Names Please!

It has been a busy week here at the dairy. In our area we had Wine Festival Weekend and we worked at HammerSky Winery selling our ice cream..which is conveniently located right down the road from us. I can hardly call it working though. How can you beat a great vineyard view, eating fresh ice cream and drinking vino? Sounds more like a great escape from reality if you ask me. Anyway, between selling our ice cream, milking, managing accounts and taking care of our (deep breath): chickens, chicks, lambs, ewes, dogs and cats, we decided it was a good idea to get two puppies.

Yes. You heard (read) me correctly. Two puppies.

Two fluffy, adorable, loving, licking, darling, irresistible…did I mention fluffy? Puppies.

Have we lost our minds? Probably. But let me explain. These are Great Pyrenees puppies. We have one adult Pyrenees named King (you can see photos of him on our Facebook). He lives with the lambs and protects them from predators. And he does a dang good job. Since we have lambs in one pasture, milking ewes in another pasture and non-milking ewes with the ram in yet another pasture, we needed more dogs to keep all our sheep safe.

In two weeks we will put these fluffy bundles of love with our lambs (which are only a little bigger than the puppies) so they get used to the sheep. And when they grow up they will go out to pasture. Now some people may say, poor dogs, but no need to feel sorry for them. Actually, these dogs are happiest when watching over their flock. Seeing our dog King in action and his ability to care for the sheep is truly amazing. Just last week we had a really sick lamb. I went out to the pen and King was standing over the lamb, protecting him. And he wouldn’t let any other lambs near the sick lamb (he would nudge them away). When I picked up the sick lamb King whimpered and followed me to the barn, upset I was taking his sick baby. The point is, that these dogs have a connection and intuition with the animals they watch over, and it is really stinkin’ incredible to witness.

OK, back to the fluffies. We bought a male and a female. And they need names.

This is the male.

And this is the female.

I’m in love.

Speaking of losing our minds…we have turkeys coming next week. And then the week after that you will find us on TV for a new show called Animal Hoarders. Just kidding. For now.

Names please!!!

Alexis

Blog Fail. And an update.

So first of all let me admit that I have preformed what I am going to call a blog fail. It’s been what, over three weeks since my last post? FAIL. But what that does mean is I have a lot to share (lucky you…).

Alrighty… little Howard (our spotted lamb) and all our lambs for that matter are getting so big. We no longer have any lambs in the barn (boo hoo…) it’s so strange! We  (read “I”) have decided to keep Howard as our mascot. Everyone needs a mascot, right?! He is just too stinkin’ cute to sell. It’s a good thing we didn’t have more spotted lambs or we probably wouldn’t sell any. It’s also a good thing Wade is so patient. When I told him we were keeping Howard he looked at me and said, “really?” Um…ya! He’s spotted. And therefore must be kept. And look at the guy, how could anyone say no?

These are our ewes last week. Pre-Jaime. Jaime came to our farm, was here for about two hours, and when he left our lambs had lost at least 20lbs each. (Why can’t Jaime have that effect on people?!).

This is during the shearing. He was amazing. He sheared one ewe in about four minutes. Incredible! I have the video on Facebook if you want to check it out. I will post photos of our new, skinny ewes soon…

BIG NEWS! My ice cream machine arrived. I had been using my friends machine who has a gelato shop in town. We finally bit the bullet and got our own. And it is beautiful! And our ice cream is better than ever.

Speaking of ice cream…I started making Strawberry Basil ice cream. If you are only going to try one of our ice creams…this is the flavor to try. Trust me. It’s summer in a scoop.

Garden update: um….what update? Another fail. I am posting this photo as motivation. You know when you are so embarrassed about something and you show people that thing and you use it as motivation to get that thing in gear? Yes, that is what I am doing with my garden. I am determined to get things growing in there. And hopefully this photo will shame me into doing it.

But my herbs by the barn are doing great! Perhaps a little redemption…?

I also wanted to share this photo.

We have wildflowers in the fields and they are looking beautiful. And the grass is tall. I had to snap a photo because in a couple months this will be brown and almost bare. And I won’t believe the grass was ever green or tall. So I took a picture to remind myself.

Are you sick of my update yet? Well one more thing…come back on Monday and I will have photos you are going to want to see. We have some more friends coming to the dairy…..(can you just see the grin on my face…?).

Promise to keep you in the loop,

Alexis