I was letting the dogs outside to go potty tonight (30 minutes ago) and I noticed one of the cats had blood on its neck just below its ear.  I assumed it had gotten in to a fight and had bled out some.  There was no active bleeding so I was unconcerned.  I happened to casually mention it to the wife.  She insisted we bring in the wet cat and she dried it off.  It still had blood on its neck.  She carried it off to the cat food dish (elevated cart so the dogs don’t eat the cat food).  So she is petting the cat while looking for a source of bleeding and cannot find anything but the cat did smell suspiciously like sheep.  Of course it is snowing so we had to put on snow shoes and coats, grab flashlights and head out to the barn to see if the kitty had been snacking on afterbirth.  We made it without any one falling down.  Lo and behold, there was a brand spanking new baby!!  A jet black lamb with a white patch on its forehead.  It was so new it was still trying to stand.  Momma was licking it dry.  I am hoping there will be another baby in the morning.  Annmarie will take pictures in the daylight and post them soon.   I just volunteered her for more pictures!  We don’t have any pictures of the other baby during the day either.

Well I am happy to report that the water is still working at our house!  This is a good thing.  On a side note I replaced the kitchen faucet (the cold water was not working well, just a trickle.  We assumed it was a piece of dirt/gravel in the cold water valve of the faucet).  This did not fix the problem. Now the faucet is much better looking and we have a spray nozzle, but there is not very much cold water.  On a plus note, the faucet is much better so it is possible to adjust the water to a tolerable temperature.  So now we believe the blockage is in the shutoff valve to the kitchen sink. This is a plumber problem.  Since I am going to have to get the plumber for the utility sink I will just add this to the list for him.
On the supply line issues we were all wrong about where the pipe was actually located.  We thought the pipe went in a straight line between the two houses.  It did not.  If you look down this telephone poll to the far right corner of our house you will be looking at the pipe path we had told the repairmen.  Yes, we were way off.  The pipe ends on the far left side.  The trench across the bottom of the screen was dug in an attempt to find the pipe.  There are three different trenches across the bottom of the picture.

Here is the view from our house.  The second leak ended up being near the bottom of this picture.  Our front yard is pretty torn up from all the trenches and digging in the last three years.  I definitely need to finish replacing the plumbing line and then rip up the entire yard and start over.  Not going to happen this year.  It is looking like fence building and replacing the front bridge are going to become the priority for Summer.

Well it is official now, Sarah’s bedroom is painted.  I mounted five square sheets on her wall yesterday to use as a magnetic organizing board. The room turned out very nice.  She just needs to empty out her closet now.  We did not paint the closet.  It is still pink and burgundy.  You really cannot tell what the walls look like, she has so much junk stuffed in there.  The goal is to empty out 50% of the closet, gone, vanished, trash or giveaway.  She still wants to paint one nightstand black and I want her to strip the paint off of her door.  Those are things she can work on.  Here are the results:

Bedroom with a new bedspread, courtesy of her mother.

Well I finally saved up enough quail eggs to do something with them.  I had decided that I was going to pickle them.  I figured it would be like eating a large peanut M&M.  Two quail only lay so many eggs and with the weather (Winter) production is sporadic.  It got so cold for a while that the eggs were freezing solid and cracking, so I had to throw those out.  So on Monday I dug around on the internet for a recipe for pickled quail eggs.  Emeril was the winner.  He had hot pickled quail eggs.  I used the same recipe but only put one teaspoon of cayenne pepper (instead of three) and left out the two hot fresh peppers.  I added some extra garlic.  One of the tricks that most people posted was to let the quail eggs sit in a bath of straight vinegar for at least one hour to soften the shells.  They have incredibly hard shells and a very thick membrane over the eggs.  So I let them soak for three hours.  I had to let the bath steep for 2 hours anyway so it worked out good.  I made a single quart and then hot bathed it.  It actually sealed!!  Always a good thing.  Now I have to wait a month before they can be broached.

Annmarie took this picture from the door of the barn, momma was pretty antsy.  This was right after the lamb was born.  I will try to snag another picture soon.

The lamb probably only weighs about three pounds.  Very tiny.

I changed out the sink faucet today.  We were having issues with not having cold water at the kitchen sink.  This problem was attributed to the multiple supply line breaks we have had and the dirt that gets in the line every time it is fixed.  So I waited until I was sure the line was done breaking and changed out the faucet.  The theory was that since it only affected the kitchen sink it had to be a problem in the faucet.  This being a typical plumbing job for me, I had to run to town and buy some silicone caulk and new supply lines (old ones are too short).  I got everything installed and turned on the water, still just getting a trickle of cold water…  It must be in the actually supply valve under the sink.  This is a stupid problem to have.  On top of it all, our pump went out in our dishwasher on Saturday.  It is three years old so any warranty will have expired I am sure.