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My daughter Erin came up to visit this past weekend and we saw her for a few minutes. Well, actually she spent the entire day with me on Friday - shopping of course! And eating sushi for lunch, which was wonderful.
She got to catch up with her old friends up here and created some drama because some boy thinks she's all that, and his girlfriend found out that Erin was here and was following him and all his friends around to make sure he didn't see Erin but they were very sneaky and all got to hang out together at Sweet Carolines.......oh god, now I remember what it's like to have her around. Love her, but it sure is nice to have the house to ourselves again so we can run around naked - just kidding!
Anyway, she has a new boyfriend in Tampa and was so excited to return. He sounds okay, but I'm still on the lookout for the perfect guy for her. So today when I'm reading the Border Collie Boards, someone mentions a new sheep shearer in VA and I go to his webpage and there he is. The perfect guy for us....I mean her. But wouldn't that be perfect? She'd get a really nice guy (so say people who have met him) and I'd get someone to help with my sheep! I'm a genius.
Here's his website - for those of you who need a shearer. Just don't marry him off to your daughters though - I call first dibs.
http://www.lordwillinshearin.com/

what's for dinner?

Andre just left a message here at work to tell me that he went grocery shopping at lunchtime and got the fixins for Chicken and Dumplings for dinner tonight! YUMMY. It's cold and rainy here and that sounds just perfect. Even better that he's cooking it and I can lay on the couch with Blue on my head (he jumps up on the couch, walks across the back and lays at my head, sometimes leaning over and giving me a kiss on the nose!), various other dogs at my feet, and just click through the channels while the magic happens in the kitchen.

What a good guy.

You're so vain

Daughter Erin lives in Tampa (she's visiting this weekend - yeah!), so we sometimes email each other during the day from work. Today's email made me laugh.
Erin: "i have a boooooooyfriend :)"
Me: "Who? "
Erin: "jason :) the one i told you about that i went on a date with a couple weeks ago....oh he is very smitten :) "

Methinks shethinks alot of herself :)
Later today I sent her this - saying that I googled her new boyfriend and found his picture - just to bring her down a few notches......

Little Bites of Heaven

I don’t cook or bake, mostly because no one will eat what I cook or bake, but last night I made these dumplings for dessert (dinner was a rotisserie chicken from the store and Stouffers Mac and Cheese - a hint about my usual efforts at cooking) and Andre and I were in HEAVEN. Of course I served with non-fat Vanilla ice cream......

Apple Dumplings
2 Granny Smith apples
2 cans crescent rolls
2 sticks butter
1 1/2 cups sugar1 teaspoons vanilla
cinnamon
1 small can Mountain Dew (I used about 6 oz/deb)
Peel and core apples. Cut apples into 8 slices each. Roll each apple slice in a crescent roll. Place in a 9 x 13 buttered pan. Melt butter, then add sugar and barely stir. Add vanilla, stir, and pour over apples. Pour Mountain Dew around the edges of the pan. Sprinkle with cinnamon and bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes. Serve with ice cream, and spoon some of the sweet sauces from the pan over the top.
Then go to confession. Quickly.
From the Pioneer Woman Cooks!
http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/

A few members of the family

Bitty's twins - Bill and Hillary. BL ewe and ram lambs (Top)
Maisie's baby -Mutt. SuffolkxBL ewe lamb. (bottom)

It works!

Bottle lamb Bubba wasn't feeling well on Saturday. He had taken his morning bottle fine, but when we came home in the afternoon he was just standing by himself. I tried to see if he wanted a bottle but he didn't - definitely a problem here. So I looked at him a little more closely and realized that his little belly was sticking out and when I picked him up he felt a bit hollow if that makes sense. I looked up bloat in one of my many sheep books and they say it's from going from one diet to another, usually lusher, forage. Well he's only been on milk and just starting to nibble at the grass, but I treated him anyway and it was like a miracle how fast it worked.
1/2 cup water, 1/2 cup cooking oil, 2 Tbls baking soda. Mix thoroughly. For his size, I did 1/8th cup each of the water and cooking oil and 1 teaspoon baking soda. I also added 1/4 tablet (crushed) pepto bismal. Mixed it all and gave about 5 ccs with a syringe. A little toot and a few belches later and he was running with his lamby friends, where he hadn't been moving 1/2 hr before.

Over the mountain

Since we moved to the country, we refer to events as either being on this side of the mountain or over the mountain (aka civilization, DC suburbs, etc.). If we're going to dinner or shopping over the mountain, we have to put on clothes that are appropriate, as in they need to be clean. No muck boots are allowed over the mountain. We would stand out and everyone would be thinking, "They must live in Winchester! Quick get a picture". We also drive our Honda Pilot SUV, instead of the F250 diesel truck. Not to save fuel, but just because the SUV "fits" better over the mountain.

I've come to enjoy doing things on this side of the mountain, just because I can come out of the sheep field with sheep poop on my jeans and shoes, and go straight to Cracker Barrel and order me a Grandpa's Breakfast. Of course if I'm really looking or smelling rough I'll change, but as long as the sheep stains can pass for mud, I'm good to go. Hey, only on this side of the mountain would you be sitting at dinner and have someone announce that we are honored to have the Miss John Deere Virginia in our presence. (actually happened to us 2 weeks ago)

For a long time Andre had a complex about moving to and living in Berryville because he grew up in rural northern Maine and worked long and hard to overcome his feelings of inferiority about being from the country (where they had a school break every fall so the high school kids could pick potatoes for gods sake!). He has two Master's degrees and teaches high school History - over the mountain - and he's slowly getting comfortable in this new life I've dragged him into. He doesn't even look like a country boy. We buy Eddie Bauer and LL Bean clothes - a happy medium in that respect, but I have to admit that Tractor Supply is becoming one of my favorite stores.

I happen to love my life out here in the country and I think that I was meant to be here. Andre isn't as convinced. But on this side of the mountain, I can wake up and not even have to lift my head off my pillow and can watch horses and cows grazing in the fields. I love this life.

No Bush left behind

I won't get into politics here....so much.....but had to put this one out there.
Bush to Pope: 'Thank you, your holiness. Awesome speech.'

Great Job, Bushy. Like totally sick, dude.

13 lambs all in a row

So this is a blog about my life on a little farmette. Hubby and I started out living in the suburbs of DC, got a border collie along the way and now we find ourselves out in the country......raising sheep.
This is our first lambing season. Lambs started popping out 3/18/08 and the last one arrived yesterday. Papa Romey is a very fancy registered Border Leicester. Mama ewe Maisie is a Suffolk and had the first lamb - a beautiful BLxSuffolk speckled face ewe lamb - Mutt. Three BL mamas. Bitty had twins, a ewe and ram lamb. Jazzy had triplets, 2 ewe and 1 ram lamb. Bella had twins, 1 ewe and 1 ram lamb. Jazzy's pregnancy took alot out of her and she had a hard time getting up after lambing. She eventually recovered that day but then rejected one of the babies. So little Bubba is a bottle lamb that I brought in initially to warm up and get going, but he is now in the pasture with the rest of the flock and I bring his bottle there. He has to remember he is a sheep.
The rest of the lambs are from my crazy border cheviot ewes. We lost 2 of these lambs, one was stillborn and one we had to put down yesterday because it seemed to have neurological problems from birth (3 days ago). She never did get up on her feet even with NutriDrench, bottle feeding, BoSe and B Complex shot etc. The rest of the cheviot mamas had 1 ewe lamb and 4 ram lambs! These will hopefully be my worker sheep - for my border collies to work. The pure cheviots themselves are way too flighty to work inexperienced dogs on, so as soon as they wean their babies they are going to market. Might keep one or two for one more breeding season.
Since this is my first blog, I'm not sure what to put into it. I'm going to treat it like a public diary - if it's interesting to me, perhaps my family and friends might like to glimpse occasionally into my crazy life.