We’re done!

Posted by kenleighacres on March 16, 2012
Posted in: Farm Life, Jacob Sheep, Lambing, sheep. Tagged: , , . 5 Comments

Precious lambed last night, and with that comes the end of our lambing season!

Here is Precious with her ram lamb, Roy Rogers.

My son is thrilled with his last lamb and was checking to see how many horns he has, I was informed that he has 4 and there is good spacing.

He was hoping for a ewe lamb, but he is pretty happy with the little guy 🙂

I was just telling a friend last night that it looked like Precious had another week or two to go, so you can imagine my surprise to see her laying with a lamb this morning!  The last 5 girls have been first timers and I couldn’t be happier with them.  They have all been fantastic moms, acting like they have been doing this for a very long time.

Mud Ranch Hyacinth lambed yesterday and her ram lamb had a very full belly when I found them.

His name is Paragon, meaning a model of excellence.

He knows how to work his cute face 🙂

Here is Dandy’s Hope with her ewe lamb she had a little over a week ago.

Her name is Jaunty and she is going to be very happy to have some lambs her size to play with.

Windy Acres Mac is the sire to these lambs.

The early bird gets the worm!

Posted by kenleighacres on March 11, 2012
Posted in: Farm Life, felted birds, Felting. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , . 6 Comments

Snow and rain are in the forecast for the next week…again, but the birds and I have been enjoying the sunshine when it makes its appearance!

I wish this picture was in better focus, but I love the look on the Robin’s face that is pursuing the robin with the worm.

In addition to the robins, we have these beauties this year.  They are Varied Thrushes and they are EVERYWHERE!!!  I noticed one or two a couple of weeks ago and now the pastures are full of them.  Not only are they very pretty to look at, but they are also fun to listen to…an interesting whistle that varies in pitch.

I love watching them stare at the ground waiting to make their move!

My favorite little birds have been out in force.

Our pair of wild ducks have become very comfortable with life here on the farm and can be found on the pond most of the time.

Male House Sparrow looking for a free meal from the chickens.

Dark-eyed Junco (Oregon) waiting for his turn in the chicken pen.

The chickens don’t really seem to mind sharing their extra food.

There are some special birds hanging out inside too!

Here is one of my felted birds I have been making getting ready for the Spring Fling Fiber Sale next weekend in Oregon City.

Here are a few more birds that will be going with me.

This is the first time I will be attending this fiber show and I am very excited to check it out!

What’s in a name?

Posted by kenleighacres on March 4, 2012
Posted in: Farm Life, Jacob Sheep, Lambing, sheep. Tagged: , , , , . 2 Comments

Well, when your name is Pizzazz, it means energy and style with an attractive and exciting vitality, especially when combined with style and glamor.  A dazzling style, vigorous spirit with flamboyance and flair.

I think this girl embodies all of the above!

When your name is Pizzazz, it also means you have to do everything bigger and better than everyone else!

It also helps that she has a mother who thinks she can do no wrong and boosts her confidence by calling her the perfect princess 🙂

Just in case

Posted by kenleighacres on February 29, 2012
Posted in: Farm Life, Jacob Sheep, sheep, Snow, whippet. Tagged: , , , , , . 7 Comments

Just in case we were beginning to think Spring was here, Mother nature reminded us what season we are really in…

WINTER!

This is what we woke up to this morning.  Lots of big snow flakes falling and it was sticking when I left to take my son to school, but it had all melted by the time I got home.

The robins were out looking for breakfast.

Unlike the robins who were out working for their food, these guys were looking for a free meal from the chickens, little stinkers.

The boys don’t have a cozy barn like the girls do and they weren’t too sure about the change in weather.

They were snuggled up around the tree and waiting for breakfast when I went out.

The ducks seem unphased by this wet…cold weather.

As for the rest of us, sitting inside by the fire sounds like a very good plan!

Up and coming young ladies

Posted by kenleighacres on February 29, 2012
Posted in: Farm Life, Jacob Sheep, Lambing, sheep, Uncategorized. Tagged: , . 3 Comments

While I was letting the sheep in today, I noticed that a lot of the ewe lambs have horns that are starting to appear.  They are going to be thrilled…I won’t be catching them anymore to feel their horns.  The boys’ horns can be felt at birth and can be seen shortly after, but it takes a little longer on the girls.  I can usually tell how many horns the girls have, but it can be tricky to feel spacing on the 4-horn girls.  If there isn’t sufficient space between the top horns and the side horns, then they can grow together and become fused…an undesirable trait.  Luckily, these girls appear to have good spacing.

Pretty Felice is one of the oldest girls of this group.  The side horns are hard to see through the hair, but they are feeling great.

Little Fanfare is just too cute for her own good.  The polka dots on her nose are pigment filling in.

I love the little mark on Bountiful’s lower lip, it looks like she is smiling 😉

Banshee is a 2-horn.

Pizzazz has been dubbed the ‘class clown’ of this year’s lamb crop and she didn’t feel like posing for a picture today.  She is continuously cracking me up…

For instance…check her out in this photo.  Everybody else is running with their head up and she has her’s down charging ahead.

Daedal doesn’t have any horns showing yet, but she is an up and coming young lady and wanted to be included.

Carrera had two more girls yesterday.

Here is my son holding one of them, Isadora.

Twinkle is her other ewe lamb.

Precious is one of the last ewes to lamb.  We weren’t sure if she was pregnant, but it is becoming very apparent that she is.  My son is hoping she has a couple ewe lambs in there.

Glorious mornings

Posted by kenleighacres on February 25, 2012
Posted in: Ducks, Farm Life, Jacob Sheep, Lambing, Llama, Photography, sheep. Tagged: , , , , , , . 9 Comments

We have woken up to a couple glorious mornings and nothing makes me happier than to open the blinds and see the sun shining!

It makes the sheep happy too!

My goal was to get an updated picture of all the lambs, but they had other things on their mind.  These lambs were munching on the blackberry leaves.

This group of lambs was enjoying the grass with Magoo.

This lamb was being a funny guy 🙂

Luckily, I can always count on Maelstrom to pose for me, thanks little buddy.  Their horns are really starting to grow.  After a bit of work, I did finally get new pictures of all the lambs.  They can be seen on our website – www.kenleigh-acres.com

After accomplishing that goal, it was time to go for a little walk and enjoy the morning.  Azera was enjoying the grass while her lambs soaked up the warmth from the sunshine.

 

The chickens were scratching for goodies…

and having their morning dust baths.

My favorite little birds on the farm, the quail, were out and about and in the mood to have their picture taken…doesn’t happen very often.

I said ‘good morning’ to the pair of ducks living on our pond.

The pair of geese that have been hanging out here thought I got a little too close for comfort and off they went.

The boys were doing what they do best this time of year…hanging out.

I’m glad we all enjoyed it while it was here because it is now pouring and supposed to continue for the next couple of days.  Hopefully the rain with trigger the next ewe to have her lambs!

February Lambs

Posted by kenleighacres on February 20, 2012
Posted in: Farm Life, Jacob Sheep, Lambing, sheep. Tagged: , , , . 12 Comments

These poor babies have been neglected on the blog!  With 42 lambs on the ground, life has been a little crazy 🙂

Here are the lambs that have been born in February…

First time momma, Allegany, had a set of twins and has proved to be an excellent mother.

Gypsy is her ewe lamb.  Gypsy means someone living an unconventional lifestyle and she may not be living one, but she is dressed a little unconventional for a jacob lamb.  I think her extra black makes her extra special.

Rapscallion is her ram lamb, I love his one blue eye.

Next up was one of my son’s ewes, Echo.  She had a pair of ram lambs.  He named this guy Explorer because he was a real go getter and was exploring the whole barn while his mom was cleaning up his brother.  My son had to keep picking him up and putting him back with mom.

Here is his brother, Silver.  His name came from one of my son’s favorite shows at the moment – Lone Ranger.

Mollala, another first time momma, surprised and mystified us with this lilac ram lamb.  Lilac is a recessive color gene in the Jacob breed and I really didn’t think she was a carrier.  She was bred to Reno, a known lilac carrier.  I guess she showed us 🙂

He loves to kick up his heels.

Rae-Ann, a well seasoned ewe, had her twin girls very close to the same time as Mollala.

 

Skedaddle is working hard to live up to her name.

Rae-Ann is helping her by teaching them how to skedaddle away from me.  She is very protective of her lambs and doesn’t want me anywhere near them!

Sassy isn’t having any problem living up to her name!

The next ewe to lamb should have been Azera, but she continued chewing her cud and making us wait.

 

Cleora was happy to fill the time by having twins, a ram lamb and a ewe lamb.  The boy’s name is Teague meaning fair or handsome and the girl’s name is Daedal (dee-dal), which means ingenious/skillful – I thought it was a cute name to match a cute girl.

Yesterday morning, Azera finally had her lambs.  We are a little short on 4-horn boys this year and I was joking with a friend that maybe if I pre-named them it would help.  So, I came up with Casanova, Romeo, and just in case there was a third one, Don Juan.  Her actual due date was Valentine’s day and these names seemed to fit.  I was shocked when she actually had 2, 4-horn ram lambs!!!

Romeo

Casanova

We are almost 50/50 – boys to girls, with 19 boys and 23 girls.  We have a handful of ewes left to lamb and most of them should be done by the end of the month!

One of my favorite parts of lambing season…

Posted by kenleighacres on February 7, 2012
Posted in: Farm Life, Jacob Sheep, Lambing, sheep, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , . 9 Comments

LAMB RACES!!!

They race back…

and forth while their moms are eating in the barn.

I wanted to video their antics, but every time I took my camera out, they were too tired from playing all day and would just fall asleep in the barn.

Very cute, but not very entertaining for taking video.

As I walked out to the pasture with them, I warned the lambs to save their energy because I wanted to capture the lamb races.

As you can see, they didn’t really listen 🙂  The old concrete pile is always a favorite with the lambs.

 

Time to head back to the barn for the night.

Canby is so cute, she has to stop and make sure all of the lambs have made it out of the pasture.

Every once in a while, a couple lambs will fall asleep and not realize the rest of the sheep have headed to the barn, a double-check is always a good idea.

 They all made it to the barn and the lambs indulged me by racing around.  Thanks to my husband for putting this video together for me.  Enjoy!

Jacob Sheep Lamb races

They wore themselves out and were panting in no time 😉

Good for the Soul!

Posted by kenleighacres on February 3, 2012
Posted in: family, Farm Life, Photography. Tagged: , , , , , . 20 Comments

Taking pictures, from horseback, in the sunshine…it doesn’t get much better than that!

This morning I went with my brother and one of his friends to move the cows to a new pasture.

There wasn’t much ‘moving’ to be done because the cows were headed to the new pasture when we got there, they must have gotten the memo that was on today’s to do list.

That was ok, because it was still a great day for a ride.

In addition to managing the cows, my brother also manages the race horses for the company he works for.  Here he is ponying one of the soon to be 2-year-olds.

He was such a good boy!

Going in water and over little creeks and he didn’t even flinch when the dogs were running around him.

Such a pretty horse.

This was Nelly’s first time ponying another horse and she did a great job, even though she wasn’t very happy about it.  He was being sweet, but was in her space and touching her – two things she was NOT ok with!

 

You can’t move cows without a couple of dogs, this is Newt.

This momma cow came down the hill with two calves.  From what we could tell, both are hers!

 I can’t put into words how much I enjoy just going outside and taking pictures, it really is good for my soul.

and look…a picture of me!  Since I am the one with the camera most of the time, this doesn’t happen very often.  I made Wyatt work for me a little bit more today than the last time I rode him.  He is a big, funny guy.

The smile says it all, we had a great time in the sunshine!

Kate’s other job

Posted by kenleighacres on January 31, 2012
Posted in: Border Collie, Dogs, Farm Life. Tagged: , , , , , , , . 6 Comments

My border collie, Kate, is a huge help here on the farm…

she is wonderful with the moms and babies.

Even when the babies get a little too curious.

But she also has another job.  It is our duty to keep a local college free of geese.  Here is a little bit of information regarding hazing geese with border collies.  The most effective way to humanely control the goose population is to introduce a ‘predator’ into the environment.  Since it isn’t practical (or safe) to reintroduce wolves, coyotes, and foxes into commercial and residential areas, specially trained dogs are the natural answer.  Geese that are harassed on a regular schedule by border collies will seek a safer place to live and raise their young.  Geese are beautiful and I love watching them, but when each one of these guys…

is leaving 2-3 lbs. of waste a day, it gets nasty, pretty quick!  They also eat 2-5 lbs. of grass in a day – leaving a muddy, poop covered landscape behind them.   

Kate and I have been visiting the college for 3 years and the flock of geese that called this location home has decreased dramatically.  Unfortunately, it is the perfect place for flocks that are flying through to stop and take a break.   This gives Kate steady work and she loves it!

She is always looking, but we couldn’t find any geese on the ground today.

The sky was full of them.

and plenty in the pond, but nothing for my girl to focus her attention on.

That is, until these three flew in.

I love this goose and have been trying to get good pictures of it for quite a while. 

It is some sort of cross – the colors and patterns are so fun.

As an extra bonus, we had geese to chase when we got home as well.  I have been very careful to save our grass for my mammas and babies, there are plenty of empty fields in our area for these guys to get a free meal somewhere else!