The Dot

You know how at Christmas or birthdays you stick ribbons on the kid's heads and they walk around and it's so cute? Awww.

When I got the new ram shield yesterday it had a little sticker on it. I took it off and put it on the baby's forehead. She thought I stuck something in her hair and kept trying to swish the "thing" out of her hair. I had to pretend to take something out of her hair and showed it to her to prove that it was not longer there. That satisfied her.

She didn't realize that the sticker was still on her forehead and I thought it would be funny to leave it there for her mom to find. Of course it ended up ruining what would have been an otherwise perfectly nice picture.

What's on the sticker?

When her mom came to pick her up she saw the sticker and wondered aloud, "I don't remember going to Pakistan for vacation!"

Awwww!

It's That Time Again

It's time to put the Perry, the ram, with the ewes again. I could not do it without my assistant (above). (Tomorrow I will explain the dot on the forehead. For now just overlook it.)

I had somehow misplaced his ram shield and didn't want to put him with the ewes until I got another. It arrived in today's mail and we went to get everything ready. In case you didn't know, the ram shield is like the blinkers on a horse. On the ram it allows him to see to the side, but not to the front, thus making it difficult or almost impossible to head butt the ewes and possibly hurt them. Not all rams need one, but Perry gets a little aggressive if the girls are being less than cooperative.

Here's my assistant making sure everything is looking right.

Next comes the marking color. I have blue, green, and red. The color is applied to the area between his front legs. The color will be changed every 16 or 17 days (the sheep's cycle). If there is a mark on the sheeps' bottom then I know they've been bred and I can better estimate their due date.

Here he is all marked up and ready to go.

The ewes always freak out the first day he is with them. They just don't know what to think of the freak with the mask!

By tomorrow everything will be good and they'll be happy again.

Here's hoping for another great lamb crop in five or so months!

Finished Electrical

All the new electrical stuff we had been working on is now done. The professional electricians came to finish the job neighbor Dean did by installing a 30 amp breaker at the house and in the garage, and running a new line to carry that power from the house to the garage. No more trudging out back in winter to feed/water with just a flashlight. Now all I have to do is go from the house to the big garage and flip a switch.

This is the view from the house to the barn. (The big garage is on the right. The barn is way in the back in the center of the photo.)

Here's the view from the barn towards the house.

Additionally, each stall is now lit.

It's so pretty!

The other good news I have to report is my husband's job will continue at least until August, instead of the expected lay off at the beginning of July. Now we can pay for the electrical work! (That was a bad joke!) Actually, every little bit helps.

Also, Wil's Coast Guard stuff is moving along. We've already helped him fill out probably about 60 pages worth of miscellaneous government applications. Slowly but surely...

More Hart Park

The entrance to Hart Park.
When I went to Hart Park the other day I also took some pictures of some of the other things there. One of which is the old mill house.

The park has a lot of feral cats. These were just down the road from the mill house.

These were just a small few that showed themselves. They live in the old mill house.

Some well meaning people bring food to the cats here and elsewhere in town.

One of the problems with this is the trash it generates.

Personally I don't think they are really doing the cats any favors. That may sound cruel but it would be kinder, in my opinion, to leave them to their own devices, or try to trap, rehabilitate, and adopt them out. Those that are unable to be rehabilitated could perhaps be spayed/neutered and returned to the park. Our county already has an impossibly high animal euthanasia rate. I realize all this costs money, but how about using that money they spend on food. It's a difficult situation with no real easy solutions.

Then I went out to feed my leftover biscuits to the ducks and geese.

As I tossed my stale bread out to the birds I started thinking...

I was being just a little hypocritical of the cat people. The ducks and geese are crazily overpopulated too, and here I was throwing bread at them just like the cat people were feeding the cats.

Let's pretend I never said anything about the cats, okay?

On my way out of the park I saw a young coyote sitting at the edge of the road. He took off when he saw me suddenly pull over to the side of the road.

Good thing it's not a busy road during the week!