Lots happening here this week ~ the chicks were shipped today which means they will arrive either tomorrow or Friday. I've set up an area in the kennel building with a heat light and a kiddie pool for their first couple of weeks. The kennel is heated to around 55F right now so it will be a great place for the chicks. I also put 3 dozen eggs in the incubator which sits on a low bookcase in the family room - I need to monitor the temperature pretty closely and also turn them a couple times a day. They will be fine for the next 21 days! I only put brown and blue/green eggs in - our rooster is an Americana so I'm hoping for mostly pullets to hatch! The tomato seeds went into a flat over the weekend; we're checking them daily for those first signs of green now.

I think we are done lambing now - there is one ewe that either is going to lamb later or isn't at all - the lambs are extremely variable this year, lots of color and size differences which is to be expected with this cross of wool and hair sheep although I don't think I'm going to continue to breed into the hair sheep breeds. They haven't really done well under our management program and I like to see more consistency in our flock...so we'll be searching for a replacement ram; either a Dorset (good mothering) or a Texel (great wide lambs but issues with copper toxicity)...so probably a Dorset.

It's in the 40F range today and we're getting some melting out in the pastures; they are predicting snow for tomorrow but not much.

Solo went to a fun match over the weekend and then to a huge obedience class of about 30 dogs on Tuesday morning. His eyes were spinning out of his head trying to look at everything! It's good he went since I"ve entered him in obedience trials in April! We go to work French Ring tomorrow - this will be our first session since returning ~ and then on Saturday we will go to another training place for more obedience. We may as well do this as long as it is almost impossible to do much outdoors what with the ice and snow!

It looks like we have Quads this year! The Dorper ram has given us these neat colors ~ we won't be keeping any ewe lambs back though, the wool will be worthless.

This is 9 month old Noche' from Solo and Ruby working with my friend Phyllis. Noche's in season right now so this lesson was a bit distracted but I figured as long as I had my camera with me it wouldn't hurt to document her progress! Noche' lives in the city with our friend Susan who takes her to agility and obedience classes. On another topic, we are glad to report that Solo had his eyes checked today and is eligible for CERF certification.

I believe we now are up to 19 lambs - fun this year because we used a black-headed Dorper ram to sire them which means we have not only white lambs but also black ones and spotted ones. I will post pictures later on. It has been cold here, forecast temps in the single digits at night for the forseeable future and only in the 20's or low 30's in the daytimes. We got around 5" of snow last night and this morning; it's heavy and wet and I have to admit that I am not enjoying it so much. Trouble is looking pregnant now and the phone, emails and mailbox are showing us that our dogs are still in demand despite the economy. We're anxious to see what she will give us since we have some wonderful homes awaiting.

I ordered chicks yesterday; they will arrive at the end of next week - all Cornish x - so they won't be a lot of fun but it will mean new life in the midst of all this snow!

Yesterday I went out to check on the lambs a little late - around 8 a.m. since my back was hurting and I was waiting for the ibuprofen to kick in - and sure enough, #29 had decided to drop her single lamb into the one puddle of icy water in the entire yard rather than go in the nice dry, straw-bedded barn. The lamb was, for all outward signs, dead - I could hardly pry his mouth open and thought dark thoughts about the ewe but decided to take him inside and see what I could do. I filled the kitchen sink (okay, Seth, skip this part...) with very very warm water and immersed him in up to his head and began to massage him until, after about 20 minutes he was moving around enough that I decided it wasn't reflexes, it was actual life. I kept working on him for a while longer and then dried him off with towels and took him into the bathroom where I cranked the heat up as far as it would go and shut the door. Within another hour or so he was warmed up enough that he was up on his feet and crying for his mama. I couldn't decide whether to keep him inside longer or not but finally figured I'd better take him out to his mother before she completely forgot she'd given birth. I put him in a lambing pen (called, in lamb-speak, a 'jug') and she nickered to him, began licking him and (thankfully) did remember that he was her lamb. I was delighted to see this little family together, the young babe nursing this morning. As I told my mom, it was like suddenly life had been breathed back into his cold body, reaching back and bringing him to life. She said that it must have felt really good - to be honest, it was mostly exhausting.

Great news this morning that hip results came back for Briarlea Cayuse and they are OFA excellent! Other good news is that Birdie will soon be heading 'home' to Seth's house in Royalton until she's due to whelp.

Here is a pix of Birdie we had taken down in NM.

It's Saturday and we're home! We had a great (read: uneventful!) drive home, staying last night in northern-most Missouri and arriving home to snowy Wisconsin around 2 pm. We were delighted to see a few vigorous new lambs and plenty of hay left until spring. Ah, the small pleasures, right?


I was able to download a few more photos - one of Jim's favorite place to stop in Liberty, Kansas being "Super Pollo!!" We had stopped by on the way south and had some great (super!) pollo...







I also had taken some pix of the dogs.... This is Birdie and Trouble on my sister Suzanne's porch in La Luz canyon. My friends Cory and Lee will appreciate 'the look' Trouble is giving me...and Seth and Anthony will know that this is Birdie being herself!

We are now in Dalhart, Texas for the night (where it was still 85F at 6 pm) after a (very long) drive through New Mexico to Clovis and Portales - we wanted to look at the incredible collection of windmills we'd seen in the NM visitor guides - and did!

We also made Jim very happy by coming across a retail arm of one of the huge peanut farms where he was able to buy sacks and sacks of peanuts (you're warned, gift-receivers!) as well as a few jars of chipotle/ginger peanutbutter...I am wondering how that will be in peanut butter cookies??? The fields around Portales/Clovis are green with wheat and irrigated from the looks of it - the farmers are out tilling and there were lots of halfgrown beef calves (Angus) that were already weaned.

It looked like there had been grass fires here in northern Texas and man - o -man are the feedlots full!!! I took some pictures which I'll try to remember to post - it's hard to get the scale of those feedlots on film; they're enormous - acres and acres of feedlot cows.

Tomorrow should find us north of Kansas City somewhere and it looks like smooth sailing all the way north. Thanks to everyone who has kept in touch while we've been in our home away from home this winter -

Down the mountain from us, some creative welding!

It's time to get ready to head north - we plan to leave the Land of Enchantment this coming Thursday and should land home in Wisconsin by Saturday. It's seriously warm here now, the trees are leafing out, the daffodils are blooming and I know it's time for me to go home for lambing. I'll miss this rugged country.

Birdie is the news of the day - she and Solo have had 3 successful alliances now which means we'll mark our calendar for a May 10 whelping date! Here's a link to her webpage!

A little roadtrip to Bosque del Apache yesterday finds us in Socorro this morning. We aren't exactly rabid birders but the Bosque is unique in that even midday we saw lots of snow geese and other waterfowl...then on to Fort Craig, the site of the Battle of Valverde. Now long abandoned, it sits alongside the Rio Grande and one can well imagine what it must have been like 150 years ago. We finished the day by gallery hopping in the historic district of Hot Springs, nearby Truth or Consequences. Today we're going to zoom into Albuquerque this morning to the square and take in whatever we can find there along with the art and history museum. Jim's still not had his onion and cheese enchiladas so I suspect either those or green chili burgers are on the lunch menu!

We're excited to announce that Maggie Bennett wrote us to tell us that we have a new super title in the family! Breeze, one of the Ali x Una kids is now MACH Briarlea Life is a Breeze RN. Way to go!!! Briarlea Bouvier Kennel is proud to tell you that our little tiny breeding program has produced dogs who have excelled in French Ringsport, Schutzhund, Agility, Herding, Obedience, Tracking and of course, most importantly, as greatly loved family companions. Congratulations to Maggie and Breeze!!

A quick picture of Solo with his new (short) haircut! He's so clean lined without all that hair! We went to Ruidoso yesterday to look for copper cowboy hats, leaving the dogs in the cool mountain house in High Rolls. Seth is here with me until tomorrow, soaking up the sunshine! The trees now have a mist of green about them, their leaves just coming out for the all-too-brief spring. We see that the elk have returned to my sister's place, leaving their unmistakeable calling cards :( Tomorrow I"m off to El Paso to pick up Jim!

My friend Phyllis called this morning to report another set of lambs born; our ram lambs got in with the ewes last summer when we had flooding. Hopefully the rest of the ewes won't decide to lamb in the next couple weeks! It's in the high 70F here today; dry and hot - I can hardly imagine what it must be like in July! But for now, it's fabulous! Phyllis also chatted with me about a herding trial we are co-hosting during the annual rodeo in Glenwood City; it'll be the weekend of Father's Day, likely a one-day event, using my sheep ~ should be fun!

Seth will be blowing in this afternoon for a few days of sun and shine before heading back up north; he was delivering one of his barrel saunas to a fellow in Los Alamos, NM who works at the Sandia Labs so a great excuse to come visit his old mama.

Una is back home from her spay surgery of yesterday; she seems sore and tired but overall I"m glad we made the choice. She's a wonderful friend and I hope we have many good years together.