Posted on by agilejack

Day One of Lambs 2024 and Two Milestones

Day one of lambs was a pretty low key day. There are a lot of healthy moms with lambs who are doing really well so that means less to do in taking care of everyone each day.

After feeding the sheep this morning we castrated, docked the tail and gave an ear tag to one lamb that was born yesterday afternoon. Then I got Rico out of the car and did a little farm work with him. We brought a group of about 20 sheep out of one small pen and moved them to a large pasture through several gates. It’s so much fun to see Rico’s sheep herding training put to a really practical application. You could certainly run a sheep farm without a trained dog, but having a good dog to help really makes a difference.

And now for some happy and healthy ewes and lambs.

And a close up of a lamb born yesterday.

Then we headed out to the back pasture where all the pregnant ewes hang out to see if there were any lambs born over night. Voila! One ewe with one tiny lamb. So we gathered up the lamb and put him in the lamb wagon and headed back to the barn with mom following close behind.

We had this new lamb tagged, castrated and tail banded in no time and they joined a bunch of other mom/baby combos in a nice green field.

With that done it was time to play with puppies! My friend who owns this farm has a litter of six week old Australian Shepherd puppies, and they are so cute! This one fell asleep in my arms later in the day.

This little one is such a sweet and pretty little girl. GAH! I really love puppies!

Six weeks old is really the perfect age for puppies! I could sit and watch them play all day long.

They play hard and then the fall asleep! And they are so friendly and confident.

It’s really good timing to have an easy lambing season with relatively good weather when you have a litter of puppies you need to watch for hours on end! And they even got to meet a lamb close up.

They were all very curious and interested.

Since everything at the farm was so low key we decided to head into town to grab a warm lunch. But first, I got Rico out and worked him a little on some sheep. And he did some lovely work for me… of course!

I told my friend that if I had to use one word to describe Rico’s work today it would be “control!” it’s so amazing to see how I’m able to control how he’s moving the sheep around the field. All with verbal commands. I’m so proud of how he’s doing and I’m having a blast watching all his training show up in such a great way.

After lunch we headed out to the back field again to see if there were any more lambs and two ewes had given birth since we checked earlier in the day. But they were so newly born that we decided to leave them in the field for a few hours to allow them to bond before we moved them to the barn. Trudy messaged me after I got home to let me know that one of them had another lamb! I thought she looked like she wasn’t done.

It’s so amazing to see instinct kick in. These moms just know what to do with their new babies.

It was raining pretty good during our trip to check for lambs and I got pretty wet. When we got back to the barn we were back into the pen with the puppies for a final play session of the day and a little early dinner. The puppies who were a little slower at eating had the last part of their meal elevated so the little piggy puppies didn’t eat ALL the food.

They thought it was terrible that they didn’t get to eat all the food.

Here’s my boyfriend Isaac (on the left) and Elsa, two of the three wonderful guard dogs who keep all the moms and babies safe from predators.

I’m betting we have a good number of lambs to take care of in the morning. And the weather is supposed to be really gorgeous tomorrow. A perfect day for lambs.

After a nice warm dinner tonight I hit my sewing room to do two things. The first was to square up one block in each of the many fabrics I’m using in my Brandon Mably leftover quilt so I could see a good variety of them together. I was really anxious to see these blocks up on the design wall, but since I promised myself that I wouldn’t do that until my green quilt top was done, I pinned that final diagonal seam…

Then I sewed the seam, pressed it and trimmed the two remaining corners.

Only borders left to go now.

Before I put that quilt back on my design wall I tossed up the blocks I trimmed and grabbed a couple of quick photos.

I am soooo happy with how this looks! I’m so glad I cut those shark’s teeth sashing pieces just a little bit wider. It makes such a difference and gives this all such amazing movement.

And one piece of eye candy…

On the drive home I stopped at a lovely nursery to see if they had strawberry plants. I bought six of some ever-bearing varieties they had and a couple bags of compost to feed my raised garden beds. They had the most gorgeous selection of coleus plants!

The most amazing color of burnt orange!

I’m pretty tired tonight and need to turn in and get a good night sleep. More lambs tomorrow!

54 Replies to “Day One of Lambs 2024 and Two Milestones”

  2. Anne, I love your green quilt; the black & white fabrics make the perfect low-volume background. I try to buy black & white fabrics when I find them – the good ones are hard to find.

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      1. Have you decided how you’re going to finish your blue sharks teeth quilt? I’m sewing the last rows of my eggplant and ochre version today and have been debating if I want to put a border on it. Thank you for the tutorial and inspiration. This is set to be one of my favorite Kaffe Fassett quilts I’ve made so far.

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      2. I won’t be adding a border to that quilt. It’s a good throw size and I don’t need to make it bigger. But you certainly could add a border.

        I’m so glad you’re liking your quilt!

        Anne

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  4. oh those precious lambs. And Australian shepherd puppies 🥰 oh, I want one! But can’t for now. I can’t believe you had energy to sew after a day of lambs and puppies! That quilt is looking spectacular! Thanks for sharing a fun day!

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  6. Baby animals and quilts! Oh, my! Those lambs are adorable, as are those cute puppies, but your two quilts? Beautiful! I don’t know how you knew just the right use for that sharks teeth fabric, but you nailed it with the sashing. 

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  7. those limbs are so precious! I love your quilts in progress too! The way you used the sharks tooth fabric is insanely genius to get such a beautiful effect! 

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  8. Thanks for all the lovely pictures. Lambs, puppies and quilts! And coleus too. You had a full day but such a great day! I love seeing things so different from my life. Thank you.

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    1. It’s not. I don’t remember where I got it. And I used it all and have no selvedge. you could easily use Brandon Mably’s comb stripe. That the one in my new Brandon quilt

      Anne

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  10. I have a friend, Mary Skibbie, who also is busy with lambing season. Do you know her? She is such a sweet lady,. Judith ________________________________

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  13. hello again. I am sure I am not the only one who enjoys watching you put fabrics together to make gorgeous quilt tops. What inspiration you share with us!
    Thank you.

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  14. Anne you have such an amazing imagination for design and eye for colour. I hope Kaffe Fassett and Brendon Mably see your designs and get you to design a quilt for them. You are truly gifted! I looked at that last selection of fabrics and none of them appealed much…and now I’m blown away by the overall effect.
    Enjoy the lambing time. A very special time of year and experience.
    All the best

    Dina

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  17. Can’t wait to see more of the lambs. This is a super fun thing to watch. 

    And I love how the colorful sharks teeth quilt is coming along. It’s going to be terrific!  
    As always, thanks so much for sharing your adventures !!!

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  19. Thank you for a day at the farm with all the new critters. I instantly felt better!! Here on Cape Cod, MA the winds of March are trying to move along winter. The April Showers are not willing to wait their turn and are overly enthusiastic this year. The wind is smashing the rains against the windows and drives the temperature down at least 10 degrees. Brr. However, and against all reasonable imagining, the whales are arriving in the bay and birthing the new baby whales. 

    Your wonderful new quilts are magnificent!! I still have the New England heavy duty patchworks piled on the bed. All right and tight and longing for sun and spring warmth.

    Peace to you and yours,

    J

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  21. Always enjoy your rambling stories. Also love driving along I-5 in Lane co this time of year. Lambs are soon cute – the spring loaded ones!

    Your Brandon quilt is amazing! Will you offer a tutorial?

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    1. It’s a wonderful time of year here in the Pacific Northwest!

      When I get the Brandon quilt done I’ll write up the variations from my blue swirly tutorial. it’s basically the same quilt with some slight moderations.

      Anne

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  23. Thank you for sharing all the lamb and puppy stories. It’s so great that you and Rico can put all of your hard work to good use. Congrats to both of you! The quilts are looking great. That black and white stripe fabric in the green quilt really makes the design. And, what to say about the other one? All I can think of is WOW!!! It’s amazing!

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  24. I said I was looking forward to your lambing time post and you sure haven’t disappointed me! Lambs Pups, Rico at his best and to top it all off some quilt eye candy. What more could a girl ask for especially since the puppies are a well known much lovedAussie breed. Thanks you so much

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  27. Thanks for sharing your busy day. The lambs and pups are so adorable!

    Really enjoying the quilt as well as the new blocks with sharks teeth. 
    linda

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  28. Really love the green quilt top – lots of quiet energy after all the wild & crazy multi-colored ones! Nice change of pace, but all have been magnificent.

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  29. Wow! Lambs and puppies, how great is that!! Takes me back to when I was feeding goats for a friend while they went on vacation. All of a sudden 5 goats had babies. They didn’t even know they were pregnant. Careless owners, I know! Babies are always wonderful!

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