Teenage drama

No, not that one. (Well, okay, yes, that one, too....)

Today it was Bette's turn to be sheared, and oh, the drama. I guess she takes after her namesake, Bette Davis. (They're both blond and beautiful, too.)

Unfortunately, I never got Bette cleaned up and coated. I told the lady who reserved her fleece that she would be trashy; she wanted the fleece anyway. But there's trashy and then there's TRASH....

It's a shame, too, because under the trash is a beautiful fleece, just like her mama's.

Bette YELLED the whole time I sheared her, periodically fighting the head restraint and succeeding once in hanging herself and peeing on part of the fleece I had already sheared. 😳 The only saving grace is that she was really easy to shear, so she didn't take as long as the others have.

Tonight when I did chores, I had to work at distinguishing Bree (she has an ear tag that gives her away) from Babette from Bette (who has her aunt's earset) from Bacall – once Bridget is sheared, I'll have quintuplets!

In other news, someone had a tough labor and delivery today:

This opened in the iris bed:

And the nearby fields of crimson clover appear to have kissed one of my Japanese maples:

That's it for now from . . .

Baa baa (almost) black sheep...

...has lost most all her wool.

I got Blaise sheared today. It took me over four hours  😳  through no fault of hers; she was perfect on the stand and her belly and upper legs rooed easily so I could pre-skirt her fleece (sorry for the sheep lingo if you come here for other things). Oh well, it's done and I'm very happy with her fleece and her condition. Now it's on to her half-brother Bing (on her dam's side) and her half-sister Bette (on her sire's side).

That's it for today from . . .

A floral mystery

This morning I noticed a new color blooming in the iris bed, so I went over to take a photo. Instead of the yellow bloom I was expecting, I was shocked to see this:

Why shocked? That is a strange new iris we've never had in this bed. And things got stranger yet. There were actually three similar iris, with progressively more abnormal petals:

At first I thought it might be a genetic sport, but there wouldn't be three different plants. So they must be seedlings resulting from wild cross pollination between our rust iris and something else. Why now, after all these years? Who knows!

Keeping life interesting at . . .

Out of gas with a(n almost) punctured tire

Out of gas with a(n almost) punctured tire
That was me (not my car) this morning!

After fueling up with my family (including MIL) at a local cafe yesterday morning, it was time to get motoring. First up, Bacall:

This yearling had a big fleece that collected a lot of VM before she got coated, enough so that the person who reserved it backed out. Still, what is under the tips is SO pretty. I started at the back and it went fairly well.

I took an hour break while the horses had pasture time, then sheared Bree. Since I sheared her VM-filled neck fleece before uncovering her torso, I didn't get a photo of her without her coat until she was nekkid.

If you see a strong resemblance, it's because these two ewes (along with Babette) are full sisters from different years.

So this morning, after yesterday's six hours of various contortions during shearing, I was feeling like an old jalopy. Then I nearly ran myself through with a broken dowel!

After putting away some clothes, I removed an empty rod with a broken tip from my old drying rack and turned around to put it in the closet. Only I didn't quite clear the doorway and rammed the pointy end into my abdomen just below my left ribs. It felt like a gut punch and torqued my back from the impact, but fortunately didn't break the skin. Rick just shook his head; he says I run into things more than anyone he's ever known.  :-/

That's it for today from . . .