Pastures New

The day after the terrible incident of losing their fleeces, we took the ewes down to their summer pasture.

Sounds simple.... but not quite so easy.

Simon and I finally corraled and lifted all the girls into the truck and off we went.

It's just down the road to our neighbours who have this lovely pasture.

It might take them a while but they'll do their best to get through it !Here they are taking a break, before the next munching shift.

We wanted to wean the lambs a couple of days before they went to their new homes. After a WHOLE DAY of bleating, the lambs woke up the next morning and appeared to have forgotten all about their Mums. They seem pretty much OK here don't they ?

So finally, after the vaccination booster shots, foot trimming, deworming, ear tagging, paperwork recording the lambs were ready to go.

Here are the dynamic duo, Rolo and Opal, ready for the trip to Shambala Farm.

Simon and I loaded the lambs into the truck and got the first ferry over to Vancouver Island. Here they are at the ferry terminal. It's very nice, you get preferential treatment if you are carrying livestock, so "Thank You" to BC Ferries for that. Here are Smartie and Wurly in the line up.And another shot of them all. They were very calm and well behaved on the journey and managed to keep people entertained in the ferry line up.So everyone is settled in their "pastures new", which incidentally I looked up and means this,

"if someone goes to pastures new, they leave their job or home in order to go to a new one."

So it's very quiet at Periwinkle Farm these days. We managed to manhandle the rams down the road and the flock seem quite content in their luscious pasture and don't miss us at all !

The rabbits are going to have to step up on the entertainment factor.

Bunch Of Baldies

There's been lots going on around here lately, but for today I'm just going to mention that last Wednesday was shearing day. Always one of the highlights of my year.

Here is Tom this year making short work of Cashew.
For some reason I only took one picture of the process, and I see that last year I also posted a pic of Tom and Cashew here, http://lifeatperiwinkle.blogspot.com/2007/05/shearing-day.html,

Here are the fleeces after the flock, (unwillingly in some cases) gave them up.

I have since skirted them and packed them away until I can wash them. There will be posts in the future about fleece, LOTS of it..... but I digress,

back to the baldies.

Here they are looking like wee goats. Tom is Scots and calls them "the wriggley little buggers".

They were quite crabby with one another after shearing, so there was lots of head butting and posturing, and that's just the girls with the lambs, who were completely flummoxed by the change in their Mums.

Marmite was consoled by a tasty morsel of Hazelnut leaves while the rabbits look on, concerned, "Are we next ?", but no, I have hopes of plucking them rather than shaving them for their contribution to the Periwinkle fibre fund.

Everyone got used to each other pretty quickly and peace once again reigned in the meadow.

Odds and Sods

A fairly "normal" week this week.

You know...

work at the museum, baking, open air market vending, animal ministering, gardening, that kind of thing.

Here are a couple of things we did.

Saturday we went to get another load of firewood up by Lois Lake. It was a hot day so we stopped at the lake after we were done. Tika had a nice swim-with-her-feet-on-the-bottom.

Here they are having a bit of a rest.

Also this week, after a rocky start I got my latest warp on the loom at the Fine Arts. I am making place mats. This picture is the horrible mess I had made of it. Threads crossing over each other are not good to have. That's what happens when you try to do things alone, that require supervision from more experienced weavers.

And this is what it looked like after expert help and Marty taking the SCISSORS to it. Which is much more what it should look like !

Here is Val's lovely warp with the cotton that was recycled and dyed.

The Buns seem to be settling in very well. Here they are having a bit of an outing in the orchard. Once the sheep/lambs/dog are safely out of the way we let them loose, (although they are wearing harnesses with leashes, just to give us the edge when it comes to catching them !!) They are very fast and can get through quite small holes in the fence, so you have to be on guard at all times but they quite enjoy hopping around and kick up their little bunny feet as they run.Today was a bit of a grey,rainy inside day so I made marmalade with some organic oranges, lemons and grapefruit we got in our Sunshine Organics bin a couple of weeks ago. They needed using up so I tried a recipe from the Bernadin book. It was very easy, as you put the fruit through a food processor, (I used the blender, not quite so good probably, but satisfactory) before boiling with the sugar so there was no prolonged cooking. It set up very well.So that's it !