MJ Adventure Team Goes to MD-Day 1

Almost a year ago I told my Farm Club friends that I had always wanted go to to the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival. And here we are in Maryland and the Festival is this weekend.

Five of us made the trip. That's Mary, Dona, and Kathleen. Chris was in a different row.

Coming into Baltimore. Lots of green.

We just signed for the rental car, a mini-van (although the clerk tried to steer us away from the soccer-mom look)...

...and we were able to choose from several models. This one had enough space for our luggage and comfortable seating.

With me at the wheel and Chris (and Siri) handling navigation we made it to our first stop, about an hour from the airport. We had arranged to visit "opallady" who is an avid participant in the Meridian Jacobs Spinzilla and Tour de Fleece teams on Ravelry.

We had never met Adrienne in person but she had invited us to her beautiful home for dinner.

Here we also met Rana Kitty, who plays a supervisory role in Adrienne's spinning endeavors and is quite popular on the Ravelry threads.

Adrienne invited us to try out her wheels. This is a double treadle wheel with two flyers! That means that two spinners can spin at a time

Most of the wheels live downstairs...

...where Rana Kitty spends a lot of time.

We could have spent more time but wanted to get to our AirB&B before dark. We'll see Adrienne again at the festival. We thought it would be a good idea to figure out where the lights and wiper switches were before getting on the highway, but had to get out the manual to know for sure about this brand new van with an automatic headlight feature.

We made it to our house near the town of Frederick where we found complimentary wine and fruit waiting for us.

Stay tuned for more adventures tomorrow!

An Urban Hike

A few days ago I spent the day in The City with a friend. If I want to go for a hike, San Francisco is not usually the first place I think of, but hiking was the plan for the day.

After picking up sandwiches at a nearby deli and eating them in Glen Canyon Park we began our hike. I didn't bring my camera so used the iPhone for all these shots.

On the way up Twin Peaks you start to get a feel for the view.

The view to the north east from Twin Peaks.

The view north. It's hard to tell but the Golden Gate Bridge is just above the trees in the middle of the photo. That's Sutro Tower on the left, a 977-foot radio/TV antenna tower.

We headed that direction and walked through the woods around Sutro Tower. Seeing the tower made me think of a combo of the movies, Jurassic Park and StarWars.

The woods were striking. We meandered out of these woods across a city street and onto a back portion of the UCSF campus where there were more woods.

There were amazing plants to be seen all along our walk, but I photographed only a few.

I was fascinated by these huge flowers. Each flower is about a foot long!

One of Stephany's favorite landmarks.

On the side of a bike shop.

We made it to Golden Gate Park where we walked it's length...

...until we got to the ocean. The wind was blowing hard and the sand was swirling so we didn't spend time on the beach but contented ourselves with Happy Hour at the Beach Chalet Brewery and Restaurant.

It was late in the afternoon and we had somewhere else to be at 6:30 so we took a Lyft car back to Stephany and Ians's house. What a great way to spend the day with friends and get in a 7+ mile walk.

Farm Shots

Yesterday was the first day in several days that I didn't have someone here or that I didn't have to be somewhere else. These are random photos taken during that time.

Walking with the dogs Across the Road. Beautiful green fields and blue sky.

The irrigation water is on and the ditches are full. This is Ginny's first jump of the season.

On Thursday I presented a program to Black Sheep Handweavers Guild that meets in Woodside, south of San Francisco. I figured out why the guild invites their speaker to meet for dinner prior to the meeting. If you get together at 5:30 that means that means that the speaker is actually there and ready for the talk at 7:30. If a speaker tries to get to town at 7:00 chances are that she will never make it on time.

I allowed more than the 2 1/2 hours shown on my phone but traffic kept moving. That got me there ahead of schedule (even with a 9 minute nap in my car when I just had to pull over) and I had time to investigate a "vista point". After driving through the Bay Area traffic I was pleasantly surprised to see this view.

Back on the farm the next morning...take a look at where I just took the electric net fence down.

I taught a Learn to Weave class on Saturday and Sunday. These are these new weavers first projects.

Yesterday I got back to skirting fleeces. Fandango's fleece struck me as really nice. I'm loving the softness and loft, as well as color

This morning the sheep went onto fresh pasture again. 

The weeping willow tree is always a favorite.

It's amazing what a little (or a lot) of rain will do for plants. I hope that when I start irrigating I can keep up the current momentum of this pasture. If the weather does as predicted (getting into the 80's) I'll need to irrigate soon.

Meanwhile... Over at the barn, Catalyst started bashing this fence after I put a wether on the other side.

Then the three rams decided to bash each other.

In the chicken house. These are the little ones. I still need to name them.

Don't you think that this one deserves a name?

Shearing at the Timm Ranch

Yesterday was Shearing Day at the Timm Ranch, in the hills west of my place. We lucked out with weather because it rained last week and it's raining now, but the rain stopped long enough for the sheep to dry out and to stay dry through shearing.  I have been using this wool for a few years now and I love it. I posted about last year's yarn in this post and shearing in 2015 and about some of the weaving I did using the wool in 2014. My goal was to skirt and sort  wool and to finish with 200 pounds because that is the amount that I need to send for processing. After last month's experience at the Anderson Ranch shearing (which I thought I wrote a blog post about but I guess I missed) I realized that is easier said than done and I was concerned that I wouldn't get enough sorted before shearing day was over and the crew packed up and left for the next job. An ulterior motive of skirting at the ranch is that: #1 The job is done and I don't have all that work to do at home another day, and, #2 The crew will bale it for me which will much simplify shipping. Fortunately a few friends came along and helped out.

We planned to arrive just after the crew had started shearing, but instead we followed their van into the ranch and it took awhile before shearing began. That left some time for photos. I was amused by the adornment to the top of the van. Take another look and you'll realize that those are two different species represented there. Shearing crew with a sense of humor.

Sheep portraits:

Tis is Bonnie, the 9-month old Border Collie who found delight in rolling in the piles of wool and draggin away what she could.

I didn't get this one's name. There are three Border Collies, this Dalmatian and a guardian dog on the ranch.

In previous years there were two shearers but only one this time. That made it easier for us to keep up with evaluating fleeces and skirting.

My crew: Vicki, and two Farm Club members, Kathleen and Mary.

This is some of the lovely wool we saw. Last year's wool tested at 21.8 microns and I expect about the same of this. We were strict on the criteria for the wool we kept--no vegetable matter, no weak spots or breaks and good length. Every year a ranch's wool clip can be impacted by weather. After several years of drought I think I saw the effects of a bit too much rain in some fleeces--the wool on the back seemed more fragile and shorter in some fleeces. But timing was right for shearing this year in terms of vegetable matter. We found a small amount of filaree seeds with their corkscrew-like ends but no foxtails or other stickers.

Sheep after shearing.

Lambs were outside the shearing pen waiting for their moms.

Vicki caught a pair of twins that escaped and were looking for a way back to mom.

Beautiful rooster that walked by.

It was late in the day and we had skirted 197 pounds. We had fleeces piled up to look at, but then it was time to shear the rams.

Those ram fleeces were gorgeous and put me over the top.

The crew was baling the wool and we kept sorting.

We stopped at 215 pounds...

...and just in time for my wool to be baled. My bale is only 215 pounds instead of 400 which is what they usually bale, but having a bale will make shipping it much easier than if I had to cram all that wool into boxes. Now I just need to finish skirting and sorting all the Jacob wool so I can ship it all at once. What am I doing sitting here on the computer?

Chickens Grow Quickly

I brought these chicks home February 21.

By last week they had outgrown their dog crate and needed to get out into the chicken house. I left them in the crate in the chicken house for a few days, hoping that would help the big chickens accept them. I checked on them the first night out of the crate and saw them roosting on top of it. 

I took the dog crate out today because they are now roosting on the perches. Here are their two-month-old portraits.

I need to find some names. So far this is White Chicken.

Black Chicken.

Brown Chicken.

They are actually fairly tame since I've been handling them since the first day. Brown Chicken was very interested in my phone and kept pecking at it.

Watching a Sheepdog Trial

Last week a few of us went to Rio Vista to watch the third day of the McCormack Ranch Sheepdog Trials.

The ranch is located in the Montezuma Hills, just north and west of the Sacramento River. The most striking feature of the modern landscape is the huge wind turbines scattered throughout the hills. This landscape is immense. It's hard to put the size of the wind turbines (and the sheepdog course) in perspective. There is a group of sheep and a handler on the hill that is just in front of the only trees. The handler and his dog put a group of sheep on that hill and keep them there until the competing dog begins his run, coming from near where we were watching, about 650 yards away.

You lose sight of the dog while he makes an outrun that comes up behind the sheep. The dog brings the sheep toward the handler and is supposed to get them through the first set of gates in the center of the course. Then the dog brings the sheep to the pole where the handler is standing, around that pole and drives them through a set of gates to the west and a set to the east.

After that the dog brings the sheep towards the handler. Once the sheep are past the marked mounds of dirt (red in the background of this photo) the handler can leave the post and help the dog to sort out three of the six sheep. This is by far easier said than done. Besides the fact that the sheep don't want to be split up, it has to be the right sheep. Two of the sheep have red marks on their heads and they have to be part of the three that are split off to then be put into the pen. Not very many dogs and handlers that we watched accomplished this in the given time.

I felt kind of out-classed watching these photographers. Not only had I left my longer lens (still much shorter than this one) at my brother's house, I had to substitute a plastic bag for my lens cap that I lost in the pasture last week. I definitely did not get close-ups of dogs working sheep out on the course.

This is another dog bringing sheep to the first set of gates...

...and splitting the six sheep into two groups.

Once the handler has opened the gate he/she  can't get any farther away than the end of the rope that is attached to the gate.

I don't remember but I think that this dog didn't quite make the time limit.

After the sheep are in the pen or the horn blows the dogs make a beeline for the black tub full of water. That dog waits there until the next competitor is finished and moves those sheep to a holding pen out of site and sound of the competitors while the last dog takes over the spot in the water tub.

There was a break in the trial to award prizes for the previous two days' winners.

Scores are kept on a board where everyone can keep track of the progress. Some of the competitors:

Notice the platform built onto the four-wheeler.

After the awards we watched a few more dogs.  This dog was so close to getting the sheep in the pen but they weren't cooperating. It was getting hot in the afternoon and at one point the dog broke from the sheep and ran to lie down in the water tub. You know a dog is hot when he leaves his sheep to do that, but this isn't something that you can do with a dog that doesn't love to work. A quick cool-down and the dog was back.

This photo was taken from where we parked. You can see the river in the background. The canopies and trucks are at the top of the hill where the course started and the outrun was made towards the river. The sheep in this photo are the ones who were already used for one run and brought to the back to be out of sight and earshot of the other sheep and the dogs.

I sort of feel bad that my dogs will never have a chance to work sheep on this scale. If Ginny had to run that far to get her sheep she probably wouldn't be so wound up we were trying to do the close-up work.

Farm Shots

Most of these photos were taken with my phone during chore time in the last couple of days.

My chicks have outgrown their dog crate and needed to get out in the chicken house. I checked on them the first night and found them roosting on top of the crate. (This photo was taken by the light of my headlamp.)

We woke up Friday to another inch and  a half of rain (with another 3/4" the next day).

This one was taken after feeding the bottle babies.

This morning I noticed the wild eyebrow of one of them.

Speaking of bottle babies...this one followed me right through the 3-strand electric fence...

...while I was setting up fences so that I could move the ewes.

Seen in the pasture.

Also in the pasture.

We have had several field trips during the last couple of weeks. This was a group of home-schoolers. Can you tell that there is a sheep in there? Jade loves to be petted. What an amazing sheep.

And how about this amazing sheep? I think Mary is going to take her home.

Tonight a friend took this photo while I was feeding these two.

Meet the Sheep

Meet the Sheep is our annual spring open house event. That was last weekend. Rusty already shared his story but here is mine. I rely heavily on Farm Club to make this event a success.

First was getting pet-able sheep into pens. This is Jazz who is a big pet and has twins, one of whom I'm going to keep and is now named Jasmine.

Amy, Mary, and Sumi ready for visitors.

We had vendors. Colleen, with Fiber Confections.

I offered space to Farm Club members this year. Gynna brought knit caps and other goods. Here is her website.

Brenda has sheep-shaped soap and other items. Here is her Etsy store.

Jackie with Sheep to Shop brought a new item--plant boxes made of felt!

This is another felted piece using Jacob wool.

Carol of 2NFrom  brought hats and these fabulous new pouches. After Farm Club members saw this there were only two of the sheep pouches left.

Many visitors come just to look at sheep. But there are other things happening as well.

Rigid heddle demo by Lisa.

Blending Board demo by Roy (of Clemes & Clemes who makes the blending boards as well as carders, etc)

Great Wheel demo by Deborah. By the way, this Great Wheel lives at my house and I have no room for it. It is for sale but I don't have it listed on the website yet. Contact me if you're interested.

Laura demonstrated inkle weaving.

Alison sketched sheep off and on -- in between spinning -- and left her finished product with me at the end of the day.

Julie is the person who many people look forward to seeing year after year. She brought her dyeing demonstration, but also...

...bunnies. Oh boy, were those bunnies a hit!

Julie also brought a couple of Karakul lambs and an Angora kid. They all had plenty of attention.

I can't believe I got through the day with hardly any sheep photos (although I did spend most of the time in the shop and when I got out I tried to get photos of all the other things going on). That's Jade who is our best pet sheep ever.

And this is my bottle baby who found a new mom to take him home.

This is most of the Farm Club crew who made this possible. Thanks, everyone!

Nap Time

Moms are eating. Babies are napping.

Shearing Day Revisited

Shearing Day here was way back in early February. I wrote a post about shearing the rams, but never got to the rest of it. As I went through my photos I realized that a lot of them are of people, not sheep. But that is what makes Shearing Day here so fun--my fabulous Farm Club. The Fiber members chose their fleeces this day, but other members were here too. Everyone has a job and it makes the day go so smoothly.

The star of the show is our shearer, John.

John's shearing shoes.

Stephany and Gynna...

...and Brenda were sheep wranglers, never letting John run out of sheep.

Deborah and Lorrian  pushed sheep to the shearing pen.

Kathleen weighed fleeces.

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Amy worked the gate in where the sheep left after being shorn.

Mike swept.

With all these other people working...

...I could just lounge.

Here is Hallie after shearing...

...and this is the beautiful result.

Trista: "Does this shearing job make my head look big?"

Speaking of heads several of us wore our Baa-ble hats.

Some people left before we took these last photos, but there was still quite a crew for this photo.

More Lambs

I took these photos before it started raining again.

A cute blue-eyed lilac lamb. This is on the "keep" list.  Meridian Catalyst x Shadow Mountain Shelby.

Meridian Hot Lips with triplets also sired by Catalyst.

Meridian Sophia with BFL-x triplets.

Meridian Sonata with triplets sired by bide a wee Buster.

Ears and her crossbred lambs.

Meridian Estelle also with crossbred lambs.

Meridian Ruth. Lambs sired by Catalyst.

And while we're at it let's throw in another springtime photo.

The wisteria has started to bloom.

Lambing is Over

That was a quick lambing season. Quick, but intense. I'll figure out the stats later, but for now there are pictures of lambs.

This is the last lamb, born last night. Bide a wee Buster x Bide a wee Trista.

These photos are from a couple of days ago before yesterday's rain. The ewes were excited to get to fresh pasture.

This is a lamb that got lost in the tall grass and was calling for MOM!

I'm trying again for a great jumping lamb photo.

But the combination of the enough light, the right focal length, and fast enough shutter speed make that tough.

Some of these photos look OK here, but they aren't sharp enough for a large screen.

I'm going to keep trying.

One of the latest lambs.

Ladies in Waiting

Five more ewes to go--or there were when I took these photos yesterday.

Raquel's due date is tomorrow.

So is Cascade's.

I don't have a date for Petra.

Trista is a yearling who missed her first lambing date so that puts her due in a couple of days.

Jazz was due today...

...and Onyx a couple of days ago. She lambed yesterday with triplets.

Ewes and lambs are on the other side of the fence from the pregnant ewes.

Isn't that a cute face?

Today in the Barn

It's been kind of crazy here over the last 16 days. That's when lambing started. Maybe I'll find time to go backwards to share photos. But here are some from today.

Isadora and triplets.

Janis displaying signs that she was going to lamb today.

Catalyst and Joker, some of the sires of this year's lambs.

Today's lambing began with Noel's triplets about 1 a.m. When I went to the barn in the morning Vanessa had twins.  Lambing began in earnest about 2:00.

This is Isabelle with a single lamb.

Janis cleaning the first of her twins.

Ava, who I had my eye on since first thing in the morning, lambed with twins.

Lambing is not always pretty.

Sheena with a large single lamb.

This photo shows all four ewes that were lambing this afternoon. That's Isabelle in the pen on the right with her lamb. Ava is in the pen in the corner. She and Janis (foreground) were delivering lambs at the same time--Ava had the first lamb, then Janis had her first. Ava had her second followed by Janis. Notice the lamb just behind Janis at the fence. Sheena who was in labor this whole time really wants this lamb. No wonder lambs and moms get mixed up if more than one ewe is lambing at the same time.

Outside the lambing barn we have plenty of other lambs already.

Here is today's record. This is how I keep track of lambs and we leave it up all year to refer to in the barn. The letters under the ewes' names refer to the rams: Dragon, Joker, Catalyst, and Buster. The lamb numbers are color coded and I record weights. That's 80 lambs since February 26.

Onyx is on the list for tomorrow...

...and Jazz is only another day or so off. I'm going out to check now.

Lambs

It's still a little wet in these fields and I'm leery of causing soil compaction, but I really wanted to get the sheep out yesterday.

The ewes and lambs are in one field.

The pregnant ewes are in another pasture.

This is Esmerelda, happy to be grazing green grass.

Here is an indicator of a ewe that is ready to lamb--all the other sheep went to the pasture after three months locked in the barn and she chooses to stay inside.

Sure enough! Foxglove had lambs a few hours later.

Take a look at the horns on her ram lamb.

Lambing in Plain Sight

Yesterday morning I saw these two. That is Marilla, born 2/25/16 (and named in a Spinzilla contest) and her dam, Marilyn. I didn't know it at the time but shortly after taking this photo I realized Marilla was in labor.

She was moved to her private maternity quarters...

...and produced a good-size BFL-x lamb. I bred her for crossbred lambs because she is very freckled and I don't want to perpetuate that in the flock. Marilla has a beautiful fleece however.

At about that same time in the morning I noticed Sonata standing back with the tell-tale sunken sides between the ribs and the hips. Before I went to the house I put her in the barn.

Spinners were here for the day and we kept trooping out to the barn to watch for lambs.

Sonata lambed with the first one with no spectators but there were plenty for the second one.

My flock is used to people being around and Sonata didn't care about the observers.

The second lamb born.

View from Above

Photos taken in the barn last night with my phone.

These are the pregnant ewes and a couple of wethers (including that very freckled one in the middle).

Photos over the lambing pens:

Mae's lambs born yesterday.

Marilla and her BFL-x lamb born yesterday...in motion...in the dark.

Skye and her twins also from yesterday.

Sonata's lambs, born yesterday.

Windy Acres Bronagh and lambs, born during the night, which is one reason I was taking photos...waiting for lambs.

Bide a wee Hallie and her lambs, a few days old.

This is the list so far except for Bronagh.

The Hole That Ate the Chicken

Subtitle: Or why I don't get much done during lambing season. I am so behind on blogging. I really do like my blogs to be in order. I have lots of photos and blog ideas that I want to post but at this point they will be all out of order. There are more cute grandkid photos, photos of my weekend trip to Ft. Bragg, photos of sheep, but the last two weeks was hectic. I wanted to spend as much time as I could with my daughter and grandkids but I also needed to work on my new website and get it mostly underway before lambing began.

So there is nothing very exciting about this morning but I was in the barn from about 6:30 until 11 when I could get in for breakfast and there was one incident, very minor as things go, that gave me the idea for this blog post.

At 6:30 I saw that Hallie had lambed with twins and they were clean and fed. I had put her in the night before thinking she might be ready. The other ewe I had guessed might lamb had not and was supremely annoyed. I let her out.

I caught these two sheep. First I brought in the older ewe, Sophia, who I had been watching in the back. She didn't go in with the others when I fed but got up as I approached. She has shown some lameness on a back foot and I haven't had time to look at it. That could account for her not getting up but she just didn't look right.

The younger ewe, Alice, needed her eye treated. I had been putting ointment in it but stopped before I should have (or there is another problem I don't know about--I never did find anything in it).

As I looked in the back again I saw Jean (the sheep not at the feeder). This is an excellent photo of the sunken sides of a ewe ready to lamb. She appears gaunt after the lambs have moved into position. So I brought her into the lambing area.

I took video of Jean during lambing which I will edit and post eventually. Here are the two healthy lambs.

I continued to watch Sophia because she didn't look right. I spend a lot of time just watching sheep during lambing. To make that effective you have to spend time watching sheep that are not lambing as well. You need to know the difference to know when one of your sheep isn't quite right. I left her in the lambing area while I worked on other things...like when the phone battery died just as I was doing more video. I went to the house for the cord and then spent some time rerouting the extension cord that is going to the scale so that I don't trip over it. Why not spend time fixing the plug that doesn't work which is why an extension cord is necessary? I can do extension cords. I can't do electricity.

Before I move lambs and ewes out of the lambing pens I tag each one, give BOSE (selenium and Vitamin E supplement), and place a tail band. I started with #1 and then realized that I made my first mistake. The real #1 died (triplets born while I was in Ft. Bragg but that's another story) and this should have been #2 or #3. So I already messed up. But I messed up prior to this by buying tags a size larger than I usually buy for the lambs. I haven't quite decided if I want to keep using these or get the right ones. They seem awfully big for little Jacob ears.

My routine is to move 3 ewes with their lambs into a group pen for a few days. I can keep a better eye on them and the lambs learn to stick with their mamas and not annoy the other ewes, who are quite convincing to any lamb that gets near. In this case, Clover is with her two, Rosie is behind the bale with her single and Jillian is out of the photo behind a feeder with her twins. I have been trying to get all the ewes' feet trimmed BEFORE they lamb because it's much harder to do when they are worried about where their lambs are. Mistake #2 today. I forgot to trim Rosie's feet. I'll have to remember before she goes out.

I was still watching Sophia. She is a week from her due date but she is big and round...and fat. She stands like she is uncomfortable and her leg is bothering her. My feeling is that it is the hip, not the foot, that is the problem. We used to have cows that would be gimpy in late pregnancy because of the calf positioned on a nerve. She ate a little grain, but not a lot. As I watched I felt like she was a little quivery. That can be a sign of pregnancy toxemia or hypocalcemia. I got out the jug of propylene glycol that I hardly ever use. That meant a trip to the house to look up the dosage. It won't hurt is she does not need it, but it will be interesting to know if it makes a difference.

Back to work. I was cleaning pens as I went, moving water buckets, etc. Mistake #3 and what inspired the title of this post. This is looking down on a half wall that separates the lambing area from the main part of the barn. There is plywood on both sides of the 2x4's. A chicken fell in there once and it required rescue. This is the story as Maggie told it. The end of those two 2x4's on the right makes a convenient place to put things like hoof trimmer or gloves...one of which fell into the hole. That's when I thought about all the little things that add up that are the reason you spend the whole day in the barn and you don't really accomplish much.

This is the view that I use when I make a first check on the sheep. I can look out this window and they don't all get up like they do if I go into where they are. Now that the weather has changed and the pasture has started to dry out I want to get them out but there is a break in the electric fence and I need to fix it before I can let anyone in the pasture.

This is a closer shot of another ewe that looks suspiciously ready to lamb, but really a lot of them do.

Here is where we are so far.

Onyx isn't even on the list for two weeks.

According to the list Esmerelda still has a week to go.

The glove is still in the wall.

Puddle Jumping

Someone is making the best of the rainy day.

We went to the barn to see the sheep and get out of the house. Jade is the only sheep who will approach a little person without the bribe of a bucket of grain.

I stood under the roof and out of the rain and watched Kirby...

...run back and forth.

Contemplating the Really Big Puddle.

The sheep weren't thrilled about all this activity by the little pink person.

By the time we got back to the house I figured that a little more water really didn't matter. So Kirby ran through the lake that was our driveway until she'd had enough. Tonight it is still raining.

More Grandkid Photos

I've been so focused on #1 family visiting and #2 trying to get my new website up that I haven't done much else. I did have a request for more cute grandkid photos though and since cute lambs haven't arrived yet, here they are. (Not that I'd show cute lamb photos to the exclusion of cute grandkid photos. I'd just have to fit both in.)

Here is what greeted me on Valentines's Day.

We planted them together.

For the first several days of Kirby's visit the sun was out and things started to dry out.

We were still wearing boots to the barn, but didn't have to tromp through as much mud.

Aunt Meryl manages a gymnastics club and there is an Open Gym hour on Wednesdays, in addition to a Wednesday morning Mommy and Me class.

Kirby went to both and loved it.

Gathering eggs from the chicken house.

It's best if she carries just one.

It started raining again so there were puddles.

Not to forget that there is another grandchild visiting. He just doesn't spend as much time at the barn.