Meet Wallace

Wallace

This is Wallace. He is a Southdown wether that has come to live with our flock for the winter. He and his two sisters, Penelope and Fiona, belong to our friend Sally. Since Sally spends her winters in Florida, Wallace and his girls needed a place to hang out, so they were invited to stay here. As I said, Wallace is a wether, which means he has been castrated and cannot breed. He has lived his whole life with his sisters and never seemed too interested in anything aside from eating his hay and grain, roaming about his grassy pastures, and getting lots of back scratches. I’ve known Wallace for quite some time and to me he has always been kind of the lumbering type…a bit of a goof, you might say. Well, when Wallace and the two gals arrived they were kept separate from the big flock on account of our own ram being in with the ewes and Sally not wanting Penelope and Fiona to be bred. Once we moved out the ram…he’s on another farm at the moment…Wallace and his sisters joined our girls. Wallace became a new man. He still remains interested in his dinner and back scratches but he has also become a bit of a stud muffin. Perhaps it was some lingering scent from our Blue Face Leicesters or the fact that technically it was still well within the breeding season. Now old Wallace spends most of his days prancing (well maybe not actually prancing but definitely more than lumbering) behind all of the girls and showing some definite sexual advances, mostly in the way of fleming (a behavior of rolling back their upper lip and pointing their noses in the air.) It’s quite comical actually and a bit like Mr. Ed the talking horse, for those who remember him.

So my guess is that Wallace has no idea that he is not a breeding ram and we are all awaiting the look on his face when the lambs start coming. We are sure that when the first new baby slides into the world, Wallace will have an expression of being both triumphant and a bit puzzled…did I do that? We’ll just let him believe what he wants.

Speaking of lambs, our first ones should be arriving in early March. Always exciting, no matter how many times you’ve experienced lambing season.

Wallace isn’t the only sheep in the flock that loves attention.

The latest storm dumped over 30 inches of snow and it is back to snowing a bit today. After two days of shoveling and clearing out gates and fences, Rick and I took a long snowshoe down to Kingdom pond. It is so nice to make time to get out and enjoy the incredible beauty that surrounds us. We hope everyone is finding time to bring joy to these winter days.