Boo and Marcel.
Wee Marcel is still slowly improving. he is even gaining weight. He sleeps well and took two little walks outside and around inside the barn yesterday. Tonight he will go to tiny feeds every three hours. Altogether he drinks a little over two cups a day of milk and plenty of water in between and the same during the night. He drunk cows colostrum for the first 24 hours and now his milk is fresh raw cows milk with an egg and honey. All systems are go.
The first Cardinal came to visit today. Below is rather a bizarre shot .. I do not have a bird watching lens, but I could not let him go un noted. He comes every year at this time to scope out the location. Soon he will fly away again, back to town where it is warmer no doubt and when he returns he will be bringing his brother and their wives and it will be spring. They do this every year. He is right on time.
My milking machine did not turn up yesterday as promised. Maybe it will come today.
Mr Sperm has advised us to start Sheila’s hormone treatment today instead of yesterday. So her hopeful heat will coincide with the delivery of Herchel’s sperm. The little overnight delivery man will drop it out here on Tuesday morning. My sperm! I will say, effusively; rather an awkward word but you know what I mean. It sounds too much like effluent to be a really nice word. Thank you! I will say. You are so kind.
And I will put the three doses of baby Herchels in the fridge and then as soon as Sheila is in standing heat, (which means she will stand still with her back legs straight down and locked and her ears and head up – hoping I am a boar while I sit all over her back) hopefully that day and then the day after, we will do the deed thrice. So much for me to learn here. But first, today, we will flood her system with estrogen. And hope against hope that she winds up and comes into heat. Or she will spending the rest of her life posing for calenders and hocking them off to pay for her feed.
Grazing the floor. Marcel investigates everything twice.
Good morning. If Marcel continues to do well and as soon as he is stable, putting on weight, and on four hourly feeds, I will make a warm pen for him next to the sheep in the barn. He is not a pet. He does not belong in a dog crate. He is a sheep and for him to be able to think like a sheep and behave like a sheep and be at ease in a flock of his own, he needs to be with other sheep, even if it is through a fence. Otherwise he will be bullied. Also he needs to be able to run and jump and be a lamb which is impossible on hard- wood floors. He is not a cat or a dog and though it is very convenient to have him in the house I would be doing him a disservice to keep him in here too long. I have a feeling that Mama may take him under her wing, she is very protective of the others but all these things must be done slowly and in a timely fashion. There is that Time thing again.
I love seeing animals in the fields, don’t you.
I hope you all have a lovely day.
Your friend on the farmy
celi
P.S. This time last year Mama’s four lambs were a day old. There is a lovely shot of Tilly here when we still thought she was a Murphy (boy).
This time two years ago, there were plants sprouting in the garden. (And a very sweet shot of Queenie on a string. )
The Kitchen's Garden 
69 responses to “a calm busy day before another calm busy day”
Marcel is just darling.
I just had to laugh when the thought came to me, “I’ll bet when Celi was a little girl growing up in NZ she never thought she’d say, ‘And I will put the three doses of baby Herchels in the fridge and then as soon as Sheila is in standing heat…’ ” 🙂 I just love the cardinal in the snow! We don’t see Cardinals in our locale, but every May I will see one brightly colored migrating Oriole that I swear just remembers where we live and comes back to the feeder for a couple of days and then off he flies–to return in a year. It’s thrilling to me! Hope the milking machine arrived today!
The bloody thing is still not here! sigh.. c
I am so sorry to hear that! Don’t they know how much you need it? LOL! I know…
Oh Marcel is quite adorable, he is probably going to be happier in the barn too after all, I’m certain he doesn’t think he is a pet either! We’re expecting 2-5mm of rain which is apparently a lot this time of year. There is danger of flooding because the grounds are still frozen and the water will have no where to go. This weather sucks.
Are you sure you are not living just down the road? We are having the same kind of weather, but now we are getting the Bendy Tree wind.. c
Bendy tree wind is on its way here, I suspect it’s from you, thank you.
I am glad Marcel is doing so well he can go to the barn & be near his fellow sheep. He certainly is all legs. I wonder if Boo will be spending more time in the barn with his little charge out there?
So funny to think of the look on the delivery person’s expression if you did swoon & become giddy telling them that your long anticipated sperm delivery. I hope Shelia does become mentally unbalanced from all that estrogen flooding her stout virgin body. A few of my friend went through IVF and they all spent a little time coming unglued after their series of estrogen injections. It is frustrating that becoming pregnant is so easy for some & such a battle for others. I wish you & Shelia well with the protocol. I think she would be a devoted mother and the piglets are sure to be beautiful as both Shelia & the bore are quite good looking as far as pigs go..
Love the photo of the cardinal. I am a birdwatcher and I so miss the bit of cheer they bring to the dull Winter landscape. There are many interesting birds in the NW, but none of the brightly colored birds I fell in love with being raised on the East Coast. I have seen a pair of Eastern Blue jays who appeared last year & live nearby/. I suspect that with the global warming many of the birds from more Northern latitudes will continue to migrate to more areas of the US where they have not existed before. I have been reading about the large number of Arctic Snowy Owls that, for the past few years, have been migrating further & further South of the Arctic where they live for thousands of years. They are now a common sight as far South as Florida. Such a rapid change in bird species migration outside the boundaries of their natural habitats is disconcerting. I wonder what Darwin would think of how man has negatively impacted the natural order of life.
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So…..where does cow’s colostrum come from anyway…besides the obvious, how do you get it? Is it from the pregnant cow, or just any milking cow? Thus far I’ve only ventured into raising chickens…cows, sheep, and pigs are a bleep on the radar but will be a huge leap for me. Love your blog!
Wow. Look at how your photography has improved! So professional and artistic now.
Saw more bird flocks winging north very early this morning. (Wonder if our big cardinal pair will leave us now or stay like the little couple.)
As cute as little creatures are, asking for trouble keeping them in too long. Know one calf my sister-in-law bottle fed and kept in the kitchen for a long time, never understood why he had to stay outside with the other – it ran through several screen doors the next spring. Those big eyes so sad and pathetic.
What will Boo do when Marcel relocates. Do hope the weather moderates. Wind is very strong here today – Molly is wild with energy.
You’re doing a great job foster lamb mom. Get some sleep – you can write less right now!
We have a few more cold nights coming and he is fattening up so after that he can go into his pen in the barn. Boo will cope. That must have been nasty.. calf through screen doors.. yikes.. c
She was a city girl turned rancher. He kept wanting to sit on the couch. Finally had to sell him off…those sad moans as he left. Darn they get attached to you, too.
The cardinal is so striking: red against the white snow. And little Marcel looks so sweet.
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