Young Owen
I love our livestock protection dogs because they are so good at their job. But starting a new one is always anxiety provoking…
Done Lambing!
Our March Madness has finished before the end of March! Our lambing wound up early this morning at 1:20 am, when Mist gave birth to a beautiful black 3/4 Cormo girl. Prince is her father, and with Mist as her mother, we wanted to keep with the weather theme, so Lisa named her Princess Virga. …
Best Lambing Season Ever
It is almost the end of lambing and unlike other years when I CAN’T WAIT for it to be over, this year I’m feeling a bit bittersweet about the end of lambing. We have been very fortunate this season, with really excellent ewe health, high fertility, but not too high, all the ewes pregnant, but …
Sunshine, Moorits and Giant Lambs
We have been lambing for a full month now (our first lambs were born February 16th) and most of that time we have been deluged with one atmospheric river after another, and really cold temperatures also. Finally we have a few days of warm sunshine, although another storm is due this weekend. And, with only …
Lambing Coach
Last July, we lost our much-loved and trusted senior livestock-protection dog, Orbit, in the prime of his life. It was so traumatic and sad that I haven’t written his obituary yet, but I will write him an obit, because he is so deserving of it. The loss of Orbit put pressure on our remaining two dogs, …
Lambs are arriving!
Lambs began arriving right on schedule on Thursday. Smoke went into labor early in the morning and had a big black boy in the corrals, as we were vaccinating the rest of the ewes. He is Perry’s son, so a half-Cormo half-Corriedale and he should have a beautiful fleece and be a nice sire. Bringing …
Shearing Day
Back when we were running a sheep dairy, shearing day was something to be endured, for the health of the sheep. But now that we have a fiber-based business, shearing day is the most important day of the year. Last Thursday was one of two of our annual shearing days; we sheared our 46 bred …
Mitt the Romney
We lost our beloved ram, Mitt the Romney, today and everyone on the ranch took it pretty hard…
Making Radio History: Past and Present
Visitors to our ranch often hear the story behind those concrete objects in our pastures. Yes, they are definitely favorite play-structures for our lambs, but their history goes back to the early days of the last century, in the early days of radio, when our ranch was owned by the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company, and …