Friday Musings

What a long week. Over at last. I made four stops on the way home, all unavoidable - feed store, bank, post office (not mine which is 8 miles out of the way, but the one I pass on the home in New Berlin) and the gas station/Stewarts where the "milk club" gets you a free gallon when your card fills up. The temp soared to 15 today. So many people at work whining about the cold - even teachers, who, I can't help but notice, don't wear wool. I feel compelled to remind them that God gave us wool for a reason, but they prefer their cotton tee shirts or sweatshirts that actually wick heat away from the skin. There were a few cute Christmas sweaters wandering around the school, but I don't see much wool. Speaking of wool, I just spent an hour in the barn, carrying water, visiting with Luna and Lilly, rubbing noses with Forrest, Lilly's wethered son who is even more affectionate than she is, and some suddenly friendly ewes. With the flock chosing to live in the barn, even though the door is frozen open, we get better acquainted in the winter. Precious, my only purebred registered BFL ewe, is especially forward, putting her head over the stanchion fence for a nose rubbing. She's hardly noticed me prior to this, and I've had her for two years. I'm enjoying the new relationships. I can't tell if Wooster bred her before he went to live with Mary. I hope Wooster is okay. It's so bitter cold and he has no wool. I should call Mary and offer her a coat for him, but Mary would laugh at that pampering of a sheep. I worry about the sheep I had to give away last winter due to lack of hay to feed them. It tears at my heart. I'm spending all my money on good hay now, to make sure I don't end up in the same situation. I think of them whenever the freezing rain is coming down and I know they are outside with no cover. It hurt to hear Libby Llop complain about the lack of wool density on the beautiful ewes she got from me, dirt cheap. She bought a Romney ram to put on them. Imagine that, a Romney ram on Bluefaced Leicesters. It's usually the other way around, putting BFL's on Romneys to improve the wool. Candace is crazy about her little flock of seven and dotes on them like crazy, even the little wethers. I told Matt I wanted hay feeders for Christmas, to keep this beautiful second cut I'm buying from being spread all over the barn floor. I'll probably have to do it myself. He's back at work today, so excited and energized about everything NYSWDA and weatherizing trailers belonging to poor people. I wish he would put some of that creative energy to this poor farmer's barn, but I might have to wait til Kingdom Come. I better check the milk room. The little heater went off while I was at work and the plumbing froze. Uh-oh, no hose for the sheep water I thought. I thawed the faucet with a hair dryer then fired up my dye range with two big pots of fiber simmering and turned the oven on. I have to buy another milk room heater, made specifically for the bulk tank rooms where the important pipes are. I have the shelf and the plug, but they are three hundred bucks, a week before Christmas???? I don't really have a choice...