There's less than a week til St Nicholas Day!

I'm busy finishing up gifts, and getting stockings together.  As I was winding up all my little balls of wool and getting my rovings together for a making session I realized *next year* I will be using wool produced right here on the farm.  I'm so excited.  Everything is coming together so wonderfully.

My sister Zoom blogged about her namesake sheep so I thought I'd tell you all about Amos.  He was named after the sheep in Janet Lunn's wonderful picture book Amos's Sweater.  Janet Lunn will read it to you if you'd like..

Our Amos isn't old, and he isn't cold.  But someday he will be and when that day comes we'll give him a sweater too.  Amos and Zoom grew up on the same farm.  They were both born the same spring and both earned a name by being extraordinary.  Zoom survived and Amos was a quadruplet that none of the ewes would let suckle.  So he got to come in with Zoom and was hand raised.  They are sure they are brothers.

Amos is an Icelandic, and there don't seem to be many of them around here.  They have the most wonderful double fleece, the under fleece is soft as can be and the outer fleece will grow long and shaggy on top.  You can work with both together or seperate them for two totally different types of wool.  Amos loves getting rubs under his chin and the wool there is so warm and soft and it isn't greasy with lanolin so I'm getting a good idea of what it will feel like when cleaned and washed.

How many sheep fit in the back of a minivan?

You can fit two adults, two kids and two full grown rams in a Mazda MPV.  The ramekins were excellent travellers, the boys, not so much this trip.  The sheep pee less.

Zoom seemed to relish the adventure.  Amos was willing to come along because Zoom was there.  They are awfully cute together.

First Snow (thursday morning)

THIS MOMENT

Thanks to Soulemama. A special moment you want to savour and remember...

Meet the ramekins, they come home Saturday

On the left is our Border Cheviot, on the Right our Icelandic.  Aren't they lovely?

Hot Cocoa with Marshmallows Cupcakes - by Nature Girl

Take your favorite brownie recipe and make it - use duck eggs for super fluffy cupcakes!
Spoon into greased muffin tins or ovensafe mugs and stick a large marshmallow in the middle of each.
Cook for 1 hour at lowish heat 300 degrees F with the blower on (if you don't have a convection oven 325 degrees - same time but check with a toothpick to see if they are done)
When they cool - eat either popped out of the pan (slide a knife around to be sure they don't stick)
or with a spoon if you made them in a mug.
If it's cold outside serve with hot frothy steamed milk, if warm with ICE CREAM!

Duck Day!

We bought a whole flock of ducks! Papa pan collected them this morning.

They seem to like their new digs.

Nature Girl started naming everyone right away. I had to tell her "You can't name any ducklings with green feathers!" (they're going to be for eating).

We won't be eating this handsome fella though - This is our Muscovy Drake. His name is Peter Green.  We named him in honour of the wonderful Muscovy, Peter, who lives at Angelhoeve Farm.

The Runners decided a bath was their first order of business. Everyone arrived extremely muddy.

The Muscovys told me they want the pool filled as soon as possible.

Amber inspected and seems satisfied with our winter set up.  During the rest of the year they'll be free range but for the winter we want everyone protected from predators and the mountain valley wind tunnel we live in.

Grooving Down

and then piling on!

Wild Thing takes his time with everything

He lost his second tooth - 8 months after the first! The tooth fairy gave him a dollar coin and a wizard's hematite ring. Happy boy!

This week....

Sprout has spent lots of time building this week....

Nature Girl has spent lots of time thinking about numbers....

Wild Thing has been working on a museum with his brother and sister. Together they're doing a stop motion animation show about the day to day operations at the museum.

This Moment

With thanks to soulemama - this moment, a single photo - no words - capturing a moment from this week. A simple, special extraordinary moment. A moment you want to pause, savour, and remember.

Facebook tried to kill my blog!

Well, that's an exaggeration, let me rephrase that. Facebook has enabled me to avoid putting time and energy into blog posts with it's tiny status update bar and immediate feedback from friends and family. I miss blogging, and some people just don't like lazy social media sites like facebook (I'm speaking to you Nicole!) so from now on I solemnly vow to dump the camera once a week and post at least that often.

While I've been MIA Darkmirror and Duckie did the monumental thing of moving to Truro so Duckie can attend the NSCC there. They seem to be living on rice, Braggs, and lemons. That's what I get calls about anyway. Darkmirror bequeathed his room to Nature Girl, this is the day we repainted it for her, it went from Kraft Dinner Yellow to Teal in a few hours. This was a really sad process for me, I miss him tons.

We're still renovating and decorating here, but most of our energy has been outside with the ducks and chickens and rabbits and goats (yes we now have goats, and hopefully, heifer willing, a calf come spring) so inside is full of half done stuff and lots of paint cans everywhere.

Sprout really did kill my laptop. I was computer-less all of October (Toshiba was very good and the warranty covered all his mischief as an "accident".