What do you do when the entire northeast is digging out from a nor’easter?

You make way for spring!Of course, you know I’d rather be digging out, too.  A big snow storm is a great excuse to stay by the fire and finally finish a knitting project or seven.

Sadly, instead of snow, we have our spring bulbs popping up everywhere.

It’s only February, you poor, confused little darlings.

No matter.  It’s a sign that it’s high time I take down the exterior Christmas lights and garlands.

Yes, I know.  Shut up.

It’s certainly good weather for the chickens.  There are some little bugs and bug larvae just starting to peep out of the soil and our free-rangers (actually they are escapees) love to be there to gobble them right up.  Hopefully this also means that we’ll be getting eggs again soon.  Everyone’s been on strike since December.  I’ve had to buy eggs at the grocery store for the first time in years. Thank goodness the days are getting longer again!

All of this greening up is also a sign that I need to get to work getting the rest of the brush cleared out to make way for garden space and to prevent dastardly varmints like snakes from making homes there.

Neve has been having probably too much fun helping me build burn piles.  But, if you can’t sit inside by the fire and knit, you can certainly sit out by the fire and read.  Especially if you’re paranoid about fire and you need to keep an eye on it.

I brought out my Kindle and was able to read a bit in between keeping the fire going and keeping it from getting out of control.

The good news is that two big piles have been taken care of.  The bad news is……..there is still sooooo much more to go.  And go it must.  I have to be able to get a small fence in around the goat shed and I won’t have time to keep clearing it up once March hits because….

drumroll please

At least one of our sheep is showing signs of carrying lambs!

It is 74 degrees right now. In January.  Following a week of being in the 20’s. Crazy weather, y’all.

When I walked out the door this morning to bring hay down to the flock and felt how warm it was I decided that today was the day to check hooves and administer some delouser (a liquid pesticide to kill lice).  Did you know that sheep can get lice?  Just like people can get lice, livestock get their own brand.

No, they can’t be transmitted to humans.

Also, I am not positive my sheep even actually have lice, but one or two of them have been rubbing against a tree stump regularly, and Amelia’s actually pulling her wool a bit with the effort.  They’ve been checked for all other manner of parasite and are quite healthy, so I have made a best guess that there may be some teeny, tiny, impossible to spot lice on them.

Since I am thoroughly paranoid and overprotective of the animals in my care (and terrified I will do something wrong / not do something I should do)  I bought a big bottle of delouser, read the instructions, got a giant plunger to measure the amounts, and got to work.

I’ve done hooves and delousing over at Susan’s many a time and figured that 5 sheep and 2 goats wouldn’t be too bad.

I. Was. Wrong.

Neve came along to capture images for me, but quite honestly, those animals kicked my butt.   I ended up having her help hold them for me, but she wasn’t strong enough.  While I was struggling to get Piper’s hooves done, someone knocked over the bucket with the jar of delouser and it spilled everywhere.  In the end, I trimmed Piper’s hooves and got everyone deloused.  I was thoroughly winded and Alabama nearly did me in with his size.

Moral of the story: even with only a few animals to work, you need a second set of strong arms to help hold them.

At least Neve got some decent pictures.

Even on just hay and tiniest bit of grain, Alabama is HUGE.  Must be those Southdown genes at work!

Adelaide.

Fairfax looks displeased.

It seemed at first like overkill to mark their noses when I have finished with them, but in the end I am glad I did, because I couldn’t remember having taken care of Fairfax.  But, there she was, bright pink stripe down her nose.

I suppose that means you can add “feeble – minded” to “easily winded” on my resume.

Yesterday we drove way down to Farmville, Va to pick up two new female geese to be companions for our poor lonely Uncle Waldo.

He’s been on his own for a few days after he lost his two lovely ladies to a tragic dog – related accident. (In other news, George the dog has gone on to his forever home where he is  learning that “Geese are friends, not food!”).

No, I don’t want to talk about it.  I am just glad it all worked out for everyone and Georgio has older, bigger dogs to mentor him and keep him in his place now.

Luckily sweet Orzo never understood the fun involved in full – scale poultry slaughter, and has been happy to just keep a wary eye on those big, noisy, bossy birds.

So we brought home two lovely new ladies – these ones Toulouse geese.  They look mighty similar to the Pilgrim geese we lost, and so far have rather sweet, if stand -offish personalities.

We’re calling them Agnes and Tilly.  Waldo seems to have taken to them rather well.  They’ve started going off on those little goose expeditions around the pasture that I am always so fond of watching. They don’t appear to have any real destination in mind, but they certainly waddle with purpose, wherever it is they are going.

Neve has been helping out with chores since we have to bring down big wheel – barrows full of hay a few times a day.  Now that the temperature hasn’t been above freezing for awhile we are also carting down buckets of water, since our lines out to the pasture are frozen.  If this keeps us I will have abs and thighs of steel.

I don’t want to talk about that, either.

Neve doesn’t mind, since Piper and Wren like to come up for grain snuggles.

Jerry doesn’t mind having a much smaller, easier target to bully for the bucket of grain.

Cross your fingers the ice thaws soon and we can get a field delivery of hay before long.  I’m sick of feeling the muscle burn.