Curve balls

Earlier this week, life gave us grapes so we made grape juice, putting the apples on hold. Today, when I had just enough time to help Brian get through his schoolwork and practices before heading to town for our homeschool co-op, life moved something from my need-to-do list to the top of my MUST-DO-NOW list.

This morning I headed to the barn to do chores. The wethers were hunkered down under the trees to get out of the weather. Wait, what is that patch of white?

Uh oh; a clean patch of Bart's MVP (Most Valuable Pelt Fleece) was showing. I carried hay to the boys' feeder and they all came running, letting me see the full extent of Bart's coat's failure.

If I wanted Bart's fleece to stay as clean and marketable as possible,  I needed to get a coat back on it, STAT. That meant running all five of the boys into the sheepfold, because Bart is my big scaredy-cat. So the girls in the fold got shoved into the small corner pen, Rick (who just happened to be at this barn this morning) and Brian were recruited to help direct traffic, the sheepfold door was propped open, and the cue was given. To my relief, the boys actually went where they were supposed to on the first pass (thanks, I think, to Barbados, to whom the fold was a familiar hang-out).

Once the boys were contained, I couldn't not take advantage of the situation. Three of the boys (including Bart) needed bigger coats, Barbados needed to be covered, several needed pedicures, and most importantly, Bart and Browning had very close-growing scurs that needed to be trimmed back. Rick helped me with the scurs, then headed to work, leaving me to wrestle wet woollies by myself. The light was abysmal, but I still tried to capture some of the fruits of my labors. Bart's MVF that initiated it all:

Jet-black Bing, another amazing fleece worth covering:

I got all the sheep maintenance done and all the sheep back in their respective spaces, then took my wet and filthy self back to the house to clean up. Amazingly enough, Brian still got all his schoolwork and practices done and I got a double batch of cookies made for co-op before we had to leave! I'd say I got a home run out of that curve ball, and it feels good. ;-)

That's it for today from . . .