Fall ewe flock

These two ewes were ones from a lamb crop two springs ago. We had sold them to an Amish friend and had no plans of buying them back but...... our friends moved and weren't taking their sheep and we lost a 2 year old mule ewe last month to plant poisoning. A tomato plant had sprouted in the compost pile next to the pasture and when we noticed a problem it was too late. These ewes are out of our last texel ram and BFL/dorset cross ewes. that brings our total to 5 ewes which is plenty for our small farm.

The BFL is very obvious in the face and clean necks and bellies. The texel is also obvious in the hind end. They are nice ewes. They will be bred to our yearling texel ram, Elliot.

St. Johns Wort

Last week as I was taking a walk with my dogs, and I sometimes like to venture off the path, when  I came upon a bunch of St. Johns wort plants growing in a field. This is the first time I have found this herb and was very excited. I picked some and brought them home to use the flowers for an herbal oil used on sore muscles.

Here is a close up of the flowers.

This is the finished oil. I filled a pint jar 1/3 full of flowers and then poured olive oil over the flowers to 2/3 full. I placed the covered jar in a crock with water in it and heated on low overnight. You can see how the flowers turned the oil a red color. I strained the flowers out after it cooled and now I have a good oil to rub on sore muscles or in this case my husbands sciatica.