What is at the end of a rainbow?

LAMBS! Miss Tilly delivered two very frisky Blue Faced Leicester looking ram lambs Wednesday morning. Bounce our oldest (besides UFO) at age 12 also delivered twins, a ewe and ram lamb. All are doing well. I have more pictures to come of an amazing birth I was lucky enough to witness from Twinkle (Tilly's mom)... if I can get them off my camera.

No lambs yet!

An breezy evening is a perfect time to bring the damp yarns out to dry on the clothes line! Once the sun has set behind the trees, this makes for beautiful dancing colors out on the lawn!

No lambs yet. How could we be so off? These ewes are so ready to be done being pregnant. They waddle around (much like I did...) and groan when they need to get up. But the evenings are nice and cool and perfect for grazing in the tall cool grass. Life is good for the sheep these days. At this point last year they were miserable since we were still waiting for the shearer to call!

Our Farm cookout/ festival

Anna really wants you all to come baaaa-dly :)

Mark your calendars, we're planning our first annual farm cookout for August 15 (Sunday)!

In other CSA news - Our gorgeous chocolate wool/alpaca blend is back from the mill and we will have our first shipments ready soon! Exciting!

Our little clown

He is a strange looking little lamb, born at an awkward time, too late to be from the early crop of lambs and too early from the late crop! His speckled appearance makes him especially special to me!

Yesterday I think I might have cracked the code... I came home to a baaing mama and lamb, it was indeed Cathy/#24 and her clownish lamb in with the 2 rams. I think she might have a secret entrance to the rams pen for secret dates. I suppose October won't be a terrible time for one more lamb. What a surprise that would have been if I hadn't found her! Now we will expect a possibility.

Lazy Warm Days

The sheep's first day of grazing down the fast growing lawn around our house. Midday they took a siesta under the lilacs and plum thicket. Ah, to be a sheep.

Gorgeous Wool....

Ahhh! Such gorgeous wool! I look forward to skirting all year, and although it took about 30-45 minutes for each fleece (times that by 24!) it was well worth being able to touch and intimately pick through each fleece. Now I have to wait a whole another year to do it again!

The chocolate sheep, Bastian, Uma, Ugo and Willa have been sent to be blended and spun at Heavenly Fibers Mill. I have decided to add something special to this yarn.... Alpaca! I had a few very nice fleeces from a local alpaca breeder which were dark brown, they will be super nice with these fleeces!

Wendell Berry

When reading this poem I can remember vividly coming home not long ago to our first time mamma ewe Betsy and seeing her out in the middle of the field with twins. Berry's words just fills me with peace.

They are fighting again the war to end war,
And the ewe flock, bred in October, brings forth
in March. This so far remains, this pain
and renewal, whatever war is being fought.
We go through the annual passage of birth
and death, triumph and heartbreak, love
and exasperation, mud, milk, mucus, and blood.
Yet once more the young ewe stands with her lambs
in the dawnlight, the lambs well-suckled
and dry. There is no happiness like this.

The window again welcomes in the light
of lengthening days. The river in its old groove
passes again beneath opening leaves.
In their brevity, between cold and shade,
flowers again brighten the woods floor.

This then may be the prayer without ceasing,
this beauty and gratitude, this moment.

Wendell Berry: III
-from Given: Poems, Shoemaker & Hoard Publishers, 2005