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I have been ill for over a week now with a nasty flu bug, trying desperately to find the energy to write again….just now managing to cobble together photos of more of this year’s lambs….some taken in the winter pen, some out on pasture.

There are two badgers this year:

One of them is Helena’s beautiful grey katmoget. Helena comes from Dailley katmoget lines. and she has maintained the intensity of her markings and has a luscious intermediate silky fleece. This little one looks like a grey clone of her mother.

And the other is Plein Jeu’s spotted katmoget ewe Jewel….what a lot of genetics in a small package…I love her silky soft fleece and her sweet personality. Yes, she is staying on at Stonehaven Farm!

And then we come to those with crowns:

Here is Cascadia’s second ram lamb (his brother is the wildly spotted fellow). But this boy will carry spots, and if his horns develop well, he will be for sale to pass them along!

He has a close match in Sarah’s princeling (interesting that both of these lambs have siblings with intense body spotting):

Here is Premontion’s little krunet ewe (twin to her HST)….looking much like her mother did as a lamb at Bluff Country, but with a smaller crown:

And the last crowned lamb, this little charmer (one of Musette’s triplets) who has markings that I can’t decipher completely…blettet or smirslet, bielset?, flecket? Help anyone????

In addition to those wearing crowns of various design, there are 4 moorit (or at least brown-based) ewe-lambs and 3 solid ram-lambs (2 blacks and a moorit). They are all beautiful to my eye but their baby pictures don’t do them justice….more photos coming now that they are all out on grass.

A few more lambs to add to those from Sunday. The gulmoget girls this time! We are as thrilled with Constantine’s ewe-lambs as we were with the ram-lambs!

The amazing Towhee did a repeat of her last year’s Constantine lambs….two little ewes: a black gulmoget and a brown-tone who almost certainly will be a fawn (like her yearling sister Hedda). These ewe-lambs are just as full of personality and mischief as Runa and Hedda were.

When I went out to the barn today, I found both of Towhee’s little ones on poor Amelia’s back…but by the time I grabbed my camera, only the moorit (to be fawn) girl was llama-riding.

I have been slow finding out from the lambs what their names are this year, but this sheep made it clear that her name was (Miss) Scarlett. I distinctly heard her say, “Fiddle-dee-dee”! She is a carefree thrill-seeking little monkey. And I love her….

Her gulmoget sister is super-friendly and equally charming (I am smitten with this little one too)….she told me her name right away too. This is Peony…not the best photo of her, but it will give you the idea. I promise a better one soon:

The other gulmoget ewe-lamb this year is Mimosa who was our first and tiniest lamb whom you have seen…now grown into a beautiful young lady. I would like to say demure, but she is as rowdy as the rest. Caught in a quiet moment here….

There will be more in the next day or so, and hopefully I will have calculated the statistics from this year’s lambing.

Another post from an airport! I am waiting for the flight that will take me home again. This winter and spring, there have been lots of homecomings…always joyful….when my work takes me back to AZ. I brought some new lamb photos with me last week, intending to post them in my evenings after work, but THAT didn’t happen. So having some quiet time now, I will show you a few more of this year’s beauties!

And there are sure to be more photos when I get home…it is amazing to think that the lambs are nearly twice as old as they were when I saw them last!

This time the gulmoget boys and their handsome brothers:

These are Chloe’s two ram-lambs; I was SO hoping for a ewe from her this time (this is her last breeding) but it was not to be. Instead she gave us two very nice ram-lambs:

Time will tell if the “moorit” boy will be a light moorit/fawn like his mother. The gulmoget fellow has light nose leather and light fleece…I feel that he will be a fawn. He is bright and curious about everything!

Imogen also gave us two ram lambs: a gulmoget and a black. They are both substantial well-put-together little rams.

The black has such presence and the most lustrous fleece.

The gulmoget has very interesting facial markings. Instead of the tear-drops that guls usually have, he sports markings that are a true “reverse badger”!

We are so pleased to have these young lads from Constantine…he only sired ewe-lambs last year (no Constantine, we are not complaining). The dams of his lambs this year have my favorite fleece types…long single coats. Can’t wait to see these beauties grow up.

Stay tuned….more gully lambs tomorrow!

We have been gathering photos and here is the first installment: This post will be about the explosion of spots in our lamb crop! We DID ask for it….

It all began when Shady Oaks Spats, a perfectly marked HST from older Dailley lines made a “business trip” here last fall. We are grateful that Marybeth trusted us with him (a beautiful ram, so kind and well-mannered…but that wasn’t a surprise, considering where he came from).

Spats left his mark as you will see..not only a few spots, but LOTS of them and most showing HST. We hoped that we might have one or two really nicely marked lambs from the group, but this was amazing!

Most of the ewes who were given to Spats came from Stephen Rouse of Sheltering Pines when he was in flock reduction mode a couple of years ago. But one of them (the lovely Premonition) began her life in Nancy Krohn’s Bluff Country flock. Both Nancy and Stephen have been breeding animals with spots for several years…Nancy concentrating on HST.

All Spats’ girls are superb individuals in their own right; 5 carried spots and/or had a krunet or little smirslet markings, but only one was herself an HST.

Here is Spats…click to see the larger version:

Flute Celeste gave us a stunning little HST ewe-lamb in her first pregnancy…her fleece is uniform and crimpy from head to tail:

Premonition had a small krunet marking as a lamb, and she gave us one krunet (photo later) and a lovely full-fledged HST:

Plein Jeu (an HST katmoget) had twins this year, a “monocled” HST ram lamb with the silkiest softest fleece of the group:

But she also nearly cloned herself with an HST katmoget ewe-lamb (who also has body spotting):

Sarah (who chose me when we visited Stephen) is a spotted emsket beauty who gave us twins…a yuglet flecket ewe (and a smirslet ram…photos later):

Cascadia is registered as smirslet and has thrown spots and HSTs before, but she no longer has visible markings…given the chance this year, she did it again! Two ram-lambs, one smirslet (you will see him later on) and another a wildly spotted yuglet boy:

But here is the “piece de resistance”: Musette gave us triplets in her first pregnancy! We were dismayed and concerned, but she is the penultimate mother to these beautiful little ones (the first day out, she did a “lighthouse” baa to let them know always where she was…clever girl) and I see her touching them often with her nose (counting 1-2-3). It was hard to see them all in one photo, so here are several perspectives:

She asks them to follow her everywhere…the perfect mother.

The first-born is a petite little HST ewe-lamb, the second a pretty little smirslet sprizzled ewe-lamb (still don’t know what to call her markings), and the last to be born was a big (relatively speaking) bold HST ram-lamb:

Thank you Spats…we are well-pleased.

Stay tuned ….there were so many other lovely lambs born here this year, not to be displaced by all this flash.

All the ewes and their lambs (except Musette with her triplets…they will go out tomorrow) went out in the beautiful spring sunshine today. Lots of confusion as the ewes tried to eat their hay while the lambs ran off together. Fretting mothers, lost babies…and the first time trials of the lamb races to come.

Poppy always greets the newest arrivals…and the lambs are never afraid of her. Do they know that she is there to protect them?

Since 22 of the 25 lambs are outside now, there are fewer discussions between ewes than there were when only a few of them were out of the jugs. And because there are so many lambs about now, there seems to be a greater acceptance by each mother of “NOT my” lambs.

Everywhere I look, there are photos that need to be taken…brother and sister napping together

Ewes sleeping with their babes

And mothers affectionately nuzzling their lambs:

Chores take much longer these days, not just because we are still fatigued from lambing (which we are), but because the lambs are such a joy. Visitors come to see them, and then we spend even more time in the barn….and we love every moment.

It looked like winter again today….3 inches of snow overnight! A carbon copy of yesterday morning. The snow will melt by afternoon (if the sun comes out) and the ewes and their lambs can all go outside.

If we had any doubts, coming into the barn, we know spring is here….lambs, lambs, lambs everywhere!

So much sweetness…

There are 25 of them this year, but lambing is too recently finished for me to have sat down and tallied colors and patterns. But suffice it to say that 2009 turned out to be ram-ish; there are only 10 little ewes in the group!

The 15 ram-lambs are outstanding though…in terms of fleeces and conformation and patterns. Some solids, lots of HSTs, a couple of gulmogets, and an extremely handsome katmoget.

The ewe-lambs also came in several flavors: solids, gulmoget, katmoget, and lots of spots!

I still have to take photos of everyone individually, but here are a few more sweet lamb photos:

This is Towhee with her repeat performance from last year…a black gully-girl and a little moorit ewe. They are already showing the same mischievous personalities we expect in all her lambs! I hope that the world is ready for these little minxes!

The next two photos are of Imogen’s boys…they have amazingly soft fleeces and lovely everything. This breeding was a “golden cross” with Constantine…these lambs should grow up to be really special.

Cascadia’s two little rams are full of mischief already…I am sure that she breathed a sigh of relief when they came out of the jug!

Sarah’s little ewe was very demure in the lambing jug

but once given her freedom, she was ready to take on the world. Her brother is a character too, but quiet compared to Herself!

More lamb photos to come!