Alison received this at school yesterday :-) ...

Surrounded by theatre ... (edited to add newspaper clippings)

"Anything Goes" was truly awesome. Kev was very, very funny. Tonight, the kids are in their first showing of "Enchanted Sleeping Beauty". Tomorrow night is the second. Tomorrow night is also a dress rehearsal for Kevin, then "Anything Goes" has its final run Friday and Saturday evening and a Sunday matinee. I'm not sure I'll have any photos from any of this because our camera does not do well in hall situations. I'll see what I can do.


From the April 23, 2008 "Picton Gazette":



And from the April 25 "Picton Gazette", here are the main cast members of "Anything Goes" along with part of the article:


From the same newspaper, here are both girls (Claire, centre; Alison, right) in practice for "Enchanted Sleeping Beauty". Typical of a small town newspaper (in particular this small town newspaper ;-) ..) all three girls' names are spelt incorrectly. In fact, it's Tori, Claire, and Alison.

Incredible! Thanks, Dad, for sending this to me!

Ahhh, spring ...

The sheep profiled against neighbour's 1800's bank barn. During a phone call to mom, I was trying to express to her the feeling I get when I look out and watch the sheep peacefully grazing. She came up with "bucolic", and I agree. It is lovely.


M.J. enjoying the smells and sounds of spring ... never mind ... M.J. wondering if she can pounce on the birds clustered around the feeder on the top deck. Our two house cats are never outside; this is the closest they get.


Jasmine's two, Peppercorn and Basil:


Latifah, with one of hers (but not sure who!):



All five babies, now into grazing themselves in a big way:



Our lilacs are almost there. These shrubs were wee little things when we moved in, and three property owners later we will finally be blessed with significantly sized bushes! I can hardly wait until they are open. Prince Edward County has a "Lilac Tour" coming up; the whole county is covered with wild bushes as well as planted ones. You can drive published "Lilac routes" and it's an olfactory experience, not to mention a visual one. Later in the year, it's the holly hocks and lilies that take over ditches county-wide.



One of our cherry trees, hinting at things to come!


I'm praying for a long spring; we have a tendency in this neck of the woods to move quickly from winter to summer weather. But spring is my favourite and I hope it's not too fleeting this year!

Another Ben-ism (we love this boy) ...

Written by his mom, Janna ...

Alison is babysitting the kids tonight and Ben can't stop talking about it. He's trying to spell her name now, but it's hard to help him using his phonics when he keeps saying, "Please help me spell Asalan."

Tee-hee :-).

Karen

Two Vignettes from the life of a Morning Show Host

... During the last Share-A-Thon (to raise support for running the station), Kev dropped in to Burger King to pick up lunch for himself. When the employee asked whether he wanted something else with his order, Kev replied with a phrase that apparently he's becoming well known for. Upon his arrival at the pick-up window, he was presented with lunch ALL AROUND for the UCB team, at no charge to UCB, courtesy of the Belleville Burger King. All because the employee recognized his voice!

... Last night, Kev was talking to one of the other actors in "Anything Goes", and they realized they had a mutual friend, Dana Rogalski. The actor stated emphatically that he listens to the morning show, but his favourite host is the guy. "He's just so funny" or something to that effect :-). Yes, Kev came clean and admitted that he is "the other guy" :-).

Lamb update, age 2-3 weeks

When market lambs are quite young, they are started out on "creep" feed. This is a high nutrient starter food that helps the bacteria in their rumen get started out in a healthy way. You can see the little lamb door in the front panel. The first time we left the yummy, enticing creep feed in there, Kivu, our Shetland ewe, managed to make her way in and clean up the feed, however she then got stuck inside. She hasn't attempted this since! Technically our Shetland ram lamb shouldn't be eating creep, however he's first in and last out daily (Shetlands as a breed do not require extra feed like this; they do well on straight grass/hay). Once again we are grateful to Linda Swaine (Rosehaven Farm Store), whose panels and electric fence we were able to "store" in a way that housed sheep!


This is Basil, our freezer lamb. Right now he's very sweet, but as his hormones surge around 4 months he will likely end up quite aggressive. So hard to imagine, but it does make it easier to take the ram lambs to the abbatoir.



Here is Tarragon ... still a lab puppy. And getting much too fat, between the uneccessary creep feed and being the sole recipient of mom's milk.


Here is a close-up of Tarragon's emerging horns. They started out as flat leathery patches when he was born, and started to poke out very slightly when he was about 2 weeks old. He is 3 weeks old here.


Here is Peppercorn. She is doing really well, and has started gaining trust in us two-legged types. She is smallish but very gentle and will be a great first-year 4H lamb.



Here is Rosemary, one of Latifah's girls. She is also on the smallish side. Neither of Latifah's babies are very approachable yet. It may be because we had to treat Latifah for retained placenta, including seven days of penicillin shots. She became very wary of our visits, and managed to pass that on to her lambs. IF you can catch Rosie, she is very sweet, and will probably be our other first-year 4H lamb. She is a little close-coupled and more Shetland-like than I prefer, and won't be a keeper (at this point).


And lastly, here is Coriander. Conformationally, she is far and away my favourite, and is currently my first choice to stay on here and replace her mom as a breeding ewe. She has a good long back and good legs. She also runs and jumps like a steeplechaser, twice as high as the other lambs, and has the unfortunate tendency to be very, very, (VERY!) loud. These last two attributes are not a good thing :-). I can just picture the noise she is going to make in the show ring! So we'll see. She and her sister have pink skin around their eyes, which I find less attractive than the black skin that Jasmine's babies have.


There will be tough decisions to make this year. We can only keep one ewe lamb, who will replace Latifah as a breeding ewe. I will only over-winter three sheep here due to feed cost and space considerations, so that means finding good homes for two ewe lambs, culling Latifah, shipping Basil, and ... well, not sure yet about Tarragon. I'll have to have Bill Stearman (Willow Garden Shetlands website ; Willow Garden blog) come over and assess his fleece before I make any decisions.

I dearly wish I could keep all three ewe lambs. They all carry colour genetics now, since Spencer was black; with this next generation we can expect coloured lambs, which is one of my flock goals. My farmer buddy Arnold is making noises about selling his farm again (some of you may remember the last time we tried to purchase his farm ... what a fiasco once the realtors stepped in). It would be perfect for sheep. Arnold has really aged over the winter, and I wonder whether this time he will manage to actually go through with the sale ...

Heh, heh ... would anyone like to invest in a lovely Dutch farmstead/sheep farm in beautiful Prince Edward County, Ontario?

How many 4H members does it take to tip a sheep? (aka "Learn to Do by Doing"!)

Our regular 4H meeting was out at the Gilbert's farm on Monday night, and the Smith's brought over their hoof trim chute. This is a very helpful system for farms where the sheep are kept in flock. Ours stand for us, and lift their feet helpfully like horses. We don't need this system at home.

Here is the club, working on a poor, unsuspecting Katahdin.


Little did she know what fate would await her as she walked through the chute!


How she ended up on her side:




Iain, busily working away on a hind foot. It is definitely a lot easier for the kids to gain experience with hands-on sheep care when the sheep are immobilized like this!



We brought one of our neighbours to Sheep Club this month. Amanda is super keen! We are going to try to find a lamb for her to raise at our place.

You saw it here first .... introducing

Moonface Martin, Public Enemy No. 13 ... in costume (sans makeup, which is a very good thing ... he came home from the makeup session last night and they had done a less than admirable job. Definitely girl make-up rather than male actor make-up!). He left today with one of my old mascaras //shudder//. I'm so not a theatre type, although I'm glad Kev and some of the kids are.

Out of the Mouths of Babes ;-)

"Dear God, Thank you for this day and thank you for this good food and thank you that we had fun today. Please help Alison be a good babysitter in two sleeps. Amen." (Ben Cylka)

This was our good friends Janna and Steve's eldest son Ben's prayer at dinner today. Alison is babysitting for the kids while their parents attend opening night of "Anything Goes". Oh-so-cute :-).

Heh, heh, Alison ... you've been told!

Ugh. We could have lost a lamb today :-(.

Little Peppercorn got her head stuck between two slats of the run-in shed. I have no idea how long she was there, in the heat, with no ability to nurse. She was scary still when we found her, but seems to be up and happy now, and has nursed six times and pigged out on creep feed since. I imagine that she is fine. However, I'd appreciate prayer, from those of you who do that sort of thing, that she hasn't been harmed in any way by the experience.

Tarragon has definite horns starting; I'm going to try and get a close-up and add it here later ... it's very cool to see the horns first emerging from the leather patches.

A stunningly beautiful weekend here ... gorgeous sun, beautiful temperatures, light breezes. The best the County has to offer. Coupled with the fact that our previous pastor's house has finally sold (hurray, Steve and Janna!), an awesome church service, and the fact that Kev and I were able to squeeze in a date in town Saturday morning while kids were at their various venues ... it's been awesome. The only bad thing? On the way over to pick up Alison from work on Saturday afternoon, I noticed some smoke coming from the vicinity of Foster Road. Foster Road is one of those roads that is long, with one house, and no hydro, that is home to deer, turkeys, grouse etc. I thought perhaps the one homeowner was burning brush. I drove up behind a guy walking along the road ... and came upon a car COMPLETELY in flames. The flames were shooting 20 and 30 feet in the air; it looked like a massive torch. The poor guy. He had stopped when he noticed some smoke, turned off the engine and went back to the other road to call a tow truck. He was just coming back to check on it ... oops! I gave him a ride back to call the Fire Department! An hour later, the Fire Department was long gone, and all that was left was a little grey shell of metal. I have learned that I would make a lousy journalist, for I sat watching with this poor guy as his brother's car goes up in a torrent of flames, and it never occurred to me once to grab the camera out of my backpack and take photographs. It could have been front page news around here :-). Ah, well!

For those of you who haven't been able to see Kev's cool cane in person ...

His friends and coworkers at UCB purchased this, and one of his coworkers who had a sign-making company took it home and gave it this special touch! The kids just love watching House, so they thought this was a riot.


It looks like Kev will be able to do "Anything Goes" without a cane! He will have this cane in one wing, and his other cane in the other wing, for when he's off stage. He has been working very hard to get to this point. Nothing like a deadline :-).

Lamb News

Here is Jasmine, chewing her cud and feeding her two little ones. Without a head shot, I can't tell them apart. I think Basil is on the left; his tail has a spiral perm at the very end, (although not for long)!


Jazzy is wonder-mom. She is more tolerant of other lambs than most ewes, and one of Latifah's has taken quite a liking to her. They call to each other when they are first let out together. Occasionally these three can all be suckling from Jasmine (quite a feat when you consider that ewes only have two teats ;-) ..)


Here are a few shots of the white lambs; I'm considering marking them with initials on their foreheads so we can tell them apart from the front. Other than Peppercorn's black eyepatch, all identifying features are at the rear! I do know the first photo is one of Latifah's two ewe lambs because the two of them LOVE the mud and race to it as soon as they are let out. The other two lambs step carefully around it where possible. Go figure. I think this is Coriander.




Here's Rosemary (other owner of blackened knees!):




Basil:


And Peppercorn:




And finally a quick video of our lab puppy .. er .. Tarragon. I'll try and get better footage. He's a riot.

Finally, sunshine!

The paddock and pasture are a soupy mess after two days of rain. Once things dry out, I'll post more photos :-).

Thank you for listening to me, Jazzy!

This morning, two wee little faces greeted Alison as she made the first check at 6:00 a.m. Jazzy presented us with twins, and kindly met all our criteria. One ewe lamb for our third and final 4H requirement, one ram lamb for the freezer, born on a sunny day, during the day, and not tomorrow ;-). You are a star, Jasmine! She is also being an excellent first-time mom, although I really wish I had had her sheared prior to lambing. Her fleece is far to thick and dense, and there's already been a near miss (miss only because Alison grabbed lambie in time).


Here are little boy (front) and little girl (back) at approximately 1.5 hours old.


Little boy is quite yellow; this shows the the lambs were slightly in distress prior to birth. He is up and eating like a champ though. I've already given them their Sel-E shots.

Here's a close-up of little girl; she is showing the sum total of Spencer's black expression in this crop of lambs ... an eye patch! Actually, I don't believe this is true colour expression; Jazzy has a small black "beauty" spot by her nose, and I believe that's what this is ... Ann, we will probably go with your name suggestion of Peppercorn for this one ;-). All three of these ewes lambs could potentially throw colour if bred back to a coloured ram in the fall.




And here is a side shot of little boy, Basil. He is a bit hunched up here; he was still wet at this point and likely a bit cold.



This is what happens what you leave your lambing supplies out in the pen for two long (i.e. 30 seconds) while convincing babies to start suckling. Tarragon is an imp and a troublemaker :-).

Please, Jazzy.

Today or tomorrow. Preferably today. I promise you treats of hot soy meal mash and molasses, and neck scritchies, and the best hay we have. Please lamb when it's convenient for me ;-).

(I'm substitute teaching at Sonrise FULL DAY on Friday. There will be no one here, and this is Jasmine's first time. I suspect, being a 4H lamb, she might be clueless. Kivu is being an excellent mother, but is still walking around after Tarragon with a confused look on her face -- "Is that mine? Really?" Being a Shetland, she lambed with no problem on her own. Although Jazzy has some strong maternal breeds as part of her make-up, she also has a big dose of Texel. Texels have big, wide heads, and chunky bodies, and this can sometimes cause problems for first-timers. This is one of the main reasons we chose to breed to a Shetland in the fall. However, each lamb can have characteristics from either parents, just like humans. With Latifah's ewe lambs, lamb no. 1 Coriander is larger, more like her mom, with a long back. Lamb no. 2 is smaller, finer and more Shetland-like, with a shorter tail like her sire.)

We've had some issues with Latifah although her girls are fine. She had a hard time delivering the afterbirth, and ended up requiring a shot of oxytocin. This was really hard on her, being an older ewe. The vet stopped by and checked her out. She's getting five days' worth of Penicillin G, and then hopefully after that she'll be better.

Purebred Shetlands don't need to be banded because they are naturally short-tailed. Alison and I banded the white lambs yesterday. They were completely unconcerned. We were supposed to tag as well, however apparently the taggers are not here. I have a set for the AllFlex tags, but the newborn tagger went elsewhere last fall. I'll have to track it down. Hopefully Linda (Rose Haven Farm Store) doesn't have them, because she is enjoying a holiday in Peru until April 15! A month away, right during lambing season. I also gave all the lambs Selenium-Vit E. shots 12 hours after birth. Low selenium in soils is a big cause of lamb death. In areas where the soil is selenium deficient, rapidly growing lambs can end up with White Muscle disease. It's standard practice in this region to give preventative Sel-E.

Introducing ....

Latifah paid full attention when we requested twin ewe lambs. Here they are, born at around 2 and 2:20 p.m. yesterday. Once again, she graciously shared her birth with not only myself, Alison and Claire, but also with Andrew MacKay, who dropped Iain off after church.

Latifah and the girls, about 3 hours old:




Latifah in labour ...


Emerging sac ...


First born, Coriander (9 pounds):


Immediately after birth: turn up the volume to hear "mommy noises". Latifah is a great talker; this particular sound is reserved only for babies, whether in utero during labour or after they are born. All ewes speak to their little ones using this adorable "chuckle".







Iain hanging out with Rosemary.


Wee little Coriander (have you figured out our theme for 2008 yet? :-) ...)


Head shot of Rosemary:

It amazes me ...

how fast one can run, starting from a dead sleep, at 4:30 in the morning, at the first sounds of a dog throwing up on carpet. Not only that, but how quickly the thought process kicks in ... nanoseconds ... dog - floor? - no CARPET! GO!

We're talking Olympic contender here. Bed to the front deck in 2.02 seconds.

Carpet is fine. Dog is fine, although he's banished from the outdoors off-leash until he learns the compost pile is not his personal buffet.

I, however, am wide awake on the only potential sleep-in morning this week ;-). It's all good though; I should probably go check on the sheep anyway.

Ewe and lamb are doing well this morning :-), and foster parent training

I was up at 5:30 checking. Kivu seemed a little off last night; she was eating so she wasn't emergency status but she seemed subdued and depressed. I figured she needed some calcium; do you think I could find the brand new unopened bottle of injectable calcium anywhere? I had it in my hand at one point yesterday. It has vanished. Welcome to our house ;-). (Quick, give me something else to look for so I can find it!) Instead we've taken the free choice mineral mix out every visit and she's been happily chowing down on that. She perked up within 20 minutes or so of her first "dose". The ladies-in-waiting are still waiting.

Tonight I will be going to a foster parents training meeting. Pretty much everyone who reads this will be surprised, I'm sure. We've talked about this possibility off and on for many years (since New Jersey). One thing holding us back has been Kevin's insane schedule, and now the CAS's new requirement that both parents attend training. I went to an open house prior to Christmas, and they called last week to let us know that the last training until September was to start tonight! I told them about Kev's play ... he's down to the wire and he will have practices every Thursday in April (not to mention Wednesdays and Tuesdays, and by the end pretty much every night!) They have excused him from all April meetings; he'll have to to the reading and the homework, then commit to all five May meetings.

I don't know if we'll foster. They were clear that in many cases, the training points out that the family is NOT suitable to do care. I do know that last year, a family I know asked us to do respite care for their children, and we couldn't because of the new requirements for full training. It would have been a blast; our children all did homeschool swim lessons together, got along famously, and it would have been like a fun weekend sleepover. These kids were treatment kids, so the remittance would have been substantial as well. At this point, we are mostly open to doing respite care. I had a great chat with two tenth-graders at "Maple in the County" on the weekend who had spent most of their lives in care, asking them "What makes a good foster family?" Food for thought. They didn't think very highly of the local CAS :-). I'd like to make some comment about "Ah, the cynicism of youth" but since I haven't lived their lives I think I'll stay quiet instead. Tough road to walk. Anyway, EYES WIDE OPEN, we will dabble our toes in this!

More pics :-)

On Alison's lap ... he's very outgoing (which will be a problem when he's older, so we have to stop playing with him shortly!)


The little guy has already discovered the wonders of leafy second-cut alfalfa ... as a bed :-). The green bowl contains a warm soy meal/molasses mash for mom.


Because his mama is still in full fleece, it's time to get dressed. It's going to be a bit chilly tonight, and Kivu won't recognize the fact due to her long staple. So on with the lamb coat, made last year from a wool blanket. It fits him, only due to the fact that I threw it in the washing machine after last season and it shrunk :-).


"Lookee me, Ma!"


Notice the shake and the yawn ... pretty much every thing they do is adorable at this age ;-). Please pardon the lack of colour ... a couple of weeks ago I fiddled with the settings and did this. Since these videos were taken, I did fix it. We'll call it mood lighting :-).




And one last video clip ... he's a mover and a shaker!

First lamb of the year! I was DEAD wrong in my prediction ...

I thought Kivu would lamb last, sometime around April 11. Here she is, proudly showing off her new little ram lamb, born some time this morning (while I was judging the intermediate Science Fair submissions at Sonrise Christian Academy). I believe he is a black gulmoget (think doberman-coloured) ... but he could just be plain black like his daddy Spencer. He doesn't seem nearly as small as I thought a purebred Shetland lamb would be ... mind you, he is a single.


And here are the two ladies-in-waiting, who are presently attempting to climb out of their pen and into the hut where I've given new mom and babe some privacy. Jasmine is on the left (she was the one supposed to lamb in the next couple of days) and Latifah on the right (I think she has a ways to go, but hey ... obviously I'm clueless :-) ...).


At least tonight, I will have a functional flashlight after my visit to town this morning. Alison and I went out for night check at 9:30 last night with no light. We assessed movement by moonlight! Can't believe I forgot to get that ready in advance in my lambing kit.

One down, two more to go!