The Bone Yard

I was cleaning the barn before Meet the Sheep and gathered up all the skulls and horns that I had collected over the years.

 I took advantage of the sunny day to clean everything and I matched up horns to skulls.   I sold the two horn skulls already, but the 4-horn skulls are for sale on my website. 

What do I do with these horns?Here is something that I think is interesting. Take a look at these horns in these two photos:  I measured the horns so that I could describe them on my website. The horns in the first photo are 23″ long and they measure 9″ around at the base. The horns in the second photo are 24″ long and measure 10″ around. I never think of the curled horns as being as long as the upright ones, but it makes sense that they are.

For comparison, the longest horn on the skull at the top of this post is 20″ and the lower horns are 13″. The longest horn on the second skull is 28″. The longest horn on the second 2-horn skull is 31″ and on the last skull is 21″.

Meet the Sheep 2013

Another great day at the farm and another day that I’m so thankful to Farm Club and my other friends! Meet the Sheep is our annual spring Open House event. It is a big undertaking, but with the help of Farm Club and my family (and some luck with the weather) it went very well. Mary, Joy, and Gynna are three of the crew that arrived early to help with set up. Notice the threatening weather. Just before visitors were due to arrive I brought the sheep in from the pasture… …and moved them to the pasture near the shop so that they would be ready to Meet the People.  Jackie set up a booth… …as did Colleen. I resurrected some displays from my Shear Delight days.Shelby and Dona tried out the new photo station that was created by Dona and Rick.The scheduled demonstrations were very popular.  Alison demonstrated spinning. Colleen taught Solar Dyeing with Kool-aid……and how to felt a bowl using a balloon.   Julie brought baby chicks and bunnies and showed people how to handle the bunnies. I think she won in the Cuteness Category today… …although Mary’s triplets were popular as were the three bottle babies and the six newest lambs.  Julie also talked about dyeing fiber.Janis made this cool poster using wool from a fleece she bought in November.

And that’s it for my photos although there was a lot more going on. We were so busy that I was in the shop the rest of the day!Good thing that Dona brought brownies for lunch!

 

It Takes A Farm Club …

I’ve thought about titles for this post for a couple of days, but I’ve been too busy and/or too tired to write it. It Takes A Farm Club to Run a Farm. Or Farm Club Experiences Life and Death. FC met here on Saturday. I am so appreciative of everyone in FC. I know that they are getting experiences they wouldn’t otherwise, but I am benefiting tremendously as well. There was a lot going on that day.

My day started with a ewe that I though might have milk fever. I treated her with calcium gluconate and put her with her lambs in a pen so I could watch her. The first FC members arrived as another ewe, Onyx was lambing.
Lambing pens ……and the rest of the barn were cleaned while we kept an eye on Onyx. Onyx is a BFL/Jacob cross bred to a Jacob. She had a black lamb and a Jacob-looking lamb while FC looked on. I’m glad that she lambed in the barn. If she had been in the field I would have been looking all over for a Jacob ewe missing a lamb.Look at the horns on that lamb. Ouch! It’s unheard of to irrigate this early in the year, but we have had almost no rain since December. The irrigation district charged the ditches so I put in a call for water. Gynna and Lisa helped by clearing debris from the ditch. We checked this ewe lamb’s broken leg. I showed FC members my bone-yard ( a pen where I put skulls that are in various stages of decomposition). Shelby sat with the ewe who later died (not of milk fever, but  a metabolic problem similar to pregnancy toxemia, according to preliminary necropsy results).Then we had to bottle feed her lambs. (The day before I had just grafted the bottle baby I had onto a ewe. Now I have more bottle lambs.) And there are always plenty of lambs to hold. We checked all 70 lambs for split eyelids and number of horns and I gave them all BOSE injections. I don’t have photos, but a guest of a FC member worked on my buttons–sanding buttons that I had cut out months ago.  We can’t have Farm Day without Donna’s brownies…and now Lisa’s sheep cookies and  Mary’s O’Henry bars.  Thank you to everyone who came and helped and then shared the warm afternoon sun.

 

Busy Busy

Here are some of the things that have filled this week:   These are 8-9 pound triplets. The third was already up and nursing. I pulled these. This is the lamb list so far. Purple for ewes, blue for rams.  I have a lot of new things for the shop, but haven’t had time to play with them or get them on the website. Electric carder, blending boards, and batt rollers (and other spinning gadgets) by Clemes and Clemes. I also have new DVD’s, books, felting kits, and gadgets.

I had a big weaving deadline that coincided with the first week of lambing (which also coincided with my tax appointment). This is just a preview of an item that will be in an upcoming issue of Handwoven magazine. And a new dog added to the workload. You can read Rusty’s blog to learn more about Maggie. There are still more ewes to lamb. I’m on my way to the barn now for the last check tonight.

Lambs everywhere

Eight lambs today brought us to 22 lambs in five days since lambing began. It was hectic today. I had a Lambtown Fiber Committee meeting scheduled here from 1 to 3. One ewe (Delilah) lambed with twins and I put another ewe (Belinda) in a lambing pen just before the meeting started. One of the participants in the meeting brought her kids and the kids needed something to do. They were charged with the task of telling us if Belinda started having a lamb. About half way through the meeting the kids told us that a different ewe had just had a lamb. That was Terraza and I brought her into the barn. By the time the meeting was over there were 5 more lambs (2 for Terraza, 2 for Belinda, and 1 more for Delilah, giving her triplets). The morning began with finding Summer’s lambs. Unfortunately one was dead. (This is not a very good photo but it is of the live lamb.)The third of Delilah’s triplets. Look at those horns.This is Belinda. It’s no wonder that lambs and ewes get mixed up when lambing in a confined area. Belinda was desperate to have a lamb, any lamb.Delilah and her triplets.Terraza and twins. Dona came for the meeting and she took some photos. I like to weigh the lambs so I have an answer when people ask me “how much do they weigh when they are born?”Here are the official Lamb Watchers of the day. This is one of Eliza’s lambs, born a couple of days ago. Hot Lips and one of her lambs.The Lambing Board.

Lambs are Here!

Lambs were due on Thursday, 148 days after the first breeding date. I’ve started watching for early arrivals. Last night I went out at about 12:30 a.m. (after finishing bookkeeping for the night) and found two ewes with four lambs. I brought them into the lambing pen area and tried to sort out moms and babies. I finally assigned two lambs to each ewe and they all seemed happy. In the light of day I realize that the sets of twins are split up. But that’s OK as long as each lamb has a happy mom. This is a beautifully marked ram lamb. Meridian Celeste x Kenleigh’s Matrix. The two parents are both lilac (the color of this lamb) and they should have lilac offspring.  This is his adopted twin, but he is black so I think belongs to the other mom. (Meridian Zoey x Meridian Fogerty) Here is a lilac ewe lamb (although in the photo she looks black) so this is the twin to the first one.  Meridian Loretta lambed with twins in the middle of the day. I put Loretta in a pen and came back an hour later. No muss, no fuss. Twins clean and nursing. This is a ewe lamb. Meridian Loretta x Kenleigh’s Matrix. Here is that first lamb again. I usually just number the lambs and let buyers give them names.  This lamb is tempting me to name all my lambs. I don’t have his name yet, but I’ll think of one. Lambing season has started.

 

Phyllis Returns Home

Phyllis is a lilac ewe who was born in 2005. She was sold as a lamb to someone who eventually got rid of her flock. Phyllis came home the first time in 2010 as the owner was on the way to the auction with her sheep. It was a surprise when she lambed in January, 2011 with two black lambs. It seems that she was bred during that last trailer ride.

 Look at the size of those lambs at about 5 months old. This is what made me think about getting a ram to raise crossbred lambs for market. That’s how Faulkner’s story here began.  In 2011 Phyllis went to a nearby farm as a companion to Diamond, an elderly sheep (a Pensioner in Jackie’s story about this event). Due to the owner’s ill health the sheep needed to go, so Jackie and I picked them up yesterday. Diamond is living at Jackie’s and Phyllis came back here.   Phyllis and Diamond in the back of Jackie’s van. Diamond at Jackie’s place.She’s in the front of the group here and that’s Marley going to greet her.  Here we are back at my place. Phyllis has a very nice fleece.  She is right in the middle there–the one with more fleece.

 

Welcome home, Phyllis.

Sheep in the Sun

During the winter the sheep are mostly in the barn and corral area. The pasture doesn’t drain well and I don’t want it to be a trampled mess. I’m also waiting for there to be more growth there. It’s been dry enough the last few weeks that I opened the gate to the small paddocks near the barn. The sheep were thrilled to get out to that grass.

 This is Summer (the sheep, not the season).  This is Spring (also, not the season). Here is Eliza. They are all looking a little heavy, but that is because they are due to lamb in about a month.  Stephanie, the old goat, is so stiff in the cold weather we’ve been having. I walked her out here to enjoy the grass.  Most of the sheep kept their heads down eating. But Kyra just wanted to play.     Happy sheep! I still have the new lens on the camera. It is a 40 mm lens and I wasn’t that close to the action. I’m surprised that I was able to crop the photos to this degree and still have them relatively sharp.

Weekly Photo Challenge-Round

Remember the cloud photos? The next photo challenge is Round. This was my first choice that I found when I hunted through my photos. Then I went to the barn with my camera and the new lens. 

 

There are a lot of versions of Round.

Fleeces Revisited

I haven’t finished getting the wool ready to send to the mill. Holidays get in the way. Now it’s COLD. Farm Club members have been helping and I think one more afternoon of skirting and sorting will do it. Sending wool off in January means I’m way ahead of my usual schedule.

If you are not excited about wool these photos won’t be very interesting. But to me they are a precursor of beautiful yarn and blankets.Alison’s fleece. The 3 x 5 cards provide scale (as well as remind me of whose wool is whose). Eliza’s fleece

 

Athena’s fleece is a little shorter than the others, but very soft.    Miller is a ram lamb born last March. This fleece is only 9 months growth. I can’t wait for next year’s.Hattie’s fleeceDid I say it was cold while we were working? Mary and Dona helped one day and Linda on another. Here was the best place to stand–a south-facing wall in the sun. We already finished with your fleece, Jazz.