Hellebores galore

Despite the unusually cold winter and spring (it's still uncomfortably cold) our hellebores are blooming profusely. They grow so well in the sandy soil on the north side of the house that I moved the rhododendrons and planted more hellebores. The rhodies needed to be in a sunnier spot anyway. The variety I have happens to be susceptible to downy mildew and they were in bad shape growing in the shade last summer with our relatively humid climate, so I'm hoping their new location will save them.

Daffodils are blooming, too. I've given up trying to dig them out of the flower beds and am just going to enjoy them.

The giant duck egg turned out to be a double yolker...

Things are going well with the sheep. It seems they are quite pampered. When it rains or gets windy they head into the barn while the poor neighbor sheep have to endure the elements. I'm working them with Hattie a few minutes every day. She is training them to stay together and I'm reinforcing her downs and stays, aways and come-byes. Let's hope our upcoming lesson will help slow her down a bit. They don't need to move at break neck speed all the time.

Busy days

Bob wanted to bring the sheep out to mow the yard so we blocked off an area between the garden and perimeter fence with pieces of this and that. Not a very secure set up at all. The first day everything went OK, but today the sheep broke out and started devouring everything but the grass. We thought Hattie might get them back into the pen but the situation quickly turned to chaos as the sheep split in five different directions and  Hattie out of control going after one then another. Boy did she get in trouble. I had to work her again right away under a more controlled situation to end on a positive note. Some lessons with a good instructor would do wonders for us so I'm making an appointment with Karen Childs at a farm near Olympia next month. Here are the sheep before they made their big break.

And here is Hattie before going berserk.

Spring yard chores are piling up. We finished thinning the old stems out of the raspberries. Back breaking work. Now I'm working on weeds and spreading mulch. Ugh.

The ducks have been complaining about losing the pasture to the sheep. They liked hunting for worms and bugs down there. A red tailed hawk attacked them this week. Lucky that I was working in the yard and chased it off. None of the ducks were injured except for Emerald running into a wooden peg and hurting her leg. She's been limping for a couple days. There's a pair of red tails that appear to be nesting nearby and it looks like they killed another red tail. We saw them feeding on it yesterday anyway. The duck eggs are stacking up now. One of the girls laid a huge one this morning.

Biggest and smallest

My walking days are nearing an end. I'm waiting on an appointment to find out about getting a new knee. The pain when I walk is intolerable. Kept me awake most of last night too so I'm fading fast now.

Herding

Hattie is herding the sheep into the barn at night. She is really good. I just send her out and she figures out the strategy. If one splits off from the group she brings him back in. She's smooth and confident. Just wonderful to watch. I don't have to do anything but block the sheep from overshooting the barn door. I wish we had twenty more acres to play with. Bob is talking about putting up more fencing to have more pasture areas now that we know Hattie can move the sheep about.

Mudballs

 The sheep are here! We headed out to Snohomish early yesterday morning taking the Edmonds-Kingston ferry and tackling the I-5. They've had a lot of rain in Snohomish this winter. A LOT. We drove in to the farm and saw a flock of mud caked sheep in a giant mud pit surrounding a muddy lake. We were told an irrigation ditch has been backed up causing the field to flood. Not to worry though, our sheep had been washed and were now in a huge barn living on a raised floor of hay bales.

I was speechless when I saw my boys. You arrive with an image in your mind of fluffy critters you'll be able to hug; the reality was quite different: they were Mudballs. Even after washing. Well, they are hair sheep and shedding so all this ugly hair will soon be gone, but we still had to help wrestle the stinky things into the back of the pickup. We'd been advised to bring rain gear for the operation and pulled off the loading easily enough with Michelle's help and went on our way after chatting awhile.

The sheep watched trees and cars and ocean race by for the next couple hours and did pretty well for their first ride. Getting them out of the truck was a bit tricky though. Bob had to climb in with all the piss-wet straw and poop to shove each one out into the pen.

The first one managed to squeeze out the gate under the truck but Hattie turned him around and herded him back into the pen from the other side of the truck. It was chaos for a while with terrified sheep and excited dogs and a couple of clueless people trying to gain control. I wanted to leave them alone to calm down and explore their new home but Bob thought they needed to be shown where water and hay were. He tried to get them into the shelter but they ended up wedged in a corner of the pen and protected by a couple large evergreen trees. They weren't moving. He wanted to try using Hattie to get them out but they were not cooperating. Hattie finally flushed one out but in frustration gripped the poor thing by the neck until it stopped in the shed. After that Hattie was put outside the pen. Bob climbed through the trees and pushed them out of their corner but they were still having nothing to do with him. We left them to figure things out themselves.

Within a few hours they were cautiously entering the barn, eating hay from the hay bags and drinking from the water bucket. This morning I opened the gate and let them into the pasture where they've been romping and eating all day. They are a delight to watch, even covered with mud.

Our muddy boys

Bob working on fence

The shed

Hattie wanting sheep, settling for frisbee

Tux, probably remembering the desert big horn sheep in AZ

It's warming up a little and I'm getting back into clay.

More Sheep Shed

It's mostly done at this point. We used stained cedar fencing for windbreak walls. The front will stay open, facing south, and the open part of the east wall where the pallets are will be blocked by hay bales so the sheep should stay cozy inside. Bob's going to build a few shelves for storage and as of now we're going to try hanging hay in string bags in the east corner. If the bags don't work it will be pretty simple to build a hay rack there. The sheep don't need grain but will need loose minerals and possibly baking soda. And of course a tank of water outside. Hopefully we'll get some good weather in the next couple weeks to make the drive out to Snohomish for the animals.

Tux has taken a liking to the pasture and pen

Neat little man gate to pasture at side of shed

View from pasture, Bob is pretty proud of the sliding door

Hay bales get stacked here

Silly ducks