Happy Thanksgiving!

Tabitha

Hope your day is blessed with family, good friends (two and four legged) and lots of good food! (Tabitha votes for Pumpkin Pie!)

Boone & Gabe (I've got your back)

A little "Sage" for Thanksgiving?

Have a great and blessed day, my friends!

Too Much Orange?

Noah--this cat is so photogenic. And he holds still for pictures.

Can one ever have too much orange? Ask me on a day that the orange cats are on the rampage! Fall colors are rapidly fading here, with a few oaks, and this marvelous hard maple in my yard still holding out. Finding color in the landscape will become harder as winter moves in, but there is always that orange wall and orange cats in the house to give me a little eye shock.

We've had some lovely weather the last week. Warm and sunny. Today we are getting some much needed rain, so it's rather gloomy and dark. A cold front is suppose to move in over the weekend and that will be a bit of a shock.

I still have a few critical things to get done before it gets cold but I am getting many things marked off the list. With the time change I have about twenty extra 'daylight' minutes when I get home from work. By the time I feed the sheep and other chores it doesn't leave much time to accomplish projects. I've been setting myself to do one 'small' thing each evening and it helps---for instance just carrying and putting away one thing that needs to be sheltered during the winter.


This weekend I'll have to head for the big city for critter food, so not much will be done outside. Should have some time over the Thanksgiving holiday to finish things up. There is now more time for the inside projects to commence. (Or there will be once I finish sulking about being trapped in the house at night, and get adjusted to the 'new' time). I still need to paint walls, finish up my linen shelf and give the house some serious attention.

I've been trying to bake more bread instead of buying it. Anyone have a good 'tall rising' wheat bread recipe for a bread machine? I'm just using the dough cycle and then baking it in the oven.

Saw this lovely rainbow this morning. It was actually a double rainbow but the second, fainter one didn't show up in the picture. Rainbow on one side then turned around and took the above leaf picture as the sun was peeking over the horizon. Beauty all around.

Have a good weekend and here is hoping there is too much orange in your life today!

Home Security System

What can bring one person and eight cats straight up out of a sound sleep in the middle of the night?

The answer--Boone's 'there is someone out there bark'. Thankfully he doesn't use it often. His 'there is a varmint' out there bark is entirely different. For human varmints he gives a huge booming bark. Just one. Then if they don't go away he will wait a few minutes and give another. By then, it's up to me to take over, he seems to think. Trust me though, when I hear that bark I'm halfway out of the bed before I'm even awake. The four legged varmint bark is loud and offensive, and repeated, but not nearly so serious sounding.


Mostly the two legged varmints mess around down in the road, screeching out their car windows or hoping to prowl the empty house down there. Usually they don't linger long. I've not had anyone actually come up on the property that I know of.


While Boone is a big sweet heart, and has never, ever offered to bite, I sure wouldn't want to be creeping around in the dark up to no good. I think the big boy might get serious about his job if he had to. I know that he can look pretty serious.


I do trust him to sound the alarm if anyone dare get close to the house. Ashley on the other hand, I unfortunately don't pay much attention to. She is busy alerting to all kinds of things--like birds and squirrels and cats and leaves blowing.


They make a good team though, since Boone does have one serious Home Security System flaw. He sleeps very sound. I mean really, really sound. And he snores loud, really, really loud. This was quite the problem before Ashley came. Back then his co-watch dog was old Ariel, the blue merle collie, and she was almost deaf. So they would both sleep through all kinds of things. While Ashley may be considered a little on the flippant hysterical side, she does her duty by waking up the big boy. Although it isn't because she barks at two legged strangers. You'll not hear one collie word out of her if there is a person out there. But she does run and look, and that usually wakes up the big Boone. In fact if Boone barks once, and Ashley is eerily silent, then you can bet your bottom dollar that somebody is out there!

What? You expect me to work 24/7?

It's That Time of the Year....

....just not here at Fairlight Farm! Elsewhere though, folks are rearranging fencing, moving sheep, and setting up breeding groups--and trying to stay one step ahead of their rams. It seems very odd not to be doing that this year. However, I did take a little trip over to see Jama and her small flock on Friday. Over the last several years they have bought several sheep from me--four wethers (Angus, Aberdeen, Kirby & Kelly), followed the next year by Selena (ewe) and Jackdaw (ram). This Spring they also purchased Lark (ewe) and Jasper (ram lamb). To round out their small Shetland breeding/fiber flock they purchased two more ewes (and three wethers) from another gal just a few weeks ago.

So we've been planning to 'get together' for probably a year or so. Finally it worked out and I went. Probably stayed too long, but we had a nice long visit and talked non-stop about sheep and fiber and well, everything else too! Touring the farm was fun--I got to see the sheep, and goats, along with the chickens, peacocks, cats and dogs.

Inside we looked at fiber, played with the drum carder and of course talked. Hopefully it will work out that we can visit more often and put some of our ideas into products.

While I was there I got some good pictures of the rams. Of course they didn't really want to cooperate, but despite that I got a few 'on the fly'. Even though I don't often brag about my sheep, I was really pleased with both of these boys. Jackdaw literally took my breath away. Maybe it was the glorious fall setting, but that black and white pattern and regal bearing really made him stand out. I used Jackie here before I sold him and have one daughter from him. The rest of the ewes that I plan to breed next year are his half sisters, so his use here would be very limited, hence why I sold him. So here is he is at his second breeding season:

Fairlight Jackdaw

(Three Ring Just Jack x Fairlight Duckie)

I also got to see young Jasper in his native setting, with his new harem of ladies. Jasper originally was intended to be a wether but through a 'series of events' he remained a ram. I'm glad he did. The week after he left the farm, his sire, Jeff, died. Jasper is the only remaining offspring I have access to from Jeff. He is turning out to be a really nice little ram. His horns are very nice, and wider spaced than his sires. Nice sturdy little frame and his face is very much like Jeff's. Jasper has already been sheared once, so he isn't pictured 'in fleece'. His fleece was super soft and a very pretty black and white mottled (as he is an Ag grey the next fleece will likely be more uniform grey in color). There is a good possibility he will carry spots. I hope to be able to use this young ram next year at breeding season. He will be line bred on most of the ewes and I hope to retain the type I like to see in my flock. Nice bright Shetland character, sturdy, but smaller framed, level top lines etc, all topped off with a longish intermediate soft fleece. The sun and shadow made getting a picture of Jasper a bit difficult (not to mention his sudden interest in his lady friends), but I was able to get a couple.



And so, while no breeding season here this year or lambs next Spring, I will get to enjoy it all from afar, with lots less work!

Have a great week.