The very best thing about traveling for me is coming home. Oh I love staying in hotels and eating in new restaurants and especially meeting shareholders and readers. But coming home to the farm and my flock is such a joy!

The new chickens are settling in fine and they are very nice, but not nearly as nice as our previous chickens. I hope they’ll get a bit tamer with time, but as long as they are making eggs and providing barnyard atmosphere, it’s all good.

Miss Linda is in heat which means that she wants to be where the action is instead of stuck in the small paddock with the doelings (female baby goats).

She’s been mooning around all morning makes loads of noise and looking at me with pleading eyes.

How could I say no to that face? It wasn’t easy, let me tell you.

In other breeding news, Jack seems to have gotten the job done with Hannah, Nanny McPhee and Mrs. Doubtfire. Jack was a bottle baby three years ago and he is without a doubt the gentlest creature on our farm. I love him so!

I am terribly worried about Truman, our only Cormo ram. When we picked him up in New York he was underweight, something I attributed to the fact that he was the smallest male in the pasture and not particularly competitive at the feed trough. Just in case though, I also had Erin worm him twice since we arrived in Virginia. We’ve also been feeding him separately to make sure he’s getting enough to eat. We’ve seen no real change in him and by now he should be improving.  Besides being skinny he just seems run down. He’s getting extra vitamins with molasses and a shot of coffee every morning to give him some energy, but I don’t have a good feeling about the situation.

I’ll keep you updated on his condition. In the meantime though, I am buying another Cormo ram, just in case. I can’t take a case on having as few lambs in the spring as we had this year.

All the other sheep are thriving in the new pastures. I love seeing Buster- one of my first four sheep- looking so peaceful and content.

I let the flock out on to new pasture this morning which is always makes them happy.

And when the flock is happy, I’m happy.

So much more to write but if I don’t get to Lowes and the grocery store soon the day is going to disappear before my very eyes! More soon.

Oh, almost forgot! All of our Leaf Peeper Sock Yarn Colorways are now on sale in the shop for half price. That’s just $10 for 420 yards of super-squooshy sock yarn!  We need to make room in our inventory for some very cool stuff coming in November, so stock up while it lasts.

I am also excited to announce that our 2010 Juniper Moon Calendars are now available. This year’s calendar has all new photos AND we’ve included a schedule of most of the sheep and wool festivals and big yarn events in the U.S.  (Props to my sister who spent a million hours compiling the list and emailing the event coordinators for the 2010 dates.) I’m even more excited to announce that $1 for each calendar sale will be used to purchase a Knitting Basket from Heifer International for a family in need. I’ll keep y’all up-to-date on our progress.