the countdown begins!
This was our last weekend before lambing starts sometime this week. According to the gestation calendar, we shouldn't be expecting lambs until Sunday. However, even though I laminated the calendar and posted it in the barn, these insolent ewes insist on doing whatever they want. There are a couple with very full udders and low hanging bellies, so we need to be on high alert starting now! I'm up early this morning trying to get my body into lambing mode which involves the unfortunate combination of early mornings and late nights. I haven't been to the barn yet, but I did check the cameras which brings me to the first thing I wanted to talk about... new cameras!
We rearranged the cameras in the barn and then added two new ones in an attempt to have full coverage. Keep in mind that the barn was probably built around the same time as the house - so 1886 - and it took 14 miles of extension cords and 27 screw in light socket plugs to make this happen. The new cameras are very fancy and they swivel around following you while you work in a way that is a little unsettling. Hopefully the sheep don't mind that they are basically living in the big brother house now. It's a good comparison now that I think about it because they are also officially locked in for lambing!
The barn has two indoor pens and also access to the sheep patio (concrete pad right outside the barn) where they dine, but that's all they get for the next month or so. It seems obvious from a human perspective to lamb indoors, but from a sheep perspective it's more complicated. We have the luxury of indoor space for them so we choose to lamb inside and do our best to minimize the aspects of indoor lambing that aren't ideal. I don't want to get into a pros and cons discussion of lambing environment, that doesn't seem interesting to anyone, but if you want that info, let me know. Anyway, the thing I was trying to get to was that I am so thankful that we are lambing indoors because it is WET. It's rained every day for weeks - I am pretty sure, and the forecast is more of the same.
We will continue chipping away at the ballroom project when we have time, but I'm going to post photos from one last indoor project before the farm takes over.
This is the Blue Bedroom, the fanciest guest room in the whole county! We've been working on this gradually over the winter. It obviously wasn't a time sensitive project and I tried not to do it, but I was compelled by the power of my own neuroses. The interiors of this house were painted Dover White. Is the color you choose when you don't want to make a decision. Or it's the color that the builder chooses when they don't want to make a decision. The color is boring, but fine and I told myself that I wasn't going to paint rooms until I was ready to "do" that room. However, in rooms that don't get a lot of direct sunlight, Dover White transforms to a color called Dingy Undershirt and I couldn't bear to look at it anymore. We moved this beautiful rug into the room and I almost felt guilty, the artisans who spent literally hundreds of hours knotting that rug did not mean for it to end up in this depressing room! In their honor I decided that we should just paint it. No big deal right? Just ask the Mountain Men to slap some paint on the walls, easy peasy, and not a lot of money in the grand scheme of things. Then I was thinking that our guests need curtains that give them more privacy since this is on the first floor, so we got some drapes. We had some curtain panels in there, but they were pretty transparent and also barely reached across the 8 foot window. So I took the existing curtain rod outside and spray painted it (gold, obviously) and ordered some inexpensive drapes. Then I thought that we needed some art on the walls, so we did that, and I just kept getting really good ideas for things that the room needed until finally now I think it's finished? Well, it needs a new light fixture. We are reusing one from two houses ago, but installing overhead light fixtures is not my department and Chris will get to it when he gets to it.
One thing about this room that I have been struggling with are the French doors. The doors open from the bedroom into the foyer and they had some sheer curtains on the inside when we moved in. First I started sewing new curtains for them. Then I realized that the backside of the fabric would show on the foyer side so that isn't ideal. Then I decided to mirror the glass so the fabric wouldn't show, and ultimately decided to ditch the curtains altogether. Back before Christmas last year I mirrored one of the doors using this silver film, but it was fiddly work and I ran out of time so put the rest off until recently. I finished them and even planned to write a triumphant post bragging about my mastery of this new skill, but before I got a chance, the film started to slump. I thought that maybe it was the glass cleaner I used before applying the film, so I took it apart and re-cleaned with hot water, but they are slumping again. Finally yesterday I re-read the application instructions and realized that there is a transparent liner attached to one side that I neglected to remove. I don't really recall this from the first door, but I do make extremely boozy aged eggnog around the holidays, so that could be a contributor.
Let me know what you think of the blue bedroom! I haven't slept there, but I do lay on that couch to watch TV and I give that 5 stars!