Middleton Place Heritage Stable Yard
April 9, 2021
My Momma
Category Archives: Animals
Three Little Lambs, 1
I’ve made numerous trips to see the sheep at Middleton Place over the last couple weeks, looking forward to the arrival of some lambs. May 5th was the official day the barnyard workers were giving for the four pregnant sheep in their care to deliver.
Finally, on May 9th, I found three lambs: one had been born on May 7th, and a set of twins had been born that morning.
The three lambs were pretty active and getting them all in one shot wasn’t happening. Notice the extra curly textured coat on the lamb on the right.
The families have been given a pen of their own, where they’ll stay for a few weeks. The rest of the flock spends nights in the pen on the left and days free-roaming the property; the Cashmere Goats are to the right.
The little ones mostly followed their own mother, legs a bit wobbly.
They were also a bit curious about the humans watching them.
Cashmere Goat, Dinner Time
I stopped by the Middleton Place stable yard just as the Cashmere Goats were having their dinner.
One of the pair was plopped in the middle of their manger, hogging the hay and taking advantage of a padded eating spot.
The standing goat went for a drink then shared his take on the situation.
Middleton Place Heritage Stable yard
April 5, 2021
Cashmere Goat
Middleton Place has recently added a new pair of Cashmere Goats to their Heritage Stable yard.
Goats like to climb on things.
The day I was visiting one of the goats was getting trimmed outside the pen and the one left behind wanted to know where his pal had gone. My answer didn’t satisfy him.
Sheep-pede, Part 2
The Sheep bolted for the barnyard after the Sheep-pede and seeing the pressure washer. Their caretaker went back to the barn, too, for some grain. Clearly the group was won over and towards their pen they trooped.
Except these two that stayed behind cleaning up some grain that got spilt by the group leaders.
The shepherd continued to call and one of the two wanted to be with the group more than he wanted a snack.
The final hold out was determined to do a thorough job.
Then he scampered along to join his pals.
Sheep-pede
A low key stampede, but these sheep were on a mission.
As part of their Heritage Breeds program Middleton Place maintains a herd of Gulf Coast Sheep that roam the grounds freely during the day.
Herd of Sheep
Every afternoon the animal staff go through a process of securing the animals for the night.
Herd of Sheep – Getting Closer, Me not ready with 100-400 mm lens!
The sheep know the routine and easily headed towards their enclosure when it was their turn.
Herd of Sheep
They got a surprise when they got closer to their nighttime quarters and decided they would mill around rather than go by a pressure-washer that a worker had been using to clean fence that evidently hadn’t been there when they left that morning.
Herd of Sheep, Milling Around
Good Morning!
An Eastern Grey Squirrel looking ready for the day, posed between some resurrection fern and Spanish Moss.
Tree Frogs, Big and Small
Tree Frogs seem to be hanging around everywhere this month, including reeds in the swamp.
This pair found a reed to their liking at the edge of the swamp for a nap.
Neither one showed any acknowledgement of my presence.
This is my first post created from scratch using the Block Editor. It seems tedious with a lot of extra steps compared to my usual process of adding a few images then typing a sentence or two in between.
Please let me know if you see any display issues in Reader or any way that you view WordPress posts. Thanks.
Update 10/15/2020 Changed settings on the images to link to media file so viewers can click on image for a larger view.
More Tree Frogs
Surprising to me in these 90+ degree F days (32 C) we’ve been having the tree frogs are out in the sun.
Do frogs yawn?
Their camouflage is pretty good.
School’s Out
I became aware of the water’s surface moving as I watched a Green Heron fly away.
Bugs? No.
Then, wham a school of fish exploded out of the water.
Fortunately for me they repeated this frenzy multiple times.
One or two much larger fish seemed to be pursuing the smaller ones.
The smaller ones must have been getting their own lunch, because they kept coming back when they very easily could have swam back down the creek.
The brick and stone work supports a culvert under a dike that controls water flow into the main pond at Magnolia Cemetery.
This creek is tidal, about 1/2 mile (0.8 KM) as the crow flies to the Cooper River, just west of Charleston’s Ravenel Bridge.