Greener Pastures Farm - Current News

Jon kneels down to let the pregnant Cascade Farmstead ewes check him out. Visit our website to learn more about these great little low-maintenance, no-shear, meat sheep!


Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Spring?

I saw this on a couple other blogs and just had to share it:


INSTALLING SPRING...
 44% DONE.

Installation delayed... please wait.

Installation failed. Please try again.

404 error: Season not found.

Season "Spring" cannot be located. The season you are looking for might have been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable.

Please try again.


And on that note, I'll continue to wait for lambs, which are due very very soon. : D

~ Ronda

Friday, March 11, 2011

I'm Back, and Just in Time, Too!




Wow, I'm feeling good! Now that I am feeling so good, I can see that the past year or more I was wading each day through a metaphorical toxic sludge. An infected tooth can do that and more. Anyway, I'm all fixed up and ready for the coming lambing season!

We are shipping two flocks to Massachusetts this year. I think we've got nearly all the "M" states covered by now! I'd sure like to get a flock located closer to me, so that I can more easily swap rams.

I updated the Cascade Farmstead Sheep Association website to include the blog of Flock #4. I haven't read their blog lately and need to catch up!

I've been working on my online store, and have some new patterns coming that will be lots of fun. This morning I added one of my newer designs to the blog and am writing up the pattern this weekend to be available on the store as a freebie. There was no way I could sell that pattern after the 3/11 disaster, and I hope that quilters around the world will find this design helpful in some way, to remember those who were lost in this tragedy.

~ Ronda

Friday, December 31, 2010

Happy New Year!

I was planning to write a long overdue post today, but this wasn't the one I was planning. Got a little something to get off my chest!

I got a phone call from the local police today. They asked me if I would please ship those socks to that guy in BC.

{brief pause for astonishment, and then laughter}

"No, sir, I won't be shipping those socks to that guy. We only learned yesterday afternoon that his check finally cleared, and will send him a refund on Monday. I would have sent it sooner, but wasn't sure if I would be sending free money for nothing."

The officer seemed really confused as to why the guy would call the police.

So the guy called me about 10 or 20 minutes later. He wanted to rip me up and down. I listened. I made it very plain that the check didn't clear the bank until YESTERDAY, that THIS was the cause of the problem, and that it was quite unreasonable that he should expect me to front the purchase of the yarn for customized socks, put all that labor into knitting the socks, and then mail them based on his promise that the check was good. And that I felt a great big red flag over the fact that the check was dated November 3rd, but mailed December 4th, and that it took so long to "arrive", along with the fact that he was in so much of a hurry for the socks to be shipped, which made me wonder why he sat on that check for a month if he was in such a hurry to receive the items, and that this looked like mail fraud or some kind of con to me.

He didn't like that. He argued, he threatened calling the Better Business Bureau because he has documentation of all calls. I said "So do I. On my answering machine." He said he'd call the postal service and charge ME with mail fraud. I reminded him that I had not actually received payment until yesterday. He went off in so many different directions, including even trying the racial thing with me. HE said "I realize that I'm in Canada, and with a name like Raj, you'd be suspicious." I didn't take that bait; I didn't say a word. I went through each step of this transaction IN GOOD FAITH, fronting my own money and labor for this custom order, and it wasn't until the bizarre check arrived that I began to have real doubts about this transaction and that I might have been conned with a fraudulent check.

So, after all this, he still wanted the socks. I said no. I was no longer interested in doing business with him, and would refund his money. He then said "I can see that you are not a reputable business."

It was at that point that I just hung up on him.

I know he said it to make me angry and/or hurt my feelings. I'm trying not to let it, because I know that's what he wanted.

But damn!

So... where's the chocolate? Need lots of chocolate, and need to upload some new photos on my website and farm blog of our Grandpa ram.... he's so handsome and has such incredible horns, and I'd been waiting for some dry days to photograph him before Jon butchers him. We used him for breeding last year and the year before, so it's not like we need him anymore. He was only here to decorate the farm this past year! And he sure did! But we've got some more handsome rams coming up behind him, and I'm sure they will be duking it out to determine who is the Head Honcho once the big guy is gone.

Happy New Year!

Saturday, July 17, 2010

Buh Bye!!!

I'm bruised, blistered, tired, but extremely happy. We've sold our Icelandic sheep. YAY! No more sheep so big that handling and hoof trimming makes me bruised, blistered and tired!

Now THIS is much better... Cascade Farmstead Sheep!



We have our 4th flock of Cascade Farmstead sheep ready to ship. These are the 8 Cascade Farmstead sheep going to Minnesota this week; one yearling ewe and 7 lambs. They are in one of our barns and have that "blue flash" in their eyes, but even so, look strikingly beautiful, with a nice variety of color. One of the rams has the most distinctive badgerfaced markings that we've produced yet.

I moved all of our ram lambs into the "big boy" pastures, which went very smoothly and they are settled together nicely. They are all so handsome. I really do need to get some photos of them very soon.

Friday, June 25, 2010

Growing Lambs and Shedding Rams and Ewes

Dry sheep are prettier than wet sheep, so after a “drought” of photos, here we go!

Today was our 2nd 80 degree day of the year after an abnormally long and wet spring. Our Cascade Farmstead rams rest and chew their cud in the shade this afternoon. Some are in the process of rooing (shedding) their fleece, some are already finished. One of these boys is 2 years old, and the rest are yearlings.



And over the in the ewe pasture we find Belladonna and her twins, Katydid and Kittiwake.



Cascade lambs above; the handsome ram lamb Kilimanjaro at left, and beautiful ewe lamb Kittiwake.

Gorgeous. Am I lucky or what?