Yesterday morning we lost our sweet little badger-faced yearling ewe, Zinnia. She is the one on the right. She had always been a little Houdidni, and had even led the others astray a few times. She loved to get on the other side of the fence, but once there, she never would go off anywhere. She was just happy to be on the other side.
Greg had let the sheep out into the small paddock just before daylight, as he always does. Then he went out a little bit later to take a walk around with the puppies to see if he could see any trace of our three missing birds (more about this later). He came in a few minutes later and said, "I think Zinnia is dead." I ran out (in my pj's) to check her out, and sure enough, she was dead. It seems she had got her head between the fence rails, then got her horns caught, and in the struggle to get out, she got herself wedged into a tight spot and strangled herself. She was wedged in so tightly that Greg had to get a crow bar and break the boards to get her out. She was still warm, so he tried to revive her, but it was too late.
We were both so sad. She was such a pretty little thing. I had wondered several times, though, if we would have to do something with her if she kept getting out. I worried a coyote would get her, or she'd get out into the road and get hit by the one car that goes by here each day. The worst thing was her getting the others to follow. But Greg had fixed all the places she was getting out, and it had been a long time since she'd escaped. It never occured to me she'd strangle herself.
This is definately a "low" point in farm life.
But on the brighter side, today was a very good day. I finally was able to get back out into the round pen and work with Skipper again. She did so much better this time. She did her full five loops one way, turned and did 5 more in the other direction, turned again and did a few in the original direction. I slowed her down and got all the signals: licking and chewing, ear turned toward me, dropping of the head then attempt to come in closer to me.
The only thing we didn't accomplish was the actual "Join Up" and follow through. But that's okay...it will come. One thing that is a problem is the fact that I do not yet have sand in the round pen, and Skipper is a hog...all she wants to do is eat grass...so she loses her concentration on me. I guess she thinks she deserves a reward after being made to do all that running around in circles!
I do have to confess that today I used my new whip in order to get Skipper to be more compliant. I never once hit her with it, just showed it to her and used it as an extension of my arm. I am not as good at using the rope to keep her going as some I've seen. But I was a master with the whip! I will have Greg take some video of our work tomorrow.
After I finished with Skipper and she got a good brushing, I took the puppies, one at a time, into the round pen for a little training, too. Milly was first and she did okay, but she needs a lot of work yet. She is not very attentive. I hadn't worked with them for a few weeks as I was so busy with the kids here, and it was like she had forgotten everything she'd ever learned. She finally started following commands, once she realized there were yummy bits of steak involved! Today we started work on "fetch". She was happy to chase after the ball, but never would bring it back.
Sheba was next, and she was a champ! She sat watching While I was working with Milly and she seemed to have figured out just what she was supposed to do. I have never tossed a ball and had her fetch it before, but she did it the first try! She brought it back every time. A couple of times she dropped the ball before she got to me, but most times she broght it all the way back. She definately got the idea! I think she is going to be a great little herding dog.
A few days ago, one of our wheaten Marans went missing. Then, the day after, a guinea and a banty went missing. Well, yesterday, the guinea and the banty showed up, but still no Maran. So, today, Greg went up into the barn loft to look around, and guess who had made a nest! He called me up there, so I climbed the ladder to see. We shooed her off her nest, and that little stinker had a dozen lovely brown eggs under her! We will see if she goes back to the nest. If she does, we'll let her sit on them...but we only have a Banty Rooster, so we're not sure what's gonna come out...if anything does actually hatch out.
We are just so relieved that nothing has been eating our birds. We were sure some critter had found itself a Smorgasbord!
This is our first Christmas at our new farm. We saw this place just a few days shy of a year ago. It was completely covered with snow and it was BEAUTIFUL. I knew at that moment that this was the land I had been dreaming of for years. I have been hoping for a white Christmas this year. I wanted to see my beloved farm under snow on Christmas, just as I had first seen it. I was losing hope, but Christmas Eve morning we woke up and we already had a couple of inches. By noon we had about 5 inches or so. It is just breathtaking! And I feel so blessed. 
Here's our Christmas tree. It's a bit of a Charlie Brown tree because we had to trim it down so much to fit it into the space! It may not be traditional, but we just dragged a cedar down from the back forty! We are happy with it because it came off our place and we have hung all our special ornaments on it that we'd collected from all over the world. It's the first time in years we've had those ornaments out of their box in storage, or even put up a tree for that matter. 
Sheba has decided that under the Christmas tree is her new bed. The puppies have been really good about not bothering the ornaments, although Sheba did knock a couple off when she would stand up under there! No worries, I just moved those few up higher. I did do a lot of baking and candy making this year. That's also something I hadn't done much of for several years. I decided to write a song about it and have been posting daily phrases on facebook! I wrote the song as if Greg were writing it to me! It should be sung to the tune of "The 12 Days of Christmas". This is the posting from the last day, Christmas day. Greg's Christmas Song: On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love made for me, Lots of festive food, Joy's pecan pie, rustic apple pie, pastry for those pies, yummy apple butter, Peanut Butter Blossoms, pretzels with a kiss, CIN-NA-MON CAN-DY, A pound of chocolate fudge, Grandma's sugar cookies, some puppy chow, and a batch of party mix, you see! It sounds like a lot of treats, but, believe it or not, it isn't near as much as I used to make when the kids were at home. This will be our first year of having Christmas without a single one of our kids here. Since our first Christmas, that is. But even then I was already expecting our first baby! Since we won't have any kids to celebrate with this year, we went out and got a new puppy! He is a male Old English Sheepdog, and he is to be the mate to our two females. His name is "Signor Giacomo di Cavalli." We call him "Jock". He's adorable and the girls love him. Especially Milly. She is very motherly to him. Here is a video of Milly and Jock playing together. I want to wish everyone a Very Merry Christmas. May your homes and hearts be filled with all the love and joy they can hold. God bless you all and those you love in the new year.
