...to our Wits End Farm website. Our goal is to make your visit enjoyable and educational, while sharing the beauty and rhythm of nature that daily touch our lives.  We use our homepage to chronicle the happenings at our 22-acre family farm located in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. 

Both animals and humans let out a sigh of relief when the first warm Spring-like days arrived recently.  We had snow on the ground for two months, beginning with a blizzard-and-a-half in mid-December.  We had all the sheep in the barn for over a month, and they were all champs because no one became ill or lost condition, including the pregnant ewes.  

After a storm dropped two feet of snow atop what was already there, some neighbors had a 'Snowmageddon' pot-luck dinner.  What to take when treking through the snow over a mile to get there?  A tossed salad secured in a Tupperware lidded bowl and carried in a backpack.  By the way, they brewed some 'Snowmageddon' apple cider with a bit of snow in it for authenticity.

Now the forsythias and cherry trees are in bloom, and we've enjoyed the first 70-degree days.  The snow seems to have insulated the grass during the cold because things seem to be greening up earllier than usual.  As the leaves bud out on the lilacs, 16 new lambs cavort in the field with unbridled enthusiasm.  As of now, there are 13 Border Leicester lambs and 3 Bluefaced Leicester lambs.  All the white border lambs are all progeny of Merlin, our champion ram from Overlook Manor Farm.  In particular, there are several really nice ram lambs.  Check out Merlin's photo and photos of his get on the 'Sheep for Sale' page.  As for the 'baby blues,' they are all enchanting ewe lambs, two of which are silver.  The photo of two of them is further down this page.

With Springs come plans to attend the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival, held at the Howard County Fairgrounds over the first weekend of May.  I will have several Border Leicester yearling rams for sale there, both white and natural-colored,  along with several Border Leicester ram lambs.  I also will have two natural-colored Border Leicester-Bluefaced Leicester cross yearling ewes that will be for sale.  Their fleeces are something to behold.  I will put photos of them on the website as soon as they are available.  Do e-mail me or call me for more information.

We also have news of our friends in Pennsylvania who have the therapy sheep; Mike and Sue Reifsnyder. By the way, Sue has written a child's book about raising sheep.  I will be illustrating it for her and will publish it in a limited edition for sale at our pens at Maryland Sheep and Wool.  All proceeds will support Mike and Sue's mentoring program for troubled kids. 

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The First Warm Days of Spring

With more than a dozen lambs doing lamby things out in the field, there is an excessive amount of 'cute' to be had from every vista.  The important looking fellow below is Horatio, Wits End 1001, who weighed 14 pounds at birth and tipped the scales at 40 pounds at one month of age.  Needless to say, he's a sheep with attitude, and he constantly tests the patience of the ewes as he makes the rounds bumming milk, mounting other lambs of any gender and generally making a nuisance of himself.  "Hey, just keeping folks entertained," he says. 

Below:  (L) First-time mom 'Mirelle' catching some welcome rays with her day-old lamb.  She was purchased from Bill and Linda Koeppel of Cape House Farm in Michigan, and she represents some old-time ewe bloodlines that the Koeppels have used for years.  The lamb was sired by Merlin.

Below:  (R) Twin bluefaced leicester ewe lambs Sylvie and Dottie. Sylvie is named in honor of gourmet chef Sylvie Rowland of Laughing Duck Farm.   Dottie, on the right, is so named because of her black spot..  Their mom, Madelyn, is a Carry House ewe from Brenda Lelli of Twin Birches Farm in Michigan. Dad is a black-factored son of Titanium, that incredible ram previously owned by Kelly Mansfield that won the champion natural colored long wool ram class at NAILE when he was a yearling.

(Above)  An older Kristine Schrom-bred ewe (Silver Mountain 22-184) that again earned her stripes by having triplets this year.  The pair shown nursing weighed 10 and 11 pounds at birth.  They were sired by Merlin.


Talk about on-the-job training --  This first-time mom, Wits End Lucia, decided to go all out and have triplets.  It took a few days to get organized, but this hard-working girl is feeding her brood without assistance.  She is by an English-bred ram out of a line of outstanding ewes going back to sheep owned by Randy Irwin in Maryland.  All of this line are worm-resistant, multiple producers and first-rate mothers.  These lambs were sired by Merlin.

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Mike Reifsnyder Visits Baltimore Shock-Trauma as a Consumer

The financial challenges that Mike and Sue Reifsnyder have faced since his work lay-off last fall took a back seat last week when Mike miraculously survived a late-night automobile accident that left a telephone pole in three pieces and earned him a chopper ride to the famous Bal'mer emergency care facility.

Mike has been working nights to make ends meet, and as he drove home in the early morning, he rounded the bend of a two-lane Carroll County road to find high beams blinding his vision.  Unable to see the lines on the road, he steered so that he would be to the right of the oncoming car.  The problem was the car was in his lane, so he unknowingly drove off the pavement and hit seven mailboxes and then got personal with a telephone pole. 

Thanks to the airbag deployment and the fact that he was wearing his seatbelt, Mike survived the crash.  In fact, he never lost consciousness, and he soon was on the phone with Sue.  She in turn contacted Carroll County 911 calltakers who relayed Mike's medical history to incoming units.  The first-arriving county sheriff utilized his emergency medical technician training to quickly decide that Mike needed first-class care and fast.  Within minutes, Mike was in the air with some of his new paramedic best friends en route to Baltimore. 

Sue called me the next day and suggested that I sit down before she told me the news.  Mike had several broken ribs, and the docs were working on his collapsed lung.  Sue has been working at a local grocery store, and the joint burden of long work hours and almost losing a husband had her worn out.  I immediately made plans to visit them.

Mike was released home last Tuesday, and he is recuperating on a rented hospital bed set up in the couple's guest room.  Sue sleeps on a studio bed beside him, using her nurse's training to check him every three hours or so during the night.  Mike gets up during the day to eat and to feed the two therapy sheep that they had gotten to soothe troubled kids.  Now, the sheep pull double duty soothing Mike, too. 

What's the future for them?  Mike and Sue are living one day at a time, hoping they can keep their house.  They get help caring for the animals, and have cut expenses as far as they can.  Oh, did I mention that Mike lost his health insurance when he was laid off, and he was deemed 'uninsurable' when they searched for replacement coverage?    They hope the new health care legislation will give them some relief. 

In the meantime, please pray for them and add Mike Reifsnyder to your prayer list.  If you would like to help them in other ways, e-mail me at witsendcody@yahoo.com.  Sue has written a book for children about raising sheep.  I'll be selling it out of my pens at Maryland Sheep and Fool Festival.  We can also do mail order.  In addition,  Sue sells Tupperware, so a purchase from her is another way to help. Here's a link to her Tupperware website:   Sue’s Tupperware website.

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