Tag Archives: Jacob sheep

Spring yet?

Posted on by
5

It was sunny this weekend and it felt like spring. The sheep have been cooped up in the barn and corral area for two months now. I let them into this small field today. There is a lot of grass to eat, but it is still wet and if I keep them there too long they’ll turn it into mud.

The sheep went right to eating, but the goats continued to race back and forth.

The oldest goat, Stephanie, didn’t participate in the silliness of the younger goats.

Too bad for the rams. They have to stay in their own area. This is Kenleigh’s Savor in front and Meridian Tioga in back, both born last winter.

This is Lola, a lilac ewe.  That reminds me (because I sold her fleece) that we had Farm Day on Saturday. Three people were here to help with sheep chores. It was great to have the help. We vaccinated all the sheep, wormed the young ewes, and put in scrapie tags.

We even trimmed a few hooves. Shelby is trimming while Jackie keeps the sheep from moving around too much. I don’t flip my sheep anymore to trim feet. I’d rather tie them to trim feet. It has the added advantage of sort of halter-breaking.

Everyone had a hand at trimming feet, but this is Shelby again while Tina holds the sheep.

Shearing Day

Posted on by
2

We sheared on Saturday. I used a new shearer this year and he did a fabulous job. He was fast (70 + Jacobs shorn before noon) and the fleeces and the sheep look great.

I am grateful for all the help I had. Linda gathered up and bagged wool all day. Other friends weighed wool, answered questions from visitors, etc.

My son, Chris, made sure that the shearer didn’t run out of sheep.

We also sheared Colleen’s CVM-cross sheep (while she took care of my shop) and…

Diane’s goats. I have to admit they are stunning in full fleece.

These are Chris’ goats and don’t need to be shorn, but they never miss a chance to sneak some a meal.

I didn’t skirt nearly as many fleeces as I thought I would. We just barely kept up with the fleeces that people wanted to purchase. I missed my friend, Joan, who usually spends all day at the skirting table.  I think it might be worth switching shearing back to Sunday so she can be here!

Here is one fleece spread out.  People asked about how to tell a good fleece, which is better than another, etc. I honestly answered that I don’t have any sheep whose fleece I don’t like.

The sunny day certainly helped make shearing day pleasant and I’m sure the sheep appreciated the warm sun.

Take a look at this shorn lamb. There was some discussion earlier this year about tri-colored Jacob sheep (if such a thing exists). I didn’t know this lamb had those gray spots until she was shorn! I’ve never had another like this.

Here is another pretty lamb.

This is Violet, loading into her van. That’s a cooperative sheep! Violet lived here until about a month ago. She is a wonderful friendly ewe and I’m so glad that she has a great home now with two other Meridian sheep at Aimee’s place.

Rusty’s brother, Jake, came to visit at the end of the day. The dogs were not too happy about posing for a brotherly photo.

But they were going to make sure these lambs stayed put.

There are more shearing photos that can be accessed on Picassa by going to my website and clicking on the photo in the shearing article.

Pretty faces

Posted on by
6

I was taking photos to try and get a good one for an ad.

607-Gem-w

Gem

828-Janelle-w

Janelle

829-Moon

Moon

861-Zelda-w

Zelda

911-Dazzle-w

Dazzle

960-Prancer-w

Prancer

971-Zip-w

Zip

Babe

Babe

Fanny-w

Fanny

Savor-w

These Meridian ewes are all with Kenleigh’s Savor. He’s just a little guy but has been doing the job.

Amarllis-w

Last, but not least, Amaryllis.

Starring in a music video & what to do when it rains.

Posted on by
Reply

I am not the music video star, but some of my sheep are. A young woman, Shannon, who lives in town contacted me when she was looking for a location to film a nativity scene for a music video she wants to produce.  It sounded kind of fun so I said she could use my place.  The filming date was last Sunday .  Shannon’s friends and family members were the actors and actresses and I was livestock wrangler.

4-w

My ram pen was the perfect set–nothing in the shot that looked modern. None of these kids had any livestock experience, but they all did great.

6-w

Violet is the starring ewe and she played her part well, standing patiently while Shannon filmed close-ups. The goat kids were a little more difficult–eating the bedding in the manger, the robes, etc. We substituted one goat kid for another part way through.

1-w

One of Shannon’s friends has a three-month old baby who was used in most of the shots, but this is the baby stunt double.

7-w

After filming in the barn, the shepherds went out to the pasture to get footage with the sheep and the donkey.

The weekend weather was great, but on Tuesday that changed. We had 5.25″ of rain on Tuesday with high winds. That was the date scheduled for a meeting of a group of weaving friends known as Yolo Weavers. We had already planned to meet at my place and make paper. It turns out that paper-making was just the thing to take our minds off the nasty weather.

paper 2-w

This is a pile of paper scraps.

paper 3-w

This is that pile of paper in a blender.

paper 4-w

Here is the resulting paper. The yarn in the first photo creates the texture in this paper.

paper 5-w

This is another of my creations. Notice the glitzy fiber in it!

paper 1-w

And here are the two girls (middle), daughters of a spinning friend, who taught us to make paper.

State Fair is over for the year

Posted on by
2

I sure like the blogs that have lots of photos. I hope you do, because I don’t have time to write much.

First up–Everyone is invited to my Grand Re-Opening this Saturday, September 12, from 10-3. I hope people will bring wheels and knitting and spend a few hours relaxing under the trees.

shop-w

I have a lot of fair photos to sort through. Here are a few. Dylan Duncan (Genesis Farms) helped me with the sheep show. I’m grateful to him. My husband was sick and couldn’t come to the fair–he didn’t want to show anyway, but would have been the photographer. Instead, Dylan’s mom, Diana, helped out with the camera.

This is Dylan and me showing Rubicon and Moonshine in the yearling ram class. Rubicon was second to the St. Croix ram which ultimately won Grand Champion of the Primitive & American Breeds Divison. Four breeds were represented–St. Croix, Jacob, Tunis, and Shetland.

rams-w

Dylan’s dad, Darryl, stepped in to help show in the Flock class.

flock-w

There are no blue ribbons in here. The Tunis sheep are included in this division and they got all the first and seconds in the classes they entered. I got most of the 3rds after the Tunis and the second places in the group classes.

ribbons-w

But the real contest for me was in the display area. The Fair offers a substantial prize for the Marketing Display. Here’s part of my exhibit.

display-w

A friend, Joan, helped out tremendously by spinning all day on Sunday and Monday. We had huge crowds most of the day and I sure got tired of talking. I demonstrated weaving while Joan spun.

joan-w

Here are the final awards. I’m third AGAIN in the overall Marketing award. However I did get the Herdsman award for 9 head or under. I also got Best Display Directed at the General Public (or something like that) and Most Creative. Those are the maroon ribbons.

ribbons-w

A friend came by with her knitted felted purse. That is her flock and the sheepdog coming in on the left is my dog’s mom.

purse-w

More fair photos will follow, but not now.

What’s for Breakfast?

Posted on by
1

I moved the sheep to a new section of pasture this morning.

grazing 1-w

They immediately buried their heads. This is like a salad bar for the sheep–something for everyone. In the photo below you can see clover, trefoil (yellow flower), Dallis grass (broad-leaf grass), yellow foxtail (that grass with the foxtail-looking head), bermudagrass, dock, and other plants.

grazing 2-w

Some of these plants make summer grazing tough. The bermuda and yellow foxtail are late summer grasses and take over the pasture, crowding more desirable plants.  The sheep choose to eat the plants they like and leave the less desirable ones.That’s why, to graze properly, you put more livestock on a small area and move them frequently. When the sheep are in a small area they eat even  the less palatable plants while eating the ones they really like. Then you move them to the next area. This also helps with control of internal parasites.

Dallis grass has been a problem too. It is a perennial grass that originated in South America and can be a good pasture grass if grazed properly. If I can’t keep it grazed low it gets so tall and coarse that the sheep won’t touch it. Then it takes over and nothing else can grow. If you go back to older posts in the blog you’ll see where last year at this time I was doing everything I could think of to get the sheep to eat the thick stand of dallis grass. In the spring we finally burned it.

So what did I see in the salad bar pasture this morning?

grazing 3-donkey-w

Amaryllis went right for the yellow foxtail! Nobody else eats that.grazing 4-donkey-w

Here is another undesirable plant. This grass is medusahead. It is an annual grass that grows in dry areas and has these nasty seed heads. Sheep don’t want to eat it even when it is still green. The medusahead started growing in this side of the pasture when I couldn’t get irrigation water to this area. The last few times I irrigated I have been more successful at getting water here so that’s why it’s green underneath. I hope that if I’m successful at irrigating this area next year the medusahead won’t be able to take over.

grazing-8 medusahd-w

But look who is eating it!

grazing 8-donkey-w

So what are the sheep eating?

grazing 7-w

This is Della with her mouth full of dallis grass. (That’s the dallis grass seed head in the foreground.)

grazing 10-w

Ebony is eating trefoil and dock.

grazing-11-w

Linda is eating dallis grass.

grazing-13-goat-w

The goat, Chloe, is eating trefoil and…

grazing-14-goat-w

Jasmine is eating dallis grass.

One way to join me in a “pasture-walk” and photo shoot is to join the Farm Club and spend some time here. It’s on my website–see the link on the right.

State Fair Nursery

Posted on by
Reply

nursery-w

I delivered Mary (4-horn) and Madeline (2-horn) to the State Fair Nursery this morning. They are both due on September 2 with twins and triplets. They will entertain thousands of visitors that go through the Nursery run by the UC Davis vet school. The sheep for the show don’t go in until Labor Day weekend.

Hot chick!

Posted on by
1

hot chicken-2

This is Goldie, the chicken that likes me.  She runs to me and expects to be picked up when I open the chicken house door. She is hot, like the rest of us. The TV news people love it because they get to say “triple digits”.  Of course they’re inside their air conditioned offices.

So what am I doing on these hot days? Plugging away at everything that needs to get done. We’re mainly working on getting the shop put back together. No photos until it is done! I’m taping and painting and putting down floor. Dan is building a deck, doing electrical work, etc. I have a spinning class this weekend so I have to be able to get in the door!

I’ve been sorting sheep again. State Fair entries are due this week so I needed to figure out who to show. I have a lot of lambs from which to choose. I sorted the lambs into groups based on sire so that I could choose 4 lambs with the same sire for one of the group classes. These are Houdini’s 2-horn ram lambs…

houdini lambs2-w

…and these are his 4-horn ram lambs.

houdini lambs-w

These photos are in the dark because it was night before I got to this task. Hard to evaluate fleece in the dark. So I looked again in the morning.

rusty2-w

You can barely see Rusty behind the rams. They are so dog-broke now that I can work with them in the field.

They are going into one of the pastures that was so swamped with tall grass last year. We burned it in the spring. Look at the trefoil growing in what was a 4-foot tall sward of grass.

trefoil-w

Here is a close-up. This is one of my favorite flowers–bright and pretty and good forage for sheep.

trefoil close-w

Some parts of the pasture are starting to get overrun with that Dallisgrass again. I’m hoping that the ewes can make a dent in it if I keep them out there longer. I’ve been letting them in the barn during the hot part of the day. If I don’t make them go back out they’ll bed down in the barn at night, but they will have more of an effect on the pasture (bedding down, manure deposited, etc) if they are out all night. So I’ve been moving them out at dusk.

ewes to pasture-w

Do you see that big round one–third up from the right? That’s Madeline. She is pregnant and due to lamb at State Fair just before Labor Day.

I can’t believe I sheared in November and I still haven’t processed wool. I sold a lot of it, but I have some to process. Wait until you see the new products I’m going to have! (I’m not telling right now.) Three bags full:

wool-bags-w

These guys are waiting for something fun to happen. They are ready for the girls, but we’ll wait a few months.

yearling rams-w

That’s Rubicon on the left and Moonshine on the right.

Back to more painting!

Who’s in the barn?

Posted on by
2

The lambs in the last post are 10 days old now and yesterday I let them into the pasture with all the other sheep. Last night I found the little ram lamb limping and I diagnosed a broken leg, but wasn’t sure where.  I took him to see my vet today and she came up with this splint to immobilize the leg. The break is at the top of the tibia and this splint holds the joints on either side immobile.  We’ll leave it on about 3 weeks and see how he is.

988-w

While I had my camera in the barn I took other photos.

amaryllis-1-w

Amaryllis, the donkey.

DSC_0442-1-w

Jasmine, one of my son’s does. He has gone to his summer job and I’m milking the goats that are left.

ewes-1-w

Ewes and ewe lambs on the pasture.

rams-1-w

These ram lambs were so happy to get out onto the pasture after being in a dry lot getting hay for weeks. I have to keep them separate from the ewes now so my options are more limited. This pasture now has plenty of feed.

trefoil-1-w

This is trefoil, one of my favorite flowers, and good sheep feed. There is a lot of it in that ram pasture.

shovel-1-w

My husband came back from the hardware store and told me he bought something for me. The other day when I was irrigating I broke the only shovel that I could find –one with the handle taped. So this is MY shovel.