Blown Away

Yesterday, around 6 in the morning, Adam and I woke up to a huge thunderstorm outside.  Around 6:15, we heard a terrifying noise and discovered this outside:

One of the huge pine trees in the swamp across the street, waterlogged from all the rain we've been getting, came crashing down in the high winds.  It fell across the road and landed about five feet from our front porch.  These are the great PennDot guys who came out to get it off the road (they did, however, leave the bulk of it in our front yard.)

After a bit without power or phone lines, things got sorted out and the sun came out and the rest of the day was pretty decent- a good thing since a lot of it was spent cleaning up the mess left from the storm.

Some pictures:

Nova (Fluffy Nimblekins, Destroyer of Worlds)

Sweet Pea grazing down the front yard (who needs lawn mowers?!)

Hover Lambs!  Charlie and Ed love running mad circles around everything!

Hennypenny

Gaia and the gang grazing on grass, finally!

Edmund, with milk on his face

finally, some signs of spring

Charlie's horn buds are coming in

buds on the fruit trees

Adam can't go anywhere with some of his flock underfoot!

No Reservations

Edmund and Charlie, our two bottle babies, have been outside in the barn for awhile now, which seems to be going pretty well.  They're starting to nibble at hay with the other sheep and love to run amok with their fellow lambs.  The only difference comes when the other lambs go to nurse off their mothers and suddenly the bottle babies realize that they, too, are hungry.

And like most kids too busy playing to stop, they wait until they're starving.  Or at least, what they believe is starving.  And then it's not just a matter of needing a bottle, but they need a bottle right NOW.  This very instant, if not sooner. 

And if they decide that the silly bottle-bearing humans aren't moving fast enough, or maybe haven't been as instantly receptive to their pathetic wails as they had hoped, they have devised a solution.

Simply wiggle under the gate and come bleat at the kitchen door.  That'll get some attention.

And I have to say, it pretty much works. 

Thank goodness they don't have thumbs to undo the door latch, or we'd really be in trouble.

Make hay while the sun shines

Saturday we *finally* had blue skies over Skirted Fleece, so everyone on the farm took the opportunity to do some sunny day activities.

Adam and I planted some fruit trees for the new orchard by the driveway.

Charlie and Edmund took a break from running amok.

Adam got started on the chicken's new area

while Sweet Pea napped in the sunshine:

(we've noticed something of a division of labor here on the farm during sunny days.  There seem to be a lot of humans working and animals sleeping...)

While the yaks were stuffing their faces,

Adam and I got to give a mini impromptu farm tour to a neighbor who was driving by and stopped to ask "What kind of cows are those?"  She was very nice and very excited about our farm and the animals that we have here.  Which is the best kind of neighbor to have!

The exception to the animals sleeping/ people working rule seems to have been chickens, who were very, very busy.

The song that doesn't end

Seriously, Mother Nature needs to change the station. 

This is getting ridiculous. 

Lambs

This afternoon Adam took Charlie and Edmund outside to the barn to be with their lamby brethren.  To frolic in the sunshine.  To nibble on grass.  To run mad laps around the barn.  To get the heck out of the kitchen and out from underfoot. 

It was a great meeting, full of rubbing noses and sniffing and then frantic races and jumping contests. In short, everyone is getting along swimmingly.

Princess's ram, who will be a week old tomorrow.

Charlie and Ed make new friends.

Dutchess's ram

Dutchess's little ewe, Maiden, who likes to stay as close to Mom as possible.

This is Godiva, who is Contessa's ewe.  Her coloring is awesome!