Tonight I searched my thousands of photos for Lambskin #563.
Found it. I needed to get it on the website since it is now here for sale. But look what else I found! This is just a small selection of memories.
1999. Flash, my first Border Collie, who helped with dairy cows, and Benny who we got as a puppy when we first moved to our current location.
This was a sheep that I think was named Dora. I found her sleeping with a chicken. I wonder if that is our little chicken that is still here. It could be-I’ve been trying to figure out how old that chicken is.
The grave markers for my mom (Jean) and her sister (Louise), her parents, and now my uncle. This is near Stockton.
A gorgeous wedding day in Vermont.
Amaryllis.
A line-up of the girls plus Faulkner, the BFL ram.
Rusty moving sheep.
My tent when backpacking on the Lost Coast a few years ago.
Taken 4 years ago. Look who got in with the big boys!
Speaking of big boys, this is a bear that Dan and came across when hiking in Grand Tetons National Park. She has a cub nearby and didn’t back down. Black bear or grizzly? We were never sure. We assumed it was a black bear but some people who saw they photo said grizzly.
My granddaughter taken about a year ago. That’s the “little chicken”. Could that be the same one as in that photo with the sheep?
I took this photo in December when we were with all my kids and their spouses in Hawaii.
That’s #563. I could spend all evening here if I keep looking for other numbers.
…and was inspired to change to my 40 mm micro lens. Then I walked around looking at things through that lens. Some are tiny and some not so tiny, depending on the view.
Grapes just forming.
The rope part of Ginny’s Toy.
Dried up “cone” from sheoak tree.
That “cone” on the tree.
Can you guess this one? Answer below the next photo.
This is the new growth on the redwood tree. That photo above is the joint in a ram skull.
Rose.
This bottlebrush is covered with flowers this year.
This is what is left from last year’s flowers.
Chain.
I took the camera Across the Road too. This is a blackberry flower.
Hoverfly on a blackberry leaf.
Grass flowering.
Buckeye flowers.
This is the 9 month old ram. He needs a name.
This is Meridian Nash. These rams have the same sire so I don’t need both. I think this one will be for sale.
Puddleduck Ringo is also for sale. I have used him for two seasons and he needs to move on.
Meridian Rotor. 
Isn’t this a beautiful stylish ewe lamb? She was born a month before everyone else because the ram lambs weren’t weaned soon enough. Too bad I don’t know her sire. Her very cute baby pictures with her brother are in
Lamb in early morning light. Meridian Vanessa x Meridian Rotor.
BFL-cross lamb. Love those BFL faces.
I’m keeping this lilac lamb. Mud Ranch’s Foxglove x Meridian Nash.
Not sheep, but the sunflowers Across the Road.
Ginseng and BFL-X lambs.
Fandango with lambs.
Hot Lips and lamb.
Alexandria and her lambs.
Isabelle with lambs.
Melinda and lambs.
These were the last ones born this year.
Amaryllis.
Sheep looking hopeful as I climb back over the gate.
This is the ditch that runs north-south and brings the water from the upper ditch to the one that goes from west to east along the bigger pasture.
This photo is looking the same direction but from a little bit west of the first one. You can see the same row of overgrown blackberries along the fence. The standpipe where the water comes in is in the upper left corner. In the lower center of the photo is one of the cut-outs that lets the water flow from the ditch into the field.
Looking to the east as the water is flooding the pasture from north to south. In this photo the water hasn’t gotten very far into the paddock where the sheep are.
Here is that tarp I showed in the last post.
There are things to see besides just water and grass. One of the first things I noticed after the water filled the ditch was buzzing. These insects were everywhere over the water. I tried to ID it on the internet but didn’t find it. Anyone know what this is? 
This is one of the pair of Swainson’s hawks that lives nearby and hunts in our pasture.
We have enough gophers to feed an army of hawks.
This was taken from standing in the northwest corner of the property and looking west. When SID (Solano Irrigation District) opens the right gate the water comes down that canal, through a gate in the cement structure at the bottom of the photo and…
…comes up through this standpipe. It goes out that hole on the left and…
into this ditch. At the end of the ditch it turns south and goes into the other part of the pasture. Later in the year this ditch will require weed-wacking for the whole length to allow the water to flow. This time I didn’t need to do that.
This part of the ditch has old pipes that take the water under the burm. I can find two of the three that used to be functional.
The first job is to dig out around both ends of these.
As I walk through the pasture I find thistles that need to be chopped.
The rest of the pasture doesn’t have those pipes, but instead has cut-outs or places where the burm is cut away to allow the water to flow from the ditch into the pasture. I didn’t get photos of those. This photo is a cut-out (under the fence) that I had to fill in because it was where we had cut through the burm to allow water flow INTO the ditch in the winter to help drain the rainwater that was all around the barn. 
Here is the place at the northeast corner of the pasture where I have to put a tarp to keep the water backed up in the ditch. After this point the ditch turns south and drains at the southeast corner of the property.
I can never remember what size tarp to get. I bought 2 sizes and took this photo to remind myself that this one is just fine.
The idea is to set the tarp so that the edges are buried in dirt and those boards behind will keep the water from pushing the tarp down flat. I did this twice. 
The first time the dirt that holds the tarp down on the bottom was too high. That means when I released the tarp at the end of irrigating there would still be a dam. I have a hard enough time getting the ditch to empty that I don’t need to impede it more.
This is a second tarp that I set just around the corner in the ditch that goes south. I shouldn’t have to do this, but due to gopher holes, tree roots, and maybe my lack of irrigator skills it seems that one is never enough. Two tarps hold the water back better. Or at least one is a back-up for the other.
While I was working in the pasture I saw that a couple of lambs had their heads through the electric net fence and didn’t seem to care. That prompted a search for the problem with the electric fence. I found a broken wire at the south end. I got new wire and fixed it but then found several more places where I had joined new wire to old. The more times you do that the less conductivity there is. So I took out a long stretch of the old pieced-together wire and replaced it. Low and behold, my tester showed higher strength than it has in years!
One thing leads to another. While I was at that end of the pasture I was bothered again by the old dallisgrass that effectively mulches my pasture. It’s one thing to mulch a garden to keep weeds from growing, but mulching a pasture is counter-productive. If you search dallisgrass in this blog you’ll find many attempts to deal with this. This time I was simply knocking it off the electric wire that is about a foot and a half up on inside this fenceline. It broke and pulled away so easily at this time (this is last year’s dry grass) that I started pulling it away by the armfuls. I didn’t have any tools or even gloves, but threw mounds of it over the fence–hey, I’ll mulch the outside of the fence and maybe keep the growth down there. That felt somewhat productive although it may not be useful at all. But at least I could see a difference in the before and after.
This was taken on the first walk a few weeks ago. The dogs are on the leash until we get off of Meridian Road.
The field was bedded up and planted about two weeks ago.
Can you see the sprouts when you look at one of the lines almost right in the middle of the photo? Those are sunflowers.
The most exciting thing for the dogs is that the canals were filled about a week ago.
On the last walk I noticed that Rusty spent more time than usual in the water. He usually just goes in when he’s hot and gets out again, but this time he spent time cruising (the best way to describe his half walking/half swimming) up the canal. I think his hips are bothering him so much that it felt better to move that way.
He also needs help getting out now. Last year I helped Ginny out. This year it will be Rusty. 
Wet dog.
The alfalfa has been cut and baled once already and is now being irrigated.
Here is another week’s growth of the sunflowers.
The best surprise for Ginny I think is that she got to chase the Toy into the water again. Rusty will have more of these photos on 
Kind of like 
I got home from Modesto and went to the barn about 8 p.m. These lambs had been born within the hour. I don’t know why this ewe took so long. She was marked as bred during the first week of lambing. I suspect that she miscarried and it took her 6 weeks to cycle again. Faulkner was the clean-up ram so all the last lambs are crossbreds.
This is my lambing board. I’ll have the stats figured out at a later date.
This photo doesn’t do justice to the pile of stuff. Most of them are still out in the aisle. A couple of people stopped by and were amazed that I actually fit it all in. What you don’t notice in the photo because of the black drapes are the 16 gridwall panels that create the booth. Those get heavier every year.
I got to Modesto about 4:30 p.m., worked until 8:40 on Thursday and then from about 9:30 to 1:30 today. The show opened at 2. Here is a tour of my booth:
Rusty’s Yarn faces the aisle.
On the 3-grid tower in the middle I have the Meow and Woof yarns…
…Sprout yarns…
…and Mountain Meadows, all fingering weight yarns with sample scarves.
Around the inside of the booth is the Timm Ranch yarn with blankets I wove and Mary’s beautiful shawl. There are Jacob sheepskins too–only a few left.
Moving to the left there is the Jacob yarn and Imperial Yarn Company’s “Anna”, a wool/cotton yarn that weaves up quickly (at 5 epi).
Going around the back wall I have rigid heddle looms from Ashford and Schacht and the Ashford “Katie”, which is a wonderful very portable 8-shaft table loom.
Purl & Loop Stash Blaster looms and Swatch Maker looms are brand new. Next to them are the Zoom looms with the critter kits that use squares made on the them.
Coming around the corner I have photo notecards, buttons, and Meridian Jacobs bags and aprons.
I have added to the horn buttons. My son helped finish off another batch.
Last there is Cormo Sport yarn dyed by Sincere Sheep. You can see one of the samples that I wove. It is incredibly soft and spongy (not a good wool term, but is it better than squishy? I probably need a different adjective, but it’s late.) I brought Power Scour, etc with me but barely found room for a few bottles.
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