Andrew Acomb

Puffin is the name of the mother in this photo. Unfortunately she has only has one working nipple, but she still manages to feed all three of her wonderful children. What a hard working mom!

The young lamb in the very front is named  Andrew. What he’s wearing is the sleeve of an actual sweater. The part where your hand usually goes is where the head of the lamb comes out. Two holes were cut in the sleeve for the two front legs. Keeps the young lambs warm and manages to make them even more adorable!

Jennifer and I went back to visit the newly born lambs at Solstice Farm Bed and Breakfast with our friends Misty, John and Christopher.

I know it’s only been a week, but those little lambs are growing up so very fast! They were romping around all over the field!

In these photos you see Linda holding a cute little lamb. The lamb tries sucking on Christopher’s thumb for some milk.

Okay, I admit it. I let the lamb suck my thumb too!

For the Spring Equinox, Jennifer and I visited Jim and Linda at Solstice Farm Bed and Breakfast. We wanted to see some of the brand new lambs that started to be born earlier that week. All the lambs we saw that day were less than 24 hours old! They were all so very cute!

That’s Linda feeding one of the lambs some colostrum she had thawed out. Colostrum is the super nutrient rich milk that the mother produces usually only a day or so after giving birth. Linda collects some whenever possible and freezes it just in case a mother doesn’t take to all her children at first.

So with Linda’s tender loving care, I think this cute little lamb is going to be just fine!

Yesterday, I went to back Graysmarsh Farm to pick more loganberries and blueberries. On the edges of the field I could see beehives. Even though I was many yards away, I could still hear the buzzing sounds coming from them.

So I decided to take a break from picking berries and wander over to one of the beehives. I walked slowly and sat down right next to it. The bees were flying and buzzing all around me!

During the Lavender Festival in Sequim, Washington, Jennifer and I stopped at the Olympic Lavender Farm. One of the first things that caught my eye was the cute llamas. We arrived just as they were feeding them.

These llamas are actually guard llamas. The farmers use them to help protect their sheep from predators. Now they can’t fight off a pack of coyotes, but they can alert the sheep to a predator in the area. Wikipedia cites acouple of studies on these guard llamas.

Most research on the effectiveness of guard llamas has been done with sheep. A 1990 study by Iowa State University found that 80 percent of sheep producers with guard llamas rated them as effective or very effective. The study found that average rates of loss to predators fell from 21 to 7 percent after the introduction of a guard llama. In other studies, over half of guard llamas completely eliminated losses due to predators.

Interesting way to protect a farmer’s sheep.