Meet some of our rams

What a beautiful day we had today! With breeding season just around the corner, I've been planning my breeding groups and the necessary pens. Here are a few shots of some of our rams.

Minwawe Donder, Black yuglet/sokket who did an excellent job as our flock sire last year. He carries moorit and will get three mature ewes. (Notice how big the turkey poult is getting too!)

Here's a shot of River Oaks Isaac and Ace taken a few weeks ago. Isaac is a solid black ram lamb with fabulously soft fleece. Notice the wool on his poll and cheeks and the great little tail he has. Ace is the moorit yuglet ram lamb with a turkey on his back. Since this photo was taken a few weeks ago, you can see the turkeys were much smaller then.



This is Sheltering Pines Bombarde, a fawn katmoget, F2 Roban Dillon with excellent conformation and super crimpy fleece. He's RR AA will get four ewe lambs...

And here's Beechtree Dougal, our Bluefaced Leicester ram lamb will get three ewes, one BFL and two Shetlands.

And this is Windswept Boggart, a mioget with fantastic horns and a beautiful dual coat. He was 1st place Ram Lamb at Michigan Fiber Festival in August. He will get 4 ewes and two ewe lambs. We're hoping to get more modified colors, longer fleeces and perhaps some spots from him.

Kittens, kittens and more kittens!

Well the excitement just didn't stop around here this week. After shmoozing with Al Franken on Sunday night, our recently adopted cat delivered SEVEN kittens on Monday night. So suddenly we're up to eight cats in the house. The kittens are so very cute and tiny. They're all different colors -- two tiger striped, one black, one orange, one calico, one black and white and one gray and white. Not sure on the sexes yet....They will be ready for adoption in time for Christmas gift giving, so if anyone is interested, please let me know...of course they are FREE to good homes.

I wanted to get a photo of the mama kitty before she delivered and we made her a little cat bed, but she picked out a spot in our luggage set at the back of the closet. I was spinning away on Monday evening when I heard a faint squeaking noise. Ozzie, our Aussie and I followed the noise only to find a purring mother cat and 5 kittens already born. That was plenty in my opinion, but by the next morning we found two more for a total of seven. The mama kitty just purrs constantly with her babies in there. We have to use a flashlight to see them. We tried moving them out into the cat bed, but she would have nothing of that and carried them back into the suitcase.

Heritage Crafts and Politics

What a great weekend!
Last night my friend Denise, her daughter, Lily and I attended a fundraiser in Pine City for Democratic candidate Tim Faust. He's running for the MN house. It was a fun evening. Democratic state senate candidate Tony Lourey and his mother, Becky Lourey who currently holds that office, were there and they were very personable.
Al Franken was there and he was fantastic. I love the way he mixes humor and politics - his speech was great. He was mixing with the crowd and seemed very interested in all the people that attended. I loved all the speeches and how personable all the candidates were. I encourage everyone to get out and vote in the upcoming election. Every vote counts!
On Saturday I took a class at the Kanabec History Center and learned to do "countered twining" rug weaving. Using fabric cut into stips and a simple loom, you can make beautiful durable rugs that will last for decades. These rugs look like they are braided, but they aren't. I was surprised at how heavy they were. I wish I had a photo to show you, but I'll have to wait until I get one made -- I didn't bring the camera to class.
Stan worked on repairing the pole barn even though it was so cold and windy over there. He got the roof done (except for the peak) and started on the walls. We now have cattle grazing the pasture, about 30+ head. It's so nice to see them out there making use of the nice grass that grew in after the fire cleared it this summer.
Oh, and Saturday night we were guests for a delicious spaghetti and lasagna dinner at our friends, Dick and Kate's. Kate is an excellent cook and a truly creative person. She has a wonderful old spinning wheel dated 1899 that she got from her grandmother. I wished I had brought some string along so we could have gotten that wheel going. It looks to be in excellent condition with all the parts...

Fall is here...some photos

Our kitty is getting bigger every day. I think the kittens are due around October 22nd.

We had our first snowfall this morning, here's a shot of the deck and my poor petunia.




Yesterday was nicer, I took this shot of Donder with one of the three remaining turkeys. Those turkeys are the coolest things! The rams don't seem to mind at all having the turkeys roost on their backs. Yes, I do watch for turkey droppings in their wool, only once did I find some. You can see in this photo that Donder is holding his head back for the turkey to pick VM out of the wool on his head. And you can also see that Donder has filled out and looks like he's about to drop twins himself. I hope he's not too heavy for breeding this fall.


Here's a shot of our oldest ewe, Bramble Gillian. She's 9 years old and has such an inquisitive look about her. She's a moorit ewe, but I've noticed a small white spot on her nose this fall. Her 4 year old daughter Diana, also a moorit, has a matching one. Interesting...