Our Sheep

Adam started working on fencing our back field over 2 years ago.  We were tired of trying to keep our curious and mischievous puppy home, and Adam had always dreamed of raising sheep or goats.  Very shortly after he got started, some unexpected things happened at his job that didn't allow him much break for at least 1.5 years...so the fence project took way longer than planned.  He used every free moment to work on the fence throughout this spring, and finished in late June.

 

While on our 4th of July camping trip, Adam just couldn't stop thinking about getting some sheep for our freshly fenced field.  Our tractor had been broken down for 2 years (another project that was gonna take time that Adam didn't have) and our field was rapidly becoming overgrown.  We needed some living and breathing "lawn mowers" to help out ASAP.  Adam had been researching sheep for quite some time, and settled on a breed of hair sheep called Soay.  Hair sheep are the kind you don't have to shear, they just lose their wool in clumps during the warmer season.  In his research he found that one of the great things about these sheep is that they will eat brush and briers, unlike regular sheep that only like grass.  Goats are great for briers as well, but they are more destructive and can be more nuisance than help.  We have a goat and have found this to be true.  Anyway, while camping, Adam found a few ads on Craigslist and ended up picking up Uncle Don's horse trailer right after dropping our travel trailer home at the end of our vacation.  Late that evening, he and the kids returned with a mini-flock of 5 sheep that the kids re-named: one adult ram (Luke), one adult ewe (Erica), one yearling ewe (Emily), and two lamb ewes (Cindy and Hannah). 

 

These sheep are quite skittish, aren't keen on humans (unless somewhat trained), and run like deer.  It has taken them a couple of months to get accustomed to their new home and to Lucy (our maremma sheepdog).  Lucy went crazy when the sheep arrived! She was curious, excited, and a bit defensive.  Mostly, she wanted to play and she would chase them all over the property.  Lucy has calmed down since then, and only chases them on occasion.  Kellen (our goat), spent the first week hanging out with Lucy only.  The next few weeks he became one of the flock, which we thought could be a problem (for a few reasons).  In the few weeks after that, we tethered him over by our fruit trees to clear some blackberries.  Then, when we returned him to the field, he seemingly regained his independence and he can now often be found wandering around on his own.

 

Here's a few pics of these cuties.  In order to capture these shots, I had to walk around with grain in a cup while running away from our very persistent oversized pygmy! It was a challenge!

 

Keeping their distance

 

 

 Luke and Kellen facing off

 

Meet Kellen Brown

Starting sometime in March, our Lucy-girl was becoming more of a nuisance to the neighbors. One of our neighbors had learned his lesson and made sure to leave most of his garbage contained. Lucy still manages to find all of his stray trash and whatever else, and brings it up to litter our yard. Trash is one thing, but torn-up mail packages is quite another. On two different days we found packages belonging to another neighbor strewn all over the field. Ultimately, it was our lazy mail-lady's fault, but we still knew we needed to do something about Lucy.

We decided to keep Lucy locked up and continue with more intensive training. About a week after we started, during some training, Lucy ran off and didn't come back. I was by myself that day, and I sent a text to Adam saying she had been gone for 1.5 hours....too long. It's pretty easy to lose a pet in the sticks, and can be pretty scary too. Adam came home a few hours later and hiked through the woods on a search to find her...no luck. Early the next morning she arrived...sometime around 6:30. She was absolutely filthy, stinky, exhausted, and traumatized. We were VERY happy to see her.

She smelled like fish, and I was afraid that she might have gotten salmon poisoning sometime during her all-night adventure. So, I called the vet and was able to get some antibiotics without having to take her in. A dog down the road had gotten it only a few weeks prior to that, so we were vigilant. The vet said to wait until she got feverish before giving the antibiotics so that she would have a better chance of being immune. We waited, and fortunately she didn't get sick. However, she was still acting very strange...leery, scared...not the playful puppy we were used to. Her one-year birthday was fast approaching and we had put of getting her spayed because of time and schedule. It finally dawned on me that she was likely in heat...and lo and behold, she was. That explained a lot of her strange behavior. We got her spayed about 2 weeks after she ran off.

Slowly but surely, Lucy regained her spunk. During her 2-week post-op lock up we decided to bite the bullet and find her a friend. Adam and I had been talking about it off and on. We thought about getting another dog, or a goat, or a sheep...something to keep her occupied on those rainy days when her "sheep" are at school or inside playing. Adam found a pygmy goat on Craigslist for $25 and picked it up the next evening. I had something else going on that night, so I didn't get to go with him and the kids. I came home late that night after the kids had gone to bed. Adam took me down to the field where I could meet him. He told me that Synnove had named him "Kellen." I guess Adam had asked her where she came up with that name and she said "I don't know..." So, we have a friendly and playful horned pygmy named Kellen.

Kellen spends his days on a very generous tether in the field eating grass and pesky blackberry bushes.

Lucy and Kellen still have sort of a love-hate relationship. We started slowly introducing them with supervised leashed visits. Now that we've had Kellen for almost a month, We've allowed Lucy to run free a few times. Unfortunately, she is back to her old antics and leaving the property for extended periods. We're gonna try to put Kellen in the kennel with her more and more so that they can form a better bond. We'll see. Kellen's horns are a source of concern, as Lucy can be QUITE playful. So far she's been able to dodge his head-nudges. If it doesn't work out, we're only out $25...which is already money well spent because the blackberry bushes are slowly being gobbled up! LOVE that!

The Everyday...

It feels good to be getting back into the old routine after almost two months of sick. I suppose Soren's tummy has been the main focus for the last several weeks. Diet changes, patterns, and daily poop examinations have led me to believe he's having digestion issues. I've been trying some new things with his diet to help him with his digestion, and it seems to be starting to work. I'm saying a lot of prayers and keeping my fingers crossed! Meanwhile, he's been referred to OHSU and I've yet to hear from them about setting up a consultation. Synnove's insecurity has been slowly getting better. I'm so incredibly thankful! We still have a long way to go, but she finally lets me go outside without freaking out. She still opens the door every 30 seconds to check on me though :) Baby steps... Lucy ran off a few weeks ago and was gone for 15 loooong hours. She came back filthy, stinky, anxious, and completely freaked out. We've spent a lot of time with her in the last 2-3 weeks trying to get her back to being her old self. Long story short, we got a goat (more on that later). By the way, Lucy turns ONE tomorrow! And...she's getting spayed on Monday :( Adam has caught himself another bug. I've been praying hard and doing all that I can to boost our immune systems so that we don't get it as well. Poor guy has been on the couch for the better part of 3 days. I don't know that I've ever seen Adam so beat down with sickness. I'm pretty sure he already got the same flu Soren and I got last month...so this is something new. And what about Me? Well, I've been doing the usual laundry, dishes, errands, MAJOR bill paying (March sickness has put us in the poorhouse), Bible study, field trips, etc. Oh, and I learned how to make sock monkeys! I'm not finished with my first one yet, but it's gonna be super cute! Here's a random picture from a couple of weeks ago. As usual, the kids were goofing off in the bathtub and they started playing with Synnove's hair bands. They were pretending to be nutcrackers...clever :) ***If there are any Blogger friends out there who know a trick on how to ensure your post doesn't get all smooshed together...I'd love to hear it! I'm so tired of these random 1-paragraph posts!***

Trouble with the Neighbor

Shortly after we moved into this house, we started getting a random horse in our field. I say random, because we had no idea where it came from. We didn't mind too much, as it kept it's distance and trotted away if you ever got near it. Later, we found out it belonged to our neighbor. To this day, I have never seen or talked to this neighbor of ours. We share a property line, but you can't see their house or fence from ours, and you have to drive up the road passed one of our other neighbor's to even see their house.

This neighbor of ours has lots of animals...including peacocks. The peacocks make lots of noise at dusk during certain times of the year...and they used to terrify Synnove. She couldn't sleep because of those obnoxious things! We would never actually see them though. We tried convincing Synnove that the "heacocks" were harmless, and even showed her many youtube videos and photos online. Nothing worked. One day, Adam was driving with the kids and passed by our neighbor's house when the peacocks were in view. Adam stopped to show Synnove and the neighbor came over to meet Adam. At this point, Adam told her about her stray horse and she said that she didn't know her fence was broken and would try her best to fix it.

The horse stayed away for a while after that. A few months later, it started to come back....and it started to bring a friend. Suddenly, the harmless horse that stayed away turned into two not-so-harmless horses that liked to hang out in our front driveway! I was starting to get pretty ticked because every time they came around, I had to make sure the kids were inside. The second horse was quite friendly, and I didn't know what could could happen if it got near them. I tried shooing them away many times. Sometimes it worked...but most times it didn't. After enduring about a month of this nonsense, there was an accident that happened when one of the horses impaled itself on the broken fence and died. No, it wasn't our fault, and we had no idea it had happened until the police arrived. It was hunting season, and the neighbor thought the horse had been shot. Of course, she found out otherwise after tracing the blood trail. It was a sad situation, but we hoped that her fence would finally be fixed for good.

An entire horse-free year passed by. However, a new problem emerged: beagles. From what I've heard, this neighbor of ours has many dogs of many breeds...but none more than her pack of beagles. Sometime last summer/fall her beagles had puppies and she decided to keep them. I saw them a few times when I was driving down the road...in the road. They were idiotic and they wouldn't move...I always had to drive around them. Then, we started getting early morning wake-up "barks" at 5 and 6AM when the dogs were on the trail of some deer or other critter near our house. There were at least 6 of them; two adults and a handful of puppies. I wish I could accurately describe the sound this pack of nuisance's make. It's like the sound that most dogs make when they are hurt all of a sudden...that screechy yelp. Multiply that screechy yelp by 6! It was awful!! Not only would it wake me up, but it would wake my kids up. That alone ticked me off more than anything.

The beagles visited our house several times daily. They were harmless, but incredibly disturbing. I chased them off our property many, many, MANY times. I say "chased" because that's literally what I had to do. It was enough to just shoo them up the bank, I actually had to run them up the bank. If I stopped, the dogs would stop. They would look back at me like "can I stay...please?" But I had absolutely no sympathy for their pathetic hound faces. Adam even had a live trap set out to catch a critter that was attempting to get at our chickens. He caught a beagle in that trap at least 2 times...it might have been 3. Still, the beagles continued to visit for several months.

By mid-winter, the beagle visits dwindled. I was so thankful! Then, the peacocks started to visit in the early spring. I was weird, because I had NEVER seen them in the two years we had been here. One morning, I was still in bed and it sounded like there was a goose outside my window. I looked out on the deck and there was nothing. I went back to bed, heard it again, but ignored it. About 20 minutes later I went downstairs to find about 4 peacocks outside the sliding window! My first thought was "seriously...is this ever going to end?!" They visited on and off for about a week, but I haven't seen them back since.

About 2-3 weeks ago, we started seeing the neighbor's mangy looking sheep in our front driveway (there's like 5-7 of them). Fortunately, all I had to do was open the window and say "go home!" and they would run back home. But, in the last week, they have gotten much more bold. They now visit several times a day and have proven to be the worst nuisance of all the animals that have ever visited. Not only do they leave their droppings EVERYwhere, but they have eaten half of our chick food in the garage. I've caught them in the garage at least 3 times. Each time they have made a huge mess. Shooing them has become extremely difficult...so, we've had to use varying other methods. Yes, we've called the neighbor, but she hasn't done what she said she would do. Last night, I spent a good hour scooping up sheep poop from all over our entire yard and driveway.

Adam and I are at the end of our rope. We're trying our best to be good neighbors...but our patience is running out. We knew that dealing with a stray animal here and there was a part of living in the sticks...but this is just plain ridiculous.

Our First Chicks!

One of our hens started "setting" a little over a month ago. That means that the hen will start sitting on her eggs and won't leave them only to eat/drink. Anyway, she had a whole bunch of eggs under her (a "clutch" of eggs) that were likely unfertilized. Our rooster is of a very small breed and can't quite fertilize a normal sized hen. So, after two weeks of "setting" I talked to my Aunt Alice to get some advice. She was pretty sure that none were fertilized and that she would bring over a few fertilized ones from her brood. I think she brought about 6 eggs of all colors and sizes and did a switcheroo. Our setting hen didn't know the difference. We moved her to a large cage 2 weeks later and checked the eggs. One, for sure, was no good...so we were down to 5.

A week after we moved her, we heard a little "cheep" and found that the hen was outside the nest keeping at least one little chick warm. We let her be. There was one egg left unhatched, so we were hopeful that we had 4 chicks.

The next day (yesterday) I took the kids out to show them that the chicks had hatched! Hens are quite protective of their little babes so it took some coaxing to get her to move so we could see how many we had. It was so funny, cause it was like the chicks were stuffed up in her feathers and they kinda fell out. We have 3 chicks, and we don't know what happened to the 4th. There are a few possibilities one could imagine.

The kids, of course, were very excited and wanted to hold them. I took two of the three out. Soren wasn't as keen as Synnove, but they both enjoyed playing with them for a couple of minutes.

At one day old the chicks are quite agile...even jumping over the kids' boots.

Soren, after holding the chick once, didn't want to anymore, and would only "poke" them.

Oh, so cute!! The 3rd chick looks like this one.

I don't know why this pic ended up sideways...that's not how I downloaded it.

Party, Party, Party!

The weekend started off with a bang when we had Melody and her 3 boys come over to play. It had been a while since the kids had any friends over, and I love visiting with Melody. They came early, had lunch with us, and played in the kiddie pool/sprinkler. They left just in time for nap. When the kids got up, we went to Daniel's high school graduation party. We had a great time visiting with friends and family, and, of course, showering Daniel with lots of $$. Doris (Aunt Alice's mom) made her famous chocolate cake, and we (I) stuffed ourselves with giant strawberries...among other things. The kids had a great time playing with Fi-Fi and we were among the last to leave. I don't think the kids got to bed till after 10:30.

The next morning (Saturday), Adam made a quick run back to Uncle Don's to get a load of wood before we were to head off to Cousin Alice's 3rd birthday party. The party was at Chris' brother's house located out in the middle of nowhere near Battleground, WA. We were welcomed to a lovely home filled with TONS of kids...all of whom I'm pretty sure were related. Everyone was outside enjoying the beautiful 85ish degree weather. There was a large pool located next to a big trampoline, a small kiddie pool, a volleyball net, a large play structure, and lots of room to run. The kids had an immensely good time, as did we.

Faith made strawberry shortcake cake served with chocolate covered strawberries, strawberry cheesecake ice cream and strawberry pop for Alice's Strawberry Shortcake themed party.

Here's a shot of Samantha holding Novie in the pool. Adam got in too and played with the kids.

After cake, swimming, and presents all the kids took turns taking rides on "Oreo." Soren was scared at first, but liked it by the time the ride was over.

I think the kids had the MOST fun on the play structure. 2 slides, 3 swings, a tire swing, and lots of places to climb!

Afterwards, we met up with Patty and her friend Steve for pizza and ice cream in Woodland before heading home. The kids, amazingly, stayed awake during the entire drive home...and were able to be in bed before 10:00.

I couldn't believe it when Synnove chose black licorice ice cream and actually liked it! She ate the entire thing. What a mess!

Soren was not too keen on the licorice, so he chose strawberry...still messy though.

As of now, we just got back from church, the kids are napping, and Adam is off getting some materials from Henry to make a chicken run for our lovely layers. Tomorrow, we'll be going to Fi-Fi's 8th grade promotion! Party #3, here we come!