I have skipped over so many ideas I have had for blog posts, but was out of time. So this is a random glimpse of some of them.
Lambtown was a week and a half ago now and it took me several days to get the shop organized again. I went into deep-cleaning mode and now everything is as organized as I can get it. For those of you who are local, the shop is open during Spinners Day Out (usually first Friday, but check the website) or if you call/text me and I’m here!
Last Thursday and Friday we irrigated. The irrigation season is over as of this week, meaning that there will be no more water available from the irrigation district. This was the smoothest irrigation yet this season because we finally figured out the best combination of amount of water (2 acre-feet) and time (noon to noon). The goal is to have enough water, but not so much that it stands on the field too long or we pay for so much water running off the field. And it’s easier to plan around the timing of mid-day turn-on/turn-off and I can do nighttime irrigation of 11 p.m. and 5 a.m.
Speaking of the pasture, thankfully the mosquitoes are gone now but there were periods of time this summer, including a week ago, where they were awful. This is my mosquito garb, trying to be as completely covered as possible.
I ungloved long enough to take this photo. Later I marked all the mosquitoes in the photo.
Back to Lambtown. I was finally able to access the photos and videos that were taken during the Lambtown sheep show and I listened to the judging. Thanks, Doris! Farm Club members showed the sheep while I was in the vendor hall. There was one other Jacob breeder with two ewes and a farm showing Karakuls. Sparky still wants her turn to say something so there will be another post at some point.
Last weekend I taught Learn to Weave. Here we have two new weavers!
Breeding season is going on behind the scenes. After Lambtown I ended up with one ram lamb that needed a companion. I sent three ewes his way and they were all bred within two weeks. These marks are so extreme, as were marks on some of the other ewes, that I decided to not change the markers as they wear out. I don’t want to see the wool looking like this.
A friend was using this ram lamb, Gus, to breed some of her ewes. When she wanted to bring him back I needed to figure out where he would go. So I pulled the other two lambs from their ewes to put them all back into one area and not have to deal with reintroduction more than once.
The lamb on the left is Farley who was with those heavily marked ewes. You can still see some blue on his legs. The other is Helix who was at Lambtown. Now all are together, but I’ll still have to deal with the big rams when breeding season is really over.
You were warned by the title of this post that these are random photos.
