Yep. This one's gonna stick.

Crap.

The sheep, shown here happily munching on hay, have a light dusting of snow on their backs.  Cuz, why would they go inside a shelter when there's a perfectly good snowstorm to stand out in?
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 The ones who seemed ticked off by all the white stuff are the turkeys.  They're too young to have experienced it before, and they spent most of the day stalking around making loud "Pwweot!  Pwweot!"  noises.  Apparently this is Turkey for "WTF?"

They spent the latter part of the afternoon perched on their gate.  I think they were tired of walking in the white stuff, and why would they go inside their shelter when there's a perfectly good snowstorm to stand out in?

I think they've been taking sheep lessons.

No NoBloPoMo

For the first year since I started the blog, I'm not going to do NoBloPoMo.  I'm having trouble posting once a week - once a day is totally out of the question.  Though I will try to post a little more often.  The activity level of summer has tapered off, though we still have sheep, chickens, turkeys, and rabbits to tend. 
We butchered our original turkeys, selling one and putting the other two in the freezer, but someone gave us two pretty Bourbon Reds, which is a heritage breed..  They're not old enough to tell what sex they are yet (and after the loop one of our first turkeys threw us, we're not going to guess), but we're hoping for a male and a female so we can try raising some of our own.  With our luck, that won't happen, of course, but we can still hope.  The same person also gave us two young female rabbits.  Our sole surviving rabbit, Stiffler, is verrrrrry excited to have new girls in the neighborhood.  We put them in a cage next door to his, and he's been combing his hair and practicing his pickup lines ever since. 
Soon, Stiffler, soon...

Okay, quick show of hands - who wants to see some pictures of sheep?

(AKA the Lazy Blogger finally gets a post up...)


Leading off with the fellas, Merlin and Orion.  They're still by themselves in the back pen, waiting to be reunited with the girls.  (Another week or two, or when we can get ourselves organized to do it.)

I knew that Orion's horns had grown, but I didn't realize how much until I took this pic:

 and compared it to this one from last year when we first brought him home:

And here are the Little Guys, who are now about the same age as Orion was.  Which means we've gotta do some sheep separating soon (or hopefully, sell them) before they realize they're Almost Grownups and take some unfortunate action.

 

You all remember little Smokey.  (Formerly known as he's-not-named-Smokey.   Because he so totally is named Smokey.)

 And a side-view of his snazzy little horns:

 

And this little guy is now known as Sauron.  (Only because Beelzebub is too hard to say when you're chasing him through the garden...)  Actually, he's a little sweetheart, who loves to be petted.  Just don't stand between him and the food.  Just sayin'.

 

 

And here are Onyx's other two lambs.  The one on the left is the one Madman named Abigail (formerly known as the Spotty One), and the other one is Tiny.  She was the smallest of the three lambs, and in my efforts to not name her, I started referring to her as 'the tiny one', and somehow that became her name.  (Names are such a tricky thing.  Even when you don't name things, they end up with names anyway.  Hmmm.)

Check out the crimp in Tiny's fleece:

 Just makes you want to squish it, doesn't it?

And I have to share a sheep story with you.  When the meter-reader comes to our house, he has to walk between the sheep pen and the house to get to the electric meter.  When our sheep see anyone in the yard, they go nuts, since in their not-so-humble opinion, the only reason for humans to exist is to feed sheep.
The last time, I happened to be home when the reader arrived.  He must have been a new guy, since I'd never seen him before.   The sheep went on Full Alert the minute he hit the top of the driveway, and started sounding off as soon as he opened his vehicle door.
"Hey!  Human!  Human in the yard!  Hey!  You there!  Yeah, you!  Feed us!  We're hungry!  Really!  They never feed us here!  It's been days!  Or weeks!  Or maybe months!  We don't know because they won't let us have calendars!  But it's been really really really long!  Really long!  Food's in the can over there!  Hey!  Poor starving sheep here!  Hey!"  All six of them were blatting their heads off at the poor fella.  He strode dutifully down the path to the meter, glancing over at them a couple of times.  I don't think he spoke 'sheep', so the expression on his face could best be described as 'WTF?'  When he was almost back to his car, he stopped and stared at them for a minute.  The sheep were totally batshit by this point, because he had walked right past their food can without feeding the sheep! 
I'd been watching through the window the whole time, and at this point I was laughing so hard it was hard to stand up.  I don't know if he thought they were going to jump the fence and eat him, but he sure did have a sheepish (sorry sorry sorry - you know how I am) look on his face.

I imagine he's used to barking dogs in his profession.  But I don't think he was prepared for a bunch of raving sheep.

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There, that's done.

Yesterday was the last Jury Draw of the three that I have to serve.  (In Vermont, you have to do three jury draws or three juries, whichever comes first.)  Since I wasn't selected for a jury at any of the draws, I'm officially done.
I never even got called up for voir dire, which is where the judge and attorneys ask questions of a group of 24 people, chosen at random from the pool, in an effort to find 12 people (+ 2 alternates) who will form an impartial jury.  Since those of us who aren't part of the 24 are out in the audience, we get treated to a little bit of free theater.  (We're supposed to be paying rapt attention to all the questions, since a bunch of the original 24 can be rejected, and they'll call some of us up to fill the empty spaces until they end up with the final jury.)
The questions range from whether or not you know, or are related to, any of the people involved in the case, including the judge, the attorneys, the witnesses, or the defendant, to what are your attitudes toward various things that might be part of the case.  (One example of the latter from last month's draw was an examination of people's feelings about logging.  Really made me curious about the case...)
Our small town-ness really gets exposed during the questions about knowing or being related to people involved in the case.  There are always a fair number of folks who went to school with one or more of the principals, or are related one way or another.  "Well, Dr. So-and-So is my first wife's cousin, and the defense attorney got my best friend off on a...  ummm... charge.  Of some sort.  Ummm."   "That Trooper So-and-So is the one who showed up when the drunk skewed his truck through my front yard, and I wasn't happy with the way he handled it at all."   Like I said, a little free theater.
My favorite, however, is one from yesterday.  One woman, when one of the attorneys asked if anyone had any kind of relationship with the attorneys on the case, piped up "Well, I don't know if it's a relationship or not, but my current boyfriend is the ex-boyfriend of your current girlfriend's daughter.  Does that count?"
Yeah, small towns...

First it rained, then it rained some more. Yep, it was Vermont Sheep and Wool...

It's now officially traditional that it rains for the entire Vermont Sheep and Wool Festival.  Tunbridge turns into a quagmire; vendors, exhibitors, and attendees shiver in the damp cold; umbrellas and raincoats drip everywhere.  But that just makes it perfect for wrapping up in wool, which is the whole point of the festival, right?
The only ones whose enthusiasm was utterly undampened (sorry.  you know how I am) were the sheepdogs who were there to show off their herding skills.  They watched their boss intently, waiting for the go-ahead signal.  You could just hear them thinking "Is it my turn yet?  Is it my turn yet? Now?  How about now?  Is it my turn yet?  I'm ready!  Ready ready ready ready!  Is it my turn yet?"  I wish I loved my job that much...
My youngest daughter and I attended together, as we usually do.  And while we saw all sorts of wonderful things (yarn!  roving!  spindles!  sweaters!  shawls! fuzzy critters!), I only managed to take one picture:

Because the sight of these two folks sharing a tiny little Hello Kitty umbrella was just too cute to pass up.

My butt still hurts

Yesterday was the second Jury Draw (of the three that I have to endure to meet my civic duty this year) and I spent 8 hours sitting on a hard wooden bench with only a thin cushion (very thin.  Like 1/2 inch thin.  Thin.) to protect my bony little butt.*
The good news is that I got the cuff of a sock knit.  The bad news is that I'll probably have to rip it out.  While I like a little negative ease in my socks, this one is turning out a little too negative-easish.  Like somewhere between tourniquet and Chinese footbinding.  I'm not even going to bother taking a photo, since I'm going to rip it.  So the good news 2 is that I'll be able to knit it over, and it's good that I have knitting to look forward to because the bad news 2 is that we didn't finish picking a jury and have to go back next Thursday to continue the whole longwinded boring process.
*sigh*


*  My theory is that they don't want us to get too comfortable and fall asleep from boredom.  Which I did anyway.  I seem to be making a habit of sleeping in the courtroom.  Maybe I should point this out if they try to select me for a jury.  I'm sure it wouldn't look good if the bailiff had to keep poking me to wake me up.

Hey! What happened to August?!?

And how did it get to be September already...

So, what have I got to show for the summer?

Here's the sum total of the knitting I got done:

Wingspan.  (This is the best of a bunch of really bad pictures.  I can't get the colors right and the focus defeats me.)  I love this project.  Though if you count over to the fourth and fifth wedges, starting from the right, you'll see that the color sequence went south.  Minutes after I posted about how the colors were transitioning perfectly for the pattern, I hit a knot in the yarn.  *sigh*

The garden pretty well went south this summer too.  What with the sheep getting out and eating most of it, there's not much left but swiss chard and green beans.  And the tomatoes are being eaten nearly to the ground by a sudden infestation of hornworms, which we've never had before in all our years of gardening up here.  Growing up in Kansas and upstate NY, I was familiar with them, but Madman was all "WTF?!?" because he'd never seen one before.  Picture a caterpillar the size of your middle finger, chomping on your tomato plants and pooping the equivalent of elephant droppings.  The only good thing about them is that they explode rather spectacularly when you stomp on them.  (Just be careful not to point them at anyone, as they go off like a cannon.)

One of the few bright spots is that my lovely Black Austrolorps have started laying eggs.  (*sniff*  They grow up so fast...)  They've now been moved in with the main laying flock, though they spend most of their time next to the fence between poultry pens, gazing at their beloved turkeys.  The turkeys are also now spending all their time pressed up against the other side of the fence, gazing right back at their little chicken friends.  And this morning, Madman found the hen turkey in with the layer flock - she must have climbed the fence since she's now too fat to fly.  We foresee trouble, but the turkeys' days are numbered (because Thanksgiving.  And possibly Christmas.  You know.  Don't tell them.) so it will all work out in the end.   Because it would be just great if something on this little farmlet would just stay where it's supposed to.

But I'm not holding my breath...