This evening there was a very beautiful orange crescent moon rising over the mountain outside our front porch. I wish I could have taken a picture, but digital just isn’t very good with long exposures. I did, however, get a picture of Hop and Bob!
Monthly Archives: September 2006
More sheep
Posted onTalked to the vet this morning to discuss the results of Pumpernickel’s most recent poo test. She still has worms, but they are at a moderate instead of high level. Also, her cockadoodledoo levels were high (internal critters all sheep have but can get too high when the animal is stressed). We had to swing by the vet before heading out to get the new sheep so we could pick up some more meds…some cockadoodledoo stuff and some vitamin b (injectable…aie).
After the vet, we hopped on the road towards Roanoke and points beyond. The farm, Ingleside Icelandics, was sort of near Appomattox, and we drove right past all sorts of Historic Sites. We pulled into the driveway at the farm and saw our sheeps waiting for us in a little pen. We chatted with the Ingleside folks for a bit and then loaded Pearl, Sadie, and Sydney into the back of the truck. These sheep are so big and fluffy!
On the way home we stopped to get gas. While the gas was pumping we stared in at the sheep. This guy filling up his SUV next to us kept kinda peeking over. Finally, he came over and grinned and said, “Can I see?” His daughter came out of the gas station, and she came over and they both peeked in and made “oooo” and “ahhhh” sounds. The guy thanked us and said, “It’s not very often you see someone at a gas station with sheep. Thank you for letting us look at them!” It was cool. 
Finally we got home. Andy put Pumpernickel up in the barn ’cause we had to give her meds, and then we set to getting the sheep out of the truck. They did not want to get out. We ended up pulling and pushing and finally prying Pearl out, and once she was out the rest followed more easily. They ran right into the field and started chowing down.
After we got Pumpernickel her meds, we opened the door. Pumpernickel RAN out of the barn and headed straight for the other sheep baaaaaaaaaaaaing all the way. She seemed incredibly happy to see her new pals and went over to each in turn and said hello. Then the new sheep sort of circled her and sniffed her butt and went back to eating grass.
A little while later, though, Pearl decided Pumpernickel was a little uppity or something because Pearl ran over and headbutted Pumpernickel right into the fence!
The next fun task was to get the rope-type ties off Pearl’s and Sadie’s necks. The ties were on to help catch and move around the girls (Sydney has horns), and if we’d been thinking we’d have taken the ties off while the sheep were in the truck. Instead we spent about an hour chasing them around. We did finally get Pearl’s tie off by tempting her over with some grain, but Sadie was too shy for that. We stopped, though, when Pearl started to pant and we realized we were stressing them. We would have just let them go for a while, but at one point Sadie got the loop of her tie caught on a nail on the barn. Finally, we herded all three new sheep into the barn and managed to get hold of Sadie and get her tie off. All the while, Pumpernickel just sort of looked on from afar..wondering what the big deal was.
So, um, yeah, we went with option D…if you hadn’t figured that out yet.
Hay Rack
Posted onToday I built a hay rack for the sheep. I’m not sure if it is 100% sturdy if it is bumped into a lot and stuff, so it might need some extra supports, but it stands upright and holds hay, which is what’s important!
Hay Rack in Garage
Pumpernickel and Hay Rack
Ribbbbbbitttttttttttt
Posted on
Larry Frog
County Fair
Posted onI finally got around to bringing in some of the pictures from the fair:
Survey – Input Needed
Posted onWe need to get a friend for Pumpernickle. We found a farm in VA that has Icelandics for sale. They are also having a special for September because they need to get rid of some sheep soon. In addition to the special, they’ll take another 10% off the top if we buy three sheep. This is a good deal for what looks like some good sheep.
Here are the links so you can see the sheep we are looking at:
Sadie and Sydney – http://www.inglesideicelandics.com/index_adultsheepforsale.htm
Pearl – http://www.inglesideicelandics.com/index_lambs.htm
Should we get:
A. Sadie
B. Pearl
C. Sadie and Pearl
D. Sadie, Pearl, and Sydney
A or B = less cost up front, a little bit less cost on maintenance, and no income from lambs next year.
C = more cost up front, a little bit more cost on maintenance, and no income from lambs next year.
D = larger cost up front, a little bit more cost on maintenance, and possible income from lambs next year.
New pet
Posted onToday I got a new pet, and I’ve already taught it some tricks!
It can walk:
And stand:
And come when called:
Pumpernickel
Posted onWow, just a slew of entries today from me. But I couldn’t resist putting up some pictures of Pumpernickel from this afternoon:
Floyd County Fair and Taste of Floyd [rant warning]
Posted onToday was a mixed day. We had a lot of fun at the first annual Floyd County Fair today. There was a cute olympic event that involved milk chugging and cheese eating, and lambs, cows, tractors, and vegetables.
Then we went to the Taste of Floyd at Harvest Moon Cafe. Maybe a better name would have been the ‘Harvest Moon Sample Plate.’ I’ve been to numerous Taste of
So, let’s see, get people to spend five dollars a person to try a few things that they can (conveniently) find at the store hosting the event, thereby bringing in lots of extra business to the store. Oh, there was a wine tasting area too – that was another five dollars. I didn’t see a single local restaurant represented at the Taste of Floyd – doesn’t that seem pretty strange? And you couldn’t even look around first to see if there was anything you wanted to try – Cabol actually saw someone turned away who just wanted to look around and maybe BUY some of the things sold and not taste! Now there is a good business philosophy.
In summary, the county fair was great – I hope we are around to see many, many more. The Taste of Floyd basically felt like something designed to pull in tourists. That’s another thing we noticed: at the fair, I felt like I was seeing the “real” citizens of Floyd County. The ones who greet each other by name, whose children all know each other, who can stack bales of hay two at a time in 30 seconds, the 4-H members showing off their lambs. At Harvest moon the crowd seemed to be retired baby boomers and tourists (or both) and younger people, all trying to feel hip and trendy because they are there samplin’ all that fancy overpriced ($7.00 for a jar of spaghetti sauce?!?) organic stuff and feeling like they are “making a difference” before they head back to their McMansions and plasma tvs. I’ll take the county fair crowd any day, thanks.
Hay Hay Hay
Posted onToday we went to get some hay. I always thought I was a pretty good packer when it came to filling vehicles, but these folks somehow managed to get 21 bales of hay into our pickup. It may not sound like much for a truck, but bear in mine that the cap was still over the bed, which severely limits how high you can stack bales.
We also realized that the craft shack (now known as the hay shack) is the perfect place to stack hay. You can pull right up to the door and it is dry inside. Only some of our barn is perfectly dry, and sometimes the moisture wicks up from beneath and starts to mold hay stacked on the ground. Now we just keep 1 or 2 bales down in the actual barn. Pumpernickel seems to really enjoy the new hay, it seems to be a better quality than what we had before.
Today is the Floyd county fair and harvest festival! Must get there in time for the cheese eating contest!