Exercise in Agony

Getting three children to agree on which kittens to keep is just that. I'm getting anxious to make decisions so we can find good homes for those we aren't keeping. Lila was in tears over this because she doesn't want to choose favorites fearing somehow the kittens will feel unloved. I tried to explain it wasn't a matter of loving one more than another and that we would ensure they all had good homes.....sigh. Duncan is lobbying hard for his choice pointing out what a good lap cat she will be and commenting continuously on her cuteness. Sam just gives us his big sad eyed puppy look. We will be keeping two or three I think. The parental units have avoided making this hard and fast decision but it has to be made soon.

Can you blame us with faces like these? They are almost as heart wrenching as the kids faces as they are begging "please, please....can't we keep them all?" (No is the answer just in case you are going to encourage that!)

Aaa argh!

They are totally in the "I'll chew your leg off and trash your house" mode right now! Surfaces once littered with papers and books are swept clean by the morning and they chewed open a bag of rice and scattered it all over the floor like a crazy slip n slide. They enjoy walking on the cross beams 8 feet above the floor and walking on the outside of the banisters along the stairs....they are making me a nervous wreck. Uncle Ginger seems to be enjoying wrestling with his new charges and Snickers seems okay with that.

 

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Radagast The Brown

Creme de la Creme gave birth to this wee medium fawn Suri alpaca cria on Saturday.

His name is "Radagast" the brown.

 

Saruman and Radagast

 

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Perfecting Life Requisites

I think they have it down!

 

 

 

 

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Beyond Strange

I found this egg in the chicken coop yesterday. It is a "normal" egg that is encased by a much larger and brittle shell and surrounded by albumen/egg white. You never know what delights await you in the coop!

 

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Careful....the cuteness factor is killer!

We rolled in around 11:00 pm after a record breeze through Sault customs....I don't think we've ever had such a cheerful customs officer and the entire process took about ten minutes including the wait time,

This is the first image I was treated too after waking up this morning (this is easy since these fuzzy bits reside in our master bath):

If only I had centered it!

 

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Traveling Home

Left Grammy Jo's this morning around 11:30 with a van packed to the gills as usual. Stopped in northern Vermont for a picnic lunch and spectacular views of the Green Mountains. (It was sunny and I couldn't get a photo without squints)

Resting our weary bones in Cornwall, Ontario this evening. Had an hour wait at the border sitting on the Seaway Bridge which looks to be crumbling under the weight of all the cars; fortunately we were listening to "the Prisoner of Azkaban" which took our minds off it all.

Awaiting pizza and poutine delivery and will have a couple of beers to aid in sleeping in a strange room and will be home tomorrow evening!

 

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Kittens!

The five of us MacKinnon's are vacationing in NH visiting with Will's family. You may recall we had a batch of kittens? They are now five weeks old and getting into mischief! My mother is farm sitting for us, for which we are extremely grateful, and has been sending us videos of the wee beasties which has made our time away from them easier to bear.

It will be tricky deciding which kittens will stay...they are all so sweet. Fortunately we have four or five weeks before they will be weaned; then we will be looking for a few good homes.

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Hachinette

Will went to a really neat auction a few weeks back and bought a box of tools. In the box were two tools that were rather puzzling. Turns out they were kitchen tools; a long thin screwdriver looking thing that had an eye in the end and a sharp tip that is used to lace pieces of fat through a roast...called a "larder"; and the lovely piece below called a "hachinette" made in France and used for chopping herbs. We found the perfect Munising wooden bowl and Lila minced up some sage for dinner.

 

 

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Daisy

Introducing.....Daisy! I have been desiring some more white wool in our flock and when our only white ewe Nala produced a black lamb (Rum), I knew I had to look elsewhere.

And since my friend Karen is a sheep enabler, she found me a beautiful Shetland / Cormo cross ewe at Stephen Rouse's farm and delivered her to our door last week. Her name is Daisy and she was born in February so she is the oldest and biggest lamb here. She is a sweetheart too....loves sheep scritches and hugs and tolerates kisses very well.

Cormo's are much larger than Shetlands so she s going to be the big sheep on campus here, and she is already the same size as our smaller ewes. Her fleece is amazingly crimpy and fine and there is already a lot of it! Can't wait to spin some of it next spring!

 

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Cassidy's Cria

Today Cassidy gave birth to a fifteen pound pure white female Suri cria!

I didn't get to see the birth, only noticed this odd gangly white thing running around and it took a couple of seconds for my brain to register what my eyes were seeing. She is cute and friendly and all legs and neck with soft lustrous fiber that glows.

 

She has been caught a few times for umbilical dipping and weighing and seems to be nursing well.

 

Meeting sheep. Everyone in the barnyard has been very curious and respectful.

 

Who are you?

 

I might be a bat! Oh....no wings.

 

What's that? A paca? Okay!

I thought Fiona (Cassidy's mother) was going to give birth today too...she was showing many signs and decided for a cooling tummy dip. Turns out she is holding out on us still (and I had to add emptying and refilling the water trough to my chore list too).

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