Sheep 'R' By The Dozen

Sorry for the lack of pictures, I am not sure what to post as far as pictures go, either way I hope you enjoy the read.

So there has not been an update in quite some time, and while I apologize for that, there was a lot going on. Some stuff that I wanted to write about got side lined because of life circumstances. You see, in around August the company I was working for announced that they were closing the office in California. This came as a shock to all in the office as all we had been hearing about was record growth, and how much work needed to be done. As I am sure you can imagine it put a pause on many things. You may say something like, “Why are you just telling us about this now?” or “Well if you did not have a job it sounds like you had plenty of time to write blogs” or perhaps you are more like “Who are you, and how did I even get to this blog?”. While I cannot answer that third question, that is between you and the links you click on, the first is pretty easy to answer, in short, I was not letting everyone in my life know about the change in employment, and I wanted to wait until they all knew before telling them in this manner. Why did I not blog while I had time in abundance? Well, that I do not have a very good answer for, I was not sure what to write about, my thoughts and emotions were all over the place. But let us back up and start from a point worth starting from.

Have you ever gotten a flat on the freeway, or run out of gas and had to pull the car over and walk to a place you could get the assistance you needed? You might say, “Well if it was a flat I would just change the tire.”, and to that I would say “Certainly” but that does not really work with our analogy, so for the sake of writing, assume this was your spare.  That is how life was going for my family and I, we were doing well, cruising along in life and then suddenly, the tire blew, and as we pulled over the tank ran out of gas. Poor planning on my part, sure I can accept that.  Others may suggest something like “Where is your God now?” or some other callous statement. In short I can safely say that my God, my King is still in control of all things (more on this later). In the moment, things can seem a bit hopeless, you are on the highway of life and you are not sure where a gas station is at, you have no cell reception to call anyone, and you do not see a call box, hope you have good shoes on, because you have to hoof it from here.

Where is your God now? I would refer you to Lamentations 3:22 a poetic book, where God has turned against His rebellious people, and even in the midst of this destruction, we are told that by His mercies we are not consumed.  In the same chapter, we are told in verse 38 “Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that everything comes – calamity and blessing?” Because He is in control, and because He declared this situation to happen as well, I no longer fear what uncertainty may come, as a sister in Christ reminded me in dealing with her own struggles, Job said “Shall we receive good from God and not evil?” However, there have been tremendous blessings in these circumstances as well, even in this trial, judgement, discipline, whatever it may be, God has shown my family love, and mercy, and generosity, and also my brothers and sisters in Christ have given a great out pouring of their own goods in supplying our needs. So to the naysayer I say “God is the good Father, the righteous Judge, and my Provider”.

While I do not claim to know why God has chosen this path for our family, I do know since this event my wife and I have gotten deeper into His word. I used to worry so much that if I lost my job at any point in time we would not be able to provide for our family beyond the bills we already had paid for that month. It has been three months since my job was taken, and we have not been at a loss for anything. So, while I have not been able to get a new job, all of our needs have been met, and we have had want for nothing. In addition to all of this, my wife and I were talking about trying to have another child before we found out about my job situation, test after test came back negative, and once we got the news we stopped trying, but then shortly thereafter we found that my wife was with child, I do not say this in terms of the Oh-no!-What-will-we-do kind of panic, but that we were being blessed with another child, and all the while God was planning on providing, as He has from the start until now.

Over and over in scripture we are told not to fear, or that God is in control, and while I happily could parrot those words, I do not know that I really believed them. I mean sure, He is in control when it comes to the cosmos, or keeping creation together, but my trust for provisions for my family was something I arrogantly put into my abilities. I was trusting in the promises brought about by money, and not realizing that the whole time that my trust should have been in God and all His provisions, and that all I had to begin with was from Him. To be clear, I was not in love with money, I just trusted that as long as the money was coming in from my job, we would be taken care of. God has used these circumstances to show me that it was not money providing for my family, but He that provided for all of our needs, and blessed us with abundance.  I will end this by saying that while our struggles do not compare with those around the world suffering for the name of our King, He is good, and has not forsaken us even in the smallest of things.

I would like to apologize for taking so long to get to this blog post. It turns out that life involves other things too. In addition to other things the last time I tried to write this blog I just was not able to really feel what I was writing, I figured I could just come home Thursday night, jot some stuff down, have my wife proof read it, and slap it on the site. Turns out she gets tired just because she has been up all day raising six kids, keeping house, and “purdifying” herself for me.
What has been happening around here should be enough to fill up a few blog posts, but I must remind myself to be patient about all the news, and pace my stories. So first up on the table for discussion, and by discussion, I mean that I will type, and you will read it, but you know… like later after I have finished it and posted it, not right now because most of it is still missing. Therefore, I guess I really mean nothing like a discussion, but it is the topic that is on the table; well it is not really a table either, you see…oh, right… focus, sorry about that. Moving on.
Have you ever gone a long time without getting a haircut? I guess it does not matter if you do not get them often to begin with, but you see sheep, they do not really grow hair, at least not mine, they grow wool. Now wool does not come in only one type, there is a plethora of types of wool. We have two different types of sheep, we have the Babydoll Southdown, and we have the Finnsheep, both of them have different wool, the Babydoll, while softer is much shorter, and frankly harder to work with. The Finnsheep have much longer wool, but not as soft. We use to have a person come out and sheer our sheep for us, which was done very quickly and professionally, and was actually sheering. Well the problem with that is that it was not cheap, so I figured I would try my hand at it. However, what I do is not sheering, in fact it is just clipping, as I am using clippers. Sheering involves using a rather scary looking tool that I do not have the courage to use yet, but some day perhaps, but I digress, so while I am clipping my sheep, I cannot title the blog post clipping excitement. Though I supposed I could have used a play on words with clipping or a substitution for flipping, but none of those really came to mind until now, and that ship has sailed.
All this build up to say that I have successfully, or not, depending on your perspective (from my point of view, or the sheep’s) sheered all but three of my sheep, and I have plans to sheer them soon. As I was writing this I remembered of the part of Scripture where Judah’s wife dies, and then he gets comforted, and decides to go sheer some sheep, this is puzzling to me. In case you did not know, let me tell you, they did not have electricity or electric sheers, though now that I think about it, even if he did have one, he would not have had the other, and so it still would not work well. They did all this with hand sheers, which are BIG scissors that are used for cutting wool. Some sheep may be okay with the whole being sheered thing, but the majority of the ones I have seen (especially the young ones) are clearly not fans of this process. I cannot see this as something I would want to do while mourning my wife.
You may be wondering what it is like to sheer a sheep, and honestly I am not sure, what I did was more like a combination of a hair cutting judo competition, and I mean that. I watched video after video getting my idea of how this was going to go down. Then I go out, pick a sheep to sheer, and they run, they do not want to sit, they do not want to stay, and did I mention they are heavy?! I was actually using some of the techniques I have learned in my Judo classes to make these sheep submit. After most of them have been sheered, I read something on the sheering guide. Apparently, you should wash the sheep before trying to sheer them, because it makes it easier. So I build a stand to wash them, which was more like the stocks, and so I have them in there, I wash them, and I let them dry (to my amazement they do not shrink in the heat). I then sheer them a bit later and it is amazingly easier, but no less Judo was required.
Sheep are supposed to be sheered, not counting the ones that shed their wool, but for the large part of sheep out there, they need to be sheered. This is not something that you can really forgo, if you do not sheer a sheep their wool will continue to grow. It can become heavy, and hot, and gather a great many bits of things in it, fox tails for example that could actually hurt them and it is itchy. The analogy is not perfect here, but here it is, Christians are like sheep, the bible says that we are His flock, and that He is the Good Shepherd. A good shepherd protects his flock, takes care of them in many ways; one of those ways includes sheering them. They do not like it, but it is for their own good. It does not kill them, as some who like to vocalize their ignorance will tell you. Sometimes you need to be sheered, and you will fight the sheerer, but God, being a greater shepherd than I am, loves His flock, and does what is best for them, but we are the dumb animal that does not comprehend.
When Jesus was brought before his accusers, He was silent. Isaiah 53 tells us that like a sheep before the sheerer is silent, He never spoke a word. Our God, and our King, guiltless, blameless said nothing. The sheep is silent during the sheering and lets it happen, as He did some two thousand years ago. For our sake, He had to let this happen, it was just another part of His plan to redeem what was His.

In life there are actions, and reactions, cause, and effect, and the like. What you do has consequences, we sometimes call these ramifications, but that is not really what I am talking about, just needed a clever title to emphasize the amount of rams we have had on the farm lately. You see, sheep are a herd animal and you can have one ram to like 30 sheep. Well thanks to the game of binary gender when you have lambs they are either boys or girls, they do not get to decide later in life, nor do they really care, or if they do, they show no sign of it. That being said, we were given two rams from our Finnsheep Minnie, of the whitish variety, and then her sister not to be out done gave us 3 more black rams, but unfortunately one of them did not make it. So now we have a ratio of 12 rams to 11 ewes. I would say that this does not bode well, but they are all a blessing. We can turn these rams in wethers, and then they will be great company for our other males until they are sold, but in addition to this, their wool will be more abundant as they will not be putting all that energy into other things.

We have not named any of the lambs yet, but here are some pictures of the most recent two.

We are still expecting to get some nice lambs from one of our babydolls Marilyn, however, she is keeping them tucked inside for now. Though her milk bag is getting YEWG(Huge for those who don’t speak President Trump), which is a good sign that she is getting close to releasing the hostages. Our humble farm is slowly becoming a real life working farm, and God willing we will continue to put our efforts in making it a good home for our children and our animals. Of course, if you want to save these Finns from losing their um… male bits, they are for sale. We will be selling them for 400 each, as they are register able rams.

As I mentioned in the previous post we have been blessed with the fields next to us that our sheep can wander in and have all the grass they can manage to chew in a day’s time. Well it is getting to be that time of year where things that are not watered constantly begin to dry up and die and turn into a fire hazard, so the person who owns the field is doing the weed abatement thing, but says that our sheep can still roam up there after all is said and done.

So while we will be losing the food supply for a short amount of time, it is for the best as the dead grass is really not nutritious for them anyway. However, as a repayment to Blaze for letting us, wait for it… ewes…. the land, this coming year he should not have to worry about paying for the weed abatement as they should do a good job on keeping up with the newer stuff that grows. They were at a slight disadvantage this year as it had become so overgrown and they couldn’t graze it until far too late in the season.

This situation has revealed a great amount of selfishness and entitlement in me though. I was frustrated that we had been given all rams, instead of being grateful for all that our Lord and King has provided for us. I have been bitter because the blessing I was given was not the blessing that I wanted. Not even a serious issue like Paul who had some sort of actual problem he was dealing with, asked God 3 times to remove it from him, and God responds with “My grace is sufficient for you”. One of the apostles, counting all as rubbish for the sake of the Lord, and here I am disheartened because I have been given more than I need. Instead I should be called to praising the Father who provides, and asking that He remember our brothers and sisters around the world who are in fact suffering, for His name sake.

It has been roughly 3 months since our last post about life here on the farm, and in that time much has happened. We have had our ups and downs, our struggles and our victories. However, we have also had new blood here on the farm, both figuratively and literally.

Let us go back to the start of the year. Recently someone purchased the land next to us where there is a LOT Of overgrown vegetation. We have been given permission to take all the weeds that we want from up there to feed our sheep with the promise that once it is gated off from the surrounding area we can then let our sheep roam up there all the day long and eat to their hearts content. So we are allowing all of our females up there(11 currently) to go up and clean the lot for the new owner. This is a tremendous blessing, as it has reduced our feed bill huge amounts and lets our sheep really travel and burn off all that um… *gulp* “delicious” grass stuff calories. To facilitate this better we have taken the ewes out of their pens with the respective mates, and brought them out to the area where we have many of our fruit trees and vines. They promptly went to work and ate all the vegetation on the ground and cleared that area along with some of the bark from out trees. We have since fixed this problem but some of the damage was already done. Have I mentioned before that we are learning on the go?

Meet Ender:

 

 

he is lively, super happy to see just about anyone, mail lady excluded, and overall a great dog. He is normally our front yard dog, but we will on occasion take him out to the back lot to help round up the chickens which he does faster than I can even begin to start getting one herded to where they belong. However, recently we had a visitor come over and they did not close the gate behind them, so Ender thinking he had free reign of the land went out the gate, but there were not any chickens to herd, no, only the females we have been letting roam around. So he chased them all around freaking out our sheep, and even biting one of them in an attempt to control them I guess. We got him back in the yard, and everything was fine up until about 2 weeks ago when he got out again, same method of the gate being left open, this time he actually got a hold of one of the Ewe’s legs and tore a good portion of skin off of it, we have been keeping it bandaged and cleaning it, she is no longer limping on it and is able to get around and eat again, but we were very concerned for her for a while as she is one of our pregnant ewes.

As of last Monday we got a set of clipping shears so that I can shear our sheep. I have used these a little bit already to clear the back ends of some of our expecting ewe’s. Problem is that I am not even an amateur at this, I am a complete cotton headed ninny muggins. One of our sheep is showing pretty much one cheek, while another looks like she has coat tails. I figure with time I can get better at this, and save myself some money and turn it into a great homeschooling lesson for the kids. I will be taking pictures of the sheep once sheared for my records or just a good story.

Now for the good news, we just had our first set of Spring lambs(pictured below). They look more like their father Frank, and follow in suit as they are twin males. Minnie, their mother, is already taking to their needs and treating them with all the love a lamb can get. I love observing little lambs and thinking about how our Lord Christ is compared to a Lamb.

 

 

Personally before I owned any sheep, I mistakenly thought of the expression more as Jesus is a sheep, gentle and all, but not really lamb like. Let me explain, a sheep, while being a prey animal is still capable of mauling more than just grass, in particular a full grown ram is rather powerful and not very docile. However, in looking at a lamb, they are gentle because they are not capable of being anything else, they cannot attack, they cannot play viciously, they are gentle, they are fragile, and they are rather loving. Do not get me wrong I am not trying to carry the analogy to its furthest and compare Christ to all these things, He is far from helpless, but the expression of a lamb is used to describe what I believe would be considered by those hearing among the most gentle of animals. Christ as our King is a lamb to those who are His, but He is also compared to a Lion, not only majestic but powerful and terrifying, as our Lord would be to His enemies.

“Muldoon: They show extreme intelligence, even problem-solving intelligence. Especially the big one. We bred eight originally, but when she came in, she took over the pride and killed all but two of the others. That one… when she looks at you, you can see she’s working things out. That’s why we have to feed them like this. She had them all attacking the fences when the feeders came.
Dr. Ellie Sattler: But the fences are electrified though, right?
Muldoon: That’s right, but they never attack the same place twice. They were testing the fences for weaknesses, systematically. They remember. “

Wait… aren’t we talking about Sheep, why do you have a quote from Jurassic Park in there? Okay, yes we are talking about sheep, or in this case just one, does that make it shep? Anyway, today we bring to you our beloved Eli:

The ram you see before you, much like the raptors likes to test the fences of the cages he is in, to the point that we have considered renaming him to Houdini. He has sneaked under a few different types of fences, and even in one case removed the gate to the cage holding him. It was always “fun” coming out and finding him out and about doing whatever he wanted to do in the chicken pen area. However, enough about his gumption let us get on to features that are more technical. Eli is a NABSAR Registered Black Southdown Baby Doll Ram. He gives a ridiculous amount of wool compared to the other sheep we have. He has his tail, and while I may get disagreement here, I personally like the tail on the sheep. As for our sheep he has sired six lambs, which we have two remaining, both rams.

Being that he is our first ram there was a lot to learn with him, and by the grace and merciful will of God, he is still with us. The reason I have waited so long to post this item is due to having struggled with a way to attempt to glorify God in this post. Eli, while being a great learning sheep for us, has also been a tremendous trial for us in many ways. The constant escapes, and worrying about how much he has consumed that he should not, the always having to watch my back when in his cage and use my most elite of ninja moves to evade him.

Many times, I have thought perhaps I should just stop; maybe this is not for me. I would question why this continues to happen to me. As if I am somehow beyond this minor inconvenience. It is in these moments that I am reminded how patient our creator is with us. How He has not killed me off (“Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not.” Lamentations 3:22), and while I do not know the secret will of the Lord, I was recently reminded by my pastor that we have much freedom in our plans, and God will direct our steps.

 

So I know that I was supposed to update every Friday, and it has been like a month now and there have been some updates lacking… like all of them, and while I made this update in time for Friday, it never got posted. I must admit it is hard to come up with something to write about, while I have many ideas not all of them translate to a good enough bulletin. So let us see what we can come up with as an update.

Now that I am a shepherd of actual sheep, and of my children (to raise them up in the way that they should go), I have gotten to thinking about many of the things that I grew up hearing about animals and the like. Things like farm animals’ smell, and they are so messy, or stories from church that deal with sheep. While some of these things may be true, some are misrepresented or exaggerated. Do my animals smell… of course, they are animals, and they have a scent, but it is not strong unless you are going up to them and going all in for that “what do you smell like?” sensation? Are they messy, sure, they are animals and they are not trying to impress anyone, so they do their business anywhere and are completely okay with that. However, sacrificing truth for the sake of a good story trying to make a point is not acceptable. Have you ever heard your pastor talk about how a good shepherd will sometimes come across a rather stubborn or willful sheep that likes to leave the flock? In order to correct this situation they will find the sheep, and break one of its legs, then they will carry the sheep around everywhere until it heals, once it the sheep is healed, seeing how kind its master was for carrying it, and being there while it healed, would follow it around and love him forever? How nice of the shepherd, how loving they are in carrying around the wounded animal until it healed? That is real love, the sacrifice and strain on the shepherd’s back to nurse the little sheep back to health. Well, the connection is then made that God will do this to us when we are willful, that sometimes He has to break us, then get us to lean on Him until we are better, then we will love Him.

Wait a minute… WHAT DID THAT SHEPHERD DO?!?!?! Ya, you read it right, he BROKE his sheep’s leg. That seems so loving to me. However, you might say, Michael, you do not understand it was an act of love so that the sheep does not do it again. Clearly, the person who came up with this story never had sheep. First off they weigh HUNDREDS of pounds, attempting to carry one around with a broken leg, would break your spine into roughly 84 million dust fragments. Secondly, these “dumb” animals are not going to understand why out of nowhere they are in excruciating pain. They WILL fear you. Think back to the actual stories we have in the bible about the good shepherds, like David, or even Christ himself. David would go out to save his animals from the mouths of lions and tigers and bears… no, no, no, I am not going to say “oh my”, hmm… or maybe I am, but just to say it to let you know that I am not going to say it. I did not recall hearing him breaking any legs. Christ talks about going out to find the lost one, but again no mention of dismemberment. Not to mention that breaking an animals leg especially in that time would probably ruin that whole without spot or blemish thing, and animals don’t deal the same with those kind of things as we do with modern medicine. As I understand it, if certain animals get broken limbs they are no good EVER again. I have not researched it, so I MAY be guilty of what I am ranting about in this article, but people shoot horses if their leg’s get broken, do they not?

This is not to say that God does not correct us when we do wrong, we are in fact His children, if you are truly saved. Scripture tells us that those He loves He chastens. Scripture says that He is Father in Heaven, who is perfect, and parents should correct their children, sometimes with physical discipline, but WHERE do you find in scripture the advocating breaking your children’s limbs?

So remember, my brothers and sisters, when you hear a message there is nothing wrong with accepting it, but then go to the scriptures to see if it is true. Next week we will be starting profiles for out sheep, but not like dating profiles, or profiling which is against the law, but like… talking about our sheep and stuff, like prices and what not. Starting off the list will be Eli our first Ram, and how if the above mentioned story were true, I would have broken at least one of his legs, and my own spine.

First update of the site. Its Friday, Friday, gotta… wait a minute, how much of the song can I quote before it becomes copyright infringement? Well either way it doesn’t matter, we are not talking about Friday, or next Friday, or Friday After Next(not that I have seen any of those, except maybe the first? I don’t remember).

Okay, so rambling over, I bet you are wondering why I have called you all together today. A while back we bought some new sheep from a shepherd in northern California. I took my oldest son with me to go pick them up, and we had a long car ride back with 7 baby sheep in the back of our 95′ GMC Suburban. Not really sure why I am giving you more information than is important or interesting, but its there, and you cannot get it out of your head now. Back to what I was saying, we took these sheep home, 4 white sheep, and 3 black, 5 of them being female, we got a white, and a black ram. They are super cute and still rather small, but at the same time rather skiddish around anything not sheep-like.

We do not have names for any of them just yet, but our Ewes(pictured below) will be ready for breeding in like another year about. 

Then there are the two boys who will need to be taken to the vets to get rid of some of their boy parts.

Along with these new sheep we have the addition of one new goose

And a new two chicks, to be pictured sometime later, probsibly(which is a combination of possibly and probably).

Our site has been on the… lamb, but we have finn..ally got it up and running. Here we will provide updates and other news about the farm, or just random stuff we decide to post up. Thank you for taking the time to visit our page. We will be attempting to release an update every Friday.