Little Red Oak Farm

Dr. Seuss wisdom

2012-01-17T19:17:00.001-06:00

A New Year

2011-12-31T23:25:00.002-06:00

I didn't write much all year. It was a hard, sweet year saying goodbye to two elders in my life, and quite consuming. In March, to my papa, who helped me so much on this little farm. 83 is a good, long life, so we can't say we were cheated out of time with him--but I miss him terribly. My dad really liked driving out the 40 miles from his Minneapolis home to work around the farm, building chicken feeders and nest boxes, indoor pens and outdoor chicken yard; later, sheep feeders and salt boxes-- then rebuilding the old sheep lean-to. He grew up on a farm, and after raising us in the city, liked experiencing the animals and farm decisions all over again. From his ancient vocabulary came words like "Clucks"-- the name for a broody hen, and "the dead furrow"-- the furrow at the edge of a field where rain water pools, having nothing planted in it. He enthusiastically showed us how to butcher chickens and ducks-- and how to use his shotgun for unwelcome animals.

A picture from Dad's last visit to the farm. My mom, their slightly younger friend, and my dad on the right, talking to Howard, obscured, next to him.

From my garden, I made him pickled beets; liver pate and whole roasting birds from our chicken flock; and he was delighted when we brought orphan lambs to his house, one Easter Sunday.

He wired the chicken house, the pig barn and the granary for me, being a retired electrician. He taught me how to use power tools when he was in his 60s and I in my 40s-- and how to tie bundles of brush when you cut a tree down. He left me his miter saw, which we used to cut up cords of small firewood together.

I couldn't use tools all of 2011 because it made me too sad. Finally, in December, firewood needed cutting and I got out the miter saw... and it was fun to remember him while working.

The other elder I lost was my old friend, Paul, who left his life in my hands when he had a stroke 2 years ago. He was my "job" (as his guardian) all of 2010, a sweet obligation. In May, 2011 he died suddenly, a blessing, considered so by his many friends. By then, I was getting pretty good at arranging end-of-life care, and we honored him well.

All of this overshadowed the farm life-- which was full and rich on its own. We had 36 lambs born-- the most ever. Our four, mature finnsheep ewes had their first triplets (3 sets) and quads (one set). My little family worked so well together, all year.

Emily insisted we have another big vegetable garden, and we all took care of sheep, meeting the buyers, transporting sheep to new homes-- until our little flock was down to 22 again.

Now the sheep are calmly waiting until the excitement of lambs in springtime. The gardens are all trimmed up, though curiously lacking the snow cover of a normal, January, Minnesota winter! It's been above freezing many, many days this winter, and snow exists only in shady patches.

I'll put some photos in here soon.

Happy New Year, everyone.

Nearing Turkey time

2011-11-18T21:58:00.002-06:00

The sheepies are getting winter coats on; they still like to sleep outdoors here and there around the barnyard.

This is Candy, a stunner who didn't like us until midwinter her first year.

Emily fed her and a few other ewe lamb companions their hay in a small barn-- then sat in the middle of the hay until gradually, she touched each one, then stroked, and then mesmerized them.

Now Candy is our pal.

Here are a few of this year's ewe crop that we are keeping: the spotty one, far back, is a finnsheep, Nappylainen. Love those spots and all else about her.

Bluebell's white, phaeo-spotted daughter, Trillium is next. Looks just like Bluebell as a lamb.

I love her.

In front is Nina, a sweet little ewe lamb out of Boston Lake Niav and Kimberwood Harrison.

It was hard to let Trillium and Nina's mothers move on to other Minnesota flocks, but we did.

The consolation prize is having girls who look just like their moms, and are just as friendly.

Halloween! Emily was a "mage"-- she tells me, an enchantress.

But she had a minute to plink out some piano tunes before her night out.

And another moment to hug her mama, who wrapped up in the lovely cloak Auntie Iris made.

We have had a very dry autumn in Minnesota. I got so mad at crows drinking from my ewes' water pail, until I saw bluebirds doing the same, one day. A flock must've been migrating, as there were about 30 bluebirds all in one group, taking turns at the "fountain". I sneaked outside with a camera and hid behind the pumphouse to capture this:

I have been extra busy taking care of my elder mom, post-op from a big surgery-- but she's mending now--
and at this late date, I've been selling ewes and rams left and right! How strange, so late in the season-- but how nice to have my flock the size I want it to be!
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

So it's Autumn now....

2011-10-12T02:07:00.001-05:00

DH, Howard, was out taking pictures on the weekend morning, again:

Sheep come running to us now that they get a bale of hay every day.

Farmers took up most of the corn and soybeans all around us, last week:

I love the look of this little Finn ewe lamb, one of quads born on Easter

Fall will soon give way to, well, you know...

Before I give in to Autumn...

2011-10-03T11:13:00.002-05:00

My vegetable garden in late August, before September's frost took it. The beach umbrella is a genius device for vegetable picking out of the sun:

We planted a huge area in coreopsis, thinking there were plenty of vegetables. I tried to catch the sheep grazing, beyond:

Frances the kitty had been resting among the swiss chard, until I pulled the camera out:

In the sheep world, I can't believe I did this, but, when Karen Byron needed a moorit ram, I sent LittleRedOak Ash home with her!
Forrest, the musket ram, is every bit as good, just light color, I reasoned. And there's a little guy born in June who may be equal to Ash. The mighty, curently still-tiny, Apollo!
(Pictures soon)

Some of my lambs left in the past month; there are still a half dozen ewe lambs and ram lambs that need homes--more finns than Shetlands.

This has been a hard-working year for me, actually, two-- with elder parents, in-laws and an elder friend all needing lots of time. We may not even breed some sheep this winter-- for an easier springtime at lambing season.
Fewer lambs means more time to enjoy them! We'll see.

Tour de Flock

2011-08-30T02:15:00.006-05:00

I told you my polled ram, Little Red Oak Ash, came back here after living at Sabrina's a while, and Becky's a shorter while. Here he is, in his bulked-up, bareheaded glory:

And this is his uncle, though a year younger, LRO Forrest. Forrest is out of HHW Bluebell and Kimberwood Leonardo. He produced a pair of beautiful twins this year, but he is for sale. Too many rams live here now! He's musket (oatmeal color), with fleece samples and a photo of his offspring available upon request.

I caught the ewes resting in the shade, all together. Then they saw ME and came running!

Little Rams, Finnsheep, for sale

2011-08-13T23:22:00.006-05:00

Of finn ram lambs, I have two black ones. Both have a brown dad, so carry brown. This one is from my white ewe, Mari. His tag is no. 114. Good looking boy. (both finn rams are now SOLD)

Same boy, in between two black Shetland lambs (polled/scurred!):

Looking quite the same, but a few weeks older and several inches bigger, this ram lamb is from my cow-spotted Finn ewe, Kora.

I'm publishing these pics for TaraLyn in WI, who bought Shetlands from me a few years ago.

I'll get photos of some of our ewe lambs next. I have Finns in brown and black; Shetlands in black and gray gulmoget, a gul-kat, a white, brown oh, many more. All colors. We are now getting the number of lambs down so that our pastures are greening up, and happy to have fewer to tend to.
Happy End of Summer, everyone!

Selling sheep before winter

2011-08-05T14:23:00.004-05:00

Emily and I made up breeding pens and lists of must-keep and oughta-sell sheep this week.
We very sadly decided to sell Highland Hollows Bluebell, our older, first favorite ewe. It was a few years ago, when Kim of Kimberwood Shetlands noted: "If you want to breed for polled rams, getting rid of your ewes with horned genetics [will be necessary]".
I remember gasping. We love some of our older ewes.
Nevertheless, I have been selling 2 or so each year to other breeders. None have had to go to, well, you know.
Bluebell and Minwawe November may be the last of the older girls (born 2005) who are left. There are a few who may have horned genetics, but I think all remaining ewes have a polled gene.
We also decided that since LittleRedOak Ash (out of Maple, Bluebell's daughter) is coming back to Little Red Oak, we need fewer polled rams.
We will therefore sell LRO Forrest, Bluebell's 2010 son. He is musket, pretty full of himself but also, friendly.

This is a lamb photo of Forrest, taken last summer.
And his fleece:
Newer pictures of him appear in last April or May's post-- of all the rams? But he was a thinner lad then. He has muscled up now.
More pictures, soon.
I can hardly bear to say goodbye to Bluebell...

West Coast and Back Again

2011-07-30T00:38:00.009-05:00

Whew, we left for 10 days, during Minnesots'a second heat wave of 2011. It was 100 here, and around 68 where we were, on the coast of California and Oregon.
We had a fabulous time with friends who are funny and oh so accommodating. They live near San Francisco-- a couple our age with two teens around Emily's age.
They were gracious enough to invite us on a jaunt up to Oregon. We hiked lots, kayaked in a sea slough, played Scrabble on the beach, and laughed a lot.
Emily once stated she really wanted to see Redwood trees.
Here we are, hugging one:
But the most fun site we saw was this one, at Umpqua Hot Springs in Oregon:

And the reason was this: Here are (husband) Howard and friend, Steve, in one of the hot springs, and oops, who is that sprite flitting offscreen on the right?

(Remember, you can double click on the photos to biggify.)
The kids were so embarrassed they headed right downhill to the river below!

Puulo at Gale Woods and... Ash returns!

2011-07-11T21:24:00.005-05:00

Chicago relatives were here for the 4th of July and we met them up at Gale Woods Farm park, sister-in-law's idea. Puulo, our bottle baby was there, just 5 days, and we got to visit him. A nice sheep volunteer, Ann, greeted me by name! and later sent me photos she'd taken of him. He's looking like a normal, handsome ram. It always seems a miracle when a tiny 2+lb preemie survives the week and gains ground to catch up with all the others.

Three little Finn lambs went to WI on Saturday. Karen, a fiber person, bought a brown ram and a white ewe lamb; Kara, who owns a CSA farm and sheep dairy, took home my other brown Finn ram lamb. No time for photos that day. The weekend was blasting hot and we worked from Friday to Sunday to get sheep tagged, vaxed, wormed and moved-- boys weaned from moms. Then we mowed, watered, tidied, in preparation to take a little vacation. Our faithful farm-sitters will tend things here while we travel to CA and Oregon. They've done this for us for three years, now-- and taken freezer broilers for their trouble. Lucky us!

Next, I saw that Becky Utecht, River Oak Shetlands, advertised for sale a solid brown polled ram we bred here-- Little Red Oak Ash, and we asked to buy him back.
Ash in July 2009
This years' ram lambs, while wonderfully hornless, are few, all solid black except one scurred brown lamb, and we do need a good brown, solid color sire. Besides, while he lived with Sabrina at Boston Lake farm, she microned his fleece and wrote him up as a stellar Shetland speciman, so, I'm believing her!
When we sold him it was because I HAD another brown, polled ram. I now need another.
Enjoy the week if I don't post here again-- we will be reading your blogs and comments, though!

Gotta picture (or two)

2011-07-05T16:43:00.008-05:00

I told you we were worried about Annie and late-arriving twins:
Here they are, going outside for the first time! We put bug spray on their little t-shirts to help them out.

This little gulmoget-katmoget ewe is for sale. She will always throw either gulmoget or katmoget pattern. Maybe you want that! I do not. She will throw brown or black patterned babies. Her mom is Minwawe November, a brown katmoget, and her dad is Kimberwood Harrison, a black gulmoget. November is for sale, also, even though she is an old friend of mine. The two could go together! (Repeat: Must keep sheep numbers manageable!)

Bluebell! My old best sheep friend. Can't sell her, yet. Maybe, soon. She has a beautiful little white lamb who looks JUST like her, and a grey girl.

Last lambs of 2011, really this time

2011-06-27T23:04:00.001-05:00

Little Red Oak Annie, my daughter's pet ewe of last years' lamb crop, had tiny twins out in the field-- and no one knew for a long, long time. Boy and girl, moorit and musket, Shetland. About 10" tall, I think.
We are worried-- Annie, first time mama, didn't bring them in to get a drink of water for herself-- and now, does she have milk for them? It was hard to tell in the low light and mosquito infestation of dusk.
We found them near nightfall -- babies' umbilical cords all shriveled dry, Annie's tail dry with lambing blood-- so we think it's been a half day at least. Poor dears. We brought them to a lambing jug, fussed over them, dribbled milk replacer in the babies' mouths, and gave Annie copious amounts of hay and water.

I am sure this happened because we sent our Finn bottle baby off to Gale Woods Farm today. We just needed one or two more to worry over.
I smile, though, remembering, we aren't given more than we can handle.

We'll keep you posted-- keep your fingers crossed and send up a wish for the twinners.

Healthy Bottle Lamb, Hooray!

2011-06-19T17:14:00.006-05:00

Betty Ann stopped by on Friday. She was born in this old farmhouse, which we bought from her 8 years ago. I love it that she stops by for rhubarb or mint or curly willow, things that she planted when she lived here. She helps me with jobs sometimes, too; if I am overwhelmed she helps me clean the house, and she's been here when lambs need to be held up to their mothers' teats. She likes telling those stories at card club! She's a great rent-a-mom. This is my Emily, Betty Ann, the bottle lamb, Puulo, and Louie the dog.

Betty left, and Em posed with Puulo. Google Translator tells us that "Puulo" means "Bottle" in Finnish. We just heard he IS going to Gale Woods Farm (a teaching farm park) next week. Now that Puulo's strong, Tim, the farm manager, is excited to get a bottle lamb for kids' day camps, and a new set of genetics for his Finnsheep flock. Not too many people would want a bottlefed ram, so this is a great thing.

Puulo decides maybe what Louie needs is a good butt on the head (though he never did it).

More Spring/summer Farm and Lamb Photos

2011-06-19T02:04:00.008-05:00

Sometimes I just marvel at where we live and what a great family I have. Double-click on the photo to see DH, Howard, shooting a video of Emily, feeding the bottle lamb. Her cat climbed on her shoulders.

This pump house has a water hydrant in it. I have to wonder if that was always its job...

A better, color shot of LRO Maple and Kimberwood Harrison's ewe lambs. Cute as bugs' ears.
Happy Fathers' Day, everyone.

Around the farm in Spring

2011-06-11T23:20:00.011-05:00

Pictures won't load... test...
Aarggh, really won't let me put photos in, which is ALL I wanted to do...
any suggestions, everyone?

Elise's ewe lamb, Lisbeth (love that name, been reading the Stieg Larsson trilogy).

Maple the musket Shetland ewe had two little gulmoget ewes. Both are black, though one is Ag-gray. Both are for sale. So far they are not friendly lambs, but quite lovely. Out of Kimberwood Harrison and LittleRedOak Maple.

Well, one, now two, pictures loaded out of 5. And the B&W is not Blogger's fault.. it's mine.
Blogger's text alignment button doesn't work, though.

ooh, a little more Blogspot success, here is the newest lamb born here: half-Finn, out of this Shetland mom, Little Red Oak Cinnamon. Cinnamon doesn't like people, but has the most beautiful, caramel colored wool-- and now, her little ewe lamb, Pepper, does too! Black, though.

The Little Finn Ram who Could

2011-06-08T01:06:00.004-05:00

... get the ewe lambs pregnant when he was only 4-5 months old! So... first he produced the cute spotty ewe lambs from my Shetland ewe, Candy. The next surprise came on May 21st, 11 pm, when, returning from Dear Daughter's big piano recital in Minneapolis, we found Heidi, a Finn ewe lamb I hadn't bred this year, fussing over a wet, tiny lamb on the floor of the barn, with all the other ewes and rowdy lambs hopping around. Heidi was attentive to that lamb while continuing to cry with contractions; after a long while I decided things weren't progressing correctly, and for the first time, I used the long, plastic glove my vet gave me to examine the ewe all the way inside. I pulled out a dead lamb, tinier than Heidi's first. Tiny ram lamb was too weak to nurse. A preemie, I am quite sure-- no teeth erupted from his gums, yet... weighing a few pounds...

His ears started to perk up by his 5th day.

For the second time this year, we brought a tiny lamb into the house, fed it with 2oz pet nurser bottles and kept in on a heating pad in a laundry basket.
We always get out Storey's Guide to Raising Sheep and consult the chart that shows how much to feed bottle lambs at what stage. We were lucky to have on hand a bag of milk replacer that a manufacturer sent me, free. I'll advertise for them-- it was called Advance, and we liked it a lot. It mixed easily with cold water. We started to feed baby Ram lamb every 4 hours.
He slept a lot. His ears flopped down, like a puppy dog's.

On May 22nd, my elder friend, Paul, the guy whose entire life I've taken care of for 18 months, suddenly died. It was a busy week of funeral preparations and notifications, and throughout the week, I had a lamb who needed a bottle every 4 hours.

We did restrain Little Guy's mother, daily, to let the baby nurse, but the mother has never allowed him to nurse without restraint. In time, we let the lamb stay with Heidi all the time, while we brought him milk bottles. We entertained the idea of selling him to Gale Woods Farm-- but worried when Tim, the manager, said that 50% of his lambs raised on bottles, without first receiving colostrum, die.
All along, I have figured that we could do better than that, with all the attention we could give him... so we kept him.

My wonderful nephew took care of the lamb on the day of Paul's funeral, and Little Lamb's only gotten stronger since then.
We've gone on to buy a new, big bag of milk replacer... and... it's time to go feed the lamb right now!

Spotted half-Finn Surprises

2011-05-31T00:56:00.001-05:00

If you look at my January 2011 post you see a little Finn spotty ram we got in November. He had a roommate in a ram-lamb pen, Aspen, who was lost to a gate-jumping accident-- and then the Spotty was put in with the ewes because at 4 months, we figured he couldn't breed any of the unbred ewes. We also thought, if he did, so what? Cute babies!

Well, the so-what babies started popping out a week ago. I showed you Candy, the little HST Shetland ewe who gave us some ewe twins, and here they are:

I KNOW they are half-Finn, partly because their legs are so long-- and their ears are a little pointy--

And because the first mate I'd chosen for Candy was Kimberwood Harrison, whose pedigree show no ancestors or offspring with spots! And, the timing....
I think these beauties will be a great cross. As newborns, they were more vigorous than the Finn lambs-- but their Finn genes already put longer legs on them, nice wool-- their prolificacy should be increased to, probably, triplet expectations--and I expect they will be 1-1/2 size of their pretty Shetland mom. The Finnsheep Breeders Association has a crossbred registry, so ... that may be useful, too. I'll sell one or both of these lambs, your choice, $250.

Last of the first lambs

2011-05-19T14:45:00.000-05:00

The last twin ewe lambs were born last night. (Not quite accurate: two more ewes can lamb in another few weeks.
However, the first big wave ends with the new ewe lambs.
Stats: 30 lambs born to 13 ewes; I think it's about 22 ewes to 8 rams. Wow.

Anyway, a teaser-- here is the last ewe that lambed, Little Red Oak Candy, a photo taken 3 weeks ago. She is a surprisingly spotted ewe, friendly, out of LittleRedOak Licorice Snap and White Pines Parker.
She was bred to Kimberwood Harrison, a black gulmoget ram, but then she went back to the ewe barn, where the little spotted Finn ram lamb was hanging with the older ewes-- drum roll to see her babies' pictures in a day or two... dimly lit, indoor lamb shots are rarely worth the trouble...

Naming the Finn lambs

2011-05-15T13:59:00.001-05:00

Meet Nappylainen and Loimu. Meaning "spot" and "blaze", according to Google translator (in other words, don't blame me if we've got the Finn language all wrong!).

Really, more lambs?

2011-05-10T10:02:00.000-05:00

A few people are interested in Finn Ram purchases this year. One wants to see the udders on the mama ewes because she has a dairy flock (cool!).
So DH took an udder shot of Mari, who amazed us this year with triplets in three different solid colors: black, white and brown!
The ewe lamb is white, her brothers are the solids.
(disclaimer: it's a true udder-- though I felt compelled to "touch up" the color on said udder right up under her tail, where evidence of a recent birth experience had not yet washed off in the rain... )
I'm no photoshop pro, it's apparent!
But I digresss. Ta da... Mari and the kids-- er, I mean LAMBS!

Then, we have Mari hangin' with the other moms-- notice how Mari's babes all cluster around the milk bar behind her--
while Mari jaws with Abby (Crabby Abby, we call her)-- and Abby's ridiculously splashed-up baby ewe sleeps on the lamb playground ramp. Abby's baby will fade to ... musket? and white, and be splashy only on her legs and face. Oh, and Licorice Snap, black Shetland with white head splashes, looks on from the left, rear-- while her brown ewe and black ram lamb play on the lamb-ramp... The other black ewe, rear, is a Finn-- Heidi, a yearling who hasn't lambed yet.

Then we have a few lambs you have already seen: These are 2 of Finnsheep, Lassi's, quads examining the photographer's bootlaces. Lassi had 3 ewes and 1 ram-- and he is on the right, here:

Next, Bluebell's phaeo-spotted ewe lamb (bonus, who is very nice and not afraid of us). She is pictured with another of Lassi's brown quad ewes.

And have you seen how well my tiniest finn ewe lamb is doing? This one belongs to Kimi-- and nearly succumbed to hypothermia, born out on the lawn on a cool, breezy day. She was the tiniest of triplets, weighing half of what the largest one weighed. We bathed her, blew her dry, fed her bottles and kept her on a heating pad in a laundry basket for 12 hours-- and when she was strong enough to nurse on her feet, we returned her to her mother. Way to go, Kimi, for taking her back! This one is still called Tiny-- 2 lbs 12 oz at birth!

More pics to come, of course! Happy Spring!

Shetland and Finn Lambs

2011-05-06T10:20:00.001-05:00

It's spring, why am I surprised to be taking care of dozens of lambs and baby chicks?

Bluebell's twins are gray and white ewes, but the white one is a surprise: polka dotted with what the sheep people would call phaeomelanin, I think. I expect the spots to fade away, but stay tan stained on her legs and face. NOT the best picture, but I have a new one with the entire family, soon!

Here we go: I am so delighted to get a gray ewe-- both lambs are ewes.

Lassi's finn lambs #2 and 3? on their first day out, last week--note the huge

size variation. I'm new with triplets/quads. I get the feeling this is common,

and can expect them to even out in size as they age.

Finn babies finding their wheels!

Sheep dads and Lambs' 1st day out of the barn 2011

2011-05-03T11:25:00.003-05:00

Let's start with a love fest in the field between my four rams. Osmo, the big guy, is my Finn ram, a darling. He is snuggling Little Red Oak Forrest, a yearling polled Shetland. Behind Osmo is White Pines Parker, who is slightly scurred but throws polled rams and spots; on the right is the August-born Finn ram lamb I got
last Fall. He hasn't been used yet. All lambs born this year came from Osmo (Finns) and Parker (Shetlands), and a borrowed black gulmoget, Kimberwood Harrison, to use on half the Shetland ewes. (Oops, update: a few came from the Finn ram lamb, now called Paavo.)

These photos were taken last week. Editing photos takes time, in between helping new lamb moms. Here's poor Minwawe November, who STILL hasn't lambed. Poor, poor dear.

Below are Lassi the Finn girl's quads, just as they leave the safe barnyard for the first time. They are following Lassi closely. Lassi can't get at the fresh grass fast enough. Ample udder for these babes; we haven't supplemented them at all.

Below, the Finn moms and babies are relaxing a bit. Black lambs are Kora's, of course, and the brown ones are Lassi's. So skinny, aren't those Finn babies?

Here's Boston Lake Niav with her sturdy little Shetland lambs. Her ewe lamb looks like her, her boy is all black.

Finn lambs in a scuffle! This made me laugh-- they are so young, but instincts are already there! They are both ewe lambs.

More pictures when I have more time. Taking deposits on lambs, by the way!

Easter's Quad Finn lambs

2011-04-29T00:55:00.000-05:00

Oh my.

Out in the sunshine and pasture for the first time today.

Lambs arriving daily

2011-04-25T14:28:00.000-05:00

First lambs on Good Friday, triplets to finnsheep Kora (the cow, we say-- you'll see why:)

Two girls and a boy, nice odds!
Next came twins to two Shetland ewes, photos follow soon... and on Easter, just in time for company to witness and help, brown quads to a finn ewe named Lassi. Tiny, long-legged babies, all doing fine.

I have to go pick up 50 chicks now and get them settled in, will post more pictures soon!

Spring 2011

2011-04-10T22:33:00.002-05:00

I've not been blog posting, I've been Facebooking. It's a fact -- but soon lambs will be coming, and I have started looking at sheep blogs again.

I lost my old Dad this month-- he was wintering in Texas, as usual, this year, but the cold he left MN with turned into pneumonia, and with the many old-guy chronic health issues he had, he wasn't able to pull through. I was able to fly to Texas twice to spend time with him in his last few weeks, then hours-- and came back home with my mom, and Dad's ashes, a week ago.

We returned to MN on Thursday night, March 31st, and held the annual Shearing Day event on Saturday, April 2nd. I am grateful it went so very well. I am blessed to have friends from my local spinning group who spent the day skirting fleeces-- which they wanted half of after having their hands in it!
A special gift this year were visitors I'd never met--- some new "city" neighbors who moved in nearby, Rolf and Julie; a midwife named Renee; a young Dr. Leung; all of whom wanted to learn more about sheep-- as well as handspinner Renee's son, who is a vet-tech in training. Guess who gave most of the vaccine shots and trimmed most hooves? Such great help, so welcome.

About 10 fleeces left here that day and I want at least a half dozen for the fair, or the fiber mill-- so about
another 6 are available for sale. I have 3-4 in fawn/oatmeal color-- very nice-- and the same in black or charcoal gray. Some are Finn fleece, some are Shetland.

I'll post pictures soon. Soon it will be lamb pictures posted here-- we love this time of year.

January 2011

2011-01-24T01:48:00.000-06:00

I think I told you that I traded registered ram lambs with Brian Stichter, a new WI Finnsheep breeder last fall. One might think he got the better bargain; he got a 6-month old brown lamb with white markings; I got a three-month-old black spotted ram lamb who won't be ready to breed for a few more months. This kindof messes up my breeding/lambing dates, as this little guy isn't mature enough to breed with my one, retained, finn ewe lamb. I don't care. I am THRILLED to have new bloodlines, out of Washington State, actually-- Brian's sheep came from TripleL Finns in WA. Anyway, the rammie is darned cute, and reminds us of what we have to look forward to in April. Here, the older ewes check out the baby through the gate. He's bunking with them all, now. They butt him away from feed or whenever they feel like it. Someday he'll be WAY bigger than them, and they'll be more respectful.
This boy needs a name.

Oreo? No-- A Finn name-- we'll go looking at the Finn name website. Of course there's one.

I've been spinning and knitting with great art-women, a lot--and on Saturday, sat on a Scott County Extension program's Sheep producers' panel-- to give a wool producers' perspective to a bunch of shepherds. Half in the small audience didn't have flocks yet, so they had questions.
The lamb meat breeders had some good tips, too-- we all took home new information.

My house is being insulated, repaired, new doors installed-- it's looking prettier, but the weather's making the job progress slowly. I am pretty happy about everything.

Also, for once, I got a shearing date well in advance, so I can announce it and you can plan to come out to help, if you'd like. April 2nd, a Saturday, Mike Anderson will shear again. Everyone will help skirt and bag fleeces, catch the sheep for shearing, and have a little potluck lunch before heading home in the afternoon. Mark your calendar!

Holiday week, the last of 2010

2010-12-27T11:32:00.001-06:00

Ahhh, Christmas is done, celebrated, gifts exchanged, goodies made, and we still get to have pumpkin bread for breakfast every morning. We decrease the sugar in the pumpkin bread recipe and then make up for it by drinking egg nog, mmmm.
I like this story in pictures: How the finns looked after the first blizzard, holed up out in the pasture shed-- refusing to come out --

until Emily blazed them a trail by walking back and forth to the hay we'd set out:

Lassi

Kimi

We love these silly girls.

Last week's sheep episode was about Aspen, the little polled musket ram whose amorous endeavors got him caught by one foot in a gate-- and it ended badly for him, I'm afraid. My biggest concern was that the leg would have been frostbitten, with a slow and torturous end. The vet, by phone, advised sending him to the butcher-- my Shetlands don't make big money, he was a polled ram lamb-- prized by some as rather rare, yet, but not by enough buyers that I would make the mortgage on him-- so diagnosing his injury was not worth paying a vet fee. So, he will make my daughter's favorite-- lamburger. His trip to the butcher was very quiet, very easy on him, too-- bedded down in a straw filled dog crate and left that way until the end.
We had his parents in a breeding group again this year, so we hope for another polled brother of Aspen's. That's the way it goes.
At Christmas, my brother mentioned bad weather coming again next weekend-- so we broke up sheep breeding groups yesterday rather than wait a week. Our choice is often Christmas weekend, since we have everone home to help herd animals here and there. This year, more than half the work was shoveling a ton of snow so that 16' gates would swing open (did you get a visual on that?) when sheep left an area-- and 2' wide paths for them to get from one barn to another as we shuffled them around. Our barns are about 100 feet apart. The snow is about 3' deep everywhere-- the sheep were in chasms as high as their backs, trotting down the alleys between our barns as we directed them. All went well.
Today, frost has covered the trees and it is drifting down, sparkling like glitter in the sunshine.
Happy New Year to everyone.

Snowy sheep

2010-12-17T09:48:00.001-06:00

You know we've gotten a few feet of snow in Minnesota, so far this fall/winter-- nearly two feet of it last week. Another six inches yesterday. I am tired of shoveling now.

We made excellent, two-foot wide paths from building to pump house to hay barn to sheep fence, so that we could pull the beloved black hay sled from one feeding site to the next. Several five-gallon water pails fit in it; two bales of hay, stacked, also fit. So I haul the sled out with water in it, and bring it back with a bale or two, every day.
Yesterday I waited until late in the afternoon to do chores, and when I got to the far barns, I noticed a curious absence of a certain young ram lamb, LittleRedOak Aspen. A busy guy, he's usually right at the gate when I come near, looking for hay. He and a little Finn roommate have been bunking in a small corral next to the old lean-to, which has the "maidens" in it-- ewe lambs we aren't breeding this year. It frightened me to think that he might've done what we had decided he couldn't-- used a new, 4' snow drift to leap the fence into that pen of attractive maidens... but I found the ewe lambs blinking, alone, unaccosted.
I went around the back side of the ewes' shed and, yee gods!, found Aspen dangling from the gate, one leg hooked in its metal mesh. He'd been there awhile, judging by the snow on his coat (the snow had stopped falling hours earlier) and other signs. Thankfully, his front feet were planted on snow on the this side of the fence.
Am I awful? I worried a great deal about his pinned leg-- could the circulation have been cut off so long it was frostbitten? Will I have to put him down?
But what I also thought was, "I'm glad he didn't breed those girls".

I'll head out there now to see how he's getting around.

Into winter

2010-11-27T18:40:00.000-06:00

Here's the view looking west, corn still standing, in October:

and, mid-October, after harvesting and plowing, and rainfalls made the moss on the trees stand up, furry:

And this was the scene looking into those driveway trees, from the west, on Saturday. Kitter the ~~pet~~ barn cat follows the photographer for some outdoor company.

Photographic Saturday

2010-10-23T23:14:00.003-05:00

Little Red Oak Miia (oops, I thought she was Matilda, Miia's white twin) is a Finnsheep ewe who looks surprisingly like her aunt,--Lassi, shown in the next photo with the flock.
Miia's mom is pure white, so under her white coat, we have no idea if mom Mari has any spots goin' on...
and Miia and Matilda's dad is Osmo, who is solidly light brown -- though he had a tiny forehead spot as a baby.

Still, check out auntie Lassi, below. See the resemblance?:

Emily wants to show off Shetland lamb, Little Red Oak Annie's nice, crimpy brown wool. I couldn't help bu notice the wall behind Emily-- our reason for getting rid of horned rams!

Annie is the biggest, in-your-face pet of 2010 in the lamb pasture. She's Emily's favorite.

Here, Em shows us the distinct line where this Finn ewe lamb's fleece went from black to steely gray. I know it looks like a brown sheep, but she's truly a sunbleached black lamb... However, if I may ask the Finn breeders to weigh in-- is she a gray lamb, then? Looks like.

Here's a Shetland lamb, LittleRedOak Candy, wearing her straw bedding. She's getting cuter as she gets older. Her mom is LRO Snap, a mostly black ewe, and WhitePine Parker, a musket, scurred ram. Candy's wild spottedness surprised us, as neither parent's spot gene is expressed very strongly.

Finally, a flock shot-- we think it is LRO Willow front and center--one of my Maple's twin ewe lambs. We have to check ear tags-- the lambs have all changed a lot in two months while we've been too busy to stay acquainted. Behind her is a black Finnsheep ewe lamb, another black going gray. Sweet girls, all.

A new sheep blog, a long Hello

2010-10-22T08:50:00.002-05:00

MN breeder Pam Davis just sent me a link to her new blog. I'm adding it to my list at the right--thesheepcote.blogspot.com-- go check it out!
Pam doesn't live too far from me, as country driving goes-- I can't recall-- 25, 50 miles? Near Cokato, MN. I went there once for a wonderful dyeing class. See my post lin September 2008. Pam was a great hostess and has a nice flock of Shetlands and Icelandics. Last fall she bought one of my ram lambs to get more color or genetic lines in her flock.
I think we'll be seeing how that turned out.
My whole year, it seems, has been taking care of the seniors in my life-- mostly getting them out of places they've lived a long time-- helping downsize all that STUFF--and into new apartments or senior care facilities. I've really enjoyed that work, but have had little time for my sheep.
Good thing my daughter's here to keep them tame and keep an eye on them.
I'll put some photos in here soon.
We have a half dozen lambs here who need homes this winter-- although I have a lot of hay this year, so if they winter over here (unbred, please! I can't bear to lamb out 40 lambs!) we'll be okay, and I'll get more lovely fleece in springtime.

I'm especially excited about my Finnsheep fleece, which sells very quickly. I have a few black lambs whose fleece has taken a dramatic turn to dark gray- which is a color I just love. Ooh, and a new Finn breeder in WI is bringing me a black spottie ram lamb soon, to trade for a nice little brown one I have here. Can't wait to see him.

More later, really!

End of Summer garden and lambs

2010-09-06T20:29:00.002-05:00

Sometimes we think the garden vegetables are so lovely we ask Howard to get the camera out....we are so proud of them.

And other times we are impressed with the volume of garden produce. I saw a good idea on another blogger's page-- I think it was Antiquity Oaks': to weigh and keep track of how much this little farm puts out each year. We think we'll do it next year.

Lexi the ewe lamb coming to see the photographer. So many colorful ewe lambs still for sale. Tell your friends!

More ewe lambs feasting on ash tree leaves. Happy End of Labor Day weekend-- and the beginning of the school year, for some of you!

The summer's flown by

2010-08-22T20:16:00.001-05:00

I know, I just haven't written here for a long time! I've been meaning to catch up, but so much Life has been happening. We had a big wedding weekend in July (my stepson, Jeremy's) .

and a little camping trip to the Black Hills right afterward (with CA friends, the Scharf family).

Then it was time for the Carver County (MN) fair, where we all enter dozens of exhibits. Here's Em with her little cousins for a general visit to the fair:

and now Emily's school sports and marching band have begun. Oh, and did I mention that the garden is overflowing with produce demanding attention? Not to whine...

But I have a lot of little lambs to sell before winter-- so I had better get on it.

Here's how my ram lambs are this summer, only eight! born out of 28 lambs; since I bred again for no-horns, thank you, two Shetlands are scurred, two fully polled , two with strong horns. I was happy with the outcome. Most are shown here. One brown Finn ram lamb (on the far right) is still available, most Shetland lambs are, too.

Ah, my ewe lambs. If I just keep them all this winter, I simply won't breed for a year. I can't sell that much fleece to pay for their feed, and I don't want to work that hard to keep them all well-tended. Lambing more than 15 ewes about kills me in April. I don't have many photos of the ewes yet.

Here is my model daughter surrounded by friendly Finns. The black lamb could live somewhere else. In fact, we have two.

Mari the white Finn ewe with her twin girls, a brown and a white. Both need new homes.

And here is last year's bottle baby, Poppy, with HER baby, Pansy-- who both can only go to the best of homes:

I will post more pictures soon, thanks for checking!

Blog surfing, Summer lamb tending

2010-07-11T02:22:00.001-05:00

Up late again-- having blog fun, other people's links-- I found this one:

http://mabelswish.blogspot.com/

which delighted me with old favorite music, and lots of creativity--so-- I added it to the list at right.

We finished ear tagging and vaccinating lambs yesterday, a marathon with 26 remaining lambs and 16 ewes. We also hoof trimmed and wormed all the ewes, and called out ear tags to Kelly, the State Scrapie Vet tech who inspects the sheep every year. I need to remember days like this when I want to keep "just one" lamb from every ewe I have.
Sheep hoarding. There's got to be a prescription for that-- or at least, therapy.

Tonight one of my favorite ram lambs ripped off a horn sheath-- I have no idea how, but I suspect it was only a fence accident. I held him while Emily ran for meds and a snippers to finish the job, and he bled all over me. Poor boy.

Rook, after. Horn stub on right.

Good thing I checked in on the 8 ram lambs who got separated from their moms and sisters yesterday for the first time. Oh the crying and wailing that went on through the night, Friday night. The same night that the power went out, so we had to keep windows open for "natural air conditioning".

All rams, few horns. LRO Linden's pollie, Aspen, is front and center. Behind and right is Bluebell's Forrest. The spotty, behind, is a Finn ram.

Poor Niav, from Sabrina's Boston Lake Farm, only had one boy, her first, her only lamb-- and she grieved all night. Another yearling ewe, Little Red Oak Linden, was in the same boat, but was not so demonstrative. Simon is pictured at left, here-- a nice dark brown. Linden's boy is the pollie musket named Aspen, above.

It's the heart of summer around here. The mosquitoes are thick and furious, pestering the flock incessantly. The sheep lay down to keep them from biting their legs-- or is it so that their babies will quit trying to "grab a snack" off the ewes' udders? The ewes have had about enough of it by now. . . so it's even better that the ram lambs got their own pasture and building.

Unloading Hay on our Anniversary

2010-07-05T23:58:00.000-05:00

We didn't bale it, we bought it. And unloaded it, 350 bales worth, over a couple of 90+ degree days.

I can see the end of these farm days down the road a few years. I wanted documentation.

Before and After

2010-06-24T00:42:00.005-05:00

On Saturday, we had a shearer come out to finish up a few sheep who didn't get sheared on March 30. Kora, a pied (spotted) black and white Finn ewe, was still too short-fleeced to shear back then, having been sheared in Fall 2009-- and there are people who really want that Finn fleece for spinning.

So we waited , and now before it gets really hot, we asked Jake Sirek to give her a haircut. Driving 40 miles to shear one ewe seemed ludicrous, so we asked Jake to clean up a few more ewes who couldn't be sheared well earlier, being "in the rise". You non-Shetland folks, I can't explain that, because I don't get it myself. I just know the shearer can't get under the lowest inch of wool, then, which turns into big mats of wool, later.

Here, Kora and her twin lambies wait their turn for lamb vaccinations and Kora's haircut. They licked clean the bin where alfalfa hay is stored.

After shearing, Kora actually looked a little thin. But very, very comfortable.

This is a family picture of Finn ewe, Lassi, her ewe lamb Leila, and her ram lamb Lukas. I still don't know about Finn colors; whether this is what the Finn breeders would call plain "brown", or "fawn"-- being brown with an Ag "graying" gene, or what I would call a modified brown. The finn breeders are rather new at colors, and therefore, at describing them.

Here, we see Mari the white Finn ewe and her white ewe lamb; my old Little Red Oak Yarrow hiding in the corner, freshly shorn; front and center is Leila again, and front right, Kora's ewe lamb, Heidi, is scooting past-- the lamb who had selenium deficiency last month. She'd just gotten a pink ear tag and her Cdt shot.

Terri Drimel will take Leila home in a few weeks. Her experience, this month, with losing another little brown Finn ewe made me want to bump up vaccinating the lambs against "overeating disease"-- clostridium? So we took advantage of the cool, indoor lambing barn and ear tagged half (ran out of tags) and vaccinated and wormed all the lambs. It felt good to get ahead of schedule this summer. Now, we'll only have half as many to tag when our Scrapie Program vet tech comes out on July 9th, when we will give booster shots-- and know the lambies are protected.

I laughed until I cried

2010-06-22T01:04:00.004-05:00

Okay, it was late, and the hilarious tremens often set in after midnight, right?

But I caught a link on another's blog and clicked, and read... and laughed until tears rolled down my cheeks.
So give it a try:
http://www.cakewrecks.com/

I'm going to add the link to my blog roll at right, for future guffaws. It helps to offset the fierce seriousness with which some sheep breeders are taking our favorite critters, lately. The arguments are sounding like those fought over religion or politics, here in North American Shetland land. Not about animals, not sheep. Maybe about being right.
I hope you find a smile in the Cake Wrecks, instead, as I did.

Soon I will post photos of lambies available for out-placement to good homes. I took a quick dash through the list of ewes and babes this weekend and managed to, mentally, sell, HALF the sheep. But that means 24 of 48. Not enough. Will keep working on this.
Still, plenty of brown and other lambies for everyone. Take two!

Two polled ram lambs this year, both musket. You can have ONE. I will keep the other.

More to follow.
Laugh yourself silly.

Bluebell and her twinners

2010-06-09T16:31:00.002-05:00

My old friend, Highland Hollows Bluebell is what, 6 this year? We just counted up the 5 sets of twins she's had for us at Little Red Oak Farm, so, yes. . .
and for the first time, she stopped leading her babies away from us. She came over to my bench in the shade some days ago and asked to be petted. Her little POLLED musket boy, Forrest, wants the same-- but we don't pet ram lambs, here--
and her little white ewe lamb, Forsythia, hangs back shyly. They plopped down to rest awhile.

(As always, double click on photos to biggify.)

Next, I pulled together a photo of one of Yarrow's ram twins; he has good head splashes--and will throw spots, I'm quite certain. His horns are strong, so I'd rather he move to another farm. The only picture I had also happened to have Emily with the ever-friendly Kimi and her babies in it.

Kimi's spotted Finn Ewe lamb-- and more Finns.

2010-06-04T12:21:00.001-05:00

For Terri to see! I see the photo's a little fuzzy, but so is she!
Here is proud Mama Lassi's (finn) with her brown ewe and ram lambs. The first of 3 lambs didn't make it. The little spotty ram may go to live in New York.

And another of Kimi's two ewe lambs:

Spring lambs, of course!

2010-05-26T00:07:00.004-05:00

We'll back up to Mother's Day; a cold day when we took our roving and fleeces to Shepherd's Harvest in Lake Elmo and offered roving at prices to sell-- and it surely did. 15 or so pounds of it, gone from my house. Yay! Dear Daughter (DD) and Dear Husband (DH) knew exactly how to celebrate Mother's Day: they volunteered to come with me to set up and sell wool. For the first time, I had a Shetland/Finn blend that was especially popular, although all colors sold well.

It rained so much that week that Mari the Finn Ewe's lambie was soaked through and very dirty:

Later, Mari cried and cried to find her babies, and suddenly stopped when she peeked inside the portable calf hut. I figured there was a special sight inside, and I was right. Look at that little brown ewe's pink triangle of a nose! Poor wet babies.

Little brown shetland ram lamb, still tiny:

It's 2 weeks later and things have warmed up considerably. The lambs are loving the compost pile of last years' bedding. It's made for playing King of the Mountain! Here, Em has the formerly stiff-necked lamb sucking a finger. She's all better-- BoSe did the trick within hours. Selenium deficiency ! Amazing.

Also pestering Emily are a very, very friendly Shetland ewe lamb, lower right, and a naughty little brown Finn ram; behind her is a black Finn ewe lamb who's also fond of suckling fingers. Further up, a little brown and white Shetland who will be musket (oatmeal colored). I am so behind on naming and learning the lambs this year that I don't recall if it's a ram or ewe lamb!

Finally a good shot of DD visiting with Kimi, her solid black lamb under Em's arm, and in front, the little formerly sickly lamb belonging to Kora. We just had to show you that she made such a nice recovery. Pack of racing lambs seen behind--

Enjoy this nice, new, warm weather. We're finally getting the garden in.

Little lambs, Finn and Shetland

2010-05-11T12:08:00.002-05:00

Stiff necked lamb-- help!

2010-05-09T22:46:00.002-05:00

The little stiff necked girl is in front; her brother, behind. He's not as bad, and is likely just grazing. She could/did lift her head level, often, but this posture was easiest:

Any ideas? A finn twin (the other is smaller but seemed fine) cried, hunched, didn't lift her head, within the first 24 hours. I started supplementing with milk replacer, reading "hypothermia due to malnutrition". I figured she or Mom didn't "get" nursing well, yet. She got much stronger and started nursing. She's 5 days old, but still runs around rather stiffly, with her head straight out, doesn't lift it often. But can.

White muscle disease? Any ideas? I do believe she may do just fine, after a bad start, but if anyone has any ideas, I'd love to hear 'em.

We went to Shepherd's Harvest Sheep and Wool festival in Lake Elmo, MN today. Lovely event with all the usual wooly fun--
we were lucky and sold about 15 lbs of roving-- the best part of that is, do you know how much space 15 pounds of roving takes up in my basement? Plus, we sent almost all fleeces off to Carol Wagner's Hidden Valley Woolen Mill for processing. Nice to get the room back downstairs.

End of Lambing, Photos follow

2010-05-07T10:41:00.000-05:00

In another rush to the finish, lambing season has, I think, wrapped up for 2010. 30 lambs out of 18 ewes, 21 ewe lambs, 9 ram lambs. We like odds like that. Many ewes were yearling, first time moms this year, and as many of you know, first-timers frequently have single babies. But they knew just what to do!

Nine Finn lambs (2 boys), 21 Shetland lambs (you do the math)! We lost one Finn lamb--darn, a brown spotted girl--but we have lambs aplenty.
I have not had time to enjoy them as they came, though I see that the lamb races have begun-- and this year, we have a new lamb playground attraction--the enormous compost heap of bedding dug out of their barn last fall. So many paths and peaks, so much fun!

Photos later, and I will start to decide who will stay, and who will be sold.
I think next year I would like to have only 10 ewes over winter, which means I have to sell about 30 ewes and lambs!

Some MORE lamb photos. ..

2010-05-02T23:39:00.001-05:00

For economy of time and writing-- I am adding more of yesterday's photos here.
The first babies born are now 11 days old. Bluebell's white ewe and musket ram. . . might he be polled? Drumroll...

Pal, my old friend, with the first ewe lamb she's had at Little Red Oak Farm!

Pal had a little ram, too. Both sweet babies, easygoing, like their mom.

This little ram is Little Red Oak Belle's. She's mioget, I think. He looks fawn-- his little nose surely isn't the standard moorit...

And again, this funny picture of Lassi the Finn ewe checking me out-- while her little one-day-old boy lays next to her. Her solid brown daughter is a blur behind her.

The lambs are Comin'

2010-04-24T23:29:00.001-05:00

The first LittleRedOak Shetland lambs arrived on Thursday. Highland Hollows Bluebell led off the season with twins, a musket (oatmeal/brown) ram and a white ewe lamb. Timed nicely for late morning arrival. Emily called it; saw Bluebell acting funny at 7 am, put her in a jug, let the other ewes out to pasture and went off to school. Lambs arrived 3 hours later.

Twin Brooks Palisade delivered a brown ram and black ewe lamb at 4 am last night; Not tonight, I hope, I'd rather sleep! Here, Bluebell's boy greets Pal's through the lambing jug panels. Healthy babies, all, and moms are doing fine. The dad to these four lambs is Kimberwood Leonardo, my smooth-polled (hornless) moorit ram. No evidence of horns on these newborns, but it's too early to guess about that, yet.

Into Spring

2010-04-13T11:38:00.001-05:00

Tax season is pulling in to a close, so of course, who's not got all their tax data compiled yet? The seasonal tax preparer, of course.

Today.

So I won't write long. These are new spring photos that DH took on Sunday.

The ewes are expectant, shall we say, but no one appears ready to burst--

My Finns surprised me last year, though, by appearing lithe and un-ready and then suddenly lambing while I was away, so we'll see.

My elder friend that I watch out for, Paul, is now in a forever-home with nice nurse-aides about 13 miles from me. I'll make fewer 45 mile drives to Minneapolis now. That was the big deal of my winter-into-spring, and it's working it's way out now, as are the lambs, the taxes, the irises...

Rams with no- or tiny scur-horns. LROak March, Finnsheep Osmo,
Kimberwood Leonardo, White Pine Parker. Nice boys.

Shearing Day was Great!

2010-03-25T00:15:00.001-05:00

Great weather, in the fifties, blue sky, lots of friends, good food, good help.
Here's a picture of several women skirting a fleece in the great outdoors:

One of me trimming hooves, while big Dave holds the ewe captive (look at the pregnant finn ewe belly! 3 weeks yet!) Dave Little holds a sheep who's next for shearing; Mike Anderson's bent over another ewe.

Candy T., with her back to the camera, bagged fleeces as they came off the sheep, labelling the bags with the sheep's name.

My daughter, Emily, played vet tech this year, and gave the CD&T vaccines and ivermectin wormer. I was fiercely proud of my girl, and very grateful for all the fine helpers. Afterward, we ate pretty well in the house, and collapsed.

Fleeces off the sheep, half sold, and now some will go to Zeilinger's woolen mill this week.

Happy Spring!

Shearing Day March 21, 2010

2010-03-03T07:17:00.000-06:00

March 21st, Sunday, 10 am. Mike Anderson from WI will be here for the third year to shear the little flock of little sheep. "How many ya got?" "Twenty-four." "Okay, Sunday at 10 will be fine."

It'll be a two-hour flurry of hoof trimming, vax and wormer shots, fleeces gathered up, skirted and bagged, and we'll eat a little at lunchtime.

If you can come and plan to eat, you might bring a little something so we have enough!
Just wanted to get the word out. . .

And oh, my friend Lori in New Prague had her first shetland lamb yesterday, March 2nd. She bought two ewes from me and a ram--
but this baby came from the natural breeding that agreed prior to that on my neighbors' farm. Remember I bought some sheep back from a neighbor last Oct/Nov and sought homes? Lori'd bought a bred ewe at a bargain! CUTE baby, she said.
Happy Spring

Clearing out a lifetime of stuff...

2010-02-28T15:39:00.005-06:00

For my friend, Paul, whose duplex apartment has been the same since he was 2 years old. However, it's on the second floor, and he won't be taking steps like he used to, since his stroke.
He's mending. Not whole, but mending slowly. I'll move him to a facility out near me so I can check in on him a lot. He's never been a farm type-- more a cosmopolitan hipster who's appalled to be wearing knit running pants and seen in a wheelchair.
It's easy for me to say that we have to take what life throws at us.

At Little Red Oak Farm, the sun is shining high and warm, and I've been outside a few times today. I think I'll prune the little oaks (really! some are Little Red Oaks!) and fruit trees. It should be done while dormant, no flies about to spread disease.

And find you some pictures of sheep.

The sheep are pretty shaggy! That's Maple looking us over, while the rams are behind all the ewes and "next door"; it had just snowed before this picture.

Maple and Poppy, two musket colored favorite "pets". Beaucoup wool, Bluebell's breeding.

There's a new MN shetland (and soon Finn?) shepherd who's been emailing me all winter, keeping my enthusiasm for the sheep high, to match his. He just started a blog, new in my blog list-- Fletcher three oaks? I think he calls it. In the blog list at right. Give it a visit.

There's another new shepherd up in Glenwood, near Jerry Fletcher, I think-- named Aaron, wife Nicole-- who just got their acreage to hold the shetlands they bought from me last November. Nice couple, also enthusiastic. Maybe you'll meet them all one day. They're calling their farm Able Acres, at last discussion.

Time for me to mail those sheep transfers in to NASSA for them, now that they have a new farm address.

The snowy view from the bedroom window after the last (we hope) blizzard!
I'm working on a shearing date, now. I should have done this a month ago (but I was a little busy).

Happy Spring, soon!

I told you I was busy. . .

2010-01-22T23:07:00.002-06:00

I look back at that last post from January 5th-- in it, I said that elders in my life were needing some help--
and a few days later, one of them had a stroke.
I have been juggling two or three or four lives ever since. The elder, here, is not a family member, so it is not rip-your-heart-out sadness I feel for him, but he has long been a friend. And he had recently asked me to be responsible for him "if anything ever happened"-- formally, in documents. So I work through the regular-strength sadness to keep his affairs in order and talk to his medical team.

So---pshewww---that's what I am doing lately. That and tax prep at my usual wintertime job. Not too many hours yet, there. And uh-oh, someone has forced me to sign up at Facebook. I've only peeked, really!

The pleasure of this week is that since DH had a minor knee surgery, I am also back to being chief animal feeder and tender, so I do get to scratch a few sheep chins and monitor mama hen's progress on a clutch of chicken eggs. It's a soothing balm for the sore work I am doing for my old friend, Paul.

Too busy to post. . .

2010-01-05T20:47:00.002-06:00

Hmm, it was holidays, snowstorms, elders who needed help. . . now tomorrow, I'll begin work in the '09-'10 tax season. I don't know how many hours I'll work each week until April 15. Then lambs will start to come.

Adventures since Christmas:
After blazing paths (with a shovel) to all the barns on this farm site-- which are all at least 75 ft. apart--
the sheep are all re-combined into one-gender groups after breaking up breeding groups. 20 ewes, 4 rams, total. Two rams here, two there. I'd put them together, too, but all the stars are not in alignment yet. . . electronet, port-a-huts, never mind--we are getting there.
I decided to take Shawn the aberrant-horned ram in to the butcher-- he was sort of a bully with EVERYONE, ewes or rams (though, not people) and I just didn't want him to damage sheep, buildings, or gates with his thick horns. A buyer who wanted him could not drive the two hours to get here, and I could not hold him 'till spring. Let's hope he left me some beautifully-fleeced lambs.

He was the first ram that we pulled out of a breeding group. It was beginning to blizzard, on Dec. 23rd, and we knew he wouldn't let his ewes get into the shelter (PIG!). So we ambushed him in the portahut, stuffed him into a BIG dog crate, and lifted his 125-150 lb. crateload onto a sled-- on which we sailed him across the barnyard with the greatest of ease! Great system--we'll use that again!

Without rams, the twenty ewes are happy in the big, shabby lean-to that they spend winter, pregnancy, and lambing days in. It's about 15x20 feet. Big enough for 20 ewes, I guess. Now that the rams are out, I can visit with them more comfortably-- there are Christmas lights and a horse-sized heated water pail in there, with a nice straw floor. It's been below-zero cold for a week, but the youngest ewes have been leaping and hopping lately when I visit, a very funny sight.

There are a few frail elders in my life who have needed lots and lots of help, lately, so that's taken up my extra time--
but my own little family is doing fine and we had nice holidays together. We saw the movie "Avatar" on Sunday, what fun that was!

Now, tomorrow it's back to an office--
while the ewes in the barn grow rounder until spring--
and I spend time spinning and knitting with ladies who love those activities. It's a nice time of year.

Other People's Farm Blogs Amaze me

2009-12-16T00:14:00.000-06:00

I could just sit and read all night. I go to another Shetland breeders' blog, probably the most recent post that's popped up on my list to the right, here--
and they have, on their blog, a list of their favorite blogs, so I click on some of theirs--
and it goes on and on. I am charmed, I am invigorated by other people's ideas and adventures.

Here's an extremely nice piece of writing on living on the rural side:
We're Not From Around Here

Hooray! I figured out how to make hyperlinks. It's a new world from now on.

Here's a nice Romney sheep blog:
Romney Ridge Farm

Oh, that's fun. Happy Reading.

I'm inside this week, weaving, knitting, putting away Hanukkah decorations. That family party is over. Christmas with the other side of the family is next week, but I am not the host of that one. Psheww.
It's 0 degrees F and less, here in MN, and the sheep got double feed today. They drink a lot of water from their electric, heated buckets. I think it's like warm tea. Wouldn't you?
The cats, hens and ducks now all have heated pet bowls, too. Chickens', up high on a platform so the ducks can't mess it up and a bucket on the floor for the messy ducks. What a great idea. It took us 5 years to figure that one out.

Imagine it All White

2009-12-10T00:24:00.000-06:00

I won't have to post a photo, then, as I haven't taken any for a while. The snow of winter has begun, and next, the cold, so just imagine I took a photo, and it was all white.

We heard it was coming from the fearful meteorologists--so we took inventory-- milk, coffee, food in the freezer, we're okay-- hay, chicken feed, heated water pails all round, heat tape on the water hydrant-- tractor accessible to plow--we're ready.

Dear Daughter had a concert band performance on Tuesday night, projected to be the worst travel weather. We were prepared to take a hotel room in the city in order to make the concert, but didn't have to. The snow was blowing, by its end, but nothing extraordinary for Minnesota natives to cope with.

I tucked a flake or two of hay inside every sheep shelter-- there are 5 breeding groups of 4-7 sheep right now-- filled waters and salt boxes, got the fowl inside their barn, with cats adjacent, and waited it out.

Emily's school was cancelled today. Yay, we made gingerbread boys, girls, sheep, dreidels and stars. Tomorrow we'll decorate them. Maybe I'll photo those!

Tonight we went out and put newly-purchased Rocky coats on two finnsheep girls-- they'd been shorn by the farm I bought them from, having been destined for the butcher. They were spared that fate, but now they looked too vulnerable to me in their half-inch of wool covering, so we put coats on them. As I recall, any layer will help keep a body warmer, even if it's just heavy nylon. They are also in the most sheltering of my barns, so . . . it's as good as it gets on this little farm. Oh, for the record, the 6 month finn ewes, who are as tall as any full grown Shetland, wore sizes D and E loosely, having no wool. But the length along the spine, front to back, was good. My big puffball Shetland, Bluebell, has on a G size, and it looks tight all over.
I have an H as well; I'm thinkin': Osmo the Finn ram; maybe Bluebell in a few weeks.
These coats may be a nice thing, but it's true that the sheep had better be quiet and good-natured to put up with being grabbed and outfitted while enjoying a bit of hay.

Finally, arrangements were made today for Shawn the Shetland ram with aberrant horns, who has the most amazing fleece I have seen on a Shetland. Oh, I have a picture of that!

He's also seen in the last post, looking through the fence. Half-horn guy. Because he is now the only guy with thick, substantial horns here, I was afraid of what he'd do to other hornless rams when rams are recombined in a few weeks, after breeding. I had a butcher date ready for him.
I called a woman who had said, "before you butcher him, call me", so I did. Shawn can go live with her, soon, and I am always happy when an animal with great traits gets to live on . . .
Happy Wednesday, everyone.

Thanksgiving weekend means. . .

2009-11-27T20:01:00.003-06:00

The rams get to go spend a few weeks of quality time with the ewes. They've thought they were in Jail.

The ewes were getting a little antsy. . .

And sometimes, cruel.

"That coat is too small. It makes you look FAT, you know."

Warm November

2009-11-20T12:57:00.002-06:00

I've been taking lousy photos lately; maybe because I don't take the camera outside (or myself) until late afternoon, and the danged sun goes down at 5 or so. The light is bluish and gray by 4pm--

But the little new Finn ewe, "TRP Number 20" stood still nicely for me, and I got this one. My daughter wants to call her Kimi, I believe. A Finn boys' name, but she likes the sound of it.

I'm trying to make myself part with some more ewes. I think lambing 20 in spring will drive me crazy, but I seem to have a rational reason for keeping them all. Next summer I will have to hold a Clearance Sale.

Outside, now, to do pruning and digging/moving some small trees. We know what weather will soon be here.

New Finn Ewes, Oh boy!

2009-11-10T00:28:00.002-06:00

The Finns I can get locally are fine sheep, of Wee Croft lineage, bred at Gale Woods Farm by Tim Reese, the Farm manager. Gale Woods is a teaching farm park in Minnetrista, MN. Tim's flock is certified scrapie-free and tested for OPP. I was thrilled to get 3 new Finn ewes from him. This black girl with the big white splash on her forehead also has a white foot. She was sheared last month-- while her "sister", who to my eye looks modified black, or emsket in Shetland terms-- was not. I was stunned to really see her color today.

You see, I wasn't even going to buy this solid colored ewe, but she came up to me and laid her head on my thigh. She's a love, and look at that wool!

Of course, it's the spotted cow of a sheep that first caught my eye. What a splashy look!

They're a little spooky in their new yard. This lineup was caused when the farm cat walked by!

The Homeless Sheep have Homes

2009-11-05T11:06:00.003-06:00

Hooray! I offered the re-homed sheep on Best Farm Buy Classifieds (have all of you found these? It's national.) and a young man and his lovely bride decided shepherding was for them. (P.S.-- if you can teach me how to make a hyperlink within the blog, I would just link to the Classifieds. Thanks!)
It's fun mentoring someone who's just getting set up to raise sheep.

If you recall, 3 ewes had come back here from a neighbors'; one, who had some possible mastitis? problem while she was with them, I decided I should keep, to keep an eye on next season. One, LittleRedOak (LRO) Mallow, went to a farm in New Prague with her sister, LRO Catnip (boo hoo, we will miss her).
The new, young shepherd is taking Mallow's daughter, Mindy, along with Easter Lily, one of the spring orphan twins (I know, how could we do that!) and two more of our little brown ewes.
He will have a nice starter flock. Also rescued by him was the little black ram who was GOING to go to the butcher-- the one whose photo was shown here a month ago, eating a pumpkin.

I'm feeling fortunate to have the time and money to arrange these pairings. These sheep are all fortunate. They will be well cared-for.

NOT Sheep-related. . . well, a little

2009-10-30T23:13:00.002-05:00

Today my stepdaughter became a lawyer. As her attorney-family member-sponsor, I made probably the only appearance and motion to the Minnesota Supreme Court that I ever will. Here we are before the microphone, in front of the stage at Roy Wilkens Auditorium, St. Paul, where the Justices are seated. I am the small, gray haired lady with long skirt and sensible shoes, saying, "May it please the court, my name is Gail ______ and I am a member of the Minnesota Bar. I wish to present Shana_____, my stepdaughter. I move that she be admitted to practice law in the state of Minnesota."

Or some such words as that. To which Chief Justice Magnuson smiled down and said, "Counsel, your motion is granted." It was a big day for Shana and admittedly, for me!
I remember it was Justice Alan Page who said those words for me, in his deeply resonant voice, 9 years ago. Slightly less than 800 new lawyers were sworn in today in Minnesota.
After a celebratory lunch with our little family, her grandparents and another lawyer-sister-in-law, we all went back to our regular lives.

I came home, peeled off the suit jacket, skirt and nylons, put on farmer jeans, and said, "ahhhh".

Okay, I guess I will close on a sheepie note: I believe that the unnamed ewe lamb in my last post, and a few more ewes have found a new home; we'll meet the prospective new shepherds tomorrow. And-- Emily liked Mindy for the little ewe's name. All's well that ends well.

Mallow's ewe lamb needs a name

2009-10-29T23:10:00.004-05:00

I was a little anxious about settling the sheep back in that we had sold last year to my neighbors-- but it's going well. While Abby and Mallow were away, Mallow had this little ewe lamb-- pretty girl, but she doesn't trust us yet. We did not help matters when we descended on the quarantined girls with hypodermics (annual CDT shots) and icky white Valbazen for worming. PLUS we sat them on their behinds to check for hoof trimming-- and found dozens of burrs matted into their long wool. We cut out quite a few. They hated this, of course, so we limited the trimming to biggish felted mats and burrs on the belly that the ewes would lay on if they weren't cut away.

We hoped they appreciated that. We also saw that Abby's udder looks/feels fine! So the question of her having mastitis in May remains a mystery.

As I said, the ram went to the freezer--his hide is drying in the pole shed. I trimmed and salted it; I plan to send it to Stern's in Milwaukee to make another sheepskin rug if his fleece is useable. I think Stern's can make his wool a "shearling" pelt, trimming his burrs out.

This little girl. . . has no name. A wildflower, like her mother, Mallow? We'll have to think about this.

She is available to go to a new home.

Mallow's going to live with Lori & Norm in New Prague, with her full sister, Little Red Oak Catnip. Catnip is my brown and white spotted ewe who's seen on these blog pages a LOT. Lori has Polypays who are NOT friendly and she decided she needed some sheep who love their shepherds. We love Catnip, too, but trust that she will do well with Lori. And we have so many ewes from Catnip's line, now.

It's raining again in Minnesota. I'm getting quite sick of this-- maybe I DON'T want to retire in Washington, where it rains so much!

I had a load of gravel and sand hauled in yesterday and spread in the old lean-to so the sheep have a dry floor. Good thing-- today it's rained all day long. You know my rusty, trusty shed (see Feb. 16, 2009 blog entry for a photo). The bobcat / excavation guy who did the spreading said that he's usually asked "how much?" to knock down a shed like that. I was not insulted. I hung Christmas lights in and around it after he left, spread straw inside and invited the sheep back in.

Someone Else's chickens, free to a good home! Cheap Sheep, EDITS incl.

2009-10-22T23:23:00.008-05:00

Buff Orpington Roosters, two. Beautiful, shiny feathered big boys, hatched last spring under the neighbor's granary. Seems their rooster dad does not know or care that they are kin and won't let them into the henhouse at night. Free to a good home, says my neighbor-- but I, personally, don't want to offend my resident rooster. I told them I would post here looking for a home.
We are near Norwood Young America, look that up. And Google Buff Orpington for a chicken picture, I didn't take one. (Though my golden hen, the mama of Baby Duck girl, in past posts, is a Buff Orp).

On another note, I called a different neighbor, the one who bought a little flock from me last year, to tell him I had homes for his little flock if he didn't want them anymore. I knew he'd lost his full time job and thought he probably didn't have much time for them, working two part-time jobs to make up for the job loss.
He said yes, and I am thrilled to have my sheepies back again. Though not the ram, who has big nice horns-- LRO Anders is out of LRO Amy and FirthofFifth don Telmo Bourbon. He threw spots all over his harem last year, though he is moorit. You know my position on horns, and I have my breeding groups made up already
EDIT HERE: Anders went to Taylor Meats this morning. I learned on Saturday that he was a basher, and I didn't think there was a lot of hope for him since he was so inclined.

EDIT here: I DO have a good home for at least one of the sweet, moorit girls.
There is another 2009 moorit girl, pretty, crimpier than her mom, wavy long fleece-- Anders and LittleRedOak Mallow's. Her twin was spotted.

This spotty is LRO Abby, b. 2007. I'm afraid her interim shepherd left a case of mastitis untreated, so I worry about her udder. I'll check it when I can-- she has only thrown singles in two seasons, now, so at least that bodes well, if she's bred again.

Oh yeah, Clean Sheep

2009-10-16T22:28:00.003-05:00

On one nice day last week in our otherwise wet and cold Midwestern fall weather, I strolled about looking for model sheep. In the week or two of rain-- hardy sheep steadfastly waiting it out outdoors-- the sheep's fleeces got so nice and clean! It was a pleasure to see. A visit to the big boys-- only 3 remain for this fall's breeding:
In front, Kimberwood Leonardo, a polled Shetland ram.
Behind him, LittleRedOak Shawn, a scurred mioget Shetland with crimpy fleece that I've only seen on BFLs (Bluefaced Leicesters) and my own Finnsheep,
and behind him, Osmo the finn ram, from Tim Reese's flock at Gale Woods Farm. Osmo is 1-1/2 times the size of my Shetlands, and hornless-- a pacifist, a sweetheart.

The other rams who will winter here are White Pines Parker, a scurred musket Shetland I got from Sabrina at Boston Lake a few rainy cold weeks ago. Behind Parker is LittleRedOak March, a son of Kimberwood Leonardo and Minwawe November. He has button scurs, and we are trying for polled rams all around. Hmm, I just realized, all the rams are brown in one form or another. . . Oh well, we have different colored girls.

This is little LittleRedOak Elise, whose mom (Bramble Elsie) moved away this summer. Her fleece sample was the finest of all the lambs I tested.

And my old friend Twin Brooks Palisade, whose fleece is still jet black after 5 years or so. If ONLY she'd give me a ewe lamb-- Always rams! With big horns! I would let her retire or move to another farm and I'd keep her lamb. I don't really want the super nice horns she throws on rams, but I want that black, glossy fleece.

Maple certainly cleaned up nicely. Note the sheen on the wool-- reflecting sunlight-- on the wool on top of her back:

And her baby, Linden:

And finally, what you get when you tell your young ones to go out and take sheep pictures for you:

Ducky and Mama break free; Clean sheep & Barn

2009-10-13T23:20:00.001-05:00

After the rain, but before the snow-- we let the chickens and ducks free range again. All summer they must stay in a biiiiiiggg electronet-fenced circle around their chicken house, so the fox doesn't get them (again) and then they also leave my garden alone.

Well, the garden is history. Mama Hen and her adopted daughter, duck hen, went out scratching the garden frostbit leftovers with all the other fowl. Ms. Duck still follows her mom, but is on friendly terms with the strange ducks she's getting to know. She's behind Mama Hen, here:

Poppy the bottle ~~dog sheep~~ lamb wondered about these funny creatures, chickens:

My neighbor, Jeremy, did a few hours' labor for us in exchange for many big round bales of grass hay we've let him take for years, now. He's a mighty bobcat operator, and the old sheep leanto hadn't been cleaned out for these 4-5 years. He made quite a compost mountain for us.

Farm-wife wanna-bes, I do think he's still single. ;-) (He'd kill me for this, I think.)

Okay, I think I reached my photo limit, again. Coming up next, you guessed it, more sheep pictures!

October?

2009-10-12T21:39:00.003-05:00

It snowed today, and stayed on the ground all day. 'S'okay with me, I have a LOT of apples, squash, peppers, you get the idea. . . that all need attention, Indoors.
We knew it was going to freeze last Thursday, so we cut all the squash from the vines and brought them in:

So does anyone know the name of this type? I think that green polka dots turning tan was its final stage;

I can't find its type online anywhere. We had bought a lonely potted seedling at a nursery labeled "Winter Squash".

If you recall the giant pumpkins in the lambing barn-yard, here's "the morning after". Three are in my laundry room now, waiting out this week of freezing weather.

All the rest went to the sheep. This guy got a haircut in advance of going "on the truck" to the restaurants. His fresh black pelt is SO black.

One of the 5 boys kept here kept his fleece; he's going to have a new job adding color to some Polypay girls in a flock-- they've produced 2 black ewes already.

In the freezing weather, fiber-friend Angie and I set up a sale booth at a Harvest and Fiber Fair event at Gale Woods Farm Park, a beautiful teaching farm near here. We got to set up free if we were teaching, so we spun all day and talked to children, mostly, about it.

It's a good thing we did that, as sales were about nonexistant. The food and company were great, however.
I'm afraid I went to look at their Finnsheep and ended up ordering two more ewes. I had to! Beautiful ewe lambs going to the butcher! Pictures in a week or more--

I'd better cut this short, I think I'm limited on how many photos I can put on one post. To be continued!

Fall busy-ness

2009-10-07T04:18:00.005-05:00

Every season has its busy-ness, except winter. Settling sheep in new homes takes first priority now, as the number of sheep remaining for winter tells me how many bales of hay I'll need -- about 20 per sheep.
So far, I'm a hundred bales short--maybe--two more sheep may go to a pet home soon. Oh why didn't DH get the phone number of the nice lady who said she'd be back for those 2 ewes after their barn was finished . . . I'd better have an extra 40 bales.
See how that goes? 40 bales takes up a lot of barn space, some cash-- we don't make our own hay anymore, and have to buy some.

Simultaneously, I'm canning, freezing and giving away all the garden produce; apples now, too. I'm drying a lot of apples in the little dehydrator. Better snacks than pretzels, I think!
We've also been cutting and cleaning up limbs from a big tree. Two weeks ago a young man came out to cut curly willow for his wedding decorations. We have these curly willow trees, I advertised it on Craigslist. . . he happened to be a tree trimmer by trade.

I ~~have~~ had a Huge, dying ash tree--

We both got a very good deal, there. Love those country trades.

Today I had a visit from some fiber-friends met through this blog. They drove 2-1/2 hours in the rain to show and tell wool crafts-- Candy and Connie were here most of the day. And a cousin and her husband whom I've never met stopped by on their long trip from CA to CT.

We petted sheep in the cold, slow rain. Well, I bet they won't forget that experience.

Boston Lake Newcomer WITH PHOTO!

2009-10-01T00:50:00.007-05:00

Did I tell you I traded sheepies with Sabrina on Sunday? In the rain, in a Dollar Store Parking lot in Long Prairie, MN--?

And that we were very lucky that a helpful citizen decided to watch us and our antics, pickup-to-pickup-tailgate, managing animals in crates-- until he burst out of his idling car and offered his help (and then, his wife's!)

Aw shucks, I'd have liked to have turned him down-- NOT!

We do-si-do'd the 2 ewe lambs and 2 rams, thanked the couple profusely, talked sheep over the tailgate awhile, and then drove off to Northern and Southern MN.

Little Boston Lake Niav came home to the lambing barnyard, where we placed a few nice local girls as roommates. She is a very pretty gray katmoget, and dear--a follow-you-around lamb.

Notice also the mioget color of roommate LRO Belle. The third ewe roommate (hidden) has a little of the modified gene, but Belle is really golden!

White Pine Parker, the ram Sabrina traded me, was also given a few roommates here at home, young rams with young horns. Parker is a yearling, but has tiny scurs-- I didn't want him duking it out with any bigger-horned rams (though there's only one left!). So much scuffling ensued, regardless, that I didn't get a single good photo of him, so later with that.

I'm delighted to have some new bloodlines in this flock, and delighted to share some of our polled genetics from this flock with Sabrina.
Breeding for specific outcomes keeps the whole shepherding-thing interesting.
EDIT:
(Hooray-- I finally figured out how to get the add photos option back on my blog. It's changed, a little, and I could only find the photo button if I used the Compose tab. )

Last of the lambs leaving. . .

2009-09-25T22:44:00.003-05:00

...At least I think so! Tara, from Wisconsin, is sending her husband and son to pick up these 3 girls tomorrow to begin her new flock. She's taking one of the little rams I showed you on the last post, too-- and has another at home for genetic diversity. I think it's great that I had a white, a black and a brown ewe left for her. The katmoget ewe lamb, January, is going "up north" to Sabrina Wille on Sunday. She and I are both breeding for polled stock, and we're trading ewe lambs and a ram lamb, each, to increase the blood lines in our future polled flocks!

Dang, that sets my voluntary scrapie program status back, as Sabrina's not enrolled in it, and I'll start with a new date on Sunday. I decided it didn't matter that much to me; I think people appreciate knowing your flock is monitored for health, but most shepherds aren't in that program anyway. I'll be happy to meet her little Niav and White Pines Parker, a scurred yearling ram of hers. The fleece photos I've seen on both look great! Sabrina's blog (among the favorites I list here) is Boston Lake Farm, in case you are interested in looking at her pictures. Niav and Parker are in there. (I sound a little excited, don't I?)

Here's a blogger quandary: so, having now figured out how to show my fave blogs at the right, with info as to when those folks update a post, why isn't it working?
I've been seeing the same posts listed by name and time for several days. In reality, I go to their blogs and see that they've written several new posts! It doesn't show on my blog-roll that they've changed.

Stuck in time. (no one wants to be. . . )
I must be tired. Good night!

Ducky updated, etc.

2009-09-21T00:30:00.003-05:00

Just a few weeks later, she's a teenager! And definitely a she, not a drake.
Her grownup voice came to her-- instead of infantile peeps, she quacks-- and drakes don't quack, DUCKS do.
Mama hen is still acting like a mama to her.
These are the gi-normous pumpkins I planted in my lambing barn yard. The first five got eaten by Lily and Poppy the naughty bored twins who were quarantined in that yard after their county fair adventure. (Did I mention that they came home coughing from that fair? It never fails-- it makes me want to keep 'em all at home!)
Anyway, we threw the five pumpkins to the big sheep flock, and now these next five are big-- but will they ripen this month?

Here's some little ramlings who're quarantined by the pumpkins this week. They are all horned boys who are looking for homes; I think one or two is about to get lucky!

Little brown rams & Easter Lily

2009-09-16T22:10:00.006-05:00

Remember Lily the orphan twin? She regards this mounting block as her little home, I swear. I had to get a snap so I'd always remember. When she was tinier, she slept UNDER it.

Handsome horned ram lamb and his polled cousin, Little Red Oak Ash.
I think Ash will be going to a breeder who wants polled rams; I'm afraid April's horned boy will go "on the truck" in a few weeks. Sigh.

Not a terribly flattering picture of Ash--

And here he is, wondering if he really wants to walk away.
He just wants to be petted, always.

Back from Jefferson, micron counts

2009-09-15T14:15:00.004-05:00

At the WI Sheep and wool festival, I took spinning and felting classes with my friend; looked at other people's Shetlands in pens and in the show ring; felt and saw the soooffffttt fleeces in the judging area (way to go, Champion Shetland fleece Tori Gygi); looked at the Other Breeds of sheep there (NO FINNS, darn it)and had a nice dinner out with Shetland people and their friends.
Unfortunately, I didn't get to see much of Shetland show judging-- I thought it started earlier, but no, Noon; my second class was at 1pm.

This is a felted bag I made at my Friday class-- it got a little wild. The brown and white locks are from my own sheep; I do not have blue mohair animals!
It was quite fun to wet felt this bag and get it done in one workshop. The teacher, Mary Wallace, and other students were all so funny and kind.
It was a wonderful, three-day weekend, talking wool, sheep, felting, spinning, everything with many, many different nice, knowledgeable folks.
I got home and found fleece micron reports from Texas A&M on 8 sheepies I'd caught and sampled.
I have not been "into" this in the past-- it's just more work-- but it seems so many breeders are measuring fleece samples now, and a few asked about some of my lambs.
No great surprises, but the reports were still interesting.
Six of seven lambs were in the mid 20s, good-- my one older ewe sampled was 30 or 31?, and the one lamb I KNEW felt NOT Soft came in at 30-- while her twin was 24. So now I know that SHE goes to the pet home that wanted a lamb, and her twin stays here.
We're talking about Smudge, of Splash and Smudge, LRO Catnip's April or May lambs. Nice little brown girls, both, but Smudge is friendlier.
Good thing a pet home came up over the weekend at the local University of MN Small Farm Expo we exhibited sheep at.

(This is wool from my own Yarrow)

Will someone email me to tell me how to add to Blogger the "links to posts I like" item IN ORDER Of RECENT activity? I really want that, and spent a LOT of time trying to figure it out today.
Edit: THANK YOU VAL, I'VE GOT IT NOW!

Now, there are a million tomatoes and peppers that need attention in my kitchen!

Fairs and more fairs

2009-09-10T00:28:00.004-05:00

I'm going off to the WI Sheep and Wool festival in Jefferson this weekend. I'll drive with my spinner friend, Angie, take some fiber classes, look at other people's sheep and visit with shepherds. It should be fun.
My family is staying here, and will bring lambs and ewes to a University of MN Extension offering "Small Farm and Rural Living Expo" at a fairgrounds nearby. I would have LOVED to stay here to show off our sheep in their Aisle of Breeds, but we were asked to bring the Shetlands AFTER I'd signed up for the Jefferson classes.
That's alright, others in the family know a great deal about the sheep and can promote them well.
I only feel sorry for them loading sheep without me.

I leave you with pictures of our Carver County Fair in early August:
Do you see that little Shetland among the (not gigantic)Southdowns?

My daughter took champion in Lamb Lead. This younger fellow was very cute with his sporting hat and the sheep's tie!

Piggies in repose.

Birds to Market

2009-09-04T23:57:00.003-05:00

Actually, to the processors in Hector, MN. I'd heard of the Hector chicken processor, but I hadn't had 50 birds (their minimum) and a date reserved with them, until this year's batch of birds.
So on Tuesday, we loaded 50 nice, 8-week-old cornish-rock-cross roosters into the bed of the trusty Ford Ranger farm truck (with topper).
It was a chilly morning: the birds crouched together for warmth and moral support as they took the 43 mile drive down Hwy. 212. They steamed up the windows--
and I'll spare you the events that took place at the business we arrived at.
Today I picked up 50 frozen, packaged chickens and ran them 43 miles back home again, to grace our supper table all winter long (as well as that of a few friends and relatives).
I arrived in Norwood Young America a little late for my 2pm haircut, but the funniest thing happened: after chatting in the salon chair with the stylist about why I was late -- she said she'd love to have 2 chickens as pay for the haircut!

Mama hen and Ducky

2009-08-27T01:28:00.005-05:00

We did it again; asked a broody hen to set duck eggs.
We got too impatient, though, and ended up with only one duckling. (After a month of setting on that nest? Poor hen!)
But she loves her duck.
Takes him outside in view of his relatives (could be his real mom in the background!)

She teaches him to dig for yummy dirt, bugs, whatever it is they like in there:

And takes him back to the barn.

Lambs for Sale

2009-08-18T02:18:00.006-05:00

Okay, I said I had a few to sell! So I had to get some pictures on here, right?

My grand old favorite, Highland Hollows Bluebell, lounges with her daughter, LittleRedOak (LRO) Ivy; my lovely country home and gardens providing the backdrop. Ivy looks just like her mama, I think. Bluebell is the ewe famous for triple-thick, lustrous, crimpy wool-- her best trait, besides her pleasant demeanor. Ivy's dad is Kimberwood Leonardo, a smooth polled moorit ram. I think (for you sheep geneticists) Ivy is likely a black ewe in white pattern (!); I just learned her mom is. Ivy had a quarter-sized black spot in two places when younger. Both girls can throw brown babies, though; Ivy is AaAwtB?Bb, and I think Bluebell actually carries spots, too; she's had a smirslet daughter-- so Ivy could get that.

I'd keep Ivy because I love all that comes out of Bluebell, but that's the problem; I already have so many out of her. Besides, Ivy doesn't like us yet!

Not to be rude, but here's Ivy's posterior. A slightly longish tail, just like Mom's. And the same crimpy, thick wool Bluebell has, too!

Next, LRO Splash, one of LRO Catnip's twins. Catnip is the spotted-udder ewe seen on the last blog entry, and on several others in months past. Catnip is a loudly splashed moorit & white ewe, friendly as a labrador retriever. So are her daughters, Splash and Smudge. Splash had a white splash on her head at birth, Smudge had, you know, smudges of white instead. Their dad was also Kimberwood Leonardo, whose solid moorit largely won the pattern war in these lambs.
Splash, then, is a Bluebell great-granddaughter who is half-spotted and half-polled, if you want more of those traits in your flock.

Oops, here's Splash's backside, with LRO January nearby!

January is my shy, fawn katmoget-patterned lamb. She's out of Minwawe November, a kat, and Kimberwood Leonardo, again! January's twin brother is a smooth-polled ram-boy who will be breeding for me here, this year.

Here she is, laughing as she evades my camera:

Prices for these lambs varies; unregistered, they can go for $125; registered, $200. If you wanted me to bring a lamb or two to the Jefferson, WI Sheep and Wool festival next month, I could.
I will charge less for groups of 3-- and I have a lot of handsome little rams for sale! I'll post again soon.
Email if you are interested: gvonbargen at aol dot com.

Ducky fair photos

2009-08-09T00:33:00.004-05:00

I forgot to mention my great surprise when Garrett Ramsay, Perham, MN Shetland (and other species) breeder, strolled into the Carver County 4H sheep barn as we were setting up Lily and Poppy's stall. He told me he was at our little fair to judge the pigeons!I hope I did not distract him too greatly while I snapped a half-dozen pictures. (If you want more of them, Garrett, email me!)
Duck showing followed pigeons; they are such inherently funny creatures, I had to photograph a few. Sweet children, intensely awaiting the judge's scrutiny:
And this little girl, not interested in showing, but in taking home this duck she bought from a big 4H girl! Adorable!

Carver County Fair

2009-08-07T00:23:00.003-05:00

Little Red Oak Poppy (left)and LRO Easter Lily went to the fair this week! Emily (right) asked her friend, Samantha, to help her show one of the lambs, and having her friend there doubled the fun.
The lambs took home minor ribbons in the "any other purebred" class; the fleeces won big time.
More pictures and stories to follow.

Sheepy goodbyes

2009-08-04T00:53:00.003-05:00

We've sold a lot of sheep in the past week-- Ten! A year ago I sold off the sheep who never liked us, so selling any of our remaining sheep brings twinges of regret-- even when it's for all the right reasons. Like, that we can't support 50 sheep here! Or, that we don't want horns in our flock anymore-- or too many offspring from a certain ewe.
So sadly, we sold 5 old friends and 5 spring lambs.
Here's old Bramble Elsie, the big white ewe who ran to you, smiling, if you sat or kneeled down. Elsie and her friends, Bramble Bess, Minwawe Chicklet and my own Little Red Oak Mullein went to Rochester, MN to live with a kindly older shepherd. Elsie's little ewe lamb, Elise, is staying here. Her other lamb, Lizzie, is living 5 miles south of here, with a wonderful young family new to this area.
My friend, LRO April, the first friendly lamb born here, went, along with Minwawe PandaBear's ewe lamb, to live with Stephanie and her charming daughter Colleen in Hammond, WI.
I hope they are all happy in their new homes, although all the people who bought sheep clearly loved them as much as we do.
On a funnier note, I have wanted to post this June photo of the ewes n lambs in the morning-- Maple is peering out of the barn, Catnip, her brown lamb and another are nearby. What I love is (click on the picture to biggify it)Catnip's brown and pink polka dotted udder! So funny!

Rose-breasted Grosbeak story

2009-07-30T23:20:00.006-05:00

Last week, a very loud THUMP hit my 2nd story bedroom window. Poor bird. I looked out to the porch roof just below, and watched a small, stunned bird roll and shake its head repeatedly.
We took the little bird in and put it in a box, thinking that more restful, for her, than balancing on an angled roof.
She clutched a finger tightly, so we knew she was strong--
and we put her in the backyard maple tree. She sat there all day, and later, flew away, with a squawk at us!
The next day, we saw the rest of her family, on the birdfeeder outside our kitchen window, where a sunflower, sprung from a dropped seed, grew.

Her sleek Mama, and brighter colored Daddy.

There were at least two offspring, learning to eat from the feeder and presumably, to fly a little better!

Back home

2009-07-28T00:20:00.005-05:00

The first produce of the garden (not counting volunteer cilantro) were big green kohlrabi (we've eaten our fill!) and these tie-dyed beets! I have fallen in love with them! Roasted, steamed, grilled-- not just pickled!

These lambies are Eino, the Finn ram lamb, and January, a little katmoget ewe lamb. See Eino's little scur horn buds? He broke them both off, now. Eino went home with his new owner on Saturday, and I'm hoping January will find another home, soon!
I haven't focused on selling sheep this summer, and need to, now-- my pastures can't support so many.
January has a full poll brother, a moorit who I am keeping to use. I can sell either January's mom or January herself-- but I've grown rather attached to her mom, Minwawe November. January's dad is Kimberwood Leonardo, a smooth poll ram.
I'll post better pictures of her soon.

Is this the last of Washington, already?

2009-07-25T01:08:00.002-05:00

Ruby Beach, on the Western Pacific Coast:
Quinalt rainforest, without rain:
Salmonberries:

Are these salmonberries too? Or blackberries?

Random flowers in the lush green:

What else did you see on your summer vacation?

2009-07-23T23:57:00.005-05:00

A Happy Harp Seal at the Seattle Aquarium:
Sub-Alpine flowers on the looonnnggg walk up Hurricane Ridge, near Port Angeles, on the northern edge of the Olympic Peninsula:

DH on the looonggg walk down the mountain

Tide Pools at Salt Creek, 10 miles W of Port Angeles:

A quiet starfish hoping to go unnoticed:

Back on the farm, catching up. . .

2009-07-23T00:17:00.004-05:00

Yoiks, I wrote the last blog post in Washington, 3 weeks ago!
Of course, when we came home, the weeds had taken over the gardens, so we were busy taming them-- and the other usual stuff took my time.
However, sorting through a few hundred digital vacation photos --
can't we just click so much faster now, no worry--
was daunting.
Here are a few-- I'll do this in installments:

Dungeness-- that's the "spit" going out to sea. . .

Driftwood was the main attraction here, and the stones. . .

Washington in pure sunshine

2009-06-30T02:00:00.005-05:00

We visited old friends in Kirkland who gave us all their time and help devising a travel plan, and even a place to stay for a few days!

We delivered a finn fleece to someone in Renton-- it would've been easier to mail it, but it was a kick to be going to the state, right near where the fleece needed to go! So we saw a very nice suburban neighborhood, with lovely plantings.

We saw Pike Street Market, bought great fresh produce, ate salmon for lunch. . . and toured the Seattle Aquarium.

We took a ferry across Puget Sound from Edmonds to Kingston, then drove up to the top of the Olympic Peninsula, to Port Angeles. I KNOW we saw sheep farms, or evidence of such critter care. I suggested to DH that we move there and do the same; the green growth everywhere was just so beautiful.

A day on Dungeness Spit fooling around with the masses of driftwood; Dungeness crab for lunch-- a day hiking up Hurricane Ridge--
all in sunshine.

More to follow. . .
Have to learn how to load the new camera's photos into the new laptop!

Mt. Rainier from the plane, coming in

Going to Washington

2009-06-16T00:16:00.002-05:00

The state. For fun, soon!
Any of you sheep bloggers who see this, or even people who just TRAVEL and have good ideas, email me your suggestions about what to see, where to go, please? It will save me research time, and I'll think of you while I try your suggestion.

I spent a winter in Washington, once. Warm and rainy, much better than Minnesota's winter! I remember a rain forest in the north, somewhere. . . and picking shells on a beach in Puget Sound. . . and how people would say "the Mountain is Out today", meaning the skies were clear and Mt. Rainier was visible-- as though a mountain could ever be "in".

I prefer natural wonders more than museums or stores-- way more.
I could drag my fellow travelers to a sheep farm or festival, if I had one in mind.
I might fly there and buy camping eqpt. and donate it all before flying back! It'd be cheaper than hotels, and I LIKE the outdoors.

And what's the weather like now? What do I need to pack?

Thanks!
gvonbargen@aol dot com

New Camera!

2009-06-13T12:07:00.003-05:00

DH is the real camera man here, so he bought me a new little camera with 10x zoom. He went out this morning to photograph sheep and sunlight and chickens, just a test run:
Poppy and Lily the orphan twins, almost 10 weeks old, down to a watered-down bottle of milk a day. Darling girls:

Our fine rooster. We used to have two; he won.

He's americauna: a crossbred chicken who sires green-egg laying chicks. I am still waiting for one of our golden Buff Orpington hens to go broody this summer. We need her to hatch some Ancona ducklings for us!

I'm off, now, to do farm chores. It's a beautiful day for working, and I swear, if you aren't cutting it, trimming it, weeding it or painting it on the farm, nature takes it all back while you nap!

A Drenching Rain. . .

2009-06-08T23:53:00.005-05:00

. . .Came this weekend, with cool, cool temps in the 50s. The heat is back on in the house, hard to believe. Emily is out of school for the summer and is an enthusiastic gardener, so on Friday, her first day off, she and I finished putting in the vegetable garden, at a leisurely pace, like this:
Peppers and tomatoes in, weeds pulled, beets thinned and replanted; let's take a break and pet sheep.
Bottle babies fed, let's put in two rows of peas. Now beans.
Emily loves to weed and putz. Thin kohlrabi, see if we can replant the little ones in a new row! More carrots in, too.
Husband's home. Now let's have dinner. Home-grown chicken that stewed in the crock pot all afternoon, with potatoes and carrots added, gravy made on the stove, umm-mm. Howard will help us pound in fenceposts to prop up a cute picket fence section to let cucumbers crawl UP on, to save room. How about zucchini over here, yellow squash there?
Take in chicken eggs, refill ducks' water.
Finish putting in a long row of wax beans.
Water vegetable garden, admire its orderliness and our hard work.
All Done!
Then the rain came while we slept Friday night. A soaking, quiet rain from the middle of the night throughout Saturday. Perfect.
Sunday, we three unloaded a hay wagon filled last weekend when it was dry. Our next-door neighbor is baling the hay from our land for us this year, so unloading was the easy part we had to do. We unloaded 80 bales last Sunday and moved a new wagon-full into the hay shed, and got around to unloading it this Sunday. 50 degree weather for unloading hay: it never happens. It's always 90 degrees, and at the top of the barn, where the hay is going, it's 100!
This was a blessing, and so nice to see and smell a big wall of that sweet alfalfa/grass hay that will carry over our sheep next winter.
We'll need to put up as much, again, and more, but we're on our way.
I saw another neighbor cutting hay last week and asked him if he wanted to cut and keep the meadow grass hay I have on about 3 acres, along with our ditch hay. He said he'd sure like that-- and I asked if he'd trade us for some time with his bobcat, cleaning out my sheep's lean-to. He agreed. I am so happy! These neighborly trades are just the best, feel-good arrangements when they work.
In order to get the entire north meadow free for haying, I next had to empty an over-large pasture that had two rams in it. My big-horned guys, the only two I have. Four other small-or-no-horns rams were in another pasture for their own protection.

I quickly made a butcher date for one of the horned yearling rams, July, and found two buyers for the meat. . . I took July in this morning, and tonight found me salting his hide for tanning. My husband was working nearby, and I said, "If you'd have told me 7 years ago that I'd be fleshing out a hide thrown over a fence, here, like it was just normal, I don't know if I'd believed it".
He smiled and kept an eye on the last big-horned ram, who found his place in the social order of the new pasture peaceably. Big horns = Top ram.
The sun came out just then, after 3 cloudy, cool days. I'm looking forward to summer and what our gardens will grow.

I'll close with pictures of Finnsheep, Lassi and Eino the ram lamb. Lassi lost her only (first) baby this spring, a crying shame. A pretty ewe with bolder splashes of her light brown color-- piebald, they call it in Finns. Lassi's gone on to be the nice auntie to all the lambs this spring. We really like her, but she is shy of us.

The Taming o' the Lambs

2009-05-25T23:23:00.004-05:00

We don't do it with cookies. . . we've just never caught on to that method. . . nor do we use grain. . .
we just sit on the grass and let them climb all over us.
Once you get a hand under their chins or chests and start to scratch, they fall into a trance. . . the petting trance, we call it. . .

This was Saturday night. Emily loves to let the lambs frolic on her. I had the orphans on leads (fashioned from shoestrings when they were a week old) and was just giving up that lesson.
Dear Husband (DH), who now has the sickness I passed on to him, was commissioned to bring a camera outside with him, and he obliged.

So here, in addition to a couple of lambs, we have the yearling, LittleRedOak Catnip, who was in need of some mothering herself after this past, exhausting month of BEING a mother to twins. She hung her head on Emily's shoulder for petting.

The sweetest thing. Both of them. All of them.
>Sigh< I guess I do like living in the country.

May 19th, the day of record-breaking heat in MN

2009-05-20T00:09:00.003-05:00

We're trying to wean these bottle babies. Opinions, anyone? They were born April 9th, so. . . they are 5+ weeks old? The Premier catalog says, cut 'em off, water only, at 5 weeks. The Storey Guide to Raising Sheep says only "days. . . 18?-35" feed 3x day, a pint. . . no more data. Implied, no more bottle after 35 days? I couldn't cut 'em off, not yet-- they're getting a baby bottle--8oz, twice a day, with a bottle of water in between. Of course they have a great grass/alfalfa pasture. And they are fat. But they still look like little lambs, knee high-- a week or two older than all my other lambs, some of whom have nearly caught up to them! Let me know your thoughts, thanks.
This is, you know, what happens when you try to photograph overly friendly sheep-- they come running and fill the camera frame:

These next two pics are now a week to two weeks old. Did I mention I've been sick? REALLY sick, like, was that the swine flu? Or just bronchitis? A whole week, plus.
Here's Little Red Oak Catnip again, a smallish spotted ewe out of LRO Yarrow and Minwawe Equator. Laid-back, friendly. A good mama. Her ewe lambs are starting to like being petted. Splash and Smudge, for the marks on their heads.

And the pack of brown lamb-boys. Many are sprouting horn buds-- which I'll keep an eye on. I'm hoping for one good polled or scurred rammy to use on some ewes this year. Probably the twin to January, the katmoget in my last post. His name is March, or Mars. . . and he's the alert little guy on the right, with the white wisps on top. But gee, that middle lamb looks pretty good. . . time will tell.

Lambs a week later. . .

2009-05-12T23:19:00.005-05:00

I'm all better!

Thus cries Ash, the little scrawny lamb who had scours last week. He gave it to his twin, too, but by then we were ready with the tetracycline and icky black paste (Tri-pectate, for you home vet care enthusiasts) and she came through it quicker.

Now twins and mom, Maple, are out cruisin' the pastures.

I spent some time stalking Minwawe November and her lamb, LittleRedOak January. November used to love me, grew distant with advancing age, and last year, protected her baby from me. But right after this photo today, she came over to get petted. Yay--she'll teach January that I'm ok. January has a brown ram twin, March. He's off with the boys somewhere.

LRO Yarrow has this beautiful, crimpy-coated musket (oatmeal-colored as an adult, like she is) ewe lamb. The facial markings are a more dramatic version of her own when she was a lamb. Yarrow has the thickest fleece-- she's a Bluebell daughter-- but little crimp. And Yarrow throws wildly spotted lambs-- so I think this baby will, too. We called her Betony.

Hmmm, all the lambs shown above were sired by Kimberwood Leonardo, a polled ram. I'm so happy there's a ram twin in each pair, to show me whether the mating produced horns or not!
* * *
Apparently, I've stunned the lamb pack, who got caught playing alone without their mommies:

Remember to click on a picture to see it BIG on your screen.

Lambs on Monday

2009-05-05T10:12:00.003-05:00

Poppy and Lily at 3 weeks. Who could not love these two?

I have a tiny lamb with scours (diarrhea). I doubt he weighs four pounds. His little rump is maybe 12 inches high. His twin sister is twice his size. He's been vigorous enough, only now he has scours, and mom, Maple, would just as soon get on with life outside the lambing jug and let him lag or fall behind.
So I spent monday feeding him tiny squirts of the foulest black paste one could be asked to ingest-- and he acted like I killed him, each time. Then a few hours later, he'd be bouncing around!
I think he's much improved today-- and we are taking turns. Now I don't feel so well.
No black paste, please.

Lamb photos~
Here's Bramble Elsie, who threw a scurred ram last year that I used this year. This year she had twin girls, Elise and Lizzy.

Cement block as pillow, LittleRedOak Junie and Tuesday, her babe:

Not a great shot of Yarrow's twins, but who could ask sleeping babies to move? She's standing watch over them. The girl, behind, is a lighter musket color with SUPER Crimp. Friendly from the start, as Yarrow's lambs always are.

My friend, Mary's, favorite new lamb, Ivan:

New lamb photos 09

2009-05-04T00:47:00.004-05:00

Night and Day,
actually Ivan and Ivy, out of HH Bluebell and Kimberwood Leonardo. Bluebell (you can see) is white; the sire, Leo is brown-- Bluebell's boy, here, is splashed black and white (he will turn gray as he matures) and her girl, Ivy, is another white ewe with total crimp and speckled legs, just like mom.
The surprise is that Bluebell threw black. That means she is genetically a black sheep with the White pattern masking her base (black) color! I didn't know! She's always thrown brown before this, when mated with brown.
The sheep color genetics puzzle is actually a rather simple one, but it still can make your head spin when you first encounter the possibilities.
Now, Ivy, the little girl, has a blackish spot above one knee and under her tail-- I'll save that question (of Spottedness) for another day, with better photos.
For now,I am thrilled to have these new, bright splashes of color and pattern in my flock.

Then, out in the pasture, the week-old lambs Smudge and Splash, out of LRO Catnip and pollie Leonardo:

And now Smudge, Eeno the finn ram lamb and Catnip, Smudge's mom:

LRO June's solid brown little, crimpy brown ewe and ram lamb, with Eeno (isn't he long legged?)

Monday's to be another gorgeous spring day. More pretty baby pictures to come.

Six lambs, 3 ewes, 4 hours. Done!

2009-04-30T23:38:00.004-05:00

OMG, what a surprising finish-- Bluebell and both daughters lambed twins, a boy and girl to each-- all within 4 hours of each other. In fact, Bluebell and Yarrow were in two different shelters pushing out babies at exactly the same time, at dinnertime tonight.
I'd seen both Maple and Yarrow off by themselves today, nosing around-- and that is unusual. Those sheepies generally like to stay with the flock. And I thought I could see, on Yarrow, the hollow that forms below the hip bones when the babies "drop", right before lambing. Still, all ewes ate heartily at 9am this morning, and were resting in the lean-to when I checked them at noon.

I left at 2 and returned at 5:30. Emily went out to hold November's new lambs in her lambing pen (the "jug") and called me from the barn (ah-- cell phones!). She told me Yarrow was in labor-- pawing, laying down, groaning, getting up. I said, fine, thanks, come on in for dinner-- but Em wanted to stay. We ate and I went out, trading watch with Emily. I walked in to see Yarrow's first brown lamb on the ground.

Knowing a second baby could take a while, I went out to check the lean-to.
Maple was cozily tucked into the corner with two tiny, fluffy brown lambs curled up near her. June's, I thought. Tiny, perfect, solid brown-- but wait! She's looking at me like. . . they're hers!
And then, look again! Bluebell was 6 feet away, with two wet lambs on the ground!
A white one and a black and white (bersugget?) mottled lamb. OMG!

I called Howard (ah! cell phones!) and told him we needed all the troops, with towels, iodine, scissors for umbilical cords--
first we needed to clean out two lambing jugs for the new occupants, and what the heck, let's clean out the rest of the lambing barn!

And so we did. The four jugs are full, the maternity ward is abuzz for the last time this year.
Photos to follow, another day.

I leave you with this silly guy. Twin Brooks Palisade's son. Bersugget pattern? Simply a grey lamb whose mom is black smirslet? You decide.
Bluebell's got a new boy who looks a lot like him, only with wilder splashes (and pinch me, a white ewe, just like her!)

Twelve down, three to go

2009-04-30T00:48:00.004-05:00

Ewes left to lamb, that is.
Every night, I go to bed at midnight or later, after feeding little orphan lambs & making one last barn check for late-night lamb-ers. Then I get up at 3 or 4 a.m. and do it again--every night since Easter. I know, I shouldn't whine. Some people have HUGE flocks, mine is tiny. I do get tired, though.
I lost two ewe lambs simply because I wasn't THERE at the birth, this year. It's made me hypervigilant. Last year I lost no lambs.

Bluebell and her two daughters are still holding out. Maple will wait a loonnng time, while Bluebell & Yarrow could go within a few days.

In the meantime, let's admire Minwawe Panda with her lookalike daughter and coal-black son:

And one of LRO April's little brown boys (April ALWAYS has perfect little brown lambs.)

And one of me in the barn, watching a ewe lamb, while Lily the orphan practiced jumping up on my bench.

And more lambs

2009-04-26T00:11:00.004-05:00

The orphan babies continue to amuse. Poppy here, with Papa's bootlace. Their bottle feedings went from every 3 hours to every 4 to 6, and both girls also started eating hay and drinking from a pail today, like big sheep. They are 2 weeks old now, and are just delightful. It looks like they may go to the county fair in August. Never before have we had the time or patience to teach lambs to lead on halter, but these are with us all the time-- a natural.

I like this photo Howard shot; I think of it as "Catnip, Spring Pastoral". Here, she has one lamb at her side, while the other is off playing somewhere. Her brown, curly-fleeced ewe lambs have white on their heads-- Splash and Smudge, I'm calling them. Click on the image to enlarge it-- the spring green on the budding trees is nice.

There are another dozen lambs-- only a few are rams (nature's making up for last year, my 14:8 ram year). Ten ewes done, 5 to go. I'm relaxing about this, now. Today, Bramble Elsie delivered a black and a white ewe lamb, which Howard and Emily got to watch up close. The lambs are up and doing fine.

More later!

Lambing LaLa Land

2009-04-21T22:01:00.005-05:00

Whoo hoo!
Today I got to take a bath-- and clean a few places-- house, barn, porch--and bake bread--
because only one ewe lambed this morning, and the orphan babies can be left unattended for hours at a time now.
They went out to live in the barn on Sunday night.
The weekend went like this: the little, cold, Finn ewe lamb found 6pm Saturday, nursed through the night, died Sunday a.m. Howard gave her a grave in the pines, and we were all sad.
Also on Sunday a.m., we noticed that Catnip the friendly HST ewe (pictured a few blog posts ago, standing on Howard in the pasture)had hidden away at pen-in time the night before so she could lamb in private, elsewhere. She delivered two little brown ewes all by herself and we brought them to a lambing jug.
So we were down one ewe lamb, up two more. These two ewes are out of my smooth- polled ram, Kimberwood Leonardo.
On Monday, Minwawe Chicklet, the gray flecket, lambed a brown ram and a black ewe out of my LRO Shawn, the scurred mioget with beautiful wool.
So these babies begin the new wave of breeding at Little Red Oak: toward polled rams.
Tuesday morning, LRO April presented two brown ram lambs, also out of Leonardo. We can see what their horns or foreheads look like in coming weeks--
No more babies today, so I got caught up somewhat.

I sat in the barn for hours this morning, letting the orphan babies play all around, and I let Catnip and her babes out of the lambing jug.
Orphan Lily tried to play with Catnip's lambs but was not appreciated by their mother. She persists, though.
They'll be running together by tomorrow, I predict.
And about 3 more ewes will lamb within 48 hours.

Arrghhh, Lambing!

2009-04-19T00:28:00.003-05:00

I know Nancy at Bluff Country reports annual anxiety at lambing time; maybe I will develop more. . . we have a lamb, tonight, that won't likely make it until morning.

Let me first tell you, the orphan babies are FINE. Kindergarten naughty monkeys, that's what they are. . . still living in luxury in the laundry room (that's 3 wash loads of floor quilts & towels this week). I'll end with their picture.

No, the little lamb that has our heart saddened tonight is our own first born lamb of the season, a Finn lamb out of my colored Finn ewe, Lassi.

I was in the Twin Cities all day with my family, doing good deeds for aged parents, sittin' in coffeeshops, visiting the Minnesota Textile Center and the Weavers' Guild-- while my child was in Cool Science at the U of M. I knew there was a risk we'd get our first lamb today, but no ewes looked "ready" when we left at 9am.

When we came home at 6, Lassi stood in the field over her barely moving, fawn flecket ewe lamb. Lassi's a first time mother-- anything could've gone wrong, or nothing.
All I know is, the lamb was chilled and sluggish. We gave up on Lassi, who was acting helpless about her lamb-- and brought it inside to warm and try to feed. We ended up trying to tube feed the baby-- and it surely doesn't seem to have worked.

More later, I'd better go hold her awhile.

So for now, here are the little laundry room rascals, Poppy and Easter Lily. Poppy's the favorite, in front.

Orphan HST ewes, oh my.

2009-04-11T23:25:00.003-05:00

We helped Kim and Bob at Kimberwood with their shearing all day today. We workers were looking forward to hot baths, had changed out of filthy barn clothes, and then I checked the phone messages. Our neighbors, the ones who are new at raising Shetlands, had left a distress message on our answering machine telling us a ewe had died after lambing, as well as one lamb, and the caller feared for the second.

To make a long story short, guess who's living in our laundry room?

It was true, the ewe did die, a sad shame. Probably a retained placenta. But both lambs were alive and lively, and apparently a few days old. I guess one lamb was sleeping when they gave it up as dead. The other wasn't drinking, but soon came around to the bottle. Spotted moorit and musket ewe lambs. We offered to care for the lambs as our neighbors didn't think they could do it, so they told us they'd be ours if we would.
We fed them little bottles of milk replacer, gave them CDT shots and settled them into our laundry area for the night. I hope they make it, and that we don't go crazy taking care of them.

Tomorrow's Easter! We'll bring lambs to my folks for the afternoon in the city!

Wow-- wool!

2009-04-07T23:34:00.004-05:00

This is Little Red Oak Maple before shearing:

And here she is, lithely leading the pack, the day after!

She's a musket (usually oatmeal color?)meaning a "grayed" brown sheep-- but she's
nearly white at the skin. A mioget golden base, I swear.
And a six and a half pound lamb fleece!
Just like her mother, Bluebell, her brother Mullein, her sister Yarrow.
Nice crimp, amazing length, sofffftt fleece.
Amazing.

The ewes are sheared, lambs on the way. . .

2009-04-05T23:49:00.004-05:00

And our neighbor showed us "our grandchildren", twin ewe lambs born to Little Red Oak Mallow and Anders, sheep that we sold to them last fall. Anders and Mallow are both solid brown, and from them, he got this little HST and a solid brown ewe. All are healthy and doing fine!

At Little Red Oak today, we got our 15, apparently pregnant ewes sheared by Mike Anderson out of Frederick, WI-- the rams couldn't be kept dry for shearing and will have to wait. Mike and his nephew, the trainee, drove several hours to get here through an early morning snow.
What misery for them! I hope they got more out of the trip to Minnesota than the little check they got for shearing here-- but that seems to be a shearers' life.

I'll get some freshly-shorn sheep photos soon. My sister, as well as Handspinners/flockowner Kim and Angie and their husbands came to help me sort sheep and fleeces for the third year in a row, now. It is such a pleasure to work and share time with them.
I'm hoping to return the favor at Kim's Kimberwood Shetlands soon.

We found the Finn fleeces to be amazingly crimpy-- Angie wanted to spirit away the fawn colored one that is already promised, but she did get to take home the white Finn fleece. It'll be fun to see what she makes from it this year.

Okay, gotta go look at lamb photos on other blogs, now!

April Fools!

2009-04-02T00:08:00.004-05:00

April fools!
The weather turned back on us, with a coating of snow that's sure to make shearing, this Sunday, a wetter business. We'll keep our fingers crossed.
This past week, poor Minwawe PandaBear got an owie and some nice red vet-wrap to cover it while it healed. She caught it on the edge of a pallet while (I'm sure) running to join the ewe flock escaping out the lean-to back door. Wheee! We haven't been in THAT barnyard for a while!
But poor Panda, narrow ankle caught between two wooden slats on the pallet, went down, Whump! and laid there, in a dead sheep pose. I freed her foot. Still dead, by all appearances, except open eyes. Fear-frozen! That's our little Panda.
I rolled her completely over and away to convince her that the pallet didn't have her anymore. She found her feet, and limped away.
I freaked, thought she'd broken a bone-- 3 weeks before her lambs come--
But she's fine,now, and wearing her beautiful red bandaid until we shear on Sunday.

Dear Husand went out and laid in the field on Saturday, taking arty sheep pictures. There are a few overly friendly sheep, ahem, like this one, standing on him:

And then she and Mari the finn ewe fought over him:

Oh, fun news: My nearby neighbor, who bought a trio of my ewes and a ram to clear an old pasture (never mind what's happening to their lovely wool coats)let us know they have LAMBS! "One's black and one's black with white legs and face", she said. Now, I think they must be brown, but very dark, I'm sure: The ram and all 3 ewes were brown-based sheep. But it sounds like they got an HST-- and I wouldn't be surprised, as one of the ewes is. We want to go over and see them-- we won't have lambs for another two weeks!

March is half gone-- and Spring is half-here

2009-03-23T22:54:00.003-05:00

There's even less snow now than on this day a week ago. . .

It took forever to get this new computer to make and post pictures, to get AOL working right. . . but we're here. Still learning. . .

And guess who is my new best friend. . . Little Red Oak Maple, the shy lamb!