New Job & a painting class & my dwindling Shetland flock

Well, things are looking a little brighter these days. I finally got a job and I'll start next week. I'll be working part time in the deli department of the grocery where my husband and son already work. I'll be working three 6-hour shifts per week. To be only 4 miles from home and working short shifts will be great during lambing next spring. And I think I'll actually get more artwork done when I have a part time job. I'm really more productive when I have limits set on my time. We'll see!

Last week I started a new painting class taught by Karen Kiefer. She lives in Ogilvie, close to our 40 acres. I finished a wool painting and took out my watercolors last weekend and start to paint some sheep. On the right is Lanora, a BFL and on the left is Delia, a Shetland Mule. I have a long way to go on these and I will probably switch to pastels.
In the class I'm using pastels. Yesterday I started a pastel of Boggart's impressive skull/horns in class with special lighting set up. Having been bumped and bruised by those very horns (much to sweet old Boggart's embarrassment), I wanted to portray their strength and magnificence. They are so impressive, but it's kind of ironic that I'm now breeding for polled Shetlands.

And this morning I said goodbye to Bramble Jemma and River Oaks Abby. They are going to be spoiled rotten at their new home in Princeton. They will join a small flock of just pair of Shetlands right now. I hope to get updates on them and the lambs they produce next spring. They are both such sweet girls. So I am now down to only 6 Shetland ewes and 4 Shetland rams (two of which are going to slaughter due to tight horns). I have 6 Bluefaced Leicesters (soon to be 5 when Dougal leaves), 7 Shetland Mules, and the Ile de France/Dorset ram lamb. Oh yes and 3 crossbred polled rams that will go to slaughter too. So I'm down to 27 sheep right now and should be down to 21 for the winter. I think 15 sheep would be ideal for our limited pasture here. I still would like to sell the two nicely horned ram lambs and a one or two Shetland Mule ewe lambs.

My purebred BFL breeding group is together as are the Shetland mules and Granite. I was disappointed that my Ile de France/Dorset ram lamb just wasn't mature enough to use for breeding this fall. I'll have to keep him for next year, but I know it will be tempting to put him in the freezer next spring, they grow so fast!

Cooperation

The election is over and our nation has turned a historic page. The scenes of joy and hope have been so moving, I don't remember ever being so emotionally affected by a presidential election. Hopefully we will see a new sense of cooperation and working together. Heaven knows we need it!

I took these photos of our cats the other day. Even they know the joys of working together...

I first noticed the old Momma kitty grooming her two year old son and I ran to grab the camera.Then it was his turn to return the favor.....It's too bad you can't hear the purring here...Oh that felt good! Maybe a just a little more...And finally two nicely groomed, contented kitties!

Voting, WI SpinIn, Apples!

Yes, I voted this morning -- along with my husband and our youngest son. I was so glad to finally get to vote! This historic election and the economic meltdown has left me very anxious lately. I know firsthand how tough it is for people to get by these days. Hopefully we will have better days ahead of us.

It was great to see the line of voters extending out into the parking lot as we drove up. And fortunately the weather was perfect -- 70 degrees and sunshine on Nov. 4th! Normally we don't have to stand outside the door of our township building when we vote, a few times we were left under the overhang of the entrance, but this was amazing. The election workers told us people had been lined up before they even opened the doors this morning. The huge voter turnout is very exciting. I saw lots of young people out there voting as well. And then to watch our youngest vote for the first time in his life, it was cool. :-)

Now I want to do some felting to pass the time until the results come in tonight. I bought some dyed merino/tencel braids this weekend at the Wisconsin Spin In. I also got some silk noils and dyed angora locks for embellishing my felt pieces.


I had a wonderful time at the Wisconsin Spin In, it was nice to have a distraction from all the political stuff. The pace all weekend was very relaxed. Thanks so much to Terri Drimel for inviting me to join her. We had interesting conversations during the 6 hour drive there and then 6 more on the way home. I live an hour from Terri's place. So I didn't get home until after midnight on Sunday.

We were happy to see Shel Gooch and Laura Matthews there. Terri bought a Patrick Green drum carder from Susan's Fiber Shop, what a lucky girl! We played around with it Saturday night and on Sunday morning she took a drum carding class with Carol Wagner. She made some really cool multicolored batts in class.

I took the knitting Shetland Lace class with Hazel Carter on Sunday morning. I got to see the wonderful Shetland lace pieces of Hazel's that were included in "A Gathering of Lace". What fabulous work! I bought Hazel's book, "Shetland Lace Knitting from Charts", what an honor to learn from such an expert lace knitter.

After lunch Terri and I attended the Spinning Icelandic Wool class. I was amazed at how soft the Icelandic fleece was. The first thing we did was separate the thel from the tog and then we spun it up. I have to say though, the tog spun up was really coarse - I threw mine away. The thel is very similar to Shetland - nice and soft, but it was a little short. When we carded up both layers of the Icelandic fleece together, the resulting lopi style yarn turned out very nice. I'm going to have to finish it up.

Applesauce!

I did up most of our apples last week. Two batches of apple crisp and 20 pints of applesauce. And there were plenty of apples left for the sheep. The BFL's love apples. Every morning after I put out the hay, Lanora stands by the fence calling for me to get her apples. A few of the Shetlands like the apples too, but Lanora never lets me forget to dole them out.

I noticed a good recipe from Michelle on her blog. Here is a favorite of ours, apple panakuchen (I'm not sure how to spell it actually). It's very easy to make out of things that are usually on hand in and it's very good for breakfast or brunch.

Melt in 9" pie pan: 1/3 stick butter

Mix together and pour over melted butter in pan:
3 eggs
3/4 C flour
3/4 C milk
1 tsp vanilla

Peel core and slice 1 apple. Arrange slices in a circle on top of mixture.

Mix together 1/4 C sugar and 1 tsp. cinnamon, sprinkle over apple slices.

Bake at 425 degrees for 25 minutes. Serve warm with syrup. Yummm!

Fall colors, Wild Turkeys, and Cattle

The beautiful fall colors are history already. The ewe pasture doesn't look like this anymore...Or this...
Things are starting to look Novembery already. Well, I guess November isn't too far off.

Stan and I went over to the land in Ogilvie the other night to pick up a big bale of hay and check to see if the cattle were grazing our pasture. Yes, they were!
Isn't it amazing that those big beasts can be contained with just a single strand of hot wire? In the photo above you can see some of the 40 head of cattle our hayman runs in our pasture. Stan had to fix the fence and move the east line before the cattle could be put out there. There's lots more pasture over the horizon too. These cattle will hardly make a dent in it. I wish I could have my sheep over there making use of all that forage!

I found some crab apples to pick. The deer must have gotten the rest of them because I couldn't find any on the ground.

We often see turkeys over there and this time I had the camera with me... I hope people are enjoying whatever might be left of their fall colors and fall weather. Sounds like we've got snow in the forecast for this weekend.

Lots More Wool! (and a Felt "Painting")

Woo-hoo! I'm so excited. I got THREE boxes of processed wool back from Zeilinger Wool Company in Frankenmuth, Michigan. I got 6 pounds of Musket (almost a Champagne color) combed top, 9.5 pounds of white combed top (Shetland and Shetland/BFL cross fiber - very nice!), 3 pounds of dark moorit Shetland roving, and two queen size comforter batts.

Above you can see how the combed top comes, nicely coiled and stacked. It took me a while to ball it all up last night, below you can see the results.

I shipped the combed top order out on Sept. 18 and the roving/batt order on October 3rd. I'd say they came through in amazing time. And I can't say enough good things about the quality of the work they did. I don't coat my sheep and I do feed hay year round. So my fleeces have VM, that's why I prefer combed top. The combing process removes all the noils, neps, and VM. IMO, it's worth the extra cost to have a product I can be proud to sell.

That said, they did a terrific job on the dark moorit roving and the quilt batts too. I can't believe how clean they came back. Now I just have to figure out my prices and start selling these fabulous fibers. The quilt batts were from the britch wool, so only the softest fibers went into the roving and the top. I haven't spun any of it up yet, but I'm sure they will all be soft enough for scarves and next to the skin wear.

This is a photo of my latest wool painting - it was not quite finished in this photo - I took out some of the water and I attempted to sign it in wool - that was not easy! I'm sorry the wool paintings don't photograph well at all. In real life they look like pastel paintings when matted and framed and the colors aren't as harsh. But I wanted to give you an idea of what I'm doing. This piece is only about 9 x 12" after all the felting and fulling. It was done from my imagination and past experience. I used primarily hand-dyed Shetland wool from Bramble Hetty. It was a combination of needle and wet felting. I feel like I'm ready to tackle a big one now - maybe some birch trees or a sheep portrait! :-)

Cool Mushroom & Family Photos

Check out this cool mushroom. I took several photos of it the other day.

Two of my cousins came over yesterday. What fun it was to see them again! My dad come over from Danbury Wisconsin too. We had a nice afternoon talking about sheep, the old relatives back in the UP of Michigan, and dogs.

In the photo is me, my cousin Denise who is my age, and her big sister, Stephanie. They sure don't look alike do they? Denise got Grandpa's red hair and Stephanie looks just like her dad. On the right you see my dad, it's hard to believe his 80th birthday is coming up soon!

Stephanie lives out in Washington state. She raises Navajo Churro sheep and Basset hounds. She came to Minnesota to judge a dog tracking show/contest - sorry I don't know much about the details, but I was thrilled that she and Denise stopped in for a nice long visit. That last time they came was in 2006 when I was in the midst Bramble Hetty's serious lambing problems. Needless to say, this visit was much more relaxed.

I am already making plans to attend the 2010 Black Sheep Gathering. That's the year the BFL people will be having an AGM-type event there - don't know all the details on that either. But Stephanie doesn't live too far away from Eugene, OR so we'll have to figure something out.

I put the adult BFL rams in with the polled ram lambs the other day. They seemed to get along okay for about a day and then I noticed Dougal being pretty rough with the ram lambs, especially the little Ile de France, so I separated them again. Dougal is ready for breeding, he's driving poor Granite crazy too these days. I decided to offer him for sale at $250. If anyone wants him, let me know ASAP. Otherwise he's on his way as a rental ram down in Isanti County in a couple weeks. I only have two ewes to breed him to this year, so he needs another outlet.

Everyone says the Ile de France ram lambs looks like a doll sheep. I just hope he grows a pair in time to the job on my Shetland mule ewes. He's not real well endowed, I'm hoping it's just because he's so young.

Photos of the girls

Here are some photos of our ewes and ewe lambs. They were posing for me yesterday morning.

Leora, is our white BFL ewe lamb. born April 18, 2008. I love her blue coloring and fine fleece.
Lanora, below, is Leora's mother. She's a two year old BFL ewe. She's on the small side, her daughter is almost as big as she is.
Rhyn is our yearling Natural Colored BFL ewe. She's a big girl.
Above is Derra, a yearling Shetland Mule, she looked so long in that shot. I got a full body shot, below.And this is Elsie, one of the Shetland Mule ewe lambs we had shorn at the State Fair.

And below is Bramble Jemma, just after feeding time.

And this is Jemma's Shetland Mule daughter, #0071. She takes after mom in getting herself full of hay.