Lambs!! 2009

Lambing started early this morning.  Desana, one of our older ewes, had twin ewe lambs at 0510 and 0525.  She (of course) picked her favorite spot-at the top of the very steep hill in our pasture.  Both lambs are doing great.  They are now all down in the barn, where they’ll stay penned up for a few days.  Now there are 4 ewes to go-not many, but I’m always anxious-even more so with working full time again the past few years.  It’s quite windy now, and getting colder, so we worry about chilling.  I’m likely to be out a couple times tonight checking on everything.

 

Desana and her 2 ewe lambs

 

Dark ewe lamb-born first

 

Light ewe lamb-born second

I’m so thankful all went well-Wednesday mornings are very tight for us time-wise, and we are also having vehicle problems.  Mom and babies were doing great when I got home about 3:30.  Praise God for new life on the farm.

Heat Wave

Just changed the header colors-winter to spring-not that I think we’ll have the warm weather for long. But-it’s been nice not having to thaw out bunny water bowls three times a day. I just finished shearing Joey, my chocolate Satin/French/English mix angora.  One of these days I need to do something with the two large bins of angora that I have. That’s the problem when you own the fiber animals-no time to do anything with the fiber!!

I did make it to the guild meeting on Saturday and had a nice time. I was able to start spinning some bright Wensleydale top that Lynn gifted me a year or two ago. Seems like that’s the only time I get to spin any more; I need to just keep my wheel(s) up in the living room.

I have been knitting-have finished almost 2 dozen washcloths for the KAL the Ravelry Christian Knitters and Crocheters are doing for the Ronald MacDonald House.  I’m trying to work through my large yarn stash right now.  The only new yarns coming in anytime soon are for the Wooly Wonka Shakespeare in Lace Club.  

Doing OK so far on daily Bible reading and journaling. I average missing about 2 days a week, which is quite good for me.  This is the longest I have ever kept a journal.  I’m using a Moleskine Daily Planner-nice paper and I have my fountain pens out again.

Snow Day

I think it’s the fourth one so far this school year and it’s only January.  There goes part of our spring break!

Yep-it’s been almost two years since my last post.  Fortunately I was able to find my user ID and password.  I really do want to keep a blog; my problem before was that I didn’t know how to use the digital camera and then I ran out of time.  Now the camera is broken, and I still don’t have time-BUT-I have started to journal now though (on paper), so I thought I could try a bit of blogging also.  Maybe this time it will take!

Big Praise-Steve is still cancer free; it’s now almost two years since his surgery.

Brief farm update:  maintaining the flock at one ram, one wether and five breeding ewes.  We should have lambs starting in March. Down to three rabbits-still have issues with snuffles, so no new rabbits while these are still here.

Life is busy as usual and I still struggle with juggling the many roles I have.  I’m getting better at learning to say no and focus on what is important.  Bible reading and prayer are helping a lot, so I’m striving towards more consistency in both.

New endeavor: working through the book The Creative Call by Janice Elsheimer (http://www.amazon.com/Creative-Call-Artists-Response-Writers/dp/0877881383/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1233145840&sr=8-1)  I know I have talent in the fiber arts, and I really want to be able to explore and use it.

I’m Back!

Yes, I know it’s been a while (over 6 weeks!) since my last post.  In the interim my husband had major surgery, the ewes all lambed, and I had lots to do at work.  God is sooo good.  Steve’s surgery went well; the docs believe they have all the cancer.  Lambing went pretty good-we now have 8 new lambs-pics to come later.  And I’m getting back into the swing of teaching again, after being off for 2 weeks.  

I have lots of pics of lambing, so will try to learn how to put them in the blog.  Bye for now from snowy upstate NY-we got over a foot of heavy wet snow yesterday (but had a snow day-yippeee!!).

Welcome to Amazing Grace Farm’s First Blog Post!

Hello everyone from rainy and snowy upstate New York.  This is my first foray into blogdom.  I don’t know how to use a digital camera yet, so it will be text heavy for a while.  My first goal is to be able to post some photos of lambs this year.  Jacob lambs are just so cute that I wanted to share them with everyone! 

 For those who don’t know us, my husband and I have a small farm in upstate New York.  We are the third generation on his family farm, but the first to do any farming since about 1942.  We have a small flock of Jacob sheep (for more info on these wonderful sheep see www.jsba.org), along with some angora rabbits.  We have had guard llamas off and on (currently none). 

 The name of the farm reflects our Christian beliefs: without the Lord’s amazing grace we would still be lost sinners.  My husband is a pastor of a small rural Baptist church and I am a teacher/RN at the church’s Christian academy.   We are both retired from the military.

I’ll blog more later on how this Army brat (me) ended up on a farm.  Just a warning….if you are a knitter, who starts spinning, then decides to buy some handcards, which come with some black and white fleece to play around with….be careful where it leads you!