A Winter Surprise


Here's what is currently outside our house, and outside our 3-sided barn, open to the elements:



Snow, ice, and below freezing temperatures.

Here's what is currently inside our house:



Let's do that again. Outside:



Inside:





And up in the 3-sided barn? Here's what's up there:



And this:




Holy Hanky Panky, Batman.

As always, we put our ram Erik in with the ladies late December. I did chores every day (as Melissa recovered from surgery) and noticed that there wasn't much sheep sex going on. This concerned me. Was there something wrong with Erik? Why wasn't he mounting every female in sight, as he usually did?

It turns out that the reason Erik didn't engage in much sexual congress with the ewes was that over two-thirds of the ewes were

ALL.
READY.
PREGNANT.

Let's all say that together out loud, and please grit your teeth to fully experience the emotional horror of the news:

The sheep were

ALL.
READY.
PREGNANT.

Instead of lambs being born mid-May (5 months after Erik does his thing), outside in the warm spring, lambs are coming now, in the middle of the winter. Why?

Early September there was unauthorized sheep sex on our farm, probably perpetrated by a randy ram lamb who jumped about three fences to reach the ladies. We didn't think anything of it because it was so early in the fall and we thought he was much too little to do any damage, so Melissa put him back where he belonged. End of story. Except that the little devil must have stolen a step stool and used it to reach the ewes.

What's happening now is a very long story, and I'll post it once I've achieved enough emotional distance that I find the whole thing amusing. Look for that post in about ten years.

So if I don't post much for awhile, it's because I'm either feeding this:




Or kissing this:

Please, Someone, Save Me...


I've been looking for something to distract me from this winter... -20 below, nasty snow and ice, the tractor breaking and the woodsplitter breaking and the water hydrant freezing up so Melissa had to shovel snow into the troughs and let the water heaters melt it. (Tractor running again, woodsplitter needs new engine, so it will be an attractive bird perch for awhile, water hydrant thawed....Melissa's been very busy.)

Anyway, what does a sheep farmer do in the winter to distract herself? I've already bragged about the yarn I spun, so I finally did something with it.

I've knitted (or is it 'I knit'...? Could the past of the verb 'knit' be the same as the present?) two rectangles. Yes, it's true....rectangles. Not octagons or triangles, but one of the most deceptively complicated of shapes, the rectangle (although in this photo they appear squarish...apparently I've knit squarish rectangles, no easy feat):




I'm thinking of turning them into wrist warmers. I'll likely get this done around May, when I no longer need them.

Then last weekend I took a class in weaving. The floor looms (Baby Wolf for those of you in the know) were already prepared, so all we had to do was sit down and start learning to weave. I couldn't believe it. In about three hours I actually wove fabric. The camera flash makes it look brighter than it is...but I made this scarf:




How cool is that? I loved weaving! I wanted to steal the Baby Wolf and take it home with me (a very odd thing for a shepherd to do with a wolf!)

During the class I looked through a book on hand dyeing roving to spin, and my knees went weak at all the color combinations and spinning possibilities. I began to hyperventilate while looking through books of weaving patterns.

Please, someone save me. I see where this is going and I need an intervention. Someone tell me I'll get so deep into this fiber stuff that I'll blow off writing and never be published again. Tell me I'll fill every nook and cranny of my house with my yarn stash and empty my bank account at the same time. Tell me I'll become so addicted to knitting that I'll make a scene at Airport Security, determined to convince them that my Size 10 needles aren't weapons.

Tell me that I can't possibly get involved in knitting and spinning and weaving all at the same time and I should just stick with jigsaw puzzles in the winter. I'm going to need someone make sure I don't become a fiber fanatic....oops, I mean fiber fan.