Orphans no more and how I became a sheep keeper

I was on the way home from the Saturday Farmers Market, this was last May, Memorial weekend. The pasture with the lambing ewes is located about 1/4 mile from our land. The ranchers were in the field working with the newborns. I chatted with them, as I have done numerous times during the lambing season. Early in the spring they brought 690 ewes and each had between 2 -3 babies. It was an exceptionally cold spring, rain, hail, many moms and baby lambs did not make it. I was going over there often, several times a week to help out. This rancher has (as I found out later) a common attitude towards life stock- it is a commodity.
That last Saturday of the cold and went May the guys carried three bummer lambs from the field towards the road. They put them down at my feet- Hey Lida these are for you. I resisted and asked the guys what are they going to do with them. Not saying much, they silently looked at each other. They knew very well how upset I was with all the lost moms and babies. And I knew, the lambs will be left in the field to fetch for themselves.

I took them home in the back of my Subaru, the ranchers gave me a half a bag of milk replacer and a bottle. I put them with the chickens, brought extra hay under one of the chicken coops and made them a nice small shelter to stay out of the cold rain. One was a half day old the other two, brother and sister, were about two days old. Next day we build them a little shelter in the woodshed, a couple of days later a friend drove over here from Lenore and did her vet procedures. The same day I drove back with her to pick up penicillin, looked like one of the lambs had a slight pneumonia, she also gave me several gallons of goat milk. I spend over four weeks feeding them every 4 hours, including nights, giving the sick one penicillin shots, spending countless nights in the woodshed keeping them warm on my lap wrapped in old jackets.

They thrived and as the weather warmed up and new grass started popping up they learned grazing and drinking water from the watering can. Now they have their own sheep shed, their own fenced large pen, but they still prefer to hang out in the open, play with the chickens and munch on their feed.

They are a wonderful addition to all our creatures. Everybody loves them and of course I love them the most.

A picture are worth a thousand words, check out the greeting cards I made out of the thousands of images I took and still taking. Enjoy.

Etsy new page layout

just to illustrate new layout product detail page on etsy, actual size of the page is much large

Stay tuned.

It has been a busy and fun summer. We have new additions to our little ranch, you see one above in the banner, Little Princess. I will soon post her entire story and the story of her brother and Lady Gaga (yes, another baby lamb). In the meantime you can see view them as beautiful note cards in my etsy shop.

I'll be back soon.

Sharpen those crochet hooks and get a goat!

Getting hosed! Hand-crocheted socks for $500.
And I naively thought crocheting is boring.

Frances McCue and "The Triggering" Towns

The last day of April I went to a reading at our very independent bookstore, Bookpeople. Francis McCue, the founder of Richard Hugo's House in Seattle, poet and writer was reading from her new book "The Car That Brought You Here Still Runs." Very inspiring and intense evening. Her travels following Richard Hugo's footsteps brought her all over the Northwest. One of the small 'triggering" town she visited was LaPush. I have my own connections to LaPush, a small Native American community sitting on the very western edge of the Olympic Peninsula, forgoten by our civilization, surviving barely. A few years back we, my cameraman, Katherine and the crew of Indian education project, made a short documentary there, Circle of Courage". We enjoyed soaking in local culture, eating a lot of fresh ocean goodies, discovering hidden treasures.
Seems like LaPush is the begining and the end of my Pacific circle. First time I visited LaPush was on hunt after Raymond Carver's landscapes. We spent a nice time with Tess Gallagher in Port Angeles, and continued on to LaPush. All these little connections converging in LaPush.

Later on I will post a visual poem I created about this magical, for me, place.

"Writing is a way of saying you and the world have a chance."
Richard Hugo, The Triggering Town

More on chickens

The Femivore’s Dilemma

"Femivorism is grounded in the very principles of self-sufficiency, autonomy and personal fulfillment that drove women into the work force in the first place."
read more

My friend Bobbie of Spring Valley Garden in Troy, bravely sporting one of my hand knitted hats.

Happy Chickens have their own website

Happy Chickens have their own online presence. Visit Buffalo Girls Farm. I will be at the Moscow Food Coop Growers' Market on Tuesday selling their fabulous, yummy, very organic eggs. Our stand will also feature my friend Bobbie, of Spring Valley Garden in Troy. She will bring a wide variety of herbs and vegetable starters. See you there!

And Growers Market is on Facebook. I worked on the "facebook logo" for the Coop website last night, I think it came out nicely.