Lambing season is just around the corner. Our friendly, people-oriented Blackberry is due first – perhaps as early as next week!
How many lambs do you think she’ll have? And will they be ram lambs, ewes lambs, or a combination? 
Tell us what you think in the comments below!
Anyone looking for a cute, friendly Christmas gift for someone?
Rabbits make wonderful little pets: they are soft, cute, friendly, quiet, inexpensive, and don’t require a lot of care!
Evelyn and I did some product/pet photography this afternoon. Often photographing rabbits can be a real challenge, especially for Evelyn doing the posing.
But this time we actually got an amazing number of great photos.
Part of the reason for this was that Evelyn had an assistant to get the rabbits to sit up and put their ears forward.
Somehow the cat always manages to get in there!
And now the rabbits are hoping to hop to new homes! Any buyers?
So far, Hershey has always calved early. Since her calf was due today, this year it looked as though she might not. But late yesterday evening she had a surprise for us!
Unlike last year, the calving went very quickly – so quickly that we missed the whole thing! When I checked Hershey at 6:30, she looked normal: eating happily. When, at 8:30, I heard her bell ringing continuously, I went out to check and found Bounty already trying to get to her feet.
Yes, Bounty is a little heifer! With a birth weight of 61 lbs, she’s one our our largest calves. And she has energy to match! A straw bale “fence” is easy to jump even at only 12 hours old!
Aren’t I cute?
We chose the name Bounty (the name of a chocolate bar) to combine her parents’ names: Hershey and Profit Driven. And after losing two calves last year, we feel bountifully blessed to have such a lively, healthy calf this year. Praise the Lord!
The wildlife in Cape Breton is quite used to seeing tourists.
The moose especially seem nonchalant.
The birds are a little more wary.
Though not the seagulls as much. Most of these photos are barely cropped.
Yikes, we’re going to get wet!
Flying together
Reunion of a pair
We even got to see them fishing.
Dive!
Splash!
And they always come back up in time to miss being hit by the next wave!
And another style of fishing…
They know what fishing boats carry!
On the topic of fishing boats, we were actually in Cape Breton during the lobster season. We had the amazing experience of watching the fishermen at work.
many boats at work
many docked boats
watching the boats
pulling up the lobster trap
Though it rained one day while we were there, we saw several really beautiful sunsets. It was a beautiful vacation and a wonderful time as a family.
“From the rising of the sun unto the going down of the same, the LORD’s name is to be praised.” Psalm 113:3
To all our readers, my apologies on the lack of blog content lately! Life has been incredibly full in the Frazer home.
Our family was able to take a family vacation together the last week of May. Yes, we all, including Stephen, were able to get away. Yeah! The destination: Cape Breton Island, NS.
Cape Breton is a beautiful place of rocky slopes, wind-scarred trees, rolling oceans, crashing waves, screaming gulls, a not-so-wild moose! I’ll let the pictures tell the story…
The O-Tentik where we stayed
A beautiful waterfall nestled inland
The hills of Cape Breton ore steep and rugged
Insect-eating pitcher plants in a bog
Watch out, Sarah!
Your feet will get wet!
The Cabot trail runs all the way around the island, hugging the coast most of the way
Abandoned lobster traps
My favourite graveyard
An old, one-room schoolhouse
The red dots in the water are buoys marking lobster traps – more on that later
Well, maybe I’ll make a second post with more…
Winter is hanging on this year! Usually there isn’t much snow left at the beginning of April, but here is what it looked like on April 20th:
We decided to take advantage of the beautiful new snow to photograph one of our new lambs.
It looks like we’ll probably have snow into May! But I like snow, so I don’t mind! 🙂
“Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” Isaiah 1:18
It was hair cutting time in the barn this week! Well, not technically hair actually – wool.
Chipit and Maple had theirs cut a while back, but the three younger sheep still needed to be done. Yoghurt was by far the most agreeable. He loved the back rub! Strawberry and Raspberry were more ticklish and wiggly, but even so it was nice to work with sheep that aren’t afraid of us.
I forgot to photograph Strawberry before and after, but here are Yoghurt and Raspberry.
Before
During
After
Before
During
After
Quite the change! We measured Yoghurt’s fleece at 9 inches long. It is really beautiful wool. The ewe lambs have a lot of hair in their wool, so the quality is less good.
And of course while I was in the barn… How could I resist photographing those cute little lambs?
And now we are watching Maple and wondering if she’s pregnant…
What do you think?
April is on its way and lambing season is just around the corner. Our first ewe due to lamb is Chipit and she looks like it!
Sadly, she also isn’t doing the best. The weight of her lamb(s) is making her tire easily and we were startled to discover yesterday that she sometimes struggles to walk about and lie down. A vet visit relieved us of the possibility of hypocalcemia or pregnancy toxemia. His suggestion was that she has suffered some kind of trauma to her spinal column. Our best option is to keep her quiet, fed, and watered and hope that the arrival of the lambs will relieve her of added pressure.
So, we are doubly eager for the lambs to appear! If anyone wants to take a guess at how many ewe lambs and/or ram lambs she will have, just reply to this post and let us know what you think!
Our spring batch of baby rabbits is, Lord willing, on its way! We just bred 8 of our 9 females. Before they pull out their fur for their babies, we took pictures of them.
Here are our bucks:
Big Foot
Champ
Memphrey
Other than our original rabbit, Smokey, our does all have small candy names:
Smokey
Licorice
Lifesavers
Jelly Bean
Candy Cane
Jujube
Smarties
Rockets
Cinnamon Hearts
Cinnamon Hearts is the only one we didn’t breed simply because we don’t have space. She and Champ are actually for sale. Anyone looking for a couple of friendly bunnies? The babies should be ready to go in May and can be reserved ahead of time, too.
And of course, the cat somehow knew that it was time for portraits…
Streusel couldn’t sit around posing, though.
We are eager to see where the Lord will take our rabbit venture. It seems He has been opening doors to sell many more than previously.
Looking through my photos from the past year, I observed that quite of bit of it was actually product photography… but not your typical products!
First there was the cow…
Then there were rabbits…
And now there is a sheep!
Yes, we’re selling Raspberry. She’s too small, in our opinion, to breed right away, and we don’t want a sheep lambing in August. So we’ve decided to sell her.
We thought that taking her away from her sister to be photographed would stress her out completely and that all the photos would reveal her bleating, but that was not the case. Apparently, Evelyn and I are as much a part of her “flock” as Strawberry, so she is just fine without her sister so long as we were there. We almost didn’t need the rope – she followed us like a dog, better than some dogs!
And of course the cat had to come along to inspect… Maybe she just likes showing up on the blog!
Any one looking for a cute, friendly little sheep? And, no, the cat doesn’t go with her.
