Happy hour on the farm

(Mr. Bates loves his dinner!)

Well, it's not that kind of happy hour.  There are no festive drinks involved, but rather the "happy" refers to how the sheep react to feeding time.  It's a once or twice a day (depending on time of year and weather) highlight of the day for the creatures who live here.  When the sun is getting low in the sky, the sheep start keeping a sharp eye out for me.  As soon as I leave the house or studio and start toward the barn, they come running.  We've had a spell of dry weather and they've been out on pasture, instead of being brought into the barn in the evenings.  That means I load the hay bales on my trusty cart and deliver dinner to them.

A few days ago,  as I was spreading the hay flakes out, Mrs Patmore (yes, she's one of those Downton Abbey girls and got that name because of her less than svelte figure!), surprised me by jumping up into the hay cart.  In all my years of keeping sheep, I've never had one who would willing get up on anything with wheels.  She was quite nonchalant about it and it took considerable effort on my part to get her to jump out.  Luckily the front of the cart comes off because there's no way she could have turned around.  As it was, I had to finally push her out.  Just one more occasion of nearly daily surprises around here.

(Lady Edith-on the right) thought maybe she was missing something good)

 Christmas is less than a week away and though I am not quite ready, I am nearly there. We have simplified our holiday season so much these last few years.  I no longer decorate every room in the house and it seems I'm leaving more and more decorations packed away each year, but the decorations that are out are ones that have special meaning.

(Check out those snazzy red heels!)

I know I've been absent a lot around here lately but a new year is coming and I've got PLANS!  There will be a blog anniversary, a sweet little book giveaway (with maybe some bonus yarn thrown in), some knitting projects to show and several other things I've been thinking about for awhile.  So, don't give up on me.  I'm planning to be here on a much more regular basis in the very near future.

Some silliness

Sorry, I know I'm way overdue for a post and I'm working on it.  In the meantime, here's a clever little thing that made me smile.

I'm impressed

Oh,  if only I'd known about the possibilities while Phoebe was alive !  I can't stop watching this ... and laughing !



My husband's cousin,  Vicky,  sent this along to him and he shared it with me.  I love this!

Because they've been such good girls ...

( they wanted to wear their Christmas halters )

All last week,  Luna and Birdie kept hinting about going see Santa.  (They had heard that Uncle Graham had gotten to go before. )  They were afraid that if they didn't get there to deliver the message in person,  Santa might not realize their presents needed to be delivered to a barn,  not to a house.  Frankly,  I wasn't so sure how the whole thing might come off.  The possibilities for chaos seemed almost unlimited.  Saturday morning it was dry,  sunny and warm-ish and,  on the spur of the moment,  I said,  "What the heck?  Let's do it".   Santa was at the closest Southern States farm store and when I called ahead,  to be sure it was okay,  they said come on over.   After begging asking Mike to go along as photographer,  we discovered that I'd grabbed the camera that needed the battery charged,  so documentation was done by iPhone.  ( I need to make notes to myself,  in case I ever do this again. )

( Is it my imagination or does Santa look a little wary ? )

Luna and Birdie could have used a little more grooming ( like a bath,  maybe ! ) and I'm pretty sure Santa had to change his white gloves after we left,  but a good time was had by all.  The folks at Southern States were tickled to have sheep in the store ( go figure ? ).  Luna and Birdie played it like they go to Southern States every Saturday morning.  They walked right in,  let everyone pet them and stood  ( sort of ) willingly by Santa for pictures.  The only thing Luna and Birdie complained about was that the floor was pretty slippery and required some tricky moves on their part to stay upright and moving forward.   We should receive the official Santa shot from Southern States soon, but in the meantime,  we have Apple to thank for these shots.  Funny thing about my personal photographer ..... I think he enjoyed it as much as anyone else,  once he realized it wasn't going to turn into disaster !

( They thought these automatic door openers were something we really needed in the barn ! )

Down, up and they're off.....

Once in a while,  I look out in the field and see something like the scene above.  My first thought is, "Oh no, there's a ewe down.  Is she dead ?".   How, I ask you,  could this possibly be a comfortable napping position?  Wouldn't you have a permanent kink in your neck if you tried sleeping like this?  Usually I clap my hands or yell or watch for a twitching ear.  This time I walked right up to her  before Gabby roused herself.   Two seconds later............she's up and back to business as usual.

(that's my good girl, Olive, in the middle)

After a very, very slow start, my Tour de Fleece challenge has finally left the starting line.  I'm going to have to spend some quality time at my Hansen mini-spinner to catch up.  I probably should have skipped the competition this year, but it feels good to have an excuse a reason to spin during the day,  even though there are many other things I should be doing.  There is so much stuff going on around here right now,  I set a pretty wimpy goal for myself  ( to spin enough of my wool/alpaca roving to knit a vest or maybe a sweater---depending on how it goes ).  So, if I complete the spinning part, I'll start knitting.  That's presuming I can manage to pick out a pattern by then !  Never have I felt so unmotivated for a challenge,  but maybe once I get the first few hills behind me,  that will change.

Just call him Macaroni*

Or maybe Chief Henry. He's been wearing a feather stuck on his head for the last week. It makes me laugh out loud every time I see him. I should remove it, but somehow, I think he likes it.

(It's very difficult to get good pictures of your sheep when they think you are going to feed them. They just won't get far enough away to get a decent shot.)

*After I stop laughing, the song "Yankee Doodle" keeps going through my head the rest of the day.