Jest Another Day in Pear-A-Dice - Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm in Alberta

[Akrnaf2]

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Well I suppose some have married the wrong person...

My MIL was so stellarly grateful to me...she even gave me a mix master that worked in the holiday trailer we bought...so I could have whipped cream on the waffles we were eating when camping...???

Why was she ever so grateful to me...her son was a long standing bonafied BATCHELOR and I know for a fact...she never thought any woman would be CRAZY enough to take him on and marry him AND part of it was her fault...she taught all her seven children how to care for themselves...cook, clean, etc. Many men get married because they are useless at the homemaking chores.

MIL's that have UNmarried sons...have an obligation to care for them...

That ends when someone is dumb enough to marry them and take the obligation off their hands. Grateful I tell you...thankful, grateful and over joyed...

First time I met her in person, I got smothered in hugs...she did pause once to looked deeply into my eyes to see how crazy I really was but HUGGED...welcomed, pampered and adored.

Benny, you just did not marry a bad enough person...your wife is obviously not an ongoing detrimental obligation to her family.

Nyuck nyuck nyuck...

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Don't get me wrong, my MIL is a wonderful woman! We didn't have any argument ever!
In fact she is seating right now with my youngest after a nice Shabat diner, she eat with us every Shabat since my FIL was hospitalized.

 

[getaclue]

Diva, a street walking, ice cream eating, guardian angel with attitude, is the best kind!

 

[Akrnaf2]

Tara wake up!

 

[getaclue]

Tara wake up!

She's out watching the antics of her little sheep. She'll be back when they go to college.

 

[Akrnaf2]

TARAAAAAAAAAA!! @CanuckBock !!

 

[CanuckBock]

Heel low:

Tara wake up!

She's out watching the antics of her little sheep. She'll be back when they go to college.

TARAAAAAAAAAA!! @CanuckBock !!

2017 - Summer of the Lambs​

You do realize I warned y'all...I am living the DREAM and this year is the Summer of the LAMBS...nothing, nobody is gonna steal that from my memory...making memories, living the dream...

Jul 27 2017 - The not so little Èden​

WAKE UP? Tara's out counting sheeps, fallen asleep? NOPE I am wide wake up & have to pinch myself; living the dream with my eyes wide open.

Jul 23 2017
BACKSIDE​

Am in my glory...blessed, thankful, sucking it in. Can't even blink for fear...when will it end?? Jest another day, eh...another day in Pear-A-Dice...and another...

With the cancer scare for that week (felt like I lost a week of my life I will NEVER recoup!)...I plan on being away more often from the and sucking up the joy & happiness that is my reality.

My reality is a three or four ring circus. Nobody believes you...nobody...what's that saying, it didn't happen if you didn't post a picture. Well it is and it has been...ever more.

Jul 28
Yup...count them...thar's three that want to eat leaves and one helper...
three or four ring circus...not sure I remember how to count​

So I shall start AND end on the a three (or is that four?) ring circus theme.

Hot...tis summer here in Alberta...HOT & COLD...

Jul 27 - Time to take off the coverings... ​

Clipped yesterday, two ewes got targeted and top clipped.

Jul 27 Decor​

D'Arcy I did first...she's never bin done and a struggle to a point.

Eventually, all my sheeps GET IT. You lay still, the hot insulative cover comes off. I don't get sliced and diced and neither do they. Those four hooves and their skulls are dangerous to say the least. I have to be on the ball and have it together or I get opened up and bruised up...I left this task for Friday...been hot, been cold...extremes ALWAYS in Alberta...

Yesterday...quarter sized hail in a deluge of rains...best happy
North of us, make a fist...they showed clicks of a golf course
that looked like a machine gun had visted
Hail throwing dirt up where it hit...HORRORS!​

I near got a hand opened up by D'Arcy and one of her flaying kicks...Dorpers are very strong and like the Jacobs (who have their horns to add to the mess) are sheep you have some hired shearers REFUSE to do.

D'Arcy, almost clean! Yah!!!

Got told her sire was a good shedder...
Well her dam sure is, but told one has to wait...
I waited long enough on D'Arcy and then I clipped her​

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They learn...D'Arcy will be more manageable next round. Decor, she already KNOWS to lay still and it gets done quicker and slicker.

Decor, her second time...she KNOWS what to do, eh​

I clip and shear because I hafta...I never played with hair, no beauty salon here...it gets done as quick and efficient as possible. I'm and I got Dorps because they were suppose to be full shedders...lovely tel conversation with a dog and Dorper friend that has had them for over 20 years yesterday. I am on the right track and people have let the ball drop...now for me to put it back in play...full shedding...working on it!

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Jul 28 2017
Top of photo...Ditto and Peanut are the last two ewes to clip and then
saving up strengths for Boss Man to do...​

No moss growing here...rolling stone, eh.

I have tattoo letters to go purchase...you will have to wait...got uh, three more installments to post but you'll have to take a number and wait patiently...too much way, way too much...

Gotta go... Grass, Doghouse, Weights and more on the Circus...you'll have to wait... I can't promise when I'll get back here...

Doggone & Chicken UP!

Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada

 

[getaclue]

Remember when I said I would never get anything done with those cuties around? Tara, it's wonderful you are wise enough to take the time to enjoy what you've been blessed with. Cherish each day, and what it has in store.

 

[CanuckBock]

Heel low:

Remember when I said I would never get anything done with those cuties around? Tara, it's wonderful you are wise enough to take the time to enjoy what you've been blessed with. Cherish each day, and what it has in store.

It is not that I am not getting anything done with the lambs here...

Jul 18 - Lots of mowing of greenery
August now and slow down on the grow happens​

Jul 19 - ditch mowing; moms babes and ewes

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Even got time & energy to take advantage of some unexpected Manna from Heaven...

Ditch top got mowed and thought..."HEY...thar's some cut hay just waiting to be collected...and so we did!"

As of today, used it all up...so near a dozen days of feed ​

I only gathered what was not noxious weedy​

Time for maintenance too...we get Death Camas (horrid lethal plant...pretty but deadly!) and Locoweed...so I had time and energy to rid that too

Sheeps doing ditch maintenance​

Death Camas - pretty and DEADLY!​

In the shade, it can look a lot like sprigs of certain grasses and if the ground is soft and wet, the sheep can pull it out, not only eat the leaves and flowers but the bulb which resembles wild onions...is the most toxic part...blah!

Got time to weigh my blessings​

I cannot believe how well the lambs are doing...especially Èden. Pretty much can guess her weight daily...how many days old...she is that many pounds!

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That friend I telephoned that has 20 years in Dorpers (South African embryo transplants...she was on the cusp of the imports to Canada, eh), asked her what she thought about a 42 day old ewe lamb single weighing 42 pounds and she was thrilled. She said the breed is great at gaining...quick and to expect they do the slow down after about the 100 pound or so mark. Which is a rather premium meat marketing weight. Now she sold her lambs at 50 pounds because her market wanted that size. Great market for their hides...especially when Dorper was used as commercial makers...the colour like we have in Decor and Ditto make the finest lamb rugs and idealic colour patterns...pretty interesting.

She is just about to sell off the last of her sheep...her spouse retired and they want to holiday together. She is sad because she says her flock is right where she wanted them...easy to keep and all the traits she figured she loved. Sigh...oh well, don't that seem how it goes.

Anyway, gonna call a lady she sold some of her purebreds to that has moved from out East to AB... Might see if we meld and get a go at maybe some South African genetics if we can strike up a deal on ram lambs or? Hee hee...networking on sheeps. Sheep TV and all, eh.

Admiring Sheep TV...all the dogs want to watch is this channel -
hide the channel changer on me...
"NOPE...sheep TV is the bestest!"​

I am totally going great guns through summerish things. The lambs are not a distraction that causes me any inconvenience (well planned for...like the summer of the girl pups, the swan import, or veggy gardenings or even potato plantings!--all summers where the year is planned and embraced!). I simply don't have lots of time (past robbing my sleep time!) to post here on Pear-A-Dice. No hiccups because I do that EVERY summer--get too busy and the thread lags...said that right when I was asked to do this...summer has too much on the go to post too much about it. Can't do and talk about it too much eh. That means I trade off speaking and posting photos (which now is a nightmare with the BYC upgrade...totally HATE IT! ) with long intervals where I am out and about sucking in the fun stuff. Oh my...so much fun stuff!

I was sitting fish pond side last night...Rick had just hosed the girls (like Lacy's FAV thing in the whole wide world!!) and I had a pocket full of fresh peas to give them (Emmy prefers MEAT but Lacy LUVs the peas...musta been Lace's night, eh?)...sitting there knowing Rick has to get his mind set for Monday work week (big week, they are Calciuming one of their heavily used roads which may mean he does not have to fiddle with it so much...go do some road building and upgrading elsewhere...YAH!) and thought...this IS the Life. We had done a Loser Lap in the red Chev...just because and summer is the time for running Rick's vehicles--allows me to work on my Swamper's tan...the right arm hangs out the window getting tanned...not the left driver one!

Dragon fly (love DRAGONS!) rain chains...metal and will stand up to the hails!​

Got some fresh bread for lunch, had a medium pizza in a city parking lot for lunch (Rick always teases..."wonder if the girls would like a taste of pizza?")...I found a snazzy coffee cup inspired welded wire container for the Man Porch (Rick had to admit, it slid right in with the rest of HIS decor...totally!) and stopped for ice cream in a lake side resort (whimsically labelled "Redneck Burmuda" by a newspaper reporter...label stuck for us...hee hee). Ice cream...strawberry for the GIRLS...Em's favourite!

And Rick says it won't go with the decor...little he knows about decorating! ​

Ran the dogs, stopped and gorged on Saskatoons (never SEEN so many berries as this year has blessed us with--red currants, raspberries, strawberries...oh my and the crop of crabapples and apples are going to be bountiful...the girls are already trying to harvest the GREEN ones because the branches are so full they are bent near the ground...silly girls...no patience!), checked on the lambs & tucked the ram away, fed dogs, fed us and retired to a bit of television and then grateful sleep. Run on dazes. Absolute the whole summer could run on like this and that feeling of glee and happiness, joys with peace...and reaping your hard work...this could go on forever and we'd never be full of it...full of thankfulness we get to enjoy this, but we also never want it EVER to stop. Ah...living the life...eyes wide open and pinch me...we're dreaming in the DREAM world...in reality.

Rick recounts how we had a vision of Caragana growing up so high it gave us privacy--allowed to lose yer nut and no harm done-wander around with no pants on but nobody SEES the horrible view! There are spruce trees that tower over the roofs of some of our buildings...these arrived here as those wimpy shippable seedlings; tiny twig of greenness.

So I got me A-Z packet of tattoo letters (at over $5 a letter if bought singlely and 26 set costing $57.75 for each letter @ $2.22) doing the bean counting means if you need more than a handful of letters, you are best getting a complete set. I do need extra "D's" though...tattoo prefix I own is DRPR and I like to have a double set of letters for my tattoo prefix. For the Jacobs i own the prefix JACB. Kinda kewl we went from three letters in a tattoo to four...name yer breed, eh?

And there is the hateful part...ten files and have to post again...grrr...

Doggone & Chicken UP!

Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada

 

[Akrnaf2]

Mmmm 90 pound lamb mmmmmm!

 

[CanuckBock]

Heel low:

OK...where am I in this update...oh yeh...next series is the DOGHOUSE...

Jul 18
Turns out the lambs love the style of 1 of the doghouses we have​

Great for cool resting, note oat straw inside....

Jul 19 - sprinkles of rain
Three lambs fit in there too!

Sheep are done mowing the space between Caragana and perimeter fence
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This worked quite well because I had the two mom's and babes on the inside and the adult ewes on the outside...melding the flock as one again...but first with fences between. The ewes can be quite mean to lambs...head butting them and I don't want no lamb carcasses thanks! Fenceline intros...like we do with poultry too!

Girls and ram lamb...he learns quick to respect the dogs and not fear them​

Jul 18 - Cute FAT lambs!​

Lacy is in for trouble...Èden has only 11 pounds to catch up to Lacy's size!
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Ah but can you feel the

Love & kisses...always the KISSES!

Way too much joy, happiness and just doing what you do!

Life's a Beach...Livin' amongst DEEP SHEEP (and dogs!)​

I mean...you want me to tear myself away from THIS to do

HA...pretty durn hard, eh.

Doggone & Chicken UP!

Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada