Monday, Monday, once again

January 27th:  Friday night our Suffolk sheep had 2 lambs, a boy and a girl.  Since it was  my brother Paul's birthday I named the boy Paul and the girl Bev.  Then yesterday Rosie had babies.  I found one laying on the ground half frozen and the other had just been born.  I grabbed the frozen lamb and put in barn and then grabbed newborn and got mama Rosie to follow me.  After they were in a stall I grabbed frozen one and raced to the house and wrapped it in a big flannel sheet.  A swaddled lamb!  I raced back to barn and fixed up mama and a little boy.  Then to the shop to get bottles and milk replacer and diapers.  Then back to house.  The little girl was very, very cold yet and her face appeared deformed.  Her upper jaw wasn't as long as the lower jaw and her nose area wasn't well developed but she was so close to death that her lower jaw jutted out very pronounced so I wondered if once she relaxed and got warm if she would appear better.  So I made some formula and dribbled a bit in her mouth which she swallowed little of.  I ended up just holding her on my chest as I half reclined in my chair and talking to her and petting her and I got a bit of eye response and later a few noises, no true baa.  After about an hour of holding, she died and as her face relaxed, you could tell that she was definitely deformed and would not have been able to nurse or eat normally so it was good that she could go.  I named her Petunia.  I saved her so Pat could see her when he got home from ice fishing.  The little boy hasn't been named yet.  He is a little frail acting.  One more very pregnant ewe, Brownie,  left to have babies yet.  If Black face is pregnant, we can't tell so we rather suspect she is past her breeding life.  She is 10. 

Saturday afternoon, we went and saw our neighbor, Charles Marty, which everyone just calls Marty, at St. Mary's hospital in Grand Junction.  His niece said his heart was working at about 20% and his kidneys were failing.  We wanted to say goodbye, so to speak, while he was still alive.  He woke up and talked a bit to us but he was coughing a lot due to congestive heart failure.  He told us they were practicing on him so they could help someone else down the road!  Which is sort of the way it goes, isn't it!  I peeked at his urine bag and saw the urine was black.  Not a good sign!  So we hope Marty can go soon and without much more fiddling.  But the niece told us yesterday they were going to check out his lungs and see if he had blood clots there.  No rest for the dying. 

Well, in a brighter note, God goes through everything with us.  So we can rest in His arms when we get tired.  Take care and have a peaceful day as Jesus walks with you as surely as He walked with the disciples on those dusty roads of Galilee.  He'll wash your feet, too. 

The first lambs

7:45AM 1-14-14
Pat called me from the barn this morning, I said, "do we have babies?"  He said," I see one so far."  So I quick bundled up and went to the barn.  Little Girl had 2 babies sometime last night.  They were both nice and dry.  The little boy is the biggest and has white markings amid the chocolate; including a bull's eye around one eye!  Hence his name will be Bull's Eye.  The little girl is a tiny thing and solid chocolate as far as I can tell now.  Both appear to be little hair sheep so I suspect that Cocoa Puff snuck one in before we moved him in the ram pen.  I will name the little girl, Midge (short for midget).  Pat and I will weigh the babies and put a tag in their ear and notch the boy ear tonight, as he had to hurry off to work.  We found it's a lot easier to find the boys when their ears are notched. 
     Last night when I was doing chores, a huge hawk flew into the willow trees by the chicken yard.  So today I'll weave some baling twine across the top of the chicken yard as Pat says they don't like to go where their wings could get caught.  The chickens are confined to the pen for at least 1 week and maybe two.  We had a hen, last late summer, make her nest in the barn to set on.  And we left her and she raised her babies there and they called it home.  It was a dreadful mistake on our part.  The chickens roosted up in the rafters and did Vitamin S all over the barn and everything in the barn.  So, Sunday morning Pat eliminated 4 roosters and 1 hen that didn't cooperate. Then Sunday evening, we clipped all the chickens wings on one side so they couldn't fly out of the chicken yard and got the 2 hens from the barn and put them in with the other chickens.  Now they have to learn this is their home and here is where they lay their eggs.  One rooster escaped, but he is a bantam and has been roosting in the willow trees all winter long.  One night in December, it rained and froze and then snowed and we thought surely he would go to the barn with the other chickens but no, he's a tough bird.  Well, I'd better get with it.  Have to bake bread and make cookies today.   

A New Year

It has been almost a year since I posted last.  I'm ashamed.  But last year was interesting.  We had, probably, our last annual lamb roast.  We continue to downgrade our sheep population as we are getting old and with Pat working full time plus extra,  making hay is difficult to find time for.  Plus we have had little snow pack on the Grand Mesa the last couple of years, so the irrigation water supply was greatly decreased.  Which means no water to grow hay.
     This fall, I decided to quit several of my part time jobs so I could concentrate on growing more of our own food and canning much more.  Last summer I canned spaghetti sauce and it is so great to be able to open a quart of homemade sauce and it saves on the budget.  So this coming summer, I am also going to make pizza sauce as I have a great dough recipe now and I adore pizza.  I found a good site for ordering cheap books,  Alibris!  I ordered, Food For 50 , which will probably be an adequate size recipe for me to can new things.  Plus I ordered, What Can I Bring Cookbook by Ann Bryn and Vegetable Love by Barbara Kafka.  I love Kafka's cookbooks, they are fun to read as well as good recipes.  And the cookbook by Ann Bryn is really good.  I have tried 3 of the recipes so far and they are keepers.  The savory cheesecake was good and impressive.  The spinach balls are a great appetizer which you can freeze and cook in 12 min when you get to where you are going.  The lemon cheesecake with gingersnap crust was good.  She also tells you the best way to transport your finished dish to the potluck or party to keep it beautiful and safe to eat.  I am doing a church vegetarian cookbook and it has really forced me to find good food recipes to fill in the gaps.  It has also gotten me excited about cooking again.  I had gotten bad about convenience food and thought it saved time but actually if you have a good recipe and the food is in your pantry you can make it from scratch just as fast and the taste is far better.  So, it proves you CAN teach an old dog new tricks. 
       Apparently, our removal of the rams from the ewes was not soon enough and now we are going to have lambs in winter!  We only have 5 ewes and 2 of them will be having their last lambs due to age.  It is so sad to grow so close to them and then have to get rid of them.  We've had them since 2004!  Now I just hope the babies live and their mothers love them all.  I really don't want a lamb to raise by bottle this year!  I've found that the lambs don't survive well unless I throw them in bed with me and diaper them and truly become their mother.  The lambs however think that they are supposed to eat paper if they hang out with me and poo-poo (or vitamin S, as Pat calls it) if they hang out with the dog.  So I have learned to let them go to live with the other sheep much sooner than they are ready to go just so they will learn to eat grass.  Then I have to run out with supplemental bottles several times a day.  Boy, those little lambs come running when they see me coming with a bottle, baaing all the way!  Does a mother's heart good! 
     So, I will try to keep you informed of this year better than I did last year!  Love, me