The Final Lamb

Grace, the orphan straggler, presented us with a lovely ewe lamb early Sunday morning. She has a very cute little Border Leicester face and weighed 8 lbs 10 ozs. It is a big relief to be done with lambing for another season, but it won't be long before the wheels start turning as we begin to think about the ultimate breeding combinations, once again.

Right now, though, we will enjoy watching this most recent crop of lambs grow and develop, and of course look forward to their wonderful fall wool clip.

Moving Day

Yesterday was moving day on the farm. We moved the rams over on the backside of the hill to their summer paddock.


We moved the ewes and their lambs to the paddock at the bottom of the knoll, that was a zoo.


We moved the yearlings and wethers to a paddock near the new pasture.

Hera and the Mod Squad, along with a few other ewes and lambs stayed in a paddock near the barn so that they can get a little extra tlc.

Samson and his much loved igloo also moved to new quarters.

Everyone is now very happy...

...and we felt like border collies for much of the day.

Juliet Loves Company

Juliet has an open-air condo where she can enjoy the outdoors safely. (Thank you Jonathan!) She seems to like it even better when she has company. It is a very popular hang-out.

Kinsey came to visit Juliet and got to help feed her

and play in her condo.

Rufus the Naked Mole Rat Rabbit has been spending the days with her and really enjoys the exercise and green refreshments.

Lena and Harley stop by quite often for some ‘tent time’.

Juliet loves all the attention.

Purple in the Garden

The old-fashioned iris plants are just beginning to bloom in the garden. We are enjoying them so much! Iris flowers have been one of our favorites since we were little girls. Each bloom is so delicate, so unique.

The chive plants have also started blooming. We will take the opportunity to make chive vinegar this weekend. It's one of our favorite ingredient for salad dressings.

The lavender plants should begin blooming soon. So it's time to enjoy the purple in the garden and savor every moment of spring!

Barnyard Shoot

While taking the bio-mower pictures, I decided to stalk... errr... follow these two cute little lambs in an attempt to capture the fun that they were having.



Things were going pretty well... I was snapping away, sure that soon I would get the picture that captured the carefree feeling of the afternoon.



Look! Who should suddenly come charging in to the picture frame but Miss Lucy, and she is all like 'you didn't tell me that there was a photo shoot going on'. Daimhin (daw+veen) and little Mr. 915 are all of a sudden like 'Oh, excuse me, your royal highness'.



Oh my gosh, maybe Miss Lucy really does run things around here!

Rhubarb

Spring is not complete without the great taste of rhubarb: pie, jello, crisp, jam . . .  doesn’t matter as long as it is rhubarb.

 

Recently, a very gracious neighbor shared her bountiful supply with us. Having recently seen somewhere that the leaves are good for dyeing wool, we requested the poisonous leafy tops be left on so we could shred them up and try our hand at dyeing. We ended up with 6 pounds of leaves.

After soaking them overnight we put them on the stove. The boiling leaves smelled very good, and turned into a spinach-like mush.

We tried 4 ounces of wool in one of the pots, (had to boil them in 3 different pots we had so many) simultaneously mordanting with alum and cream of tarter. Brought to 200 degrees for 45 minutes producing a kind of semi-pretty gold/yellow/green color not represented very well in the following picture:

Then for the last 15 minutes we added tin mordant which turned it a pretty bright yellow which is actually somewhere in the middle of the hues that the camera picked up in these two pictures.

Closest to this brighter color.

Which is really one of the prettiest yellows we have gotten from our natural dyes. We may just have to try this same process again.

More on the Bio-Mowers

The bio-mowing continues! How about this cute little line-up of busy bio-mowers, fancy footwork and all.

On the fiber newsfront, we boiled six pounds (yes, 6 lbs) of rhubarb leaves this weekend to make a dye-bath. More on that as the week progresses.

Bio-Mowers

The 2nd Annual Loosing of the Bio-Mowers has begun in the barnyard. We found this to be a great way to provide a little extra grass while the pasture is getting that spring kick-start.
(Of course the time and money saved by not having to mow the barnyard is not bad either.)

Hebe's Boys

These two good looking fellas are out of our three year old ewe, Hebe, and our stud ram, Goliath. Hebe is a lovely silver/black Coopworth-Border Leicester-Wensleydale cross that produces a wonderful, long, heavy fleece. Goliath is a Coopworth-Blue-faced Leicester cross who also produces a really nice, soft fleece. It will be great fun to watch the wool grow on these two little fellas during the summer months.

Mod Squad Update

The 'Mod Squad' has adjusted quite well to life in the pasture. Mama Hera sneaks into the barn every morning for her extra helping of grain and seems to be providing plenty of milk for her three little ones. Linc, Pete and Julie enjoy playing with the other lambs but really are never very far from their mama's side. They make quite the little parade as they make their way through the pasture.

Cool mornings

The top of the barn cistern is a very popular early morning resting spot. (Throughout the day it also poses as a 'let's play king/queen of the mountain' spot.)

Noisy Pasture

The past few weeks there has been a lot of this going on...



and this...



But, things have quieted down quite a bit now that everyone (mama ewes and little lambs) are more comfortable and much more 'organized'. The lambs are becoming a little more independent and they no longer answer every mama's "baaaa". And the ewes are becoming a little less possessive and no longer answer every little lamb's "maaaa". All in all things are a lot quieter and a lot more relaxed in the pasture.

Miss Lucy

Curly and Miss Lucy... Lucy and Curly... honestly, what can you say about these two. There's Curly - not the most attractive ewe in the flock, but she sure produces beautiful lambs (even if they are accidental), and she is a most wonderful mother. Then of course, Miss Lucy - already a very strong personality, the first-born ewe of this season, and she really thinks that she pretty much runs things around here. Both guaranteed to put a big smile :) on your face whenever you visit the pasture.


Miss Lucy and Hebe, our first black and silver ewe lamb 613, pre-twinning.

Glimpses of Dogwood

Athena's First Ewe Lamb

The lovely Athena had a wonderful set of twins last Monday. Our 5-year old Coopworth x Border Leicester ewe had given us 5 lambs the past three years - all rams! So this year we were patiently waiting... and waiting, and finally this first-born, 7 lb white ewe appeared. She was followed shortly thereafter by a really nice silver and black, 8 lb 2 oz ram lamb.

The happy family is shown below, a few days later, with little Mr. 932 making himself right at home in the feeder.

Growing Up Fast

Our little ram lamb, 905, is growing up fast. Born on March 27th, now just 5 weeks old, he is hanging right in there with the big sheep. He has become pretty independent, but still hangs out with his mama at the hay feeder. He is becoming quite stocky, and catching up quickly to his first-time mama, Jill.

Sarah in Relation to Sally

This is Sarah. There is much excitement about Sarah! She is a Border Leicester out of Abby and Saul. The cause for excitement is that she is the grand-daughter of our old girl, Sally Ann.

We were given Sally when we bought some other registered Border Leicester ewes several years ago. Already an 'older' ewe, she was just kind of thrown in for good measure... you know. Well, Sally became a beloved member of our flock and gave us three good years of ram lambs before dying last summer. All summer we talked about how disappointed we were that we had no ewe lamb to carry on Sally's lineage. But, we held on to Sally's '07 ram lamb and decided to use him this year on some of the BL ewes. We are so happy we did.

The second cause for excitement is that for five days we thought that Abby had a ram lamb... no excuse other than punch-drunk exhaustion. So... we are pretty darn excited that she actually had this 9 lb beauty of a ewe! Still thinking there might have been some kind of divine intervention happening there...

Most Definitely Spring!

Pear tree at sunrise


Pear blossoms


Crabapple blossoms

Blueberry bush blooming

'Sarvis' tree blooming (Serviceberry)

Catching Up

Last week was a crazy one. We had lots of rain, a day of sleet and hail, followed by a day of this -



Thank goodness, bluer skies prevailed the rest of the week.



And we spent a lot of time doing this... in the 80+ degree weather that followed.



But, it was all worthwhile because we had a lot of rewards like this -



Meet Flora and Fauna, born to Sweet Pea (Lincoln cross) out of Liam (BL). Born around 5 a.m., Flora weighed 10 lbs 10 ozs and Fauna weighed 10 lbs. This was a cold, rainy morning, and Sweet Pea decided to have them half in, half out the open barn door. We put the little coats on to warm them up a bit after their chilly start.

Slowly, but surely, we are going to catch up with pictures of all the lambs, so stay tuned.