The New Goose and Chicken Run

CIRRUS and Sal are so glad their puddle pond has melted.  It was frozen for several days.  

I love the ridges on their necks.    

Here are pictures of the new goose and chicken run.  It is really nice.  It looks a little over built in these pictures but it looks good in the whole scheme of things and I love being able to stand up in it.  Now the geese can swim at night when the water in the tub isn't frozen and skate if it is frozen.  I am not sure they like to skate though.

I just wish the geese wouldn't try to escape at night. They pace and dig and I am afraid they are going to let in what we have tried so hard to keep out.  

The geese love to get out in the morning and hang out all day with the sheep.  I wonder what they will do when we get chickens again.  It has been so cold that I think it might be better to wait until next spring to find out.

A New Winter

Winter has arrived early to Cabin Spring Farm.  I don't think it got above 30 degrees today and it is supposed to get down in the teens again tonight.

Sal was walking on thin ice on the puddle pond this morning and broke through.  She scrambled out in a hurry.  They now have their blue heated bucket for drinking water.  The sheep are loving the new hay and the geese like it too.  The geese like to line up at the hay feeder next to the sheep but the sheep go back and forth between the feeders and the geese have to keep an eye out so as not to get trampled.  A new thing to worry about.

I got back from Oklahoma last night.  There was a dusting of snow there.  I thought I was going to have a couple of nice days while the cold moved into Virginia, but it was unseasonably cold in OK,  and windy.  It was my annual sister's trip and Judy found us a nice cabin in Medicine Park OK, 3 miles from the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge.  This refuge was the beginning of bringing Bison back from almost extinction.

We sang "Home On The Range"multiple times, told Bison jokes, or at least one, and got to see one Longhorn cow, a bunch of Prairie Dogs, and a small herd of Bison.  The bison are really cool animals.  The preserve has a bison auction  every year and I would be tempted to invite one to live at Cabin Spring Farm BUT we don't exactly have a range.  I wonder what the sheep would think of a resident bison?

O.K. the joke--   There were these two cowboys riding the range and they came across some buffalo.  One said to the other, "Now that is one really ugly animal, I mean UGLY".  The other agreed profusely and they rode off.  One buffalo looked at the other and exclaimed, "now those are discouraging words".  Not sure if it is funny or not, I keep changing my mind.

Back to the farm, farm chores, and farm clothes covered with hay.  Pictures tomorrow.

Where Does HARM Lurk?

 I had one of those draining days.  When I got home and needed to be refilled, I called a friend and then I went down to talk to the animals and hang out.

 There were turkey vultures gliding overhead, when I took the above picture.  I love to watch Cirrus and Sal turn an eye to the sky.  I asked them if they could tell a hawk from a turkey vulture at so great a distance.  They didn't answer vocally but maybe that was a yes.  Now that the geese are big, hawks are not a problem, theoretically.  When we have chickens again or when Cirrus and Sal have a family, I  imagine they will know what to do.   But how do they distinguish between friend and foe?  A few days ago, two neighborhood dogs ran across the property.  I yelled at them but the geese were silent.  Did the geese decide that since the dogs did not come up to the fence and look at them, that they were not a threat and it was best to remain silent?

The meetings that drained me today were filled with negativity and history, relationships and communications, or lack of.  It was all about "you can't do …….  or ……….. will happen.  Where does harm lurk?

I am on the board of a very special organization and the chair of PR and publicity.  I am still at the stage where I have hope and enthusiasm and I am looking for a place to make a positive change.  I NEED a starting point but I had to repeat that many times before I got the support I needed from my committee.

I am often accused of being a GIF (a good ideas fairy).  O.K., I get that many people do not like over zealous new bees, but please just offer a place from where change can begin.

So, there are days like today and there are days like yesterday.  In the morning, yesterday, I worked with kids (always refreshing), and then I came home and emptied the geese's puddle/pond.  I went down to the creek and collected some smooth stone to put on the bottom and then filled it again.  John said it was clear when he went down to let the geese out this morning but when they got in it , they muddied it up.  Nothing like it was though.  I just need to collect some additional stones.

When there was green in the water I found myself asking, "where does harm lurk?" I  moved the geese's overnight pen to new grass and gave the sheep their Garlic Barrier ™ .  Now I can go away for a few days to get even more renewed, feeling that harm does not lurk nearby.

Halloween- Boo

Out in the county, we don't get many "trick-or-treat" ers.  Sometimes, like today, I am in town when the  Lexington area children parade down the streets picking up treats from all the stores.  Fun to see but unfortunately not many exciting costumes.

Every change of season is like Halloween to the sheep; scary.  Now that it has gotten cold in the mornings, I might where a sweatshirt with the hood up or an orange hat when I go out to the barn in the morning.  When winter arrives, maybe even gloves and a scarf, whoa that is scary.  Come spring it might be sunglasses, and summer a big hat.

Sheep seem to take things in mostly through sight.  The geese have a keen visual awareness but don't seem to mind change.  Some people would say sheep are dumb because the changes in clothing frighten them, but think about it, they don't change their clothing accept in April and that really frightens them.  It is like Halloween all over again.

Maybe it is good thing we don't get many witches and goblins.

What Does It Mean?

Ukraine 61 United States 58--  Not football or basketball, it is the viewing numbers on this blog over the last week.  I love it.  What search word brought them to the 6 sheep and a Llama blog in Rockbridge County, VA?

 It is fun fantasizing that one soul in Ukraine somehow found the peacefulness of our farm and shared it with a friend who shared it with a friend who………..  I sincerely hope, that is what happened.    I hope that no one will tell me how else the numbers can get so high.  It is the first time that any country had higher numbers than the U.S.

I get viewers from countries I have never heard of and then I go look them up.  I follow a few blogs and have read a fiber one from Canada, but no blogs from any other country.  I must find one.  I bet there are more Ukrainians that speak and read english than there are Americans that read Ukrainian.

Other Countries on the list this week are France, United Kingdom, Russia, Argentina, and Canada.  I have a fairly regular reader in Denmark and one in Latvia as well.  I know who follows from Denmark but not from Latvia.

O.K. off to search for a blog somewhere away.

Remember, if you know how my numbers get so high; if you know "What it Means"
DON'T TELL ME!

PROTOTYPES

I wonder what the average number of prototypes is before a product is produced.  With the shoe thing I am trying to come up with I think I am up to 3 or 4.

Today, I have been working on some puppet prototypes.  The first 2 didn't work out that great but almost everything that doesn't turn out as planned, becomes something else.  It is always interesting to see what they become.  I saw a show once where they talked about things that had been produced, that didn't sell that great for the intended use, but were later manufactured in a different area for an alternative  purpose.  Some of them really took off in their new life.  Wish I could remember an example.

The puppets may get a another chance to become puppets before I go to plan B.  Puppets are just so cool.  To turn them into something else would be like telling an artist he/she must become an accountant.

I do like the yarn I have been spinning out of 3 bins of colored bits of fleece that have been mounting up for a long time.  I am using the yarn to make some small purses.  I am really in color mode this fall.

 Maybe I will go to natural colors when winter comes.

Anyway, I am having fun making prototypes of Pockets, Pouches, Purses, and Puppets.

Fine Fall Days

A little frost, a little wind, day time temperatures in the 50s and 60s, dry sunny days, Lovely.

  Sometimes I wonder what Gretta is thinking.  She always seems deep in thought.
I got tired of waiting for warmer weather and decided to just use hot water in the cobb mix.  I think it came out good.
I was going to wash some wool in my BIG pot outside but it was too windy so I dyed it in the house and washed it after in a basin.  Sometimes you just have to do the best you can.


Yesterday, I weed wacked in the wind.  If I just do what I want to, regardless of the weather of the day, I can actually get a few things done.  And then when things are done, I can enjoy the Fine Fall Days.