A back view, and a picture of Talia, who so graciously donated the wool:

It rained hard all day, but then suddenly the temperature dropped a billion degrees, and it’s now snowing like hell. The sheep don’t care, but we locked them in the barn anyway, along with everybody else.

Afterwards we are going to pick up two (brace yourselves) puppies. No, they are not Border Collies—that really WOULD be crazy—they’re 5-month-old Great Pyrenees/Kangal crosses. And they will live with the sheep. NOT in the house. Because we are not actually dog hoarders.The field where ED grazes the sheep is pretty seriously coyote infested, so she only grazes them during the day now, and locks them up at night—good thing the weather’s been cool enough for that to work! It would be nice to leave them out grazing all the time, so hopefully the pups will make that possible.

Speaking of dogs, we have a couple of great prospects for a home for Lola—actually three possibilities, and all would be wonderful for her. And sometime in the next week or two, Bandit will be going home, which is going to be heartbreaking, but I think it will be a relief to only have the three BCs for a while. Split has not gotten bred, and if she doesn’t in the next couple of weeks, we’ll wait and consider trying again some other time.

You may remember me mentioning a Very Special Project that ED is working on. Well, this is the next stage of it—she’s been mixing dyes to get just the right shade of red. Dying over the grey wool gives a nice color with lots of depth, don’t you think?

ED has been working on a Very Special Project. This wool is from her Cotswold/Lincoln crosses, and you might not be able to tell so well from this picture, but there are two distinct colors here—one lighter, and one darker. I can’t say anymore right now, but I’ll try to keep you posted about the Very Special Project.

You can see here that the grass is thin enough to see the ground in places, and our recent spate of dry weather has left the grass crisp and curled. The color isn’t great either—yellowish to brown. This was last cut in June.

Here’s a picture of the same field, taken the day before, on the part of the field that ED had been grazing, mostly sheep:

Check out the difference.

In related news, in another field, which we call Gebhart’s Field, we have recently discovered dung beetles. I don’t even know how to tell you how exciting this is. Those ancient Egyptian scarabs? There’s a reason dung beetles are sacred.

That pasture isn’t looking bad for September! Thanks to ED and her hard work with rotational grazing!

Today I roasted these little beauties—Sungolds, Blondkopfchens, and Isis Candies—with a little olive oil and salt, and I’ll can them in a couple of small jars. They’ll be a treat this winter, I think!

I also canned regular old tomatoes in quarts, and I finally got around to canning the dulce de leche I made a few days ago, along with a batch of sweetened condensed milk. Now I’m making butter while warily eyeing the bowls of tomatoes and the massive zucchinis that are lurking in my kitchen.

Yesterday ED and I went over to Tennessee to pick up the lamb from the three sheep we dropped off last week. The meat is absolutely gorgeous—so deep red it’s nearly purple, and well marbled. This is exciting for us, as these fellows were totally grassfed—ED has been rotationally grazing, moving them daily—so we weren’t sure if the meat was going to be too lean for our tastes. It’s not—it’s perfect. Very, very mild and tender, too. ED is feeling a great deal of satisfaction, seeing the fruits of her labors, and I am just so happy to have a freezer full of lamb and pork for the winter. Actually more than one freezer—we had to plug in another one we haven’t been using to hold the legs and shanks.

So next week we’ll pick up 150 or so pounds of lamb. It feels great to have a full freezer!

I had a sort of boring day of catching up on some stuff—lots and lots of laundry, including washing and line-drying all the curtains in the house; I cleaned out the big deep freeze in preparation for picking up our pork Friday; and just generally cleaned house.

Friday, when we go to pick up Bill, we’ll also be taking three wethers to be butchered. It feels good to be filling the freezers, especially given the price of clean meat right now.

I’m fighting an irritating little cold, and already looking forward to bed tonight.