Gertrude the Sheep 🐑

Happy Saturday friends!

One morning this week I woke up from a dream where a favorite sheep I used to have gave birth to a black and white baby goat and then eventually that mama sheep turned into a human who was talking to me and telling me her baby goat’s name LOL

And I don’t even drink so who knows where that all came from.

My favorite sheep was given to me by my friend Laura. I bought a set of four ewes (girls) from her and she threw in a fifth because she was a pain in the ass to her working Border Collies. I wasn’t going to be working the sheep with dogs, so this sheep could come retire at my house and stop trying to head butt her dogs.

In Colorado, you could get a major tax break on your property if you had a business of buying and selling livestock, or even renting your land to someone else for them to do it. So, we bought our sheep from Laura with the intention of selling lamb. 

If you don’t eat meat, just skip to the next paragraph! Before you freak out about anyone killing a lamb to eat, “lamb” is any sheep under a year. No one would make any money selling a baby lamb because, to put it bluntly, there isn’t enough meat on a baby. Our lamb went to the “processor” (butcher) at around 8-10 months old, when they had reached about 100 pounds.

But back to the ewes. They arrived all skittish and squirrelly and uninterested in being friends, changing farms is hard. The first one to make friends was this slightly older sheep that Laura had thrown in. Her ear tag was orange, so Laura had always called her Orange Tag. One day, I was sitting out in the temporary springtime pasture with them to get them used to me, and Orange Tag came up and plopped herself down next to me:

I talked to her for a while and then wondered if she would talk back. I told her that Laura had always called her Orange Tag but I wondered if she had a name?

Immediately I heard, “Gertrude.”

I laughed a little, “Your name is Gertrude??”

And like the queen she ended up being, she said very calmly and regally, “It’s Gertrude Orange Tag.”

From that point on, we were friends.

I think the dream came about because just before the content mitigation company started to pack up the bonus room, I was in there, making sure certain things were put into the under eaves storage areas. I ran across a ziplock sandwich baggie with Gertrude Orange Tag’s wool “wings.” Our sheep were Dorpers, a breed that loses it’s wool in the spring. Usually. Mostly. They would rub under the pines and leave the lower branches laced with their wool:

Wool is surprisingly sticky and would take forever to blow away:

But even when fully shed out, Gertrude Orange Tag would always have two little tufts of wool on each shoulder blade. It was so cute. I took to calling them her angel wings. When she passed away, I took a little bit from her angel wings to remember her by and that was what I found in the bonus room. They are now in a special old jewelry box that holds memories like tufts of dog hair tied with a ribbon, ManChild’s baby teeth, puppy teeth from my Border Collies through the years, a dred loc from when ManChild went through that phase at 14, lots of memories in that box!

•••
Blu is taking a turn for the better finally. No, he wasn’t physically sick but I think maybe he was heart sick. He's branching out in his friendships, with the others and with us humans:

When I got him, he was back in a safe place but had had a couple of instances prior where he was starved and hurt. When Tori first introduced me to him, he was sweet, curious, very exploratory with his mouth (but not nippy.) Ever since he arrived though, he’s been more pushy and nippy. Jaffee was this way too (and he came from a happy home.) It’s hard coping with so much change. 

This week though, yippee!, Blu came over to say hi but instead of his usual drive by, he just stood there. I knelt on the ground and held out my hand to him, he explored it with his lips and then licked my palm. I praised him for it. He did it a few more times and then brushed his lips across my palm, good boy! I told him how fragile we humans are and even little horses are stronger and thicker skinned and he had to be so gentle with us. He lifted his head and pressed his muzzle against my cheek, nuzzled my hair, and then another “kiss” on the cheek. I was watching his eyes and they were all half mast, a sure sign they are in the love zone :-)

Afterwards I spent one on one time with Tori in the coaching barn. The other horses never let her anywhere near me so I have to close us into an area to get some time alone. I sat quietly with her for a while, pulling wads of hay through her hay net so she could reach them more easily and then she had a lot of words. She told me the reason she brought Blu with her (remember I was only buying Tori but she introduced me to Blu at the last minute) was so that he could heal and that it’s really important to her. She said she didn’t mind giving up time or being moved away—that’s how important it is to her. What a sweetheart!

Tori's footprint in the sand, I think it says everything about her:

•••

I couldn't figure out why my back was bothering while sweeping out the goat barn every morning. Then I realized that my broom was pretty much worn to a nubbin and I was having to bend over slightly to sweep. Made me laugh to see them side by side!:

•••

COMMUNITY GARDEN NEWS:

We got together last Sunday and made the decision to make one big garden that we all share. I was pleasantly surprised that we all had the same goals: friends, creating, food—in that order. Lovely!

We meet again this Sunday, March 23, at 2pm again for more discussion. If you'd like to come, call/text me at 720-635-7015 and I'll give you directions! We'll be talking fencing, animal proofing the garden, what to plant, budget.

•••

B-Rad has been working on tearing out the drop down ceiling in the bonus room so he can install sheetrock:

The mitigation cleaning crew has been in all week. They ripped out the carpet upstairs and the two rooms it was in downstairs, wiped down the walls with their special sponges, and are now working on wiping them all down with soapy water. The house smells clean! Just a few whiffs of smoke here and there, but almost all gone.

Our mitigation general contractor brought 2 different paint companies and 2 flooring companies to get estimates. He won't have anyone start work until the windows get here in 6-8 weeks (at least it's not 8-10 weeks like we were first quoted) and we are only one week in on that wait. And then it will take about a month for the work to be done. Ugh. So we are at least 2.5 months out before we can move back in, with 3 months being a real possibility.

B-Rad and I have been talking paint for a week. We had about 40 swatches on the walls and narrowed it down to these:

The ones I was considering for the main part of the house are on the upper right. The ones he was considering for his bedroom are at the bottom.

He has since chosen the green (second to bottom):

And I am thisclose to choosing the yellow for the main part of the house:

But I'd love to see it with the flooring first. We have a ton of white trim and built-ins in our house and the main area has a vaulted ceiling up into the loft, so a lot of white ceiling too. Brad thinks the yellow will be too overwhelming but I think maybe not...

Lots of options for floor color. I would consider going darker but even with all the windows, our house is too dark in the summer with the woods out back and the big trees in the front, so I'm considering the lighter options. Leaning toward the Neutral.

What would you guys do and why?

THE MEMES:

👆🏽I love this one👆🏽, because that's the work I do with clients here at the farm, help them return to themselves:

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