| Hope everyone had a great Christmas or Yule, however you celebrate the season! This month has mostly focused on Christmas and getting the barn ready for lambing season. Lambing season started this month on December 29th! | Table of Contents: Livestock News Garden Report Woodland Adventures Craft Corner Thank You! |
Livestock News
Well leave it to me to wait until the last minute to get the barn ready for lambs! Between Shane, my daughter and I we managed to get the main sheep area cleaned as well as the lamb alley area cleaned and set up. I spent last Saturday cleaning the 12×12 social pen and will wait for my daughter to help later in the week with the creep pen. It was a HUGE job! Next time we start cleaning in October!
We time lambing season to start after the winter solstice and to be finished near the beginning/middle of February. Day 147 (the average date for lambs to start based on ewe gestation) was December 29th. On day 148 we kicked off lambing season with these cuties:
December 30, 2024
3 year old, 50% Recorded Katahdin (though 95+% Katahdin) ewe, Corvina had this 13lb ram lamb sired by Registered Katahdin ram, Archie. HUGE lamb and great mother! Wish she would have had twins though.
December 30, 2024
3 year old, 25% Recorded Katahdin (50% Dorper/25% St Croix also) ewe, Pixie had her first twins (single last year). 9lb ram (white/red), 9lb ewe (more red) sired by Registered Katahdin ram, Archie. She’s doing great with them! Huge udder, great mom.
December 30, 2024
3 year old, Registered St Croix Ewe, Stella, had this 9lb ewe lamb out of Registered St Croix Ram, Titus. Good mama. Wish she’d had twins though!
If you want to see the baby lamb photos as they happen, instead of waiting for next month’s blog post, please head on over to our Hollow Hills Ranch Facebook page or our Hollow Hills Ranch Instagram!
I’ve also updated our 2025 Hair Sheep Price List. Categories include Market lambs (those who didn’t make the cut as breeding stock), Commercial Unpapered (those that didn’t make the cut for Registration/Recordation, but were better than Market), Recorded Katahdin (these are percentage Katahdin that come with paperwork and follow the same standards as Registered animals), Registered Katahdin & Registered St Croix.
Garden Report
I’ve talked it over with the boss (my mother) and we determined since the front yard is so large (and we aren’t exactly going to go hang out in the pretty landscaping with cars driving by), we are going to convert the whole thing to veggie/herb/pollinator gardens. For more details, please go to the History & Plans of the Ranch.
This time of year we don’t really have gardening to work on (other than prepping for spring if needed). It’s a good time for maintenance, however. Pruning fruit trees that have gone dormant, making sure tools are sharpened and put away where they won’t rust, maybe laying out new garden areas, etc. We did start prepping the front yard for the new garden area. All that barn cleaning had to go somewhere!
Don’t forget! The winter is the perfect time to start planting trees and shrubs.
I’ve compiled a list of planting dates for 2025 based on the moon phases:
2025 Planting Guide – Zones 7/8
Woodland Adventures
We’ve moved some cameras around down in the woods so have some great videos! I spliced together the beaver trying to take the trailcam from last month so you can see the footage haha.
The coolest video by far is the closeup of the bobcat crossing a log that’s across the creek. There be dragons down there too!
On Dec 9th, we found some great Agates, Jasper and Petrified Wood down in the creek gravel below the dam. Above the dam we have no “beach” left!
Sadly, at the end of December the massive rains caused flooding to knock out the beaver dam. Hopefully it hangs around and tries again! The wind was particularly strong with one of these storms and knocked out our power for half a day, taking some roof shingles off in the process!
Craft Corner
Now that Christmas is over, I can share with you what Shane made in his woodshop for family/friends! Pictured below are the items Shane made for my daughter and myself. He made her a teak tray with a cat carved in (which she immediately used for her beading projects). He made me a shallow walnut tray with moons at the corner, a round walnut tree of life, and three maple “twinkies” that can hold cards. He’s making me a few more little things to hold tea lights and crystals too. I can’t wait to start using my tray for videos on my Crystal Caves Mystic YouTube channel! He made several smaller walnut (and a few purple heart wood) dish sized trays for his family members with their names carved in and for the kids some bigger trays like the one he made for my daughter.
Shane also works at a sign & graphics place so made some really cool things for us too:
Thank You!
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Sabina says she’ll see you all again February 1st
for the January Homestead Happenings!
(There will be LOTS of baby lamb photos in that one!)
Hollow Hills Ranch 