We have HOOF STOCK!!!!!!!
Meet Miss Lilly… She is a lovely little Shetland sheep ewe and she is ours. We just paid off the bill, so to speak and we have upgraded the homestead to farm status with the addition of 2 (soon to be 3) sheep and 2 beautiful bunnies!!! French Angora wool bunnies!!! Oh my gosh… it’s been terrible keeping this all from you all, but I wanted to make sure that everything went properly and that I could earn the cash for them and make sure everything went well!!!! It’s been a secret now for almost 10 days!!!! And if you know anything about me, its that its hard for me to keep a secret! I’m terrible at them!
Well, I found Miss Robyn on Craigslist… my favorite place to hang out as you might know. And she was selling a few of her sheep since she is branching out into blue faced Liesters, more than the Shetland and Romney mixes that she has. She’s a wonderful person and has a cool blog… she raises llamas and mini donkeys and goats and sheep… oh yes and angora bunnies!!!!! OH MY GOSH!!! We have had the nicest little email conversations and she wanted to help us get some nice sheep to get started with… and bunnies too! She’s a fiber artist and just a cool person, I’m so glad we have met!
I could hardly sleep last night, just waiting to be able to leave and go and visit the sheep and pick up the bunnies! Maggie and I finished the bunny hutch last night after I spent the day picking the banjo at a festival… one of the best parts of this whole deal is that for some weird reason, I had four good paying gigs this week… quite unusual… and they are the source of our sheep and bunny money!!! I am truly a hillbilly at heart… picking the banjo for livestock. Can’t get much more hillybilly than that I think…
She raises donkeys too! I like donkeys… but I really wanted sheep… the goats were adorable as well, especially the bottle babies, they were so friendly!!!
So off we went! On the 4th of July at noon, we headed up over the border into Michigan, just a bit… and we so delighted to meet Robyn and her hubby and get a little tour of their farm! Oh, how cool… I love people’s farms… everyone is so unique! Within no time we were out walking in the pasture and going to meet our sheep!!! One is named Lilly and the other Celia and we got to talking and I mentioned how I really wanted to get a brown one to go with the black and the silver one… and guess what! I’m going to get Lily’s brown Shetland/blue faced Leister mix lamb ewe too!!! But after she goes to fair with her. And of course when I can pick a bit more money outta my banjer! But that won’t take long at all.
We are working on getting the big pasture in the back fenced. We have the big corner posts and the cement and bought a nice tube gate and some water buckets and all that good stuff, so we’re ALMOST ready. Middle of the week when it get everything dug in and all, then we’re going to get a HUGE roll of field fence and get it all fenced in and then we can pick up the sheepies!
This is Melody, she was a sweeeet ewe and liked to be petted… a lot! It was so fun to walk and talk with Robyn and visit all the animals! Our sheepies didn’t exactly come running to embrace us, but ah, I think that is fine… haha… they will come to love us I am sure!
Well, we have to finish our pasture efforts and now that we are the proud substitute moms, I just want to hurry along and get it all ready for them! On Wednesday, we’re getting our huge roll of field fence. So that means tomorrow… digging holes for corner posts!!! Going to try and get to it kind of early, when it’s not so hot out! Don’t have anything planned for tomorrow, save farm stuff!
Isn’t she lovely? I just can’t wait for them to come home! Maybe towards the end of the week, we can go and pick them up! That would be wonderful! I love a goal… makes things easy to get done!!!
But part of the deal was for a pair of fiber bunnies! French angora rabbits! This lovely white albino male and a gorgeous silver grey girl! Maggie has been very interested in these cool bun buns and I love the idea of a rabbit that’s not for eating, but has a cool benefit, it’s stunning soft wool! Jessy and I really want to learn to do carding and spinning and process both sheep fleece and bunny wool! Maybe throw a little llama or alpaca wool in our mix! (No, we’re not adding llamas or alpacas in our flock at this time, but we could always barter or trade for a bit for our own custom Windhaven blends!!!)
I’m not sure how to say it without being laughed at, but I’ve always been attracted to sheep! (Owning them that is… haha…) I like goats and love their personality, but sheep are just the cat’s meow to me. I just love their gentle nature and there is something about them, I was surprised at how friendly and sweet Melody was, and I hope that our girls will come to love us as their alpha herd mates! (Robyn says animal crackers are very favored in her flock….) I can’t wait to see them contently grazing in the pastures of Windhaven!
Well, we got the bunnies home and sat around watching them for a bit, then decided it would be fun to pet them and brush them. They didn’t mind at all, and in no time flat we had a nice little pile of fancy Angora bunny wool! Our little brush wasn’t the best, I think we need a little nicer wire brush slicker, but it was so nice to just hold a big bunny and brush them! Bunny Beauty Salon time here at Windhaven! These are BIG bunnies! Evee was definately not huge next to one at all! They are at least 18 inches long, something like that!!!
Maggie pondered for a long time about what to name her little bunny herd. She wanted something cool, and finally decided on anglo-saxon warriors and maidens! haha… that’s my kid. So the boy bunny is now christened… Oswald. Or Ozzy for short. And the lady, she is to be Gwendolyn. We won’t have to worry about any new names since Sir Oswald is ah, fixed. Perhaps sometime in the future we will see about acquiring a stud bunny but right now, we’re content to learn about our little couple and the world of fiber rabbits!
They are eventually going to go out to the barn but right now, they are in the screen porch where it’s nice and shady and cool and we can keep a good watch over them for awhile. Plus we just love going out there and visiting them! They are so sweet.
Don’t you love our new hutch? We made it from an old baby playpen! It was such a cool garage sale find! And we just added some cage wire to the inside, added some tie-wraps to get it all secure and added a piece of pegboard on the top and some bungie cords to keep it secure. We’ll probably adjust it a bit as the days go on, but I think it’s nice and secure for inside the porch.
Well, I think it’s fairly official now. We have 4 kinds of livestock now; sheep, fiber rabbits, turkeys and our beloved chickens! And I just ordered our first batch of broiler chicks… 25 little fluff balls will be arriving in two weeks!!! I think end of September we might be having a big BBQ chicken picking party… we’ll see!
So this is the Fourth of July that I will remember for some time to come for sure… it’s the day that declared our independence from the normal life of a urban dweller to that of a bona fide homesteading, farming bunch of gals… and this is just WONDERFUL! I know we have get through the first full year to be accepted at the local watering holes and feed store, but I think we’re doing pretty good… it’s our 3 month anniversary and we’re still in love with it all!!!! 9 more months to go for our first year!!!
Happy 4th of July to you all!!!!
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