Starting to think about the Spring

No, not that way. I mean really: get your mind out of the gutter! This is after all a (mostly) family-oriented blog. How about PG-13? Alright, never mind. In any case we seem to have two modes on this farm when it comes to the offseason here between the months of November and March (at least in as much as an “off” season exists with 250 animals). There is the “oh thank goodness that is over, let’s go drool on the couch” mode when the shows, birthing, and breeding finally come to an end usually somewhere in the weeks before Thanksgiving. Then there is the “time to get our game face on” mode we seem to hit right about now each year in late February and early March.

For starters by this time of year we have usually just come back from our final winter getaway in the Caribbean so that we are pretty relaxed and recharged (it’s a direct result of trashy novels, sunshine, and way more wine/beer than my primary care physician would ever approve of) and second of all there is the very real fact that if we don’t whip our collective butts into gear in very short order we’ll be putting ourselves behind the eight ball. Nothing quite like the spring show season being 4 weeks away and an untrained juvenile show string to sharpen the mind after all!

In between we are getting our marketing materials for the shows refined, doing another round of herd health (alas, with toe nail trimming this month), all while finalizing the show strings themselves as well as signing up for various spring fleece shows using those fleeces from 2011 which are still eligible. I have to say that not helping to organize the North American Show for first time since 2002 has also made the past few weeks quieter than we are used to as well. Though being conditioned to the chaos of that first weekend of April we will be volunteering for check-in in Springfield nonetheless. I like to think of it as the feel-good side of Stockholm Syndrome. Some of us just never learn.

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