Strawberry Jam Cake, Cookies and Cream, and Peeps

 

I baked a cake!  A strawberry jam cake, with jam in the batter and between the layers.  Three layers!  We had more than one family birthday to celebrate, but we didn't have a big firefly party like memorial weekends of years past.  It was too cold for the pool, but the fireflies showed up to entertain us, and the strawberry cake disapeared.  

The farmer who sold us Pistol Pete, our ram, asked for some photos so he could see his progress.  I thought this photo makes him look strong.  He is strong.  He head-butted me in the backside when I crossed his pasture, and nearly knocked me down!   

I was very offended by this.  It's one thing to accidently get knocked around by a skittish animal, but this was intentional and pre-meditated!  Now I watch my back when I'm in his pasture.  

Brandon bought two new ewes from the sheep farmer.  One of them has pretty brown wool, and I named her Cookies.  The other is a pale creamy color, so she was named Cream.  Cookies and Cream call to Lambchop like she's their mother, but we're keeping them seperate until they settle in and we know they aren't sick. They seem very healthy and energetic.  They are only four months old, and very skittish.  I can sneak a scratch behind their ears while they are eating, but they run when they realize what I'm doing.  I don't know how I'll ever catch them to trim their hooves.

Lambchop's little lambs are growing fast.  She's a good mother too. I think her un-shed wool looks like a rump toupee!  She doesn't like it when I try to pull it off.  The ground all around her barn looked like snow, she shed so much wool.  Just imagine what it will look like when there are five ewes shedding next year! 

The donkeys haven't started their heavy shed yet.  They still have the cute fuze around their faces.  

A box of chicks came through the mail.  Fifteen mixed breed layers, plus ten of the pearl white leghorns, which are small birds and make big white eggs.  Most of these will go to my parents or my boss, but I get to enjoy raising them in my brooder box for their first weeks.  I stored spare hoses in the box over the winter, and when I pulled the hoses out to get ready for the chicks, mice crawled up the hoses and gave me a scare!  Brandon turned the box upside down and stapled wire screen over the bottom, so hopefully the mice will not get back in.  

I really like raising chicks with the artificial hen/warming plate rather than the heat lamp.  The chicks snuggle under it and sleep so quietly, and I don't worry that I'm going to burn the barn down.  

They're so cute!