The first 12 ewes to lamb and their babies are in this group. Lamb races have begun.
See more lamb photos here
Lamb races
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Almost spring
It sure looks and feels like spring today.
Twenty ewes have lambed so far with 38 lambs. Only about one third of those are rams.
A few days ago I took photos of lambs for the website before putting the ewes and lambs into group pens. Do you think Rusty showed restraint?
Nine lambs today
Lambing moved into high gear today. The first lambs were born last Thursday and through yesterday (Wednesday) I had 16 lambs. Today four ewes lambed with 9 lambs and I think one more ewe will lamb tonight. Of those 25 lambs only 6 are rams!
This is Linda cleaning her second lamb. That’s steam coming off the lamb.
The lamb is trying to get up within 10 minutes of birth.
It’s always amazing to me to see lambs instinctively search for food. They know where to look for dinner. Did you know that the mom’s licking of the lamb stimulates the sucking response?
These lambs were born yesterday. See more lamb photos on my website .
Chenille Colors
My February 16 blog includes a photo of a chenille scarf in which 6 colors blend from one to the next. I want to weave more of those scarves, some for Cotton Clouds kits, and some for the show I’ll have in November at the Artery. Here are the chenille colors I have to use.
I used Georgia O’Keefe paintings as inspiration for some of these.
It’s hard to get the color to reproduce well on the computer, but these paintings and the yarns are brilliant. How about the next one?
Who needs to actually weave when you can have fun playing with colors like this?
I had the color samples out at WWW (Weekly Weaving Workshop) today. Here are two color schemes that will be turned into chenille scarves:
Chris’ scarf
Phyllis’ scarf
Clouds and green hills
I drove back to Rio Vista today to pick up the black wool from yesterday’s shearing. It had been left in the barn for me.
No one was around. The shearing crew has moved on.
Here are the bales of white wool.
This is a beautiful time of year in the hills of Solano County and I am always fascinated by these huge windmills.
It’s hard to realize how large these are until you see the truck at the base of this one.
Shearing day times 20
Friend and fellow Jacob sheep breeder, Lynette Frick, (IDEAL Jacobs) called me a couple of days ago and said that her shearing crew would be working nearby and she invited me to come watch. Lynette started shearing a year or so ago by going to one of the shearing schools and then being hired by a crew. I am so impressed. I don’t know if it makes her mom and dad nervous, but since I’m not her mom I don’t have to worry–I just think its cool. I had never watched a commercial crew operate. They sheared 1000 sheep yesterday and hoped to finish today. The shearers are working inside a long trailer.
The sheep come in along one side and when the shearer is ready he (she) pulls down a gate and pulls the sheep out and over into the proper position.
These are Rambouillet ewes. They’re definitely bigger than Jacobs!
After shearing the sheep the shearer pushes her through a gate on the opposite side of the trailer.
This is the outside of the shearing trailer.
The shearer pushes the fleece under the chute where the sheep are held…
…and someone on the outside of the trailer grabs the wool and takes it to the skirting table. It is graded and put into one of four piles–fine, medium, coarse, or poor quality (weak, short). Fortunately most of this clip was going into the fine and medium piles.
The wool is compressed into bales.
Isn’t this pretty wool?
The bulk of the flock is white, but these are some of the markers. There is approximately one black sheep for every one hundred sheep in the flock. That way the shepherd can get a rough count of the flock. Coincidentally, this is the ranch where I picked up the black Rambouillet that I used for the socks that I had made last year. I will go back tomorrow to pick up the black fleeces.
Maybe I like knitting after all!
Today I had a great time in a KNITTING class! Nancy Jane Campbell from Cool, CA came here to teach her Caps, Caps, Caps class. It was a fabulous class. Nancy is a great teacher and we were all so inspired with the variety of caps that she brought. She taught us a method of knitting caps that gives complete freedom to use whatever yarn you want, whatever needles are available, and end up with a unique cap that fits.
Look at the pile of hats on the table–all different!
These are mine–the start of two different caps. The purple one will have a light and dark purple design after I get past the increasing. That yarn is a superwash wool that I sell. I need a sample for upcoming shows so this was a good opportunity to knit something with it. The cap on the right is my handspun Jacob wool.
This was such a fun class and we all left with a sense of real accomplishment. Besides learning how to create these caps, Nancy also gave us all kinds of other knitting hints. She and I will plan another class to offer here later in the year.
Lambs!
Lambing has started. My husband said that he’ll see me in April.
Four ewes were bred on October 1 and three of them lambed today. Suzanne was first with twins.
This is her 4-horn ram lamb.
This is Spot with her twin ewes.
Rusty is hoping that he can get involved.
I’m heading back to the barn to make the last check and see that the lambs born this evening have nursed.
Color inside and outside
It sure feels like spring! And here are my annual acacia photos. When you have a huge acacia tree in the front yard how can you help but take photos?
The fragrance of this tree is wonderful and you can hear the bees hard at work.
Take a look at the almond tree.
Here is the color inside–more scarves.
This scarf is chenille warp and bamboo weft with 6 colors in the warp.
These are two scarves on the same warp. I gave my daughter, sister-in-law, niece, etc scarves for Christmas and let them choose colors, style, etc. I’m still working on them. My niece wanted a gray and purple scarf so she will choose one of these. Only 4 more to go for the Christmas presents.
Where are the photos?
They’re on my website. This is so exciting. I have a new way to add extra photos to the site. It was designed for one photo for each product, but I found that I needed more photos. Prospective buyers are going to want to evaluate a close-up of the wool staple and the amount of color on the sheep. I was adding these photos to the website using html but it looked kind of tacky and messed up the formatting of my newsletters. So now look at what I can do. Here is a link to one of my weaving classes and here is one to a fleece. Hopefully I’ll get time soon to add photos to more areas.
Meridian Jacobs' Blog 
