Oxalis, also known as sour grass, wood sorrel and other names. It is considered a weed, but the flowers give a dye. Before Dan took the mower to these growing in the front yarn I picked flowers.
Dan started to fill in the low spot behind the barn.
First he re-stacked the compost pile and then moved dirt and ash from the burn pile that has accumulated over years.
Four rams posing. Left to right: Sterling and Griffin, both yearlings; Horatio and Blizzard, older.
We’re getting close to lambing. This is Tranquility and Eileen, due in the next ten days.
Roca
Trista, also due in the next 10 days.
Zoe is a 2024 lamb and is not pregnant, but I included here because I just skirted her fleece and saw something interesting. The locks below are from her fleece.
I have seen one other ewe’s fleece this year with a similar change in fleece color occurring part way through the year. I’m not sure of the cause.
Wool sorted and ready for the mill. I have more to finish before I can deliver this.
This was a catch-up day at the computer. I’m still not caught up, but accomplished a few things. Did you know there is a Meridian Jacobs YouTube channel?
I spent some time today editing videos.There is probably a way to embed them here, but I don’t know how. I’ll include links. Two are from shearing day. Shearing Jacob Rams and Shearing Two Jacob Ewes. The third is one I’ve been meaning to put together for quite awhile. I show how I Using A Warping Wheel to warp my big loom. This is a specialized piece of equipment that is hard to explain even to other weavers.
To make this post a little more interesting, here are some photos that relate to the videos.
This is one of the ewes that was shorn in the video. It’s not always possible to keep hay out of he wool!
This is Eli, one of the rams in the shearing video.
Here is the warp I was winding in the Warping Wheel video. These are the blankets just cut off the loom.
These six blankets are some from the previous photo after wet finishing. The yarn in the blue blankets is dyed with indigo I grew and the brown yarn is dyed with walnut hulls.
There is are cycles to farming. The sheep are shorn and starting to grow new wool. The ewes are pregnant and lambing season will start soon. These blankets are woven using wool I get from Timm Ranch and have spun into yarn. Timm Ranch shearing will be in March and I’ll skirt fleeces and buy wool for the 2025 yarn. I am still waiting on the 2024 Timm Ranch yarn. Due to unforeseen circumstances I will be combining the 2024 and 2025 wool for the next batch of yarn.
The dye garden has its own cycle. I won’t be ready to dye blue yarn until the indigo plants get big enough…and they aren’t even planted yet for this year. Fortunately I have some dried cosmos and hollyhock flowers that I can use, but that’s only if I have enough yarn left from previous years. The cycles don’t always overlap the way you want them too.
In the Jacob world sheep are either black and white or lilac (and white). Lilac refers to a color that is Not Black. That is usually gray maybe with a brown cast. This blog post shows photos of several lilac sheep. Many time people think Jacob sheep have brown spots, but that is because tips of the dark wool become unbleached. The wool is still dark at the skin. When you describe the Jacob sheep’s color you look at the facial markings. If the hair is black or gray(ish) that dictates the label for the color.
Griffin is a ram that was born in February 2024. Last fall when this photo was taken I wasn’t sure of his color but now I am. In this photo he looks black and white. Remember, it’s based on the facial markings. It may be hard to tell from just a photo as well.
This photo was taken shortly after shearing in January. The eye ring that is often part of the lilac coloring is obvious and the fleece looks gray.
In this photo it is much easier to tell the difference in color between Griffin on the left and Sterling on the right.
Griffin’s fleece looking at the cut side.
Griffin’s fleece, on the right, with a lock of wool on the left from a definitely black and white sheep.
The lilac trait is recessive so breeding two lilacs should produce lilac lambs. When there is a black and white parent the appearance of lilac lambs means that there is lilac somewhere in the ancestry of the black parent. In Griffin’s case, both parents are black and white. There is a lilac great-great-granddam on his sire’s side and a great-grandsire and on his dam’s side.
Sometimes we wonder if all “not black” Jacob sheep have the same lilac genetics. This is being investigated now.
I took this photo a few days ago when Griffin was stuck on the fence. He must have had his front feet on the tray of the feeder and caught his horn over the top pipe along the fence. I couldn’t get him off and had to get Dan to help.
Shearing Day was a week ago. Here is the first post.
As we loaded Trish’s sheep into the trailer John kept shearing, starting with my rams…
…and then moving on to ewes.
Farm Club members kept the sheep coming so that John didn’t have to wait.
Farm Club members covered all the jobs. They moved sheep, bagged fleece, checked the ciipboard, swept between sheep and let sheep out as they finished. I have videos of shearing but haven’t had time to post them yet. Because I recorded 4 or 5 videos I can say that John shears a sheep in just over 2 minutes. It is amazing to watch.
We bedded the barn with straw knowing that would help with the cold at night.
The shorn sheep enjoyed the sun during the day.
Farm Club member, Kathleen, took over her annual job of weighing fleeces.
This is just some of the fleeces, bagged and labeled with sheep name and weight.
Farm Club members and other friends who purchased fleeces were able to skirt fleeces the selected.
This is our youngest Farm Club associate, son of a member. He wanted a job and spent most of the morning cleaning the barn with the help of Dad.
Shearing Day can be tiring. This is Oakley, John’s dog, in a pile of belly wool.
After shearing was over I called on three Farm Club members, who are now tagged as the Tech Team, to figure out why I couldn’t get the barn cameras to work after we made a big switch to a new internet service. I hadn’t been able to get them set up again. Farm Club members have links to those cameras. Success!
Shearing stats: We sheared 64 ewes, 12 rams, and a wether. That’s important to know because shearers charge more for rams. I guess it’s a good thing that they don’t charge more for horns. (Joke) Of those sheep 47 ewes, 9 rams, and the wether are mine. We didn’t shear 2 ewes who will be the subject of another blog post. Fleece weights range from 2.5 to 6 pounds. That’s typical for Jacob sheep.
I need to start skirting and sorting fleeces so I can get some on the website for sale and others to the mill for processing.
We were lucky on Shearing Day. It was cold in the early morning, but there was no threat of rain and the sun was out.
The day before we took our trailer to Trish’s farm a few miles away. We loaded 21 sheep to bring them to our place for shearing the next day. It turns out that one of the 21 was mine–I had forgotten about the ram lamb Trish borrowed in September to breed some of her ewes. So now I have 9 rams–that’s a few too many!
These are Trish’s sheep the next morning. I remember that ewe on the left from last year. See her photo below.
Her hair style makes her memorable.
John got here at 9 and we started with Trish’s sheep. This ram is Starthist Goldhill, sired by one of my 2-horn rams who is no longer here.
Farm Club members were on hand to help with all the jobs. They kept the shorn sheep out of John’s way while he worked.
After all 20 of Trish’s sheep were shorn we moved panels around to load them back in the trailer.
They fit better after shearing.
Then John started on my rams. This is Eli.
For those of you who may not have watched shearing, the shearer follows the same pattern on all the sheep.
I recorded video of shearing four or five sheep. I haven’t had time to edit and post those videos yet, but because of recording I know how long it took to shear those sheep. What do you think?
John is shearing each sheep in under 2-1/2 minutes. Some are close to 2 minutes!
I wandered out back with my camera–the real one–so I could take better photos of sheep. I like to update the sheep page on the website every year when the sheep are in full fleece. I did not update the website yet, but I took some photos with that in mind.
It’s wet behind the barn and we have a lot of piles of brush to burn (to the left out of the picture). The sheep can’t go on the newly seeded pasture so space is limited. There is a concrete pad and then a wooden bridge over the lowest spot.
As I walked towards the pasture gate the sheep were hopeful that I’d open the gate. Jade led the way.
Many of the sheep weren’t happy about the mud just past the bridge and decided they had to jump it. These are two 2024 lambs and I can’t sort them out by name yet.
This ewe is Jannie.
Cindy.
This is Sandie…
…and her twin, Pecan.
Jade.
Patchwork Bettylou, the ewe that had hernia surgery in October.
Here are three of the 2024 lambs. Harmony, Zoe, and Lily.
I walked out behind the ram pen and stood under this palm tree wondering if the resident barn owl is still around. It’s impossible to find owl pellets because, even if pellets could drop through all the old dry palm leaves, the blackberries grow around the base of the tree.
While I was standing there the owl flew out of the palm tree into one of the sheoaks.
For the last few years I’ve asked the UC Davis vets to come here and do ultrasounds. It is certainly useful to know ahead of time the ewes that are not pregnant and, hopefully, the number of lambs to expect from those that are.
I told the Dr. Smith the dates the ewes were with rams and December 20 was chosen as the optimal time for ultrasounds. (Never mind that a few ewes went in with the new ram, Eli, right at Thanksgiving. This ultrasound date was scheduled before Eli came here. It won’t be hard when the time comes to know if those few ewes will lamb.
I purposely did not breed as many ewes this year because of the limited space with our pasture being off limits for most, if not all, of the next grazing season. If you read this blog regularly then you know about the Pasture and Irrigation Renovation going on. Look back over the last few months for those blog posts.
Farm Club members came and, since I was otherwise preoccupied with an overlapping visit by my son and DIL and Matt’s offer to help me with some loom/computer issues, they did all the work of getting the sheep organized and in pens, ready for the vets.
There were four from UC Davis. I lose track of the titles, but I think one person was an intern and/or student and maybe a couple were in residency. They took turns doing the scans and reading the results, with Dr. Smith overseeing it all.
Don’t ask me what we’re seeing. I’m good when I see a ribcage go by as they move the probe around, but I have a hard time with the rest of it unless it’s pointed out. They judge size of the lamb’s head and, therefore, its gestational age. Amount of fluid and relative position of the lambs are other factors they consider.
The next group of ewes waiting.
Trading places in scanning.
Meanwhile, one reason Matt came was to climb the weeping willow and cut a couple of large branches that had broken during the summer. FIY, he is using safety gear to prevent falling in case of slips.
It’s amazing how quickly this tree has grown. Matt cut the problem branches, but then cleaned out a lot more where it overhangs the pasture and the fence.
Back at the barn they are still scanning, but we could used last year’s lambing list on the white board (to be erased at the beginning of the next lambing) to pick out which ewes had triplets last year.
Here are the stats: Fetuses counted: 51 Sets of triplets: 2 Sets of twins: 17 Singles: 5 Sets of 2+ (twins, but not ruling out a 3rd): 3 Ewes pregnant: 27 Ewes open who were with a ram: 3 Ewes maybe pregnant, bred late by Eli: 4 Ewes not with.a ram: 7 Ewe lambs not bred: 8
Stay tuned for March 9, the first due date based on when I put rams in with ewes.
Field Surgery doesn’t necessarily refer to doing surgery in a field, but it means that it is not at the hospital or clinic. This surgery was in the barn.
Patchwork BettyLou is a sheep that I bought in 2021 from a well-respected flock in Georgia. She is only three years old and has several years ahead of her. I had a dilemma.
This is Bettylou in May of this year. The UCD Field Service vets were out here for something else and I brought her in for an exam. The recommendation was to take her to C-Barn (the vet school large animal hospital) for a further look. It was determined that she had an abscess. The abscess was lanced and drained and I was to flush the opening for ten days while it was healing. I did that and finally let her back out.
This is September. I had been watching this get larger over the last couple of months.. It didn’t feel like an abscess and it didn’t seem to bother Bettylou. She didn’t show any pain when I touched it and she was acting normal. I needed to do something though. I am trying to sell a few sheep to lighten the load while we go forward with the big pasture project. Bettylou is not one on the list of most likely to sell, but sometimes you have to cull sheep with problems that will make them less fit to stay in the flock. I couldn’t sell her like this and I didn’t want to sell her anyway, but I needed to do something. The first visit was about $350. I talked to one of the veterinarians on the phone and she asked if I could reduce the swelling. I had been hesitant to manipulate that more than to find out that Bettylou didn’t seem to be in pain and that it didn’t feel like an abscess. Sure enough, I could easily squeeze everything back through a hole in the body wall and feel the opening that was about the diameter of a golf ball. It was a hernia that could probably be fixed with surgery. I got estimates for surgery if I took her to C-Barn and for field surgery. I chose field surgery, the less expensive option. That call was three weeks ago and the hernia was definitely larger by the time we had this appointment.
How did Bettylou get first the abscess and then the hernia? It was not on the midline, but off center. Have you ever seen Jacob sheep at the feeder? Sometimes one will put her head down and butt the one next to her. You can imagine the damage those pointed top horns can do. That’s the only thing I can figure out–that she had a small wound that became infected. It turns out that an access can weaken the tissue around it so maybe that is why a hernia developed even though the original abscess was cleared up.
I hope I don’t get somehow blacklisted for showing the following photos. It’s real life and a happy ending. So what’s wrong with that?
The vets brought a cradle on wheels to hold the sheep in position. She was given anesthesia first and the wool on her belly was trimmed away. Notice how the protrusion is gone. Gravity helped with that as the intestine and fatty tissue dropped back inside the hole in her body wall.
Bettylou’s belly was thoroughly scrubbed and the vets injected lidocaine around the place where the wound would be.
This is the extra skin that had stretched as the tissue weighted it down from the inside.
The vets cut an ellipse in the skin around the area.
Once that skin and the next layer of tissue was removed you could see the ring through which the fat and intestines were dropping. The vets made sure that any adhesions were loosened before closing the wound.
They stitched three layers. First they closed that hole and used what I think they said was a mattress stitch. The different stitches they used reminded me of teaching hemstitching in weaving classes. They closed another layer of membrane (or muscle?)
Then they closed the skin wound.
The final coating of an aluminum bandage spray.
Here is Bettylou on her feet…
…and back in a pen where she’ll stay for 2 weeks.
Bettylou won’t be bred this year but she’ll be ready to go for next year. I’m glad to have been able to keep her in the flock.
A couple days after our Airbase Tour it was time for State Fair. We had worked with the lambs every day since Kirby got here nine days prior to the fair, but I didn’t get any photos then.–too busy. For the last couple of years Kirby has had a long enough visit to California to spend time working with the sheep and then going to the fair.
I gave Kirby her first lamb in 2019 and she showed at State Fair that year. There are photos in that blog post on my website, but the one below is one of my favorites.
This is Meridian Belle as a lamb in 2019. Kirby’s flock has grown to include Belle’s daughters, Beauty (2021), Rose (2022), Cindy (2023), and Jingle (2024) and their offspring. Beauty’s daughter is Belleza (2023) and Rose’s daughter is Lily (2024). There have been male offspring as well but I haven’t kept them. We may keep one of the rams this year. Kirby’s flock prefix is KJ Royalty.
The sheep arrive at the fair on Thursday of the third week.
I forgot to take a photo of the space before we unloaded sheep. First thing is getting sheep out of the trailer, vet check and then putting them in pens. We have a lot of other stuff to unload because of the display that I do. That will be another post.
Kirby enjoyed taking her sheep out to share with the public and so that they get calmer when being handled. This is KJ Royalty Jingle, Belle’s daughter.
We used to show dairy cattle at the State Fair and Katie (Kirby’s mom) was a little younger than Kirby is now. At that time people from the Livestock Office took visitors on barn tours. Katie would spend time at the end of the line-up of cattle and talk to people. I remember hearing one woman telling another “that little girl knows more than the tour guide”.
Kirby is also good at engaging visitors and answering questions.
Sometimes you need a break from it all…
…and then maybe a nap.
After a break it’s time to go back to engaging the public.
KJ Royalty Lily, Rose’s lamb.
The signs over Kirby’s yearling pen.
When friends were at the fair I was able to walk around with Kirby a bit. We spent a lot of time at the Cavalcade of Horses, where different horse performances happen every hour.
A display presented by the California pear industry.
Yesterday was the first harvest day of the season. Some lambs are 4 months old now. The BFL cross lambs are bigger than the 100% Jacob lambs and some are ready for customers who like lighter lambs. I have a customer who likes the black lambs. I asked if he wanted both of these because they are twins. If they were 50:50 crosses they would both be black, but these are 3/4 Jacob. There are two 50:50 ewes here and when bred back to a Jacob you never know what you’ll get. One is black with very short horns and one is white with some Jacob markings and large horns.
While I was sorting and weighing sheep I heard Ginny barking at something at the other end of the barn. This is a fancy trap that I bought several years ago and sort of forgot about. It is a live trap where the animal drops in from the top. It was in the back of the barn on a woodpile. We caught a young opossum! The opossums aren’t a problem here. I took this one out to a brush pile and let it go out there.
After sorting all the sheep I let the rest out to the pasture. This is a view of the property from the south.
This yearling is KJ Royalty Cindy. KJ Royalty is the flock name of my granddaughter and her sheep are the progeny of the ewe lamb I gave her in 2019. Kirby will be here next month to work with the new lambs and show at State Fair. I’m glad that Cindy is getting more friendly.
The person who harvests lambs is very fast and does a good job with the skins. I try to use all the parts of the sheep I can. I salted these hides and will ship them to a tannery when they are dry enough. The beautiful lambskins will be for sale when I get them back from the tannery–hopefully by early fall (but no guarantees). This page gives you an idea of what I will have for sale then, but these are all gone. I recently got back a dozen lambskins that were the first I sent off last year–a whole year ago. I haven’t had time to photograph and list them yet. Next week.
Harvest was over within two hours, but the rest of the day was busy with customers and computer stuff. Never ending computer deadlines. Late in the day we had a new kind of visitor.
I am caring for these goats for a couple of weeks until their new property is ready for them. There are seven pet goats here and most of them originated from goats that my son Chris raised in his FFA project.
The goats came with a donkey! This makes me want a donkey again, but my irrigated pasture is not a good fit for a donkey. I can hear her braying right now even from the house!
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