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.