The Season Starts!

Ewes With Numbers - Now Where Is That Ram?

Breeding season started today at Wild Rose Farm .... our traditional Thanksgiving weekend festive event.  I wish!  There was nothing festive or fun about gathering up the ewes in the rain today.   We had a couple of ear tags to replace on the older ewes & we put the official permanent ear tags in the yearlings today.  Every ewe also gets her ear tag number sprayed on her hip.  It's much easier to read that big number from a distance.
Then the ram was penned up & we got his breeding/marking harness put on with the green crayon.  He's still afraid of people, so he tends to be behind the ewes.  We'll see if he figures out what his job is.  Only 1 picture today ..... too risky to try & get that perfect shot in between the rain drops!

Black Friday @ Standing Chimney Farm!

Bottle Wear or Gift Bags! 

Here's an idea if you're local to the Western PA area ...... stop out at Standing Chimney Friday or Saturday and join the fun by shopping in a relaxed & welcoming atmosphere!  We can guarantee that there will be food & beverage sampling for you.  Wild Rose Farm visited last Saturday under our alias "LFLF". We found some great stuff if you're a fiber enthusiast.  Beth has felt, roving, & a small selection of yarns from Stramba Farm Alpacas.  She also has some repurposed wool sweaters with felted ornamentation from the wool of her own Icelandic sheep. 



I just loved these bottle sleeves/gift bags!  I'd say that they qualify as a "green gift"! 

Standing Chimney Luke Is Waiting To Greet You!

The shop is full of other things - talk about variety - and the focus is on featuring local artisans, crafters, & foods!  Expect to see more Christmas greens out front on the porch!
More comments on the LFLF blog ..........

Cutting & Clearing

Sumac Trees & Brush Cut Down ....

The work of clearing ground in the Wild Rose Farm pasture areas continues.  Look behind the sheep & you can see where the trees have been cut.  These were some of the largest Sumac trees that we've ever seen.
The triangle of ground in the Back 40 has been cleared, next the stumps will be pulled & the ground will be leveled out and prepared for seeding.

Back 40 Clearing Off Of Fence Line

Next project?  See the clump of trees & brush on the right?  It's just the leading edge of a tangle of dead & dying trees being smothered in bittersweet, poison ivy, grape vines & a particularly nasty upright multiflora rose growing up against a large tree trunk.

Trail Camera Wildlife

Deer .......

How about a photo essay from a trail camera set up just outside of a pasture field?  We've seen does with fawns inside the high tensile fence at Wild Rose Farm, now here's a look at the traffic outside of the fence.
Believe me, you have to look carefully to see things when there are 1489 pictures to go through!

Squirrel!

Buck ....

The clump of goldenrod in the foreground waving in the wind was probably responsible for 1419 of the pictures ............

Raccoon!

Legal!

Turkey Flock

Little Buck

Doe

Night Deer

Curiouser And Curiouser ...........

Pardon the glare, but this was the only angle we could get on the hesitant, but curious Wild Rose Farm Lisa coming in for a closer approach. In hindsight, maybe setting the camera to "Beach" would have toned this down ....  We're trying to spend some time just being in and around the paddock to get her used to us moving around with normal activities.  One thing we've learned .... notice the black feed bucket hanging in the barn on the right in the 2nd picture.  She keeps looking at the grain in the feeder, but will not put her head into the deep bucket to get the grain.  Obviously, she instinctively doesn't want her vision blocked.  We'll have to get a shallower hanging feeder for her.  

Lisa Starting To Drift Closer

Lisa Thinking Hard About A Few More Steps

That's It .... That's As Close As We Get!

Settling In ........

Lisa has started to get used to the routines here at Wild Rose Farm.  She is in with the lambs now and seems to be doing fine.  Amazing that such a large creature won't push her way into the feeder when we put grain out to call the lambs over.  Her feed has to be placed out of reach of the piggish sheep! 

Here she is "grazing" off of the top of the rack with her little friends .....!

And The Ears Have It!

Lamb Ears .......

Maybe it's just me, but the ears have it!  Looking through pictures from today, it seems that the animals are all ears.  If you've been around animals, you know how alert they are. 

Llama Ears

We've often said that no one can sneak up on you when you're out in the pasture.  All you have to do is look at the sheep .... if anything is unusual, they're focused on it!

Donkey Ears

I happened to be hanging around in the barnyard late this afternoon just to get our llama Lisa used to me.  She has settled down & is doing well with the lambs, but she is not near being ready to be handled.  This will take time.  Today she cruised by me about 4 feet away going back into the hayrack in the barn.  She moves freely in & out of the barn and she likes to walk over to the lower side of the paddock to look over the pasture.

Amusing story from 2 weeks ago ..... we have a bowhunter who has been hunting from a tree stand in the wooded pasture over in the background.  Seems he heard some loud crashing through the brush and saw Glenda come bucking & kicking along chasing 3 deer towards him!  Who knows what she was up to?   That ended any chance of a buck coming by his treestand for that morning!