Yoda's Lambs

Desert Weyr Yoda is one of our pet wethers. He is usually fat enough that he looks like he will lamb.

In this case as Ken was checking the sheep he noticed that Yoda had managed to snag a set of twins to care for. Mom, Desert Weyr Briallen seems glad to have an additional babysitter.


Yoda and his Lambs.

Lambing is Over

Our 2011 lambing season is over. 58 nice lambs but way too many open ewes. Desert Weyr Logan will be guest of honor at Revolution Brewing later this year in smoked kolbassi sausages. He didn't get a single one of his ewes pregnant. The other ewes will get evaluated. They were all part of the AI experiment and may not have had a chance with a live ram during a full heat cycle. I have some calendar homework to do to figure that all out. Some will be culled for teeth issues anyway.

Pot of Gold

Rainbow on Garvin Mesa

Independence Day

4th of July, grass is looking good and the lambs are growing very well.


The saying in Paonia is if Mt. Lamborn has snow on the 4th of July it's a good water year. This is a very good year, our cold spring and heavy snow means plenty of irrigation water for later this summer.

We Woke up the Chickens...

With apologies to C.W. McCall,


Sleepy hens and tired chicks.

Early Morning Rams

Early Morning out checking the feed in the ram pasture.

Wide Load No More & High Water Time

Tanwen lambed a large 9 pound 10 ounce ram lamb with no problems.


She still looks fairly wide though.


Went down to Black Bridge Winery and took a look at the river. High and muddy but not flooding so far.

Alan, Joealan & Joe

My Friend Alan was here for a visit on the first part of his tour of the US. We had to take him down to Revolution Brewing where we met Joealan and then Joe. Couldn't get all 3 to look at the camera at the same time though!

Abstract and Wide Load

Abstract under the big power lines over on the east side of the property.



This is Desert Weyr Tanwen, probably the last ewe to lamb for 2011. A wide load indeed!

Lambs & Hay

More new lambs. This ewe had twins.


First of the new hay is arriving. First cutting was 708 small bales.

Solar Panels, Ready for Hay & DNA Sweater

Time to get the solar panels up onto the shop roof for the PV system. It's quite a long way and everyone is using safety harnesses and ropes.









Hay barn is cleaned out ready for the new hay. SHould be arriving today or tomorrow.


My DNA cable sweater is also coming along, It's the brewery knitting so it has been going rather slowly during lambing because we don't go to the brewery much.

Lost a Ram

The ram Desert Weyr Kirk died today. We had a veterinarian do a pm. He had a perforated stomach from an ulcer and had peritonitis. Probably the result of the injuries sustained in his feeder accident back the beginning of May.

Winnie and Lambs

Winnie is very protective of the younger lambs.



This young lamb wanted to play hop on mom. The two lambs in front are being baby sat by this ewe while their mother is off grazing. The babysitter is their aunt.

Chickens & Sheep & Nice Lambs

The dinner chickens actually arrived 9 June but I didn't get any pictures until today. We lost more than usual in the first few days but they seem to be ok now.




We've got sheep on both sides of the center divider fence and a dog in each group. Winnie is closest to me and Kimball is across the fence line.


Some of the ewes, lambs and yearlings.


This is a particularly nice yearling ewe.


These 2 lambs were born 10 May and are twins sired by Wye Heights Latham and out of Desert Weyr Gwendolyn. I think they are growing exceptionally well.

Lambing & Solar System

Desert Weyr Alice is a first time ewe and seemed to be having a few problems so Ken was holding her head while I checked to see what we needed to do. She is quite calm which was fortunate.


She ended up having a 9 pound 5 ounce ram lamb with horns about half an inch long that got stuck on her pelvis. Fortunately she was actually pretty roomy or it would have been worse.


More work on the solar system.

Lamb Box & Second Solar System

We've had a lot of cold and rain and we had some lambs born in the irrigation ditch that were cold. So we made a small lamb box to put the one colder lamb in for a few hours. It worked well and by the time the lamb got warm and climbed out everything was fine. The hay in the box ensured mom stayed with her nose right in there to talk to the lamb.


Brad Burritt is back to start the second large sola PV system. It's going on the shop roof and will be a grid intertied system that supplies power to the Little House, Shop and Red Barn.

Lambs and Dogs

Here are the triplets. They are doing well and mom appears to be able to feed them all so far.


Winnie is doing well protecting her new sheep.

Lambing Again

First lambs of the second batch. A set of triplet ram lambs. We put them all in a wire panel jug for a few hours just to be sure mom could count to three. She did seem to lose track of one of the lambs when we first moved her out to fresh grass but she is getting better. We have to keep an eye out on them though, I am not sure she can feed all 3 successfully.

Mowing the Lawn

Ken got the mower we got last year working finally. At first it was blowing a lot of oil smoke but that soon cleared up. He had to rebuild the engine.


Since the sheep did not finish grazing around the guest house before they had to move to the orchard pasture for lambing there was actually a lawn to mow.