Day of Adventure

With the sun shining brightly this morning, we brought the first six lambs outside to the 'nursery' area. They spent a lot time practicing their new fancy, prancing and hopping as Lucy, Curly's little ewe, is demonstrating below.



Hazel's twin ram lambs spent a lot of time by the fence watching the big, grown-up, maternity ward ewes on the other side of the fence.



Later, Neala's twin ram lambs demonstrated the fine art of rest and relaxation.



New mama, Jill, kept close tabs on her big fella all day long.

After all the adventure and excitement, at the end of the day all any of the new little ones were concerned about was reuniting with their mama.

Frosty Morning

 

The jonquils are cold and frosty in the morning snow,

The new spring grass is cold and frosty,

 

 

But Dawn’s new little baby ewe lamb born last night is warm and toasty in her bed of straw.

Finally

 

Our first ewe of the 2009 lambing season!

We have been watching Curley very closely since we realized that she had unintentionally gotten bred. (At least we did not mean to have her bred, obviously someone had other intentions having to cross the fence to accomplish the feat)

Curley is our only pure bred Romney ewe,  is getting very old, and has prolapsed in the past. But, she also produces a very beautiful black fleece to earn her keep. 

So, this year we got a bonus, a ewe lamb. And without dealing with a prolapse. 

A black and silver 14 lb 5 oz ewe.

She should be able to hold her own with all those pesky boys.

They looked really worried don’t they?

2 + 2+ 1 =

. . .  5 ram lambs

Three more lambs yesterday.

A set of twin rams from one of our Coopworth/Blue faced Leicester cross lambs that we purchased from Martha at Deer Run Sheep Farm.  This is Neala as a lamb with her beautiful full fleece:

And yesterday, all grown up and recently sheared, attending to her two new ram lambs.

One of them weighed in at over 9 pounds, the other at almost 13 pounds. This is the big boy looking for his first meal.

 

Later, yesterday evening, when going to close up the guinea coop for the night, Jill our only Romney cross ewe was in the process of delivering her first lamb that looked pretty large. With a little assistance, she delivered a hefty ram that weighed over 12 pounds and has sturdy ‘Clydesdale’ legs.

This is our Jill as a lamb. We so hoped she would give us a ewe lamb. Maybe next year.

And Here is Jill yesterday, with her new lamb. He looks almost halve as big as she is!

And here he is showing off his hefty, wooly legs. He is a sturdy boy.

So, now we are up to – let’s count together --

one, two, three, four, five.

And did I mention they are all rams??????

Vote Earth!

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Let the Games Begin

The first lambs have arrived!!

Yesterday, on the late afternoon barn check, Hazel, one of our border leicester cross ewes, was in the corral pawing a little. The NOISY guineas, a confusion of them, arrived on the scene and Hazel promptly exited into the field with the rest of the ewes and down over the hill. Lena and I watched her a little and decided to let her alone and hopefully she would come back into the barn or corral.

On the next check, after supper, we found all of the ewes in the barn except, of course, Hazel. Down over the hill – this hill which the picture does no justice, you can barely see the fence down at the very bottom along the tree line--

was Hazel with two little lambs. A very cold east wind was whipping across the hill , so Lena headed to the fiber room for towels – I think she ran all the way – and I proceeded down the hill and found two healthy ram lambs. It took us a while to convince Hazel to consistently follow us UP the hill, but when she saw the barn, it was much easier.

We got them weighed and settled into the jug and continued on our original destination 45 minutes late, choir practice. We later put on their coats to keep them toasty after their trip up the windy hill.

This morning they looked very contented

and warm.

Spinning Easter Egg Painted Roving

 

Using two different batts that we colored with Easter egg dyes and kool-aid, I spun this colorful little skein on the drop spindle.

I stripped each of the two batts into narrow strips and alternated them on the spindle.

   It made a beautiful mix of greens and oranges.

Will make great colorful stripes in a hat or scarf.  Hmmm…..

 

Any ideas????

The Queen

This is Queen Elizabeth. In a Border Leicester frame of reference, she is a real beauty; from her lovely Roman nose to her even more lovely wool full of crimp and curl.

We have not had great luck breeding The Q Liz to Liam, our registered Border Leicester ram. We have everything crossed that this will be the year that everything works out.

Cinder's Carriage and Her Royal Majesty colorways

Shown above are two colorways we have developed from the lovely queen's wool. You can find them here in our etsy shop.

Patiently

Just a couple more weeks of waiting and the pasture will be filled with new lambs. Everyone on the farm is patiently waiting.




Even the guineas seem to know that something special is about to happen. They spend a lot of time basking in the sun, 'quietly chatting' with the ewes.

Feed Time Supervisor

This is one of Davita's favorite positions at feeding time. She follows us around from pasture to pasture always making sure she has the very best view possible of what is going on around her.