Brown Sheep, Brown Sheep

I love this profile of Cora I took one evening. The other brown sheep just behind her doesn't have a name but she's another one of my favorite mamas. She never runs away when I'm taking a photo of her. They almost resemble horses leaving the starting gate, don't they?

The mayhem of January lambing has passed and the lambs are growing like crazy. Late in the month, this brown ewe had a lovely set of black lambs. They are both girls and we'll be keeping them for replacement ewes. They are so sweet with their blazes on their faces.

How do you get a black lamb, you may wonder? There are no guarantees when breeding for color. We have several black ewes but they don't always have black babies. A couple years ago, we used a black ram and we had lots of black babies - many spotted and looking a lot like Holstein cows. He had a foot rot problem though as did many of his progeny so we chose to not use him for breeding anymore.

This year we used only white rams and so most of the babies are white or touched with brown and black on their ears and legs. It makes these 3 little lambs more special with their beautiful markings.


Black lambs don't stay black for long. The sun fades their coats and they start looking brown. As the sheep ages, their coat is mostly grey although the outside of the coat always looks brown because of the sun bleaching the fibers. Some stay black or dark longer than others - just like people's hair.

The title of my post couldn't help but remind me of the great children's book "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?" by Bill Martin Jr. and illustrated by Eric Carle. We don't live far from The Eric Carle Museum in Amherst and so over February school vacation Julia and I visited it a couple times. What a great place to take children of all ages. The galleries are manageable in size and keep kids attention while also being interesting for adults. There is an art room where there are alway special art activities for children and their grown-ups.

It is the 40th Anniversary of "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" and Eric Carle's 80th Birthday year. Wow! In one of the galleries, they have displayed the original artwork from that great book along with early prototypes before "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" became "TVHC." It is fascinating to see the progression of that famous book and learn about its development. There is a great video produced by a Rawn Fulton, a local film-maker that is also shown in the main gallery. I highly suggest a visit if you are nearby.

Wouldn't it be a great idea for a children's library to throw The Very Hungry Caterpillar a party? I'll have to suggest it to our local library......