Much Ado about Running

Hello there Sheepies!

As the title implies, this post will have almost nothing to do with my sheep.  Please don't fret, I do have a little update for you.  It's small, but it will have to hold you over.

Yesterday I learned that the sheep love music.  It puts them at ease around me.  Last night while I went out to do my chores I took my phone along while streaming Amazon Prime music.  I ALWAYS sing along, so just know that I was singing to them too.  While listening to Kelly Clarkson, I took oats out to their two bins in the pasture.  Caiohme as always came over to my bin, and while she ate her oats, I rooed her wool.  Then Meghan Trainor came on.  Jinny, one of our new Ewes, came over, bah'ed at me, and then started eating oats.  While she was so close to me I started rooing her copious amounts of wool.  She would start and run off at first, but them she just stayed there eating while I petted and pulled the wool off of her.  Tonight, I played George Ezra and even Bridgit the B*tch came over to stand by me. It is surprising and exciting.  I've now made a Sheepies play list. :-)

Okay, onto the title of this post.  As some or maybe all of you have seen on Facebook, I ordered the running equivalent of a fanny pack last week and a headband.  I was super excited to get them as I have chosen running as my cardio of choice.  I still have two reasonably good knees, two mildly cooperative hips, and the gumption to stick with it, so why not?  I also promised to review them.

 Here they are, fresh out of the box.  The belt comes with two pockets. A large one for your phone and whatever else you might need. Since I am not yet a long distance runner, it just holds my phone. I hope to one day fill it with gummies. chapstick and what not.  The smaller pocket is for your keys. It also comes with two loops on each side of the belt...what these are for...maybe a more experienced runner will tell us? Both the headband and the pockets of the belt are made of swimsuit feeling material.

The headband advertises no sweat and no slip.  True to it's marketing I did not have any sweat running into my eyes or any slipage off my head.  The latter is rather remarkable because apparently my mother allowed me to lay, sit or chill out in someone's arms and develop a cone shaped skull (not blaming my mom, just stating facts here).  All those cute headband hairdo's out there never work for me. The headband slips right off of my head.  This headband is a keeper!

Now the belt.  I have delayed ordering one for a long time for one reason.  I have the unfortunate genetic trait that holds the majority of my body fat right on my midsection (Thanks dad. Blaming you since this is a Norris trait).  I have a big, floppy belly.  I hate it. When I run, the jiggle from my middle makes my pants fall below the "Mom Paunch"and my tanks try...TRY...to rise up to my natural waist.  I have a long torso which means my natural waist leaves a lot of area between it and my hips where my tank should sit. So running is also a battle of trying to stay decent.  Adding a belt to that made me have nightmares of a belt bouncing all around, riding up to my waist with my tank and just being a flat out uncomfortable, useless waste of money.  I was getting tired of tucking my phone in between my sports bra and the  built in shelf of my running tank, so I took a leap of faith...

I LOVED IT!

                                                                                                                                  The picture to the left is the top view.  The picture above is the view from the back.  You can see that it folds over on itself to remain small when nothing is in it, but allows it to expand when in use. It also came with two reusable zip ties.

I tried this belt in different positions as I ran to give you a full review.  I started out with it on my stomach.  However, because of the a fore mentioned genetic trait, this was a ridiculous idea.  As I ran, the pocket fell below the mom paunch and so when it jiggled as I ran it was hitting the pocket.  Such an uncomfortable feeling.  Next I moved it to my back. BEST IDEA EVER. It did not bounce there at all.  I wore my belt between my natural waist and my hips (the advertisement shows all these exceptionally trim models with 0 body fat and the belt right on their hips) and it did not ride up or slip down the whole 2 mile run.  If you're thinking about putting the pocket on the side, don't.  You're phone is basically a brick sticking out awkwardly.  A major bonus, it helped keep my tank from riding up.  A pit fall, unless you have very little body fat, it is going to give you a small muffin top effect. Worth it to not have arm band tan this summer, or a sweaty phone to clean up after a run. The $20 I spent on it was well worth it.

As an added bonus, I will also tell you of my experience with the company. Hippie Runner is the company that I ordered from.  All headbands are $8 and all belts are $19.99.  You can get them cheaper from other companies on Amazon, but I liked the patterns.  While checking out with my two items, a window popped up offering 10% off if you liked their Facebook page.  Saving 10% for a simple like, I'll like that!  After my 10% savings my total was $29.68.  I ordered at 8:15 am Friday morning, by 9:36 am my ordered had been processed and packaged for shipping. My order was dropped in the mail sometime before 1:15 that afternoon when they emailed me the tracking information. I received it today, Tuesday.  I could not be happier with my experience so far.  Hippie Runner also has a reward point program, that for every dollar you spend you get 10 points, however, you need like 12,500 points to cash in.  You can also order from Hippie Runner through Amazon Prime and some things are cheaper, but depending on the style you want, it can be marked up too. So, do some research on what you want and if you have a prime account if you can get it cheaper.

All in all, I am super happy with my purchase and will order from them again.  As for cleaning, there wasn't any tags or notes on that, but given the feel of the material treat it like a swimsuit, wash it and then hang to dry.

I hope that was helpful to you. If not, ask me what I missed that you need to know.

I hope you weren't disappointed that this post was not majorly about my sheep or my farm. I'm flexible, let me know if you never want to see a review on here again. Or if you did like it, let me know!

Blog to you later, Sheepies!
~B


P.S, my favorite post run meal is a PB2, banana and honey on toast with celery.  If you do Weight Watchers, this is a 6 point meal.  I use raw, local honey which I think tastes the best.

New Additions!

Hey there Sheepies!

Life here on the Wenzel farm is same same chicken lips.  We spent spring break sick, so nothing fun happened other than chasing a fevered child around to give them some motrin. This warm weather though is renewing our spirits and getting all of us excited for the coming planting season.  Sean has tilled up our garden area and where my herb garden will be.  I have even planted Lavender seeds. Everything I have read says that if you have two green thumbs you have a 50/50 chance of getting your seeds to start.  I have one greenish thumb, I figure my changes are down to 25%, but I'll keep trying and learning.

 On the far left is my three lavender pots. The rest the kids planted. 

Where my herb garden will eventually be. 

Speaking of learning, we learned that no matter how many times you wipe a sick chicken's pasty butt, you can't save them all. In addition to our three turkeys we already talked about, we added two more chickens and four more turkeys.  Unfortunately, one turkey died unexpectedly of our original three, and then we lost one of our little chicks to the dreaded pasty butt.  We did replace that little chick with two more to bring our new little flock to three light brahma chickens, four white turkeys and two bronze turkeys.  The turkey's days are numbered (Thanksgiving) and some of our existing flock of egg laying hens are also going to be turned to stewing meat this fall.  It's sad to think of these birds that we're holding and talking to and really treating as pets almost, as food in a few months, but Sean and I agreed that the whole point of this farming endeavor is to become a little more sustainable on our own. A little less reliant on big farm and grocery stores for food. With that said, I more than likely will cry when they leave the farm for their fate of coming back to the freezer.  Even my beloved sheep are not safe from being turned to food. 

The sheep are doing wonderful.  The warmer weather has really started the wool coming off in puffs.  I have been rooing Caiohme daily. Some days I get a ball the size of my hand, others like today, just a little the size of my thumb.  Even more exciting than thinking about learning to spin yarn from my own wool, is the two newest members of my herd. Jinny and Bridgit. 

 Bridgit

Jinny

You can see the wool just hanging off of them.  I have a harness lead that I think I will have to use on these two to get them to stand still for rooing.  I hate thinking about stressing them out when they are so new to us, but I simply don't have the time to get them comfortable with me like I have with the others if I am to get that wool off of them before it gets too hot.  For now I am spending a good 15 to 20 minutes in the pasture every morning and evening just watching and sitting there.  I also will get a cup of oats and feed Caiohme out of my hand to show them that I am not an aggressive or bad person.  Jinny seems more inclined to come near me, but Bridgit bleats for her to come back and Jinny backs away.  Bridgit seems like a jerk. If her personality isn't improved over the summer, she might be off with Bellasarious this fall to wait in the freezer for the turkeys and chickens. 

Herd management is something we discuss frequently around here.  Sean is of the mind that we should just let them go and do their own thing. Their ancestors did that for years, unnoticed in the wild and have survived. I am of the mind set that the rams need to be separated from the ewes and designated penning needs to happen during the rutting season (Sept. to Feb.) We'll have to see who wins this conflict of opinions,  Fingers crossed it will be me.  It would make it easier to get the sheep papers and register them as a conservation herd, if we go that route, if we know who sired who with whom. 

Well, I think I should wrap this post up before I just start listing the things that are going on around here in a boring, straight forward, choppy manner. 

Thanks for reading Sheepies, type to you soon! 

~B

Spring is HERE!

Heeeelloooooo SHEEPIES!

It has been awhile and I apologize for my absence. Not much has been going on here that is worth noting. We have had illnesses and routine, nothing that would illicit a post worth your time.

Let's catch up on the last month, shall we?  A.C and D.C are now 5 and 4 weeks old respectively.  They have both received a BOSE injection to help with selenium deficiency and CdT for tetanus/toxoid.  They will receive a second dose of CdT in 28 days and then the rest of the herd will receive a booster.  Pretty soon we will be looking for deworming the herd as well. The next step we will be taking is to get the herd registered.  We have talked about sending out blood samples to see how pure of Soay they are. If we do decide to go this route, we will probably continue down the path to register the herd as a conservation herd since the Soays are listed as a rare and protected breed in Great Britian. Who knows where we will take this, but it is a fun journey I never expected to be on.

Love my herd. 

New to the farm are three Turkey chicks.  We have appropriately named them Thanksgiving, Sandwiches and Sandwiches 2.  Sean and I have discussed the very real fact that I CAN NOT be involved in their end and processing.  I won't eat them if I see the in between steps. He is very excited to learn about it though so, we'll see if he does it or if he pays someone else to do it. The kids have been told that these turkeys will be killed to be eaten and it has caused some concern when I ask "Do you want a turkey sandwich?"...Cormac will give me a distrusting look and reply "Turkey from the fridge right...not those turkeys, right?" Haha. He is so smart.

They don't have a name specific to them...there are three names. They are interchangeable.

The goat continues to be a thorn in my side..or more appropriately, legs. 

This is how we stand when I am trying to watch the herd move or balance our neighbor's golf balls that he sliced or hooked into our pasture, on the fence posts for him to retrieve at his convenience.

Now that spring has officially sprung, the snow is gone and the sun shines longer (I wish we had sun in the morning and still had a shorter afternoon sun...I need the sun to get me moving. Curse you "daylight savings"), the hens are in production mode and almost every hen lays an egg a day.  We have lost another hen though.  She was a mean hen who always pecked at your feet.  I'm sad that she died in vain.  She wasn't eaten or carried off, she was most likely attacked my a neighbor's dog.  This of course, has caused us to stop being nice to the neighbor's dogs when they come over and we have to chase them off. If you know me, this kills me. I LOVE dogs, all animals really, and to have to be rude to them and make them leave when all I want to do is pet them, SUCKS.  I'm sad we lost her, but I am happy to announce that you can now safely wear flip flops in the coup again...silver lining. 

Moving on to regular life things, my weight loss journey is doing good.  I haven't been able to run in a while thanks to a nagging cough and I can't wait to get my running shoes back on. Pretty sure my dreams for a half marathon for this year may not happen, but I am not giving up on it.  I'm going to keep running and working for it. If nothing else, I will be getting in some amazing cardio. 

This week is spring break and we have nothing planned, so be on the look out for a post next week with our adventures we find this week. 

That's all for now Sheepies.  See you later, Alligators! 

~Beth