One of my neighbors has Suffolk sheep and this was shearing day. Here are some photos.
Shearing Suffolks
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Author Archives: Robin
We’re All Ears
Typical Jacob lamb:
Blue-faced Leicester x Jacob lamb: 
Here is Dad, below. Do you see a resemblance?
This is Onyx, one of last year’s BFL x Jacob ewes, all grown up:
Of course, if you really want to see ears, look no farther than here: 
Relaxing at Someone Else’s Farm
A couple of weeks ago I went to Auburn, about an hour away, to the Shepherd’s Picnic hosted by Dan Macon and Flying Mule Farm. I went as a visitor even though I brought a table with books and a few supplies. I did not set up a booth though, so I was free to enjoy the day at liberty. Dan had the day set up kind of like we did for Meet the Sheep, with activities scheduled every hour or so.
Shearing was first.
Dan does his own shearing.
Here Dan throws a fleece onto the skirting table. 
Beautiful, clean wool.
Next was a discussion of pasture management and flock management. Another friend, Farm Advisor, Roger Ingram, also helped out. I recorded some of what Dan and Roger talked about because I thought it would be great to share with Farm Club and others. One of these days I’ll get around to editing it so others can listen.
One of Dan’s former interns brought one of her milking sheep so that she could demonstrate milking.
After milking she shared previously pasteurized and cold sheep milk. That was my first taste of sheep milk and it was great!
Dan’s co-workers are invaluable assets to his farm. Mo, Taff, and Ernie have starring roles in Dan’s blog as well.
Dan, his daughter, and the dogs put on a herding demonstration.
What a beautiful spring day in the Sierra foothills! This is gorgeous country, especially when it is so green this time of year. I will admit that during lunch I lay down in the grass and the warm sun and fell asleep. I don’t do that very often!
It’s a Jungle Out There
Here is a photo I took last September:
I was trying to figure out why I had no power on the electric fence and this was one of the areas that I had to check. Even though my charger will carry power through thick vegetation like these blackberries, the branches could be pushing the hot wire into the old fence and causing it to ground out. (Yes, is a strand of electric wire going through that mess.) I figured it was time to deal with it.
This is after I cut away blackberry branches. You can barely see the insulator that holds the electric wire near the bottom of the post. I cut those branches but left them between the ditch and the fence thinking that I would drag them away later to burn them. Yeah, right. (By the way, this was not the problem with the electric fence. It was grounding out elsewhere.)
So only a few weeks later I knew that I needed to deal with the dallis grass along that same fence-line. This is the same area, but looking from the other direction. There is supposed to be an irrigation ditch in this photo.
This is after weed-eating the ditch. You can see the blackberries that were cut a few weeks before that I never got around to moving and burning.
Fast forward to this spring. 
This is the same view as the last photo. The blackberries are growing back through the old blackberries branches that were never moved AND through the mounds of dallis grass. This year I have a residential burn permit instead of an ag permit. If I don’t want to go get an ag permit then all my burning has to be done before May 1 (or maybe it’s the 30th). But in any case, I needed to get busy. I took a rake and the pruning shears and spent a couple of hours at it. 
This is what it looks like now with 2 piles ready to burn. Now hopefully the sheep will keep up with the regrowth of sprouts. When it is so thick with brush and coarse grass the sheep don’t even try to get through it. 
But there is more! This is the other fence-line–one that I did not deal with last year. See the two electric fence strands disappearing into it?
Here it is from the other direction. Farm Club, where are you?
Fibershed Photoshoot
How does the Fibershed Marketplace get all those great photos? It takes a lot of work from everyone who is involved in the photoshoot but the photos are a credit to the skill of our wonderful photographer, Paige Green. I hosted the spring photoshoot and my friend, Jackie, organized everything. Here are some of my photos from the day.
We arranged items that were to be photographed. These are my Jacob shawls and scarves.
Jackie‘s hot pads and bangles.
Katharine Jolda‘s felted jacket
We turned one of my stalls into a dressing room. Shelby is a Farm Club member who consented to be one of our models.
First photos of the day were Sally Fox’s sheepskins. There is a lot going on behind the scenes to create these photos. 
Alisa is Jackie’s daughter and she became one of the models. Her boyfriend, Mark, was indispensable in assisting Paige with her equipment all day.
This is Brooklyn, our youngest model. She wore a hooded jacket and wool socks.
Meryl is being fitted by Marlie.
Paige used a variety of settings during the day. In this scene Allie modes her rabbit-skin vest.
Rusty was involved in the activity all day. He will write his own blog post about his involvement. 
We used the sheep in the photos of my handwoven pieces.
Meryl and Shelby modeled four shawls.
Give us a few weeks and you’ll see all of these items and more available on the Fibershed Marketplace website.
Farm Club Goes to the City – Part 2
In the last post I showed photos of Farm Club’s trip to Hayes Valley Farm in the middle of San Francisco. After visiting the farm we thought about what to do next. Kathy asked us if we’d ever been inside City Hall. We could see the dome from the farm. We decided to go there. I’m going to admit something. I’ve lived in the country all my life (well, I don’t consider my life starting until after moving from SF to Cotati when I was 10) and rarely venture into “The City”. Sacramento doesn’t count. After I pass Vallejo going west I leave my comfort zone. I don’t know how to do negotiate public transportation because I never go there. It was good to have friends who have experience with this (and the right apps). So we caught buses and streetcars for this tour around the city. Way better than driving downtown. First stop was City Hall.
It is a beautiful building.
There are interesting displays downstairs…
…and there are weddings going on upstairs.
We people-watched awhile on the front steps. It seems that wedding parties leave about every 15 minutes.
After hanging around City Hall for awhile we decided to head to the Ferry Building …
…to see the “foodie” shops there.
I found this book that I remember having as a kid and then reading over and over and over and… to my kids.
We found the right bus back to the NDGW Home. Being creatures of habit, we ate at the same (wonderful) restaurant where we have had dinner the last two years. Then we spent the evening knitting and weaving and chatting. We had a leisurely breakfast of lemon pie we had purchased from the neighborhood pie store the day before and we made it back home by the afternoon.
This was a very welcome day off and it was fun spending it with good friends.
Farm Club Goes to the City – Part 1
This was the weekend of Farm Club’s third annual retreat. Our destination was San Francisco because we have a wonderful place to spend the night. Three of us are now members of the NDGW (Native Daughters of the Golden West) and we (and our friends) have a fabulous place to stay in the city. Look here for some photos of the NDGW home.
We arrived in SF shortly after noon and began our retreat with an excursion to the Hayes Valley Farm. There is a fascinating story here. After the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake collapsed some of the freeways in SF the sites were abandoned. This parcel of land holds what is left of the on-ramp and off-ramp to one of the collapsed freeways. A group of volunteers started this urban farm project a few years ago and turned the blighted landscape into fertile ground with unique collaborations and composting. (One fact I think I remember correctly is that Google supplied 15,000 tons of cardboard used to compost horse manure and wood chips on top of ivy that was growing there.) 
We saw unique ways of using found materials to grow plants.
This is the seed bank, outside…
…and inside.
There were other uniques structures…
… built from unlikely materials.
But the most remarkable thing is the landscape itself.
Look at that soil and the vegetation. You almost don’t notice the city behind it until you look from another aspect:
That’s the SF City Hall in the background.
Yup, that’s part of the old onramp.
This is a bittersweet time for the volunteers here. It turns out that this is the last week of activities here. The site is being used under some kind of temporary permit and the city is now going to build condos there. The person that we talked to said that even as the Hayes Valley Farm closes, it is providing a demonstration and lesson to all. There have been no protests, no marches, nobody chaining themselves to trees. They are dispersing all the plant materials, greenhouses, and compost throughout the city–some to schools who have developed urban ag programs, some to other urban farm sites in the city, and some to individuals. They feel that the program has been successful as a model of what can happen with the partnership of cities and volunteers and the benefits to everyone. (Celebrating Blue Tape as opposed to Red Tape.)
I am inspired to try planting nasturtiums again as well as a garden with a bit more freedom from even rows.
Stay tuned for Part 2 of our adventure.
The Bone Yard
I was cleaning the barn before Meet the Sheep and gathered up all the skulls and horns that I had collected over the years.
I took advantage of the sunny day to clean everything and I matched up horns to skulls. 
I sold the two horn skulls already, but the 4-horn skulls are for sale on my website. 
What do I do with these horns?
Here is something that I think is interesting. Take a look at these horns in these two photos:
I measured the horns so that I could describe them on my website. The horns in the first photo are 23″ long and they measure 9″ around at the base. The horns in the second photo are 24″ long and measure 10″ around. I never think of the curled horns as being as long as the upright ones, but it makes sense that they are.
For comparison, the longest horn on the skull at the top of this post is 20″ and the lower horns are 13″. The longest horn on the second skull is 28″. The longest horn on the second 2-horn skull is 31″ and on the last skull is 21″.
Meet the Sheep 2013
Another great day at the farm and another day that I’m so thankful to Farm Club and my other friends! Meet the Sheep is our annual spring Open House event. It is a big undertaking, but with the help of Farm Club and my family (and some luck with the weather) it went very well.
Mary, Joy, and Gynna are three of the crew that arrived early to help with set up. Notice the threatening weather.
Just before visitors were due to arrive I brought the sheep in from the pasture…
…and moved them to the pasture near the shop so that they would be ready to Meet the People. 
Jackie set up a booth…
…as did Colleen.
I resurrected some displays from my Shear Delight days.
Shelby and Dona tried out the new photo station that was created by Dona and Rick.
The scheduled demonstrations were very popular. 
Alison demonstrated spinning.
Colleen taught Solar Dyeing with Kool-aid…
…and how to felt a bowl using a balloon. 
Julie brought baby chicks and bunnies and showed people how to handle the bunnies.
I think she won in the Cuteness Category today…
…although Mary’s triplets were popular as were the three bottle babies and the six newest lambs.
Julie also talked about dyeing fiber.
Janis made this cool poster using wool from a fleece she bought in November.
And that’s it for my photos although there was a lot more going on. We were so busy that I was in the shop the rest of the day!
Good thing that Dona brought brownies for lunch!
Field Trip Season
I found a new Season. Field Trip Season. I’ve had 4 field trips here in the last couple of weeks. I don’t get very good photos during field trips because I’m the one who is leading the field trip, but I’ll use a few. Today I’ll share yesterday’s field trip because I got to be a participant (as opposed to leader) of part of it.
Fibershed sponsored a field trip for representatives of Smartwool, Northface, Lucy (and maybe others) to learn about our end of textile production. Many (most?) people who purchase and use fabric, individually or commercially, don’t necessarily have a sense of where it comes from. The goal of this trip was to expand the awareness of fiber production–the animals, the farmers, the soil and plants–and the importance of supporting sustainable local farms, and the idea that there is plenty of wool grown in N. CA but not the infrastructure to turn it into cloth. That is a primary goal of Fibershed–to set in motion the creation of that infrastructure and to create thriving businesses that support farmers, designers, fiber processers, and consumers. Whew! Pretty lofty goals? I am always amazed at what Rebecca (creator of Fibershed) has coming up next. I really hope that you’ll spend some time on the Fibershed website because I think it’s one of the most important non-profit groups you’ll find.
On to the field trip. I expected 5-6 people. There was a busload! First stop for us was the pasture.
The sheep performed admirably. I had waited to move the fence for the day’s grazing until the field trip was here. The sheep rushed to the fresh pasture just like they always do.
This is the group in the pasture. We spent a lot of time discussing pasture management, irrigation, choice of breed, wool types, etc.
Friend, Dona, brought this board over, getting ready for Meet the Sheep on Saturday. Some of the braver visitors tried it out.
The second part of the tour was a trip to Mary Pettis-Sarley’s ranch in the hills west of Napa. 
Mary has a variety of sheep, cattle, and alpacas who live in a beautiful setting.
She creates Twirl yarn using unique blends of the fibers she grows.
The yarns are all natural colored or dyed with natural dyes from plants that grow on the ranch. The “I” in these labels indicates that the dyeplants are invasive species.
A major challenge of raising livestock in the hills is the predator problem. Mary has 17 dogs, most of whom are various breeds of livestock guardian dogs (LGD). They can be intimidating when you drive onto the property, but aren’t so scary once they know you’re on the approved list (or maybe that you’re not a 4-legged hungry visitor).
Mary let out the bottle babies…
…and I think her part of the field trip won the Cuteness Factor award.
We were accompanied by two of the pets on the way to Mary’s wool washing station.
Now I’m jealous, not only of the property, but of this. Maybe I’d wash more of my own fleeces if I could figure out a set-up like this.
Here is where the fleeces are dried. Mary had several fleeces spread out so that the visitors could handle them and feel the characteristics that we’d been talking about all day.
A couple of scarves knit with Mary’s yarn.
As I drove way I saw some of Mary’s cows. As it happens, these cows are the daughters and granddaughters of Jennie, a Brown Swiss cow that Mary got from us when we left our dairy life in 1998. Talk about happy CA cows. These truly have a happy life.
Look at their view of the Napa Valley if they choose to look up from all that grass. (Alpacas in this photo–they were right next to the cows.)
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