Halls in Kentucky

 Jennifer, Natalie and Bella with me and Lisa. They stopped by on their way to Washington. She has a long drive ahead of her.

 Jennifer's mother-in-law, Maureen, flew down to North Carolina and is making the drive with her and the girls.

Heather, Kylie, Lynne and Andy came over to see Jennifer and the girls. Jennifer's human girls, not out dog girls. The human girls like their doggy counterparts. The feeling was at least partially mutual. Lisa made a ham for the occasion.

 I caught Bella playing with her feet. She's a happy baby.

 Lisa took Natalie for a ride on the four wheeler.

 Everyone likes to watch the slideshow on Lisa's computer.

 Jennifer having breakfast this morning.

 Natalie having her breakfast this morning.

 Jennifer's traveling outfit.

Spring is Here!

Today is the first full day of spring. The weather is more like January than late March.

 There was very little accumulation but the snow came down pretty good at times.

 The sheep didn't mind since it wasn't real windy. They can't feel the snow through their wool.

 The cattle are finding grass now and not eating much hay.

 Snowy barnyard.

 The llamas did go out between snows.

 See the weeping cherry tree? Look below to see what it looked like on March 20, 2012.

 Lisa had to go into town. The truck is making a funny noise so the mechanic is going to have a look. We have to take Shemp into Halsey's on Monday so we don't want the truck breaking down in the mountains. Next month we'll need it to pull the trailer with Morty going to Flemingsburg.

From last year at this time:

The weeping cherry is in full bloom.

Close up of the weeping cherry blossoms.

Praying Lamb

The flood water receded and it got cold. It's supposed to be in the teens tonight.

 Darcy is the praying lamb. She does this all the time when she grazes.

 Lisa went down to fix the fence where it crosses the creek. It got moved around in the flood.

 The sheep follow her faithfully.

 The llamas were interested in what she was doing down there.

 Lisa was in the hole with a lot of observers.

 The chicks are growing. They have feathers. The leghorns are getting combs.

  We added another heat lamp to help with tonight's low temperatures.

 The tarp should help hold the warmth in and keep out the wind.

 Big lots had trees. We got sycamores, pears and another apple. One of the sycamores is for Andy. They are supposed to get 75 feet high.

 They were good size trees for $15.

Rice Garden

It started raining last night and kept up until this afternoon.

 The water was up to the top of our bridge.

 It hasn't dried enough to till the garden still. It might be a while yet, unless we try to grow rice this year.

 All the creeks were up.


 It finally quit and Lisa went down and cleared the grates. There was debris.

Automatic knife made by Dragon Knifes (sic).

From Honduras.

Homemade Breakfast

Lisa made sausage out of the plain ground pork we got from the pig.

 Pork and spices in their respective bowls.

 These are the spices, the quantities of which are a closely guarded secret. There is also a secret ingredient that added to the wonderful flavor.

 Spice combination rate, mixing time, pressure applied by fingers and degree of sausage squishiness are all closely guarded secrets.

 Sausage patties!

 Almost there.

  Fresh eggs from our chickens, homemade bread for toast and sausage from Nelson's farm. It couldn't be more of a country breakfast if it tried.

 It was warm yesterday so the girls got baths. Satin was hoping I had come to rescue her.

 Piper and Luna had their baths. Paige is the only one that missed out on bath day. She's big and has bigger hair so she takes longer than the others.

 I got the DVD player hooked up. Our old one broke several years ago and we never replaced it. We only have four or five DVDs and no bluerays. This has a nice FM tuner and plays CDs and has surround sound. We were watching Michael Flatley for St. Patrick's Day.

 It got cold out and rained all day. I got to wear the awesome scarf that Katie made.

Ram Fights

These are the fence "plugs". I posted a picture of me cutting them from a cattle panel a few days ago.

 The bottom of the fence is high here and it's loose enough that a predator might push under.

 The ends poke down into the ground as far as we can get them.

 Lisa then wires the tops to the fence. Ally  is a curious and busy little lamb.

 Darryl brought the hens over to see what we were up to.

 Some of the gaps around the rock formations were too big for a standard plug. Plus, there is no way to poke the ends into the ground over there. We picked up loose rocks and stacked them in the gaps. Ally stuck her head through the fence for kisses.

  The other three lambs aren't as pushy as Ally. From left to right the lambs are Penny, Connie and Darcy.

 We finished by surveying the rest of the fence for gaps. I made two more plugs today.

 We're worried about Speedy again. He is acting weird toward Duane. It started a couple of weeks ago and usually only in the early evening hours. The ram has an important job to do and we don't want the llama to block him.