Learning the Game

I was tagged! Huh? That means that someone else who has a blog let me know that she found mine. I’m supposed to state the rules and tag 7 more people and tell 7 wierd or interesting facts about myself. Hmmm. I only know one other person with a blog right now and that’s the tagger. (And I’m not quite sure how to tag her back.) So maybe I only need to think up one fact….My mom told me a long time ago that if I wanted to have a dairy I’d have to marry a dairy farmer. Should I leave it at that or tell the end of the story? I eventually did marry a dairy farmer and we had a dairy, but now he’s a teacher and I raise sheep.

Yesterday I worked on perfecting projects for a new class I want to teach. Here are photos of triaxial weaving. This is an off-loom technique in which you weave ribbon in 3 directions. I have a friend who has made a jacket front in this technique! Mine are in frames on the wall.

 My recreation these days is to go to sheepdog training once/week and work with Rusty at home. My goal is to be able to handle the whole flock with him. But my sheep aren’t “dog-broke” and would rather turn and stamp at him then do what he says to do. It can be quite intimidating for a young dog to be faced with a group of aggressive horned ewes. Some of them have no qualms about bashing a dog in the ribs. Now that they are heavily pregnant it is not a good time to try to force the issue of learning to be herded by a dog. So we spend our time herding these 4 ram lambs who were born last August at State Fair. I am always amazed at the Border Collie’s instinct…and brains. Rusty knows when the lambs are apt to run for the barn or a gate. Then he not only needs to keep the lambs moving, but keep them from running ahead.

Sun is shining

It’s sunny out. What a treat! The sky is blue and the rye grass field across the street is a brilliant green. It’s breezy, but that’s good. Hopefully some wind will start to dry things out. We’ve had enough rain now that our cellar (about 10 x 10) is flooded and we’ve had to start the pump–otherwise our water heater is under water. I found water damage in my shop–but relatively minor–a few books. I need to put plastic over the outside of the A/C unit because the rain leaks in there.

I’m on lamb watch today. Lucy is due on Wednesday by the calendar, but she looks ready now. Or maybe it’s just that I’m ready. The first two lambs were born a week ago and that seems ages ago now. Speaking of Lucy, her fleece was beautiful when we sheared–long and soft. I kept her twin ewe lambs, Laura and Linda, from 2007 and their fleeces are spectacular. The wool is at least 5″ long with nice crimp and very soft. Laura is mostly black and what a deep rich black she is. Her fleece was snatched up right away. To think that I considered culling Laura because her hind legs aren’t very good and I can’t keep everyone. I guess she never needs to go to a sheep show–she can just stay here and grow wool and lambs.

 I haven’t figured out how to add photos to this blog yet. I’ll work on that today.

Successful Shearing!

I’m not doing very well with this blogging thing. I just realized that my first post–about the storm last week–was never published. I think it is now. I was so excited after shearing that I wanted to let the world (at least the fiber world) know all about it.

For me Shearing Day is more fun than Christmas. Fresh fleece! Ewes that now look obiously pregnant! No more separating goats and sheep before feeding! All the sheep fit at the feeders! Shearing Day here is a big event because I invite the public (mostly my Fiber Friends from my e-mail list). After a couple of weeks of miserably wet and/or cold, drizzly weather, the fog lifted and the sun was out. A lot of people visited. We sheared 45 ewes and 3 rams. The fleeces are gorgeous. Most of them are very clean with litte VM and the few that were covered were even better.

I had a potential glitch in the middle of the week. My regular shearer was just diagnosed with pneumonia on Thursday.  I was lucky that the only other shearer that I know was willing to come on such short notice. I am grateful. He did a great job as well as working through the flock quickly.

 As much as I love to see the sheep in full fleece, it is fun to see the transformation right after shearing. Before shearing the sheep look gray (dirty white wool) and brown (sunbleached black wool). Now they are truly black and white. Although I recognize all the older sheep from their faces and horns, it takes me awhile to reacquaint myself with the yearlings (last year’s lambs).

 We sheared 3 of my 4 rams. I will handshear Ranger later. I’ve been dealing with the aftermath of a ram fight for a couple of weeks. It was 2 1/2 weeks ago that I saw Ranger and Yuri covered with blood at feeding time. Yuri, the 2 horned 2-year old, was the obvious winner. Ranger didn’t have very obvious injuries, other than the blood, but a few days later the swelling on the right side of his head was severe enough that it prevented him from closing his eyelid over his right eye. I was dealing with other issues and didn’t realize that had happened until I saw the bulging eye and pus from behind it.  Yikes! Since then Ranger has been on antibiotics and banamine (for pain and swelling) as well as getting eye ointment 4 times/day. He is amazingly better, but his horns are still loose–it doesn’t seem to be the horn itself, but that whole part of his head. (My vet says that it’s hard to tell if there was brain damage, but at least we don’t expect him to drive heavy machinery.) Now I have a dilemna.  I have had Ranger separated from the other rams so that I can treat him easily and so that his head can heal. I’d like to put him back with the other rams while they are all becoming reacquainted after shearing. I tried it, but I finally separated him again. One of the 4-horned rams in particular won’t leave him alone. I guess I’ll have to deal with that later.

2008 Blows in!

I’ve been thinking about creating a blog for awhile and today seems a good time. Now I have to see if I can figure this out so it looks like I know what I’m doing.

Our big news today is the storm–6 1/2″ of rain since yesterday and incredible wind. The tin roof blew off the garage and a lamb shelter blew away. Fortunately my barn is intact, but the relentless wind blew a lot of rain inside. The outside area is flooded as usually happens when we have a lot of rain all at once.

We are shearing is next Sunday. I’m planning on sun for that event!

Hello world!