It's a Start, Anyway

Danny's new job.

The Pokey Little Puppy

Gretchen's puppies are growing up and getting cuter.
This is from Easter Sunday.

Bulldozer in Action

Ok, a bulldozer in action for 5 seconds. But I was afraid it wouldn't upload if I took a long one.

Go Grandfather, Go!

Grandfather came all the way from Texas to make our little private road passable.
Gravel should be here tomorrow. Just in time for the big rain on Thursday.
I'm not sure if I'll be able to adjust to being able to use the road in rain.

My Precious

Here's the best little heifer ever born, Precious! For some reason I'm never carrying the camera when she's looking photogenic. But when I went out to get this, she woke up from her nap and struck a pose before running to her mom, Elizabeth (in the background.)
One of the best things about Precious' birth is that Lizzy lets us milk her. We can walk up to her in the field and just milk. Sadly, she doesn't have much left over after Presh has had her fill. I'd like to put mom and baby cow in the pen and feed mom grain so she can produce more, but I have two sheep in there right now. One is being imprisoned so I can see her lamb. The other is being imprisoned so I don't have to catch her again to shear her.

Shear Desperation

Cotton is expecting a baby! Or more likely babies.
And the weather has been in the upper 80s, suddenly. So instead of waiting till next week for the Amish boy to shear her, Becky and I did it. Well, we did 3/4 of it anyway.
We had wanted to save the wool (see the handy dandy wool storage unit on the wall of the barn?) for cleaning, carding, and spinning, but I'm not sure that will happen. I was going to buy hand carders today so we could get a start on our project, but they're $60. If I were confident that my shearing skills would improve enough to get consistently usable fleeces, I would make the investment, but most of the time I just cut wildly, trying to get finished as quickly as possible. I still have two sheep to go, so maybe practice will make perfect.
If I wash and card this wool, I'll post the little I know about fiber for you all to emulate.

More New Creatures on Providence Farm

The girls have been wanting little yellow ducklings for years, and this year seemed especially ripe for ducks, what with the monsoon mimicking weather.
I don't like ducks. They scare me. Especially white ducks. So I made a compromise; they could have ducks if they didn't need to be brooded and they were brown.
Introducing Jemima, Matilda, and Drake, the Mallard family.
See the hackles up on the ladies? I didn't even know ducks had hackles.