When it’s raining and foggy and cold it seems like winter. But winter is still officially a couple of weeks off. Yesterday was a day that reminded me it is still fall.
Not quite winter
1
Author Archives: Robin
New Yarn
Isn’t this a beautiful sight?
This is Jacob yarn and some black Rambouillet from a sheep rancher in Rio Vista. The light gray Jacob in the lower corner is already sold!
This is white, lilac, dark gray, and black Jacob yarn, labeled and for sale .
Here is the Rambouillet. I sent this batch to a mill that said that they could work with the fine, short-stapled Rambouillet, and they did a great job. It is very soft and I knit up a small sample on #6 needles. I don’t have this yarn on the website yet, but it’s available in the shop.
Here is some white yarn from sheep that live up the road from me. I can’t wait to start weaving with some of these yarns!
What’s your sign?
Re-establishing the pecking order
This is ram jail, where the rams spend time getting re-acquainted after being shorn and having been taken away from their respective groups of ewes. Putting them in close quarters prevents the serious injury that could occur if they had room to back up and bash each other. The rams spent about 36 hours here and another 12 in the double-size pen. This morning I let them out into their regular ram pen. There was still some tussling, but it was relatively mild.
It was obvious to figure out who was #1. Savor and Tioga are the yearling ewes and Savor has the top spot. He didn’t let anyone forget it.
Tioga didn’t put up much of a fight. If he acted as aggressive as Savor there would have been trouble.
Tioga protected himself but did not challenge Savor.
Savor thinks he’s hot stuff…
…but he’s not finished yet. Granite is the two horn ram lamb who is shying away from Savor’s show of authority. Granite is #3 under Tioga but there were a few challenges between them. I think that Granite will be ready to try again for the #2 spot after he is a little bigger. Tioga comes from mild-mannered ancestors. His sire, Ranger had his skull fractured by Houdini, a very aggressive ram I had a few years ago. Ranger healed and was always a well-mannered ram, as was his father, Rocky.
Savor is still not satisfied.
Savor and Tioga are still tussling here. Notice that Granite is confronting Diego, another 2-horned ram lamb (in 4th place ranking). Do you see the lowest ranking ram? That’s the 4-horn ram lamb from Michigan. However, what the other rams don’t realize, is that Clint actually had the last ewe to breed to himself. While the rams were in “jail” one of the ewe lambs approached the pen wagging her stubby tail. I took Clint out and he took care of the job quickly before he had to go back in with the bullies.
Now it seems that its OK to hang out together. This reminds me of an article that I just read in Smithsonian magazine–it was all about he social hierarchy of male elephants. Lots of posturing. That avoids some of the bloodshed.
Shearing Day
I look forward to Shearing Day all year and this was one of the best ever. That is due to the number of friends who helped and to the outstanding shearer. Farm Club members helped in the barn and two good friends staffed in the shop (unfortunately I don’t have photos of them). That left me free to run and back and forth for things we needed, take photos, move sheep, and thoroughly enjoy the day. Shearer John sheared 67 of my sheep, 19 sheep that belonged to other people, and 7-8 Angora goats. He started a little before 9 a.m. and finished at 1:30! Here’s the photo tour.
Sheep in full fleece the day before shearing.
This is Fran.
Here is Tioga…
… and Clint, the ram lamb I got from the Sweetgrass flock in Michigan.
We gathered all the ewes while John was shearing my friend’s goats.
Farm club members, Tina and Kathy, and Kathy’s friend, Haylee, helped bag fleeces…
…and keep the shearing area clean.
Shelby (and her husband, Greg, who escaped my photos) did a lot of sheep wrangling. This is Shelby with her namesake sheep.
Tina did her share of sheep handling too…
…while my son multi-tasked.
John is an excellent shearer, making shearing look easy (and I know it isn’t). He is fast, the sheep look great, and the fleeces are perfect wth no second cuts. We are very happy to have found him. It is always impressive to watch the rams being shorn. This is Savor being shorn.
Savor’s fleece.
Staple from Savor’s fleece. This fleece went home with Jackie, another Farm club member, who helped skirt and sort fleeces and answer questions.
Jackie, and another helper, Linda, helping a customer skirt a fleece…
…and now I have a lot of fleeces to skirt and put on the website for sale.
Rusty enjoyed the day.
Sometimes I think the sheep enjoy getting that wool off.
We certainly had great weather from the sheep’s point of view.
Thanks to all of my helpers!
Dog entertainment
Every evening here is what is going on while I’m sitting at my computer:
It sometimes looks and sounds brutal, but Ozzie seems to hold his own.
Ozzie is none the worse for wear. He is actually using one of the cat baskets I made from Jacob fiber.
Barn Make-over
It may not be as extreme as the Home Make-over TV shows, but I feel like they just rolled the bus away and I got a new house…almost. This was a Farm Club work day prior to Shearing Day which is next Saturday. I had a list of chores and we checked off a lot. The weather was fabulous too–sunny, warm, dry and it’s November!
I told Tina I had buckets to wash before I put them all away. You could serve dinner out of these buckets now!
I needed to get the salted pelts out of the stall so I could get them ready to ship off as well as empty out the stall so I can use it. Even though the pelts have cured, the salt remaining on them draws the moisture out of the air and they feel wet. A day in the sun took care of that and we put the pelts in big plastic bags which went in the back of my car until I can find boxes to ship them. We counted 31 pelts in all–that will be some shipping order!
I have an appointment on Monday with the State Vet who checks tags, etc to monitor compliance with the Scrapie Program. Tina, Greg, and Shelby volunteered to check all the sheep and make sure they all have their scrapie tags and that my paperwork is correct. They did a great job and found just a couple of sheep that needed tags. In the meantime we found their namesake lambs.
Here is Shelby and Shelby.
And this is Tina and Tina.
Kathy and Kathy. Greg will have to wait. I have two more lambs to name and register so maybe he can pick one of those.
I am so tired of tools falling out of corners, being knocked over, not finding them but I have never put up the gadgets to hang them. This was on the list.
Isn’t this cool?
Try to conceal your envy at my organized tools.
I love my stall barn, but it’s hard to use the big sliding doors with sheep. The doors work, but I feel like the sheep are in jail and in warm weather they get no ventilation when the stall door is closed. I have been using my Shaul’s panels with gates, but wiring them up. Greg and Kathy put eye-bolts into the walls to mount the panels properly.
Shelby found time to play with a chicken. Rusty wasn’t sure that the chicken was in the right place.
Thanks to all of you for so much help! Next Fun Day is Shearing!
Artful Fibers
The show is up at the Artery. Here is a preview. These photos aren’t as sharp as I like because I need to get a faster lens or bring a tripod. After I take better photos I’ll post them on my website so you can visit the whole show.
Red Canna in chenille with Julia’s felt hat.
These are 12 felted berets by Julia. You can just see the photo of the Kandinsky painting they represent.
Ruffles in bamboo.
Pleated scarves.
Hooded ruana in Zephyr wool/silk.
Tired of twisting
We’re setting up the Artery show on Thursday so instead of weaving all day I twisted fringe all day. I don’t particularly like twisting fringe, but I think that most of the things that I weave are best finished with a twisted fringe.
This is a shawl woven with fine bamboo yarn. If I leave the fringe loose it will get hopelessly tangled in use. Also, the bamboo yarn seems to separate into it’s plies fairly readily. So twist it is.
When I weave wool blankets I count on fulling them in the finishing process ( agitation in hot soapy water). The threads become somewhat attached to each other and the whole thing becomes a cohesive unit instead of a bunch of intertwined threads. That is not the process that you want for loose fringe. Twist again.
The green and brown blanket has already been washed. This light blanket (inspired by clouds in a painting of the Sierras while the green one represents the forest) has not been washed.
I wove this ruana fabric a few weeks ago but hadn’t twisted the fringe. Even though I had woven a lot of items I had hours ahead of fringing. Now I think I have just one shawl left and the scarf that I’ll finish tomorrow.
What season is this?
It was a beautiful day today in our part of California. After a little morning fog the sun was out and it was warm. The ground is wet and there is new grass in the areas where it has been dry all summer. That means fall, but it felt like spring.
There were even a few new flowers.
It really is fall however and there are noxious weeds to show for it. I am vigilant about keeping the worst of these weeds out of my pastures, but there is one area that is not regularly grazed and I wasn’t paying attention.
Pretty flower, but appropriate for a Halloween post, this is Devil’s Claw.
Here is the green seed pod.
This is what the seed pod looks like as it dries out. Those two pointed tips are very sharp. When they get stuck in wool you can’t get them out.
Fortunately this plant is very easy to get rid of. The stems aren’t tough and one chop with the shovel will take care of it. These are in the burn pile now.
I have done pretty well at getting rid of most of this spiny cocklebur, but missed the plants in this area. Why is it bad? Take a look at a close-up.
Not only is it spiny, but those burs stick to wool like velcro as well as having an extra sharp point on the end. In the summer I hoe all the small cockleburs that i see. Even though I chopped and will burn all of these plants today they left hundreds of cockleburs (seeds) behind on the ground.
Here is a lesson in seed dispersal.
Meridian Jacobs' Blog 