December Farm Update

Wishing you all a Blessed and happy Yule and Solstice! The days will slowly get longer now.

Welcome to all the new subscribers! I am so pleased to have you along for the ride! Thank you for joining!

Thankfully, nothing earth shattering has happened this past week! Fingers crossed for more dull moments.

Since Mr Douglas ram was alone now, and getting a bit nutty being so, we moved Mr Rudah down to be his new pen mate. They are both pretty well matched for size and temperament and Rudah won’t take a bunch of rammy behavior from Douglas.

Rudah stated his life as a cryptorchid due to us missing one of his testicals when we banded him as a lamb. Oops. That means he did get a good dose of testosterone before we realized it. The vet surgically removed the offending ball. Cryptorchids are usually considered sterile but not always. The testosterone he did get gave him the size he is, and a very rammy looking face, but he still has a sweet temperament with us humans.

Rudah’s foot looks like it has healed up nicely from the hoof split. I’ll continue to keep my eye on him.

Miss Lucy is still up and moving even though you can tell the weather changes we have been having are playing hell with her arthritis. I can commiserate with that since it’s doing the same thing to my knees and hips. There isn’t much that I can do for her pain short of keeping her on banamine which can have longer term ill effects for her. Given that she is almost 16 years old she is still quite spry!

The remainder of the flock is doing quite well. Two of this year’s lambs are coming up to me and letting me love on them now. I adore skitching lambie faces. They are so sweet and soft. The other lambs all regard me as a monster that is out to eat them.

We need to do some coat changes this weekend. The fleece growth is making a few of them tight now. I shall also be checking and trimming toes while I have them captive and a few need a face trim.

All the sheep are putting on good fleece so far this year. If we get a really cold spell, it will kick up their wool production. December so far has been very soft on us. Very little snow and 40–50-degree days but nights below freezing. Thankfully I’m not seeing much in the way of snotty noses or rattle-y breathing meaning pneumonia.

They are predicting a storm for us starting Saturday night and into the beginning of next week. Might have a white Christmas.

Friday will mean bringing in some more feed and getting more firewood up to, and into, the house. I’ll be putting up the one storm window I have on Saturday. There is plenty of hay out so I won’t have to mess around with the tractor in the cold and snow. I hate having to climb up on the tractor when it’s frosty or snow covered. I invariably slip and I would prefer not to fall off. I don’t anticipate having to put the sheep in the barn for this one. They are not calling for blizzard conditions.

Michael finally relented and is “letting” me knit him a hat. He picked out his yarn and we discussed the changes to the pattern I have to suit his desired size. I thought I would go up one needle size to do that, and wouldn’t you know, that is the one size needle I don’t have. I went up another size, but I suspect that will be far too large for him. Ugh. Murphy’s law.

I changed the cylinder on my sock machine all by myself! Yeah!!! I am making some kitchen scrubbies out of this cool scrubby yarn I found in a box in the studio. I cranked out 5 scrubbies and have three of them put together so far. I might get the last two done today if I have time to sit again.

I have not had much chance to spin or weave lately and I’m missing it. Distaff day is coming up soon, so I hope to be able to at least spin that day to start the year off right. Any of your spinners here going to be doing any distaff day fun stuff?

Had a few visitors to the farm this month. Deer, coyotes, and this past week, a bobcat have been traveling thru the area. So far, the truce with the predators is holding. I hope the mountain lion from last winter has exited the area. To the best of my knowledge there have been no sightings of it since then.

Our winter visitors

I wish each of you a very happy and Blessed Holiday season, and the best wishes for a wonderful New Year.

Blessed be!

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