Listen! Can You Hear That?

It's RAINING here! Ever so softly, ever so gently... but it's real, genuine rain!

Our poor dry fields have almost forgotten what moisture felt like.

The crickets are singing hallelujah, and the whole farm is giving a big, thirsty sigh of relief: AHHHHHH.

Hermaphrodite Stew

Guess what we're having for supper?

Yes, that's right: Hermaphrodite Stew.

You see, last fall we bought a group of ewe lambs from a breeder. Over the winter they grew and matured as lambs will do. Except, as time went on, it became obvious that one of them, a black mouflon ewe named Sonnet, was maturing a little differently from the others.

Our first hint that something wasn't right was the confusion that happened at breeding time. Sonnet seemed to go into heat like the other ewes. She allowed the ram to breed her one day, just like normal. But then, for the rest of breeding season, SHE acted like a ram, doing all the typical courtship behavior: sniffing, pawing, and following the other ewes around. She even started fighting to defend "her" ewes from the ram!

She never did have a lamb from that one breeding. By late spring, she was bigger than the other ewes her age. Her horns were two or three times the size of her sisters' horns. She developed a prominent hump on the bridge of her nose. And her genitals, while basically female in outline, were shaped a little funny.

When shearing time came and all her thick wool was removed, we were able to get our first proof that Sonnet really was not "all girl." Her udder was completely undeveloped, to the point of being practically nonexistent. And beneath the skin near where the udder should have been, there was the small but obvious shape of a partially developed, undescended testicle!

We're not sure exactly how it happened, but Sonnet was a triplet. My guess is that maybe she was supposed to be a quad, but she ended up absorbing the fetus of her brother in utero, and ended up with a few of his "parts" mixed in with hers.

Since you already read the title to this post, there's no need to draw out the suspense about her ultimate fate. This is a breeding farm, and Sonnet was never going to be a breeding animal. So around midsummer, she went to the butcher. He was amazed---in all his years, he said he'd never seen a hermaphrodite before.

In the end, Sonnet made her contribution to the farm. Her meat went into the freezer, her hide is salted and waiting to be tanned into a pelt, and her horns were sold to someone for a craft project.

Oh... and you may be interested to know that Sonnet's breeder gave me a replacement lamb this year, to make up for the problem. Guess who that was? That's right: the famous Trouble the Runaway Lamb, whom I've written so many posts about.

What a bizarre chain of events this has been!


So, just in case you ever want to make a really tasty lamb stew, here's my recipe, which I've named in honor of Sonnet.

It's extremely flavorful, rich, and slightly sweet. It makes a very large batch---I like to make a lot at once, and freeze some for later---so you may want to cut the amounts in half.

Hermaphrodite Stew

• 6-8 lbs. of Icelandic lamb shanks and/or necks (bones included)
• Water enough to cover the meat (about 4 quarts)

Put the meat in a large pot with enough water to cover the pieces. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer, covered, until the meat is tender and falling from the bones (about 2 hours).

Remove from heat. When cool enough to handle, scoop out all the lamb chunks and remove the meat from the bones. Break up any large chunks of meat into bite-sized pieces. Return the meat to the broth. Give the bones to your dogs!

Cut up into bite-sized pieces:

• 3 large potatoes
• 2 large onions
• 6 large stalks of celery
• 1 lb. carrots

Add the vegetables to the pot of meat and broth. Return to a simmer.

As the vegetables are cooking, add:

• 6-8 bay leaves
• 2 x 6-oz cans tomato paste
• 1/2 cup red wine vinegar
• 1/2 cup sherry
• 1/2 cup soy sauce
• 1 TB crushed dried rosemary
• 1 TB ground coriander
• 1 tsp ground black pepper
• 1.5 TB minced fresh garlic
• 1/4 cup brown sugar

Cook until vegetables are tender (about 1 hour).

Enjoy!

A Shift in Power

After giving them last night to adjust to each other over the fence, today I opened the gate to let the yearling horses (Torchsong and Shane) in with the weanling fillies.

I'm putting them together because the yearlings are getting a bit thinner than I want them to be. Partially because at their age they need to put a lot of energy into growing, and partially because at their age, they were at the very bottom of the herd pecking order, which means the older, bigger horses would take more than their share of the food.

So by moving the yearlings in with the weanlings, I am able to give them more feed and make sure that no one drives them away from it.

Both yearlings---most especially Torchsong---have been too mild mannered for their own good amongst the adult mares. But today, finding themselves suddenly the oldest and biggest members of their new little herd, they were quick to assert themselves.

There were fierce looks, bared teeth, ears laid back, even some charging and kicking... all with a great, dramatic flurry of dust in the dry paddock. When the scuffling was over, Torchsong and Shane were happily in possession of the hay feeder, and the weanlings were standing bewildered at the other end of the paddock.

I moved a second hay feeder in, and soon everybody was eating happily.

The new hay we just got from our hay guy was super expensive---because of the drought, prices have gone up yet again. But at least this new hay is better quality, so we may be able to feed less with more nutrition and less waste. With luck, it will even out to be about the same as what we were paying before.

Everything is so painfully dry here. The soil has turned completely to dust, and what little grass there is has turned crunchy under foot. It was 90 degrees here today---scarcely normal for October!---and no rain in sight. The poor sheep were just miserable all day. They can't wait for real fall weather to finally arrive.

It was so hot that when I was filling the water trough, Libby and the other weanling fillies came up and wanted to be sprayed with the hose. Libby loves that! She turns herself around and around to make sure you get the spray all over her.

Then, once they were all clean and wet, they immediately went and dried off by rolling in the dirt, leaving themselves completely coated with grit, like chicken cutlets breaded for frying. It was pretty funny!

Thanks to my recent Ebay sales, we were finally able to pay our neighbor Bob for the last of the alfalfa he gave us on credit two months ago. That's a relief, since I know the drought is really hurting his farm's finances too. I felt really bad about making him wait for his money!

Busy Day

It's late and I'm tired, so here's just a simple run down of what I did today:

• Made my first prototype splint for Peri's leg. I padded her leg with sheep wool (I figured that's a pretty natural padding for a sheep's leg), wrapped it with Vet Wrap, put on a cylindrical splint I cut from a plastic water bottle, and held that on with Vet Wrap. Now I'll keep my eye on her to see if she seems to start using the leg at all, now that the ankle joint is stabilized. If not, I'll have to make a new design.

• Made a new isolation pen to put the sheep in that have been at the fair. Last year, at my request, they had a second barrier around their pen to keep people back (I didn't want some little kid poking a hand in there and getting her fingers mashed by Nicholai's horns). But this year, the fair people didn't provide that barrier. So all week long, my sheep have been petted by hundreds of people who also petted every other animal at the fair. Not exactly a biosecurity dream come true. So I'm putting the returning sheep through quarantine, just to make sure. The two ram lambs are probably bound for the butcher pretty soon anyhow, but I don't want them mixing with the other sheep until then anyhow.

• Set up the back pasture with a hay feeder, water and grain buckets, and moved Shane and Torchsong back there. Being yearlings, they are using energy on growth, so they are a bit thinner than the adult horses they've been pastured with, so by moving them into a separate enclosure, I can feed them extra. Torchsong is so submissive to the other horses, she barely dares to eat with them at all, so she'll do much better with less competition for the feed.

• Went to Richmond with Ken to pick up the sheep from the fair. Loaded them up, came home, and put them in their isolation pen.

• Checked my email and discovered that 3 out of the 4 dolls I put up for sale on Ebay two days ago just sold tonight for my full asking price. That's an extra $400 that I didn't have this morning. Yay!

A Feast for the Senses

A bright, warm autumn day. The sunlight filters through the clouds, the air is clear, the grass dry underfoot. It's picture-perfect weather for the Fall Fiber Festival.

From across the field, a dog whistle chirps and shrills. Obeying his handler, a border collie shoots across the rolling pasture, and a trio of sheep bustle toward the target pen. The air smells of popcorn, doughnuts, and sheep.



Crowds of people, many with shopping bags over their arms, meander along an avenue of tents displaying wares and animals. No one seems to be in a hurry. There are people here of all ages, shapes, and sizes. Some wear cargo shorts and t-shirts, others granny skirts and tunic tops, dusty baseball caps or jaunty hats adorned with felt flowers. A few young Mennonite women in plain blue dresses and white caps pause to examine a yarn display. A woman with long, beautiful silver hair strolls through one of the booths carrying a young black angora rabbit.



Every vague notion I've ever had that a life of shepherding, spinning, and weaving is good for the soul is reinforced as I look around. Every face I see seems open, guileless, and content. Although being in a crowd often feels harsh and nerve-jangling to me, walking among these people is as comfortable as basking in gentle sunlight.

The thing I love about this festival is that it is an absolute feast for the senses. The booths are full of yarns, pelts, socks, sweaters, shawls, and hats of every color imaginable, plus every tool, pattern, book, and raw material you could possibly need to make your own socks, sweaters, shawls, hats and crafts.



While your eyes are feasting on yarns the color of sandstone cliffs at sunset, tropical lagoons at dawn, and peacocks at midnight, your fingers are feasting on the cornucopia of textures. If you are not a shepherd or a fiber artist, you may not know this, but every breed of sheep produces a different type of wool. And here at the fiber festival, you can touch them all.



Here is a bag full of coarse, black Karakul wool, strong for making durable rugs. Here is a pen full of Scottish Blackface sheep whose wool is used to make the famous Scottish tweeds. The Merino and Rambouillet fleeces look odd and lumpy in their raw form, until you touch them and discover how delicate and filmy-soft they are.

Then there are the other types of fiber animals: Tall llamas with their dramatic supermodel eyelashes. Their smaller cousins, the alpacas, whose fleece flows like water through your fingers when you spin it. Curly angora goats, mischievous-looking cashmere goats. Fluffy Angora rabbits with down as light as air.



We strolled through all the booths, touching every thing, oohing and ahhing at how soft this yarn was, how dramatic that color of roving, how skillfully done that piece of craft work.

We stopped to chat with a couple of fellow Icelandic sheep breeders who had a few lambs on display, and also our fellow Buckingham residents, Felicity and John, who raise Shetland sheep not very far from where we live.

All in all, a wonderful afternoon. We came home tired and happy, with our minds full of colors and our fingers smelling faintly of lanolin from all the fleeces we'd touched.

New Boys in Town

The other thing that happened recently (Wednesday night, actually, but I haven't had a chance to write about it until now), is that my new rams from Frelsi Farm arrived at last!

I've been very excited about these boys and---having purchased them after only seeing a couple of photos of them as young lambs---have been waiting quite impatiently to see them now for the first time as 5-month old "teenagers."

It's a remarkable thing about Icelandic sheep in this country, that the demand for good bloodlines is strong enough that people start shopping months and months in advance, scouting out the best bloodlines, putting down deposits in January to reserve lambs that won't even be born until April, and won't be delivered to our farms until October.

In my case this year, I paid $1,650.00 (plus shipping) for these two ram lambs that I'd never even seen in person.

It can be a roll of the dice. Doing your research and going with a reputable breeder helps a lot. But even the breeder can't always tell which lambs are going to be the most exceptional and which ones will fail to live up to their early promise. In my various sheep purchases, I've had occasions to be pleasantly surprised at the sheep that arrived on delivery day, and occasions where I was surprised, but not quite so pleasantly.

So you can imagine that I was holding my breath a little as I was about to see my new boys for the first time.

I gotta say, I think they were worth the wait!

The white one, Taj, was smaller than average when I bought him. I liked his bloodlines enough that I decided to risk it anyway, and he has grown up very nicely into a beautiful, big fellow. No size problems there! He has very good shoulders, excellent horn spread, and a plush, silky fleece with exceptional luster. Very solid and correct, and just an overall BEAUTIFUL sheep.

The brown one, Tut (as in Tutankhamen), has horns that are just a shade narrower than my ideal, but that's where my criticism of him ends. He has SUPERB shoulders, really nice build, very good size, and also a soft, silky, rich fleece.

These guys are definitely exactly what my flock needs. Their lines should combine very nicely with what I already have, and make the whole flock better. I can't wait to see what kind of lambs they produce.

Some of the ewes seem to think the same thing. Although the new boys are in the isolation pen, separated from the rest of the flock, a small contingent of the ewes spent today camped out at the nearest spot near the fence, eyeing the new prospects. It's too early yet for them to really be starting to get into breeding mode, but they're beginning to remember the possibility.

A couple of other nice things about the new rams: They both have calm, friendly, docile temperaments. And they both seem to have done very well against the parasites on their home farm. Granted, they don't get tested nearly as thoroughly against heat and parasites growing up in Maine as they do here in hot, humid Virginia, but still, they are in excellent condition, with good, bright-red eyelid tissues indicating no sign of anemia from parasite overload.

So, we're off to a good prelude to breeding season this year. Time will fly by now, and before you know it, it'll be late March and I'll be posting pictures of our first baby lambs of 2008.

A Day at the Fair

Today we took advantage of our free passes and went to the State Fair.

We go every year, and always have a good time, but this year it just didn't seem as good as other years. The crowds were thin, which would normally make the day MORE pleasant, in my estimation, since I'm not overly fond of crowds or noise.

But the exhibits and vendors seemed very thin this year too. There seemed to be many fewer vendors, and the vendors that were there seemed not to have as many wares on display.

I wondered if this was because the fair was originally planned to move to a different location this year, but then the new venue wasn't ready, so they didn't move after all. Maybe the uncertainty of where it would be put off some vendors?

We always go to the agricultural and plant exhibits, the craft exhibits, and the animal exhibits, but none of them really seemed up to par this year, either.

There didn't seem to be as many animals in the animal display barns---with the exception of the specialty breed exhibits in the Big Red Barn where our sheep were on display. That actually had a nice variety of critters, as usual, including this really strange and cool looking spotted sheep (pictured at right).

It was interesting looking at the sheep on display in the sheep barn, even though they were nearly all the identical-looking meat sheep, slick shorn for showing. They don't have nearly the character of the Icelandic sheep, but they were still pretty cute, with their big ears and mournful faces like the faces of large, docile hound dogs.

I had to admire, though, the superb---even exaggerated---meat conformation on many of them. Broad shoulders, long backs, meaty and rounded all over. These were sheep bred for one purpose only, but bred for it well.

I'd never want to give up variety and versatility of our Icelandic sheep, nor the exceptional leanness and mildness of flavor of the meat. But wow, those huge meat sheep at the fair sure would produce a LOT of lamb chops!

So anyway, we wandered around for a while, but after a couple of hours we got bored and came home. I hope the Fall Fiber Festival this weekend will be more fun!

A Peg Leg for Peri?

Remember Peri, my ewe that was bitten by a rattlesnake? Here's the latest photo taken of her leg today. (If you click on it, you can see a larger version.)

The wound has healed up well, and I haven't been bandaging it or giving it any special care at all for quite some time. However, I'm beginning to believe that the tendon damage from the necropsy is permanent.

Peri has regained her usual feisty personality and is finally gaining weight again. She doesn't seem to have any pain in the leg anymore. But she still can't use the foot properly.

There's no stability to the ankle joint. If she tries to put weight on it, it sags to the side as if there are no tendons supporting it. So she still spends most of her time lying down, and hobbles vigorously on three and a half legs whenever she wants to move.

So now I'm wondering if I can come up with some kind of splint or leg brace that she can wear. If I can find some way to hold that ankle immobile for her, I think that she could regain an almost-normal life.

I'd like it to be something that

• Stays in place
• Holds the joint relatively immobile
• I can make inexpensively myself
• Is comfortable for her
• Doesn't have to be removed and replaced every day
• Is easy to remove, clean, and replace when necessary
• Is not going to rot or get too gross from routine exposure to weather and sheep manure.

Anybody have any suggestions?


If you missed the first few episodes of Peri's story (or if you just want to see photos of how the wound has progressed), you can find them here:

August 7: Peri's Reprieve
August 8: Not for the Faint of Heart
August 9: Getting Used to the Maggots
August 29: Peri's Progress and Other Photos

Sheep Treats and (At Last!) a Horse Sale

Now is the time of year when the sheep all get fed extra, to boost their vitality before breeding season.

Since the sheep didn't get their fair share of the pasture this year (due to the horses needing almost all of it), they are a little thinner than I would like them to be right now. So lately I've been giving them treats.

Whenever I go outside, I'll go bend down a leafy branch or two and the sheep will rush to devour the leaves in a mad feeding frenzy reminiscent of a pack of woolly piranhas. The maple tree in the back yard is their favorite, but they'll eat most anything leafy. Moriah, in particular, is fond of honeysuckle fronds.

They all go nuts for the big, bean-like seed pods from the row of locust trees by the driveway, but those are not quite ripe enough to start dropping off the trees yet.

Today, when we went to the feed store to get more sheep feed, we also picked up a couple of protein blocks, one for the ram paddock and one for the ewe paddock. No need to wonder if the sheep are going to like them: they were crowding around, nibbling on the edges of the block before I could even finish getting the wrapper off. I guess the blocks must smell really good!

Later today while I was doing the evening chores, Ken came out to tell me I had a phone call. It was a woman calling about our yearling colt Shane. Since he's priced fairly low, he does tend to get a few inquiries every now and then, but usually nobody really serious.

To my amazement, this woman went from asking a few basic questions straight to asking if she could send a deposit. She said she'd seen Shane's photo months ago in his for sale ad, and hadn't been able to stop thinking about him.

So, assuming all else goes as planned, it looks like we've FINALLY made a horse sale. I want Shane to do well in his new home, so I'll spend time working with him over the next couple of weeks, refreshing all the ground work he's already been taught, and exposing him to some new experiences, so that he'll be better prepared to deal with the big shock of leaving his birthplace for the first time and going away to a new home.

Of course, his sale price is so low that the money is not going to do more than pay for about 2 weeks worth of hay for the rest of the herd, but hey, at this point 2 weeks of hay is better than no hay at all!

Sheep Secretary

I spent today being a sheep secretary.

I never would have guessed that being a farmer would involve so much paperwork.

For one thing, now that I've sold just about all the sheep I'm planning to sell for the year, it's time to send in their registrations and ownership transfers.

Plus, it's just about time for our annual Scrapie program inspection, so I have to get all my records and paperwork in order for that too. We've completed two years in the program so far. In another three years we'll be able to be certified as an official "scrapie free" flock.

I don't mind the paperwork so much, it just takes a while to get my records organized. I have to have all the details at my fingertips for all the sheep that have come or gone from my flock since last year.

Details like: name, description, tattoo numbers, ear tag numbers, registration numbers, sire, dam, birth date, name and contact info for each person we bought a sheep from or sold a sheep to, date we acquired the sheep, date we sold the sheep, or if it died, the date and cause of death.

For my own records, I also track things like birth weight, birth number (single, twin, triplet), assisted or unassisted birth, purchase price, sale price, shipping details, etc.

In truth, all this information is good to have anyhow, and having this inspection come up once a year forces me to set aside the time to make sure the records are organized---which is convenient at other times of year when I need to know a piece of information. All I need to do is pull out the printout of my inspection data, and most everything I need to know is already right there.

I'm almost done now, and my info chart is about 14 pages long. I just have a few stray details to look up, and then I'll be done.


An unrelated bit of good news: My Ebay sales have done well enough that not only was I able to save up enough money to pay for the two new rams I'm getting this week, we were also finally able to pay most of what we owe our neighbor Bob for the alfalfa he gave us on credit last month.

We still have some outstanding bills to pay off, though---and of course an unending need for hay---so I'll be putting some more things up on Ebay before long. I really hope some of our horse sales come through soon. I hate having to make people wait for the money we owe them!