More Snow, More Hay

What is Claire watching today at Wild Rose Farm? Of course there's more snow, but that's nothing new. We got another 5 inches of heavy, wet snow in the last couple of days. Claire is intently watching the delivery of a 2nd round bale of hay to the sheep. The ewes are happily milling around ...... it's a bit of a pain to drive in among them at times. You have to be careful that a sheep doesn't end up behind or under the bale as it is being placed in the feeder!

Notice that the back end of the bale looks quite uneven ...... Claire has been leaning over the fence behind the barn and munching away at the bales she can reach. Don't worry about her starving to death! Now why does one Dorset ewe stand alone out there after the tractor leaves? Baaaaaa!

Ewe Lambs

Remember how we said that the Wild Rose Farm lambs aren't tame? Well, here they are doing their best to keep away from the photographer .........
First they pack into one corner head first. Notice who is in the background, always close to the action!
Then they run to the opposite corner to the reassuring presence of their friend.

Finally, their curiosity gets the best of them and they begin to look back somewhat nervously. Yes, there are 5 lambs in the picture ........... count the legs and divide by four! The snow is getting packed down around the hay bales from all of the trails that the ewes have made. We're expecting rain changing to snow tomorrow. Hopefully the rain won't make things too icy. Look closely below & you can see a bluebird box on a post. We saw 3 bluebirds flying around in a group today. They must be the males returning to scope out nesting sites, right? Time to get out and clean out the bird boxes!

Sunny & Bright, More Snow Tonight!

President's Day started off sunny & bright at Wild Rose Farm. We took our last small group of lambs to the auction today, so now we're down to just our 4 Rambouillet ewe lambs and "U" in the barn. Meanwhile the ewes outside continue to trail back and forth from their hay bales to the water tank. We're expecting between 2 & 6 more inches of snow by tomorrow morning. After last week's accumulation, it doesn't sound too threatening, eh?I had a nice visit with Vicki and some other friends on Sunday at the Pittsburgh Knit & Crochet Festival . It was a last minute chance to go, since other things popped up on the weekend. There's always a need to pick up some accessories or tools and this is quite a nice show, especially for a break in the winter!

More Snow Came ......

More snow fell Tuesday night into Wednesday, adding 5 more inches to the total this week at Wild Rose Farm. Along with the snow were high winds. The result? Claire's tractor tire path was completely blown over ...... here she is hanging out up at the barn where the snow is packed.

Claire Takes It Easy ......

Claire couldn't resist walking up and down in the tracks from the tractor ..... so much easier than breaking her own trails through 20 inches of snow. If you meet her on the trail, YOU have to cross over into the high snow because she isn't moving! A little bit of donkey stubbornness is on display.Meanwhile, the sheep made their own path over to the water tank. They didn't even get water until Sunday. They were eating the fresh snow and staying close to their hay bales.

February Blizzard - A Retrospective .......

Who said that there was going to be 6 - 8 inches of snow? By the time we got home from work on Friday we had 3 inches. After some flickering and then some on & off, we lost power at 11:45 PM. We ended up with 20+ inches of snow here at Wild Rose Farm.

The Y2K generator was pressed into service Saturday morning .... 55 degrees in the house @ 6:30 am. By 9:30 the driveway next to the house was shoveled off and the objective was far off on the horizon. Looking past the shovel is a telephone pole on the other side of US RT 30 .... aacccckkkkk. Needless to say, the top of the driveway is always plowed in solid by PennDOT. (Who does a fine job on RT 30!) Besides all of the snow removal, the dogs and sheep need to be fed. Not wanting to risk plugging the tractor in the field carrying a round bale, on Saturday we slid some small square bales down to the sheep on a tarp. Slick! Fortunately, we got our electricity back around 4 AM Sunday morning.

Another thing that helps out in the country is a good neighbor. Mike showed up on Sunday afternoon with his CAT after plowing out a few other folks. He took care of the lower driveway and up around the barn, making it look easy! We also took out round bales of hay with the JD while he was around, but had no touble. Then the Ranger was "assisted" to the upper driveway. Finally, the ewes settled down to a fresh round bale of hay. I'm pretty sure that they don't notice the snow!

Now what's that we hear about more snow on Tuesday???

Snow Is Coming .....

For now, the snow is patchy & pretty much melted away, but we'll keep you posted on the weekend. Right now we're hearing 6 - 8" by Saturday .......

Skittish Lambs!

The Wild Rose Farm lambs aren't tame lambs. Occasionally we'll have a lamb that's been bottle fed ...... they are the only ones that come up to people. Sometimes an older ewe will learn to eat animal crackers or other treats out of hand. Otherwise, they behave like sheep typically do and run from any perceived threat! The lambs above are torn between coming in to their feed and fleeing from someone in the barn taking pictures of them. They've dashed in and out several times already.

This is rambouillet ewe lamb #405. She was standing up on her back legs in a post on January 10th when she got her new flock ear tag. She's also trying to decide if it's safe to come into the barn!