North Carolina Sheep Day

This Saturday we decided it was high time we had a "sheep day." This is a day where we gathered up all the sheep for health checks, get weights on the lambs, and just generally make sure that all is well with the flock. This is something we did weekly at our old place because there seemed to always be at least one sheep or lamb who was doing poorly and needed deworming at the very least. Since we have moved to North Carolina, the sheep have been doing so well that we didn't feel the need for such hands on care. Still, we have 8 lambs on the ground now, and it was time to get our hands on them. 

First order of business was to figure out which lambs belonged to which mommas and get them marked for easy identification. Anthony then checked the color of everyone's mucus membranes around the eyes to make sure no one had any serious issues with parasites. They were all nice and pink!

Anthony's sister Theresa was in town visiting so she helped us get weights on all the lambs. I'm excited to report that the lambs are thriving in their new home so far. They are far and away outgrowing last years lambs. The real test will be in a few months when they are weaned and eating on their own. In previous years, this is when we have run into problems with the lambs. I'm hoping the milder temperature and far better pastures up here will help protect them in that stressful period.

Fred and Rialey are still BFFs. He stole an opportunity to get some snuggles in while Rialey held the sheep in a corner of the barn for us.

Once we were done checking the sheep, we decided to go for a walk around the pond and down to the lake. We moved the sheep into the back pasture to let them graze the lush, untouched grass that is growing back there.

The weather was beautiful and Elliot was enjoying the fresh air and sunshine from the safety of the carrier on my back.

The lake is so beautiful with clear waters and everything turning green all around. 

And apparently we have beavers!

Farm Call

Today we had the vet out for a farm call. He did a quick inspection of the sheep and goats and wrote us a health certificate so that the animals would be legal to cross state lines. All the animals got ID tags with our Scrapies ID so at least that much is ready to go!

Herding Training

Lately we have needed to move the flock of sheep more than in the past. We are trying to keep them off our first pasture as much as possible so that it doesn't get over grazed. We are also gathering them every week for health checks. Since the weather has started to warm, we have also been moving them into the backyard a few days a week so that they can act as living lawn mowers and enjoy the benefits of our very varied grass back there.

Rialey has always shown a very natural ability to move the flock. The problem is often that where she would like to move them and where we would like her to move them are totally different places. The last couple of weeks, I have started to make an effort to really dial in her herding training so that we can better communicate out there.

The other thing the girl needs to learn is to just slow down! I thought surely when she reached 2 years old she would mature out of the puppy brain phase and start acting like an adult. Nope. Half the time when she's working she is a jumbo bag of mixed nuts, running and barking and trying to do everything we ask before we ask it and at TOP SPEED! Whhheeee!!!

The fault here lies with my training, not with my over zealous, very driven working dog. I haven't taken the time to show her what to do and reward when she is doing things at a moderate pace. Instead we often find ourselves waiting until she has done something in a totally wild fashion and then yelling. This does no one any good.

Recently, I worked out a deal with a local trainer to trade a couple of our turkeys for a herding lesson. She was able to give me some great tips on reading Rialey's body language and getting the kind of performance I want without all the yelling and pushing.

Today, I decided to put some of her suggestions into practice so we went out to collect the sheep in the back pasture. It took a few tries, but eventually we moved the whole flock into the goat yard where armed with a clicker and some delicious treats (smokey bacon cheddar!), I rewarded Rialey for being calm, moving slowly, and getting around and behind her sheep. Thankfully, the sheep have finally grown out of the habit of trying to commit suicide by throwing themselves at the fence any time a dog moves anywhere near them! We moved the flock from one pen to the other and back again a few times then we decided to move the group into the backyard to graze for the day.

Our first attempt at moving from one yard to the other did not go so well. Unsure what I wanted, Rialey flanked around and ended up moving the sheep in the opposite direction and by a roundabout route then ended up back where we'd started. This time I got in front of the flock and just told Rialey to wait as I walked confidently in front of the group, out the gate, and across the pasture.

There was this beautiful moment when I looked over my shoulder and there spread out behind me trotting calmly was the entire flock of sheep. Bringing up the rear at a respectable distance was Rialey. She was WALKING behind the sheep. Keeping her shepherd's eye on all the young lambs to make sure they stayed with the group and calmly encouraging the whole flock to take my lead. Once the sheep saw the open backyard gate and the lush greens that awaited them, they all rushed through and Rialey to her credit slowed to a stop and waited for every last ewe and lamb to find their way through the small gate.

Gate shut, I turned around and had a huge party with my good girl, complete with a whole handful of smokey bacon cheddar!

Our not so lucky Clover

  Right now we are keeping the boy and girl goats separated so we alternate who gets access to the big pastures in the back. This morning it was the girls' turn so I grabbed scoop of corn and called the girls and Rialey to follow me across the bridge. Once Rialey and I had all the lady goats, I closed the gate and tossed the corn. Rialey knows the drill by now and was ready when the sheep came flooding over the hill to try and steal the goat ladies' breakfast. She chased them back over the hill, across the second pasture, then up and through the gate to the third pasture then headed back to my side.

  On a whim I decided to take a walk out to the third pasture to check on things. Rialey did her usual happy lap around the second pasture then bounded through the gate and into the third ahead of me. She was running and sniffing and generally enjoying being a farm dog. She ran over to the ponds. On hot days she likes to take a plunge and cool off, but this morning the frost had just melted from the grass so I was surprised when she dove out of site down to the water in the first pond. Oh well, she's never been bothered by the cold so I let her do her thing while I continued my walk.

  Pretty quickly I realized something wasn't quite right. I could see the big, poofy fluff of her curled tail sticking up above the brush, and it was vibrating like she was trying to catch something. Concerned that maybe she'd tried to take on a snake or other vermin, I headed over to find Rialey trying her best to grab and pull something up and out of the water. On closer inspection I realized it was Clover, one of our lambs. Clover was one of a set of twins born on Saint Patrick's day. She and her sister, Coleen, never did get very big and seemed always to need deworming. I guess when the flock rounded the corner by the edge of the pond little Clover got knocked in.

I told Rialey to back up then pulled the lamb out of the water. She was a soggy, muddy mess! She felt very warm and was breathing heavily like she had been running so I knew she hadn't been in the water very long.

 Rialey immediately set to work licking the sodden, pathetic creature and pulling the debris from her coat. The she started trying to get Clover up by grabbing big mouthfuls of her wool and attempting to pull her to her feet. I knew that Rialey's attentions weren't go to work so I called her off and put her in a down stay a few feet away. Once a lamb goes down, they will just lay there and seemingly wait for death. No amount of poking, prodding, or pulling will get them to their feet. The best thing to do is back off and usually the little one will get up on her own once she thinks the danger has passed.

The rest of the flock were not to far away so Rialey and I left Clover to warm up and dry in a sunny spot while we went back to finish chores.

  Halfway thru morning chores I decided it might be a good idea to give the weakened, stressed out, lamb a little energy boost so I mixed up some molasses and vitamins and headed back out. I was encouraged to see that Clover was no longer in the spot where we left her, but when I called over the flock she was not with the group.

  We backtracked to where we left the lamb, and I asked Rialey to 'hunt it up.' She took off like a shot following a scent trail! I was so excited that she seemed to be on the right track until Ry dropped face first to the ground and started rolling in some god-know-what smelly patch that she was delighted to have found.

  Eventually we made our way to where the flock was grazing and again I asked Rialey to search for the lamb. Don't ya know, she actually found the little one laying down in a tall stand of grass not far away!

  I gave her a couple syringe fulls of my mixture and moved her into a more accessible and sunny location. We left her again to recover and hopefully get back on her feet.

  I had Rialey move the flock back to the pasture near where we left the little one to encourage her to rejoin the group then we headed back up front to finish chores. We let the boy goats out of their pen, fed the rabbits, and released the poultry to free range for the day. Once everyone was taken care of, we headed back one more time to check on miss Clover.

  Once again she had moved from where we left her. This time Rialey knew just what to do. I asked her to find the lamb, and she dropped her nose and started very obviously following her tracks. Though the tall grass, across the pasture and back up again, Rialey never lost her trail. Every once in a while she would throw a glance back in my direction like. "Well? Are you coming?!" When I saw her fluff of a tail stop in the tall grass and her head pop up to look back at me, I knew she'd found Clover for me again!

 The lamb was looking a little more alert, so we decided to leave her for the day to warm up and get her strength back. Obviously she was able to get up and move around so I suspected that she would be fine.

  This afternoon we went out for one more check on our errant lamb. I put Rialey in a down stay and called over the flock. Unfortunately, little Clover was not with the group. I called my trusty farm dog and we once again set to work finding the lamb. Rialey dutifully checked every place we'd found Clover this morning before dropping her nose and starting to search. I was about to give up hope when I saw the pup give two giant leaps into the chest high grass then I heard her give a loud "WOOF!"

  I bounded through the grass to find that sure enough she'd once again found that lamb! I gave Rialey tons of praise and a handful of treats. Clover was just laying there while Rialey did her damnedest to get her up. At least at this point she was mostly dry and holding her head up and looking around. I called Rialey off and stood there trying to decide what to do now. Was she so weak that she could only get up and stumble around then fall again? Should I bring her up front so that we could watch her more closely? She was way too heavy for me to carry all the way back up front. On the way out I'd noticed that some evil animal had disconnected the fuel line from the four wheeler...again so that wasn't an option. While I stood there contemplating dragging the garden cart all the way back there and looking out over the field, wouldn't you know that lamb popped up and took off at a run across the pasture!

  Guess she wasn't that weak after all! Rialey and I kept our distance, but I let the dog gently herd the lamb back up to where I knew we'd left the rest of the flock. She is that tiny dot in the above picture rejoining the group. Hopefully she is finally recovered from her ordeal of the day, and we won't have to do any more lamb tracking.

  I am thankful every day that I have an awesome farm dog at my side whenever I step foot on out the farm. Without this dog, that lamb would surely have died in that pond and there was no way I would have found her over and over again hiding in the brush. Today Rialey showed the skills that make English Shepherds such indispensable farm assistants. She went from herding sheep, to caring for a lamb in danger, to tracking her when she was missing. That's my good girl!

Fishing for Crabbes

Every week we gather up the sheep to do a health check on everyone. We check the color of their mucus membranes and check for loose stool to see if they need a dose of dewormer. This has helped us reduce our lamb losses pretty dramatically and keep up with the health of our mommas.

This week we decided to do health checks in the evening rather than the morning so that meant gathering the flock from the back pasture. I sent Rialey out to move the sheep up and after a couple of false starts, she got the entire flock moving in the right direction at a moderate speed. 

Once we'd moved them up through the second pasture and over the bridge, Luna and Big Onion took over and herded the group unto the alleyway behind the poultry pens that we use as a holding area while doing our checks.

We gathered supplies, and quickly went to work. We were trucking along, me taking notes and Big Onion comparing mucus membrane color to a FAMCHA card when we realized we were one sheep short. Little Crabbe was missing. 

Since we have been at this sheep rearing thing for a few years now, it has become pretty easy to tell which lambs are going to thrive and which lambs will mostly likely succumb to parasites. Crabbe was puny from the start. It seems like every week we were having to pump him full of dewormer and B vitamins, probiotics and iron shots. All our efforts seem to be barely maintaining him. Finding him missing from the group both Big Onion and I knew there was about a 50/50 chance that we'd find him alive. 

As I was headed out to begin the search, Crabbe's mother, Apple, started calling. In the distance, we heard the lamb answer back. At least he was alive! When I came around the corner, I could see him there on the bridge at the gate. This would be a simple matter of opening the gate and letting the little guy run to join the group...or so I thought.

I dropped Rialey in a down stay in the tall grass and walked slowly and quietly to the gate. Unfortunately, Crabbe is the spookiest of our lambs so despite my best efforts not to scare him, he took off the minute he caught sight of me. I sighed and called Rialey to my side.

We crossed the bridge and before I could send Rialey around, the little guy took off! Rialey was after him like a flash. I was hoping he would just lay down as young and unhealthy sheep are want to do when stressed, but instead he headed down the fence line toward the opening to the creek. Rialey was hot on his heels! I was still hoping she would get him turned around when both dog and sheep disappeared from my view down the creek bank. I broke into a run, loudly calling Rialey off, but it was too late. She'd caught up with the lamb, and he had finally done his stupid lamb move of laying down to play dead. Only playing dead doesn't work so well on a steep incline. I caught up just in time to see the little guy do a perfect barrel roll and go head over hooves down the embankment and splash right into the creek!

Luckily, we've been short on rain lately, and right when I was certain he would go under and drown, Crabbe popped right back up and looked back at me in complete shock! I don't think he was expecting that to happen!

Rialey was happy to follow the errant lamb down into the water and did her best to try and get him back to me. She tried herding him. She tried barking at him. She even tried grabbing and dragging him back to shore to no avail. Crabbe just stood there not moving. Finally, he decided to lay down and die again because sheep are really just that dumb and down he went under the water.

At that point there was nothing else for me to do, but to slog down into the boot topping creek and retrieve the stupid creature. By the time I had crawled/fallen down the steep embankment and slashed into the water, he had once again popped back up, only this time he started heading away from Rialey and me and in the direction of the neighbor's. Luckily Rialey was on him again. She grabbed a mouthful of wool and held him there until I could slog my way over to the two and retrieve the soggy little guy.

I gathered up the dripping creature, climbed back up the other side of the creek bank, and handed him over the fence to Big Onion. Crabbe was none the worse for his little adventure and with the heat index topping three figures, there was no fear of him catching a chill.

For my part, I emptied out my boots, wrung out my socks, and finished the evening chores with soggy feet. 

Never a dull moment...

  It was a pretty typical Saturday here on the farm. Big Onion had driven to the city to make egg deliveries. I was doing some cleaning and laundry around the house. That morning we had put all the lady goats across the bridge to graze in the back pastures. This meant that Gimli and the young bucklings could get out of their enclosure and browse around the first pasture for the day. Something they don't get to do nearly often enough.

  I had just taken out all of the milk we'd stored in the fridge for the last few days with the intention of making another batch of goat cheese dog treats when I noticed it had started to drizzle. Now there is no real rain cover in the back pastures. There are lots of big trees which are great for shade but not so great for keeping water phobic princess goats from a fate worse than death...getting wet!

  It was just drizzling though so I thought maybe the girls would survive. I poured the first gallon of milk into the pot and started the gas fire underneath when I heard a clap of thunder and looked out the window to see the rain was getting much heavier. A couple of guineas were flapping around and squawking like they were certain the sky was falling. Behind them on the bridge I could see the ladies standing at the gate in the rain. I swear they were hopping from foot to foot in an effort to dodge the raindrop and keep their dainty hooves from getting wet.

  I breathed a heavy sigh, turned down the heat on the milk, and threw on my rain jacket and boots. I figured this would be an quick trip. Close up the buck pen where I was sure that all four boys had already taken shelter the moment a cloud appeared in the sky then open the gate and save my poor ladies from melting on the spot.

  I trudged through the rain and mud to the door of the buck pen where Gimli, our adult buck, greeted me with a happy, grunty little hello. Little Bruno was standing behind him munching on some hay, but his brother Victor and half brother Legolas were nowhere to be seen. Crap.

  I knew those little boys had been finding their way through the pasture fence into the neighbor's hay field (the grass is ALWAYS greener in the neighbor's hay fields) so I started calling to the boys and sure enough, I heard Lego's very distinct call from somewhere over the fence.

  Sighing again, I trudged to the back of the first pasture and opened the gate, in the process running face first into the thankfully unplugged line of electric fencing running above the opening. Once on the other side, I had to trudge back up along the fence line calling and following the sound of distressed young boy goats.

  Finally, Lego popped out of the heavy underbrush along the fence and ran straight to me. At that moment, I was so grateful we'd taken all that time to tame this little spooky kid. So much so that the sight of me in a storm was something to run to instead of away from. I scooped up the sad and soggy little guy and tossed him right over the fence and into the buck pen. A few feet down, Victor appeared and ran straight to me just like his brother before him. He got the same treatment.

  OK, problem solved. Time to open the bridge gate for the goat ladies and head back to my cheese making, right? Wrong. When I straightened up after this time successfully ducking that line of electric wire at the gate, I saw that Apple was standing out in the middle of the pasture with her one day old lamb. Both were soaked and the tiny lamb was laying on the wet ground. I made my way through the standing water to them and picked up the baby ram. He was sopping wet and his rear was totally clogged with sticky colostrum poops. Having no other way to clean him and figuring at this point what was the difference, I used my hands to clear his rear and rinsed him clean in a nearby puddle. Having taken care of that, I carried him low to the ground and facing his mother so that she would follow us both back to shelter where she and the lamb could finally get dry. Miraculously, I managed to back my way across the pasture while dangling a lamb and calling his dumb, silly mother without landing on my backside in a puddle. Once mother and son were safely under cover I washed my hands very thoroughly.

  Finally I could go and let the ladies get in out of the storm. I unchained the gate to the most sullen, ungrateful bunch of livestock you can imagine, and the wet goats made their way to shelter at top speed. It was then that I realized that Eve's young daughter Turnip was not with this group. I also noticed that Francesca and Lucia were absent. Having seen them pull this trick once before, I crossed the bridge and sure enough, all three girls were hidden and quite dry under the bridge. I called to her and Turnip came right to me. I sent her back across the bridge to her mother and started to head that way myself when Francesca started calling her fool head off.

  She was calling so loud and sounded so upset, I was sure she was somehow stuck under that bridge. I crawled back down the embankment to find that she was her sister were perfectly fine, just upset that they couldn't come with me AND stay out of the rain at the same time. Such is the life of these poor abused animals around here.

  She was making such a racket that I was afraid she'd upset the neighbors so I pulled both girls out from under the bridge and the three of us and little Turnip finally made our way across the pasture to shelter. Franny and Lucie went into the buck pen with the boy and the rest of the ladies all piled into the milk room where everyone was enjoying cover from the weather and a snack of hay.

  Gwen had made her way around to the other side of the building where the princess has her private suite away from the bigger goats who tend to bully her. I looked over the short wall to her area and realized that she was the only one without access to hay. Already feeling guilty for leaving everyone out in the rain, I sighed one more big sigh and dutifully grabbed a bucket, walked back to where the sheep were hanging out with the round bale, filled that bucket with fresh, dry hay, and walked back to make an offering to the sodden princess who gracefully accepted my peace offering.

  Finally, I could get back to the house. I was now as wet as the goats and covered in mud from all my trudging back and forth. When I opened the door, I smelled a smell I know very well. Cooked milk. My little adventure had taken a lot longer than I had planned. My milk which was only supposed to reach a temperature of 185 was happily boiling away in the pot. Thankfully it hadn't boiled over or burned. I turned off the heat and added a splash of vinegar. Hopefully the cheese will still be ok, but even if not, I'm sure that now that I've saved the ladies from melting in the storm they will happily give us plenty more milk it take its place.

BOGO Sheep

 
  After seriously debating the future of sheep on our farm, I think we've decided to let them stick around a while longer. So far this year we've only lost one lamb, and that was from a mother who we didn't realize wasn't making milk for her little one until it was too late. Things can go south very, very quickly with newborns. Our sweet, departed Pepper's daughter Marcie (above) is doing a great job of raising her daughter, Patty. She's even passed on Pepper's smattering of speckles and extra deep voice that inspired us to call her Peppermint Patty in the first place.

 
  After initially trying to reject him, Bonnie is raising Charger into a big strapping boy with really interesting color. Charger is the first of the lambs to need worming, and Charger was the second lamb that Bonnie tried to abandon, so we'll be seriously evaluating both Bonnie and her son's future around here.

 
  And our biggest surprise this year was that Nina gave us our first set of twin lambs! She had two little girls on St. Patrick's day that we decided to call Clover and Colleen. (Sorry for the chicken photo bomb!)

She lambed very early in the morning and we were lucky enough to walk out right as she was giving birth to the second of the two little girls and get it on video:

  Nina was a good mom from the start, and you can see here that she had a very large, full udder. We were actually able to harvest a little colostrum to store away from her.

  Since she has such good mothing instincts, has given us twins, and has a wonderful stocky body type, we will probably be keeping at least one of these little girls as a breeder.

  We were doubly delighted when just a few days later Louise gave us this mismatched set! The dark brown lamb is a little ewe, and the white one a ram. We decided to call the pair Ollie and Andy respectively (any Bob's Burgers fans out there?).

  Although Maggie has been an excellent mother, Little Ollie gave us some trouble from the start. She was very small and even looks a little...off.

 
  When she was just a couple of days old, she just disappeared. It was a weekend morning, and Big Onion and I had just finished chores. We decided to take a walk out to the back pasture and check on all the new arrivals. Well, Nina was there with Clover and Colleen. Louise was there with Andy, but Ollie was not with the group. We figured she was parked somewhere sleeping. It's very common for the sheep to leave their little ones napping in a safe place while they go off to graze. Usually you will find a group of the young lambs all napping together with one mother or auntie grazing nearby.

  Since she was so young and the rest of the the flock was up and on the move, we went into search mode. Just the day before Rialey had pointed out Ollie to me sleeping safely under some of the junk in the corner of the first pasture so we figured it would be a easy matter of finding and rousing the little one then sending her back to her mother's care. Well, we looked high and low, searched all three pastures, looked under, over, and around everything.We watched the dogs for any clues. We searched in the poultry pens and even walked the banks of the creek and ponds to be sure she hadn't fallen in. When we didn't find her, we looked everywhere a second and even a third time. We spent hours that day searching. Cancelled our plans and searched some more. I gave up, but Big Onion search until it was too dark to search any more.

  Finally, we gave up concluding that she had fallen prey to some predator, maybe a fox overnight or a hawk. She was so very small. With a sigh, we did our evening chore then went inside for the night.

  The next morning, we went out to care for everyone as usual. The sheep were sleeping up in the first pasture, when they got up there was little Ollie, right there with her mother and brother like she'd never been gone in the first place! To this day we have no idea where she was for all those hours we spent searching and scouring the property. All we know is that she is WAY better than us at hide and seek, and that her name fits her quite well! Ollie, ollie, oxen freed!

Charger and Chance

  It was a chilly Monday morning and Big Onion and I were out doing chores. I was busy feeding the chickens when I saw Big Onion heading for the gate to the second pasture. He thought he'd heard the calling of a lamb and decided to investigate. Never one to be left out of the excitement, I tagged along.

 There in the middle of the second pasture all alone was this big, strong, totally dry ram lamb. He was chocolate colored so our thoughts went straight to Bonnie who had a dark colored lamb last year and abandoned him. The lamb was running around the pasture and calling with big strong lungs. Big Onion scooped him up and I called Rialey to round up the sheep to try and find who left this big guy.

  As soon as Big Onion had the lamb in hand we realized that he wasn't our only problem. There on the hill was a little pile of white fluff. When we got closer, we found another lamb. This one freshly born. She was tiny and wet and barely able to get onto her feet. I set Rialey the task of staying with the baby and getting her cleaned up while Big Onion and I rounded up the sheep and tried to find the errant mother(s).

  At first we were thinking that we had a set of twins on our hands and just one bad mom in the bunch. We got the sheep onto the bridge and confirmed that Bonnie had just given birth by the stringy bits handing from her rear end. We wrestled her into a pen with the two little lambs. It was then that we noticed that Rue had also recently given birth.

  It only made sense that the little ewe lamb was hers. We put Rue and the lamb into another empty pen and tried get the little one to nurse.

  It took forever for her to get up on her feet then even longer to figure out how and where to nurse. Finally, she got everything aligned, but she didn't seem to be getting anything. She'd nurse for a few seconds then stop. She was very hungry and very frustrated.

  We decided to check Rue's udder and found that it was small and hard. When milked, it produced a thick, yellow, waxy substance that did not resemble milk at all. Rue also showed no interest in mothering the baby lamb.

  At that point, we had two options. We could bring this little lamb in and bottle raise her, but with the house already full of six milk guzzling little goats, we were less than thrilled at the idea of adding another to the mix. The other option was to try and encourage Bonnie to take on the second lamb. If we could convince her that both lambs born so close together were hers, maybe we could avoid having another hungry mouth to feed ourselves.

  With some encouragement we were able to get the little lamb who we decided to call Chance to nurse from Bonnie. She got a full belly then settled down to nap in the hay. At that point, Bonnie had accepted her son and was allowing him to nurse. We decided to call the little boy Charger. Before we left them alone, we did see the little ewe lamb nurse from Bonnie again with little protestation on her surrogate mother's part. We left them to work things out and hoped we would come back to two happy, active, full bellied lambs at the end of the day.

Ram Lamb, Ding Dong

 There's a new man out in the pastures this week. See that dark faced sheep with the orange collar? That's our new ram lamb! He's a Katahdin/Dorper cross, and would you believe he's only five months old?!

  All of our sheep have names. It makes record keeping easier and helps Big Onion and I communicate about things like which sheep we saw limping yesterday or who looks like they might be pregnant.

 Soon after he got here, we started talking about what we would call this boy. Since he's a ram lamb, we joked about calling him Ding Dong (as in the Edsels Rama Lama Ding Dong), but he's such a big majestic beast of a sheep that Ding Dong just didn't seem to fit his manliness. I told Big Onion we should call him something masculine like Steve. He said, "You want to call him Steve? We should call him Phteven!"

  Which resulted in an uncontrollable bout of giggles from both of us. Seriously, just google "Phteven" and try not to laugh. That picture and the ones like it get me every time!

  Anyway, I think we have settled on calling this new sheep "Steve Ding Dong." It is totally befitting of his dignity don't you think? If nothing else, it amuses us.

 Meanwhile, as I was taking the pictures of Mr. Ding Dong, Rialey was busy doing her best border collie impression to make him feel at home. Steve came from a farm with lots of them!

  We are very excited to have this new lamb as part of our flock. We are just about desperate for some new blood. Our entire flock came from one source, so we cannot be sure how related everyone is to each other. Plus, that combination of breeds in know to produce very high quality meat sheep. We'll be getting rid of our current adult ram, McLovin, very soon. Then we need to make some hard decisions about Angus and Buzz. We may decide to keep all three boys since all seem to get along just fine, and we'd like to option of producing more pure Katahdins. 

  Our shepherd is very pleased with the addition to her flock!