Sheep are shorn!
It's a great feeling to have my little flock all done and I've gotten so much better/faster at doing it the blade (hand) shearing. Unfortunately, my Icelandic sheep's wool has never been great. I don't know why, but they matt up so fast. Ugh!
Thankfully though, my CVM, Jolie, had a very nice fleece on her and I'm excited to process and use it! (that's a fleece, not a dead animal). ;)
Mike always helps me with catching and holding the sheep and then when I'm finished, he quick trims their hooves while we have them down.
Before:
After:
After everybody is out of their coats, I am all hot and stinky and yucky, (as you can imagine) ;) so it's time for a glorious solar shower!!!
Andrew fixed it up a bit this spring, to include a nice new floor...
I forgot how much I enjoy showering under the sun. It's incredible!
We have so much hot water being generated right now that you don't have to feel bad about standing in the warm water and sunshine allllll afternoon. But just so I don't paint too pretty a picture, you do have to check for spiders on your towel before drying off. ;) ;)
We were going to run down to the beach yesterday, but the arrival of a new calf interrupted our plans. Yet another girl! Mike's been training the young ornery new heifers to stand for their milkings out in the pasture (with help from Lizzy) and getting up to feed babies at 1am and 7am. Such a farm boy. :) But he really loves his girls, so he doesn't complain. :)
This is the first (older) baby, Roxy, with her helmet getting her horn buds burned off. No pictures of Poppy in yet, but she looks just like Roxy.
Before I sign off, a quick happy 19th birthday to our garden princess today!
Love you Therese :)
Enjoy your weekend!
Mark Larson here, Very cool, I was going to say especially the sheep shearing, but actually all of it is especially cool. The shower looks Llke something I would see at a fancy tourist eco-lodge down here, except for better because I can tell it's made from recyclables.
ReplyDeleteHey Mark, thanks for stopping by! Our solar shower's been around for a few years--I thought you got the close up tour of it when you over sometime? If not, here's a post detailing it better: http://www.thatfamilyblog.com/2011/05/showering-in-sun-with-free-hot-water.html
DeleteI love the shower as we don't have running water here and a shower of any kind would be exceptionally nice. Very well done blog post. Thank you
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