Building In The Winter

 God has really blessed our desire to build a little family business and we are needing more buildings for the sheep and alpacas.   We built one of the sheds and a fence around it this week.  Above is the before.

 Here is a picture of us in process with one shed.  And yes, there is a fire pit because it was cold.  But it was fun building and planning for our little adventure.  Our sheep were curious and hung around as we worked.  

 Here’s Coral and her little girl.  It is so cute the way the baby gets up on her mom.  I can imagine her saying ...

 “Mom, Mom?  Do you hear me?"

 I can tell you without hesitation that I DO NOT like building steel sheds.  I would MUCH RATHER work with wood.  But, hey, it was on sale, so you do what you can.  

Two more Dorper momma’s had their babies this last week, so we hope to bring them home this weekend.  However, it is snowing now, so we will see what happens.  

I have been sick anyway, so I have “rested” while learning this new skill on my borrowed spinning wheel.

I’m falling in love with spinning on a spinning wheel.  

How is your week going?

And Then There Were 5

Five little sheep roaming out in the pasture, that is…

 We decided to start a business … raising Dorper sheep for lamb meat.  We found a local lady who needed to liquidate her animals, and so began our new business.  We brought two ewes and one baby home in the back of the Bronco.  I suspect that some day soon we are going to have to seriously consider buying an animal trailer.  There is only so much I can keep asking of My Baby.  We will bring home 4 other ewes after they have given birth in the next month or so.  And we will also be bringing home a ram.  

 This little momma we named Onyx.  She gave birth to a dead baby two weeks ago.  So far we can tell she is VERY protective and has no problems butting heads to keep the Shetland sheep and the guard dog, Atlas, away from her and the other two Dorpers.  

 This momma we named Coral.  And her little girl beside her we won’t name yet.  

 Out Shetland sheep, Amber and Opal check out the new sheep from the other side of the fence.

 And Atlas so badly wanted to play with the new arrivals, but they would have nothing to do with that!

 I look at these animals and thank the LORD; for the beauty of His creation; the meat from one and the fiber from the other.  I thank Him for this new adventure and pray that our little ranch grows.  We are praying that we will began to make enough money to pay the children as workers.  

 We put up more fencing so that there will be room for the other animals that are coming home soon. 

We don’t know a darn thing about sheep or pasture care, but it is fun to learn about it all as a family.  
And so the "little ranch that could" grew by 3 more this weekend.

The Little Ranch That Could

My dad said that 5 acres isn’t really big enough to be a “ranch” by Texas standards.  
I had to laugh, because it’s true by anyone’s standards  But our little “Mustard Seed” ranch is dreaming to one day be bigger.  
I am really enjoying my sheep, Amber and Opal.  I can’t wait to finally spin their first fleeces.
We are adding 3 Alpacas in the next few weeks.  That should be fun.
And lately, we have been praying about adding meat sheep as a family side business.  
So, though our ranch is little, it is sure trying to grow bigger.  I like to think of it as our “little ranch that could”.

And Then It Was Christmas Day

Finally Christmas day came and we had a wonderful day of food, fun and gifts.  We all work together to cook and clean and that is why it isn’t to overwhelming for any one person.  Really, it’s fun when you all work together.  You can see my brother Kim is always having fun.

What A Lovely Place

We stayed at such a nice little beach house in Port Aransas, TX.   We set up our traveling Christmas tree.

One day we took the children to the jetty to try their hand at fishing.  It was fun watching 13 children trying to catch fish.  Sadly the weather was too cold and we didn’t have a very productive day.