Of Roses and Catalpas

Note--I started this post weeks back, so while there are no more blooms on roses or catalpas, and it's hot, dry and dusty, still thought you might enjoy the pictures.



With the first flush of Spring--the lilacs, wild grapes, fruit trees and the early blooming flowers, I always think that it can't smell or look any prettier. Then along comes early June, and I remember that it can---or at least run a close tie with the earlier sensory flood of blossoms and fragrance.


When June rolls around the roses and the Catalpas put on their show. The lazy fat climbing roses spill their blossoms on the fence and the Catalpas look like snow drifts. The place smells like a French Boudoir (not that I've ever smelled one....) and every which way you look some bit of bright blossom is showing.




I used to try and keep 'regular' roses, but I found that they just did not thrive for me. The lovely pink roses that twine on either side of my driveway, are my "Jack Roses". They are old fashioned climbers that my mailman pulled starts of out of a ditch one day years and years ago. He gave me two, I stuck them in the ground and they took off and bloom every year with no care or maintenance (besides the occasional trimming of a dead or unruly cane). The bright red climber is a variety that I ordered years ago (and have since forgotten the name of) and planted along the front fence. If I remember correctly there were two of them, one on each side of the front gate, but only one lived. There is one other little rose besides these hardy climbers here. It's a small 'tea rose', yellow in color and so far very hardy. It often blooms all summer.

The view down my driveway this time of year is especially lovely and peaceful. The Catalpas hang over the tracks and the roses bloom on the gate posts.


In front of my house I have five large old Catalpa trees. I was told that they were planted in 1935 in the front yard of the old school. These old stately trees have already survived past their projected lifespan of 70 years and I hope they last many more years. They are always the last to leaf out in the winter and the first to lose their leaves in the fall. There is a moth (the Catalpa sphinx moth) that lays its larva in these trees and along about late summer the trees will become full of caterpillars. At times they can defoliate the entire tree. These caterpillars are very popular as fishing bait. The blossoms will produce a long thin 'green bean' looking seed pod that turns brown in the winter and eventually shatters and falls off. There are three more trees scattered around my place (one in the yard) that are the result of these seeds 'scattering to the wind'. The ice storm in 2007 took a heavy toll on the trees, but they seem to be recovering.

I'm glad those folks decided to plant these trees all those years ago. They also planted lilacs and Chinese Elm, although the old Elms are showing their age. The trees and bushes they have planted have been enjoyed over the years by many.

The Rest of the Lambs

A couple of days ago I posted the story of Chickie's two little wethers (Pictured here). Since then they have been sold and will go to their new home after weaning sometime later this month. The lucky little boys will be joining a wether (Cam) that I sold last year (and a few other pasture buddies) at Kati's. I'm very happy for them.

Also later this month, Luna's twins --an ewe and a wether will be leaving to go to their new home at Tabitha's.

Jasper the first lamb born here, went with his mother to Jama's a month or so ago. So out of a lamb crop this year of eight, three lambs will be staying here. It's hard to believe they are almost to weaning age and ready to go off to their new homes. Here are pictures of the three that are staying:

Fairlight Stella
(Fairlight Jackdaw x Locksfield Willow)
Musket flecket--This is a nice little solid ewe, with a nice top line, square fore and aft and a nice little tail--she will have a longish, wavy intermediate fleece

The other two lambs are wethers, both spotted yuglet fleckets. The first one is a moorit and his brother is black and white. I haven't named these two little boys yet. Any suggestions? The moorit and white wether has an overly long tail and is cow hocked, which made the decision to wether him easy. His fleece feels soft and should turn out nicely.

His brother is a big strapping boy and has really nice conformation and a lovely soft fleece. He would have made a nice ram in a different situation. He is a very friendly sweet little boy. I love that face.

And summer marches quickly on!

Hot Summer Time

It always amazes me how 'time flies'. For the longest time, it seemed that we waited for the mild days of Spring, and then they finally came--all two of them---before we staggered into hot Summertime. It's almost July 4th! How did that happen?
My 'garden' has been a struggle this year. I had about 24 tomato and pepper seedlings (heirloom varieties) started, but they just wouldn't attain any size, and time was running out. So I spent an entire morning carefully setting them out in the tomato patch---where they promptly fried to death over next two days. I did save some back to plant in containers, thankfully. So my tomato patch is a rank weed patch instead. I am going to plant some squash out there and mulch after it sprouts.

In the meantime, I have been collecting buckets and stray tomato plants from here and there. Every year I grow a few tomatoes in buckets, but this year it seemed like time to expand the experiment. The local feed store has five gallon buckets fairly cheap, and it's easy enough to drill holes in the bottom of them. Then I filled them half full of 'stuff' from the sheep lot (not the fresh 'stuff'!) and finished it out with shovelfuls of black dirt from around the wood pile. For the early bucket residents this year, I had them sitting on upturned chunks of wood near the woodpile. Over the weekend though I finally got the last transplants in and decided to arrange them around the front of the wool trailer, where I have another 'raised bed' (actually a wire rack on legs, layered with wool to keep in the dirt). It's kinda cute, but I still need to wrap rope around the sticks of wood to keep Boone from getting to close to the tomato plants and 'anointing'' them.

In the wire bed, I have marigolds, onions, two types of beans (with a wire panel attached for them to vine on) and several volunteer tomato plants (no idea the variety!). In buckets I have 3 Cherokee Purples and 2 Arkansas Travelers that I raised from seed. Boughten varieties include: 2 Brandywines, 1 Arkansas Traveler, 1 lemon cherry tomato, and 2 Sweet Pepper plants--1 green and 1 orange. All told 11 container plants. Three containers are located elsewhere in the yard. I hope to be able to collect enough rain water off the eaves to keep this small garden watered.

The rest of the yard is slowly coming into some semblance of control. The flower beds are fairly cleared of weeds and the yard is mostly mowed, despite multiple lawn mower malfunctions this year. Both push mower and rider now have new blades, and the rider also sports several new parts on its deck, after three bolts 'got' sheared off while mowing. My Dad was able to take the deck off so I could haul it in to the 'miracle man' who works on mowers. $145.00 later it has new blades, a new belt, three new parts that I have no idea what to call (but they keep the blades working!) and after a through cleaning and reattachment of the deck by my Dad, it looks like new. Hopefully it'll last another ten years.

In the meantime the sheep have been busy trying to keep the outer lawn areas mowed for me. They look a bit like balloons on sticks as the grass is plentiful and lush this year.

The weather is awful--hot and humid most days, with an occasional storm rolling through bringing brief relief, before the humidity climbs again. All the critters mostly just find a coolish spot and hibernate during the day. The inside cats tend to find cool spots off by themselves (Not--see picture). The hot weather slows them down a bit, but not much. They just get up earlier to start their games....

This big snapper was royally ticked off because of my fences getting in its way. I can only assume it finally dug it's way out.


On the way home from work the other day, I stopped at a huge yard sale. I ended up buying this really nice computer cabinet. It is one of those that has the bi fold door that shuts everything away out of sight. It's a prefab deal, but looks like the 'real' wood stuff. Has lots of nice little cubby holes and drawers too. I can't bring it in the house yet, as I need to get a new washer (the current one leaks some) and I don't want it damaged like my old desk has been. The old desk is getting a decided list to one side.... It will be very nice to be able to shut all my computer equipment away from prying paws. These desks usually go from $275-350 and I paid $125.00. Best part is it is already assembled! It does have one shelf missing, but it's not a critical one. The sucker is heavy too. I'll try and get a picture of my 'find' this week and post it.
And that about sums it up. Tempe is filling up the garden produce basket until some fresh veggies come along. It may be awhile...

Whose Fault Is It......Really?

....that I have the potential to become (because I'm sure I'm not quite there yet...) the crazy cat lady? You be the judge.

Me and Hectorheshe (my Grandparent's cat)--way too many years ago.

And I had to throw in the next one too, because obviously I was torn between being a cat lady and a cowboy. Or maybe I just wanted to herd cats? This dress was my Cowboy Dress. And evidently I didn't want to give it up, because it appears I might have been growing out of it. I loved it only slightly less than my purple dress in the above picture.

The Drama of It All....

This is a classic case of dog abuse, especially if you ask Boone. It was a busy morning, and it was already getting muggy and hot. Boone's pool needed to be drained, which takes some time. While that was happening, I worked in the garden and flower beds.

Once it was drained, I obviously did not realize what my immediate priority should be and was off taking pictures of some silly flowers, when I looked over and saw this.....
Obviously this was not a subtle hint...but since I didn't imediately rush over and turn on the hose, more drastic measures were called for.

How can a 140 pound dog look so small and abused? And in case you didn't catch the full effect of the woebegone face...here is a closer view.

Oh my...and here I think he might even be squeezing out a tear...

Fortunately I have a low threshold for sad doggy faces, so I got my act together and got the hose going into his pool....Whew...

Now that is more like it. Cool feets and a happy face. (No, really, this is his happy face....)

And life is good once again.

A Tale of Two Wethers....

Here we have the two dollar and fifty cent wether....

and then there is his brother, the seventy five dollar wether.....

But I'm worth it right? You betcha little feller, you sure are.

By now, those that read my blog have figured out I'm not the 'sensible' everything has to pay it's own way around here type hobby farmer. When I started out in sheep nine years ago, I got plenty of advice from my commercial sheep breeder friends. I also got 'made fun of' quite a bit, because of some of the decisions I made. For awhile it bothered me, but then I came to several conclusions. 1) It's my sheep, sheep farm, my decisions. End of discussion. If I want to raise them for their wool and place my wethers in pet/fiber homes that was okay. 2) I would not be able to keep wethers as pets, or every ewe that hit the ground either. Some of them would have to be sold. 3) I would try my hardest to find homes for them that would treat them humanely and give them a decent life.

Over the years I've been told many things---one being that it was better for wethers to be slaughtered or sold to slaughter than to go into pet/fiber homes, because they could end up neglected. I chose not to follow that advice and have placed many wethers in fiber homes where they live out their lives happily. Realizing early on that they didn't have to be wethers to suffer abuse or neglect I try very very hard to place my sheep with consideration and forethought. Offering followup advice and help has always been my motto as far as sales go. After all, if someone doesn't know that a sheep needs shearing once a year or foot trims or vaccinations and inadvertently neglects... then isn't that the sellers fault as well?

Not keeping every sweet wether that comes along has been difficult at times, because invariably the friendliest lambs are the little wethers. I've done really well on this one over the years, making exceptions to keep one wether each for the rams to have companions. One year I folded and kept sweet little Ringo, but he died suddenly that fall. This year, I am making exceptions. I plan on keeping a couple of wethers. Spotted wethers. I have reasons. Firstly my ewes refuse to give me any spotted ewe lambs, which I think is pretty selfish, and secondly I plan not to breed the ewes this fall. 2011 will be the first year without lambs since Spring 2002. Since I will be skipping a year without lambs, and I have several elderly flock members, I think I can squeeze in a couple of wethers.

So, what does this have to do with this post? Not much really, except there would have been a day when I might have felt foolish to spend 75.00 to have a lamb wethered, but that day is long past. I do about 99 percent of my own sheep vet work, but if I think there is a chance in you know where that the vet can save a life or offer positive treatment, then I will certainly go that route if I can and it is a viable option.

Which brings me to this cute little pair of twins..both, you guessed it wethers! These little boys were slightly preemie, and I realized early on we might have a problem with the little black fellow. He only had one testicle descended. Never a good thing. The problem in a nutshell, uh, so to speak, is that if you were to wether him by removing the one descended testicle it still leaves the one lurking somewhere in his body. This can cause lots of problems down the road. The main one being that the wether would still think he was a ram, and while the chances of being fertile are about nil, he would still exhibit aggressive ram behavior. The compounded problem for this little guy is that he was born friendly. Friendly little rams can become very dangerous and obnoxious adult rams. So he wouldn't be a ram, but he would be.

I let them grow out to about six weeks before I loaded him and his brother up to go to the vet's to see if there could be a miracle. This vet has pulled off some good things, but this time even he couldn't locate the missing piece. Meanwhile the little grey twin was castrated in less than five minutes and stowed back in the crate. After consulting his books and discussing options the vet was game to try and wether the black lamb. This would be under general anesthesia (similar to a dog neuter), which can be difficult on sheep sometimes. There was a good chance the little lamb wouldn't pull out of it. An appointment was made for the next week. However before I left, the vet lowered his voice and said...you know I'll have to charge allot more for this one, don't you? Oh yeah, I knew that.

The day of the operation it was typical for taking any 'pet' in to be neutered. No food or water for 12 hours prior. Have you ever thought about the logistics for keeping a lamb off food/water and mommy for 12 hours? The night before I stuffed him and his twin into a big plastic dog crate with a sheet to lay on at one end. There was much mourning in the night and by the next morning the crate was filthy. The lamb was dropped off at the vet's at 8:30 a.m. I was able to bring him home at 3:00 p.m. after he woke up completely from the anesthesia. It was a long day. While the surgery went well, it was intensive as the missing part was hard to locate. When I went to pick him up, the receptionist went out to get him. The next thing I knew he came walking out on the end of a leash looking all bright eyed and interested, like he regularly took walks on a leash. His recovery time consisted of one evening in a stall with his mom and brother. Two weeks later he seems fine. And still very friendly despite all he has been through.

And to one of those tough decisions--yes he and his brother are for-sale. They would love to go to the same home as they 'stick like glue' to each other. The little black lamb is super friendly and will follow you anywhere. His brother is more shy and relies on his brother to lead the way. He is not wild though, and will soon warm up to being a fiber pet. If you are interested let me know. Only a special sweet home for these little boys, please! If they don't get placed, I'm not sweating it. Frankly I'm not sweating about too much of anything this year, except the hot weather. That's wEATHER not wETHER. ;-)

The Pretender...

And other flowering mysteries...

Does anyone know what this well tended, cultivated weed is? Last year I salvaged some very old seed from a "Sweet Annie" dried flower bundle. I carefully prepared a flower pot and tamped the seed in. Lo and behold in a few weeks this tiny feathery green plant came up! It worked! The seed was still viable. All summer I babied that thing along, and even convinced myself that the leaves when lightly crushed smell like Sweet Annie (it has a very pungent aroma). When winter came I made sure it was in a protected area and got occasional waterings if it was too dry. Lo and behold again, it survived the winter! I had Sweet Annie and this year it would produce seed and soon my fields would be white with Sweet Annie (sorry, got a little carried away there).

Then it put this big white flowery seed head on, and no matter how I tried to convince myself, it definitely didn't smell like Sweet Annie anymore. Nope. And strangely enough there seemed to be the same plant growing...wild.. in abundance in the fields. I can only assume it is a weed, probably chigger weed or something attractive like that. A well tended chigger weed.

Then there is this little pink flower that has emerged this Spring. I think it's from some wild flower seed I planted (far far away from the "Sweet Annie" impostor). It too has rather feathery leaves, and is a bit odd looking, but the blooms are very lovely. You can see the foliage of the plant in the bottom right hand of the photo. Any recognition on this one?

Lastly is a this flowering tree. I did find out what it is called though, after all these years. It is a Goldenrain Tree. It's quite a unique tree, with these flowing yellow blossoms and the seed pods that form in the fall. The seed pods look like tiny Japanese lanterns.

I planted this tree many years ago, when I used to get trees every year from the National Arbor Day Foundation. I never quite knew what I would get, but I grimly planted tree after tree. Most of them died. Those were the days when my yard had no trees and it was beastly hot in the house every summer. The days before my yard suddenly became a jungle of trees. I planted Redbuds and Dogwoods, a Red Maple, River Birch, Apples, and Cherries and this unknown tree. I'm sure there were more that I planted, that lived briefly and died. The Redbuds lived and thrived and made more Redbud children. The Red Maple is glorious in the fall and the River Birch makes an interesting addition to the yard (although it consistently and annoyingly drops small dead limbs). However the trees that grew the fastest and have been the hardiest have been the 'volunteers'--the Catalpas, Silver Maples, Elms, Hackberry and Mulberrys.

In the back where the Goldenrain is, it is overshadowed by a Silver Maple (that I did not plant), but gamely hangs on and grows, even if at a slight angle. Further in back of the house, in the sheep pasture, there are many Silver Populars. They are lovely trees but very invasive. However the sheep have eliminated that problem by grazing down all the new seedlings every year.


Everywhere I look right now there blooms and blossoms. I'll feature the Catalpas in another post, as they are glorious this year.

Trash Talkin'

Fairlight Callum

This is the wether that was Jeff's twin and companion. He is also seven this year. Yes, he is registered--he was a ram for several years and sired two offspring. (Well, actually four, but two were cross breds). If you note his horns, you can see 'where' he became a wether in the baseline horn growth. Interesting, huh? It does go to show that wether horn growth does continue, but at a much slower and smaller rate. He is living with the ewes for now, and so far so good. He is very busy, keeping up with all the activity. From being an old bachelor that lived a rather secluded quiet lifestyle to being dumped into a frenetic family life hasn't given him much time to pine.

Hey kid, watch me set this big guy straight....

He is enjoying the grain treat in the morning that everyone gets (I know it's not good for him....), running out to pasture with everyone in a wild melee. Coming in at night and hoping to sneak past me and in with the ewes and lambs to get more grain--sorry fella not happening.

Hey you! Watcha looking at? You want a piece of this? huh?

Rouen was in heat shortly after he joined the flock, and boy that was exciting. (Rolls eyes). That kept him busy following her around for a day or so.

He gets to keep up on all the latest sheepie gossip now, and watch the girl fights that break out from time to time. Mostly he just ignores the pesky little lambs.

Hey, dontcha think we are gettin' a little old for this fighting stuff? Why don't we just pretend we are tough stuff? Win-win for both of us...and lots less work....

Oh, and there is his little altercations with Blue. Remember Blue the big Merino ram? Well he shares a fence line with the ewes. Which means he now shares a fence line with Callum. Which means they had to trash talk and have it out. Which was really a little pathetic, since neither one are youngsters. Cal can't ram very hard because of his previous back injury and Blue hasn't got much omph and who wants to tangle with those horns anyway? So now they just snort around a little and call it a day.

Things seem to be going pretty good. I think we are set for the summer anyway, and Cal seems to be adjusting to his new life. He clearly earns respect from everyone just because of his horns, so there hasn't been any fighting from the main peanut gallery (the ewe flock).

Cal on top the old haystack, with Lanny (the merino/dorset wether in the front). That is Rouen, my oldest sheep at ten, off to the right and a couple of this years lambs in back.

And speaking of Blue, I thought I'd enclose this picture of him. Forgive the funky hairdo--I still need to shear his head and neck. If you remember he got so sick and skinny over the winter I feared he wasn't going to pull through. With lots of the homemade rumen remedy recipe and some good tips from fellow shepherds he rallied and seems to be doing well now. Still a tad ribby, but not thin anymore. He had a wool break from being so sick, so I was able to hand pluck and shear out his wool. Blue was nine in January, so we will just take each day as it comes.

Old Blue the Merino ram

How to Spend Your Time on a Hot Day

Cat Edition:

Sprawl across the entire bed--hey guys any room for me on my bed??

Sage & Noah practicing their sprawling skills--pretty good at it, huh?

Do bat impersonations on the highest (cobby-webbyist) book shelf you can find. (Cute Verity....now get down!)

Rearrange and sprawl (there's that word again) all over the bathroom
(Gabe, Tempe, Trinity)