Our 17 year old ewe Wilma finally got too old and weak to stand up so we had to put her down.  It is hard as she has been with us a long time.

She was born on Saint Patrick’s Day 2006 to Bing Bang Wink and Bitterroot Ansel (AKA Jocko) with her twin Fred.  She was  much smaller than her brother.

She was bred and in 2008 had two ram lambs, Barney and our first Bambam.

Here is her pretty face in 2009.  She was never friendly (like her mother), but she was sure pretty.

She was bred again and in 2009 had two lambs, a ram lamb named Wile E. and a ewe lamb named Wildthing.

Here she is in 2014.  We had tried to breed her several times after 2009, but she never had any more lambs for us.

Mona and Wilma fighting in 2015

Here she is before shearing in 2016.  She had beautiful mioget coloring with primitive characteristics.  I sold 6 of her fleeces, sometimes to repeat customers.  As she aged, her fleeces began to partially felt.  Then I started making felted fleeces with them, and they sold well.

She lived out her retirement years here.  I tried to spoil her with grain, wetted alfalfa pellets and bits of bread.  She became weaker over time and walked less.  She wouldn’t take the anti-inflammatory pills the vet prescribed.  But she got around enough to eat, drink, pee and poop.  She laid around a lot but didn’t seem unhappy.

There were a couple of times I found her down on uneven ground and she couldn’t get up herself, but I helped her and she was OK.  But this time she wasn’t.  I will miss her tremendously.