Vine Wreaths & Holiday Craft items

My craft making ideas don't appeal to everyone but some folks out there think that I do some nice work.

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This dazzling white bird cage is loaded with silver, gold and glittery red pine cones and accented with a beautiful Christmas ribbon that pulls it all together. A short stand of red rights will be added to make this lovely table decoration brighten any corner for the Holiday season.

All natural Wild vine wreaths are fun and easy to do. Decorated with native plants and grasses can create a great conversation piece either indoors or outdoors.

This wild vine includes a milk weed bloom and wild tufts. It has been sprayed with polyurithane that will allow it to hold it color longer.

More native tufts and pinecones addorn this oval wreath complete with a handful of pine cones and a rustic bird house. Very soothing and pleasing to look at.

This odd shaped wild vine has three spregs of grass frawn and a home made nest complete with feathers. Now to find a small bird to perch near the nest to give it the real outdoor feel in your home.

I like this rustic piece I call "Window to the World" wall hanging; made from an old window frame out of the farm house and decorated with only a few items as an accent.

Wild grape and Ivy vine wreaths are my main contribution to the craft show and sale this coming November, some will be more simple then others like this one with a few Pine Cones to make a simple design for any fence, gate or wall.

This wild vine wreath has just a little more color with a matching bird house and heart with a yellow dangling star to give your eye just a little more to enjoy.

Not quite round and not quick heart shaped; this wild vine wreath touches my heart with to colorful hearts and a small cluster of pine cones; I'm loving the easy feel of this one.

Preparing for a Holiday Craft show

Putting on my creative thinking cap for the up coming November 20th Holiday Gift & Craft show has been fun and challenging at the same time.

I've made a few Newborn Diaper wreaths that look much better in real life; these make great gifts for that expected mother and even more fun when you add a few of your own personal gifts to the wreath.

My home wrapped Wild Vines wreaths will be on the back ground of my booth; displayed on a peg board along with Pine Cone Wreaths and a while variety of of pine cone creation. There is going to be something for everyone.

I have plans to make Feather Bunnies, Bird houses, Feather flowers, if my mini pumpkins hold up they too will find their way onto the wreath display in attractive and fun ways that you will simply have to stop by and see.

Pictures will be coming soon of all the fun stuff I will have for sale. I look forward to sharing them with you.

Late Fall Already

My head is still spinning from my wonderful trip back home to Oregon. The kids have celebrated their "Month-a-versary" already and they are so happy together; it's a beautiful thing.



Back here in Nebraska; We are gearing up for the winter. I have a feeling that is will prove to be an interesting one. Glenn has stock piled 9 large round bales of hay that we hope will feed the cattle through the snowy cold season and the two barns are loaded but not full of hay for the sheep and goats.

Our budget is strained to the end with the up coming installation of a wood burning stove but we are hoping that this will help off see the cost of heating the house. Goodness knows we have wood to burn. We have cut back on all the extras so far and may have to cut even more. The death of our tractor last year has placed up in a not so good spot after the cost to repair her and now the pick up with the snow blade is also down and out. I don't know what we will do by wait and see.

God Bless this house and all that live with in it's frame and bless those creatures to be healthy and strong in the coming season. My heart felt hope that we all do well and make another winter with minimal needs.

Oregon Trip Sept. 2010

I truly enjoyed my 10 days in my Home state or Oregon; though the time passed all to quickly as vacations always do I was blessed with spending all my time with family.

My journey began with an airplane full of CornHuskers in route to Seattle for the Nebraska/Washington game. Since I was going to Portland, many of them switched flights in Phoenix. Several of them stayed on and had made plans to ride the train up from Portland; a beautiful trip I am sure.

Miss Meg picked me up at PDX after being lost by poor directions from her "Garmin". It seems that she used plenty of car fixen words in the process; but she found me.

We had a great night with my dear friend Kathleen; but Debra was not able to make it... The time with Kat was so great and getting to for only the night was all we could do, as we had a mission to be in Forest Grove to help the bride pack for the trip to Prineville, OR. to help set up for the wedding.

The mountain cabin where the wedding took place was a dream come true. The photos' will be shared soon. A little adventuring to Smith Rock, Bend, Newberry Obsidian flow, Paulina Lake, Paulina Falls.

Also a trip to the coast via Bear Camp Road to Otter Point, Stout Grove and other areas in between.

I sure miss home! Nebraska just can't hold a candle to the beauty of Oregon. But, I am here.

Some time I will share pictures.

More Navajo Churro & Less Pygmy's for 2011

As the summer slipped away; so have all the baby goats. This year crop was amazing and in too many ways over whelming. We have decided to cut back on the number of Pygmy Goats this year from 16 to 6.

Yes a dramatic change and I will miss all those babies zipping around the meadow but I will welcome the reduction in the stress department. However as Glenn says "Nature Implores a vacuum". And the vacuum for this situation is sheep.

Yes Sheep! We thought hard about adding any animals at all, but with the current flock of Navajo Churro sheep at 6 ewes, the quest was to locate a pure bred Navajo ram to cover them. Not an easy task for this region as we are finding out but after looking through countless ads from far off places a black ram lamb with 4 horns popped up on an ad. That's it - 380 miles away but that's the guy we want.

Well we did go get him after a long story about vehicle break down and extra expenses, but came back with the entire flock of 9. Which I have dubbed the "Gold Fleece".

This is one of my favorite pictures of the 3 adult ewes and 2 ewelings; taken only a few minutes after they arrived from their long trip. These girls are lovely! Look at the faces.

I was THRILLED to say the least at their condition and the quality of these animals. They are above my expectation since the first group was in such sorry shape, it was another chance purchase that actually turned out great; Thank You Basye family for loving them so much, they have a good future here with us.

Well work is calling, winter is sneaking up on us and so many things need to be done before the snows fly here. So I best get to it.

I'll add something again, it may be a month or two as it was before.

September 11th - I Remember

Where did the summer go? No sooner did it get started then boom it was gone!

Today is September 11 and a day we all need to remember. For those Men & women that lost their lives and for those who have given their lives because of what something unthinkable. Please pray for them and my God send their loved ones a message of hope.

That day it was Kris in the office that took a call from a carrier and repeated out loud that a plane had crashed in New York, we were shocked but soon the situation turned to action when a second tower was hit; much to the bosses dislike Danni & I took off an headed for the Red Cross. Feilding calls and helping start the donation process of blood and money. It was a long day but not nearly as long as it was for those directly involved... My tears flow even today to know that so many good people lost thier lives because of hate.

I won't forget the feelings and I will always remember.

To those serving in the military in defence of those we lost and the fire fighters, police, rescue teams, and just the common Joe that was there directly involved; I know you will never see of read this but from the deepest parts of my soul; I Thank You for being the Hero's.

Summer's Heat has arrived

The summers heat has arrived in full force.

All of our Pygmy goats have kidded as of mid May and nearly all of them are now spoken for at this time and we are excited for their futures with the families who will be enjoying them.

As you can see our Navajo Churro ewes that we kept from last falls purchase are still heavy with lambs, we now know that none of this year get from the Navajo's will be pure bred Navajo's. At least we will have lambs, but they will be Katahdin cross and should be good for butcher.

It is so good to see them milling around in the field with their heads high and laying out in the grass just enjoying the day and even taking the time to race & play like youngsters like they should.

Our exciting news is more additions. We have recently purchased another small flock of Navajo's who will be coming to Absent Jack Acres in mid July. One ram lamb who we are particularly excited about is a black 4-horned fellow that we are hoping will become our lead ram in the coming years. (photo's will be posted either here or on the web page when they arrive).

All total we will be adding 3 adult ewes, 3 ewe lambs and 2 ram lambs. Mostly bearing a light colored wool, it should give us a nice mix for shearing season.

Something else new is our two Scottish Highland Calves who are now several weeks old and growing fast.

Dusti & Fuzbuttons

Fuzbuttons; the bull calf on the right is up for sale, so if you know anyone who is looking for a full blood bull or grass fed meat for the freezer should contact us as soon as possible.

We are asking $550 or would consider trading for a purebred Highland bull calf to add to our herd.

Until another day - be well take care and I will add another page to this some time soon.

2 New Lambs

Miss Cali is our first ewe to lamb this year. She gave us two beautiful ewe lambs, one solid black & one black & white. Glenn named the black & white one IRiS and I called the black one Refund since they we born on April 15th; it only seems appropriate.

Ecks bull calf Fuzz Butt is doing very well, Dusti is thrilled not to be the only calf in the field and the tow race around driving their mothers crazy.

We anticipate that Sammy's group will lamb this week and the Navajo Churro's should start lambing around the same time as the goats begin to kid.

There will be a major baby explosion very soon and as hard as it will be, the sleepless nights and the tanks of fuel that we will burn running back and forth during lunch breaks; it will be behind us soon for yet another year.

We did loose our beloved Candi; she and Sally had fallen ill for unknown reasons, we are awaiting test results from blood work and poo samples as well and the post exam for Candi to see what we are up against.

It appears that we had created a super bug, worms that developed a resistance to the Ivomec and Safegard products we were using. We hope that we have a handle on it now, but time will tell and so will the conditions of the remaining 20 does and well as the sheep.

Interesting that the Navajo Churros were also tested for worms and they had Zero! Not one bug. Amazing in my opinion. They says that the breed is parasite resistant and maybe they are right.

As soon as we have more babies, I will share.

Spring is In the air

The temps are slowly moving up and the snow has receded quite a bit. Thankfully it has melted slowly and the ground around our place will benefit from all the nitrogen's that the snows always bring.

Our goat kids from last year are having a blast, enjoying the open ground verses the paths between the snow. Racing and jumping. So much fun to watch them be happy.

One of our Highland cows; Lucy is getting close to calving, her udder is showing signs of filling and we think she will be within a week to ten days of calving. A truly exciting time for me as we have never had highland calves due until this year.

So much to bring joy to our lives this years from Pygmy goat kids, a variety of lambs and the calves. We will have a full house soon. The very best part of it all will be that Megan will be here for two full weeks of the activities and she will get a great hands on experience of lambing, kidding and maybe even calving. How Fun!!

I have been working hard on the web page, so much more to do but time is limited and so is my focus sometime.

Out side the window spring is calling and I really have many things to do before summer hits us.

Be well, take care and please keep looking in from time to time on us here or at http://absentjackacres.webs.com/

More Snow has fallen

Once again we can only be patient and wait for the Black, Gray and White of winter to set us free. Many of my fellow goat friends are running low on feed and on the edge of our seats as we all are expecting goat-kids and lambs to begin to arrive soon. Some have already begun to place hooves on the ground. but mother nature is not going to make it easy on any of us this year it seems.

Facing another overcast cold day we will be placing the second round bale of hay in with our Navajo flock and hope that they will make it three weeks as they did with the last one. We have decided to do the same for the Doe's in hopes to keep a few of the small bales on hand for feeding while mothers are in bonding pens when the time arrives. Glenn and I will set them this afternoon and mark the calender.

The cows are beginning to show their size as it seems that Fozzy has successfully covered the girls and we should have three calves at least this year. I anticipate that the first one will be born some time next month if I my observations were correct. Photo's will be forth coming.

Our web page is coming along slowly but it takes a lot of time and patients to build and with out a hand book to know exactly what I am doing so far I have not crashed the entire thing or foolishly deleted it.

Look in on us from time to time, once the mountains of snow recede we will be able to proceed with our on going fence project, moving of the buildings plans and advertising all the babies we will have for sale this year.

New Web page for our Pygmy Goats & Navajo Churro Sheep

It had been a couple of weeks now since I started to build our web site Absent Jack Acres . The plan is to show off and display our Pygmy Goat kids and Navajo Churro lambs that will be arriving in the spring; all of which will be up for sale as they become of age.

The experience has been frustrating, challenging, patient stretching all in one and I am hoping that all of my time spent to build it will help us share with others the joy of owning and raising these incredible creatures.

Along with the Pygmy kids & Navajo lambs, we will have Highland calves and colorful guinea keets for sale as well.

I have included my sisters talent for making beautiful afghans, hot pads and table pads as well of a few pieces of equipment designed by Glenn and I for the animals and even an art page just for me. More to come as I add pieces bit by bit.

Please sign up as a member to my new site; you will receive updates as I make changes to the site and ask that you "Pass it around".

God Bless all of you,

Shannon
Absent Jack Acres
Bellwood, NE.

Winter Whoas & Spring Hopes

Winter has taken it's toll on all of us and te animals have suffered the brunt of the cold more then we have. But good conditioning, sound feed program and proper shelter has supported our efforts and we are now on our way to spring.

I have started a eb page and as some of you may notice, there will be a bit or repeat performances to this page and that. As well as information that I share from time to time on myface book page will be here and there until I figure out what is going to work the best for us.

We sold Tut this last week; the plans to aquire new blood is in the works and once we located the new "King" we will announce it here or on the web page.

Please be patient as these sites will take time to put together.

Pictures of the Navajo's

I thought this was a fairly goot picture of Little Olive (black lamb) Yeti the 6 horned ewe and the rear end of Phylis. The wool is good for rugs and horse blankets but not for clothing as it is course and thick and I can only imagine very scratchy in deed. Not marketable outside the home spinning people.

Tut (as in King Tut) is out breeding ram. I like his blue color yet it really does not show here. He is quiet and gentle and seems to be the guy we hope will produce a few very nice lambs for sale and for the freezer.

We have 7 ewe's to entertain him this year. We will collect the ewe lambs, sell the rams and move to a younger flock in a couple of years by adding a new ram from time to time.

I would still like to register the entire flock. But we will see.

Navajo Churro Sheep

Something that we added to our place this year are the Navajo Chrro sheep.. Not for sure what we will do with them but we do have a couple of orders for ewe lambs at a fair price. they should be a fun thing to have and since we are able to care for them and propigate them we will take a few more steps and see where the path leads us.

Face Book Addition

I have started a face book page. I hope I did it right and linked the two together. This will be interesting and a very new learning thing for myself and hoepfully Glenn will get involved with me as well.

Obviously the possiblities are endless.

Mark you calendars; kidding season here starts April 21st. We should be lambing then too.