I’ve gotten a handful of emails from members of Lucy’s fan club asking how she’s doing since her puppies left.

To be perfectly honest with you, Lucy seems relieved to be away from the pups and back with the flock.

Lucy and Sabine have picked up their crazy wrestling game right where they left off. This is good news for Sabine, because she’s gotten FAT while Lucy was in barn with the pups.

Lucy, on the other hand, is skinny-skinny. Nursing her babies took a lot out of her, and I’m working hard to get the weight back on her.

Sabine is on a 3/4 ration of dog food right now but Lucy is feasting on her regular kibble plus two raw eggs at every meal.

Lucy was a good mama but she’s still a puppy herself to me.

I totally missed Lucy’s 1st birthday! I am trying to catch up on my emails and just found one from the vet wishing Lucy a Happy Birthday on October 3rd.

Happy Belated Birthday, LuluMonster. I can’t remember what life was like without you and I hope I never have to find out.

In other Lucy news, our teenage Maremma is in heat. This breed usually doesn’t stand for breeding until they are 2-years-old, but anything is possibly. Obviously, I intended to breed Lucy with Cini eventually, but I’d rather wait another year for puppies, which probably means that she’ll have a litter in 6 weeks. I’ll keep you informed.

Someone- I don’t want to mention any names, but her’s rhymes with “Goosey” and she is pictured below- chewed through the lambcam cable. I’m not sure when she developed this Garbo-like desire for privacy, but she’s going to have to get over it. We’ll get a new cable and get the camera back up and running soonest, but in the meantime the lambcam is down.

The culprit.

Visitors to the farm always think it’s funny when they catch our livestock guardian dogs sleeping. What they don’t understand is that Fettucini, Sabine and Lucy stay up all night protecting the flock from predators. During the daylight, they can let their guard down and nap.

I suspect it’s sort of like working the night shift though. Daytime brings deliveries and visitors to the farm, along with our comings and goings. Sabine also has to deal with Lucy’s never-ending desire to play all the time. Lucy Goosey has no end of energy and she hasn’t quite figured out that daytime is for sleeping yet.

Sabine had the small paddock to herself the other day and spent the whole day blissfully snoozing. Good Lord, I love that dog.

This is Crush. Crush recently took a bad fall and broke her leg very badly. Surgery was required to set the bones- expensive surgery. Crush’s owner Pam is fantastic pattern designer  (remember Leda?) and she went straight home from the vet hospital and designed a pattern to try to raise the money to cover Crush’s mounting vet bills.

How sweet is this little sweater? It’s called ‘Willie’.

I mean seriously.

The tiny ear just about does me in.

I was so lucky to have so much help with my Sweet Lucy’s staggering vet bills back in January that I want to do something to pay it forward. I am going to giveaway one Half Share in Juniper Moon Farm’s 2011 Yarn (or Fiber) CSA. All you have to do is purchase a copy of Flintknit’s Willie. AFTER you’ve purchased the pattern, come back here and leave a comment wishing Crush a speedy recovery. On Monday, one winner will be chosen at random from all the entries.

Cool, right? You get a great pattern, a child you know gets a great sweater, Crush gets her vet bills paid and you are entered to win a half share in our 2011 Yarn CSA (a $100+ value). It’s a win-win-win-might win situation and you can get in on it for 6 lousy bucks. Don’t knit or think the pattern is too advanced for you? Buy the pattern anyway and consider it a $6 raffle ticket. Or- better yet-  give the pattern away to a friend.

On entry per person, please. Entries will close on Monday, May 3rd. Extra karma points for tweeting, posting on facebook and rav. The winner will be announced here on the blog and will have 24 hours to claim his/her prize. In the event that the prize is unclaimed, another winner will be chosen at random.

Good luck!

I am pleased to present to you Daisy’s twins- Willoughby and Bennett.

And Amelia’s twins- Darcy and Dashwood.

Trying to get a photo of Miss Lucy is nearly impossible these days! She is so busy playing and eating that I ended up with a whole lot of blurry pics of her in motion. Here she is eating Cini’s breakfast while Cini obeys my command to sit.

I actually had to go outside the fence to get a decent portrait of her. Our vet calls her Lucy-Goosey, which I love!

With proper supervision, Lucy is learning to coexist with the sheep and goats. Her guarding instincts were always strong but she recently found her bark and is protecting her little mini flock every night.

We alternate the dogs from pasture to pasture and with one another so that they are equally bonded to all. This effort is mostly successful, although Sabine (above) much prefers guarding the ewes and nannies to the boys, whethers and yearlings.

Miss Linda is feeling much better since the weather has warmed up. Her arthritis really bothers her when the nights and mornings are cold, but now that it’s hot, she’s moving a million times better. It’s important to remember, though, that Linda is ancient for a goat, and that every day we have with her is a gift.

Victoria, our yearling who aborted her lamb week before last, seems to be 100% again.

All of the bred ewes are absolutely enormous and most of them are already well bagged up.

I check hoo-has and bags every morning and evening for signs of impending lambs.

Only Daisy, the pregosaurus, seems close enough to lambing to move into the barn.

As you can see, she is well endowed in the udder department.

It is so hot in the barn today that we had to install a box fan in the lambcam stall.

Gonzo & Camilla and Statler & Waldorf have all been evicted from the kidding pen and are with their mamas out in the pasture now. They are nibbling on grass already and trying to keep up with their grazing moms.

Last week, Erin completed the fencing at her new house and was able to pick up Sweet William and Feenat and take them home with her.

It was bittersweet to see them leave, but I am happy that Erin now has a piece of the farm with her at home.

In other news, our chicken flock expanded by six today! We brought 6 Golden Buffs home with us from Chicken World this morning.

These six lovely ladies are four weeks old and won’t start laying until the fall.

Aren’t they sweet? We put in an order for two turkeys while we were at Chicken World, a tom and a hen. They will be just for looking at, not for eating.

And, of course, the livestock population will be expanding by 20,000 on May 1st when the honey bees arrive…

Edited to add: It seems that some of you thought I was using “Chicken World” metaphorically. I was not.

Can I be honest? I was kind of dreading getting back to the farm today. I missed my flock and my dogs and even my bed, but the lack of electricity and company were daunting. (Paige is in California visiting her father this week.) I not in the mood for roughing it in my own home.

But once I pulled into the driveway I felt my equilibrium was restored. The farm looked absolutely beautiful and it was so quiet and peaceful.

We have a few trees down.

Our driveway still hasn’t been plowed, so I had to park by the road.

Of course, my first stop was the barn to check on the lambs and kids. Dimples was modeling some serious hay-head.

The dogs were super-happy to see me.

We brought the little lambs into the barn during the storm. They don’t have as much body fat as the big sheep and they were looking a little miserable.

They were happy to see me too,

but only because I had a pocket full of animal crackers.

I love the chicken footprints in the snow.

The snow hasn’t stopped the hens from laying.

Alabama (right) is now officially bigger than his mama, Daisy (left).

It was so great to be home that not having electricity or running water didn’t seem like such a big deal. Which is good, because it doesn’t look like I’ll be getting power back tonight. And tomorrow? More snow!

]]> http://www.fiberfarm.com/2010/02/the-new-normal/feed 24 http://www.fiberfarm.com/2010/02/preparing http://www.fiberfarm.com/2010/02/preparing#comments Fri, 05 Feb 2010 14:22:30 +0000 Susan http://www.fiberfarm.com/?p=5035

So, we are getting between 26-40 inches of snow if the next two days. Yes, you read that right. Up to four flippin’ feet of snow. Enough already with the snow.

Yesterday, Paige and I took Lucy for her last post-accident check-up with Dr. Johnson.

Paige trying to get Lucy into the car.

Lucy loves everyone at Fork Union Animal Clinic; she just hates riding in the car to get there! Maremmas get very, very car sick. In spite of skipping breakfast, Lucy managed to throw up in the way back of my station wagon.

You’ll be happy to hear that Miss Lu is, according to our vet, 100% gorgeous and amazing. The tenderness on her abdomen is gone, so we can finally take her off the NSAIDs that replaced the steroids she had been taking. Her lungs and heart sound perfect. In short, Lucy is healed.

Lucy celebrated her clean bill of health by playing with Sabine in the snow, her favorite past time.

Sabine is such a good girl. She’s just good-natured and so very patient with Lucy. She also appears to need her nails trimmed.

And Cini? Cini is the hardest working dog in show biz. He always protects his flock, even the jerks like Roquefort.

This picture totally reminds me of the beginning of America’s Next Top Model.