Pretty Boys

Here are a couple shots my son Alex took of the sheep this weekend. These two are yearling rams, Windswept Boggart, mioget, and Jackpot, our sweet little moorit yuglet.

A Valentine Goose Egg

Today is Valentine's Day and I thought this egg photo would be fitting for the blog. I'm really anxious to do some more Ukrainian eggs this spring. I'm teaching a class in Grantsburg, WI on March 12, and I'd like to have some new eggs done by then.

The sheep flock is doing well. I love this time of year, the girls are just taking it easy growing lambs. The stress of late pregnancy is still a ways off, but they've starting getting a daily grain ration and they love that. We bought that extra two acres last week and now I'm dreaming up my new barn and fencing plans.

We don't plan to shear until April or May. Probably May after lambing. Maybe I won't get so anxious for lambs if I can't see those bags getting bigger every day.

Ooooh, it's SO COLD outside!

We're in the midst of a cold spell, with highs below zero and lows in the 20's below. We don't even want to THINK about wind chill temps! I can't wait for this to pass. The sheep are taking it well, they don't even seem to notice. My rams have a nice lean to on the barn, but the 15 ewes and 2 BFL's just have two small fiberglass calf hutches and a Polydome Megahut for shelter. You would swear it was lambing time here with all the holes dug into their bedding to keep warm. Janet McNally of Tamarack Lamb and Wool told me that 18" of bedding in this weather is like adding 30 degrees to the temperature. Since then I make sure to add bedding before cold spells, works like a charm! No more cold feet for my ewes.

The past few weeks have been busy with lots of fun things. In January, I went to a retreat of the Northern Lights Handspinner's Guild and made my first needlefelted head. Then last weekend I took a beginning tapestry class at Creative Fibers in Minneapolis. Learned a lot about tapestry and in the evening, I taught a friend the needlefelted head process. So now I have two heads, Agnes and Albert. I'm trying to decide on how to do bodies for them, but in the photo here they are turtleneck people.

We've been doing college tours with our youngest son, he's into making videos and wants to go into television production. So now I'm working on taxes, after that we'll do the FAFSA and hope for some help with his college expenses.

I finally got my NEW spinning wheel! It's a Louet Victoria, very tiny as you can see in the photo with my Ashford Traveller. It's surprisingly sturdy for such and small wheel. I've spun several skeins already trying to get used to Scotch tension again. I have to confess that I prefer double drive wheels, but I don't know of any truly portable wheels with double drive. The Victoria is so easy to assemble and disassemble. Changing the bobbin is a snap too.

And one more exciting thing is that we hope to close on the land behind the house this week. It turned out that we could only get 2 additional acres, shown in the photos here, but it will be all pasture. Plus, I can still use my electronet for the sheep to graze additional land. This means we'll be staying here for a while longer and we'll keep our 40 acres as well. Yay! It's the best of both worlds!