Goodbye Sebastian, Hello Ken

Here's what happened on the farm today:

1. My ram Sebastian and my ewe Shakti went to join their new flock. Thanks Natasha, I know you'll give them a great home!

2. My husband Ken and his puppy Leeloo came home from their vacation at our friends' rented beach house. They had a great time, and Leeloo even swam in the ocean!

3. My computer started suffering from random attacks of electronic narcolepsy---just blacking out periodically in the middle of things. Hence, I'm writing this on Ken's computer, while Ken attempts to back up all my files (just in case one of these blackouts becomes permanent). Hopefully, he'll be able to fix whatever's wrong. But that's why there are no photos with the blog tonight... they're all on my computer, where I can't access them right now.

4. A woman I've been in email contact with decided to buy my whole inventory of ram's horns and skulls for an SCA craft project. So, a little more money coming in---Yay! After I finished cleaning up the newest batch of horns for her, I decided to rub them with a little mineral oil. Wow, does that make them look nice!

5. We decided which are the "lucky" sheep who get to go to the state fair later this week. This will be the second year our Icelandics will be on display in The Big Red Barn, which is the fair's most popular attraction. It gets thousands and thousands of visitors every day of the fair, which is fantastic exposure for the breed, but it's also incredibly noisy and the sheep hate it.

Last year, our senior ram Nicholai was one of the two we took there, and he was absolutely miserable. So this year we promised him that he didn't have to go. But our sheep sold so well this year, we don't have any other impressive-looking adult rams left to send, only ram lambs. So we decided we'd send a couple of ewes as well.

Naturally, I'm reluctant to subject any of my most valuable ewes to such a lot of stress so close to the beginning of breeding season. So, if I can't send my biggest ram or my most impressive ewes... what criteria shall I use to pick who goes?

Since I couldn't go with "biggest," I decided to go with "cutest," which means my two leader ewes, Salem and Savannah. They're super cute and sociable, plus they were too small to breed last fall, so they didn't contribute any lambs to the farm this spring. Doing time at the fair can be their offering to the flock for the year. To add a little more color variety, I'll send a couple of the ram lambs with them. We'll have a gray mouflon, a black, a white, and a moorit. That should be a nice mix for people to look at.

We half-jokingly thought about sending Trouble the Runaway Lamb, figuring she deserved a little payback for all the trouble she put us through. But then we were afraid she might escape again, and we'd end up having to chase her all over the fairgrounds... It would be a whole new chapter to her saga here on the blog, but not one we're ready for! :-)