December 25, 2009  Whew it has been an amazing month.  It is Christmas day.  Breakfast has been served.  Gifts have been opened.  We have a few moments to relax before we go visit with family.  My sister is coming from North Carolina today.  She has not been out here for 8 years!  It will be so good to see them and entertain them tomorrow.  They used to live an hour away and came every Christmas morning for our traditional Corn Beef Hash and Apple Pie Breakfast.  Now they are traveling here from seeing more family in Alaska.  Today Christmas dinner at our parents' home tomorrow we do the whole Breakfast thing again......I tell you it is just breaking Peter's heart, at 17 he can handle that!
The Barn has been readied for lambing.  We have a few more feeders to repair and build but we had an early gift to get that ready.  Selena is a culinary student from Seattle who has a great interest in dairying.  She has volunteered to come down and help out a bit.  Many hands certainly makes for little work.  We got one side of the Barn cleaned out and once we have feeders ready to put in place we will have spare lambing room.  We will be able to rotate sheep from one side of the barn to the other and clean as we go!!!  I think the folks at the Issaquah Methodist Church will shout Amen to that.  They came down last April and helped us clean out last years accumulation of manure and bedding.  It adds up after 3 months.
Shearing supplies have been ordered early this year.  Last year I waited til the end of December to order Syringes and vaccine.  They sat on I-5 during the January flood closure of the freeway and were delivered the day after we finished shearing.  It is easiest to give vaccines, trim feet, worm and do all the "maintenance" work at once when we have all the sheep in one place.  All will be handled, all will be assessed, all will be sheared and trimmed, no hiding from our watchful eyes.
We have had a blessed year and pray you have also.  2010 looms close.  What challenges await?  Let's find out!

November 29, 2009  It has been a wonderful Thanksgiving week.  The Ewes are all home and happy to be in the loafing shed.  We will let them into the barn at shearing time when they need a bit more protection.  The rams now have a dry house, their shed filled with mud, our drainage is not what it used to be.  There was a group of teen boys here yesterday who helped Brad move the shelter to a new location.  They have a dry home now.  The new pasture for my lambs is coming up.  We got that in right under the wire and were praying for 3 weeks without a hard frost.  It is showing a slight green fuzz now and should be ready in the spring or summer for lambs.
The boys have all had their school conferences all are doing well.  We have one who will begin the college search.  He is not our farmer, that is okay.  He helps out a lot around the farm and house and rarely complains but it is not his love at 17.  The youngest will be a great milker.  He wakes up at 5:30 or 6:00 some mornings ready to go, he doesn't even need coffee that early.
I cooked a Leg of Lamb for Thanksgiving.  It had a pomegranate sauce.  We have a winter CSA box from the Boistfort Valley Farm.  I roasted carrots and parsnips, baked delicata squash and mashed yellow finn potatoes.  It was a wonderful dinner and I have to say even more fun to prepare.  Heidi Peroni sends along recipes with the CSA box and I have been having so much fun preparing the vegetables and fruits that arrive weekly. 
We arrive at December this week, then Christmas and the new year.  Shearing will be done in January and then the New lambing season is upon us.  We have much to be Thankful for.

November 21, 2009  It has been a week of little sleep but no flooding this time around.  The winds howled around the house and barn and the waters rose but only into the low lying fields.  It is a relief to see the river in it's banks again and the worst of the winds should be over by today. 
Brad is finishing a fence....damaged by the last flood. He should finish it all today and will figure out how to drop the wires to avoid it being filled with debris in high water and toppled over.
Brad went to Albany NY for the annual meeting of the Dairy Sheep Association of North America.  It was grand, he learned lots.  We have so much still to learn and so many studies and improvements are being made in the dairy sheep industry it is good to take advantage of such knowledge.  I was extremely jealous though he got to tour Old Chatham in New York.  Wow.  He did bring back some Camembert from Nancy Clark.  sigh
We went to Steve's Cheese on the 15th of November for his annual anniversary party.  It was a fun day, wine and cheese, and good company.  What a great time.
This week we head into Thanksgiving.  We Thank God the river is within it's banks. The girls are eating and growing.  We have three healthy boys and an intact home.  We are fortunate.  We are thankful for so many people who have come alongside us in the past two years.  As the waters rose this week I was very nervous and not sleeping .  It was cold and wet and rainy.  I have had much time to think about how Thankful I am.  Thankful with a capital T.

November 8 2009, We moved all the wet woolies home today.  They have been mowing the neighbors last hay field that was too short to cut and too long to leave.  They had some delicious meals but now that the rains are upon us we want them home where they have shelter as they like.  Pastures get pretty wet here in Western Washington also so we will keep them in the barn yard to minimize damage to the fields. 
We had a very enjoyable day yesterday our friends from the Issaquah Methodist Church came to help out once again.  We have 13 lambing jugs in the old loafing shed and electrical outlets along the whole wall to hang the heat lamps from.  We pulled the old feeders apart and Brad will cut new hog panels to fit back into the feeders.  Nice small squares that the sheep cannot get their heads through and get stuck.   The old panels had several missing slats where we had to cut one or several ewes out where they put their head through a hole to get the best of the hay or alfalfa.  At times we found two ewes with their head through the same hole......sometimes I will agree, sheep are stupid.....no worse than some people though.

October 2009,  This was the month to eat and get big and eat and be bred and wander and kick up the heels and graze and begin planning for the next year.  October was a lovely busy month so much I did not get to the computer to chronicle the progress.  We did the Wedge Festival in Portland, the Moscow Cheese Festival in Idaho, and Farm days in Sultan.  It was a busy month.  Brad moved the sheep across the neighbors hay field.  Each day he would check to see which ewe was bred and we marked it all on our calendar.  Lambing will begin February 11th to about March 18th.  Time now to rest and be ready for the new year and cheesemaking 2010!