Friday’s Farm Fotos

Another Friday, and I think I’ll share some of the pictures I took around the farm this week to make it another Friday’s Farm Foto’s Day!

This first one is of Samson, our male llama, out in the main pasture grazing.

All the animals seem to enjoy the medium length grasses in the main pasture, although the llamas like to browse the taller weeds along the fenceline too.

However, they don’t stay there all the time.  They have a routine, and part of the day the sheep and llamas and goat are in the back yard.  This particular picture is of one of our shyer Shetland sheep, Valrhona.

Of course, our farm collie, Toby, can be found in the backyard almost any time, along with some chickens, plus the peacocks and peahens in their pen.

The signs of fall are everywhere, but when the sun shines just right on some of the trees along the edges of the bottom pasture, the leaves glint and make it look like the trees are full of white blossoms. I did a double take the first time I saw it. After all, it’s not time for trees to be in bloom!

Except, of course, the camellia is still blooming. Some of the blossoms look pretty ragged, but I don’t think this Grandaddy Long Legs minds.

Did you know that these critters, also called harvestmen, aren’t really spiders?  They may look like one, but the biggest difference is that spiders have two body segments, whereas a Granddaddy Long Legs has an oval body that is only ONE segment. They also do not produce silk or a web, so turns out they are not true spiders.

The ferns back in the woods are still nice and green, but then, they stay pretty green all winter.

The creeks and sloughs are full of colored leaves that have fallen from the trees.

Meanwhile, when the sun warms things up, there’s usually at least one little turtle on the long floating in the pond.

However, they are still very shy, and don’t let people get very close before they plop back down into the water and disappear.

And while our lone wandering white rooster is still AWOL, it seems we may have missed a couple of younger chickens that are roosters.  I looked out our dining room window yesterday and saw at least two roosters fighting.

There was a third one nearby that acted like it might join the fray, but since it never did, I’m not sure if we have 2 or 3 young roosters running loose.

This morning I looked out to see a bunch of squirrels running up and down the fence posts.  This one peered inside a rotten post. . .

I think he’s wondering if he put any nuts in there.  Maybe I should tell him he’s looking in the wrong direction.

Cause there are some big nuts inside the house!

First Frosty Fall Morning

Okay, The Farmer says he saw some frost yesterday morning, but I didn’t see it, so I’m counting today as the first frost of this season.  Which I’d call a good sign of fall!

And yes, I know.  Some places have already had snow.  But then some places will never see frost.  As the real estate people are fond of saying, “Location, location, location.”

When The Farmer left for work this morning, the pond was steaming.

I thought that was kind of cool, so I grabbed my camera and went out to see what other signs of fall I could see.

Frosty wool on sheep seems like a pretty good sign of fall.

They actually seem to enjoy the frosty weather, and get rather frisky this time of year.

There are still some blooms hanging on the camellia bush.  I took a few pictures of frosty blossoms, but then I noticed this one particular flower in the shadows with a cold critter in residence:

I think the bee is in semi-hibernation there, waiting for the sun to warm it back up.

The sun was quickly melting the frost off plants, but there was still a little on the tea viburnum:

Down in the bottom pasture, sunlight was shining and little frost remained.  However, at the edge of the woods, a frosty vine was looping through one of the trees.

As for other signs of fall, well, the leaves have fallen off the walnut trees.  They’re the last to get leaves in the spring, and the first to lose them in the fall.  Go figure.  And of course, there are walnuts all over the ground, not to mention acorns and hickory nuts.  And we have a little fall color:

Unfortunately, that may be ALL the fall color we get.  The leaves around here are more prone to just turn brown and fall off.  I do miss the vibrant fall colors seen further north!

Cooler days and dead leaves and occasionally some frost . . . I guess that’s as much signs of fall as we’ll probably see!

Cool Chicks

It’s autumn, and the temperatures have dropped enough that I’m not wearing shorts when I go out to do chores.  Time for long pants!  Therefore I think it’s safe to say these are some cool chicks:

We got our first look at these little guys this past Saturday (September 26th) when their mama, Peepers, brought them out from under the shed for the first time.

The Farmer and I weren’t the only ones checking out the new chicks.  Our matriarch ewe, Coconut, looked them over.

Then Cinnamon the goat had to give them a sniff.

 And of course, the other chickens were curious about the latest arrivals, too. Peepers doesn’t like other chickens to get too close, so she fluffed herself up and called her chicks to come to her.

The chicks are all different colors. My favorite is this one little chicken that is two shades of brown. He reminds me of a cross between a moorit colored Shetland and a Hershey’s kiss.

I can’t wait to see what this chicken looks like when it feathers out.

Now Peepers is often out of sight under the shed with her chicks. So last night when I saw two little chicks hanging out with the guinea keets in the goat pen, I thought a couple of her chicks had wandered off with the wrong group.

I scooped them up, and set to the task of coaxing Peepers out with my usual “Come & get it” call. Then I quickly put the two little chicks down with her.

Thing is, six chicks came out from under than shed. The two I added made eight. Uh-oh.  How’d we get two extras!???

Peepers made it clear they were not HER chicks!

She had the equivalent of a chicken hissy fit, squawking and clucking, and pecking at the offending chicks.

Bottom line? I have NO idea where these two chicks came from. I can’t find any other hen with new chicks. The guineas didn’t want them. Peepers didn’t want them.

Guess they’re mine.

Requiem For Rowan

Rowan was one of our elderly retired ewes.  Yes, that is unfortunately past tense because she died Monday.  I just came back from some final touches to her grave.  I’m going to miss her.

She had some of the most wonderful Shetland sort of fleece, with a double coat, long staple, and velvety soft.  She was a great mother, and had the most beautiful lambs!

This was the last live lamb she had, a wonderful little guy with moorit colored fleece.

His mama took good care of him.

The year before that she had a lovely little white ram lamb.  We didn’t have many white lambs.  Shetlands have such a variety of beautiful colors, it seemed a shame to do much breeding for white.

I called him Casper.  It seemed appropriate.

In her prime, Rowan was apt to have twins.  She always had plenty of milk for them.  And they were always such beautiful lambs, too!

The lamb on the left ended up with shaela colored fleece (dark steely-grey, like black frost), and the lamb on the right is moorit (dark reddish brown).

And did I mention what a wonderful, patient mother she was?

I mean really, REALLY patient!

She never seemed to mind when her lambs used her for a jungle gym. 

And Rowan was even a good babysitter!  There would often be other lambs hanging out with hers.

Being of friendly disposition, Rowan also got along with her fellow sheep.  Here she is with a couple of her fellow retired buddies this last spring, not too awfully long after being sheared.

Here they are later in the summer, after their wool grew out a little.

She had wonderful fleece, gave birth to beautiful lambs, was a good mother with plenty of milk, had a good disposition. . . what more can you ask from a sheep?  She deserved her retirement and I enjoyed having her around.

I’m really going to miss her.

Getting Fleeced Again

The little flock of Shetland sheep we have left, our retired ewes, are starting to get nice looking fleece again.  They looked pretty ragged right after we sheared them.  I’m afraid we will never win any awards for our shearing technique!

I caught them under their favorite trees this weekend.  When it gets hot, this is where you’ll find them.

Of course, there are always guineas running around!  You’d think we have a thousand of them, the way they seem to be everywhere and are always in whatever pictures I take of the farm animals.

Since we don’t have as many animals grazing these days, we allowed the bottom pasture to grow up wild again, and that’s what you see in the background.  (It’s also where I took most of the pictures of wildflowers in the “Of Rainbows And Wildflowers” post.)

Of course, we also see a lot of this running around in the pastures with the other farm critters.  Toby does like to carry his boards wherever he goes!

Guess that’s The End!