I want to thank you all for your awesome comments. Things have been a little crazy around here and I apologize for not writing back like I normally would. I plan to! I promise! Things are ok. Sometimes you just have to accept what the universe offers you and move on. That’s what we are doing. The universe basically told us (in not so subtle terms) that we were not living the life we were meant to and did something about it. Frankly, if the universe didn’t completely shake us up we probably would have been on that path for a very long (and miserable) ride. It’s something I think that you never realize about yourself while you are in the moment. You might ask yourself “Am I happy?” and if you are not clearly UNHAPPY then yes, you MUST be happy. That’s not always the case though. The lack of unhappiness does not denote happiness. We were just there. So now we are not and you know what? It’s ok.
So much has been happening. It’s like it was all planned out (if sheep and goats had the ability to plan anything that is). DD gave birth to amazing triplets that I adore so much. They are healthy and happy and bouncing around like puppies. They are the epitome of SWEETNESS. Then the other day (because we’ve been meaning to do it for 2 weeks) the Mr and I cleaned out the old turkey stall and threw down fresh straw. The sheep were getting close to their due date we knew so on a whim we put them in the barn to get them used to it.
Overnight it snowed 5 inches and in the morning the Mr went out to the barn to discover 2 little lambs. Pictures are terrible because it’s the BARN and has terrible barn lighting but yeah. 2 little healthy boys. Since they are boys they will both end up…well…as dinner. I know that probably made a few of you sad, but on a farm, boys get eaten, it’s a fact of life. Girls, girls are gold. The goats produce milk and the ewes produce wool (which is finer this year than any I’ve seen it from my sheep!). Boys? Boys get floods of testosterone and become idiots. So boys aren’t our thing.
And now there are some of you who are all “But Preita!!! You had baby boy goats! Surely you aren’t going to eat them!!!” No, rest asured we are not. They are going to be sold off to other people. Maybe as a future breeder, maybe as brush control, maybe as something else. But they won’t be staying here either in the barn or anywhere else.
So you know how much I love my goats? I love that I can go in to the stall and pick them up for a sweet cuddle and they lay their heads on my shoulder or kiss my nose. I love that they are content just to be snuggled and chill out. Lambs? Lambs are not like this. Lambs are quite the opposite. Lambs KNOW they are not supposed to be off the ground, they KNOW they are not supposed to be cuddled or snuggled or pet. It makes me a little sad because they are sweet little babies with curly little fleeces that make them look like poodles but yeah, I guess it helps with attachment issues. Maybe my goats KNOW they could never be dinner so they don’t mind? I don’t know. Lambs, while cute, are not goats.
We have been handling the goats a lot which is something we probably won’t do too much with the sheep. The kids on the other hand benefit from a lot of handling because two of them will be future milkers. A wild goat is a pain in the butt. Goats that are used to handling are easier to milk, lead, and groom. Above I’m holding our little girl out of DD. Since the Mr was the midwife and pulled 2 out of 3 goats from DD’s womb I gave him full honors of naming them all (something that was hard for me because I’m a control freak sometimes). Above is Twinkie which makes me giggle ridiculously. Especially since DD is short for Dumbledor (we did not name her) so when we register her it will be Dumbledor’s Twinkie. It’s silly but I love it.
So yeah. We are waiting on 1 more ewe and then we are done with babies for the year. Kind of makes me a little sad because I loved the process.
In other news I’ve decided to start work on an E-book on Ravelry turning some of my most popular shawls into rectangular wraps/scarves. It will be a lot of knitting but I hope to have the release by the end of summer. I don’t just want them to be plain rectangles where anyone with half a brain could have pulled them off so it will take a little more planning. Where the wrong side is just not as nice I plan on dealing with that so no one has to see it. So yeah. Off I go to the races!
My list includes;
Cherry Surprise
Rough Sea
High Desert
Pix
Weave It!
Coastal Waters
and Strigose
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