Peeps, where are you?

Yoo hoo, over here. Yes, I am remote....my internet provider seems to be more remote. There is a new place to talk about shetland sheep. It looks like lots of fun. You can join any discussion that has been started....without interrupting everyone else. I tried.....you can ask the first very nice friends who invited me as a friend to join them. Lovely to be wanted.
By the next time I went to my inbox it was full of replies to something. You realize, with dial up in the country, it can take minutes to find a new link....to read the reply.
Wow....information age, by the time I had made a reply.....my inbox was full again with replies that others had written and posted before I could even rewrite my reply.
Yes, I had to erase some of my answers. There are things about breeding shetlands that push old buttons. I'm trying to clean up my act.
Actually, I don't have time. On the computer or off, to get excited about shetland genetic theory. I don't walk around all day thinking about spots. I can't afford to spend time composing answers to questions in my head....so I can write them in the middle of the night with my two fingers on my keyboard.
I hate to tell anyone that I can think of other things more important than my sheep.
I have plenty of goals for the new year that don't include shetland sheep in them.
I worry about things other than my breeding goals or sales for the year. For example, I worry how I forgot to add bread to the "bread pudding" I baked a few days ago. After that I worry about how long it took me to realize there wasn't any bread in my "bread pudding".
Fortunately, I am not the only spot-breeder in the shetland world. I may have bred a few hundred spotted shetlands.....and I may have my theories about what they should be called, how they should be bred, and why they should be valued. There are other breeders out there who have bred more spotted beauties....and fewer spotted beauties. They have reputations as "spotted breeders". Good.
Shetland breeders don't have to be exposed to my theories. They all seem to have their own theories, opinions and, experiences.
We started a yahoo group last year to sort out some theories on what certain spots looked like. Everyone wanted to join....but no one was willing to agree. Breeders wanted to debate certain spots, and what they were called.....but only if the spots were on their own sheep.
My dream is that shetland breeders in North American can post a picture of a yuglet, a flecket or sokket, or a fronet. Somewhere. Somewhere that beginning shetland breeder can find it and compare it to their own lamb. We have the history and experience as a group to answer lots of questions about how and why spots appear and what those spots should be called. We even have experienced breeders who have tested color genetics. Why are these answers buried in talk groups? I suggested some hard and fast rules to breeding spots on this new list.....others suggested exceptions to those theories. How often do those execptions occur? Once in a lifetime?
Once a year? Every other birth? Does that mean you believe there is no genetic rule?
If you breed the same two sheep together every year, and they don't have the spots you want every year.....you have the wrong sheep together.
To my mind it is a simple problem.
I must have a simple mind.
I appreciate all the folks who have started this new list, and all the nice folks who want to join in the discussions.....and many many thanks to all the friends and clients out there who have invited me to join. When there are hard and fast decisions about yuglets and smirslets....about sokkets and fleckets....maybe some one will share them with me.
In the meantime, my special family christmas cookies didn't turn out. I would like to make some that do. I need to bake a loaf of fresh ground wheat bread, today.
I never did get the refrigerator cleaned out. The litter boxes need to be cleaned. And I need to walk my girls out the half mile to their winter pasture. You can see by the time on the clock....even writing here, takes more time than I have.
Go have some fun, join in the wonderful discussions....you won't miss me at all.