The garlic is huge and gorgeous this year—maybe the weather? I did select for very large heads last year when I saved garlic for planting, and the weather has been perfect for growing things….Some of these are the size of elephant garlic, and there were no ‘runts’.
There have been so many blueberries this year that the bushes are hanging almost to the ground. I think we might beat our previous record harvest, which was 15 gallons of berries from these three bushes!
Every day somebody here wonders how we ever managed without the dogs. Joon is ED’s constant companion, moving sheep and cows. Split regularly rescues me from poultry mishaps, showing a surprising ability to very gently move chickens and ducks wherever I need them to go. And Ben…well, Ben can bark really loudly and do back flips when catching a frisbee.
A month (or maybe more) ago, while moving sheep around to different pastures, our Icelandic ram Franklin jumped the fence and went walkabout. We’ve been a little frustrated for a couple of reasons—one being that ED has loved crossing the Icelandics on her Cotswold/Lincoln ewes. The resulting lambs are ridiculously hale and hearty, requiring no worming, growing like weeds, and doing beautifully on grass. Well a couple of weeks ago, she discovered that one of the purebred Icelandic ewes was pregnant—unusual for Icelandics, who seem to have a very specific breeding season—and yesterday she lambed, with this lovely, vigorous little ram! So even if Franklin never returns from the mountains where he now roams, it looks like we have a ram for breeding the Cotswolds! ED is planning to use our new (as yet unnamed) Clun Forest ram on all the Cotswold/Icelandic cross ewes this year.
This is our handsome new Clun Forest ram—well, I really should say ED’s new ram. Isn’t he nice? We’re hoping he brings increased twinning, faster growth, milkiness, and better grass utilization to our flock. We bought him down in Waxhaw, NC, near Charlotte, from a very nice flock. There may be more rams available from the same flock, if anybody needs one!
We don’t have any ideas for a name yet….