I'm Speechless.

(Hahahahaha, right.)  I have had the Versatile Blogger Award passed to me by my bud, Mama Pea.  She is, as always, WAY too generous and kind with both words and deeds.  But I will admit, this is my first such award and it gave me a little thrill!

As part of accepting this kind label (I am nothing, if not flexible...) I must do three things:

*  Link back to the person who gave me the award (I am sure I do not have to introduce Mama Pea to most of you - but, if there are some poor souls who have NOT found her blog - please, please, please let me set you to rights.  Go to her blog right this second!  She is the bees' knees, the cat's meow.  Now there is a versatile and talented blogger!)

*  Share seven things you all might not know about me - which gives me a pretty free range, since most of you don't know me from bupkus. (Quiet there, Melanie and Kay).

*  Name another blogger on whom this award would fit like a glove.

Let's get the prickly one out of the way first.  Seven things you might not know about me:

1.  I am terrified of high bridges over bodies of water.  And I must drive over one twice a day, five days a week.  While I don't close my eyes (duh!) I do go all rigid and stare straight ahead.  Heaven help me if there is a traffic jam and I am stuck on it.

2.  I have been burlarized three times in my life, and held up at knife point once.  It makes you feel very violated.

3.  I have a sticker on my dashboard reading "BREATHE".

4.  In my teens, I tutored under a sculptor who had done a bust of Leon Trotsky from life, before he (Trotsky) was assasinated.  He kept it on his porch.  And it was amazing.
 
5.   I agonize over any lapse in my recycling efforts.

6.  I prefer almost any food to be cold or room temperature rather hot.  I have been known to order a pizza, bring it home and stick it in the refrigerator so I can eat it cold the next day.

7.  I still think of Cleveland as my home, although I was born in Virginia and have moved all over the place.


Now, for the most difficult part of this whole exercise - having to choose one versatile blogger out of all the many wonderful, versatile bloggers!  For purely selfish reasons (I want to know seven more things about her) I am passing this onto Carolyn Renee over at Krazo Acres.  I love the humor and wisdom that permeates every post.  She's a wealth of information and an excellent writer!

Lamb Update.

It's not often that I have a) my camera with me; b) sun; c) all while I'm with the sheep!  I managed to get a few photographs of the lambs with the ewes during yesterday's breakfast.  It's amazing how fast they grow.  The older lambs, Linden, Hazel and Acacia, are all eating hay.  As a matter of fact, when I first put the hay out, Linden (Freyda's beautiful ram lamb), backs up and races towards it, flinging himself in a bellyflop in the middle of the hay holder!  This is not, unsurprisingly, very popular with the ewes, who bunt him out.  Enjoy my view!

Banyan, Cocoa's moorit mouflon ram lamb.

Hickory, Cocoa's moorit ewe lamb, enjoying the sun.

Two sets of twins - Flora's Hazel and Acacia, Cocoa's Hickory and Banyan.

Sunbathing.

The More-Than-Fair Trade.

I recently made a real coup.  You could call it "Fair Trade", but it would definitely be skewed in my favor.  For one dozen extra large, farm fresh eggs, I got....

A half-gallon of maple syrup lovingly made right down the road from me!  Wholly Cow!  As I've noted before, some of my neighbors and I use the mailbox delivery system.  I get a call or email requesting eggs.  I place the eggs in the orderer's mailbox and they place the money for the eggs, along with extra egg boxes (always needed and appreciated) in my mailbox.  So far, we have not interferred with the delivery of the U.S. Post and everyone is happy with how smoothly it works.  I ran into my neighbor at the last Zoning Board of Appeals meeting and he asked if I would like some maple syrup.  Of course I would!  May I trade for eggs, I asked?  Of course I could!  He would like a dozen.  So I sorted through my larger eggs and packed up a lovely dozen and put them in his mailbox.  When I came home from work that night, a half-gallon jug was sitting on my junk mail!  Woot!!

Tough Decisions: A Long-Winded Post.

There are times when I think, had I known the decisions I'd have to make doing this homesteady business, I would have stuck with cats and an apartment.  Hahahahaha - kidding.  They do say that ignorance is bliss, and I believe that is true in my case.  Of course, the more one learns, the less ignorance there is to shield you from the hard decisions.  And the bliss fades a bit.

This year I have to make some decisions that are difficult for me.  I have about four acres, but a lot of it is not suited for farming, grazing or anything useful.  I have a full time job.  I am a single homesteader.  Sustainability or not, it is an expensive undertaking.  I am having to focus on making this place and the animals on it pay for itself/themselves - at least in part.  Right now, I have, in the sheep department:  4 ewes; 5 lambs (with one or two more to come); 1 ram; 1 llama.  I have been waffling back and forth, to and fro about the purpose of my sheep.  Would I raise them for meat?  Would I raise them for milk?  Would I raise them for their fiber?  All three?  Excuse me while I think out loud:  being a long-time follower of Lewis Carroll, I find it difficult to eat anything I've been formally introduced to.  I am too attached to my lambs.  Milking four ewes?  Just when would I squeeze that twice-a-day activity into my schedule?  That leaves me with fiber.  I am good with that.  I happen to have ewes with great fiber, so I am all set there.  Of course, there's the shearing, skirting, processing, dyeing; but let's leave that for a later discussion.  So, we're firm on one llama and four ewes.  The lambs.  There's a dilemma.  I cannot make a firm decision on them until after the ram lamb trade negotiations are over.  I had decided to keep one of Cocoa's lambs this time, so Banyan will stay.  This is Flora's last lambing, so Hazel will stay.  Then, there is Hickory, Acacia and Linden.  And Juno, who is my secret favorite, hasn't even had her lamb(s).  You can see the problem. 

All this rambling to get to this:  I do not need a ram.  I do not need to neuter him because I do not need a PET sheep.  If he had an outstanding fleece, I might consider it - but he doesn't.  And he tends to be prone to respiratory problems.  One sheep with respiratory problems (hello, Flora??) is more than enough.  So I have made the decision to send him to freezer camp.  I have been wrestling with this for weeks, but all indicators point to it being the right decision.  He is getting more aggressive with me and has been shoving the lambs around.  Temperament is a key factor on this homestead.  Not mine, of course.  I'm cranky, but I'm in charge.

Another decision is to cull out a lot of my existing flock of chickens.  I am rather attached to many of them, so this is also a tough decision.  Right now, I probably have 28 birds, including two roosters.  Of those 26 hens, 17-tops- are laying.  I refuse to cull Lucy, even though she probably hasn't laid an egg for three years.  She came with me to this homestead, and she's staying 'til the end.  Then, there is Marie-Claire, super-auntie.  She stays, too.  Junior, rooster #1, will have to go to make room for Kees, rooster #2, my Barnevelder rooster.  Home Girl is going to go be cause she's a mean-tempered thing.  Of my two remaining Ameracauna mixes, one is an egg-eater.  She will have to go for practical reasons.  I will miss her green egg, though.  I am working through the flock to bring it down to 20, total.  I have five Barnevelder hens that stay and four more chicks that I am raising.  I have my work cut out for me, if you pardon the expression.

I am also going to sell my two rescued red angora rabbits.  I had no intention of keeping them and, once I've spruced them up a bit, they are on the market.  All this angst is the result of not having a plan.  With a plan, you have a clear vision of what will work best and make the most sense.  In order to make a small farm pay for itself -- or, at least, pick up some of the slack -- it has to be pretty flexible.  But flexible in an orderly way.  Clear as mud?  I'd be very interested in hearing other views - pro and con.  Like a lot of new adventurers, I  have so much to learn.

A Walk in the Woods with Euell.

Risking a major jinx, I believe the Dreaded Winter is behind us.  I am not kidding myself that I have spring to look forward to -- we will just get deluge after deluge, then it will be hot and humid.  Apparently, that is now spring.  But things are starting to pop up.  GREEN things (gasp).  And this is the time I pull out my old faithful, new-to-me copy of Stalking the Wild Asparagus.  My original copy - purchased when I was a freshman in college (no, not the original edition, thank you, but darn close) - had been held together with tape, then packing tape, then duct tape.  It finally bit the dust when a cat knocked it off the bookshelf and the pages went their own individual ways.  I love this book.  For me, it makes every spring and summer a great adventure - trying to identify wild food. 

Thanks to Carolyn Renee at Krazo Acres, a blogger that I follow, I am now on the lookout for Henbit.  I also have my secret morel patch that I am hoping is still there next month.  And there are so many other wonderful groceries on Mother Nature's shelves that I haven't yet tried.

What is your favorite go-to book on foraging for wild foods?  What treasures have you come across?

Happy Easter!

Wishing all of you who celebrate this day a very Happy Easter - spent with family and friends and delicious local food!  For the rest, have a wonderful last day of the weekend. 

Special Delivery.

Busy morning here.  Cocoa delivered twins - both moorit coloring, one of each.  The ram lamb has his father's markings in reverse - he's brown with light tan circles around his eyes, on his ears and down his face.  Of course, it was 37 degrees and sleeting - at least she had them in the hoop house - but I've just finished disinfecting their umbilical cords and slipped them into the two remaining clean sweaters.


Ewe lamb in blue and ram lamb in brown.



Linden at 18 days on the left.



In between trips from house to sheep, the phone rang.  It was the post office - our layer chicks had arrived!  I decided to let Cocoa clean up her lambs and recover her poise (she is very skittish still) while I drove up to get the chicks.  Here they are - Welsummers, Rhode Island Reds and two Speckled Sussex.



 Marianne will be coming over to get hers and I am raising a few for my sister, who is joining the chicken-owners family!  I am now going to have my second cup of coffee.