Seasons
Bleatings!
February
2007
sheep and goats waiting for breakfast after day
one
Weather tops the news with another
major ice storm on Jan 12-14... which went from beautiful to
destructive to exhausting in three LONG days. The first night left us
with a magical sparkling landscape... the 2nd night of ice overburdened the
trees and huge limbs and even whole trees came crashing down. My area looks
like a tornado went through... not a single yard without limbs down..trees
across the roads and onto houses... and thousands without power for
days. After the third night of mostly rain, changing to snow... we
had a mucky mess and goats HATE the wet. Then it got really nasty on
days four and five, with temperatures down into the single digits
before old winter let us up for air.
crystalline grasses along the fenceline - day
one
overburdened branches begin to bend and break after
round 2. A dark leaden sky turned to freezing fog and later to
snow.
forage turns to glass after round 2
I sure hope the weather gets it all out of its
system before babies start arriving. See the
sheep/goat page for my list of preparations
for kidding. Its almost time!
YAKS!
newborn
Yak and mom
This month I have something special for you!
I visited Little Valley Ranch to help with winter worming
and trimming the yaks. (how could I pass up an invitation like that?) See
the Yak
page
for background on these fascinating multipurpose animals, plus photos
from the day, a curious spring ritual from China, a wonderful tibetan folktale
used with permission from author, a Yak Tail Amulet we made, and a new
poem!
Return to Estes Park Wool
Market!
This news is hot off the press folks ! I have been
asked to judge the Colored Angora Goat Show at Estes Park Wool Market in June
2007 and speak at the Goat Breeders dinner. Plans for at least one and possible
two workshops are being discussed as well. I look forward to returning to
this high altitude festival and seeing all my goat friends
again! I will share details in later newsletters.
Rabbit and Cavy
News
On the
Rabbit/Cavy page see
a Guinea Pig Special for the month of February, exciting
news for local 4-H kids, plus a featured rabbit for sale this
month.
Sadly, the January crop of bunnies
were lost to the bitter cold of these past few days . I was hoping to
have some to tell you about... but we are back to the drawing board . I
will try again for February litters and hope that Mother Nature is a bit more
cooperative.
Here's to hoping the groundhog does NOT see his
shadow on February 2nd!
A groundhogs not so very
scary
Except once every
February
then his little shadow
holds
An early spring or lots more
cold
-author unknown
Happy Groundhogs Day!
Kathy Barger-Harbert
