my kinda black friday

Well not completely...I have many downed limbs from the first snow of the season two weeks ago.  We had about four inches of heavy snow with a touch of ice mixed in causing downed trees and limbs in my neck of the woods.

These downed limbs will be around until I get my battery operated chain saw that I've told my husband I want for Christmas...since he feels that need to get me something and I really don't need anything.  I recently had the chance to use one on another tree that came down in recent high winds and it was easy to operate and something that I think I can manage to handle.

As I went out to survey the fence line for other trees that may have taken any fencing down the girls waited at the gait hoping that they would get out and munch on some leaves and grass.

It's been so busy these last few months there were many times I should have put a post on here and just ran out of time.  So a quick second to catch up...

We put our breeding groups together in early October.  I was planning to use Ram #26 Gwenever DuRoy a little more this year, as we have had him for sale since spring.

At this same time I received an email from a breeding that wanted to buy him and pick him up while they were here on vacation and take him back to there farm in New York.

So right away I put nine ewes in with him.  I'm hoping some of them were bred by him before he left on October 21st.

Gordon, my cap flecket ram was put with five ewes, then a few were added later as some came into heat.

Two Tone - another flecket had four ewes in his group.

Fergus - a polled white ram was put with five ewes

My purebred Border Cheviot was put in with my two cormo/shetland cross ewes.  This ram is for sale if anyone is looking for a really nice purebred Border Cheviot.  He comes from Bob Hunter east of Columbus Ohio who raises and shows Border Cheviots.  He is a really nice and pleasant ram.

My Border Cheviot / Shetland cross ram lamb was put to 10 ewes, so we will still have some nice market lambs next year.

We took the breeding groups apart October 28th so who ever is bred is bred.  We hope to have some nice lambs in the spring.  Some of them will be for sale along with some adult ewes.

The girls got their wish on this beautiful fall day.

So my kinda black friday is to kick back and enjoy a relaxing day,
hope you are enjoying this black friday as much as I am.

 

I'm a Yankee Peddler...

at least this weekend and next weekend!!

The Spinning and Weaving guild that I belong to

"The Algonquin Spinners and Weavers"

have the great pleasure of demonstrating at

Yankee Peddler Festival

This is a great place to meet so many people and 

share what we do - spinning, weaving and everything 

fiber related!

 All of our member who participate in demonstrating have the opportunity to 

offer their items for sale.  I must say, we do put out a nice display 

of product.  Such variety, color and styles.

 You still have one more weekend to get a chance to see this 

Yankee Peddler Festival, Sept. 22nd & 23rd.

 Demonstrations such as triangle loom weaving, spinning on the 

Great Wheel, drop spindle spinning, inkle loom weaving and

an activity for the children.  Making friendship bracelets using

a Kumihimo disk.

 I had to include this awesome carved pumpkin created by

Sue R., a guild member who has many talents, including 

carving pumpkins....who knew!?

Notice his wool felted hands holding a map of "Yankee Peddler".

 Some of Sue's other creations.  Needle felting is so cool!

I say she is talented... she is smug and says, "No, anybody can do it".

I'll stick with talent"

Hmmm, maybe there will be a workshop in her future on needlefelting?

T'is festival season

 It is hard to believe that the festivals are starting.

Great Trail Festival begins Saturday.

Although we have about a month of "summer" left

this is a sign of fall to me.  Having cooler August morning 

temperatures, even the sheep are noticing the "feel in the air"

they have been acting a little rambunctious lately. 

Our guild display appears to be more spacious for visitors

and many of our members have brought various hand made

items to sell.  Many of our members will be working the

festival in period costume demonstrating spinning and

various fiber arts.

Hope to see you there!

old Autum and # 162

 I had no intentions of breeding Autum any more as she turned 

10 years old this spring and I feel she had done her duty.

But Fergus and she made other plans. Friday afternoon Autum

delivered these twin moorit katmoget rams.

All three are doing well and spending some time in a lambing pen

before being turned out with the flock.

 #162 a moorit yearling ewe, who I have not registered yet was

also bred to Fergus and delivered this moorit katmoget ram lamb

this afternoon.

 His first close up.   All that superfine crimpy wool.

I believe we are now finished with our lambing.

I've been touching up hooves, checking body condition

and worming.  I need to trim up some of the ewes fleeces since

shearing in March and I know that I will have about 

12 adult ewes for sale.

I have several adult proven rams and one

black ram lamb with good horns, these guys 

are listed on the Nassa Sales page.

If interested in ewes shoot me an email, I haven't had time 

to go through and get pictures yet.  All my stock can be registered

if so desired.

 

#168 Yearling ewe

 I check on this yearling last evening and she just wasn't ready.

This morning she was in the same location in the barn with her 

new white ram lamb. 

Fergus is the sire.

I've penned her so they can bond and he doesn't get lost in 

a sea of sheep.  Usually five to seven days of time together

will give him a chance to get familiar with all the sites, sounds and smells.

I know I have two more ewes that will be delivering soon,

hopefully no more.  Fergus was a busy guy.

another Surprise!!

This yearling ewe delivered her carbon copy of a ewe lamb

last evening.  I didn't notice that she might possible be due

until two or three days ago and only because she had

started to udder up.  She was a fairly thin ewe and I didn't have 

the slightest idea that she was bred until a couple of days ago.

A side note: please excuse her terrible looking fleece,

she was roo-ed and then clipped were the fleece was not ready 

to be roo-ed.  She will be trimmed up one the fleece has had

time to grow out some. 

This yearling is also another RR - scrapie resistant ewe.

 So is Fergus, he is RR also.

So these  two little ewes (half sisters through their Sire - Fergus).

Will both be RR - scrapie resistant ewes and they both

have tight curly wool, a good indication of a fine wooled sheep.

So as of now I still have one more ewe (my old girl) that is expecting.

I didn't pull Fergus out until after we sheared on March 9th.

So we could potentially have lambs through August 3rd...

I really, really, really  hope not.

Washing wool and July surprises

This past weekend was a great time to get some wool washed.

 I was able to get about eight fleeces washed this weekend.  Yeah!!

Now on to carding it :/  So much to do and so little time, 

I will manage ... I always do!

On another note, in our flurry of activity, we sold all of our

market lambs two weeks ago, holding back one smaller stature

border cheviot/shetland ram lamb to use in the future.

Cross breeding our ewes and selling those lambs as market lambs

helps to keep our venture paying for itself.  When these lambs sell

it helps to pay for any hay, grain and supplies that I need to 

maintain the whole flock.  Come festival time or any additional

craft show or event that I can participate in to sell additional 

products made from the wool or the locks or roving I have 

it all helps to support the sheep.

I can selectively breed some of my shetland ewes to my shetland rams

for more purebred stock.  Of which I keep or may offer for sale.

So, this brings me to my July surprise!

I intentionally bred one of my ewes late and she lambed in June -as planned.

The little bugger ram lamb that I used, was turned out with my 

ewe flock in March.  I really didn't think that any of my ewes would 

cycle this late ..."generally" a shetland is seasonal breeder "usually" 

between September and February.

This evening when I called the ewes in from the pasture I 

noticed one ewe still in the pasture and somthing small beside her...

The little ewe lamb below is what we have.

 I was completely surprised.  I didn't even notice that she was expecting.

 This is a precious little ewe lamb, of which I will have to make room 

for her too.

 Her mom is a yearling and has been very attentive.

This yearling ewe is one of my scrapie resistant ewes, she has 

been tested and is RR.  Fergus, the ram that bred her is also 

RR.  So we our pretty pleased to have this little ewe lamb in the flock.

I didn't inspect her too closely yet, we'll save that for another day.

and, just this past weekend we were discussing that I have an older ewe

that I didn't breed, but we noticed that she appears to be uttering up

so we will see.  That little guy Fergus did more than we intended.

Great weather to wash some wool...

Today I heard from Sue Szary of Twin birch products.

She is a shetland "fleece fan" and has informed me that she 

always buys a fleece of mine while she is a vendor

at the Great Lakes Fiber show.

and yes,  Today was a great day to wash wool, I think this next 

week would be a great time to get wool wash with all this heat we are having.

Sue is in Siler city North Carolina and has a wonderful

brick and mortar store with handcrafted birchwood fiber 

art tools and much more.

Sue is also on Facebook at Twin Birch & Teasel.

Check out the link above to see the goodies that are available.

Wait! ...were did May go?

What happened?  I've had alot going on and really intended to get a post out in May 

and missed it.  We had the Great Lakes Fiber Show  -Which was awesome! 

I didn't get one picture!  I think I really need to take the whole week off

away from my day job to prepare better.

So lets catch up...

 We had a new white ewe lamb born this morning.

I've never lambed this late.  In January I decided to put a #61 Andrea

in with a white polled ram lamb.  I didn't breed her earlier in the fall 

because she had become ill and was already stressed.

But she has come through with the gorgeous lamb.

 The shetland lambs are growing by leaps and bounds.

The ones at the feeder are shetlands, two blacks a grey and moorit.

Those in the back are border cheviot / shetland crosses.

 My two spotted shetland lambs, on the left a ewe, the right a ram

are both loosing their spots :(

 Another gorgeous white shetland ewe lamb.

 The white lambs in this photo are all border cheviot / shetland crosses.

They are gaining quickly.  I haven't had time to weigh them

but I believe I will have a group of them ready to go soon.

Three more of the crosses.

 Back in March when we had the sheep sheared I held back about 

10 sheep that we would hopefully be able to roo.  

Well half of them did roo and we found that some didn't roo at all.

So while I've been working on shearing them by hand I have found

a why that is working quite well for me.  Which I will share.

This is one of my newest rams, which we really got him hoping to

get this pattern, but he doesn't roo.

 Isn't he pretty? and he has a good disposition.

 So what I have found is that if I part the fleece as shown above

then working from the back to the front I slide my hand shearers

into the wool as shown below.

 Holding the shears in the angle shown I can get close to the skin and 

not cut the skin. Continuing across to the front.  Taking small 

bites so you can see what you are doing and it really goes pretty fast.

 I can get the prime part of the fleece off in one piece.  I leave 

the britch and underbelly to take off afterwards.  Because these

are pieces that I would skirt off the fleece anyway...for a handspinner.

The britch still have a useful purpose, this just makes it easier for me.

TA DAH!!  A shorn ram in under 30 minutes!

That's all for today!

growing lambs

 Center of this pic. shows one of the first lambs born here, with his

Dam at his side.  He is six weeks old today and is almost as tall 

as his Dam.  He carries spots and is scurred.  He has a very 

gentle personality.  Anyone looking for a new ram?

 This little spotted ewe will be staying here.  She and her twin were

the last lambs born here.  She is now three weeks old.  I'm sure that

she will lose all of her body spotting, but her face and legs spotting 

will stay.

 This little spotted ram lamb with his Dam.  He is about 3 1/2 weeks old.

I think I may have to hold onto this guy and see what happens with

his spots.  He will be horned.

 Below, a short clip of how these lambs get their exercise every day,

morning and night.

 Below, another cute little black ewe, 5 1/2 weeks old that will be staying here.

Those fine black fleeces sell....must keep another one.

Above, I had to share the pink moon that we had last evening.

Although you cannot tell the color here, it was quite beautiful

and appeared quite early in the evening.

Skirting fleeces

 I have been skirting fleeces off and on as time permits since we have

shorn the sheep.  A couple of weeks ago we had warmer weather and

roo-ed a few.  The grey fleece shown today is one of those.

This is a grey lamb fleece, very fine and very clean.

This is one of fifteen that I have selected to take to the 

Great Lakes Fiber Show

 Each fleece I skirt I check to make sure that it is a healthy fleece. 

Taking a lock of wool from the side and tugging on it to check it's strength.  

I am still amazed at the lock length and fineness.

Above shows a relaxed lock length of 4 inches.

 Stretching out the staple length show it at just over 6 inches.

What elasticity!!

With lots of grey color variation.  Most enjoyed with processing 

it yourself, getting to separate the colors to see the variation

in your yarn.  ...or having a woolen mill process it, 

(one that can handle processing fine wool)

blending all the various coloration to make one color of grey.

I don't see having time to show you here all the fleeces 

that I will be taking to the show to sell but....

What will I have available at the 

Great Lakes Fiber Show??

1 - Black 

1 - Mioget

2 - White

3 - Fawn

4 - Musket 

4 - Grey

I have already sent out much wool to be made into combed top.

I plan to have some beautiful fawn top 

and white top available for sale

 in the Guild (Algonquin Spinners & Weavers) booth at

the Great Lakes Fiber Shows,

located next to the Information booth.

Hope to see you there!

 

 

#51 Audrey & #60 Zoe

 This morning Audrey had delivered her lambs. A ewe and ram

The ewe lamb did not survive, but the ram lamb is doing well

 These pics. were taken in the evening and this little guy has found 

the most comfortable place to lay.

Zoe, above seemed to have been in labor since this morning.

When I came home this evening she had made no progress so I 

wasn't going to wait any longer.  After tending to everyone's needs

I moved a couple of ewes out of this pen and slipped Zoe in.

Going back into the house to scrub up, I was determined that 

I was going to help her along.  With assistance we were able

to get ahold of the little spotted ewes legs and guild her 

out while Mom did her part.

When she was ready to deliver the second lamb, a moorit ram

again I kept constant tension on his little legs so she could 

do her part and deliver him.

I've had a few issues with deliveries this year I believe that I have overfed my ewes

causing their body condition to be a little too plump therefore some of the births have been distressing on the ewes and lambs.  I definitely need to be more mindful

when it comes to giving anything more than good hay.

   

This ends our Spring Lambing for 2018.

We might have some summer deliveries but 

we are not going to get too excited about this just yet.