Greetings from the USA

[tracey]

Hello, found y'all during a self sufficient search. I suppose sufficientish is really more me, as I generally do tend to depend upon for too many other modern conveniences (you know, gasoline to run the truck about and such...)

I live in Washington State, just above Seattle and just beneath Vancouver, BC. Rather midway between the two. Five acres, a couple of wild horses (well, sorta wild; they were when I adopted them), a handful of sheep (dairy sheep! Yum, yum, cheese!) A couple of cats and three dogs, a husband and two children. I shall do my utmost to bore you to tears, especially with photos. Hope you don't mind.

Oh, look...you have a spell check! But does it spell in European English? Most likely. Well, that's okay, I tend to speak Canadian (or at least type it), so I should be able to adjust, eh. You know, we don't spell color with a u over here.

[Jack]

Gidday

Welcome to this place. Good to see another Yank.

I thought it was interesting you put the wild horses and sheep ahead of the husband and kids. I reckon the horses should have come last.

Anyway, what sort of sheep do you milk?

[Wombat]

G'Day Tracey!

Welcome to the site. Some pictures of what you're up to would be great!

Nev

[9ball]

:welcomeish:

[Andy Hamilton]

Hello and welcome to the forum. The spell check is a bit of a relic really and does not actually work. I Need to get rid of it, sorry but it won't spell american English or English. I think we are all pretty used to American English or even Canadian English probally more so than you are with English, so just type away and we will know what you are on about.

[Shirley]

Hi Tracey

:hi:

Welcome to the site - who needs a spelii chekcer anyway ;)

[Millymollymandy]

Hi Tracey and welcome. I had a quick look at your blog. Lovely mustangs and other assorted animals!

[red]

welcome

[Jarmara]

Hello

[tracey]

Thank you all for the friendly welcome! Yes, I noticed the spell check didn't work so well.

Jack...should the horses have come last because one saves the best for last? The sheep are East Freisian, not purebred, but 70% and up. Waiting on our first lambs right now.

[Jack]

Gidday

Well how much milk can you get from an average east freisian sheep.

What good is a horse, you caint milk it, shear it and it's too bloody big to go in the freezer.

[tracey]

Ah, Jack...a horse is for therapy, don't you know? Helps keep one sane in an otherwise crazy world.

I've not milked Friesians myself, so can't give you terribly accurate numbers. I know that the commecial dairies are getting (um...first sample of language barrier coming up...) 500-600 pounds per year. Used to be half that here in the US, so it's improved greatly in the past decade. It's not used for drinking, though, at least not commercially. It gets used for cheese; you need only half the sheep milk for a pound of cheese that you'd need goat or cow milk. I do hear it's sweeter tasting, although as of yet I've not tried it. This year, perhaps?

[Millymollymandy]

Of course you can milk a horse!!! Horse milk is apparently popular in the Netherlands (a report I saw on a telly programme).

Look at this http://www.paardenmelk.be/pages/homee.html

And how is a horse in the freezer any bigger than a cow in the freezer (once you've chopped its legs off)?

Not that I advocate eating horse meat of course. As far as I'm concerned, horses are pets!

[Annpan]

Horses are also a bit more useful at pulling ploughs etc if you want to use them like that. And as a mode of transport.

Don't rate them much myself... but they sure have their uses.

[Millymollymandy]

Well after falling off one on Saturday and having a buttock which is a very interesting shade of deep purple, not to mention the other aches and pains, I'm rethinking my previous comments of 'horses are pets'!