Diet Pop

Well I've officially had no soda (diet or regular) for nearly two months now. I'm glad I quit! Just read this link:

http://health.yahoo.com/experts/eatthis/22630/the-truth-about-diet-soda/

Gross is all I have to say! I can't believe I was so hooked! The first week was terribly painful with no pop..huge migraines, dizziness and lack of energy. Now I can't believe I ever drank that gross stuff!

Christmas Photos

I tried to get a few shots of the babies in a group....that didn't work very well.....(except for the Christmas Ice Cream treat!) so I had them take 'individual photos' with their dad :)
The word "TREAT" works wonders for EARS! (except for Ell...who was too busy squirming away!)

The Princess Sadie and yours truly

Mitcham

Oliver

Zoe-Miester

Ell Bell

Ell doing the "We're touching" pose and a kiss for good measure (the dogs always need to be 'touching' me with one of their paws)

Mac was elated to have company of his own kind and he LOVES to play with Mitcham! Mitcham just knocks the Corgis over with his leg and then goes in the for the "kill" lol

A group photo of the babies waiting for their Christmas Ice cream treat. Sadie was a pig and devoured not only her own, but Mitcham AND Ell's so Mitcham and Ell had to have more scooped for them. Sadie then sat in front of the freezer and wimpered..What an OINK!

My pretty girl sittin' next to me on the couch.

MERRY CHRISTMAS from all of us at Ebonwald Cardigans...

Update

I'm alive! This snow is amazing! With maybe a day to try and recover between two-three or more days cleaning and shoveling/blowing/plowing all my clients out....I'm wiped out! My back hasn't hurt like this since.....last snow storm LOL. Ah its great...January will be a great income, but I'm not physically prepared for this work......

Hopefully soon I can sit down and not feel so exhausted!

Happy Holidays everyone!

6th Photo

Here's the deal: You have to check your Photo Archives (or wherever you store your images) then select the 6th file folder, open it & post the 6th picture contained there, with the story behind it.

My 6th photo's story:

Well I'm sorry to say that my photo doesn't really have a story, except I love to take hundreds of candids of my dogs just being themselves! Here is Zoe chillin on my old couch in the living room last January. It must not have been a snow day as I would not have taken any photos that day :)

I have to tag some people and I think most of the dog blogger friends are already tagged so I'll tag some sheep bloggers!

Corrine R, Nancy K, Michelle M, Jenny H, and Kristi!

Snow, snow, snow or "Silent Sunday"

Maggie's pups

Here are a few candids I finally got from Barb Peterson on her Dewi x Maggie pups.


The two girls are the red/white girls ...one with the widest blaze, and one with the tiniest blaze.



These two are the boys on the gold chair (its very retro yes)

I was Tagged (new one!)

Penni wants to know what six things make us happy. Sadie, Oliver, Zoe and Ell have asked me to type their answers because their paws do not work on the keyboard.

1. Herding. We don't care if its Guinea hens, chickens, ducks, sheep, goats, cattle or each other! We could do it all day and love to see what might be needing a good chase.

2. Raw Diet. We have never been this excited for 'breakfast' ever! We have gotten things like chicken wings, hearts, livers, ground lamb or beef, eggs, veggies, yogurt and our favorite is cottage cheese! We also love ice cream when its one of our birthdays or Christmas! We have what dad calls "ice cream eyes" which nearly bug out when we hear the ice cream dishes clinking in the cupboard.

3. Sleeping in bed with dad. We are not shy about being bed hogs. Sometimes when dad gets really upset he'll go out to lay on the sofa and we just follow him out there. We like to be as close as possible to him while we sleep, sometimes even on top of him to make sure we are close enough

4. Going to our kennel club. We have a fan club and a following at the kennel club! We love to see our doggie and people friends there and every week someone different gets to go along for the ride and we love barking at cars on the two lane roads that meet us and drive really fast past us. Sometimes we almost get them! (so we think)

5. Our back yard. Every time our dad says "kennel" we race to the back door barking and trying to push the door open so we can be the first into the back yard. Now that there is actually snow we love to roll around in and chase each other around the dog igloos,the trees and we could spend hours outside only dad doesn't think thats a good idea when its so cold, but we don't seem to mind!

6. Toys (both squeaky and chewable kinds). We love it when we get new bones or chew toys (nylabone mostly) or squeaky toys. some of our favorites are "squeaky frog", "squeaky pheasant", "squeaky ball", "the puppy", THE ball, and raw bones to chew on!

We like lots of other things, but those are our favorites. We want to know their six favorite things from:

Holly at Visions

Laura at Cooper Creek

Sarah at Hurrikane

Dawn at Daybreake

Sherilyn and Rus at Winjammin

Carolyn at C-Myste

Micron Repots back!

I sent 12 ewe lamb fleece samples to Texas A&M for a whopping total of $15.00 I pretty much was reassured of the ewe lambs I wanted to keep, and who to move out next spring/summer. There were a few I was really surprised at, but most were where I thought they would be.

Sedalia, the spotted grey katmoget out of Jazz and Minwawe Sterling came back an amazing 22.3 AFD, 4.2 SD, and 18.8 CV with a comfort factor of 97.5 out of 100!

Rush, the cute little white ewe lamb out of Aman (F1 Orion) and Rachildas was 21.8 AFD, 5.5 SD, and 25.4 CV. Comfort Factor was 92.9 out of 100.

Others in Alphabetical order:
Name AFD SD CV Comfort Factor
White Pine Columbine 20.0 6.5 32.5 90.5
Minwawe Dark Chocolate 25.5 7.9 31.1 76.4
WhitePine Denver 24.4 7.2 29.6 77.7
Wintertime Galina 24.4 6.6 27.1 77.8
SheltrgPines Myra 25.4 6.2 24.4 80.3
SheltrgPines Nessebar 26.9 6.5 24.2 71.0
WhitePine Sheridan 29.7 9.6 32.2 55.7
Black Forest Tilly 25.8 6.4 24.6 75.0
Lil Country Uma 20.8 4.8 23.3 98.2
WhitePine Westminster 26.9 7.9 29.4 63.8

Ok so Westminster I knew would be higher. Her mother at the same age was 30 AFD and as a yearling was over 35 AFD. So Westie is an improvement on her mother. She is smirslet and is a Jazz baby so I think there is potential in her breedings if bred to the right ram, while she herself may not be spectacular. Another one that I knew would be rougher but not THAT bad was Sheridan. Sheridan is a defininte intermediate, border line primitive out of Jazz and Shasta, who both have UK fleeces and %UK in them. I guess this was a throw back? I've noticed since the sample that there is iset coming in...probably from her mom as she is Ag and that hides a lot! We'll see what we get from her this year and she may just go to the BFL next year for market lambs in 2009. She's built like a house and is the black ewe I showed at Jefferson.

For me personally, anything with a CV close to or over 30 is way too high in a ewe lamb. SD's above 7 are too high period and AFDs over 27 are unacceptable to me. While they may work for others in their programs, they just are not what I'm looking for in my breeding program. Several are available now and have been exposed to either Jazz or Barish, both my soft yearling rams that were 20.6 AFD, 4.5 SD and 22 CV so the lambs should be improvements.

I'm happy I kept this many this long, and now have the micron reports, health clearances and pedigrees to asist in my decisions on who to keep and who not to. they may not fit my program TODAY and therefore might make nice additions to your flock if you are looking for nice structured, nice pedigreed, nice temperaments with just a fleece that is not as soft as my other ultra fines.

A few dog related photos from this weekend first of all!

A couple of dog related photos from the Wine and Cheese tasting party. They did NOT taste either mind you, but Briony brought them some (People Crackers) (instead of animal crackers...get it?)


Babies begging from Briony


More of the babies begging from Briony

The girls are begging again from Briony (do you see a pattern here?)

Mitcham and Oliver waiting their turn to come see everyone.

Mitcham telling Briony how much he loves her (she was there to pick him up with me in September and he slept on her lap the whole way home!)

Zoe-Meister

Oliver showing off his pretty neck and big ears! He took a liking to Jamie at the party (I think it was to keep away from Jatten and Wush) Oliver has seen Wush 100x and yet he just doesn't like him. I tell everyone he is my best judge of Character LOL

Good News!

Two good points of news quickly today:

1. I made it through my two-day Birthday Bash...both the wild house party on friday and the calm and relaxing Wine/Cheese tasting, formal party on saturday! I'm ready for some 'down' time and won't get it! My nephew's Baptism is today and then I have to go to work because its finally SNOWING!

2. Zoe's litter sister, Lily, and her half sister, Busy were both tested for DM and both came back normal, non carriers! Wohoo! I am waiting for Ell and Zoe's results as well, but that is good news!

29 years young

Well this was my cutest stage. I couldn't find a 'baby' picture so this will have to do. I think i'm 2 here? Anyway, I feel old today, and overwhelmed and having a break down.........too much to do before the big party tonight! and the kitchen STILL isn't done for it! AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Worldess Wednesay

Here Chick Chick Chick!

I decided against bringing them into the house, but I did set up a heat lamp above this lovely rabbit cage that I'm using for the mother and her two chicks. When I went out to the barn this morning the trio were walking around and her other eggs were cold. The chicks couldn't drink out of the dish I had in there for the other chickens and Guinea hens so I got a little waterer with some scratch feed and put into the cage and new shavings.

These photos are for Dawn b.c. she asked for photos :) The first one is of the tikes with momma. The second has the standard light bulb next to the cage for a size comparison. They are TINY!. The mother is a Fawn Silver duckwing Old English Game Bantam. The father is also a fawn silver duckwing and I believe is a half sister to the mother. It gets confusing I know!!

I think I'm jealous?

We still have no snow! Drive to the south 30 miles and they have snow. Drive 30 miles to the east and they have it! We don't even get dustings here...just the bitter cold. Today's high was 20 with a low tonight of around 6 I think. If its going to be this cold, we should have snow.

I went out to the chicken pen and i heard PEEPING! Yes two chicks happened to hatch in this unbearable cold to a mother who already had a clutch this year. I didn't think she could keep the eggs warm enough but there were indeed two chicks. If no more eggs hatch by morning I'll bring them into the back room (it stays about 40 degrees back there) so they can have a chance at survival. Just when I thought babies were done for the year! :)