Farm Club Retreat #13

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We plan our Farm Club San Francisco Retreat for a weekend that is after shearing and before lambing. We were introduced to Native Daughters of the Golden West by one of the original Farm Club members who was also a member of NDGW. Members and their guests can stay in “The Home” designed by Julia Morgan and built in the 1920’s. This time thirteen of us gathered for the weekend and three others met up with us on Saturday.

Since Farm Club members are scattered around several counties we couldn’t all meet here to carpool. Four of us left from the farm and decided to check out SCRAP on the way. SCRAP is “a non-profit organization working at the intersection of arts, eduction, and the environment”.

This building holds an amazing amount of STUFF that has been donated–all things that someone could imagine using for an art or craft project, however wacky it is. There is a complete list on the website of what they will and won’t accept. I have included just a few photos here, although it is very difficult to portray what it is really like inside.

We spent a couple of hours here and then drove to our destination.

A feeling of serenity after the chaos of SCRAP. This is the room that I had for the weekend. We usually don’t spend much time in our rooms because we are gathered in the parlor, the dining room, or on an adventure of some kind in the city.

We ate dinner at a Mexican restaurant within walking distance of the Home…

…and spent the rest of the evening in the parlor spinning and knitting and visiting. To be continued…

Lambs! Now we Wait

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Two rams got in with the ewes on September 1. One ewe was cycling and was bred (as confirmed by the vets on ultrasound day. We knew that she would lamb in the week between Shearing Day and the Farm Club Retreat. I went to the barn the morning that we were going to leave and found lambs!

Lambs up and nursing, just the way I like to find them! Good job Hailee!

acobI brought the lambs and ewe to the barn. The ewe lamb weighed 8.3 pounds and the ram weighed 11.2 pounds. Dan was happy because he didn’t have to be on lamb watch while I was gone.

After I brought the ewe and lambs in went out to move the fence and let the sheep into a new paddock.

Even though the sun was up, the fog started to roll in again.

First daffodil, brightening up the gloom of fog!

I was gone from Friday through Sunday. I took this photo Sunday evening. The next lambs aren’t due for three weeks.

Shearing 2026 Again

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Check out the previous two posts for Shearing Day photos and info. Here is one more post.

Jacob sheep crowded into pens for shearing.

The last group of sheep is gathered waiting for shearing. Farm Club members did all the work of gathering sheep and passing them off to the shearer.

Two and four horned skulls cleaned and on a table.

I had spent a lot of time cleaning skulls so that I could offer them for sale. Most of these will be in the shop and/or on the website.

Roy, Hank, and Gynna help every year at shearing.

Two people brought Shearing Day Cake! Both were excellent. Maybe this has started a tradition.

Seven people sitting on the grass in chairs in the sun .

We work on shearer time. When John called for a lunch break everyone was willing. We’ve seen so little sun this winter that this was a real treat.

Newly shorn Jacob sheep in a green pasture with bare trees behind.

I think the sheep also enjoyed the sun.

Two horned black and white Jacob ram, just shorn.

Meridian Hunter, officially still a lamb since he was born last March.

Two horn "lilac", gray and white Jacob ram, just shorn.

Meridian Elvis is a yearling. He is a light lilac. “Lilac” is the term Jacob breeders use to describe a sheep that has grayish markings on the face instead of black. That coloration is also in the wool.

Jacob sheep entering green pasture with thick fog in the background.

We work up the next morning to thick fog.

Blue faced Leicester ram, just shorn.

The new BFL ram that we call Clancy (although he is registered under another name).

Shearing 2026 – More Photos

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The first blog post about Shearing Day is here. I have a lot more photos.

John is our fabulous shearer. Farm Club members help with all the tasks.

John brings Oakley who can always find a warm spot. Notice in the first photo Oakley is in a different pile of belly wool

Spinners from local guilds came to watch shearing and select fleeces.

Brenda and Gynna helping with sheep wrangling.

Freshly shorn ewes before going to pasture.

Hank, Raquel, and Roy cleaning the barn after all the sheep were moved.

Deborah and Lisa made sure identifying cards matched up with the fleeces.

Mary always scoops up the fleeces to put in bags.

With thick fog the day before and after, the sun on shearing day was welcome.

LucilleB, a lilac ewe, and one of the Corriedale ewes.

The Farm Club friends who were still here at the end of the day. Some had to leave earlier. I am so grateful to them for all the help and good vibes.

Shearing 2026

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Shearing Day was yesterday. I have far too many photos for one blog post. Starting with the beginning, the night before.

Plywood with Shearing Platform in spray paint.

Lots of barn cleaning and organizing. One of the last things to set up is the shearing corner. This board has been in use for many years, labeled so that it never is cut up to use for something else.

The evening before shearing Dan and I went to Trish’s farm, a few miles away, to pick up her 24 Jacob sheep. With sheep in full fleece it took two trailer loads. After shearing they all fit in the trailer with room to spare. These are Trish’s three rams.

A dozen Jacob sheep in a metal horse stall.

I put 10 or 11 ewes in each of two stalls for the night.

Close up view of 4 horn Jacob ewe with two horns pointing straight up.

I recognize this ewe’s hairdo from when she was here last year.

Shearer bending over to hold onto 4-horn ram while shearing him.

John began with Trish’s rams.

Barn with panels set up and Jacob ewes moving down the lane.

As John was shearing the three rams we moved the ewes from a stall to the shearing corner. The shearer doesn’t want to stop once he starts, so we do our best to always have the next sheep ready.

Woman in overalls bending over trimming feet on a 4-horn ram.

I woke up early on Shearing Day so I could finish the prep for the day. One of the jobs was to get all of our rams into the shearing area before people got here. While John was shearing Trish’s sheep I worked on the rams, vaccinated and trimming hooves on all. That way I didn’t have to think about catching them later to deal with that.

Sheep shearer shearing a Jacob ram.

After Trish’s sheep were loaded back into the trailer John started on our six rams and the wether.

Three people moving sheep into the barn from grassy area.

In the meantime Farm club members started gathering our ewes. This photo shows what a fabulous day it was, after so many days of thick fog. We were really lucky, because that drippy wet fog was back today.

Three people in the barn working with sheep.

I am fortunate that I have such a willing and capable team of people.

Tightly packed group of Jacob sheep waiting to move through a gate.

Sheep are in the lambing area and this will be the next group to move in.

Thanks to Roy Clemes for sharing some of the photos I used here.

Random Farm Photos

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This post is just what the title says.

Three chickens roosting on white plywood walls in the barn.

Chickens roosting in the barn tonight.

Four sheep skulls on the concrete, some with horn cases that need to be attached.

Shearing Day is Saturday and I decided to try and have the skulls ready to put out for sale. This is a work in progress. Others will be offered for sale as DIY projects because they are not as clean.

Stack of ten colorful baby blankets in pinks, purple, and yellow.

I just finished a warp with ten baby blankets. My niece will get first choice of these, because she wants a gift for a friend. Then they will be offered for sale.

Colorful striped scarf draped though rings on the wall.
Colorful striped scarf on a mannequin.

Speaking of weaving, I finished these scarves last week. These are woven using Art Fiber Frenzy yarn, in the style of the class I teach, Wild and Craze Weaving–Breaking the Rules.

Three four-horn Jacob ewes facing the camera with the rising sun in the background.

Sheep at sunrise.

Twelve farm photos on one page with the title "winners of the 2025 photo contest" by California Farm Bureau.

I entered a photo on the last day the Farm Bureau called for entries. Mine was selected! You can probably figure out which is mine.

Jacob sheep with a sheep coat that has come off the back and is being dragged around the front.

This photo shows one reason coated fleeces are priced higher. Not only do they need changing at 4 to 5 times each year, they also require constant vigilance. I took this photo a few nights ago when doing chores.

Sheep coat with a tear and the leg strap pulled through the hole.

I don’t know how the leg strap got through this hole.

Jacob ewe wearing a coat to protect the fleece.

Fortunately the ewe wasn’t injured and this hole won’t be too difficult to fix. I had to just get through four more days until shearing.

Five spotted sheepskins.

The last batch of sheepskins came back. These are available in the shop and are listed on the website.

Sheep Portraits

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It was a foggy morning and the fog didn’t lift until mid-afternoon.

The sheep had already been out before I walked to the pasture so they didn’t bury their faces to start grazing immediately. It was a good opportunity to take sheep portraits.

Yearling ewe, Meridian Zoe, a 4-horn lilac.

Meridian Hailee has a nice wide spread to her horns.

Meridian SallyR, a ewe lamb.

Patchwork Amara, a lilac ewe, who came from Patchwork Farm in Georgia.

This is yearling ewe, Bide a wee Bobbie Jo, one of two ewes I got last summer, originally from Oregon.

Meridian Lenore, another lilac ewe.

Meridian Pecan. The ewes born in 2020 didn’t get as much handling as in other years because that was after my accident and head injury. They were all a bit nutty and that’s why most of them have nut names.

Jannie, a ewe whose horns took an interesting twist.

Corri-3, one of the three Corriedale ewe lambs I got in September.

Yesterday on the Farm

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When I did morning chores I heard loud snapping from the electric fence. I don’t understand enough about electricity so I can’t explain this, but between the cobwebs or debris and moisture this was sparking. I unplugged the charger so I could clean up the insulator. That was an easy fix.

About 10 days ago we harvested the last of the butcher lambs and, after taking a tanning class on Zoom (which I highly recommend), I decided that I would tackle one hide. It’s been salted since that day, but the weather has been so foggy or rainy that the hide never dried out. That’s OK because it was going to go right into the pickle bath. First I had to clean it up a bit, although our farm harvest guy does an excellent job. There wasn’t much to do. Before I had time to work on the hide, the vets came.

Addy is one of the BFL-Jacob cross ewes. This cyst developed from a plugged pore and was full of lanolin, not an infective abscess. So this was totally an elective surgery. I can rationalize this by also removing the risk of further injury and problems at shearing.

This is how they set up the field hospital.

This cyst had a “neck” and they could cut the skin around it (after injecting lidocaine) to remove the whole thing. There was no cutting through the middle.

This is the wound after the vet has made one stitch across the middle to start pulling the edges together.

Here is how it looked when they were finished. I’m keeping Addy in for a the week to make sure this stays clean and heals OK.

Here is what that cyst looks like on the inside. There is no smell. It’s full of lanolin and skin cells. Weird, huh?

Another reason that it made sense for the vets to come is that there was a ewe lamb that the vets wanted to recheck after the ultrasound visit a couple of weeks ago. They had given her prostaglandin to clear up fluid in part of the uterus. It looks OK now.

And while they were there I asked if they could look at the rooster who has been favoring one leg and mostly standing on the other. Actually I thought he had been getting better but wanted them to take a look anyway. He seems OK now.

Back to the loom. This is an experiment using Art Fiber Frenzy yarn. I am presenting a guild program at the end of the month and wanted to experiment with weaving this on a rigid heddle loom instead of the floor loom.

That’s enough random stuff for one day.

Baby Blankets with the Blues

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In the 2025 Weaving Recap blog post I included a photo of baby blankets still on the loom and said that warp had been on the loom since October. How about August? That’s what I found when I looked back for photos of warping this loom. Don’t ask me why I decided to wind a warp this way, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.

I used a paddle so each pass was four threads and I made a 26 yard warp.

I have wound 20 or 30 yard warps sectionally using the traditional method for sectional warping or using the AVL warping wheel. But I got this idea of using two warping boards and thought, why not?

I had to wind two bouts to accommodate all the yarn. My goal was to use up odds and ends of cones of yarn so the second warp. That meant the second warp would be different from the first, but I wanted the colors distributed throughout. I spaced the first one out in the raddle.

Then I added the second warp in the empty spaces.

I used two end sticks instead of trying to intersperse the two bouts onto one stick.

This looked good.

This side was a little messier, but it all worked out eventually.

Weaving in progress.

I had an order for blankets so I cut some off the loom early and didn’t get back to that warp until recently.

This is the warp I just finished before cutting anything apart. People always ask how long does it take to weave a piece. There are processes other than weaving that go into completing a project. In this case all blankets were machine stitched at each end before cutting them apart. Then some were hemmed. All are washed and then I sew on my label and add the hangtag.

There are multiples of some of these blankets. Those are stacked with two or three.

Another view of all the blankets. You can find some of these blankets on my website and here at the farm store. Others are at The Artery and some are on the Artery’s webstore (local pick-up for those right now). Next up will be a white warp so I can have a variety of colors.

Another Foggy Morning

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I was going to get away from a weather report, but this morning the sunrise behind the fog inspired me to take photos.

Sunrise in the fog with foreground of trees and dark pasture.
Orange sunrise behind fog.
Three drops of water on a fence with the background of orange fog.

It was daylight as I finished cleaning the barn, but still foggy. Sheep are off the pasture now because it’s so wet, so they were waiting to be fed.

When you sit down for a meal at home do you always sit in the same place? Probably. These sheep are always at the back part of the barn because that is where they want to eat. And Zora always puts her feet up on the feeder to eat out of the top.

This is the barn from the back. There was a prompt on the phone to clean my lens. I think the phone objected to the fog.

The ram pen is just behind where I was standing for that last shot. This is Starthist Hornblower, sire of many of the lambs to be born in February and March.

Young rams, Meridian Hunter and Meridian Elvis.