Its now August! The summer has just flown by! Last week was the North St Louis County Fair, and yes, we survived. We entered 20 sheep and KJ and Jake showed 10 of them in the 4H section of the fair. Both are qualified for State and we go down later this month.
Jake will be showing a full Katahdin ewe we call Bert, and KJ will be showing a 3/4 Katahdin ewe called Carrot. Carrot is out of the ewe that KJ showed at the State Fair last year.

We had the top crossbred ewe at our fair, as well as having the Reserve Overall Ram.

The kids did well in 4H, too. Jake is going onto the State Dog show, with our Lab, Oshki, in 4 classes. Rally, Jumpers 1, Grad-Beginner Obedience, and Showmanship. He has lots of work to do between now and then. With school starting he will have to work harder to keep his grades going so he can play football, too. Jake also entered a pair of socks that he had made at a 4H meeting and eared a red on them.

KJ also entered a sewing project. He had made a camo hand muff to keep his hands warm while hunting. He earned a blue ribbon. KJ had also made 3 fishing lures in school last year. He finished them up over the summer and will be taking one of them down to the State Fair for the educational encampment. Im looking forward to seeing his improvements when we get down to the fair!
I made this "Doggone Bag" for a Relay for Life. I had alot of fun and learned a few things while making it. The more that I make the more I learn. Since this one had to go before the Fair, I entered one that I made for my Mom.

I told her to go pick out some material and I would make it. She picked out some really nice fabric and the bag turned out really well. I did some 'surprise' embroidery work on it for her. I wonder if she noticed it yet? =-)

Im getting ready to do a couple tshirts for the 3 kids that are going to the Livestock weekend. Im chaparoning this trip. KJ and Jake and a gal from another club will be my 'charges' They kids all seemed to report to me anyway, so why not do it for real! Im not sure if Im looking forward to the 4H Hilton or not! lol

I have a couple more quick embroidery projects then will tackle the other 4 Doggone Bags!

School is out!

Holy cow! It been several months since I posted last. Guess Im not doing a good job of posting at least once a week!

I will post more lamb pics as we now have 8 on the ground. There seems to be on more ewe that will be lambing in the few months.

School is done now (as of Thursday) so that should leave me with more time to get some pics up!

Ive been doing more embriodery. Mostly patches, but its still fun and a learning experience to learning the new software.

Been doing some sewing too. Will leave you with a pic of my latest project... the Doggone Bag.

Enjoy!

New Twins!

Today our spotted ewe, Spud, gave birth to twin red ewe lambs. They were up and looking for their first meal in minutes! Is always a joy watching them work at getting up, looking for their momma's udder.

For those of you that remember back this summer, Spud is who KJ showed at the MN State Fair this past summer. As of right now, I think we have 4 quality ewes to pick from for a return trip! But of course we need to get past the North St Louis County Fair first. Jake will be old enough to attend this year as well down to the State Fair. July is a long way off. Mark your calander for Sheep show day of July 31, 2010. Bring your cameras too, and plan to spend the day. After sheep is Beef in the show ring. And of course there is always the Midway to check out. Make sure you stop and say HI if you get to the fair.

Not expecting any more lambs for a few weeks. Maybe the ground will dry up some by then.

Is it Spring?

Well, the clock changing has really tossed a wrench into my day. OK... it doesnt help to have picked up a sinus cold either. BUT, its currently 56 degrees here at Double Barrel, so you know what that means??? YUP! MUD! But.. Im really not complaining as the sun is shinning and it seems that it hasnt been out for at least a week.

Just thought Id share a picture or too. We set out the trail camera out back for a while. Was pretty shocked when I found this:

Now, Im not 100% sure if its a young wolf or a coyote. Our coyotes up here are pretty big. I did see what I thought was a coyote about 2 weeks prior to this picture being taken just down the road from us. I have only been seeing coyote scat in the road, but that certainly doesnt mean that this could be a wolf.

No matter if its a wolf or a coyote, it was grand seeing this one. Hopefully more trail camera pics will come along. Maybe will take it out to a differant area to see what kind of birds and other fur bearers might be about.

Im hearing tales of bear waking up, so who knows, maybe Ill find one of those on the camera.

No new lambs. But of course we are 'patiently' waiting. Lots more ewes to go. Once the ground dries up, more fencing can be done. I think the frost is pretty well out of the ground. We didnt have much to begin with. Road restrictions went up for the entire state this past Monday. I wonder if they will be on until May?

Here are some other trail cam pics. Ravens spend the winters here. They were enjoying the snacks. It really makes me think knowing that these birds (along with the Eagles) manage to last out the winters.

Of course, Artie has to get in on the deal too. You can see that he has really filled out in the year that he has been here. Good groceries go a long with with all the animals.

Artie has been doing a fantastic job of keeping the coyotes and wolves away from the sheep. Yeah... he usually ends up waking me up. But thats his job. I cant complain. Once in a while I do go out to listen to what he is barking at, and its usually some neighbor dog several miles away

Thats all I have for now. Need to get out and take more pics!

2010 Lambing has begun.

Daisy, our big white Katahdin ewe, surprised us with twins on March 4. Jake found them when he went to do chores before schoo. Yarrow and Tag are very long legged lambs. Yarrow is a ewe and Tag is a ram. KJ had them named by Friday night.

Yarrow has a bit of red on the back of her neck and Tag is all white.

Unfortunately, we had to put Daisy down. Mastitis had taken over her udder, and our intervention wasnt helping. We are bummed about it as she is a good mom. These two lambs are strong tho. Soon they will go out with the flock.

This morning I found that Bob had given birth to a ewe lamb. By the time I was out in the barn, she was almost cleaned off and dried. She is almost all white but for her nose and black feet. She seems to have longer legs than the twins, but she has them figgured out!

Bob is also an all white ewe. Last year she gave us twins, which surprised us as she had been starved. Both her twins last year did very well, considering.

Im also going to work on grafting the orphan twins onto Bob. If I can do it, I think all will go well. Bob is an awesome mom! Last year she had made a nest for Amos and Amy. She nested them so well that I really had to hunt for them!

Spud and Curely are the next two ewes to lamb. Some of you remember that Spud is who KJ took to the MN State Fair in 2009. We are looking forward to a set of twins from her this year, too.

All our ewes were bred by a red Katahdin ram we call Buck. So far he has helped put some nice babies on the ground!

Watch here for more pics as lambs hit the ground!

New addition to the family!

Meet Misty! Misty is a 10 year old Border Collie. She has been a hard working girl all her life and it has come time that she slow down some.

Where she was living there were lots of sheep and moving from on pasture to another sometimes was 2 miles. Her last mom thought that it was time for her to goto a new place. Its a good thing I started thinking about finding a dog here to help us out with our sheep. I hope that we can give her just as good of home as she had.

Thanks to Janet at Tamarack Lamb and Wool for giving us the chance to give Misty a great retirement home.

It will take us some time to get used to each other, but time works wonders. So far Misty rides very well in the Jeep. I think she enjoyed her ride home. She had the whole back seat to herself. :) When we got home we had some time to stretch our legs before Oshki came home. Oshki (the lab) of course wants to play hard with everyone, but Misty wouldnt have any of it.

Even tho Misty had spent most of her time outside, she is liking the life of being an indoor dog too. Tomorrow she will have to spend the day outside as I have to work for a few hours. Im sure she will spend the time sunning herself in the warm winter sun.

We have gone on a couple walks and she does well. She goes off for a bit, then after 200 feet or so, comes back with a smile on her face as she jumps up to my hand with a look that says 'am I dont OK?' I tell her she is a good girl! and we walk more. She is a careful dog. almost as if she knows she cant pound on me.

I did take her in with the sheep yesterday. I was more interested in what my sheep would do. I sent Misty to 'come bye' and the sheep moved one way (shock). There are alot of obstacles in the pen, and it was ok until the sheep started for their shed. I thought maybe Misty could bring them back, so sent her and all I accomplised in doing was helping the sheep faster into their lean-to. I called her off and left the sheep be. It was pretty close to what I would call the sheep 'freeked' out! No harm was done. I know it doesnt help that there are a couple of ewes in there that are pretty flighty.

We are expecting lambs soon here at Double Barrel. There are 3 ewes that are due soon. I suppose since Im going back to work, then its going to be one of them =-/ Daisy is as big as a house again, so Im expecting Triplets. I think Spud (our State Fair attendee) is carrying twins again. Bob probly is as well, but she is a longer gal than Spud so she might have triplets, too.

All I can do is wait and take pics. =-)

The warm sun!

Im very happy to say that the sun is out again and Im looking forward to almost a week of a bit of snow melting each day!

Brent got home late this past Wed night, and it was wonderful having him home. Thursday was sorta a laidback day, but Friday we headed over to Ely. We picked out our Mukluks (http://www.mukluks.com/) and dropped off some items to be digitized for my embroidery machine. We wandered thru the couple stores that we usually checkout... just to see what's new. We also drove down to Trader Craigs. Its no Delaney's, but its more of an expensive garage sale. We found a bunch of LP's that we would have loved to have brought home if they weren't priced so high. It was sorta a shock to see the face that goes with the voice on WELY. I didnt think he was that old!

The Ely Winterfest has just finished up for another year, so we got to see a bunch of the snow sculptures. Lots of good ideas, and designs.

Brent and I decided to have a bite of lunch on the way home. We stopped at what I think is going to be our new favorite resturant, in Tower.

We just split a bowl of soup and a sandwitch. We didnt want to spoil our supper or buy the whole grocery store when we stopped there later.

Saturday was the Riders In Cahoots Sleighrally. Brent, KJ and I met Lois and Al there. Lois had brought her Fjord team, Sandburr and Viggo. I took Lois's camera and snapped all kinds of pics for her. I know that since we were late, we missed several of the rigs, but it was alot of fun! I'll admit that I was sad that we didnt take any horses this year, and yet it was nice that we didnt have to. We were able to come and go as we wanted and didnt have to hurry back or there.

A quick stop at the grocery store for some goodies got us home in time for supper. One of Jake's friends had come over, so we all gathered up to the table for some yummy porterhouse stakes! Big ones, too. We had gotten 5 and had 1 1/2 left over. Was very good meat! We had to uncover the big grill, and it was good to do so. Brent decided to run up to the clubhouse quick and do some plowing. While he and KJ were gone to plow, I chopped up some potatoes to be cooked on the grill. There is just something about fried potatos on the grill!

The weekend always goes too fast, tho. Monday afternoon, Brent had to leave to head down to the Twin Cites to get on his plane back to Wyoming. Hopefully he wont be gone quite so long this time. I hope that the weather out there is just as good as it is here.

This weekend I will be traveling down by Hinkley to bring home our new dog. Her name is Misty and she is a border collie. My hope is that she will give me an extra hand with moving sheep around. I am looking forward to bringing her home and learning some new things. We picked up a doghouse for her and just need to find a place for it as well as stuff it full of straw. Hopefully Artie and Oshki will take to a new member of our working farm in stride. Pics to come, of course :)

A new week..... I think

Not a whole lot of new stuff going on. I was on an ambulance run over the weekend. Was a simple run, so I was OK as far as not having to worry about not doing this or that. I'd taken Jake into Orr so that he could work on his Release Time banner, so it would be done in time for Church on Wed. Ash Wed, ya know. He got it done, and I picked him up later on the next day in the afternoon. Im looking forward to seeing his and the other kids' banners Wed night.

Brent should be home, too. Well, tickets haven't been purchased yet, but that is the plan. He should be home by supper time. I guess he will have to leave again on Monday. That's his birthday so it rather sucks. 4H meeting that afternoon, too. Maybe he will be home long enough for a dogsled ride?

Saturday is the annual Riders-in-Cahoots sleigh rally. We always have fun there. This year we will leave the horses home.... for obvious reasons. Lois and Al will be there, too. So looking forward to seeing them. Havent seen Lois since the MN State Fair, and even longer since Ive seen Al, I think. gotta work on that not happening again!

Come on down if you've nothing better to do. Look at their website for directions. www.ridersincahoots.com Its at a new place this year, not the fairgrounds. Im going to try to remember my camera, but if not, I told Lois I would happily take over her camera.

I don't know if I will be allowed to ride in the sleigh or not. Lois is bringing her Fjord team, so sure would like to. Ill find out more on Wed when I have my check up.

Yes... ONE more thing happening on Wed! never fails! I will have to leave soon after the kids leave for school to get down to Duluth on time. At least I know where Im going, so that helps. Ill stop at Sam's club and hopefully Best Buy, too. I want to look at computers. The laptop is dying and I want to replace it. Sooner the better. Just maybe I will be able to use the laptop for short things here and there if Im careful.

I finished our taxes, so soon we will be caught up on our bills. That is going to feel nice. :) Going to feel even nicer when I can return to work and start getting my daily duties back to normal. Im still deciding where Im going to put the new doghouse. Im hoping that next weekend, I can go get the new dog.

Hopefully I will have some pics to share from the sleighrally.

Not an ordinary day.

Here's Artie, my Maremma Sheepdog. He's the guy that my vet came out to give shots too. She let me know his results today. Heartworm negative, Lyme positive, the other 2 tests were negative.

UGH! I can't believe it. I dont know how long he has had it, but I'm glad that we caught it. He is looking at a treatment of about a month. Im waiting to hear back as to how much his pills will cost. I'll have to go buy some hamburger for him. I found out today that cheese isnt the best thing to hide a pill in.

Artie was a very good dog when the Vet was here. We did have to let him scoot back against the wall when we did the blood draw. We were patient with him and I gave him lots of love when we were done. He probly wont be coming back into the barn for a while, but with any luck it will be a while before I have a need to get my hands on him.

Its tax time. I've just about got that done. They need to be looked over by a friend who has better knowledge of that stuff than me and then I will send them off. It will be nice to have the vechicles paid on (tabs) and will throw some extra money to those pesky credit cards.

Im looking forward to having Brent home this weekend. He says he'd like to stay this weekend and come home next weekend for the Grand Rapids Sleigh Rally (sponsored by Riders in Cahoots www.ridersincahoots.com ). Even if he isnt home for that, I'll still be going down there. Ive a few friends that will be there. At the very least, I can take over a camera!

Each night I have been looking at the sled dog race results for both the John Beargrease (www.beargrease.com) and the Wyoming Stage Stop (www.wyomingstagestop.com). We have friends running in both of them. There are some great pics on the Wyoming site. I keep looking for the Chapman group, but so far, they are evading the cameras. I think the weather has been pretty good for both races. They could have been getting the bad snow and such that they are getting down south.

Well, thats about it for now. One of these days, I might have something fun to write about other than my knitting! Take care for now.

What a sunny Sunday!

Pretty quiet here today. Sunny and 7 above and climbing!

I contacted one of my vets the other day in hopes of having her swing in when I manage to get our LGD (Livestock Guard Dog) Atrureo (aka Artie) into the barn where I can get my hands on him. She let me know that she happened to have the correct shots with her and will be able to draw blood for a heartworm test. She can do the HW test back in the clinic when she goes on Monday.

That is a huge load of my mind! Artie has been here for almost a year, and I havent been able to get my hands on him (like a normal dog) since he came here.

He's a good dog, lately he's been very vocal. I think it has to do with the Wolf Moon. Its been very bright around here for about the past week. I think all the local dogs have been talking at night. I haven't heard any coyotes when I stick my head out the door to tell Artie 'That's enough' so I can get some sleep.

Tomorrow is back to school with for the boys. Ill have to travel to town for chicken feed. I got a new chick catalog in the mail the other day. Will have to decide on what flavor chickens we will get, and how many. We are still pondering growing a mess of cornishX that we will have butchered and sell to anyone that wishes to have a yummy, no added preservatives, chicken for the table. Im sure I will ponder this more, but we need to make a decision in the next month or so, so that we can get our order in. I think if we do this, we will start with about 50 chicks. If we can sell those, we can either get another 50 birds, or wait until next year to do it again, but ordering more.

I bet tho, you will have to read about our decision in amoungst the lambing updates.

Im going to start knitting some more dishclothes. There are a couple benifits coming up in the next month or so, so I'd best get some done. Everyone seems to love these dishclothes, and they are fun to make.

I do sell them. If you are interested, please let me know. I normally sell them for $5 each. I can get other colors, but I normally just buy what seems to catch my eye and knit that yarn up. Its nice to do something while watching TV or waiting at the Dr's office.

I hope everyone is having a grand day!

Jumping in with both feet!

Thanks for stopping in and having a look-see at what is going on here at Double Barrel.

Im going to attempt to try to keep things updated so everyone can see whats going on. Maybe this will help me to take more pics and get them posted????

I sure can try.







Well, here goes....

Brent (right on his Sportster) started working in Wyoming last month. It started out to be a 2 week job and its grown to be almost a 10 week job. I shouldnt be complaining, because its work, but its 970 miles out to Cody, and it doesnt leave much time for us to get things done here at home when he is here!






Jenny (thats me) is still pretty much on the disabled list from her back surgery that happened just after Christmas. A ruptured disc takes time to heal. Meaning... Im not supposed to be doing anything! UGH!!! Its very tough, but I do cheat a bit and go check on the animals being very careful to watch were I walk, not slip, fall, or otherwise get knocked by them.



KJ and Jake have done a great job of stepping up to do chores each morning before school and in the evening after getting off the bus.


Big round bales of hay had made it very easy for them, they mostly only have to haul a few buckets of water to the sheep and chickens, and just make sure the horse tank stays full and thawed.


Both kids deer hunted this year, and KJ has been having fun trying for ducks. Jake is getting pretty handy with his .22 and bagging a few grouse. Oshki has been doing well to bring them in, altho more work is needed. Watch out for both of these guys at the North St Louis County Fair this year as well as (crossing fingers) the MN State Fair. With luck, we might even be able to attend the Kooch County Fair up in Littlefork this year.

Artie, the Maremma sheepdog, has been doing his job of letting the local coyotes and wolfs know he is here and his sheep arent to be messed with! Artie has been here for almost a year now, and altho he is still a bit aloof to us, he sure does act happy to see us and especially at feeding time!


Oshki, the labrador, has been able to take it easy these past couple months. I had to stop and think today that she is going to be 4 this year! I think I missed some time somewhere because I keep thinking she is only 2. She traveled to the vet today and sorta got a talking to about loosing her girlish figgure. She is very close to 80#. With me being laid up and Brent not home for some hunting, she hasnt been getting the workout she needs. I started cutting back on her meals a few weeks ago, and the vet said she could be cut back some more.



Our 2 cats, AC and DC made the trip today as well to the vet. They still needed their Rabies shots. Now all I have to do is figgure out how to get Artie's shots all caught up. In a few weeks we will be adding another dog, Misty, to our troop. She is an 8yr old Border Collie, who is at the point that she cannot handle the long distances of moving sheep at her current home, so this will become a semi-retirement home for her. I am reading up on just what a working sheep dog does! I have a feeling I have my work cut out for me.

Well, Im going to close for today. I think I accomplised much. =-) Remember, Im not supposed to be doing anything!

Until later ~~ Jenny