Oh baby!

Last night after chores I hung out in the fold with the girls, watching, loving, feeling. I was hoping to detect fetal movement within Katie's and Annabelle's round bellies, but their lambs were laying quiet. Then, to my great surprise, I felt a LOT of movement when I placed my hand under Bronwen's trim tummy! Woot! Maybe, just maybe, I can begin to hope she and Annabelle will give me Barish babies after all. Here they are, enjoying a dry (if not sunny) Friday out in their lot:

Up above, a robin actually held still long enough for my trusty Panasonic to zoom in and capture him:

There's excitement inside the house as well. Late last night, after a few trips to the frog pond, I finally managed to finish the first two charts of Maia:
Ooooh, I'm liking this! Love the colors, love the beads; I can tell now it's going to be hard to tear myself away to work on anything else - or go to bed, if last night is any indication!

That's it for now from . . .

Guessing, like the rest of you

Now that my lambing contest is over, I'll give you my best guess - and let me tell you, it is truly a guess! I thought anticipating this year's lambs would be easier. After all, I used CIDRs to time estrus, I know the exact (few) days the rams were exposed to the ewes, so I know the two narrow windows during which lambs can arrive. Well, we are one week away from the first due date, and the only ewe who looks like she may have Barish lambs is Annabelle.
She's not particularly large or bagged up, but her vulva is beginning to change. So I'll guess she has a single in there - and am praying it's a poll-carrying katmoget ewe lamb!

Katie looks pregnant, but nothing like last year. Here is Katie today:

And here is Katie last year two weeks before delivering twins:

One week before lambing:

And two days before lambing:

Based on last year I'd say she's not due for, oh, another two months. But since that's not possible, I have to assume she is carrying a single Blake lamb, and is due around March 26.

Bramble doesn't look at all pregnant, and because of the vaginitis she had last year, I'm not surprised. Bronwen doesn't have a pregnant-looking belly, but she's developing some thickening in her udder,
and I noticed this morning that her vulva is changing, too. (She asks that you excuse her bad shearing job!) So I'll guess Bronwen will also have a single. Whether she surprises me with a black-based Barish baby or waits to present me with a brown lamb from Blake, time will tell.

So that is three lambs from three ewes for my guess, which generates strangely conflicting feelings. Is it too much to ask that such a small showing could be all ewe lambs? After all, last year gave me only ram lambs.

Spring is coming - I just don't know when!

That's it for now from . . .

Battening down, amended

It's not yet 7 a.m. and I've been to the Portland airport and back, picked up a box that was delivered to my neighbor's yesterday, fed the dogs and eaten breakfast. I still need to do chores, but decided to check email and dash off a blog post first in case we lose power later. The wind is picking up, whipping the trees around, and the rain-soaked ground can't always hold in the roots. Hopefully Rick and Brian's plane took off before the wind did!

The box I picked up contained roving - from the last partial-year's shearing of bright-white Dinah (not shown), and supposedly Inky and Katie. However, those two bags of black roving can't both be from Inky (although it is all lovely, soft stuff), and there is no light grey that could belong to Katie. Since I can't be sure the roving IS from Inky for marketing purposes, I will probably keep and spin it all myself.* Not a bad thing, but frustrating nonetheless. Now I have to decide who I am willing to trust with this year's fleeces....

Speaking of spinning, this is what I have been doing in my spare time:
That's a Finn/mohair sample on "Holly" (Jenkins Aegean Turkish spindle), and the superwash merino on my mS. I hope to finish and ply the merino this week while my guys are gone. Oh, you should SEE my lists for this week! I have a list of things I want to do, a list of obligations and appointments, and a list of things/areas to clean. If I don't go to bed most nights, I might get half of it all done. Ha!

One of the things on the first list is a sheepy appliqued quilt wall-hanging. Must get the prize for my lambing contest finished, you know! If you haven't entered yet and would like to, go here before midnight tonight.

*After thinking about it during chores and taking the above photo, I'm pretty sure if one of the two bags of roving is Inky's, it is the true black on the right. While they are very similar in appearance and handle, the one on the left has a hint of darkest espresso to it. If the person who wins my contest would rather have fiber, I will substitute 6 ounces of the mystery fiber on the left for the wall-hanging.

That's it for now from . . .

Predictive weather?

March didn't come in like a lion or a lamb here; more like a grey, wet blanket. Ah, such is winter - and fall and spring - in the Willamette Valley! (Just kidding. Kinda.)

Remember, if you want a chance to win a quilted sheepy wall-hanging, you need to enter my lambing contest by midnight tomorrow, March 2. (Enter in the comments here.)

That's it for now from . . .