Birth Announcement

This afternoon my treasured mare Lydia delivered her 2nd foal.  I have been very anxious about her well being & hopeful that my order came out right.  She had a quick & easy delivery & is doing good!  But my order was completely messed up!  I wanted a bay filly & received a sorrel colt. However she is healthy & we can try again next year and that's what matters to me!

j ch

Maker's market

I did my first show today at a local church.  It was outside & we had a beautiful day for it.

Here's a picture of my table.  I took a small selection that went sheep to shawl. I had the mindset that I may not sell anything, but at least I could spend the day spinning & informing people of my craft/art. I like to use the word craft in the old style of a trade craft, something that people learned & worked on their whole life.   I realize that my craft is very select in the people interested.  To my complete enjoyment i actually sold a few things.  Exactly what i thought I would, dryer balls & yarn.

I made some great contacts and met some great people. Several people took my card & I hope that they will read this or a future post!  If you took a card today please comment & let me know!  I would love some feedback on what you liked or what you would like to see.  I'm hoping to get my sale page up & running by tomorrow night. 

Roo'ing

Shetland sheep are considered a primative breed. This means that they are an old breed that primarily are the same now as they were long ago.  They are also considered a heritage breed. This is interesting because Shetlands will actually lose their fleece.  By that, I mean that they develop a natural weak spot that allows their fleece to be pulled or rubbed out; eliminating the need for shearing. This is referred to by Roo'ing.

How easily they lose their fleece depends on the individual & some bloodlines will roo easier than others.  Many shepherds shear simply for convenience of having them all done & quickly. However, based on my research roo'ing can be beneficial to your wool harvest.  A roo'ed fleece is fluffier and lacks any of the cut ends that a shorn fleece will have. It also leaves the natural new growth behind.

I didn't give this any thought last spring when i had my flock sheared; I just knew it needed done.  So this year i did some shearing, mainly my expecting ewes to get a better idea of how they looked & to give lambs a better view of the dinner place.  LOL.  However I noticed the yearlings fleece seemed very loose. I was pretty sure it wasn't a stress break . . . Then decided they must be roo'ing. So, I've undertaken the task of roo'ing the yearling ewes. For the reasons I stated above.

So here are a couple shots of Loretta a little bit into the process. I started on her back and you can see the comparative bare spot.  I didn't get to finish by any means when I had to stop,  so she's in the pen with a larger bare spot.  LOL. 

The disadvantage to roo'ing is that it is time consuming! So finding the time to finish may be tricky between work & other things that have to be done with a farm & family.  So wish my luck.

In The Last Week

So I'm going to try to recap this last week for you.  We were pretty busy!

I did some cleaning under my chicken & rabbit pens.  Above is one of the nice wagon loads that I spread on the garden. Below is a shot of some of our pens. 

 Below are some pictures of our 2 new angora bucks.  A fawn named Buck who's super friendly.  And a blue named Blue, original I know.  LOL.

Below are some nice pictures of the yearling ewe pen that we built.  The shelter is made from pallets & old feed bags. 

A few more signs of spring. . . My lilac, wild plum, & apple trees are blooming. 

One of my bantum cochins has decided to be broody. 

 And I managed to get my mother's 2 angora goats sheared. This is the only picture I was able to take as I did have my hands full.  Fluffy Girl was supposed to be taking pictures but she was distracted by hay bales & my parents 2 miniature Aussies. LOL.

Triple Surprise

My morning feeding had me hearing new voices in the flock. Sure enough i saw a new lamb, then another,  THEN ANOTHER!  Yes, both my girls that were expecting soon lambed together! 

 Dawn gave me a nice set of white twins, ram & ewe. 

 Maggie delivered of a red brown ram lamb! 

All babies seem to be healthy & doing well! 

So cute!

There's been a lot going on since Sunday but I'll update you on that later.  We have a 4H meeting tonight & Fluffy Girl is giving a demonstration on preparing wool to spin.  So I'll leave you with this video of no-name lamb stretching her legs a bit.

The end of the circle

Yesterday we celebrated the birth of a new life.  Today we mourn the end of another on our little farm.  Kris, pictured above, suffered a serious injury on Saturday and padded due to those injuries this morning. She will be missed. 

First lamb 2016

We welcomed our first lamb today! It's a girl!! Shown with her dam, Dusk. Baby girl is doing well.  

Here's a picture of Niles, the sire of this year's lambs.  Not a great picture of him, but he is a very nice ram that we'll be using again this fall/winter on at least a few ewes. 

On that note, I don't have a naming theme for this year yet.  So many options! It's hard to choose, but the top of my list is gods & goddesses.

Yarn in Progress

This post is kind of a compilation of a few steps in the yarn making process. This particular wool is from a cotswold cross that we had a couple years ago.  Wool when properly stored can be good that long. 

Cotswold are known for their long shiny fleece.  This cross still lives up to it being very close to the only other purebred cotswold that I've handled.  It's not known to be the softest but can be great for outerwear!

 Here i have my supplies assembled to dye.  I actually did 2, 4 ounce batches on this. Wool in lingerie bags from our local Dollar Tree.  I love these! Stainless steel stock pot, this isn't as very big one but it's what i grabbed.  Citric Acid, i get this from a local Amish store as they're the cheapest place to get in bulk. This is what makes the dye fix into the fiber.  It's food grade & safe for most uses. Citric acid is an ingredient in Kool Aid & is commenly used in canning. 

 The first step is to wet your wool.  This just makes your life easier.  Trust me. LOL. At that point i add citric acid to the dye pot & turn the burner on.  Then i put my wool in the dye pot so that it's on the water as it heats. You want to get the water to simmering, but not boiling. As it gets to the right temperature, you'll want to add your dye.  I prefer to use icing dyes, as they are food safe so i don't have to keep separate pots for dying & cooking. I mix in the food coloring or icing dye in water in a glass cup & then add to my dye pot.  Simply simmer your yarn in the dye until it is exhausted. This means until the water in the dye pot is clear or mostly clear. I'll have to get you a picture of that next time.  I was so busy dying that i forgot to take a picture. 

 So here's my 2 finished dye lots.  After dying you need to drain & rinse your fiber until the water runs clear. This can be tricky on any red coloring as it seems to take forever! I usually get it most of the way & then let it dry to set the color.  You run the risk of having colorful fingers while spinning, but that's a risk I'm willing to take.  

 Here's where I'm at tonight.  I've separated the locks and am now using my hand carders to card it into mini batts. I love my hand carders because they seem to give me several fiber prepping options. We'll cover that more another time. I decided to leave them as mini batts to get a more open prep to spin from. 

Around the farm

I thought I would share some around the farm pictures.  It's not as pretty as i would sometimes like to be but it's ours. :) We do what we can with what we've got which often means a humble beginning.  Also I'm a farm girl at heart with very little landscaping skills.  LOL. Seriously, I work hard at making a garden grow instead of die.

 Some random flowers growing in a fenceline. I hope we don't kill them when we redo fencing. 

 This is a shot of my ram pen.  It's got 2 stalls reinforced with metal panels on the inside.  Many people do run rams together in the off season, however we decided to separate our 2 due to size & age.  Kenny,  pictured below before shearing, is only a yearling & going to be shown this year.  Niles, who will be pictured in a later post is a strapping older & bigger ram. They have already destroyed parts of the wood between them.  So while this seems small & closed, until we get something way more heavy duty, permanent, & separate; this is the safest pen for them.  Also we aren't sure that we are keeping more than 1 ram at least for now. Kenny will probably be for sale after showing. 

 Here's the start of a little shelter/pen for my yearling ewes.  We'll get them out of the big pen so the pregnant ewes can lamb soon. 

 And my garden.  Doesn't look like much right now, but early spring seeds are going in tomorrow! I love fresh lettuce & we are trying some organic heirloom varieties this year.  I prefer heirloom items to grow & try to grow as naturally as possible. We're also putting in snow peas, spinach, and trying kale.

In 2 or 3 more weeks we'll plant some green beans for canning and I'm going to try some northern & kidney beans for drying. Probably some sweet corn, watermelon, & pumpkin going in as well.