-19 makes for a cold night in the barn.

 I was so cold, and I knew once my feet all of sudden felt warm or so numb and that I couldn’t feel them anymore it was time to get into the house and warm up.

 Man, way to cold for lambs.

At Midnight I was cutting up sweatpants trying to make little lamb coats then I used binder twine to tie up around their waste.

 It worked.

For next year we must plan for later in the season it is just to cold and worry for February. With all the new sheep this year it will be just messy. With last nights lambing we now have a lull until the next session. Since the sheep were not bred here I just have to keep watch to see how things are getting along.

I can not believe it is nearly the end of February. 

It truly has flown by.

Our daughter is starting to heal up now from her surgery, it sure took a lot out of her. It was unnerving an emergency ambulance ride for bleeding and a found blood clot. Once they dealt with the clot she started to heal better. It is hard to watch someone go through something and really not be able to help them other than to be there.

Really other than keeping the fire going, lambing and feeding not a whole lot is new. Spring is inching closer each day and I am for sure loving the longer days.

I hope each of you are doing well. I hope you are handling the ice, cold and snow. Enjoy the calmer days before the Spring cleaning begins because we all know what is under that snow and ice ~ mess and pine needles just waiting for us.

I still do not have the new computer well I have a whole new one now. Unfortunately, they only gave me half of it this time. I have been waiting the whole week for them to UPS it to me.

Umm ~ Kamloops isn’t very far away. I am sure I could have walked there quicker.

 It is seriously the longest most annoying deal I have had to deal with in a long time.

So, with that if you want to see pictures go to the 

FB page A day in the life at Sunflower farm

 or

 If you want to see beautiful garden pictures of the farm go to the

 FB page Petit Creek Lavender 

or

 Instagram @sunflowr

Pig

Bruce

Juliana Pig

Pink Pig black spots

Last weekend when we went to pick up our sheep from the from the farm and I was given a pig. He was a pig the farmer had sold but ended up finding his way back to her in October 2017. The farmer was hesitant to find him a new home and then she offered him to me.

I was with my husband who really is not a farmer, so I was not sure how a pig added to the sheep and goats was going to go over. I also new we needed to be able to unload him at home without a commotion. We ended putting him in a large dog cage wrapping the cage in plastic to help with the cold. The lambs and miniature goats went into a separate compartment in the trailer and the sheep in the other end.

I was going to name the new pig Valentino and give him to my husband for Valentines but that did not go over to well. I got a nice No thank you 😊

 So, his name is Bruce.

 Oh, my goodness you guys you must see this pig he is so sweet, so cute, so happy and I am totally head over heals in love with this little guy.

 He is having trouble fitting in I have three of these type of pigs

 ~ Luna ~ bumble bee~ Bruce~

Bruce wants to be pet, cuddled and love.

 Bruce wants to eat.

Bruce want to make up his bed all the time. When I take new hay into the pen he grabs a mouthful and runs behind me as fast as his little legs can go.

He seriously is full of love.

Everyone should have a Bruce

Holy Moly it has been busy. Time sure has a way of getting on.

We did go on our road trip to pick up our sheep and goats.

 We left home at nine am had a stop in town, fueled up and then our truck smelled hot. Allan could not figure it out all tires were cool on both truck and trailer. This made us stop four times until it settled. Once we got started again it was good until the trailer hit a patch of ice well that was scary. I hate having to pull a trailer in the winter.

After our bit of a commotion to start with the day went smooth and highways are always better when we get away from the Merritt area. It was a sunny, crisp, clear day.

 We always stop at Tim Hortens for coffee which makes for a fun trip.

We had a lovely visit at the farm and it was nice to meet in person. We had only been FB friends I had met her husband a time or two when he delivered me very cute animals in his big highway rig. The thought of little pigs cruising down the highway in his truck always made me smile.

When we arrived home the boys helped us unload it was really smooth unloading. 

The animals are all very tame and seem to have settle in quite nicely 

The pig is a Julianna he was so not in the plan, but I am pretty sure he is the best part.

 He is so lovable ~ oh my goodness you seriously just want to kiss him. Who knew my pigs were going to be pissy? I had to stand in the pen and watch Bruce (new guy) eat so Luna and Bumble bee would let him eat.

Since last night we have had three new lambs and that brings up the sheep count to thirty-two.

 I have not been writing the blog as I am having computer issues ~ new computer is still not working right.

 Ahh I am so over it. 

It is going back to Kamloops again tomorrow and this computer is unpredictable that was the reason for the new computer.

I do not have any new pictures to put on the blog but if you go to the Sunflower farm FB page you can see pictures there. 

Yesterday I started raking pine needles in the garden in the parts where there is no ice or snow. I have seen way worse pine needles over the years but man oh man is there a lot of cleaning to be done. We are in the craziest weather pattern we go from six above to minus six to rain then onto a full-blown snowstorm. Then it finds sunshine.

 Now we are down to minus ten this morning.

On Saturday we are heading out to get our first load of sheep so here’s to fingers crossed for good traveling with a trailer. I wish I could wave a magic wand and they were delivered here. It is so hard for us to plan and organize a trip with Allan’s work schedule and I just can’t pull off driving a truck and trailer.

 Winter just adds on hard work.

If all goes as planned we will be picking up fourteen ewes, five lambs, one bottle ram, one Nigerian doe and kid, and four quail. There are eleven ewes still to lamb between the end of February through to May. I hope they wait until it warms up.

This will be one crazy week. 

It started yesterday with the new computer finally back home again we set it up and it was a no go :( 

The main program would not work ahh it was so frustrating who has time for this. So, I phoned the store where we bought and after talking with them I set up online to talk to a support group. Well from three in the afternoon until nine pm I was on the computer ~ seriously damn I need a support group now ~ I had to sit right here and deal with it.

 Oh, my was I over it

 However, it is working right now so fingers crossed it is all worked out.

Tomorrow we must go with our daughter to have her tonsils out. I sure hope it goes smooth and is no big deal for her. We have to stay with her for twenty-four hours and no more than twenty minutes from the hospital. Then we will have her with us at home for a few days until she feels good.

 I’m so not good with this stuff, I am making Allan come with for morale support.

We will leave Dalton in charge with the chores and fire so hopefully it won’t be too cold.

Then this same week my Dad starts a new treatment

 ~ so Hell Yah for stress around the farm.

The Alpaca is now separated, and he is okay with it. I do hope he settles and just wants to hang out with the rest of the animals. It would make it much nicer around here.

Well I will be off to pack an over night bag and get things organized.

 I hope you have a great week

The new computer is back.

 We bought a new computer for Christmas nothing too fancy as we don’t do anything to clever on it. My only request is a desk top. I need to have the big screen to work with. The only things we really wanted was a place to do our pictures, word, iTunes and social media. We bought the week of Christmas paid to have it set up and some files transferred over and then put it under the tree. I set it up the last week of December had it up for two days still setting it for us to use with emails etc. Then I left for Fernie came back in January. Turned the computer back on and every so often it would shut down for no reason then it made a high pitch squeal/scream. It was a good thing my husband home he filmed the noise. So, we packed it up took it back. We always buy the extra warranty for our computers and we have needed it every time. This fix up took three weeks we went to Kamloops to pick it up and now we will try it again. The store we bought it from was very good but, yet it is still annoying to have to deal with this and go to Kamloops every time.

This is being typed on the new computer so no pictures for the blog today as I do not have any on here yet. 

Today I am hoping we can build a gate, so we can separate the Alpaca. He is quite aggressive and when I must work with the goats he gets mean and antsy. It is cool to see actually amazing protection but unfortunately, I think he could seriously hurt us. Yesterday he and I had a go around of teeth, spitting climbing have way over the gate trying to get at me. There was no reasoning with him. I thought of maybe finding another female not a male even though he is castrated he doesn’t know it. He tries to breed everything and fight.

Good think he has nice fibre.

Everything here is under snow and solid ice so not too sure if we can even fix the gate until we thaw a bit.

Today we woke up to a bit more snow and -6

Exciting times.

Our first sheep are in the plans! We have made some plans with the farm where they are coming from and a date for pick up is being scheduled. Pretty this much depends on my husband because he must drive ~ it will be this month.

Then it will be making plans with the second farm and this will be done once lambing has started. These ewes will with fibre in mind. It will be nice to have our own fibre again as it is quite costly purchasing fleece for a project.

I do not think I am ready for night time barn checks I can really do without that. Man, sometimes I am so tired and cold walking across the yard in the middle of the night. I can actually feel sorry for myself.

I must do a bit work to get ready for more sheep. The girls I have now are pretty content, they do their own thing. Plus, my Ram is very sweet in an asshole kind of way. Yesterday he flew around the feeder to get my son. And, when I do separate him it will have to be a steal fence. Yah he’s that kind of guy.

 A larger herd will definitely take some creative thinking on how to feed the hay for the rest of winter.

Today we warmed up to five above, sunny and blue skies.

Icy farming, it is so slippery it’s crazy. As long, as we don’t go down it should be all fine.

 This morning the barn yard was on alert.

The Alpaca was literally screaming I have never heard this from him before. The alert signal for us is usually a nice whistle but not this morning. This in turn triggers off the dogs whom I had not let off yet for the day. Usually first thing dogs are off for the day doing their dog things checking everything they missed in the night.

We are having a hell of a time keeping the neighborhood dogs off our property. We are fenced pretty good but there seems to be two that are relentless. I do not want our dogs mixing ~ no neighborhood friendships, our dogs do not even need to know they have friends in the hood. It is a constant fence walk. I know it can be hard to keep it under control but man some days.I know it's hard because I have to keep ours home too.

It will be all okay as long as nothing touches the sheep.

 Poor Ewes seriously are sitting ducks out there between dogs and coyotes it is crazy. If it is a cougar game over, we have little control they always seem to win.

 It is the same with bears it is hard to keep them out if they want in.

February is going to be a busy month between dentist appointments and doctor visit for on of the kids. Calendar is filling I am sharing a vehicle with one of my daughters right now, so everything must be written so we don’t overlap who needs the truck.

March will be here so quickly and then it is Spring clean up time. I sure do hope it is clean under all this ice and snow.