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.

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.

Early Morning Rams

Early Morning out checking the feed in the ram pasture.

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!

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.

Off to Wales!

While Ken stayed home to care for the farm I headed off to Wales again to continue training to become an approved judge for Black Welsh Mountain Sheep.

After a relatively unevventful plane flight from Grand Junction to Dallas, then overnight flight from Dallas to London Heathrow, tube to Paddington Station, Train to Newport, Train to Abergavenny and lastly taxi I finally arrived in Abergavenny Wales to the Beavan Family Butcher Shop.

The Beavans' were featured in the BBC program Lambing Live. I made e-mail contact and had arranged to come visit and stay at their B&B for the first couple of days.

Most tourists are not that interested in butcher shops, but I enjoyed talking to Huw & Jan about the issues of running a small butcher shop that caters to the local trade and provides good fresh locally raised meats and eggs.


Huw Beavan


Jan Beavan


Then it was off to Great Tre-Rhew Farm and home of Kate, Jim, Trevor & Anne Beavan. The B&B portion is to the left of this picture.


As soon as I got my stuff in it was off to watch and try not to get in the way as Jim sorted out the lambs to be weaned and checked his ewes for teeth and tits. He was sorting out which ewes would be culled and which would stay for another lambing. Culls got a spot on their rump so they are easy to sort out later. Hopefully I didn't get in the way too much.

Ewes in catch pen.


Checking teeth.


I really liked his chute set-up. I don't think it would work for us because of the horns on our rams but it was sure convenient to work a bunch of sheep around. If we had all polled sheep it would be fine.

Then we moved the ewes to new grazing.


Lambs got moved to a different field



I really liked the old stone water trough. I wonder how long that's been there?


Beautiful cottage garden.

Summer Pasture, Rambo and Rambutt

Late Summer Grazing. The bare patch in the pasture is where we burned the prunings this year. I need to find a different way to deal with the pruning debris because it hurts the pasture to burn it.


Rambo and his buddy Rambutt. Rambutt is the one looking at us, he has appointed himself guardian and watch sheep and is very aware of what is going on around him.

Lambs, Rambo & a new fence

Ewes and lambs are doing well. All of the lambs are of very good quality but we still have a bunch of ewes that we hope will lamb.



The lambs are learning about the electric fences. But some just look especially cute as they rest.


This is Rambo


He is now on mom number 4, Ken, who is the only one able to get him to drink. We don't have very many bottle lambs here, he is our 10th in 12 years, so we are not skilled at raising them. Rambo was upside down and backwards and by the time I got him out he wasn't breathing. Ken got him going and when he stopped breathing several times Ken got him going again. So now Ken has a small wooly child. Rambo is doing well now.


We are getting another internal divider fence built and this is where it will go. We had to move the gated pipe to give Larry room to build the fence. It should be done by the end of July.

King of the Hill

The adult rams are all out on pasture. We have a carefully hoarded pile of dirt that has become the focus of much pushing and shoving by the boys who are trying to be the top ram.

Pastoral Scene

Pregnant or hopefully pregnant ewes on pasture.

Waiting For Lambs

Some of the ewes are just huge.


Meanwhile the lambs are really growing.



What a face.


Twin sisters out of Beatrix.


Lamb gangs are forming up now too.






This ewe was checking out my lamb bag but I caught her.


Lamb checking out the mineral feeder.

Lambs & Me

Today we had a nice set of twins.


Here is a self portrait, with the sheep grazing in the background of our front lawn.

Major Snow , AGAIN!

Woke up this morning to more snow.




BUt at least this one is more normal for our spring, by afternoon it had all melted. No new lambs in the snow which was nice.