Rooing Mabeline

Today was a gorgeous day and I spent most of it in an Artists in Education workshop, which was very worthwhile, but I was happy to cut out a little early so I could get home and roo Mabeline.

Mabeline is an unregistered shetland ewe, almost two years old. She's 22% UK bloodlines (Timothy and Holly), her fleece is dense, fine and crimpy. I used her in my BFL crossbreeding program this year. I can hardly wait to see the fleece on her lambs this spring!

Anyway, her fleece has been loose around her middle for a couple weeks now. Normally the fleece loosens up first around the head, neck, chest or around the tail, but not in this case.

I plucked a little of her wool about a week ago and was waiting for more nice weather to keep at it. Well, I got about half done today in about 45 minutes. You can see the yellowish line where the old fleece ends and the new fleece is coming in. I pulled up on the old fleece while holding my other hand flat on her skin. She's left with a nice coating of fleece. She really seemed to enjoy the process as she wagged her tail a lot.

However at times she must have been uncomfortable because she'd walk away for a few bites of hay. Then within minutes she was back begging for more rooing. I know she looks funny, but I decided to quit at the point shown in the photo because the plucking was harder (for both of us). Hopefully the rest of the fleece will loosen up in the next week or so.

Once I got in the swing of rooing, whoever came up for scratching got a test plucking. I think I have about four more ewes who should be roo-able in the coming weeks. Yes! I'm also working on rooing one of my rams, Sheltering Pines Bombarde. He loves it too. He's on my list for tomorrow.

Now I need to wash this pound of fleece and see how it compares to shorn fleece for spinning.

Free again

Sorry not to have posted on here for a while. I was busy dealing with snow and taxes and the FAFSA. And I volunteered to do the booklet for Shepherd's Harvest. SH takes place on Mother's Day weekend in Lake Elmo, MN. A pdf of the booklet is available to download on the website: www.shepherdsharvestfestival.org. The booklet is finished and an egg class I was scheduled to teach on Monday was cancelled so I feel like a free woman again!



I started in on CDT shots for the pregnant ewes. Lambs should start arriving in April. We should have some modified lambs, some spotted lambs, some katmoget lambs, a purebred BFL lamb and some BFL/shetland cross lambs. I can hardly wait! But this is an exciting time of year, just watching the ewes for signs of pregnancy. They are still in full fleece so it's hard to tell what's going on under all that wool. I've posted a photo of Lanora, my BFL ewe and River Oaks Eliza who appears to only have two legs in this shot!










And I've finally got a chance to start reading my aunt's latest murder mystery, Witch Cradle. I really enjoy reading her books. This is the third in a series which takes place in Michigan's UP. I'm not very far yet so I don't even know where the murder comes in...here's link to it on Amazon.com --
http://www.amazon.com/Witch-Cradle-Kathleen-Hills/dp/1590582543






Our Monday morning Artrageous group made jewlery this week. Thanks to Dee Kotaska for teaching us. Here are photos of us modeling our creations. I made two pairs of earrings which don't show up real well (I'm in pink in the lower right corner). That was lots of fun, but just what I don't need, a another hobby!

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!

Spinning, felting and knitting projects

I've gotten some things done since Christmas. I finished my new socks, made from Parade yarn from Knitpicks. I like this yarn because it's heavier than the usual self-striping sock yarns and these socks are warm!
The other day I felted up some mittens using roving from Willy's lamb fleece, it took about 2 oz. of roving and almost three hours. I'm considering adding some knitted cuffs inside to keep the cold and snow from coming in at the wrists.
And I've been spinning up more of the Louet Northern Lights spaced dyed top. I love these colors! The top is very thin and is easy to draft. I made some 2 ply yarn and then navajo plied some for a 3 ply yarn with more intense color. I think I prefer the 2 ply...pictured here are wildberries, grape jelly, violets, cotton candy and lollipops.

Hay Feeders

There has been a lot of talk about various hay feeding systems on the lists lately. I thought I would post a photo of the "Red Green" hayfeeders I unvented last year. I'm sure other people have also come up with this in the past, but it was new to me. I know they're not the prettiest addition to the barnyard, especially the end with the lid as shown in these photos, but they do come in handy and they are cheap and easy to make.
After my hubby came home from the auction with two 55 gallon barrels, I started thinking about the best way to use them for sheep feeders. We've cut them in half width-wise before, turned them over and added openings for great little duck and goose houses. Plastic barrels are versatile, waterproof, cheap and almost indestructible. But you MUST make sure they weren't used for poisonous liquids in the past! Ours were from fruit juice concentrates...
Anyway, having a covered hay feeder was important to me as well as keeping the hay off the ground in my overstocked paddocks. After a little ruminating on the subject (bad pun- sorry!), I had the hubby cut the barrels in half lengthwise and screw on two sturdy boards for legs on each end. The key is to use wide sturdy boards for legs and not allow too much space between the halves, or the sheep will be able to get in and so will the rain and snow. For my Shetlands, low legs were important, the bottom half is just barely off the ground. You can see in the snow photo from a few days ago, our BFL ram lamb is a little too big for this feeder, but he prefers it over the other feeders anyway.
We used sandpaper to smooth down the rough cut edges of the barrel.
Anyway, I do like these feeders. They are easy to move and they accomodate 6 sheep easily. They keep most of the snow and rain out. We added three drain holes in the bottom of each feeder just in case.
The adult sheep don't get in, but lambs can. This actually came in handy when we had two bottle lambs in with our flock last spring. They would cuddle up together inside the feeder and stay warm and dry at night. It worked out very well since we don't use these feeders much when the sheep are on grass.