The Year of the Ram…

Just got the news and by golly, am I excited! This wonderful beautiful stud muffin is going to be coming to live at Windhaven in a few weeks!!!

Introducing Windswept’s Gideon… a lovely morrit 2 year old Shetland ram with wonderful breeding and some lovely lambs to his credit already! He’s just beautiful and I can not believe he is coming to live with us!

He’s a nice tame boy, who won Grand Champion at the local state fair with his current mom’s daughters leading him about. He’s halter trained and loves animal crackers. Rachel says he’s a gentleman for the most part and has not the bad habits of some that she knows, but of course, with a ram, you don’t really want to turn your back on him in tight quarters!

He’s got a big brown spot on his side and panda eye markings, and just a lovely set of horns! I love how they double back instead of just curling. Very nice.

This is Gideon as a teenager. You can see his big brown spot a lot better and his cute little knee patches. He about the size of my black sheep, his back is about to your knee and his head, mid-thigh. I like Shetlands for their smaller size and wonderful fleece. I can’t wait for my flock to be sheared so we can start working with their lovely wool. When I am out with them, I just run my fingers through the delicate crimpy lovely wool and can wait to see it all laid out and being picked free of veggie matter! haha… Of course, Holly’s will take about a week to be de-burred! She is the queen of junk in her wool.

Well, tomorrow I send a deposit for him. And then within a fortnight, we’ll be traveling north to go and pick him up. Hope he enjoys riding in a station wagon! He’s pretty mellow, so says Rachel and our only concern is that he might get excited and head butt a window!!! I think what we might do is rig up a bit of a padded cell for him! We have a couple thick moving blankets and perhaps we will hang them over the side window and back, so that they can take any head butting that he might consider. Everyone else has ridden pretty nicely in there, but hey, there’s probably a good story in the making there, you know.

I got a chance to peek at his pedigree… holy cow, he’s quite impressive. And he’s registered with the National Shetland Sheep of America group too! Now you might think… well, gee, why get rid of such a magnificant animal? Well, with sheep, and a smaller herd, it’s advisable not to keep breeding father with daughters and so on. Just too much inbreeding and such after a bit. And people’s ideas of their breeding plans change. They want to mix it up a bit, breed for different colors and markings, that sort of thing. Rachel has two rams and it’s just a bit much for her needs at the moment. Often, after a ram has done his bit, he is send for slaughter. She just didn’t want that for her boy. And I sure don’t want that for him either!

Since I’m interested more in raising lambs for sale, for other spinners and folks looking for these lovely little sweet sheep to mow their lawns and be loved pets, I think Gideon will work out just fine. And when it’s time for him not to be sharing his parentage, then we can consider neutering him so that he can become a lovely senior citizen wool beast and live out his life in leisure here. It’s a win win situation. We’re a small operation and not really interested in some huge operation. I just would love to have a few lambs each spring to raise and enjoy and pass on to others who love this spunky little sheep!!!

His babies just look adorable. Spotted and cute as buttons. I just can’t wait to see what comes of it all.

You know… I’m learning so much in the new life. Not just the farming and all, but I’m learning that you need to be very specific in your dreaming. You need to focus on the things that you want to happen and then make them happen. I saw his ad about 2 weeks ago, and I thought, oh, I can never afford him. I just can’t see it happening and I passed it by. He was my dream ram… great bloodlines from a farm and shepherdess that I read about and just thought was so awesome with her sheep… and I just knew he would be the one to add a little color and splash to my herd… and yet I just was negative and thought, this can never happen. And it wasn’t that he was that expensive, it just didn’t seem like it would be able to happen and I passed him by.

But then I was reading all about the story of Jenna and Merlin, this beautiful Fells pony that was really pretty far outta of her reach and yet, through her perseverance and just asking for special arrangements and being open and honest with the owner, he is now her dream horse! All because she was open, honest and just asked.

So I thought, I need to write to this lady and see what we might be able to do. Maybe I could make a couple payments. Maybe barter, Maybe…. who knows? It was worth the asking. What was the worse she would say…. no? Waiting was hard, but I finally got the answer that I wanted! She would work with me and thought we would be a wonderful home for her beloved fellow!!! Yahoooo!!!

(I suppose the blog helped too… she could easily see that we were pretty decent gals here and dedicated to our critters and growing our homestead… thanks everyone!)

So, tomorrow, I’m sending off a downpayment on him. And hopefully, within a fortnight, I’ll be able to pay off the rest and drive up and get that handsome critter! I hope my girls will find him handsome and if not handsome, handy! Although, I’m not sure that would mean in a sheep. I do know that my two teenager boy sheepies, Angus and Fergus, will LOVE to have a real man in their life. They are so funny with their head butting play… once they butt heads with Gideon, they will be in awe I’m quite sure. I’m hoping that they can all be in one big flock and live contentedly, which often folks do with Shetlands, as I understand, but worse comes to worse, he can live with the boys and we’ll have two tiny herds. Momma Noel will not tolerate his foolishness… haha… she puts everyone in their place at the moment, and will even stand up to Cody if she thinks she needs to. She is my grumpy old lady and just does not let anyone push her around.

 

Here is another one of Gideon’s lambs!  How cute is this one???

Well, great, waiting!  haha…  I’m so good at it… NOT…  but it’s good for me to have to wait for something so wonderful!  What a delightful first day of the second year of Windhaven farm!  A new foundation sire for our own little wool flock!  I just can’t wait to go and see him and meet Rachel and of course, bring the little stud muffin home!  I guess this means ramp up time to get that back pasture all fenced in safe and get the new sheep lodgings in the big barn finished!  Oh boy!!!  What fun!!!!!

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About Mobymom

the banjo player for Deepwater Bluegrass, and the editor of BuckeyeBluegrass.com as well as the main graphic designer of the Westvon Publishing empire. She is a renaissance woman of many talents and has two lovely daughters and a rehab mobile home homestead to raise.

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