MommyCoddle

Little things, two of them incredibly cute

Oh, people. Remember my list of "Things That Are Stressing Me Out"? Well, last night at dinner the girls said to me, "Guess we can cross off 'check if sheep are pregnant', and 'find out what I need for lambs' birth', and 'set up lambing pens' "!

Totally unexpectedly, and probably for the best, I was greeted at my bedside very early yesterday morning by my breathless husband...."You've got lambs. Two of them!" He was on his way to work and just as he was pulling out, remembered something he forgot, and as he stepped out of the car to get it, he knew that the sounds he was hearing from the sheep shed were most definitely NOT Penny or May.

We have babies, people! 

I pulled on my boots and went out to the barn in the dark of yesterday morning to discover two sweet and still-wet baby lambs being every so carefully cared for by Penny. 

Those first few hours were nerve-wracking, I tell you. Watching them struggle to nurse and latch on. Me, lying under a very patient Penny and making sure her milk was starting, trying to direct teats into tiny mouths...(yes, I may have over-managed this a bit.), but little by little, under my nervous eyes, all is well. Though one is smaller, they both seem to be nursing. Dan and I took turns checking on them throughout the night and we made it with no problems. 

I couldn't have asked for a better mother. Penny is patient and calm and just the right amount of protective--that stamp of her foot at the cats wandering into her pen, or when too many people are visiting her, lets us know she needs her space. 

And the babies, keeping with the tradition of naming them with the same letter as their mother, are being called Pete and Paige. A boy and a girl. 

Next comes May. Maybe Penny's little ones will trigger something in her. She is definitely keeping a watchful eye on everything. 

Spring is most definitely just around the corner.

In other news....

I was most-honored to be asked to write something up for new-to-me site 3ThingsForMom. Joined by other lovely contributors like Heather of Rookie Moms and Pilar Guzman of MS Living (hello!?!) I shared my 3 things this week--a truth, a tip, and a find. I think some of you may recognize my truth. It was a lesson that needed some serious re-visiting in my life these days. Be sure to check out Lauren's lovely site. It is a well-crafted collection of mama-wisdom. 

My favorite way to procrastinate is to pour my energy into all the wrong things. Case and point, I'm about to do a major move and redesign of this blog. I'll be moving to a new host which requires pushing the figuartive "big red button" and moving my eight years of writing over to the new space. So if things look wonky or strange for a few days, bear with me. I hope to have things ironed out soon. 

We have a moving date! The Woodlawn house will be HOME beginning the weekend of March 9. Ack, just over a week away. Perhaps it's time to pick out a faucet for the kitchen sink? We're living in the land of chaos, but every time I step foot in that sweet old house, my heart thumps in my chest with anticipation and joy of calling it home. I can't wait to share more of the process and projects with all of you! 

Happy weekend. Happy March 1st. More soon....

 

fingers crossed

They are home.

Yesterday morning in the rain and sometimes-snow the girls and I drove to pick up our sheep from the breeder a few hours away. 

Now home and tucked in their warm pen they are being spoiled and checked on often, just because. It's so nice to look out my kitchen window, across to their pen and see two white faces looking back at me from the gate. 

So fingers crossed and prayers thrown above, this place of ours will be bouncing with a few fuzzy-headed baby lambs come spring!

Five Green Acres :: This Is Wool

MaryJo has been a familiar blog friend and faithful reader for many years. So when she emailed me a few weeks ago about a new adventure she has begun I was so excited for the opportunity to share it with all of you. Not only because she is living out one of my own "some day" dreams, but also because she is doing it with such intention, care and respect for her animals and the process. 

With a flock of five sheep, MaryJo has gone from pasture to skein to create a First Harvest of wool that is handspun and hand-dyed. Her hands have touched every step of the process, as you'll see in her beautiful and inspiring video below. And just this month she has set up shop online.

I asked Mary Jo to share a bit about herself....

I’m Mary Jo – the Momma, Wife, Farmer, Artisan of these Acres. I make things. I pursue beauty. I am utterly fascinated by process and gain immense satisfaction from living each step of this yarn, from pasture to skein. This wool is from my small flock of sheep - only five contributed to this harvest. The plants that lent their pigments to the wool were grown by me or collected within my community. This yarn sings with life that I've given it with my own two hands.

And as someone who is entering the whole new world of breeding sheep, I asked her to share how she learned about the process...

I steeped myself in books(stacks and stacks), classes, and local connections to other sheep people. Even after this First Harvest shearing, I took my time deciding what to do with it and how. There's no rush - wool keeps indefinitely if stored properly. It's all been quite experimental, and will continue to be. Attending classes at my area's annual fiber festival was the best way for me to learn how to spin and card. There are also many local guilds for spinning and knitting. Ravelry has several boards on keeping sheep as well as in processing the fleece, but many folks utilize small mills to do a lot of the processing, which is also a great option. It's a steep learning curve, but I was comforted at the very start by the notion one farmer gave me that sheep are so easy that they're what many farmers switch to when they retire.

I also asked her to share her vision for the future of This Is Wool....

I'm currently working on some pattern designs to complement the beautiful variations in this First Harvest wool and hope to release them in the next month or so. We also just finished shearing the Second Harvest of wool, which I'll be washing and drying outside before the temps dip too low. Because of the drought this year, all of the dyeing will be done with acid dyes. Second Harvest will have a look all its own because of this, but I'm satisfied with the decision to keep the sparse dye plants for the critters that will need them over the winter. And, as much as I love the spinning process, (I really, really do) First Harvest will be the only one to offer handspun skeins, making this vintage of yarn extra special.

Take a look at this beautiful video that walks you through Mary's process from pasture to skein. I promise, you're going to want a flock of sheep of your own after watching this...

This is wool. First Harvest: Backyard from Mary Jo, FiveGreenAcres on Vimeo.

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MaryJo's First Harvest is 2.5 oz/100 yard skeins of 2-ply, handspun, plant-dyed wool in worsted weight. You can find it in a whole range of beautiful colors on her website Five Green Acres. 

getting the girls married

The girl sheep, that is.

Wednesday night, I kind of felt like I needed to throw a bachelorette party. After a few months of searching, and through the help of a 4-H friend we finally found suitable husband material for the sheep. Being the old-fashioned girl that I am, I've been referring to this little rendevous as taking the sheep to get married. 

Thursday morning, bright and early (and with a vomitting child to boot!) one of Dan's wonderful customers and farmer-friends showed up with his trailer and helped us load up the sheep to take them off to a breeder a few counties away. 

Danielle, who owns the ram, and I have talked on the phone several times to figure out plans for this day and for her to field a lot of my questions. Do they need to bring anything with them? An overnight bag? Toiletries? Just the sheep, she assured me. 

For the next two months, the sheep will live with their new ram friend at Danielle's farm where they will ahem, get married and (fingers crossed), pregnant. Sheep have a gestation period of about 145 days, so if all goes well, there will be new little lambs in early spring. 

Meanwhile, things seems strange around here without the girls. There were some tears at bedtime last night--worries about them in their new home. How much they are already missed. Requests to visit them next week. I have to admit, I really miss them, too. I keep looking up at the clock when it strikes five and wondering if Emma has fed them yet. And should I haul over a bucket of water? And did they romp around before you let them back into their pen? 

After dinner last night I told Dan, next year, I think we should host the wedding.

Coming off the county fair high

I'm not even sure where to begin with this post. I think we're all still recovering from last week's hot, exhausting but oh so fun week at the fair. There are still sheep blankets and halters on my mudroom, coolers in the corner of my kitchen, extension cords in my dining room. 

From Tuesday on, it felt like we touched down at home long enough to change clothes, shower, collapse on the sofa for twenty minutes and then get back in the car and do it all over again. 

But of course, the big highlight was our inaugural year of showing lambs. 

I grew up in 4-H. Showing my sister's lambs before I was even "legal" 4-H age all the way until I became too old when I was 18. So going through this now, with my own children has been a pretty special experience. 

On Friday, Emma stepped into the showring for the first time, in a novice Showmanship class. If it was ballet or tap, I think I might be labelled as one of those "dance moms". Sitting there on the bleachers watching her show it took every once of self-control for me to not blab frenzied, whispered advice from the sidelines. I will admit to giving her a few exaggerated reminders in sign-language form to keep her eyes on the judge when her sweet wandering eyes were paying more attention to what was going on outside the ring, than in. 

But even without my frenzied coaching from the bleachers, my sweet Emma won her showmanship class. She was a pro out there. Cool and calm. Smiling. And working hard. I was proud. (And so was she.)

The hardest part of the fair, comes at the end. To clarify, the lambs Emma took to the fair, were not the girls from Sarah. These were two lambs that we got in May, raised specifically to be part of the 4-H Market Lamb project. 

I tread lightly here as I tell the rest of this story. The end of the fair for a market lamb means just that, it is time for market. Saturday night, the animals are auctioned and sold. And they don't come home. 

Emma and I had talked about this long before we made the decision to get the lambs. We talked about whether or not she could handle it. I explained to her that she was giving the lambs a wonderful home--with love, attention, care, green grass, fresh hay. A much better alternative to some generic feed lot type of existence. In the end, she decided she wanted to do it.

I admit, there were tears early on. But as summer progressed she seemed to settle in. Then the girls arrived and they soothed the concern even more. She'd always have May and Penny.

I was suprised Saturday night, as I sat in the front row of the auction how emotional the whole thing would be for me. I'm sure it was the long week of exhaustion as much as anything else. But I found myself fighting back tears for several moments. The sounds of the auctioneer. The 4-Hers walking their animals through the ring. Another mother taking pictures of her son, with his grand champion animal, getting teary-eyed behind her camera lens.

I'm sure for many people, from the outside, it seems like something too hard to handle. But I can tell you that these kids work hard and take good care of their animals. They know them. They've cared for them. If anything, it's more respectful and respectable. And the people there, the buyers, are there more for the kids and the community and the small farms than they are for the animals. Better prices can certainly be found other places. There's much more behind this sale. 

I stood outside the showring Saturday night with Emma, waiting with her for her turn to go in. Everything seemed okay, until I suddenly felt the thump of her head into my chest. And then the tears began to flow. She didn't want to do this. Lily had been so good. She had won the blue ribbon for her. She didn't want to sell her. It wasn't fair.

Of course, being the strong, calm and collected mother that I am (not really) the tears began for me, too. I remembered all of this. I had done and felt and experienced all of this as well. We talked through it again and despite wanting to snatch up that lamb and take it home with me, I sent her into the ring. Through tears she put on her smile. 

When she walked out, the lamb was sold. To our local Senator, active in our fair, our community and for our county's farmers. He was working at the auction and had been serving as a superintendent of the fair. He pulled Emma aside and told her he had a field of nine lambs, and one more would make it ten. He was taking Lily home to his farm. 

I'm convinced it was a little gift from God to Emma. A sweet blessing. 

I really can't imagine a better way for her first year to go. Her "what if I don't want to do this next year" has changed to "when we do this next year....". I'm not sure what form it will take--breeding sheep, market lambs, but we'll definitely be hanging our sign in the sheep barn again. 

As always, thanks for sharing in these stories with me, friends.

More soon....xo.

(P.S. Thank you to my cousin Katie, for being chief photographer during the show, so I could, you know, sit on the sidelines and coach.)