Summertime!

The 4th of July has come and gone already!  We had an old fashioned 4th with fireworks at dusk, grilling with friend's in the afternoon and attending a small town parade.

The parade was complete with the dairy princesses (all of whom whipped out their squirt guns right after this photo was taken)...

The guy with the trained Border Collie...

And shaking hands with the politicians running for office.  A new one for me was to see a Tea Party float, which was curiously being pulled by a van promoting the Public library.

We were seated at the very beginning of the parade route and lots of candy was tossed our way until the little girls with grass skirts stood next to us after their float finished its route. The whole thing only lasted about half an hour, which was fine by me, I was sweltering in the hot sun.

I've been scouting for bargains again and I snared this dress form and a fancy new head.  It's so cool to finally have a dress form to design on! 

Half our hay is being cut today.  I hope it doesn't rain tonight- there's a 60% chance -- tomorrow's supposed to be dry. We will spend Friday stacking hay over in Ogilvie.  Last year it was a pain to unload all the hay racks onto our trailer and truck then haul them back here to be unloaded again and stacked.  It will be much easier to simply bring home 30-50 bales as needed when cooler temps prevail. 

The market lambs are looking good. We got the other three last week.  The youngest are 9-week-old twins with some pretty long docked tails (pictured on the left in the photo below). 

The Shetland Mule/Ile de France lambs look better than the Dorset/Ile de France crosses.  The Dorset crosses are taller and not as filled out as the Shetland Mules' lambs.  I suppose eventually they will fill out, but the Mules' lambs are great! The 9-week-old twins are out of a mule but sired by a Dorset ram.

I'm not sure how long to keep them here, prices are sure to go down as people start unloading lambs this month and next.  The current price is $1.20-$1.30 pound.  I have lamb customers if I keep them until fall, but it just doesn't seem to make economic sense for me to feed them that long.  If we had tons of pasture here it would be a different story.

This is Camille, a yearling Ag Gulmoget ewe.  Her lamb fleece staple length was 6", but if pulled taut, it's 7".  I guess I won't pull it taut. She's one of my favorite lambs from 2009.  She's going to replace her mother, Bramble Cordelia.