Say hello to Indigo Bunting, 2012′s first Sheep of the Week, and consummate bottle lamb!

He wishes you a very Happy New Year, and hopes you’re braving this windy, cold weather as toastily-warm and wool-clad as he is!

He also loves to pose for the camera and have to his picture taken (actually, that isn’t true at all. It’s a rare photo of Indigo that isn’t a snout-first shot of a quickly approaching, hungry lamb.).

Indigo was born this past April to Dakota (whose own Mama, Amelia, I like to think had the vague idea she had a new baby grandlamb in the world), as part of a LAMBALANCHE (seriously, they just kept coming that day).

In the photo above, he’s less than a minute old.

For whatever reason– maybe because she was a first-time mama, and didn’t quite understand motherhood yet– Dakota rejected her twins, and refused to nurse them. We raised them as bottle lambs, and grew very, very attached.

As you can see, he’s always been a little on the little side. We’ve also always had a very soft spot (and a pocket full of secret animal crackers) for him, so he has good reason to expect a little special treatment.

 He has a chubby little woolly face, a sassy walk, and the corners of his mouth always seem to be quirked up into a smirk– unless maybe he’s pursing them in anticipation of a handful of treats.

Besides all that though, he’s a bit of an ambassador and definitely a mascot– he’s the Lamb Who Lived. Also, it’s likely that, if you come visit the farm, he’s the one whom you’ll meet first (and, subsequently, fall in love with first). I know that soon enough the spring will bring us new lambs to fawn over, and Indigo will grow out of his spoiled-rotten ways, but, until then, he can enjoy his special place here at JMF.

 This post is devoted to Kestrel, the Inscrutable Lamb.

Kestrel and Emu

In shepherding, there is the concept of the moneymaker: the sheep who doesn’t need you, with whom you barely interact, who costs you no extra time, resources, or heartache. This sheep is so solidly dependable, so doggedly healthy, so constant, that you forget he’s there. He’s the polar opposite of the undersized underdog, the charming little lamb who, bottle fed, fights off one ailment after another, and, in so doing, wins your heart. There is no sweet anecdote about the moneymaker– no story about our relationship to one another, no one little quirky behavior, no dramatic and eventful birth.

Despite seeing him at least twice a day for every day of his entire life, I still don’t have something nice and pat and engaging to say about Kestrel. Since the entire point of this Sheep of the Week series– heck, the entire point of the whole farm– is to help our readers and shareholders have as close a relationship as possible to our sheep, there isn’t much to recommend such an inscrutable lamb.

Baby Kestrel with Mama Liberty

I bring this up to illustrate two points: A) With an eye solely towards wool production, a big, healthy wether is spot-on perfect– Kestrel has a larger body, which means more fleece, and doesn’t have to put any energy towards reproduction, which means a more consistently nice fleece. So, although there may not always be a darling story for Sheep of the Week with lots of cute lamby photos to illustrate it, a sheep like Kestrel is pulling more than his weight, wool-wise, on this farm. He acts how a sheep is supposed to act. He is what a sheep is supposed to be.

The other point is: B) Sometimes a sheep is unknowable, and that’s okay. You don’t have to have a relationship with, or a story about, every single one. We spend hours out in the pasture, trying to get to know and understand them. Then we come inside, and try to share with others what we’ve observed. In the end, though, a sheep can resist all attempts at anthropomorphisation, maintain his privacy and circumspection, and remain an entirely mysterious domestic creature. I love him all the more for it.

I didn’t think such a big ‘ole bruiser of a lamb would be teaching me a lesson in simplicity and acceptance, but, so he has, and this is it:

A sheep is not always going to be your friend– a sheep is simply itself, which is itself a hard thing to know.

And that’s this week’s Sheep of the Week.

NEXT WEEK on SotW, (of course, now that I’ve somberly undermined the whole premise of “get to know a sheep!”): Who’d you like to hear more about? I remember someone asking about Miss Martha, and someone else asking who would win “most hilarious”– do you all have any other requests?

What a weekend! Saturday was our Fall Shearing party, and yesterday saw Amy & I on our feet all day, hanging out next to the good folks of Polyface Farm at the inaugural Shenandoah Valley Agri-Tourism Festival. Today, we’re just trying to catch our breath a little bit and let the dust settle. But it’s also a Monday, which means it’s time for you all to meet Piper, our Sheep of the Week.

Whenever I introduce visitors to the farm to her, I always look at them solemnly and say, “This is Piper. We have a special bond.”

Of course, she probably has no idea that she’s my Special Chosen Favorite Lamb Forever, and it’s probably out of bounds for me to have even picked a favorite, but she was the first lamb I ever saw, met, held, or bottle fed, because she (and her brother, Petrel) were the first lambs born at Juniper Moon Farm this past spring.

They came as an early surprise– Paul, Amy’s husband, was over at the farm, getting the lambcam ready for lambing season while Susan was out buying feed, and found Piper out in the field, all alone (by all rights, he could also claim “we have a special bond” privileges). After rounding up some likely suspects– “was it you who just gave birth out in the pasture?”– they found Petrel together with their real mama, Jekyll.

As the first lamb of the season, Piper got a ton of attention. We’ve got extensive photographic documentation of her first weeks, as I figure is probably the case for all firstborn children. She was the only lamb we had around for a good week or so– everyone wanted to see her and hold her. Or smell her.

As you all know, we had a problem this spring with White Muscle Disease, and lost Petrel. Piper, as well as the several other lambs from the spring crop, was too weak to drink enough milk from their mothers. This meant I spent a lot of time bottle feeding Piper.

This is how I got so schmoopily attached to her.

And she loved me back, I told myself. She probably just loved getting 8 oz. of warm milk replacer every 4 hours. Everyone warned me that it wouldn’t last, that she’d grow up and not remember who I was anymore.

That little lamby face, though, with pushed-out feed-me-a-bottle-right-now lips? Running towards you at top speed, while baa-ing?

Too much.

Piper, being older, was around to help out when the other lambs were being born.

Here she is, wondering why Susan’s delivering a lamb– I think this one’s Indigo– instead of feeding her another bottle.

And now, these days, she’s all grown up and doing great. She’s by no means the biggest lamb, despite being the oldest (that honor goes to Peregrine, but, more on him another week). Even though she doesn’t run up to be fed any more, and has lost a little of her lamby cuteness, she’s more tolerant of human attention & affection than the other mama-raised lambs are. And special bond or no, she’s still my favorite.

NEXT WEEK on SotW: A sheep you’ve never met before!

NEXT NEXT WEEK on SotW: Get your votes in for the sheep (or goat) you’d like to meet!

I thought you all would like to meet Catalina. She’s very amiable and sweet, an attentive mama, and an all-around lovely ewe with a good sense of humor. Definitely one of my favorites.

She came to Juniper Moon Farm in the winter of 2009, together with a bunch of other ewes, all of whom were named after islands. Since she was from California, she was named after the island right outside L.A.

If you’ve read the blog for a long time, you probably know her best as the mother of Rushworth (aka Tiny Lamb), who was born during the lambing season before last (spring 2010), but only lived for a little while.

However, this year, her baby is Finch– this photo of them is from the noisy week we weaned the lambs. I’m happy to report that he’s doing just fine. I’m also happy to report– in the interest of telling you all about Catalina, of course– that during the delivery, Susan had her whole arm up inside Catalina (that is what it means to love your flock!).

The one thing she absolutely cannot stand is the heat, since she’s one of our bigger girls. This past summer, she was constantly on our watch list for heat exhaustion, so Zac and I got to spend a lot of quality time getting to know her (that is to say, “putting icepacks under her armpits.” She was nice about it, though.). On one of the worst days, the lanolin on her head actually melted out of her fleece and pooled above her eyebrow (the melting point of lanolin, wikipedia tells us, is 100F). When it dried, it dried black– and so Catalina spent the rest of the summer looking like she’d spent the night previous at Sheep Fight Club.

And the last thing about Catalina is that she’s really easily identifiable. When her fleece is long, like it was when I met her, she has a wide, thick shock of bangs that covers the front of her face (for a long time, I thought of her as “the one with bangs”). When it’s less close to spring shearing, though, you can still pick her out pretty well, thanks to her big yellow frisbee of an eartag (she came that way).So, when you all come out to our shearing party this coming Saturday, you’ll be able to pick her out from the crowd and say hello!

NEXT WEEK on SotW: Meet Piper!

I was thinking that you all might have liked to come along with us as we fed the animals last evening, so that you could see for yourselves how the flock was doing.

We always start with the lambs. We call them over (you yell, “HOE! HOE-OH-HOE! HOE!”, which means, in sheep-language, “Come and get it!” We had a farmstay guest whose little daughter called this, “make the stampede”), and it looks like this:

They really do run that fast.  (Note from Jenny:  AT you.)

Then we feed the dogs:

and then one of the braver and more beautiful chicks from this year (he’s looking like a rooster, but he hasn’t yet crowed & really sealed the deal. We’ve got our fingers crossed.) comes up and tries to steal a bite:

After sitting with the lambs for a few minutes, checking out how they’re acting and how they’re feeling, we leave the lambs’ pasture,

and go over to feed the ewes:

Just like with the lambs, we spend a few minutes watching them after they eat.

They’ve worn a path in the grass between their feed troughs, the hay bale, and the mineral feeder– they’re that predictable.

After that, we go pay a visit to the boys. They aren’t getting any supplemental grain, because they don’t need it, but we always are looking for excuses to spend time with them, since they’re so full of personality. So Zac brings them a few treats, and they go wild.

Jack would like to take this opportunity to say a very sexy-face hello to any lady goats who may be reading this morning (that’s his tongue sticking out. He’s tasting the air.). It’s about that time of year again– he’s smelling quite goaty these days.

And, I know it was foolishness to even try and capture how nice of an evening it was, but, I tried.

On Monday, our fantastic, much-loved, representing-the-USA-in-the-shearing-Olympics shearer, Emily Chamelin, came by to take all the wool off of our Cormo lambs and Angora goat kids that were born this spring.

We had about a million lambs to get through, and it took us about three hours– most of the afternoon– of straight shearing (I say ‘we,’ but that’s too much credit: I just watched, took photos, and cleaned up the wool once it came off the sheep).

You’re bursting with questions:

Why did you guys shear the lambs at all? And why just the lambs? And what’s going to happen to that wool? And don’t they need that wool for the coming autumn & winter– why take it off now?

I was a bit confused myself when I learned we were shearing the lambs– but once I learned why, it makes perfect sense.

Here’s why (bad news version): the lambs have had a really rough summer. They were born fighting White Muscle Disease, and, once they’d finally beaten that, were faced with some nasty Barberpole Worm and a scorching-hot summer. The adult sheep & goats came through the summer rather unfazed, but the little ones took it harder, being just babies and all. But stress like that shows in the fleece. It’s harder to shear, which results in a greater number of second cuts, and is also more prone to breakage. Frankly, we wouldn’t want to sell yarn made from fleece like that. So we’re shearing it off.

And here’s also why (good news version): With all that fleece off, the lambs & kids will suddenly be a whole lot cooler. This will prevent any heat stress that they might yet experience during the hot weather we have left between now and Full-On Autumn. It also makes them a whole lot more eager to eat– one of the biggest problems in the hottest weather is that animals will sometimes refuse to. Since they’re cooler, their metabolism speeds up slightly: enough to make them lots hungrier, but not so much that they’re burning off the extra calories they’ll be taking in.

In other words, this our way of squeaking in a bonus growth spurt. They’re literally unburdened by their fleece, eager to eat, and quicker to put on weight.

The lambs & kids will go in to winter with extra weight on them, which will keep them warmer. Since we’re shearing them so early in the fall, their fleece will definitely be long enough for use in the Spring 2012 CSA clip– never fear! Plus, since they’ll be healthier, their fleece will be all the nicer.

Admittedly, however, they do have a bit of that naked, bewildered, “who am I?” look that only a freshly-shorn sheep can have (I believe this look is called sheepish).

And as for the wool: although it’s not going to be milled, that doesn’t mean it’s going to go to waste! We’ve had quite a bit of interest in the wool mulch we’ve been putting on our garden– people are having a hard time finding it as a commercial product, and have asked us to make ours available. No word yet on when or how, but, if you’re interested, watch this space– you’ll soon be able to get your three bags full of Cormo lambswool mulch.

A time comes, in the lives of all younguns, from which there is no escape: the time to grow up. The lambs are being weaned right now, which is kind of like the first day of Kindergarten, the first time you go to sleep-away camp, and the first time your parents say, “Sorry, but you need to pay your own rent from now on,” all rolled into one.

Their mamas would eventually wean them on their own, but we’re giving them a hand by physically separating out the lambs & kids. The babies are in the little paddock next to the barn (“lamb jail”), and the mamas are in the adjoining pasture. Which makes for some really poignant moments:

I’ve learned that the name of the game for shepherds in the summertime is A) keeping the sheep cool & hydrated, and B) keeping ahead of parasites. Since it’s warm for such a long time in Virginia, plus so rainy and humid (not that I’m complaining about the rain! I’ll always, always, take rain instead of the alternative.), the parasites really thrive. Which is no good for the sheep. The logic of weaning is that a ewe will better be able to handle, say, Haemonchus contortus, if she isn’t also producing milk for a pair of big ole lambs at the same time.

And, I mean, some of these lambs are big. I’ve seen a pair of twins get a running start for their mother’s udder, and dive upwards at her bag with so much force that they lift her off the ground.

Still, as much as it makes sense, and as much as it needs to be done, I still feel awful for the little guys– suddenly taken from their mothers (and their mothers’ milk), made to eat only hay & grain, and forced to share quarters with Charley & Churchill. It’s got to be upsetting. In fact, I know it’s upsetting– they cry constantly.

So, we’ve been introduced to the entire symphonic range of lamb-plaint: there are short cries and long ones, which span several octaves. They can do whiny, plaintive, frightened, angry, miserable, and insistent.

This is supposed to go on for five days, which is as long as it takes for the mothers to stop lactating & dry up. So, when we reunite them, the mothers won’t have any milk, and the babies will get by on just pasture, hay, and a little grain.

The only lambs who aren’t in lamb-jail are the ones who’ve already been weaned, in one way or another. The black Border Leicester lambs have already been weaned, of course– they were separated from their mothers a few days before we brought them to our farm. And Scarlett & Indigo, whose mother never allowed them to nurse, were bottle lambs, and were weaned off of the bottle right around Spring Shearing.

So, lambs, it’ll just be five days. And then you’ll be grown-ups!

When Susan asked me to do a Farm Update-y, picture-heavy post, I was totally stymied as to what to say. June is almost over, and I can barely name a single remarkable thing that’s happened. The weather has been neither too hot nor too dry (good for the garden, and a godsend for the animals), the goats have stopped escaping into the woods (lesson learned: check the fencing for holes before letting the sheep & goats move in), and we’ve had lots of delightful farmstays and visitors.

I was talking to one of our guests this morning, saying how much fun it is to have company– a reason to sit down all together & eat thoughtfully-prepared meals, an excuse to linger in the pasture during morning & evening chores, a chance to explain & talk over the why and how of farm life.

And she said to me, “You know, I bet guests are also nice because they remind you of how lucky you are!”

Oh my goodness. Am I ever.

I am ever so lucky to get to look over these animals– to watch them amble across the pasture to have their heads scratched, watch their wool grow out, and to explain, over & over, why Ernie wears jingle bells (do you know?).

To watch the lambs grow up (at shockingly different rates! That’s Sav-A-Lam on the left, versus mother’s milk on the right).

To be exposed to all different sorts of sheep– this is Brendan, Feenat’s beautiful ram lamb– that have inspired me to, um, buy and read this book. It may in fact be the only Nobel-earning book in which Icelandics feature prominently.

I just don’t think it gets any better than this.

ETA: Yikes! Looks like some pictures weren’t loading for some people. They’ve been re-uploaded, and should be appearing now.

Hey everyone, it’s Caroline. Susan’s asked me to keep you guys well-supplied with lamb pictures and well-updated as to our goings-on at Juniper Moon. So, here’s how we’ve been doing in the last two weeks (goodness gracious! has it really been two weeks!?) since Shearing Day.

After worming the whole flock last week, we waited three days for the sheep & goats to expel their worms onto the old, to-be-rested pasture (where, deprived of their ovine & caprine hosts, the parasites will die! most of them, at any rate.). Then we moved everyone into the back pasture, behind the house (N.B.: “behind the house.” There is nothing like rolling out of bed in the morning and seeing the animals all lined up along the back fence!). This pasture’s been resting for over a month, and it looks great: fresh, lush, tall, and untrammeled. As you can see, Liberty’s pretty happy with it.

Another good thing about the back pasture is that it’s bordered by woods on two sides, and so it not only affords the animals plenty of good shade, but also affords the goats plenty of fun branch-and-scrub-nibbling. The fancy word (I guess it’s not actually a fancy word. It’s a specific term, maybe? I’d never heard it used like that before.) for brushy-things-that-goats-eat is browse*. All the goats are hard at work stripping the leaves off of whatever branch they can reach.

This is Orion, one of the first three Border Leicester lambs to come to the farm. I think it’s so funny how much he and the other black lambs have changed color since they’ve been here– all the sun they’re getting down South has bleached the tips of their locks! I think his suntan makes him look all the more beautiful, and I am absolutely dying to work with his fleece next year (I tell him this frequently. I don’t think he takes it as a compliment.).

Cini is still lying around all twitterpated for the love of Lucy, and spends nearly all of his time hanging around her, despite her protestations. I mean, we’re sure he was able to get her with pup, but I don’t think she’s too happy about him always being after her. Honestly, though, I’ll be happier (and less irrationally embarrassed!) once Evening Feeding doesn’t coincide with The Canine Family Planning Hour.

And these two charmers are Puffin and Indigo: ex-bottle-babies, escape artists (we had to put up a whole ‘nother roll of woven-wire fencing to keep them out of the backyard!), and all-around dreamboats. Most of the other bottle babies have been entirely weaned, and don’t run up to be fed any more. It makes me feel a little mean to give them the cold shoulder (“tough love!” advise the books on raising sheep), but, in a strange way, I’m a little glad they keep running up to me. It’s nice to be loved so enthusiastically. Even if they don’t love me at all but are only hoping for a little more of that sweet, sweet milk replacer.

And, lastly, 0ur two littlest lambs, the ones who we are still supplementing, are spending the night in the barn tonight, since they’re calling for strong thunderstorms and hail. Scarlett is a lot stronger than she was even a week ago, but she’s nowhere near as robust as the other lambs (however, she’s got everyone beat in the beauty department. I can’t get over how pretty of a little lamb she is.). And Downy had a particularly bad day (he & his sister, Warbler, took a trip to the vet to get ear-tagged, tail-docked, and, in his case, castrated), so we’re keeping him out of the hailstorm. As our vet put it, “He can’t really afford to have too many bad days in a row.”

So, all in all, I don’t guess there’s too much going on at the farm these days. Mamas eating, babies growing, temperatures rising, and thunderstorms rolling in on what’s nearly a daily basis. If this is what summer’ll be like, I’ll be happy.

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* So, guess what, guys? The animal-specific use of browse (“brushy shoots & branches”) is actually the original meaning of the word! Only later, in the 1870′s, apparently, did browse further evolve from meaning “graze upon shoots & branches” to mean “peruse books.” Neat! Also, sort of poetic!

Every night, Piper and Wren bed down together in the barn just after dark. By 5 a.m., Chanticleer, one of our roosters, is snuggled between them. I’ll try to get a picture tonight, but by that hour I’m usually so out of it that I forget to take the camera out with me.

I apologize for the light posting this weekend; my sister is visiting from Texas, plus our friends Maggi, Caroline and Betsy are staying over, and Farm Manager Caroline’s boyfriend is up from Chapel Hill for the weekend. We’ve had a great time, but not much time for thoughtful writing. I’ll try to sit down and write a long post tomorrow.