Marmalade has been watching Marcel the lamb very carefully. Thinking about whether he can be bothered making friends with a barn person.
Yesterday he came down off his perch to say hullo. It was a very quick kiss. Too fast for my camera to catch. But here you are. Fuzzy double Sweetness.
Sweet meets Sweet.
The cold is coming back. I cannot pretend to be happy. There is too much to do in the barn in preparation for the calves and the milking. And of course John is going back to work next week. So I am going to have to do it alone. Which is ok too. Many houses, even parts of small towns around here are now without water, with the freeze over 3 foot down into the ground freezing and splitting pipes. We have done pretty well so far. So I should not complain. But it is getting very cold again. Wait. I will show you my forecast.
Rubbish. See what I mean? I could just Spit! Here is the site I use to transfer the Fahrenheit into Celcius. Just don’t tell me though, I do not want to know.
Today it is bitter out there but I will spend some time making the calf hot house in the barn sun-room that Sheila has recently vacated. I need to get way ahead of the game on this one. I want to be very prepared. I hate calving inside. Daisy does have a few weeks to go but as you and I know, preparedness is the key. Especially when like Daisy and I you have not calved indoors in the freezing cold. And my barn is not big.
It looks like Sheila is not going to be able to breed. So. She will be our Virgin Queen. I know I am not meant to have 400 pound pets, but this time I am breaking the rules. She can stick around. As long as she sells enough calenders to cover her feed. The last calender I made is going to be too expensive for you to buy though. So I am going to look around for a cheaper printer. Any ideas?
Oh and Mama is much happier today. She has been wormed and has had some extra Vitamin B. The sheep have had to move across to the Rat House as I need the barn pens for the cows to calve. But it is East facing and out of the wind so they are even happier out there. We have not been able to get into that field for ages due to the frozen snow banks and gates frozen shut, so they are all much relieved to be in the sun.
I hope you all have a lovely day.
Your friend on the frozen farmy
celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
90 responses to “Fuzzy Double Sweetness”
Ugh Wed to Thursday! Minus 2 to minus 19 overnight? How does that figure? Well, I have snow here in Van at the moment too. I know, can you believe it? Pacific Northwest? What gives? Hey, have you thought of Moo cards? They do beautiful and very affordable post cards etc. Wonder if they do calendars, but maybe cards are a real possibility for you with your beautiful creatures. http://us.moo.com A lot of my artist friends use them. 🙂
I like the name Moo. i can do more postcards too, must get onto that as well, i shall check them out! thank you veronica.. c
Yupe, -20C up here as far as can be predicted. It’s getting old.
Old. Cold. True.. c
Hubby had some stuff printed with Vistaprint, and was happy with price, quality and service. He did luggage tags with photos on them, not calendars, but they’re worth a look…
As for the weather…ugh. The Winter That Will Not End. In the words of Forrest Gump, “That’s all I have to say about that…”
Luggage tags, what an excellent idea, we could do a whole LINE!! c
or bookmarks, friend did that with photos of her art quilts…very effective.
I adore baby sheep! There’s nothing quite as wonderful as a lamb bouncing across a field. I had to hand-feed one years ago for a weekend for a neighbor. The mama couldn’t or wouldn’t feed her so I remember getting up to my alarm clock crazy early to feed her – as a 9th grader I did not enjoy that but then the sweet thing stole my heart once I was out with her. It’s crazy cold here, too. – 9 this morning with a huge sundog as I drove into town. Spring will be such a blessing!!!!
morning gretchen, careful on those icy roads! c
Have you ever read P G Wodehouse Blandings books – every time I hear about Sheila I think of the empress of Blandings. ……
Nope, adding it to the list tho!! morning claire.. c
me too. They’ve just start a tv dramatisation series in UK which I caught the end of. Magnificent acting and settings, but the Empress of Blandings doesn’t hold a candle to Sheila!
Your cold would be unbearable for me. Spring is well and truly sprung here, but everyone’s worried it will revert to frosty as soon as the apple blossom is out, and then it would be like last year, no fruit. Also, as we’ve only had frost on two mornings all winter, the nuisance beasties will not have been eliminated. I did find a ladybird yesterday, which is a good sign.
Fingers crossed that the forecasters have got it wrong for you.
Love,
Viv
PS love those sweet babies!
I shall be missing from now until Monday – going in to have a pacemaker fitted. I shall miss you all, specially the fast growing Marcel and Nanny Boo.
So sweet. I guess in the loosest sense they are kissing cousins or brothers since they are being raised by the same nanny! 😉 I have artist friends who have had great luck with Vistaprint. http://www.vistaprint.com/personalized-calendars.aspx?txi=15016&xnid=TopNav_Calendars_All+Products&xnav=TopNav
They are definitely inexpensive and you can upload your own files if you can figure out how to do it. I used them for a postcard once and they did a great job. It’s best to speak with someone on phone support to make sure you get what you want. Most of my pottery friends use them. I’ve heard of Shutterfly but never used them. I’m sorry Sheila won’t breed. But she adds so much life and laughter to the farmy, and perhaps she will find her true calling in time…maybe as a nanny or surrogate even, who knows? Meanwhile, she is a most lovely and entertaining piggy. Love Mama, glad she is better.
I think i used vista for my postcards, must give them another look.. thank you betsy.. c
I think Sheila can be gainfully employed as Compost Queen – the farm’s very own compost accelerator! Let’s face it, she could be likened to the large Hadron Collider (the world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator). 🙂
as well as a compost accelerator she is a wonderful compost turner! I forgot to take that shot of the compost too, i will as soon as it is a little warmer out there! c
I’m quite disgruntled myself. You know my rule about coats and March 1st. Sigh. I think I would not be wise to switch to my raincoat just yet. Perhaps by the official first day of spring? Love the double sweetness today! 🙂
I was thinking about your rule this morning as I added my 6th layer.. The first day of spring is March 20 right? Surely by then!!.. c
Thereabouts. Let’s hope! 🙂
How about selling the calendars as PDF’s? Maybe by the month until the year starts again. I know I’d buy it and do my own printing.
hmm, this is a good idea Pat, how would i go about that do you think?. c
Sorry, I have no idea. I know there are some PDF programs but how to set up a site to sell them on, I’m not sure. I’ve seen a lot of sites the sell, I’ll do some asking around and get back to you.
We spent the weekend in Texas enjoying sunshine and warmth. Now we’re back home and reality has set in. This winter has gone on long enough and I’m ready for spring.
I sure hope the weather improves for calf birthing.
I love those pictures! So sweet!
I’m pretty sick of this cold weather, too. I know Colorado has a reputation for almost year round sunshine, but this winter there has definitely been no evidence of that.
I just created my own business cards at http://www.zazzle.com/ They will print and sell…you set up an account…works great!
Linda
http://coloradofarmlife.wordpress.com
http://handcraftedbyus.wordpress.com
zazzle.. OF COURSE, I had forgotton all about that, i think i even have an account.. tho that is as far as I went! thank you linda.. c
Gosh that is cold! The worst thing is that it takes so darn long for the earth to defrost so that you can plant. We were six weeks late with Spring last year and planting delayed meant that a lot of things like tomatoes were still bright green as October’s frosts swept in. We already have a very short growing season as it is, but last year was insane. It looks as though it’s your sside of the Atlantic’s turn this year. I can’t say that it was fun 😦
I’m so relieved about Sheila staying, being a huge softy and not at all suited to making hard decisions about animals. I can’t help you with calendar suggestions (although I will buy one of course!) but maybe you could also have a donation button on your site linked to Paypal or something like that where Queen Sheila’s fans can send a little something towards her bed and board. After all, she is entertaining us and we ought to reward her for that 🙂
You just have to keep Shelia on the farm–she is one of the main reasons I love reading your blog site every day–she amazes me and I just love her and her personality and I have learned soo much about farm life from her!!!
and of course there is that wonderful dog who loves to mother all the motherless animals and the new kitten and the lamb–all would make great photos to sell!!!
I have been collecting some of those photos and on my ‘down’ days I go through that file and smile and smile!!
thank you for all you do on that farm–
Blessings and hugs, di and miss gracie(cat)
Sheila is the farmy mascot, after all. Her image could be on your letterhead and business cards…a nice head shot…er snout shot…maybe a line drawing. Our cat Tiger Baby loved the lambs, and they loved him. He was shorter than they were and they would surround him in the creep and gently sniff him. We had a heat lamp in the lamb creep in the barn and TB would go and sleep with them. They would be all curled up together. We could hear him purring clear across the barn. The ewes never bothered him, either. Cats are quiet and move slowly most times. Lambs are totally non threatening….they were perfect companions.