I never tire of the changing patterns of sky and cloud that our spot between the mountains gives us. Here is a picture from last month and a few lines from the poet Joseph Brodsky that explain as well as any why I am a cloud watcher:

It's you who let
me with your nimbus
trust not in numbers
but in the complete

spurning of weights
and measures in favor
--once and forever--
of phantoms and grace.

From "Clouds" Collected Poems in English

Sunset on February 9 (Ash Wednesday on the Western Calendar)

Our friends the Hansons recently traveled to Colonial Williamsburg and came back with a gift for us; a pamphlet by written by Mr. John Wiley of Caroline County and originally published at the time of the Stamp Act. It is a lovely little thing, printed on a replica of an eighteenth century letterpress and bound in authentic style. Here is the opening line:

Though Sheep are the moft beneficial Creatures we can raife, they affording us both Food and Raiment, yet there is no dumb Creature taken fo little Notice of in Virginia as they . . .

Can't say things have changed much in the last two centuries. Here's to John Wiley, entrepreneur, agrarian and fellow struggler in the pasture of life.

This following was posted as a comment to one of my llama pictures. Since there is so little literature out there celebrating that noble creature, I thought I would move it up here as a post for all to share. Thanks to Jeff Beranek, who by the way, is also responsible for the concluding pun.

The Lama, by Ogden Nash

The one-l lama,
He's a priest.
The two-l llama,
He's a beast.
And I will bet
A silk pajama
There isn't any
Three-l lllama.*

*The author's attention has been called to a type of conflagration known as a three-alarmer.

Update: Jeff informs me that Nash himself is the responsible punster, but I think we can still hold him liable for "re-gifting" it to the rest of us.

Hogback Mountain on Sunday afternoon. It was a pleasantly warm day, with the last of the snow around the barn melting away. Just a few hundred feet higher, proof that winter is still with us.

Waiting . . .

Older son with llamas. Seems like only yesterday they towered over him.

Suppertime!

Another backdated post. I meant to put this up yesterday evening, but was too tired to write. There were two reasons. The first is that I have been generally feeling run down lately. The second is that, after 11 years of near misses, I finally hit my first deer on the six miles of winding unlit black asphalt I drive home on every night. I am fine, the deer is not and there was a split decision on the pick-up. It is still quite drivable, but will need a new headlight and left front fender as well as some dents hammered out of the hood. Over the years I have gotten pretty good at avoiding the elegant and suicidal creatures. Friday evening however, three ran out onto the road. I braked for the first, swerved for the second and nailed the third one squarely, having run out of both luck and tricks.

Twin lambs.

Unexpected snow today. Snowflakes lit up like fireflies by the flash as the rams eat dinner.

I have been needing to do some sorting and cleaning on the list of links over to the right. There are sites I have been meaning to add for a while. Some other sites are no longer active for a variety of reasons. One of the sadder losses came in November when Gerard, the proprietor of A Catholic Blog for Lovers died suddenly. Gerard visited us here on our Hillside several years ago, and we had always expected a return visit some day. On a happier note, Karl is taking a sabbatical from his St. Stephen's Musings blog to devote time to his new daughter. Be sure to page down and read his story of her rather dramatic entry into the world. I will be checking my referral logs and trying to link folks who have been kind enough to link me. If you have, and don't see a reciprocal link in the next week or so, don't be shy, leave a comment and I will add you in!

I am making an early night of it, so I simply leave you with a picture of one of rams, wondering if some of the grain in that sack will find its way to him.

Rough day on the farm; stillborn lambs, truck sliding off the ice-covered driveway into a ditch. On a day like this it is easy to wish you were someplace else. I think back to this time a year ago when the family was getting ready for a grand adventure in the Hawaiian Islands. It is tempting to daydream yourself back there. I have some beautiful photos from that trip, but thought this one was a good reminder that, even in paradise, nature doesn't always cooperate and, just maybe, I should view our bit of ice and snow with a little more perspective.

Here is the lost lamb from yesterday together with his twin.

After the snows.

Breakfast? We've been waiting . . .

Sunday morning.

This little fellow was born sometime this morning and could not find his mother. He walked up to every ewe in the field like the little bird in P.D. Eastman's Are You My Mother, with no success. Convinced that he had been born to a ewe who had abandoned him, I decided to take him up to the house and start feeding him as an orphan. He was bleating as I carried him through the barn and much to our surprise, a ewe I had placed in a pen with another new lamb bleated back. Turned out our "orphan" had snuck through a gate into another part of the barn, and then out into the big world, while his twin sister was being born. Mother, son and sibling were happily reunited.

Two new lambs today, one didn't make it. I keep thinking that part will get easier with time, but it doesn't seem to. I brought the one up to the house, chilled and dehydrated. She was failing as I carried her, but we tried anyhow. She stayed with us most of the way as we worked on her, then she simply wasn't there anymore. Not a great way to end the day.