snow play

The only thing better than playing in the snow, seems to be playing in the snow with a puppy.

And to my mind at least, the only thing better than kids playing outside, is a puppy too tired to get into trouble.

thumbsucker

As anyone who has spent any amount of time with my third son can attest, he is an inveterate thumbsucker. Regardless of the event or location, he is bound to be plugged in at some point, with his yellow "snuggie" firmly clutched in the other hand. Looking through our family pictures, I was struck by how many feature him sucking his thumb. It is an accurate reflection of how devoted he is to the practice.







We went to the dentist yesterday, and he had bad news for Terzo. All that thumbsucking is causing his teeth to shift, and he needs to stop as soon as possible. Terzo accepted the news calmly, and agreed that he would give up the thumb. He came back home and proudly announced to Primo that he was stopping, and then absentmindedly popped his thumb in his mouth just after making the pronouncement.

It's a very ingrained habit, but he was genuinely making the effort -- until bedtime. He settled down with his snuggie and I started reading a book, and his thumb automatically made its way into his mouth. I reminded him to take it out, and he smiled at me, and then the ENORMITY of what he was being asked to do hit him right between the eyes. His face crumpled and he started to sob with genuine grief and loss.

Poor kid! I am more than sympathetic. I was an unrepentant thumbsucker to the (gulp!) ripe old age of eight. I was fortunate to escape orthodonture, but he won't be so lucky. It's the thumb or $3000 -- ask Primo how I know the cost. Sorry bud, the thumb loses.

hoarfrost

In my oh-so-humble opinion, a hoarfrost is one of the most beautiful, magical natural events, with amazing powers of transformation. We were graced with one last Monday morning.*

Primo was the first one up, as usual, and the first one to take the camera out, though he didn't venture far beyond the back door. It was a little too dark to see the hoarfrost clearly.


Secondo got dressed a little while later and toured the farm as the sun was coming up.




The day never got very bright, and my attempts reflect the lurking grey snow sky.




The boys spent the morning cleaning off the pond, which was frozen solid, and then skated to their hearts' content with their friends and Dusty. (Dusty added an extreme element to the hockey game by forming his own team with his own rules: he chased and tackled players, guarded the goals, and stole the puck indiscriminately. Of course, I have no pictures.)

The sky finally released the snow in the late afternoon, but it was a disappointment: just enough to cover up the ice again, but not enough to postpone school the next day. Luckily, we didn't need to plow...



*In blogging, as with everything else my life, I am about 7.3 days behind at this point. It is a vast improvement on the 21+ days I was running on about two weeks ago.

peace

Every so often, the lion and the lamb manage to lie down together.



One of them isn't overly thrilled about it. I'll let you work out which one it is from the expression on his face. Hint: it's the one who looks like I am forcing him to be there...

p.s. Blogger insists that I am posting this on 1/18. In fact, it is 1/23.

spring in my step

We are not 100% positive -- indeed, true confirmation will only arrive in the form of delivered lambs -- but we are pretty sure that at least three of our ewes are pregnant. This was not a foregone conclusion, as our ram did a very poor job. In fact, he did such a poor job that he was fired and turned into sausage. (A ram might have a great job description, but the consequences of failure are pretty dire.)

I had steeled myself against his failure. As much as lambing is a lot of cold hard work and worry, it is also a lot of joy and fun as the unknown is revealed. I was more than a little bummed at the thought of no lambies bouncing around our farm this year. Nothing says spring like a group of lambs having lamb races and sproinging around the pasture.

But it seems that he managed to catch at least three girls, and our best guess is that we will have a few of these, come mid-February:

I can't wait! (Feel free to remind me of this state of excited anticipation when I start whining about the 2 am barn-check shift in about three weeks...)

on call

Today, my main job was to "assist" the electrician (read: manning the circuit breaker and making supply runs to the hardware store) to get our outdoor plugs working today -- we could not de-ice the water for our sheep in the back pasture due to an electrical issue. My LSH had spent the weekend unsuccessfully, and a bit dangerously, trying to figure it out.* We had reached a bit of a crisis point. It is no fun hauling water all the way back there, and it was a zero sum game trying to provide enough for the sheep before it froze.

Then the call came: a ewe just had triplets (actually, quadruplets, but one was stillborn; this is extremely rare in sheep). No one was at home due to work; could I please go take a look and assist family members who had driven out to help? As soon as the electrician was done, I pulled on my work coat and boots and headed over. After much towelling off little jet-black lambs, and milking out colostrum to make sure all the babies got some (I would be a failure as a milkmaid), and a little stomach tube feeding (I really really hate doing this, it makes me nervous beyond belief), and clipping and dipping umbilical cords, and making sure the littlest ewe stopped shaking and shivering, I headed home. Dusty was exceptionally interested in all the colostrum and other fascinating smells all over my jeans.

This is not an unusual event. When you become a shepherd, you become part of a tightly-knit group of people who, for the most part, operate under the radar. It is really amazing to me, however, how we pretty much all know each other, and each other's stock... to the extent that when our sheep got loose soon after we got them, a call was put out to a local well-known shepherdess (cough (Laurie) cough) who knew immediately where those sheep belonged. This owner described the ewe to me in a few words, and I knew exactly who had lambed.

I am also amazed by how everyone steps up to the plate for everyone else, and lends a hand when necessary. Next time, it will be my turn. Given the relative oddity that owning stock has become, I cannot begin to express the peace of mind this affords. So to all those shepherds who have done the same for me in the past: a heartfelt THANK YOU.

* At one particularly tense moment, as he was testing wires, I happened to call him and his phone vibrated in his pocket. He jumped ten feet in the air, thinking he had electrocuted himself.

rarity

I am home by myself.

This rarely happens.

Outside, there is that wonderful peaceful quiet that happens when it snows. Inside, there is the lovely peaceful quiet that happens when there are no boys at home and my LSH's office is closed.

This rarely happens, let alone at the same time.

I had great grand plans to get all the ironing done, and catch up on the farm paperwork, and clean off my desk, and a few more things. Instead, I am off to enjoy complete power over the remote control, and knitting with my feet up.

This is off the scale.