Thursday, May 23, 2013

Thanks for a great weekend at Shepherd's Harvest


I had a great weekend at Shepherd's Harvest last week.
Thanks to everyone who took my birdhouse class, your houses turned out great! I only wish we would have gotten a photo with all the birdhouses that were made. I will remember next time! I've hung two of mine outside and am waiting for the wrens to come back and start filling them up with sticks.


Thanks to everyone who stopped in my booth,  it was great to meet new friends and to see so many old friends. Even though there is never enough time to talk!
Rita and her triplets at 4 weeks old.
 The lambs are growing like weeds and I'm making the difficult decisions as to who will be for sale and who will be retained.
Godiva and her ram lamb at 2.5 weeks old. He's a little doll!
I used the electronet to let the ewes and lambs graze the backyard for the past couple days.
They got into some mischief with the rhubarb and my precious peach tree. But I don't think any permanent damage was done. Next time I'll reinforce my hog panels with T posts. 
Luna's ram lamb investigating the rhubarb.  I'm very tempted to keep this one for breeding, his fleece is so soft!
Flash inspecting the fire pit.

I really shouldn't breed the sheep anymore. Although I love the lambs, it adds a lot of extra stress to life before and after lambing, at weaning, etc. Since I sold my land with the hay fields, I will be buying hay again, so I want to just have a fiber flock of about 6-8 sheep. Soon my sales list will be posted. However, I've still got three Shetland ewes due to lamb after Memorial Day (it seemed like a good idea to run the whole flock together over the winter months but now I'm paying for it with late lambs).  Hopefully we'll get more bling from Jari, the Finn ram and the Shetland ewes.

I'm glad to have some time to create some new work for the gallery in Stillwater and get my planting done. This is my favorite time of year. I'm enjoying watching the leaves bud on the trees and the grass green up.  This Japanese stone cherry tree is a show stopper every spring.

The black hen has hatched 7 ducklings with one more working his way out of the shell now.

These two ducks are setting on a clutch of eggs too.
 For those of you not on FaceBook, the grey cat on the chair is Buddy.  He's the stray cat in my pole barn, except now he's hanging out by the house and he even cameIN this morning while I was on the deck with door open. My cats weren't so sure they liked that...
 Oh my, I find myself with three cats!  But I couldn't just let him go hungry last winter...


Thursday, May 09, 2013

Shepherd's Harvest this weekend!

I'm trying my best to get everything organized and ready to go for this weekend at Shepherd's Harvest in Lake Elmo, MN.  I'm teaching the felt birdhouses tomorrow and then I'll be vending all weekend.
I'm packing up all my fibers, a few raw-felted pelts, some birdhouses, a little bit of handspun yarn and even my Louet Victoria wheel.  

Stop by the festival if you're looking for something fun to do. It's a free family event with music, food, fiber demos, herding dogs, sheep, llamas, all kinds of fiber-related vendors. I'll be in Building C, River Oaks Farm & Studio.
Meet Flash, Shetland/Finn cross ram lamb out of River Oaks Godiva. He's such a sweetie, very friendly.
 In lambing news, Luna and Godiva delivered single ram lambs within 30 mintues of each other on the evening of April 30th. They are both first time lambers and they both did an excellent job.

Luna's ram lamb, his name is Comet, he's a BFL/Finn cross and I'm really looking forward to his fleece.

Rita's triplets and Leta's ram lamb are growing like weeds. I can't believe they will be 3 weeks old on Saturday.  I don't have a recent photo, they've grown a lot since I took one below.
Front to back, Letla's lamb Kahn (banded), Rita's triplets, Rocky, Ruby and Rosie.  All are Bluefaced Leicester/Finn and should have wonderful fleece.

I will be offering all these lambs for sale at weaning in late June (all except for Comet and Ruby or Rosie). I'm making up a sales list which will include all my boys  (except Comet), even the ever-so-friendly with fabulous fleece, Mr. Socks.  Four Shetland ewes are due to lamb after Memorial Day, so there should be more lambs on the list too.


It's really hard to keep focused and get all the details arranged for this weekend, so I've got to keep going here. I know I'll have a good time this weekend and be totally exhausted by Sunday night.  Hope to see you ar Shepherd's Harvest!

Getting ready for Christmas Markets!

  I'll be doing two Christmas markets this year. The first one is at Sapsucker Farms in Brook Park, MN Nov. 18-19th. And the second one ...