A bittersweet day…

Posted by kenleighacres on October 24, 2008
Posted in: Dogs, whippet. 2 Comments

This last Sunday I had already made plans to go to the race meet up North.  Obviously Paisley wasn’t able to run, but I wanted to train Danica on the oval and her brother and sister were both going to be there.  Poor Paisley knew exactly where we were when we turned on the road leading to the school.  She has been rather pathetic at home hobbling around and walking on three legs.  As soon as I took her out of the car to go potty she tried running towards the race area.  She assured me that she could do it…silly girl!  It pulled at my heart strings to see her want to run so badly.

On a happy note – it was fun seeing Danica with her brother and sister…

Datura is the blue girl and Ruger is the black boy.

They each got a turn on the track and had a lot of fun.

It was definitely a bittersweet day.

Paisley’s tale of woe…

Posted by kenleighacres on October 18, 2008
Posted in: whippet. 10 Comments

This was supposed to be a fun post about another visit to Tammy’s farm, but that will have to be another post for another day because Paisley could use some well wishes. 

Paisley loves Danica, unfortunately she plays a little too rough and can be quite the antagonist at times.  We have been working on it, but she still loves to pounce on her.  This is where her problems started…

First thing in the morning I usually let the whippet girls out back to stretch their legs and relieve themselves before breakfast.  On Wednesday morning I let them out for about 10 minutes and then opened the door and called them in.  Paisley came first with Danica right on her heels.  Paisley jumped up on the deck and spun around really fast to pounce Danica – unfortunately she thought she was still on the ground, so she went to jump off the deck (3 stairs).  In mid-air she realized that Danica was already on the porch and she tried to turn in mid-air.  I believe that only works for birds 🙂  She landed on her front left leg and was still in the twisting motion.  She crumpled and I heard a bone break followed by Paisley screaming.  This all happened in a matter of seconds and I still can’t believe it happened even though I was right there and saw the whole thing.  I ran down the steps, scooped her up, placed a quick call to my vet and headed out to the car.  That is when I realized that I had to go back in the house, grab Danica, turn off the stove, and grab my purse before we could leave.  I felt completely helpless for a moment and must have looked dazed and confused.  I was holding my dog in my arms with a dangling front leg and had no idea what to do with her so that I could run back inside.  Luckily my guardian angel was watching over me and two ladies happened to be walking by at this very moment…I had never seen these ladies before and our road isn’t one that a lot of people walk on – I was delighted to see them!  They asked if I needed help and I was so relieved.  One of them held Paisley while I ran back inside.  Within minutes I had Paisley snuggled in a bed and we were on our way.  I love my vet, but it was a very long 45 minute drive!  Once there, they confirmed that yes indeed it was broken (not that I had any doubt after hearing it) and that I would need to leave her there so that they could sedate her and take x-rays.  They were afraid that it was in the elbow and in that case I would need to pick her back up and take her to the orthopedic surgeon.  Lucky for me, it was her humerus and my vet was able to do surgery and piece her back together. 

Here is a picture of the x-ray…

as you can see, she shattered it.  He was able to put her all back together except for one piece.  She has a big pen running length wise in her bone and wires holding everything together. 

She has a huge bandage on her leg to keep the incision protected and clean.  Unfortunately, Paisley loves to chew on tape and bandages, so I had to modify a pair of her jammies..

This seems to be working for now. 

The poor girl is very unhappy, but is being a trooper.  She has to stay in her crate, except for going to the bathroom, for the next 10 days!  She goes in for a check-up and more x-rays next Friday. 

Please keep her in your thoughts and send healing vibes her way 🙂      

I found Fall…

Posted by kenleighacres on October 14, 2008
Posted in: Afghan, Dogs, Fall, Lure Coursing, whippet. 4 Comments

I can feel fall in the air, but on my drive to lure coursing practice yesterday I found it in full swing…

not only did I find beautiful colors…

but I also found a bunch of wild turkeys.

Lure coursing practice was well attended with a lot of Afghan’s – I love photographing these dogs!

Their hair has a tendancy to take on a life of it’s own 🙂

They are such elecgant dogs…but definitely not for me with all of that hair 🙂

Here is a picture of the little speedy girl – Danica.

It was a beautiful day for a drive and a run!

New sheep and a new page…

Posted by kenleighacres on October 7, 2008
Posted in: Jacob Sheep, Lambing, sheep. 2 Comments

This year has felt a little like that song about the cat that always came back.  We have had quite a few sheep find their way back here as well as a few that weren’t born here but needed a new home.  The most recent flock was from a guy that bought a few lambs from us 4 years ago.  He has had several bouts of cancer this year and has undergone radiation and chemotherapy.  I am happy that we were able to take them, but now I need to figure out what to do with them 🙂

They are a lovely group that brought back some fond memories.

This is Petunia and has matured into a beautiful girl.  The interesting thing is that she is Douglas’ sister!

Here she is as a cute little lamb.

This is Aurora

and she reminds me a lot of her mother, Violet.

This is Ellie Mae and I will always remember helping her into the world…

she weighed 16 lbs. at birth!!!  We were sure her mom had triplets she was so big!

This is Dawson and he has turned into a handsome boy.  So we will have lambs from 5 different rams because he has bred the 4 ewes that he came with.  He is really laid back and I would love to find a home for him.  They are all in need of being sheared 🙂

I have started a new page and will be updating it over the next week.  It will include all of the ewes that we have bred, who they were bred to, and their due dates.  We are going to be busy at the end of January!

The Challenges…

Posted by kenleighacres on October 3, 2008
Posted in: Farm Life, Jacob Sheep, sheep, Uncategorized. 3 Comments

No, this post is not about the challenges of farm life right now.  Yes, feed costs are high, but I have spent too much time personally worrying about it and am moving on 🙂  This is the life we love and I have faith that everything will be ok.  Now onto my post about the challenges of raising Jacob Sheep.

Raising Jacobs can be both frustrating and rewarding.  There are so many things to get right – fleece, horns, conformation, color ratio, spotting pattern, hardiness, mothering ability, and temperament.  This is part of what I love about the breed.  The part I have a hard time understanding is how a certain breeding can be so right one year and so wrong the next – same ram and ewe.  For example – we bred Darby to Junior last year and Darby had a beautiful set of triplets…

Kenleigh’s Debonair “Dub” – owned by Mud Ranch

Kenleigh’s Chevelle – one of my buddies.

Kenleigh’s Liberty – another pretty girl that lives in our flock.

Since the breeding produced such lovely lambs, we repeated the breeding.  Unfortunately the results weren’t so nice…

This poor little girl doesn’t have any horns – she has scurs which are not attached to the skull and when you move her head, her little scurs flop around.  Of course she is lovely in every other way!  Her twin sister had very little color.  They have to have at least 15% coloring to be registerable –  I think she had around 10%.  My sister fell in love with her and now owns her.

I went ahead and did this same breeding again this year.  I am really looking forward to these lambs – I’m hoping they are like the 1st time 🙂

A boy, an old lab, and a can of spray paint…

Posted by kenleighacres on October 2, 2008
Posted in: Dogs, family, Farm Life, Funny, Lab. 8 Comments

My husband and son love this time of year because it is the start of duck hunting season.  They have been busy building carts to haul their decoys and using spray paint to camoflauge the cart and various blinds, including a huge cardboard box for my son to play with.  Unfortunately the can of spray paint was left out… 

Yesterday my son was playing outside in the backyard.  He was playing with his tractors, dump trucks, and various digging equipment.  He was very content playing with his toys, so I took advantage of this time to do some housework.  I kept checking on him and all seemed to be fine.  Major, our old lab, was out doing his thing – which at 13 years old is a lot of sleeping. 

I was sweeping the kitchen floor and the two of them came up on the back porch.  Major looked like this…

I asked my son what happened to Major???  He said that he fell in the dirt.  This was some what believable because he isn’t very steady on his feet and has been falling more and more lately.  There is some fresh dirt in the backyard because my husband ground a huge stump back there this last weekend.  I thought there was probably more to the story but didn’t see the point in pressing the matter.

When my husband got home he also asked our son what happened to Major.  We thought he might come out with the truth if asked again…he did and we both had to leave the room because we started laughing. 

He said that he was camoflauging him because he didn’t want the ducks to see him 🙂 

I would have loved to see how he did this – Major may be old but he isn’t small and he is still strong.  I don’t know if he did it while he was sleeping???  Poor old man is now sporting a camoflauge mask.  The cans of spray paint are now on one of the top shelves in the garage! 

The chickens get a new yard!

Posted by kenleighacres on October 2, 2008
Posted in: Chickens, Farm Life. Tagged: . Leave a comment

My brother made me a wonderful barn for my chickens a couple years ago,

but I haven’t had a good chicken yard.  I had regular sized chickens and then switched to bantams this year.  The yard was adequate for them, but didn’t give them a lot of room to stretch their wings.  Thanks to Craigslist, I have some great poultry pens now and the chickens are the proud owners of one of them.  The pens were owned by a big game farm and they recently sold all of their birds.  The pens were taken down and sold as panels.  Each panel is 6′ high by 20′ long complete with netting for the roof.  The chicken yard is 20′ x 20′ and the chickens love flying around! 

They also like to come and go as they please.

This chick has found a bug it is about to pounce on.

I love the banty girls – this one reminds me of the banty hen I had growing up.  Her name was Henny Penny and she would let me carry her around everywhere.  She was a very neat chicken.

This girl is the queen bee and referees everyone – no one is allowed to have too much fun.  Party pooper!

One more project I can check off my to do list 🙂

 

Off to OFFF!

Posted by kenleighacres on September 29, 2008
Posted in: Fiber, Jacob Sheep, sheep. Tagged: . 7 Comments

OFFF stands for Oregon Flock & Fiber Festival.  It is a large fiber festival located in Canby, OR.  I left Friday mid-day with all my stuff packed.  I didn’t take any sheep this year but my sister and I had a vendor booth plus I entered a couple fleeces in the wool show.  I thought I had a lot of stuff in my car a couple weekends ago, but that was nothing 🙂  I had Kate, my border collie, Danica and Paisley, the whippet girls, my tent, 2 EZ Ups, camping stuff, 5 tables, my camera bag, several rubbermaid totes full of fiber, a dozen fleeces for show, sell, and to have processed, my spinning wheel, an ice chest, etc.  I had to slam my doors shut on a couple fleeces in order to get it all in.  I wanted to take some pictures of it, but my camera was in the middle somewhere and there was no way I was going to pack it a second time 🙂  Poor Paisley and Danica had to ride in a very small kennel, luckily it wasn’t a very long trip!

Here is a picture of our vendor booth, we had – felted vests and wall hangings, jacob fleeces, roving, yarn, horn buttons, and goats milk soap that my sister makes.  It smells so good!!!

One lady actually asked her if the soap was really made with goats milk???  She really wanted to be a smart alec and say “No, it just sounded good to put on the label!” but she very nicely explained how it was made.

 

I always enjoying walking around the sheep pens and seeing all of the different breeds.  This boy was HUGE!!!  I can’t imagine how much he eats 🙂

There was a nice showing of Jacob Sheep.  This is Torrent, one of our 2008 lambs, that we sold earlier this year.

Here is a picture of the ram lamb class.

While watching the Shetland yearling ram class I saw this guys horns and started fantisizing about the cool horn buttons I could make out of them…

Luckily the owners had a great sense of humor when they asked me why I was taking his picture 🙂

Sleeping in the tent was quite an adventure.  On Friday night there was a big football game and they shot canons off with every touchdown!  They also had huge fireworks and a lot of cheering.  But that didn’t come close to how loud the train was that travelled very close to the fairgrounds. The dogs kept me company on Friday night and Tammy from Wrensong Farm – along with her beautiful dog, Kylie, stayed with us Saturday night.  Danica and Kylie had a lot of fun together and they really wanted us to let them off leash so they could really tear it up!

The festival appeared to be well attended and as usual there was too much to see and too many people to visit with.   

Checking on the sheep…

Posted by kenleighacres on September 25, 2008
Posted in: Farm Life, Jacob Sheep, sheep. 5 Comments

This Dolly and she is my son’s favorite sheep.  She is really more like a dog than a sheep.  She is a big girl, so I am glad she is a friendly one.

Reno is one of his other favorites.  He is a little friendlier than I like the ram lambs to be, but he is a laid back guy and I’m hoping he stays respectful.  I have a spray bottle with water and vinegar waiting just for him 😉

He is the only ram lamb we retained from this year and I am happy with how he is maturing. 

One of our llamas, Gallo, isn’t thrilled with him being in the pasture…

but then he made a piece offering and all was good again 🙂

Poor Jeslyn had a monkey on her back, actually just a blackberry branch, but her and all of the other sheep were sure it was a huge monster that was going to eat them all.

Luckily it came off easily and peace was restored.

This is Mercedes and Savannah with Wrangler.  They are visiting from Timber Acres and are owned by my friend Lisa.  Mercedes is one of our 2006 lambs and Savannah is a lamb from last year.  We don’t usually allow other sheep on our place for breeding, but made an exception for Lisa and these girls since most of her sheep have come from our farm.  They turned out to be lovely girls and I can’t wait to see their lambs.