Getting Stitched on the Farm: Sage Country Sheep Film Kickstarter Project

The post I am sharing with you is from a great Blogger, Kristin Nicholas. She has made us aware of a project featuring Sheep Ranching. A life style that is slowly fading from this great country of ours. A life style that needs to be shown to the future generations so they may have the chance to see and come to love the strength and determination of the Sheep People and the community that it takes to live such a life. Please check it out. Getting Stitched on the Farm: Sage Country Sheep Film Kickstarter Project 

Lambs & Pigs for sale ..... Know where your Food comes from.

LAMBS - We will have butcher ready lambs available for Easter if interested ( these are whole spit or Bar-B-Q size). 

FEEDER LAMBS - For those looking for fair projects or those that want to raise your own lamb, we have Dorset/North Country Cheviot lambs that will be ready any time after the 1st of April.

PIGS - If any one is looking to restock your freezer my son still has pigs that are ready to go to the butcher. Message me if you are interested. 

FEEDER PIGS - For those of you looking for Feeder pigs to raise your own or for fair projects he'll have them too, they'll be available around March. 

For those of you interested animal location are Lambs Oregon Coast & Pigs Eastern Oregon, please message me if you want more information or are interested in purchasing. 

Arriving Early... Two by Two

I thought I had bread for Fall and Spring Lambs .... I thought.
I had one ewe deliver Fall twin Lambs. Then I waited and waited and waited ...... no more Fall deliveries.

A month later Winter had arrived and ... "WHAT'S THIS"!  So did the start of Winter Lambing. I knew the Ram had gotten out and in with the ewes but, he was only out for about 4 hours. I have severally missed judged the time it takes for one Ram to impregnate a flock of Ewes. All Rams must bow down to this Great Stud of a Ram. For he is the King of Rams. 

Now we have 6 lambs in 4 days, with 3 more ewes looking ready to lamb any time and they are still coming.

The red glow you see in the photos is the heat lamps needed for warming when you have Winter lambing. 

I want to be just like Daddy!

FREEDOM!!!! ..... ah we got caught.

How do you catch two very excited two week old lambs, who along with their mother have gotten out into the big pasture and tasted the freedom of the open space? Running, romping and as quick as jack rabbits I thought how will I ever get them back into the barn. 

GUILT ... that and being willing to look like your crazy, talking and chewing out a sheep. 

As I suspected when I tried to get close they took off running along with the rest of the flock. At one point I was able to get close to the mother and her attention turned to me, that is when the guilt started. I stopped and spoke to her calmly. 

"What do you think you are doing having your babies out her on such a cold day? They are to little yet to be in the big pasture. Now you get them back to the barn, right now!" 

She lowered her head, turned towards the barn and started walking to it away from the flock, lambs following her low motherly rumbling baas. I brought up the rear, every now and then she would look back at me. 

I would point towards the barn and state, " Get going, get them back to the barn and warm them up". She would rumble some more turn her head back towards the barn never stopping but walking slowly. 

Once inside she headed straight for her pen, nosing the lambs towards the heat lamp letting out a loud baa as to say to me, "There you go are you happy now?"

First Fall Lambs

This is # 3, no she is not wearing lipstick. She had just finished licking the mineral tub when I took this picture a week ago. She is our ewe that won Tillamook County fair's FFA reserve champion over all breeding ewe. She was also the ewe that I expected to deliver Fall lambs first and I was right. On Saturday late morning I noticed signs that she was in labor. By that afternoon we had two new lambs at the Sheep Camp, the first of our Fall lambs.

Our first Fall lambs have arrived. They are healthy, hearty, and of course cute as a button. I think all lambs are cute though so you will have to judge for yourself. 

This little guy is enjoying the heat lamp.

His sister was wondering what I was up to.

Mom said that is enough warming time to eat.

And with birth weights above average, especially for twins (15 lbs &12 lbs) they will be doing a lot of eating. 

WHERE-O-WHERE did the LAMB go?

 NOT RUSSIA!

A few weeks back I posted on my face book account bragging on how many views I had received here on the blog. Stating that the two larges amount of viewers came from America and Russia. In honor of the viewers from these two countries, I was going to post a Russian Lamb recipe that had been Americanized.

BUT! Since I am not Russian nor a big expert on Russian cuisine this meant research and family taste testing would be involved. Which sometimes leads to my family wishing I was not related to them. Oh well somebody has to be the guinea pig. Besides they owe it to me, I carried them for nine months eating only things that would not up set them. Playing the Mommy card, Oh Ya if I have to. I would never post a recipe that I was not sure tasted good nor I had not cooked myself. So, off to research.

It was not long into my research that I discovered why I had so many views from Russia. Which like all good researchers know ...... leads to more research and more research. After many, many, did I mention it was many hours at the computer? Let me just put it this way I was on the computer A LONG TIME! I was left with ... sore eyes and the realization that if I was going to keep my word about posting such a recipe, I would have to do some flip flopping around  not only of ingredients but words as well. Such as; the "Russian Americanized recipe" will now be an "American Russianized recipe".

The reason why you ask? Even though you really did not ask and may not even want to know, but since I did all that researching and now have all this knowledge, I am going to share anyway, don't make me play the Blogger's card you know I will.

It turns out that there were not many sheep in Russia in the first place. The ones that were there was sold to or belonged to nobles. So the only other people that ate lamb were the shepherds and their families, then only the left over parts that the nobles did not want. Pretty sure I will not get my family to try those parts, no matter what card I am holding. Another problem was the ban on sheep and sheep meat coming into the country from other areas. Up till just recently when the ban was lifted and the economy has changed in such away that the difference between classes does not such a limit everyone being able to try all foods available to them.

This all explains the recent interest from Russia, they are looking for recipes for the new wave of lamb that has come into their country. They are searching American sites to see how to fix it. So here we go again my search is on. I will look for an American recipe that I can influence in a Russian manner.

My family has already warned me, "NO LAMB BORSCH!" I am pretty sure they are safe on that one. I the person willing to eat almost anything and likes most of it, does not like the sound of that either.

Lack of Work makes a dull Shepherd

It has been a learning week and even though I have learned a lot, I don't feel I have gotten much work done. I am one of those people who has to feel I have accomplished something physically every day or I do not feel right. This next month will be better we will hopefully be seeing new baby lambs arrive. With the arrival of new lambs there is no shortage of physical work to be done.

Here's a picture of the last big chore I did.
Cleaning the Barn.

Oh, doesn't it look so nice and fluffy?


OK, it wasn't the last thing I did. I have vaccinated and wormed. I have sorted and separated. I do daily chores well, ...... daily. OK, OK, I just feel the need to be physically working at the sheep camp daily, I am hooked.Hi, my name is Cyndie and I am a ...... Shepherd.