the flood.

Most of these photos were taken before dark, at that point the water up past the creek bank was about knee deep.  As a point of reference the creek bed is about 4-6 feet below the top of its banks.  The water continued to fall, so I have no idea how high it actually got.  We had to carry several sheep to the barn as the water was too deep for them to walk through.

There was so much water, even the moles had nowhere to go, I found this little guy in the driveway

The day after... good thing we got the pigs moved up to the barn.

pulled the fence posts right out of the ground

The sheep took advantage of the newly downed fence as a fort of sorts.  We made it through the storm much better than downtown Olive Hill and Morehead. The phones are still out everywhere. It's in the 80's now, and sunny.

the newest ram, all cleaned up.

This little guy-born on monday evening is doing well, all dried off and cleaned up. He followed his mother out to pasture last night, and seems to be healthy.

ram lamb...surprise!

Shortly after the sheep were let out to pasture last night, we went out into the field to get the cow-for her grain.  On the way we noticed this lincoln ewe in labor and ready to drop a lamb.  I ran nearly a mile to get the camera, to share more birth photos! 

The head and front feet

A healthy large single ram lamb. Born in the rain, this ewe took nibbles of grass between licks on her baby. I took a great shot of the placenta bubble exploding, but decided to spare everyone that detail.

One of the teeswater ram lambs (born a few weeks ago), came over to check out the lamb.  He's up on his feet now and nursing, in from the rain.

ewes-5 rams-8

lambs on the pasture.

here's Malia enjoying her bottle, just a few minutes before all the sheep are let out to graze on fresh green grass. You can also see in this photo that we have most of the jacobs sheared.

There's Malia again out on the pasture. I must admit it's easier to deal with her like this, than when she runs in the house-straight to the kitchen looking for a bottle.

and a couple more shots of the lambs on the pasture, playing while their mothers eat.

grazing.

Finally, we're ready to let the sheep out to graze for a couple of hours each evening.  They seem pleased with the arrangement.  Probably in a couple weeks they'll be out there all the time.  And eventually they'll go back across the road, after the grass has had a chance to bounce back from last year.

The brown patch in the middle of the photo is the garden plot.

mule sheep.

I wanted to post a photo of one of the mule sheep that was born last year.  This is Mary-Kate, she is a mule, which means her father (blarney) is a BFL.  Her mother is one of the lincoln girls.  We will let mary-kate breed into the Teeswater program. The resulting offspring will not be pure or registerable, but should grow an incredible fleece.  the teeswater and lincoln breeds are known for their long fiber length, while the BFL is known for it's soft crimpy fiber.  So far-so good for this cross.

meet meat#2

This lamb was born a couple of days ago to one of the lincoln longwools.  A single ram.  This girl had triplets last year.  So far each of the rams have been singles, and it shows.  They are huge.  More than likely these boys will be available as meat animals, unless someone wants them as future flock sires.  They are going to have incredible fleeces.  If anyone is interested, let us know.

Also there was another jacob born sometime last night/this morning.  Alice (our lead jacob ewe) went into labor last night at about 9:00 p.m.  At that time she was still more interesting in eating, than having a baby, so we knew it could take a while.  This morning in the barn was a new little ram. I'll update photos tomorrow. Lamb count so far. 3 rams 4 ewes. Better stats than last year.

all-you-can-eat buffet

On saturday, we moved all the longwools off the hill into the barn. They were supposed to sheared and vaccinated... but we only had enough time and energy to give shots.  Shearing will happen as we can get to it, or as lambs are born, whichever happens first.  These girls have been out on a pretty nice pasture by the spring-fed pond almost all year, with very little grain.  They are actually in really good condition, but I'm not surprised to see that they went after the hay like this-always afraid of missing out on the next great thing...  Look at the girl fourth from the left, her whole head is covered in hay.  so much for a VM-free fleece. oh well, maybe next year.

tiny triplets.

One night about a month ago while herding the girls in to the barn for a lick on the mineral block, we noticed this lincoln longwool, bred to a blue-faced leicester, ewe's water had broken. She'd been as big as a barn for at least a month prior, and we just knew she would throw triplets. She let us stay in the barn stall with her and watch the "whole thing go down". This old girl delivered three babies inside 45 minutes with no trouble whatsoever. I think I've been able to put these photos roughly in order to give you a sense of a play-by-play. Some of them are kind of gross, so if you havn't eaten lunch yet, or you have a tendency to feel queasy, look upon the following with caution...