Sunday, April 23, 2017

Sheep inside, outside, downside, upside

Inside:
Hunky polled ramlet Bogie, taken a week before the last lambings

A fairly successful attempt at capturing Bardot's amazing fleece and structure
Bette, left, and Butler, right, to show their slight difference in color



A better look at Bette's beautiful back end
Bette's scrumptious fleece without flash...

...and with flash
Bernadette's color and crimp for comparison

Outside:
The littles got left behind! Then ONE ewe remembered her babies....

Little lambs

Big lambs

No lambs

Friendly lambs – Bacall and Bardot


Downside:
In their lust for lush grass after being cooped up a couple days, Bree and Babette abandoned their lambs! Bree came to her senses almost immediately; Babette, unfortunately, did not. Confused by the big, big world, Bernadette hung with her cousins until Bree realized she had an interloper and butted her away. So I scooped her up and went to find her mother – who kept moving on to avoid me. I finally got them reunited, and left them all to graze and play. Then it started to rain – no, pour!
Hard to see just how wet it is out there
Upside: The newborns got a shower to help clean off the birth fluids. When I brought everyone back in the fold, I toweled off the three littles so they didn't get chilled.

Last night I realized that all the data is in, so I needed to calculate the winner of my lambing dates contest. I tackled that this morning, figuring out how many days off each person was for each lambing and adding them together. Diane started off with a BANG, missing Sarai's and Vienna's lambing dates by just one day each (-2). But after all four ewes lambed, a new leader emerged – Tina, with -17! Since Tina spins, knits, and weaves, I'm hoping she'll appreciate winning my first Fair Isle project, Sheep Heid:

I started another Sheep Heid out of scraps today while at a memorial service. (It lasted over two hours – I sit still ever so much better when my hands are busy!)

That's it for a busy day at . . .

4 comments:

Theresa said...

Oh lucky Tina! A beautiful piece of knitting that another knitter is sure to appreciate!
Such beautiful lambs. Bogie sure is hunky!

Susan said...

OMG! What a prize! That is such a beautiful hat! Those lambs are just gorgeous!

DianeOart said...

Gratz to Tina :D

Tina J said...

I'm thrilled to be the winner! Thanks Michelle for doing this contest, it was fun trying to calculate the dates, it helps that I have goats too, so I know how they think!!!! :) Thanks again for the cool hat, it will be wonderful for the cold weather this next year.