Altivo

I've mentioned before the fact that we decided to rehome our flock of sheep. A friend of a friend expressed interest last week and an arrangement was reached. Yesterday afternoon our neighbors came over with their "sheep taxi" (think miniature horse trailer) and we loaded the critters up and hauled them away.

Well, it wasn't quite that simple. But Gary had planned well, and we got nine of the ten sheep into the trailer on the first pass. He stood on the rear to keep them in with a panel while we rounded up the one runaway: a wether who decided to go back to the pen in the barn rather than enter a strange trailer. Of course, once he was in the empty pen, he wasn't happy there either and wanted to be with the other sheep. On his second run down the chute he jumped right into the trailer, and we latched the door.

Hauled them 20 miles up to Capron, and they were all lying around in there, calmly chewing their cud, when we tried to unload them. They peered out the door into their new pen. It was bigger than the old one. Nothing doing. They stayed in the trailer. We put hay and sheep chow out. Still no response. Finally we started hauling them off the trailer one by one. After the fourth one was in the new pen looking around, the others decided to join them. Flock animals. Sheesh.

After eleven years, we're definitely ready for a break from sheep. They ended up in a place at least as good as where they were, and we get to 1) save money on hay this year, and 2) enjoy a baah-less autumn. Their new owners get to 1) train their border collie, and 2) learn about wool shearing and washing, and probably spinning. Good deal for everyone I think.

But I wasn't there to help. Our shearer, Tom, was available on Monday afternoon. I much prefer to be there to help, but I had to work. Gary has done it once by himself before, but it's a really hard job for one. Fortunately our friend casey382 was able to come and assist him with managing the flock and moving them from place to place. We are extremely grateful for the help.

Shearing completed, all is well. Now we must find a new home for the sheep.

Still no rain, and none in the forecast. The last cold front lowered the temperature, but it won't last. By Thursday the daytime temperature is supposed to hit 100F.

Shortly after I got to work this morning, Gary called me. He was calling to tell me we now have ten sheep. It took a moment for that to sink in. Last night we had nine. A completely unexpected lamb was born this morning, a tiny black ewe with huge ears. She seems to be doing fine, eating and exploring on shaky legs.

Anyway, we had already been talking about getting rid of the entire flock if we can find someone to take them. We'll give them for free to anyone who can pick them up here, and who wants them for wool, or to use in sheep dog training or testing. A potential 4H project perhaps? Anyway, if there are no takers then in another month or so we'll be taking them to an auction. We've gotten a lot of amusement out of the sheep, as well as considerable frustration. It has been eleven years since the first one (the only one we paid for, BTW.) That was our foundation ram, Shaun. He's been gone for a couple of years now, but his offspring live on after him. We have ten sheep ranging in age from a few hours to more than eleven years.

Since I've registered to attend Indy Fur Con in August, and their theme is "Furs in Space," I've been debating how to add that theme to Argos, my white wolf suit. Gary had the winning suggestion, I think. Dr Who, Tom Baker era. I have the scarf around here somewhere that I knitted. All I have to do is find a suitable floppy hat. And maybe a sonic screwdriver?

Writing time this afternoon aborted by the discovery that the sheep had knocked down part of their fence and were wandering about in the arena and outside the doors. It took me nearly 45 minutes to round the silly critters up and get them into a pen.

Did get 1025 words written after supper, but the next installment is not yet complete. I can't keep my eyes open, so perhaps I'll be able to finish it tomorrow morning as I did with yesterday's piece earlier today. Hint: Westvale's semi-weekly tabloid newspaper gets onto the train incident of Friday, forcing Roth into damage control mode.

Now for some beauty sleep. Well, sleep, anyway.

But before you say "Aww, the poor sheep" I'll add that they are always much happier once it's over. It only takes Tom, our shearer, about four minutes per sheep to clip them down and trim their hooves. Most of the time spent on the process goes to setting up his equipment, dragging the sheep to him one by one, and breaking down afterward. At least this year the day we'd arranged turned out to be cool instead of 90F, which made it all much easier. And in spite of that, I feel exhausted, but that's probably lingering effects if this nasty virus, too.

Gary is off to a performance up in Wisconsin and won't be back until late. I'm here alone with only the dogs for company in the house. Horses and sheep are all bedded down and shut in since more severe thunderstorms seem likely later tonight. Now I need to go put my clothes in the washer, because they're all covered with sheep grease. Really. Our sheep have a significant percentage of Merino bloodlines, and Merinos may make fine wool but they are slippery as a proverbial greased swine.

Oh, yeah. I saw a huge rabbit outside the library windows this morning. It was about 8:40, just after I got there, and I was pulling interlibrary loan requests when I noticed the movement out in the park. I thought it looked like a rabbit and of course he froze when I looked directly at him, but I spotted him under a bush about 100 feet from the window. After a minute or two he took off again and headed right toward me. Big bunny, not a wild cottontail. About the size of a New Zealand, and solid chocolate brown, so surely an escaped pet from somewhere. He seemed right at home out there in the park, though, and is certainly big enough to stand up to most stray dogs and cats. I'll have to watch for him now.

Gary went out to feed horses and sheep this evening while I started making supper and he came back in to say "We've got a lamb!" I think my jaw hit the kitchen countertop before I recovered. I was sure that we weren't having any more lambs. After all, our old ram died over two years ago, and all the remaining males were neutered ("wethered" in shepherd's jargon) and couldn't sire lambs. I thought.

Do it yourself neutering is the rule with lambs, and I thought I'd gotten it right, but this winter I kept thinking one or two of the ewes looked just too fat and if I didn't know better I'd say they were pregnant. Seems I didn't know better.



Here is our newborn, a little black ram, who couldn't have been more than 20 minutes old when Gary found him. He was still wet, hadn't tried to stand up yet, and was panting from the exertions of birth. Mom was alternately licking him dry and gobbling hay as if nothing had happened at all. The afterbirth wasn't delivered until I had arrived on the scene with the camera and the little guy had managed to stand up and start walking.



Here he is wobbling to his feet. He stood like this for half a minute or more before trying to walk on those spindly little legs. Mom was keeping an eye on him, but letting him figure it out.



And here are baby's first steps. He didn't fall down, and even managed to step into and out of that rubber feed tub. All this when he was not yet an hour old.

Moving mom and baby into private quarters for a few days wasn't hard in terms of getting them to cooperate, but there was no room at the inn until we evicted Gary's last remaining duck from the lambing jug. He's been living in there for protection from the neighborhood fox ever since she killed his mate back in February. Now he had to go back to his duck house and be confined. Tomorrow I guess we'll be putting up a fox-proof fence for him. Meantime, mom and baby are doing fine, and will be safe because the lambing jug has a welded wire cover tied down with bungee cords.

And that's good, really. After this week I need it. Gary's gone to some music thing or other, the second one today. He left at one and passed through for about ten minutes at around six, probably won't be back until midnight or so I think.

I got chores done, and though I should be working on weaving this weekend I picked up Kyell Gold's Shadow of the Father instead. It's off to a good start, and I have some notions about where it's going but only vague ones. This volume picks up something like 15 years or so after Pendant of Fortune, and though Volle and Streak both appear in the opening scenes, it's not their story. Instead it's about Yilon, Volle's second son, whom Lord Dewanne promised to designate as his heir in the last book. The story opens with the arrival of the steward of Dewanne, who has come bearing the news of old Lord Dewanne's death and to escort Yilon to his new lands to be confirmed as Lord, after which he will have to return and swear fealty to the king. Yilon is not eager to go, as we soon learn, but has no choice. Kyell is headed into new territory too, as this one promises to be an action adventure tale, where Pendant of Fortune was a mystery-suspense story and Volle was largely a period romance.

I've found the workaround to allow my new camera to talk to Linux. It turns out that the camera is accessible as it should be, using the proper tools, but only to the root user. Obviously this is an issue with file and device permissions, and something isn't going right in HAL or udev. It may take a while to find how to tweak the configuration for those, since the "documentation," if you can call it that, is very, very spotty and deficient. Both have also been in rapid development for the last three years, so what you can actually find is often obsolete. What it seems to come down to, though, is that the device files created when the camera is plugged into USB have "0760" permission bits and need "0766" in order for the camera to be accessible to an ordinary user. That or the group for the files needs to be changed to one to which the target user has access. It's a nuisance, but I can change those permissions after connecting the camera. Then the correct utilities will work with it. All this is resolved and works correctly in the latest Debian, as I found out when I tried it at work. I hate to give up Wolvix, but it may be time. The distribution is lagging behind and doesn't seem to be getting upgrades. Supposedly a new version based on a newer kernel is in the works, but it has already been two years...

Possible rain, maybe even some freezing, is predicted for after midnight tonight. STill too cloudy to see the moon, though the sun did come out for a brief time this afternoon.

Oh, and this morning, as I was getting ready to turn the sheep out, one of the Brit neighbors' dogs ran into the sheep yard with an object in his mouth and proceeded to bury it. I pointed it out to Gary, and he looked to see what it was. It was a chunk of mineral block about 1-1/2 inches across, from the gated sheepfold in the barn. Gary replaced their block with a new one earlier this week, and tossed the fragments of the old one outside. The block is made of salt and molasses, with various minerals added. I suspect the sweet taste combined with the strong smell of sheep (they rub their faces and necks on it sometimes) made it attractive enough to bury for later.

To paraphrase Arthur Dent, "I just can't seem to get the hang of Wednesdays."

This one was no different. Too much to do, not enough time or energy to get it done. Work late, which I really, really hate. (I'd rather come in at 5 AM than work past 5:30 PM or so.)

Did finish the woven scarf, didn't get photos yet, but I will. Did barn chores and took Tess out for a while because Gary has classes all day on Weds. now. Dropped off a fleece at Toni's, around the corner, for pick-up by someone who wanted to buy it, since I was going to be at work. The buyer did show, paid, and took the fleece, which is good.

Went to work, dealt with various things, and as always when I have to work late, the day just seemed to drag on forever.

Explaining a bit about NaNoWriMo to an online friend who is thinking of trying it. Just one month more, folks. Sharpen up your word processor or whatever, it's almost upon us.

Got home, thought the kitchen smelled good but a bit odd. As if Gary had made sauerbraten or something, which is rather beyond the range of his usual culinary efforts. Turned out he had picked a recipe from my files for pork chops. He read it hurriedly, and used apple cider vinegar to steam the rice and the chops, rather than the sweet apple cider that was called for. The result was just fine though, and we're making a note to try it again with slight modification.

Only a hundred bales, but hopefully it will arrive tomorrow. The cost is astronomical compared with what we have been paying for ten years, and if this is the new solid price level, the sheep will have to go. I can't afford to feed them at this rate.

Today started threatening but cleared up and was cool and sunny. We need more of that so late hay production can continue.

Plowed through a small mountain of cataloging at work, but there's always more. I have two dead PCs that need attention too.

Finally nearing the end of the nålbinding project. I always intended to stop when I ran out of yarn, and the end of the second ball is almost here. I will stop at the next place that leaves a smooth edge, rather than risk running out of yarn in the middle of a long side. This is good because I need to turn in the finished piece on Thursday.

And still pondering on just what to do for NaNoWriMo. I have too many options, and need to narrow it down and do a little planning before the end of October.

Plied up two bobbins of cotton that have been sitting around for a while. Most of it was spun while doing one demo or another. I was surprised, though. After plying two thicknesses together, there were over 300 yards, for an ultimate yardage per pound of 3120. That's pretty fine cotton, something like 8/2 weight, suitable for dish towels or underwear though not quite the fine lace handkerchief grade. I had no idea I was down to spinning that fine a cotton on the wheel. On the charkha, maybe, but on the wheel it's surprising.

It's time to start collecting stuff in one place for the show in October, too. Now where did I put those silk singles that were so fine? (Not that I can think of anything useful to do with them, but as a show-off item, well...)

Today seemed fairly quiet at work. Though summer reading has a week to go, I think the wind has spilled from the sails now that the pool party is over with. I actually got cataloging done, a whole stack of gift CDs. (In general, the hardest items to catalog are videos and audio recordings, so this is progress.)

Sheep escaped their yard again today because someone (not me) forgot to turn on the fence charger. He got them back in easily enough, though, and turned the charger on after that. A few days with the charger working and they'll forget how to get out again.