Sheep Mom's AdventuresRaising Shetland Sheep off the grid

I just thought I would update everyone on my laundry pile. See The Dirty Truth: The Woes of Laundry. It has reached new heights.

Don’t you wish you had a pile like mine?

Until next time…

How do you like our new sheep waterer?

We had it installed last week. They LOVE it!

Not really.

The way we get water out to our sheep etc is not quite so sophisticated. Read the rest of this entry »

There are pros and cons of living where we live. One of the “cons” is LAUNDRY. I hate it. Read the rest of this entry »

Audrey Josephine Guichard. That name may not mean anything to you but it does to me. Read the rest of this entry »

My husband tells me my blog has not only staled, but DECOMPOSED! It’s been 2 weeks since the last post. Read the rest of this entry »

Below is OUR version of the 12 days of Christmas. Study carefully and learn the words below so that you can sing along with the video at the end! (inspired by the ‘accordionist’ in us all)

On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me:

Guinea Fowl in a pine tree… Read the rest of this entry »

We have been VERY busy. I had to make an unscheduled trip to Seattle to see my mom who was in the hospital. So I am behind on EVERYTHING. The good news is my mom is getting better (slowly).

The day after I got back from Seattle, I had to go to Spokane area to get the “girls”. The “girls” being my 2 ewes–Madison and Lydia, who were bred by Bluster at Thistledown sheep. Read the rest of this entry »

There are a few things NOT to do when living off  the power grid in North Central Washington.

1.  Do not forget to plug in the heat tape.  You’ll have DIRE consequences if you forget (as we found out AGAIN this am). There is no water AND no toilet flushing.  But we won’t go there.  This happens every year.

2. Do not try to dry your hair using the propane heater.  Since we can’t use hair dryers, and I was in a hurry and didn’t want to wait for my hair to dry, I sat in front of the propane heater in the kitchen with the back of my hair CLOSE to the heater for awhile.  MISTAKE!  I didn’t get a clue either when I heard my son FROM THE LIVINGROOM say, “What’s that smell?”  I found out what a propane heater can do to hair. I ran my fingers through it to see how dry it was and low and behold it was singed! A nice little glob of it.  Fortunately, it was near the bottom so when I get my hair cut, most of it will be gone.

3.  Do not FORGET to put antifreeze in your car and in single digit weather drive to town.  This happened LAST year, but we won’t open up THAT wound.  I’ll just say, we learned from our mistake.

I know there are other “DO NOTS” but I can’t think of them right now.  No, it’s more like I don’t WANT to think of them right now!  But I will list them as I remember them.

In spite of frozen pipes etc, we are enduring the weather bravely.  The chickens are taking turns getting hypothermia and spending time in front of the fire.  We are going do something different out in our “chicken palace” to warm things up.  Even one of the llamas was shivering so I had to put a blanket on her and put electrolytes in the animal water (before it froze).  One of the goats has a sheep coat on him.  The shetlands act like it isn’t cold.  They seem to not be affected by it all (yet).

May your Christmas season be merry and bright.  Notice I said CHRISTmas and not holiday season.  It is becoming one of my pet peeves this year.  People are becoming afraid to say CHRISTMAS anymore for some reason, like they will offend someone.  Our country was founded on christian principles.  In our house we say CHRISTmas. So……CHRISTMAS, CHRISTMAS, CHRISTMAS.  Oops, I’m on a soap box again.  Until next time…..

I hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving. We did. Usually we stay home and I cook everything and eat leftovers all weekend which we love. But this year we were kindly invited to some friends for dinner. Marshall and I deviated from our diet just a little and gorged ourselves with the attitude of “Eat, Drink and be Merry, for tomorrow we die!” or go back on the diet. Read the rest of this entry »

My daughter has an unusual house pet. His name is Buckeye. She takes him everywhere with us in the car, to horse riding lessons, to the relatives, and even into Big R (the feed store). They love him in Big R. They get excited to see him. One of the clerks says, when he sees Buckeye, “Here comes the……Midget Chicken!!”. Because that is what he is. Buckeye is a chicken. A very small chicken. He is a Serama, which is the smallest chicken breed in the world. Ondra raises them….. in the house!!!, temporarily, for the last year. They are in cages of course, except for Buckeye. He rules the roost so to speak and has the privilege of running around the house….wearing a chicken diaper (you can find them on the internet). He was the first Serama chick hatched and Ondra oogles over him all day long. Every 2 minutes thoughout the day I hear, “He’s so cute!!!! Isn’t he the cutest thing in the world?!!!! Mom! look at Buckeye, you have to see this!!!! Isn’t he cute!!!!!!” He sits on her lap when she is doing school, and loves his wattles rubbed, and his breastbone messaged. He is quite the character and full of personality. Did I mention he purrs? Yes purrs, like a cat. When he was a chick, he would sit on Ondra’s shoulder and purr, and sometimes even break into a song. Read the rest of this entry »