No Shearing Today

Not that that bothers me. Not that I'm bitter. Nope, not me. Not sulking either.

So it's March 28th, Spring is sprung and all that. Grass is green, flowers and trees are a blooming... and it's snowing. Or will be, before this day is over. Right now, I think it might be trying, I can't tell. It's sideways precipitation with a whitish cast, so draw your on conclusions.

It has poured on and off since about 3 a.m. this morning. Yes, I noticed the time, because it would be even worse if it didn't rain, since I canceled the shearing. Talk about bitterness. Wow, that would have not even been the least bit pretty. There are inches of water standing around, and the paddock is a muddy mess. So I'm justified, and everyone can suffer for it. At least the sheepies can crowd in the barn, when the rain gets too heavy. Before the day is done, snow is suppose to move in and well, the eventual accumulation seems to be up in the air...so to speak. The temps are in the upper 30s, and once again, I have a roaring fire in the stove, and my feet are cold.

I keep telling myself we need the rain and all that nitrogen will be free fertilizer if we get snow. See I have one, maybe two positive thoughts here.

I've been preparing for shearing for weeks now. So much to do. My house is pretty darn clean---and I even cleaned off the book shelves and sorted through and culled some. I listed sixteen books on PaperbackSwap this morning. (Although my motives are not entirely pure in this. Sure I needed to clean the bookshelves and sort and get rid of, but I'm also totally out of credits! What if a book on my wish list comes up and I have no credits? Hyperventilating here...) Anyway. The bookshelves are clean, and I better take pictures now. The house is cleanish. I had food bought for shearing day, I had people lined up to come and help. I had panels set up in the garage ready to pen sheep up. Shearing is a Big Deal, and I really get stressed about it, in case you can't tell. But this happens on occasion. I think this may be the second or third year I've gotten rained out. I have no large barns to keep sheep up for several days ahead of time. And they must be dry to shear. Neither do I have anywhere for the shearer to work inside. We set up in front of the garage, which is a nice flat area and near enough to the house to plug in the equipment. So in the end, the weather decides whether we shear or not. (Can I add the word wether in there too??) Like it or lump it, thems the breaks.

In other sheepie news... well there isn't any. River was due Friday and is just standing around chewing her cud and taunting me. I think she is waiting for it to start snowing before she lambs. Duckie may or may not be due next week. The little lovely flock of solid moorit lambs continue to grow. Eve and Conway (sorry little guy) are now out on pasture with the others during the day. However Rosemary is stall bound until her wee ones grow just a bit more, or the weather clears up, whichever comes first. So far the two bigger lambs haven't 'found' each other yet, but I expect they will soon. In case you lost count the it is 2 Ewes--2 Rams.

Thanks to Michelle at Boulderneigh, I had a dream last night that there were twin moorit gulmoget lambs born here. (If you don't know what a gulmoget is, check out her blog---what a cute bunch of lambs!) A ram and an ewe, no less. Within the dream at one point, I questioned how I could genetically have moorit gulmoget lambs, but blithely ignored the impossible answer, instead showing them off to a large group of admirers, one of which was the shearer. No, I'm fine really. In this dream I also had a very large two story barn. A fine, fine barn. Except the ewe and lambs were on the second floor, lambed in a very narrow isle, with one side a sheer drop off. Analyze that if you want.

I've rescheduled shearing, but it will now be on a weekday, if I can get off. The shearer is booked Saturdays through April and into May. If the sheeps dry out, I'm going to try and hand shear Duckie Monday evening. I would like to know what is going on under all that wool. If that goes well, I may also shear Tabitha, Blackberry and Rouen as they are all on the suspects list after the (two) ram breakouts last fall.

And that's about it. I'm being lazy today, catching up the blog, listing books, paying bills. Oh, and making frequent trips slogging out to the barn to see if River is done chewing her cud and lambing..for crying out loud. Ahem..