Friends (read to the end for a surprise),
In celebration of Super Bowl LV, we are sending a newsletter. This year the game will be of more interest for Browns fans as some could argue we beat the Chiefs if not for one bad decision and missed call. But that is sour grape juice running under the bridge. Just wait till next year!
First, some brief HHF news. The lambs continue to grow, stretch their legs dancing in the stall and of course take many naps. One ewe is holding out on delivering our final lamb(s) but in the meantime she is enjoying life in the barn. Time will tell if she is actually pregnant. After 8 weeks of heavy feeding, it is very difficult to tell if a ewe is actually pregnant! We will give the animals extra food as temperatures dip into single digits and go below zero. Firewood splitting and stacking continues and we have begun gathering green logs for firewood sale in 2022. I will be placing an order for chicken peeps this month, so please let me know if you would like some over the next week. You can either buy and receive peeps when they arrive (essentially at cost) or buy finished birds for $17 each. Let me know your preferences and I'll see what we can do. We enjoy our visitors, especially our nephews Nolan (pictured) and Mason who did a great job feeding Jimmy the llama and alpacas. And, Bobbie continues to make friends in the barn, recently meeting the Littman family. This morning Bobbie was found hiding in the hay loft sitting on 12 brown and 1 white egg (can we interpret this as some kind of game score?).
Back to Football and a "touchdown number" of connections with farming ...
1) Footballs are made from cowhide
2) Fans watching the game are often called couch potatoes
3) Both football and farming are based on seasons and are each a team sport
4) NFL athletes want to win the Lombardi trophy while 4H students want to win the Grand Champion Trophy
5) Surely there must be some common names, but there were none. No Buffalo Bovines or Los Angeles Llamas. But I did find people / characters related (14), birds (5), carnivores (5), other animals (4), chant (1), color or arguably a person (1), copy cat name (1) and plane (1). See if you can figure them out without the internet!
6) And lastly, Tom Brady (GOAT) will be playing in his 10th Super Bowl and our Daisy (sheep) is 10 years old this month!
Fun Fact: Daisy was born February 22nd 2011 at 9.5 pounds to ewe #23 (named either Winnie, Pool or Lizzie) and Foreplay the ram. She was a Shropshire and Southdown cross-breed. Cyndi and I were out of town in NYC for work so we asked Amy Klimek and her family to help with deliveries. The rest is their story
... When Daisy was born in February 2011, I was in 5th grade and just starting my second year of 4-H. My mom and I were helping take care of the animals at Hill House Farm, and it was a typical freezing February day. When Daisy’s mother would not let her nurse, we ended up taking her back to our house in hopes that she would survive the night. Turning my parents' bathroom into a makeshift stall, we bottle fed her every four hours, and soon enough she started gaining strength, energy, and a lot of spunk. She loved being near us so, after her tail was cropped, we put a diaper on her to let her freely follow us around the house. After two weeks, she was strong enough to return to the barn, but she never forgot the time she spent with us in our home. To this day, when we visit and call out her name she comes running across the field, putting her hooves up on the fence to receive pets and hugs from us. We are so happy that ten years after her birth, Daisy is still happily roaming the fields of Hill House with her friends.
Please enjoy their incredible video and photos below of then and now.
We hope you are all fortunate to have such wonderful friends in your life
Stay safe, healthy and warm,
Harry
