We visited my parent's house last weekend. The animals are all wintered at their house (aside from barn cats). We load everything up in the late fall and send it to my parent's house. My Dad loves to purchase and accumulate hay, we have grass for pasture. He doesn't seem to mind doing chores in the winter, I abhore winter chores.
The sheep are looking good. They are heavy with lamb. Polka Dot (yes, that is her name) is still limping from her many leaps over the fence last fall. For some reason she decided that the grass was greener on the other side of the fence and checked often to see if the theory was true. She developed a limp - nothing was broken. The weight of the developing lamb has accentuated her limp, but she can still manage to climb into the hay feeder so she isn't doing too badly.
We (Dad and I) need to talk about shearing. Sometimes we shear before lambing, but that sometimes causes early labor. The downside of not shearing in advance is that the mothers are not cold because of their thick woolly coats, but the babies are. Mom forgets that her little one is cold and goes tromping about in all sorts of weather. There is also the problem of cutting away wool tags from around the udder so that the baby nurses on the right thing. The wool tags are really hard on a good pair of scissors and the sheep isn't too wild about having someone cutting around her udder and just doesn't hold still for the haircut.
The horses look great as well. The kids sat on their favorites - and got all hairy from the horses winter coats. Ginger (the pony) has a stubborn nature and is Matthew's favorite to ride. I think he likes the challenge. Ginger's contrariness seems to keep Matthew jumping back on her whenever she pitches him into the grass. I don't think that will be too often this year as Matthew's legs nearly touch the ground. Don't worry, he isn't hurting her. My Dad said that ponies like Ginger used to be used for pulling carts of coal out of mines and she can handle a lot more than the 100+ lbs. that Matthew puts on her back. Katelyn sat on Sassy - her favorite. We continue to discuss breeding Sassy. Motherhood might help to settle her down. She has a bit of a flighty nature, but loves Katelyn. Alyssa was pitched off Ginger a few too many times last summer. One time I was informed that "she knocked the air out of me" so Alyssa prefers to bring the horses carrots until she grows a bit more. I think a really old mare would be good for her - a horse that would go around in circles no matter what Alyssa did.
The calves are really friendly. They are only summer visitors to be fattened up and sold in the fall. I think we should call them Heckle and Jeckle because they are mostly black. The kids have no idea who I am talking about as they don't watch cartoons - and the talking black birds may no longer make the cut for today's "discerning" children.
Chickens - chickens. Yes, we have roosters and chickens. Last fall several of our hens thought it was spring and hid themselves while hatching large batches of chicks. One mother came up to the barn with 14 little ones following her. The fall baby boom resulted in many, many little roosters who fill the barn (at my Dad's house) with their attempts at perfecting their crow. I will have to tell you how we got the chickens there - look for an entry entitled "chicken transport" in the future. Anyway, egg production is up - nearly one dozen a day. The eggs are wonderful. The yolks are startlingly yellow - due to the kitchen scraps they eat - and in the summer because they are free range chickens. Mark wants me to make sure that the rooster that is his nemesis does not return. One rooster seemed to think it was his job to get Mark out of bed all summer long. The rooster would crow, underneath our window, at anywhere from 3:30 A.M. to 5:00 A.M. Mark tried in vain to catch the thing, but was quite embarrassed to be outsmarted by poultry!
That's all the livestock that will be coming to our house in a few weeks. The alpaca stays at my parent's house, along with any goats Dad decides to purchase. We just don't learn - baby goats are SO cute and we are often sucked into buying one or two. Goats really test the fence. Sometime I will have to tell you about Parsley, Sage and Rosemary (we didn't have Thyme! - ha, ha).
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