Meet the Sheep

Posted on April 8, 2017 by Robin

Meet the Sheep is our annual spring open house event. That was last weekend. Rusty already shared his story but here is mine.

I rely heavily on Farm Club to make this event a success.

First was getting pet-able sheep into pens. This is Jazz who is a big pet and has twins, one of whom I’m going to keep and is now named Jasmine.

Amy, Mary, and Sumi ready for visitors.

We had vendors. Colleen, with Fiber Confections.

I offered space to Farm Club members this year. Gynna brought knit caps and other goods. Here is her website.

Brenda has sheep-shaped soap and other items. Here is her Etsy store.

Jackie with Sheep to Shop brought a new item–plant boxes made of felt!

This is another felted piece using Jacob wool.

Carol of 2NFrom brought hats and these fabulous new pouches. After Farm Club members saw this there were only two of the sheep pouches left.

Many visitors come just to look at sheep. But there are other things happening as well.

Rigid heddle demo by Lisa.

Blending Board demo by Roy (of Clemes & Clemes who makes the blending boards as well as carders, etc)

Great Wheel demo by Deborah. By the way, this Great Wheel lives at my house and I have no room for it. It is for sale but I don’t have it listed on the website yet. Contact me if you’re interested.

Laura demonstrated inkle weaving.

Alison sketched sheep off and on — in between spinning — and left her finished product with me at the end of the day.

Julie is the person who many people look forward to seeing year after year. She brought her dyeing demonstration, but also…

…bunnies. Oh boy, were those bunnies a hit!

Julie also brought a couple of Karakul lambs and an Angora kid. They all had plenty of attention.

I can’t believe I got through the day with hardly any sheep photos (although I did spend most of the time in the shop and when I got out I tried to get photos of all the other things going on). That’s Jade who is our best pet sheep ever.

And this is my bottle baby who found a new mom to take him home.

This is most of the Farm Club crew who made this possible. Thanks, everyone!

Nap Time

Posted on March 28, 2017 by Robin

Moms are eating. Babies are napping.

Shearing Day Revisited

Posted on March 27, 2017 by Robin

Shearing Day here was way back in early February. I wrote a post about shearing the rams, but never got to the rest of it.

As I went through my photos I realized that a lot of them are of people, not sheep. But that is what makes Shearing Day here so fun–my fabulous Farm Club. The Fiber members chose their fleeces this day, but other members were here too. Everyone has a job and it makes the day go so smoothly.

The star of the show is our shearer, John.

John’s shearing shoes.

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Stephany and Gynna…

…and Brenda were sheep wranglers, never letting John run out of sheep.

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Deborah and Lorrian pushed sheep to the shearing pen.

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Kathleen weighed fleeces.

Amy worked the gate in where the sheep left after being shorn.

Mike swept.

With all these other people working… IMG_6750-2

…I could just lounge.

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Here is Hallie after shearing…

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…and this is the beautiful result.

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Trista: “Does this shearing job make my head look big?”

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Speaking of heads several of us wore our Baa-ble hats.

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Some people left before we took these last photos, but there was still quite a crew for this photo.

More Lambs

Posted on March 24, 2017 by Robin

I took these photos before it started raining again.

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A cute blue-eyed lilac lamb. This is on the “keep” list. Meridian Catalyst x Shadow Mountain Shelby.

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Meridian Hot Lips with triplets also sired by Catalyst.

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Meridian Sophia with BFL-x triplets.

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Meridian Sonata with triplets sired by bide a wee Buster.

Ears and lambs

Ears and her crossbred lambs.

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Meridian Estelle also with crossbred lambs.

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Meridian Ruth. Lambs sired by Catalyst.

And while we’re at it let’s throw in another springtime photo.

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The wisteria has started to bloom.

Lambing is Over

Posted on March 22, 2017 by Robin

That was a quick lambing season. Quick, but intense. I’ll figure out the stats later, but for now there are pictures of lambs.

This is the last lamb, born last night. Bide a wee Buster x Bide a wee Trista.

These photos are from a couple of days ago before yesterday’s rain. The ewes were excited to get to fresh pasture.

This is a lamb that got lost in the tall grass and was calling for MOM!

I’m trying again for a great jumping lamb photo.

But the combination of the enough light, the right focal length, and fast enough shutter speed make that tough.

Some of these photos look OK here, but they aren’t sharp enough for a large screen.

I’m going to keep trying.

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One of the latest lambs.

Ladies in Waiting

Posted on March 16, 2017 by Robin

Five more ewes to go–or there were when I took these photos yesterday.

Raquel

Raquel’s due date is tomorrow.

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So is Cascade’s.

Petra

I don’t have a date for Petra.

Trista

Trista is a yearling who missed her first lambing date so that puts her due in a couple of days.

1030 Jazz

Jazz was due today…

Onyx

…and Onyx a couple of days ago. She lambed yesterday with triplets.

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Ewes and lambs are on the other side of the fence from the pregnant ewes.

Isn’t that a cute face?

Today in the Barn

Posted on March 14, 2017 by Robin

It’s been kind of crazy here over the last 16 days. That’s when lambing started. Maybe I’ll find time to go backwards to share photos. But here are some from today.

Isadora and triplets.

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Janis displaying signs that she was going to lamb today.

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Catalyst and Joker, some of the sires of this year’s lambs.

Today’s lambing began with Noel’s triplets about 1 a.m. When I went to the barn in the morning Vanessa had twins. Lambing began in earnest about 2:00.

Isabelle and lamb

This is Isabelle with a single lamb.

Janis and lamb

Janis cleaning the first of her twins.

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Ava, who I had my eye on since first thing in the morning, lambed with twins.

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Lambing is not always pretty.

Sheena and lamb

Sheena with a large single lamb.

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This photo shows all four ewes that were lambing this afternoon. That’s Isabelle in the pen on the right with her lamb. Ava is in the pen in the corner. She and Janis (foreground) were delivering lambs at the same time–Ava had the first lamb, then Janis had her first. Ava had her second followed by Janis. Notice the lamb just behind Janis at the fence. Sheena who was in labor this whole time really wants this lamb. No wonder lambs and moms get mixed up if more than one ewe is lambing at the same time.

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Outside the lambing barn we have plenty of other lambs already.

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Here is today’s record. This is how I keep track of lambs and we leave it up all year to refer to in the barn. The letters under the ewes’ names refer to the rams: Dragon, Joker, Catalyst, and Buster. The lamb numbers are color coded and I record weights. That’s 80 lambs since February 26.

Onyx is on the list for tomorrow…

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…and Jazz is only another day or so off. I’m going out to check now.

Lambs

Posted on March 6, 2017 by Robin

It’s still a little wet in these fields and I’m leery of causing soil compaction, but I really wanted to get the sheep out yesterday.

Jean and lambs

The ewes and lambs are in one field.

Ewes on pasture

The pregnant ewes are in another pasture.

This is Esmerelda, happy to be grazing green grass.

Foxglove

Here is an indicator of a ewe that is ready to lamb–all the other sheep went to the pasture after three months locked in the barn and she chooses to stay inside.

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Sure enough! Foxglove had lambs a few hours later.

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Take a look at the horns on her ram lamb.

Lambing in Plain Sight

Posted on March 4, 2017 by Robin

Yesterday morning I saw these two. marilla-and-marilyn

That is Marilla, born 2/25/16 (and named in a Spinzilla contest) and her dam, Marilyn. I didn’t know it at the time but shortly after taking this photo I realized Marilla was in labor.

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She was moved to her private maternity quarters…

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…and produced a good-size BFL-x lamb. I bred her for crossbred lambs because she is very freckled and I don’t want to perpetuate that in the flock. Marilla has a beautiful fleece however.

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At about that same time in the morning I noticed Sonata standing back with the tell-tale sunken sides between the ribs and the hips. Before I went to the house I put her in the barn.