Babies!

So yesterday was a pretty hectic day! I went to get a round bale before work, then when we got home we unloaded it, which was a chore. A few of David's friends came over, and they helped unload the bale and get it set into place. While they were working, I fed the animals. A few minutes after I fed the sheep hay, I heard Darla in the shelter making some noise. I went and peeked in on her, and saw she was in labor, but I saw a hind hoof. Oops. Darla was supposed to wait to lamb until my Mom got there (she's visiting from NC and was a few hours too late!).

I brought Darla in the barn and tied her to the wall and pulled the lamb. It was a big lamb, and Darla went down (as in, laid down) as soon as I pulled him out. When I first started pulling him, I felt him moving so I knew he was alive, but when I pulled him out he was pretty still. I cleared his mouth and nose and started rubbing him with straw. It took him a few minutes (during which I was pretty worried about him) but finally he breathed. Whew. I left them together and went inside to get the kids' (the human ones) dinner. Thank goodness we had leftovers, so it was easy.


I came back out and saw she was getting ready to have another, so I stayed to make sure everything was ok. I saw 2 big front hooves, so I decided to go ahead and help her. I pulled that lamb, and it was much easier than the first. He was shaking his head and breathing in no time.


So we've got 2 big strapping ram lambs. The one with the lighter face and legs was born first.

Darla is such a good mom, she just stood there while I stripped her teats and put the lambs on to nurse.

I'm a little bummed with no ewe lambs, but maybe next year will be different!

Versatile Blogger Award

I was just catching up on my blog reading and noticed Allison at Novice Life gave me a Versatile Blogger Award. Thanks, Allison! I need to come up with 7 random facts about me, then pass the award on to 15 other people. 15?! Whew. I'm not sure I can come up with that many people, because I don't have much time for blog reading lately, but I can come up with a few!

7 Random Things About Me:

1. I once found a turkey (alive and well) in the middle of the road. She wouldn't move, so I put her in my car and took her home, and my parents didn't mind (I was in high school). I later found out the people posted a sign for the missing turkey, so I returned her.

2. I swear I'm not making this up, but I also once found a goat in the middle of the road when I was visiting my sister in NC. I had a car full of dogs, so I couldn't bring her home but I called animal control and waited until they got there. I never did find out what happened to the goat.

3. My sister and I were at the airport (circa 1998) and I spied Newt Gingrich in the baggage claim line. I went up to him and asked if we could get a picture with him, and he said ok but after he got his luggage. We still have the pictures. He was pretty nice...probably because he was surprised 2 teenaged girls knew who he was.

4. And one time I saw Wolf Blitzer in the airport food court, but this time I couldn't remember his name so I didn't get a picture with him. I guess that's what happens when you live relatively close to D.C.....

5. When we got our first chickens ever, I spent hours out there sitting with them. I tried to dress up like a chicken so they wouldn't be afraid of me. I looked for all brown clothes and a dishwashing glove, but couldn't find them so I gave up. I was only 11, give me a break!

6. When I was around 8 or so, I stole a hot glue stick from Joanne Fabrics. It was just one single hot glue stick, and I took it because my sister said it was glue but I couldn't figure out how it worked. I didn't know it went in a gun! My sister ratted me out and my parents gave me a looooooong lecture that scarred me for life and I've never stolen anything since!

7. I watch Teen Mom and Teen Mom 2 on MTV. I hate MTV, but I can't help it. Somehow I started watching Teen Mom when I was home from work one day, and I got hooked. Guilty pleasure....and don't tell anyone!



So, there ya go. 7 random facts you wish you never knew! So now I'll pass the award to a few of my favorite blogs:

The Stockpot
Squash Blossom Farm
Our Little Farm
Life in a Little Red Farmhouse
Mainly Ewes

A Giveaway!!

To celebrate the addition of Purl & June Natural Lip Balm finally being in the Etsy shop, I'm having a giveaway!



Comment for a chance to win 1 tube of Purl & June lip balm, your choice of Plain June (unflavored), Orange, or Mint!


You can earn a second chance if you "like" Purl & June on Facebook (or if you're already a fan). Just make sure to leave another comment saying so!


Or you can win a third chance to win by blogging about the giveaway! Again, make sure to leave an additional comment telling me!


You can enter to win until Friday, March 2nd. Good luck!

An Udder Ewe

"Little" Miss Darla is getting rounder by the minute and should be lambing sometime next week. I went ahead and trimmed her hooves and crutched her (sheared the wool around her hind end) to get ready for lambing.


Crutching isn't absolutely necessary, but it sure helps. It helps me by seeing her udder and vulva better so I can predict lambing time, it helps keep things back there clean (especially if for some reason I had to go in and pull a lamb- don't want to be dragging dirty wool into the area), and it helps the lamb find the teats better. Lambs are not the brightest sometimes, and as a fellow sheep person once said, "A lamb will happily suck on a wool tag and starve to death." So, I go ahead and crutch.





Hopefully she'll go soon. I absolutely cannot wait to see what she has. I wished for doe kids from June and got 2 bucks. so this time I'm not wishing anything and certainly not predicting what she'll have! I will say I'm just thrilled they'll be purebred Southdowns!

Attitude!

When I first got the piglet (still haven't settled on a name), she hated me. Hated the bottle, hated anything I tried to feed her. A friend told me to mix some milk with her feed, so I did that and she ate! I was happy.

Then along came the goat kids. Pretty darn quickly, the pig figured out they were getting bottles, which must have meant she needed to eat too. She was ok with eating from her pan for a day or two...she'd run over and eat while the goats were getting their bottles.



After a day or so she decided that if the goats were getting bottles she MUST also have a bottle. Pans of feed are for dummies, or so she said. So now she is the first one in line for her bottle, but she is the last one to get one since she can't wait patiently. In fact, she launches herself at me. I'm trying to teach her that rude piggies don't get milk.


Soon she'll have to come off the bottle, I know. But it's working for now.

A Girl and Her Dog

Kylee fell asleep on Elmer the other night. They adore each other.

Fast Friends

I decided to put the goat kids and the piglet together in the barn pen, and in .037 seconds they were best friends. The pig is so happy to have someone to snuggle with! She tries to lay on them, which they're not crazy about, but then she settles down next to them and they're all happy.


Having them all together has made piggy a little friendlier too, since the goats run right up to us, she comes over too to see what all the fuss is about.


She wags her tail when David calls her Ziggy Piggy. We still haven't named her, but it may end up being Ziggy, or what I call her- Pig Pig (have you seen the book Pig Pig Grows Up?).

She's stuck to those goats like glue!

I'm not sure they'll be able to stay together for the long term, but I'll just see how it goes. Right now they're a happy family.

And last night when I went out to sit with them, she decided to climb up on my legs (all on her own) and take a little nap.

The Stork Arrived

June kidded this morning at 2 AM! She seems to enjoy going in the middle of the night. I don't enjoy it quite as much. :-) She had 2 healthy buck kids. I joked it would be her year to give me 2 boys, since the first year she kidded twin girls, and last year she gave me one of each. Since I don't need any bucks, these two boys will be for sale. Anyone interested?

Cuteness

This little piglet is just about the cutest thing in the world. She has quite a huge personality for a little body. She has a heat lamp, but I also made her a big rice bag (out of a pillowcase) that I can microwave so it's nice and toasty so she can cuddle with it. She loves it. Earlier today I went out and put her on my lap with the rice bag on top of her. She was asleep in .023 seconds.


She has figured out there's a small corner in her pen that she can squeeze out of....but she also goes back in her pen when she's done exploring. June isn't quite sure what to think of her though.


I love listening to all of her grunts. She has quite a bit to say! This pig raising thing is turning out to be pretty darn fun!

Happy Valentine's Day to Me!

Look what I got! Isn't she great?


She's so cute, but I'll be trying to remember that she's a pig and trying to not get too attached to her.


Right now she's in her own little corner of the barn pen, right next to June. She snuggles down in the straw and I made her a little sweatshirt-sleeve sweater to keep her warm.


She's our first pig, so I'm excited and a little nervous!

Kid Watch

June is due to kid any day now. Goats' gestation length is an average of 148-150 days, but they can kid anywhere from day 145 to 155. Day 150 for June is February 14th, so really she could go any day now. I've been keeping a close eye on her udder, since I know when I see her udder really bag up, she's close to kidding.

This picture was taken on Tuesday morning.


And this picture was taken yesterday afternoon. Her udder hasn't changed much, but you can really see the kids have dropped and her belly is much lower than it was before. I'm hoping that means she'll go in the next couple of days!


You can see how much her udder bags up from this pic of the night she kidded last year.


I bought a video baby monitor from Walmart so I could see what's going on in the barn while I'm inside the house. It's much easier to do night time checks if I can just roll over and look at a monitor instead of getting out of bed and bundling up to go outside!

This morning I'm going to clean out the barn pen so I can have it ready for her. Hopefully we'll have some kids soon!

Rabbit Update

I brought these two does home from North Carolina a little over a month ago. They've been in a make-shift pen in the barn until today. David and I made a cage for them, and we finally finished it. I needed the bunnies out of the pen in the barn, since June is due any time now and I needed to have it available for goat kids!

I did a lot of reading and thinking about what kind of cages I wanted, and I settled on all wire cages that will eventually be hung outside. I made this cage 30"X36", which will be plenty of space for a doe and a litter. For now both does are sharing it, until we can get a second cage built. Plus I think they enjoy each other's company for now.


I didn't have what I needed to hang the cages, so for now they're in the barn on a metal bed frame set on 2 storage totes. Hey, you use what you've got!


Their little buddy, my mini-rex buck, is next to them in his cage. I let him out every other day or so, and he loves to run around the barn and harass Tucker the cat.


It's sort of hard to tell how big the girls have gotten, but they've easily tripled in size. They're each twice the size of the mini-rex buck.

In the Shop

Here's a Valentine's Day coffee cozy, just listed! I edited the pattern, so no more lip-shaped hearts. :-)

Close to My Heart

It's been just over 3 months since we said goodbye to Scooter and I still think about him all the time. I wanted to get a little reminder of him, and I remembered one of my best friends got a necklace when she had to say goodbye to her beloved Great Dane. She got a little charm in the shape of a paw print, and it was actually a little urn. You can put ashes or hair from your pet in it, and then you'll always have them with you (hopefully that doesn't sound too creepy). I mentioned to Jenny one day that I would love to get one of those charms for Scooter, and not long later I got a package in the mail. Jenny surprised me with a charm! I'm so lucky to have great friends. I love the charm, and I love that I think about Scooter when I wear it.

My First Fair Isle

I've never tried Fair Isle knitting before, but this morning while I was washing my hair I got a brilliant idea. I had the idea that I should not only try Fair Isle for the first time today, but I should also make my own pattern! I figured it couldn't be that hard, since I only wanted to do simple hearts around a coffee cozy.

I got out the graph paper (well, printed it from a free graph paper website- you can find anything online!) and drew up a chart. Then I got to work knitting. I had to watch a Youtube video to see how to carry the second yarn (I watched my Aunt Linda show my sister, but forgot).

Pretty soon I had this:


I was pretty excited! But then I felted it, since my coffee cozies are knit bigger than the coffee cups. The hearts got a bit distorted, and they even resemble lips.


I'm going to change up the pattern just a tad and see how it felts.


Hopefully I'll have a couple cozies in the shop soon!

Wide Load

Well, do you think June is pregnant? She looks slightly wider than she really is, just because she's standing up, but she's incredibly wide. She's due February 14th, which is coming up so fast. On one hand I'm incredibly excited about more kids and milking again, but on the other hand I know it's going to be a lot of extra work!