - 6 weeks in the garage/pen, I just put in a pallet and bedded the shed deeply with straw, plus put two straw bales stacked on each other across the front to keep out the wind and he did fine. This year, I knew I wouldn't rest easy until I got some kind of floor in there to cut down on the dampness. I have had some rough cut/raw cedar boards 'curing' (fancy word for not getting around to using them) in the breezeway for a couple of years. I decided these would do for the flooring and would be a start towards semi-enclosing the open end of the building.

First I had to level and lay out the treated floor joists that I bought. That was probably one of the hardest things to get right. I am no carpenter, so 'close enough' is good enough for me. After that I had to notch and lay the corner floorboard, which went pretty good! Then it was a matter of measuring each board and cutting it to fit. I didn't nail anything down as I wanted to make sure it all lay correctly first. That took almost all the first day (besides the fiasco sorting out the sheepies).

The next day I was able to finish out the floor and notch the other end boards, and then nail it all down. It fit so exact it was awesome! I didn't have to 'split' any boards or anything. Then I moved on to enclosing the end. First though there was this metal fence post that was right next to the building and had to be removed before nailing on the outside boards. I'm not sure what was holding that thing in, but I like to have never got it out! I spent two days (off and on) working on it--digging around it, prying, soaking etc. etc. Finally it popped out and I could go on with the 'constructing' work. (after I filled in the enormous hole left from the post excavation). In the meantime I had went to the local Amish bulk food store which is also a cedar mill and picked up some more boards. These were 'more expensive' but they were also 12 " instead of 6 "--will work great for the end. I have the end now enclosed a little over half, and now need to add more boards to the top so that there will be a nice big dog sized opening. I ran out of time so didn't get it finished--but I have the boards so hopefully will get it done soon. Boone seems to really like his new 'digs'. The shed has a window in it so its fairly well lit, plus I plan to run a cord out for a ceiling light (the cord will be well out of reach for a certain dogue). I think I will look into a rubber stall or kennel matt to protect the floor plus add extra cushioning and insulation for the big guy. I also bought him a large round doggie pillow--which he is banned from using until it dries up a little and I get the doorway finished. Very deluxe! :-)

Pick Me! Pick Me!

This seems to be what 'the boys' are saying as time approaches for the rams to be moved in with the girls. This year there will only be one breeding group, and Redford will be the ram who gets to be moved to the girls pen. In the picture Redford is the moorit smirslet sokket in the very back. Drake is the lighter musket blettett in the middle, Jeffery is the grey on the left and his twin brother Callum is on the right. Callum is actually a wether now, but sired Drake before the 'big surgery'. I was really happy to get this shot, as its very hard to get them all together and to stand still long enough to get a picture. I'm sure they were hoping for a handout of animal crackers!

Well, breeding groups are set up, a few days after this picture was taken. I must say it was a grueling experience! What should have been a 30 minute job turned into about two hours of name calling (me) and alot of na-nah-nahhhing (sheep). First I had to seperate shetland moms from shetland girl babies (who are now nearly six months old I might point out). This went very smooth, after I'd penned the moms and babies in the small catch pen. Catch a baby, hustle it out, shut the gate. Soon done, I left the moms in the small pen, opened the gate from the shetland pen to the larger paddock so the babies could filter out, and headed up to the main barn to sort out two Dorset/Merino yearlings and Duckie (black shetland yearling who had decided to be a big white sheep). This is when I looked back and realized I had a situation. Bouncing around behind me were a bunch of little shetlands plus one big black fuzzy one--Rouen had escaped from the pen! Of all the sheep in the world, Rouen is not the one you want to escape. I decided to ignore her and deal with the others first, but I had a sinking feeling in my stomach. At the barn, I doubled gated the barn, so I would have another pen to sort off the non-keepers from the three keepers, but also have a backup gate in case keepers got out with non-keepers. This went amazingly smooth and I soon had three upset sheep shut in the barn. Off I went to try and catch Rouen. About thirty minutes later, I finally got her penned in a small area behind where the other shetlands were, by using a lightweight pallet. Then it took probably twenty more minutes to convince the shetland babies to re-remove themselves from the area! Back to the main barn I let out the non-keepers and then went to let them and the shetland babies out to pasture. At the pasture gate as I'm letting out the sheep, I hear a terrible commotion from the barn and see the first gate crash down and three sheep are in the second pen. Me thinks to myself, well, they won't jump THAT gate because its too tall. About that time, I see one of the Merino crosses jump /fall into the next stall, which unfortunately has an open gate. Okay, I think to myself, she won't get through THIS gate that I'm holding! About that time, she hits/tries to jump the gate I'm holding, bounces back, re-revs herself and hits the gate ninety to nothing, slamming it out of my hand, backwards into the pasture until it hits the garage wall. It took me quite awhile to make that gate (a heavy duty metal tube gate with cattle panel filler) go back the way its suppose to! The whole time this is happening I'm thinking that the wild renagade sheep is Melody--the white sheep with the big black spot posted elsewhere in my blog--as she has always been less than friendly. Now her twin sister, Suzie, is soo gentle, loves crackers and petting.... When I get back to the barn where the other two are still waiting like normal sheep, I realize the crazy one was actually Suzie! I was very shocked. It's not often I've seen a demented sheep, but she was sure giving a good impression of one. I've never really had a sheep go so totally crazy and jump mulitple barriers! So now, I have eight of the nine ewes semi-confined, and just need to combine them. In order to do that, I have to let them out of their pens and then try and sort them back to the pasture I want them to go to. Whew... another 30 minutes of sheer sheep stubborness, before THAT happened. Finally they were all safely behind bars, er fences, so I went off to get Red, thinking that was going to be another circus. I was so happy to see him standing by himself AT the gate that I coulda danced. I quickly undid the gate latches, pulled him out, relatched the gate, haltered him and led him off just as the other rams wised up. Red was a little gentleman on the halter, and halfway to the ewes, I stopped, checked his feet, did some belly wool trimming and wormed him then off to the girls. I've double fenced several areas and hope that he and THEY (rotten girls) stay where they are suppose to. There has been much wailing around here the last few days--you would think that the I stole week old babies from them. I sure am glad that is done, and I'm glad I didn't know how long and drama filled it was going to be before I started! This next picture I picked because it was so NOT peaceful that morning! This shows the two Merino twins with their mother (yes they are almost two years old, but still stay with mom all the time!). Oh, and that escapee? I caught her that night in the barn, and literally dragged her, step by step by step (with a few bucks and twirls thrown in by Suzie) to the pen with the others. Her sister was very glad to see her! (

Coming and Going

Sunset on an evening walk......














Moonrise on the way back.....





I've often heard and sometimes used the saying "I've met myself coming and going" to signify how busy life is. Too busy. Priorites get out of whack, we get exhausted and suddenly realize we aren't enjoying much of anything. Its easy to do, we've all been there. There comes a moment when you have to step back and say enough! There are only so many hours in a day, and we are only capable of doing so much in those hours. I've been thinking alot about the 'simplify your life' trend. We have so much stuff, and we work so hard to take care of our 'stuff', but stuff can be gone so quickly. Then we understand what life is about---its not about our stuff, making money, impressing people or just running ourselves ragged. Life is about loving God, loving your family and loving your friends. Its about loving yourself too. Its most precious when you are sharing that love to those who need it--whether its your time, or a service or just sitting and listening and being there, being interested. Life is about leaving your small piece of the world just a little better than how you found it. Most of us our fortunate in that we don't have to work so hard that all we do is survive--not if we decide what our priorities are. Most of us don't have 'enough money' all the time either, but we sacrifice and do without and wait. And at some point we understand again what is important. I wish for you all that read this, that you can keep your prespective on what is of value, what is most important each day, and not get lost and bogged down on the endless treadmill we call 'life'. Look around, enjoy the beauty God has put in your path today--whether its an awesome sunset, or moonrise (or both on the same walk), the glow in the face of someone you love, who has reached a milestone in their life, the smile of a stranger, the simplistic and joyful nature of a dog---its all there--a free gift, sometimes you just have to open your eyes, take a deep breath and enjoy it.

I really do have sheep.......

I spend alot of time taking care of the sheep, but it seems they don't get much of the 'limelight'. I've found that if I'm not careful the sheep will consume all my time, so I try to keep some balance there. I enjoy the sheepies, but they are labor intensive and quite spoiled and demanding! Also there are so many off-shoots from the sheep that I'm finding more interesting all the time--there is cleaning the fleeces, sending them off to be processed, playing with the roving, felting and (hopefully someday) learning to spin, plus maybe taking up knitting or crocheting again...... (see it never stops!). This is in addition to the daily taking care of the sheep, breeding and lambing season, marketing the sheep and their wool, and of course the always dreaded paperwork associated with any business.

I'll soon be getting my hands on some of the wool spun from one of my grey shetland wethers, Callum. J. is spinning it up for me and this will be the first from 'the ground up' yarn I've gotten from my sheep. Very exciting!

This week, I'm working on gettting the 9 girls who will be put in with the ram ready for breeding season. I'm worming them and doing any pedicures that are needed.



Feet are in pretty good shape this fall, so I'm pleased. I usually trim once in the Spring and once in the Fall. Its interesting to note who has 'good' feet, or who might have feet that tend to grow rapidly and those that have a slightly off gait so that their feet don't wear evenly. Since the days are getting so short, I only have a little bit of time to work on them in the evenings, so I pick two victims each night. This works well, and isn't too stressful on any of us. :-) I catch them (its best to get the crafiest ones out of the way first!!), turn them up on their bottoms, check eye lid color, a basic check of condition, trim hooves and worm. Then once they are on their feet the 'victim' gets two animal crackers for all their 'pain and suffering'. I've got a few girls that have to at least have one mighty fit during the process. So far I've gotten several bruises, a couple of cuts from the hoof trimmers and worm medicine in my eye when it richoceted off the back of Willow's throat. I have six girls done, only three to go, plus Redford the ram. He will get his pedicure and worming enroute to the girls pen next week. Once I get the ewes seperated with the ram, then I'll concentrate on the weanlings and older sheep that are not being bred this year, so that everyone will get a fall worming and hoof trimming if needed. I'm taking somewhat of a break this year so am putting less ewes in with the ram. Sometimes things just get too overwhelming during lambing season, so I opted this year to just put 9 ewes with the ram. My hopes are to sell one as a bred ewe, and only lamb out 8. I'd like to enjoy lambing a little more this coming year than last years very hectic but productive one!

For those of you who like sheep and want to see lots of sheepie pictures, check out my website at http://www.fairlightfarm.com/ where you'll read about and see pictures of the Shetlands, Dorsets and crossbreds that live here. Pictures included are Gracie and her baby girl Hope, Melody, who is a Dorset/Merino Cross who surprised me by having this huge black spot, coming from all white stock, and lastly is Drake, a Musket shetland ram.