Welcome Stranger??????

We were out doing chores early in the morning which is our usual routine, when we were visited by this beautiful peacock. It actually belongs to our neighbor across the street. He is more of a "gentleman" farmer, and sleeps in, coming out to feed his cows and poultry after 9am. Well this bird saw us feeding ours, and thought that he would come and get his fill also.

Here he is after the livestock guard dogs spotted him. On top of the hay barn. One thing about peacocks, they can run like the wind, but not faster than a dog, so he took to flight, clumsy with his long tail. My dogs will usually chase hawks off our property as they fly overhead. Just doing what good dogs are bred to do. On top of the horse trailer.

Since I already had my camera out, I have decided to share some of our spring flowers that are blooming. These were gifted to me by my friend Linda. (Linda, the trumpets are starting to grow!)Purple Iris.

Peach colored Iris.

Wild Geranium.

Blogger. Well my blogger has changed the format to write blogs. I am having a hard time with it. Can't find spell check, when I put my writing in paragraph form, or put two spaces behind periods, the blogger does not do this for me. So bear with me for awhile as I figure this out. Takes longer to teach an old dog new formats I guess.

WEll, it is 52 degrees out with a predicted high of 60 for today. Not the 80+ degree record breakers we have had for the past days with gale force drying winds. Time to go out and do some painting on the sheds that have been waiting to be painted since last year. It seems to be always too, too hot, too cold, too windy etc. But no excuses for today. More latter...........................................................................

New babies, two and four legged!

There is a story to this signage. I made this out of recycled cedar fence and lattice. I am also making wind breaks for the chickens and turkeys, with three sections, and am in the process of priming and painting these. With the left over, I hope to have enough to make a decorative, protective fence around the air conditioner. Folks always drive by our place slowly and crane their necks to see what the Radi's are up to, especially when they see the Katahdins out in the front pasture with the long tails. Did you know, one way to tell a goat from a sheep is that a goat carries its tail up, and a sheep down, if they have tails anyway. Well, now they know what kind of animals we have back there. This sign faces the road in front of our house. I also painted something on the back of it, it will be a surprise at the end of my post. BABIES May Day, May Day! Boy did April fly by for us. Seems like only yesterday it was Easter. We have been very busy of late. Starting with the birth of our 3RD grandchild on April 24TH. Mom and baby are doing great, she is named Kaitlin Victoria Radi. Here is a picture of me holding my new grandbaby at the hospital.

Of course Lily does not know what to think of this new little arrival who is getting too much of her attention! Grandpa even likes holding her!

FOUR LEGGED BIRTHS We are all done lambing for the season. We ended up with 2 ewe lambs and 1 ram lamb out of our registered Katahdins. Kipcha was the only ewe who had birthing problems, her baby was huge and breech to boot. I did get it out, and it was quite trumatic for mom and baby. But we saved the both of them. The little ram lamb laid like a frog for two days, and could not get up. Then miraculously he ran and met me at the gate one morning for his bottle. I had stated bottle feeding him, and had tried to get him back on his moma, but due to the wild nature of the Katahdins, was unable to. So now I have a bottle baby. I call him Tiny Tim, since he had the back leg problems when he was born.

We finished the shelter covering the sheep feeders, just have to paint the wood. With the price of hay these days, we want to protect all that we can. The animals also enjoy the shade when the sun is stright up in the sky.

BOOK CLUB Those who are following my reads for book club, the books chosen this month are: My Antonia by Willa Cather(a free download on Kindle. This book was great!) Lone Wolf by Jodie Picoult. The Wolf Gift by Anne Rice(I am listening to this as audiobook, I did not want to waste my time reading it, since it is about a "Man Wolf" but I am half way through it and I am liking this book) If these books don't have me howling at the moon, I don't know what will. SEWING ROOM Unfortunately, only the placemats were finished in the sewing room this month. And I don't know of anyone else who is pregnant and expecting a baby. I do have 3 blocks to be done next month for quilt club. Oh, but wait, I did do another block, but not in the sewing room, it was out in the great outdoors! Surprise!

So that is what folks see when they leave our place. More later.........................................................

Easter and new lamb

We had a wonderful Easter with the children. Tera gave me the above flowers, so very beautiful, I am looking at them right now.
We did not have any baby animals on the farm, but our youngest ewe Angel gave birth the next day to a tan colored ewe lamb with a white spot on her head. I just yesterday tagged her her. She is #04, but I felt that she deserves a name, so decided to name her Easter. Since she was born on Easter Monday.
Here is a picture of the mom and new baby.

Sewing Room
The weather has been windy here of late, no precipitation to speak of, but the rest of Colorado is getting moisture. So what better thing to do than sew and read, right?
I just finished place mats that I made for myself and Tera. Mine is the lighter one, Tera's is the darker one. I made four of each pattern.
I also knit a hat with ear flaps, for those not so nice days in Colorado, of which there seem to be many. The pattern said, make the hat tonight and wear it on the slopes tomorrow. Well, I started it last night and did finish it today. It was made with super bulky yarn and did go very fast.
Here is a picture of me hamming it up with my new hat.
Speaking of which, there was this gal in Arizona who ran a fiber shop, with all her homespun yarns. She said she could tell what color yarns folks would buy, by what colors they were wearing. She was usually right on. So do I like these colors??? Ya think!!!!!

Did not get much reading done today, but the Sunday paper.
More later..........................................................

No docking, no shearing and parasite resistant!

We can only hope so anyway. The no docking or shearing is one of the reasons that we first purchased our Registered Katahdin hair sheep. All three of our ewes are due in the next 2-4 weeks. They have started the process of shedding as you can see in the pictures below. The hair clumps are picked up by nesting birds to line their nests.
Our entire flock of Katahdin Hair sheep. The ram is in the back.

The ewe in the front is Lucy and she will be the first to give birth. You can see that she is losing the hair on her neck and chest first. They rub themselves to get clumps of hair off, the cattle panels are a favored rubbing site. I should really find a large tree trunk, with bark still on, and lay it horizontal in their pasture for a rubbing place.


RECORD BREAKING TEMPERATURES!!
We were in the 86 degree range on Friday, with 80's on Saturday and Sunday. I don't care for this type of weather. You have to have several changes of clothes, as the day wears on. Long pants and parka in the morning, because it usually starts off cold, then shorts and tee shirt in the afternoon. I even washed my winter barn coat this weekend and put it in storage. Now wouldn't you know it, it is cold this AM with icy wind, and only in the 40's. The wind chill is what makes it unbearable.
Even with the ups and downs in the weather, my front flower bed is in full bloom, all of these are bulbs. The previous home owner had planted these.
This weekend we were able to get a few started projects, finished. All the flowers have been transplanted into the front flower beds. As for the bridge over the ponds, we put new caps on the posts that are solar powered and look really nice at night. I have been perusing the Internet for pumps for the ponds. So should have a small fountain up and running when I find the right pump(cost effective). I fed the fish the last two days, but no one came up to eat. Come to think of it, I have not seen the 3 koi since last fall. I read that fish should not be fed in the winter, since they go into semi hibernation when the pond temp is below 55 degrees. Our pond temp was 54 degrees yesterday. Hope they survived the winter. We did keep a tank heater on, so the surface never completely froze over.

Here is Dennis putting up the last two sections of post and rail fence that we had left over.
14 year old Casey enjoying the warm sunny days we had this weekend.

SEWING ROOM
This is yet another baby quilt that I am making. This baby is going to be very, very special to Dennis and I. She is going to be our second granddaughter, from Ryan and Julie. Julie is scheduled for a C-section on April 25Th at 12noon. I almost have the quilt finished, just need to do more quilting on it, make a label,and finish up the binding.

So what is the best thing to do on a cold blustery day? You guessed it, the sewing room! I have 4 place mats, and a quilt block to make before my quilt club meets on the 3rd Tuesday this month. Also a good book that I am reading that was chosen by our book club, titled The Devil In the White City written by Erik Larson. Hope I do not have nightmares after reading this.


More later....................................................................

And they are off and running!

Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines.
Yes, Dennis and I are all revved up, the weather has been spring like in the 60's during the day and 30's at night. The frost is out of the ground, begging for more holes to be dug. We have that long to-do list left over from last fall. The only road block, is our aching backs, muscles and overtaxed check book. The first thing we did was purchase a larger tiller to work the soil in the front flower beds. Here is Dennis tilling the flower area.
The beds are all tilled, and the next thing we need to do is transplant the flowers from the garden into the front flower beds. The entire area will be bordered by 24 Russian Sage. Oh, looky there, my gardener taking yet another break, as he digs up the transplants.


The next thing that we accomplished this past weekend, is we built a walk bridge over my two koi ponds. Makes it easier for me to reach into the pond and retrieve the lilys to fertilize and cut off dead stems. It also offers some shade for the fish and plants. Here I am on the somewhat finished deck, I need to plan out some decorative hand rails if I choose to add them, and then to let the wood age so I can stain all the same color.

MEMORABLE MARCH HAPPENINGS


We celebrated Lily's 2nd birthday. She had a very good time, especially blowing out the candles and opening her gifts. It is great to live close to the grandchildren to be able to part take in these milestones of their lives.

Two weeks ago, the pump burned out on our well, and of course it happened on a Friday evening. I won't say luckily that we have been through this before, but we have two other times. so being old hands and experienced, we survived our 3 days without water, thanks to our generous neighbors across the street, who again put up with our schlepping water from their house to ours for us and our four legged friends.


SEWING ROOM
The only thing that I accomplished in my sewing room since my last post, was I made a few tote bags out of feed sacks, and made a quilt for a baby grandson of a dear friend of mine, back in Minnesota.


THE BARN YARD
The turkeys have started laying, the chickens have been all winter long.
#2 and #3 are growing like weeds and following their momma all over, also they have learned to crawl under the gate and wonder around the yard together. Holly our first baby is the black lamb to the right of Oop nursing her babies.
The goats are fine, someone is coming tomorrow to look at my two babies, then hopefully,we will be down to 4 goats again. A more manageable # for us at this age.

More later......................................................

Birthdays, and New lambs

I just checked and I have not written to my blog for almost a month! And here I thought that I just did one. Seems like one month feels like a week to me these days. Well anyway, we had 90 mile per hour winds here in Fort Collins yesterday, and we are 25 miles west of them. We noted that our neighbors shingles were doing the "wave" and it looks to be that he has some bare spots on his roof.
We woke up to a light dusting of snow here on the farm, have not had much snow here at all this winter, we are going to be so dry come spring. Dennis has went out and watered some of the trees and shrubs a few times, hopefully they make it.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU..........
We had a nice trip down into Denver for our Grandson Brady's 16Th birthday. He is growing up so fast. Easy to get him a present since a gift card lets him purchase what he needs. I remember one Christmas I bought Tera clothes when she was about that age. Ended up returning them as she thought that they were too "preppy".
Lily was all eyes as she watched her cousin blow out the candles and opened presents. Good thing as she will turn 2 March 1ST, so we are looking forward to that birthday also.

BARNYARD HAPPENINGS!
Just had two baby sheep born on Tuesday, one white ram and one black ewe. Both are doing great and have bonded well with the mama, who is named Oop. The white male will be named #2, and the black female will be named #3. That is the birth order here at the farm. Holly was our first sheep ever born, so I guess that she is special. Speaking of Holly, she tips the scales at over #50 pounds at 60 days old. In sheepdom, you want fast growing lambs. The measure of a mothers worth is how fast her lambs grow. It is indicative of her genetics and also milk supply. You would expect a mother with a single lamb to have more growth than a twin birthing, but a very special ewe will keep up. We keep careful records of age and weight gains on the lambs for the National Sheep Improvement Program. You can Google this if you want more information.

ALASKAN CRUISE
I have my airline tickets all lined up for my Alaska cruise this summer with my family. Hope I got a good rate, but was going insane checking the flights on a daily basis, so had my parents travel agent set them up for me. I had started looking shortly after New Years, and they are up about $100 now, due to the gas increases. Uff'Da! I will be flying to Seattle June 16Th and then returning on June 24Th. Heaven. The travel agent said that since I have never been on a cruise before, that I should start taking Dramamine a few days before the trip. Not. But hopefully I will not be singing into a porcelain megaphone for my failure to follow friendly advice. Also, she said to dress in layers as it is cool, or cold, depending on what part of the country you are from. I went and bought a new purse that will hold my Kindle, camera and cell phone, so I am good to go. To bad I did not have a netbook, then I would really be ready.
Speaking of cruises, Titanic is coming out in 3D!!!!!!A must see movie.

February 24Th update.
Friday we came home from an outing in Greeley for the Home and Garden show. It was a nice little show, doable for older folks, nothing like the expansive show that is put on in the Minneapolis Mn area. Well, we got quite a few good ideas, and the weather was nice.
However,when we returned home, we found that we did not have water to the house or livestock areas. We figured out that the submersible pump is out. Since it is the weekend, the pump company is supposed to show up on Monday. So, we are camping out again, begging water from our neighbors for livestock and our use.
Builds character doesn't it. Also tests ones marriage to no end. We lived last year for three weeks without water, when our old 7 year well collapsed, as we put in a new well, going 700 feet, and we can do it for a few days.

HOME STUFF
My only dining table had 4 leaves and seats 14 people, however, in this house I have no dining room, just a small eat in kitchen, which is too small for my table even with the leaves out. So here is the table that I just recently purchased for the kitchen. (pictured here without the leaf.) It has an 18 inch leaf, and we can seat 8 people comfortably around this table. I am going to get a bench seat for the back against the wall. And it looks real nice. Not to forget that I gain 6 inches of walking room in the kitchen.

More later.........................................................