A little good news....

This hit song from 1983, with words Anne Murray could have written last night, often comes to mind. This weekend has been somewhat awful with lots of sprinkles, so I'm going to focus on the sprinkles.

We got our first pullet bullet yesterday, and another today! Go, Lottie!

L to R: bullet #1, bullet #2, mature hen egg

How do I know Lottie is the bestower of blessings? An educated guess based on her behavior (the squatting), combined with having the largest, reddest comb of the pullets.

Yesterday I witnessed Spot breed Blaise, and this morning he was very interested in Bernadette as well as Blaise. I'm pretty sure I would have had another breeding or two to mark on the calendar if the jingle of Poppy's collar hadn't distracted them. Crossing fingers that that's at least three of the four ewes in the breeding group covered — and settled.

Yesterday we took a walk around town with visiting relatives, blessed with a dry island in the midst of an atmospheric river and the most amazing fall foliage (all photos straight out of my iPhone):

Celebrating a birthday was the reason for the visitors; I made the requested birthday cake. Folks, this is how you do German Chocolate Cake:

Because, after all, isn't that rich Coconut Pecan Frosting the best thing about it? Why NOT spread it over the whole thing?!?

Today has been windy, and very wet at times; I imagine many of the leaves that bedazzled us yesterday are scattered. But my big Japanese maple is just getting fired up:

My husband has gotten fired up today, too, taking care of some of the long-neglected messes around the place that were making me crazy. Yay!

Unfortunately the arena is too sloppy-wet to turn the horses out or ride, which is probably making my mare crazy. And since I am covering for Rick's secretary on the days I'm not working at my usual part-time job this week, she'll likely go crazier. I will, too; our near-daily time together is one of my essential therapies. Hopefully we can sneak in some after-dark rendezvous.

I have more to share, but think those will be in future posts; this is long enough.

That's it for now from . . .

Any day now

On October 12, my friend Kate texted me this:

She's getting pullet bullets (shown with a full-size egg)!

I will admit to a little pique of jealousy; the four pullets she raised for me haven't laid a thing yet. Then again, I do have older hens so am not deprived of farm-fresh eggs, although they've gotten scarce lately.

Maybe my debutantes need more attention. So Sunday I asked them to pose in their finery.

Kate, left, and Splash

Kate, and Splash again

Spangle

Since I hadn't gotten a very good photo of Lottie on Sunday, I tried again this morning. Much better:

Although this photo makes her look svelte, she is the biggest/heaviest of the pullets, as well as the friendliest. I think she is a White Rock.

Good thing I managed to capture Lottie's portrait before this happened:

Yes, Splash?!? Her forwardness was surprising, since she (and fellow Whiting True Blue, Spangle) are usually quite flighty.

News flash! This morning when I picked up Kate and Lottie in turn, they both squatted for me. I think eggs are imminent!

That's the news from the coop at . . .

Subject: Skyscapes

Since I am apparently incapable of composing a coherent, comprehensive post (credit the chaos in our casa), I will have to content myself with sharing a current collection of sky shots with no commentary. The last two were taken a couple miles from our house at the Willamette River; all the rest were taken from various locations on our hill at various times of the day. I do love autumn skies. 😍

That's it for now from . . .

Baa-ctober

It's hard to get a photo of the breeding group together,
because Spot always leaves the girls to come see me

Same story, different day

What the ram wants (Bridget, too)

My photo file is getting so full that I've decided to 'divide and conquer' topics to loose the log jam that's preventing me from posting. In the interest of documentation, the subject of sheep moved to the top of the list today because I saw Spot breed Bette. Hmmm, we could get St. Patty's Day lambs; that might inspire a naming theme! Not that there are any guarantees, of course; last year, the only ewe I saw bred (Sarai) didn't settle.

Vienna, aka 'Grandma'

Bing, not being a Bing-a-ling

Mostly blind Bittersweet going all in on the lovin', once he felt safe

In the Sheep Sheraton, young and old are doing well. My usually-shy wethers are enjoying attention, Vienna is still eager for her twice-daily special ration, and baby Berlin has become quite the love bug. I took some videos of one of our love-fests:

The two groups of sheep are getting along so well that it's tempting to leave them as is for the winter. The main drawback is the possibility of having lambing season spread out over months instead of weeks if the four ewes with Spot didn't settle right away.

That's the current state of the sheep at . . .