Halloween Special!

Here's a "haunting" sign ...... especially if you're a lamb! We spotted this Halloween "Gyro Special" while driving through Monaca, PA. Needless to say, we had to circle the block and come back for a picture. This is the Original Pita Parlor, a new business in Monaca, and it looks like a creative place ..... wonder if the pitas are good???

Happy Halloween from Wild Rose Farm!

Same View, Color Changing!

It's about the same background from all of the recent pictures, but you can see the color changing ..... a little more subdued and a lot of the tree trunks showing through. We had just moved a round bale of hay down to the sheep, so they're temporarily roaming around while the bale is put in place. What a beautiful day for outside work. We'll be on vacation later in the week and hopefully I'll find some time to sort through some Wild Rose Farm Rambouillet fleeces. Let's see how that goes! Painting, yardwork, & a field trip or two are also on the agenda.

Making Plans

For the record, there was a Waynesburg Sheep & Fiber Festival committee meeting today. We met at Groovy's American Cafe --- during the festival last spring, we recommended this local restaurant to a group of vendors who were staying overnight in Waynesburg. Plans have been underway for the 2010 festival to be held again at the Greene County Fairgrounds. As craft/fiber vendor chairman, WRF will be reporting on our vendor survey from last year's festival. 2009 was our first year at the fairgrounds. Of course, there's always room to improve and we welcome any feedback and new volunteers. Stay tuned for updates here and for the WS&FF website to be updated for 2010.

Hurried home since we were expecting John to pick up the 4 Dorset ewes that he bought. It rained for the whole drive back on Rt 18. Too bad, because the leaf peeping would have been really nice. John, his father, and a friend arrived at Wild Rose Farm before dusk and we loaded the ewes plus an additional Dorset ewe lamb into the stock trailer. She was the first lamb born this year and is a very good sized lamb. Hopefully the sheep do well at their new farm. No pictures since it was dark & rainy! :~(

Honk, Honk, Honk ......

Talk about perfect timing. I wanted to get a few pictures of the sheep with the maples in the background. Today was a gorgeous October day, temps in the 60's. Just as I was lining up my first shot, I heard the geese overhead ..... they were flying to the north, so it wasn't a migration, but I was able to just get them in the picture. Click on the picture for a closer view. They look good in the sky, but they're probably just those annoying resident geese that we all love to hate "pooping" in the parks!

The Sun Came Out Again!

After 3 rainy days, the sun came out on Sunday ..... a nice, crisp fall day at Wild Rose Farm. Here comes the flock just before dusk. We're in the process of setting up another area to feed round bales, so they're roaming around for a day or two, which rarely happens around here. With everyone milling around, I finally got a picture of #113, one of our 4 young Dorset ewes that is going to a new farm this weekend.

Walking The Line .....

The Wild Rose Farm young Rambouillet ram has been walking the fenceline on this rainy day. The ewes had been let out of the area where they've been feeding on round bales of hay. So now, the ewes aren't in sight on the opposite side of the fence from the ram. They're happily wandering around grazing ..... sooooo, he walks up and down along the fence looking for them. He was just moved to this paddock after we sold the older horned ram last week, so he's really getting some exercise. This is a warm-up for all of the walking he'll do when he's actually put in with the ewes. Rams can cover miles every day during breeding season. At times, they forego grazing and lose weight while they constantly follow their flock around courting the receptive ewes ...... it's important to make sure that they're in excellent condition prior to joining the ewes. Don't worry, he came in and ate his daily ration of grain before heading back to the fence.

Meanwhile, the rest of the flock is enjoying grass on this cold & rainy day. Here are some of them!

Custom Livestock Hauler

Here's an inventive adaptive reuse of a ditch witch trailer and a wire tote box. Click for a close-up. One can only imagine what came to the Eighty-Four Livestock Auction this morning (or what is going home) in this nifty little tag-along trailer! Love it .... it gives new meaning to "custom". Note the elements of down home creativity .... no project is complete without baling twine & bungee straps.

Fall Activities: aka, the glamorous life!

I don't think that we've ever featured this glamorous aspect of Wild Rose Farm life before ...... yes ...... spreading manure! We don't keep the sheep in the barn that much, so it's not as big a deal here as on some farms. We can get the job done using this little spreader that we picked up "gently used" several years ago. With the chore of spreading several loads of manure complete, it's parked here waiting to be hosed out & greased before storage for the winter. It was a beautiful bright, sunny, cool fall day here ---- perfect for the lambs!

Where did everyone go?

Do you ever get that feeling that you're all alone out there? I was off in the distance & then I noticed that this Wild Rose Farm lamb was by itself. It finally stood up, looked around & saw that the rest of the flock had drifted away. A quick look at me and then off it ran! Whew, that was close!