Archives for fiber farm

A Day in the Sugar Bush

March 17, 2010 | 10 Comments

I've been quiet because I've been way under the weather this week. It felt good to be outdoors today working in the sugar bush with Mike and neighbors Norm, Lisa and Fred Davenport. We finally got around to tapping a maple stand that's not seen bucket nor tube line in more than a decade. The "bush" surrounds one of my hay fields. This field gives us two cuttings of hay each summer, feeds the flock during our fall grazing months and now will fill a large collection tank (we hope) with sap to take to my neighbor's sugar house each
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As the wool spins. . .

March 13, 2010 | 8 Comments

Moving right along, an update on the fiber front: I'm about half way through sorting the fleeces from shearing. The wool for the spring and summer Sheep Shares is in process at the mills – which means U.P.S. will begin delivering boxes of deliciously fresh yarn and fiber right around mid-lambing season. I'm immensely relieved to have yarn perking along as we await lambs. The show fleeces are carefully wrapped like burritos in paper and tied with twine – stowed away for the first round of competitions in May. Except for Teaberry and Cilantro's fleeces which are huge and wouldn't
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Announcing this year’s theme (drumroll please. . .)

March 12, 2010 | 13 Comments

Memphis, Cormo cross ewe lamb from 2007 (theme: U.S. towns & cities) Tough choice. First of all, thank you to everyone who took the time to offer a suggestion. While I always enjoy hearing from the world beyond the farm, your feedback is especially welcome at this season where the work here gets more intense and my occasions for interacting with the real world more limited as my focus is on the farm.Your thoughts, questions and input are welcome and I enjoy hearing from you. I've waffled a bit in choosing this year's theme. Some of you have chimed
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Ewe Tube

March 6, 2010 | 5 Comments

The t.v. in the bedroom is tuned to barn cam 1 most of the time now, which gives me this view of the flock. I looked up from my reading last night to spy on the girls, occasionally toggling over to camera 2. Would you believe, Crackerjack now sleeps across the barn threshold as if to say, "no one gets by me!" At one point I saw his head go straight up with his ears alert, pointing down toward the dell. Then I heard the coyotes yipping in the distance. He caught it first. Good llama. There were no picky
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Shearing Day 3 – Contest: Name the Lambs

March 3, 2010 | 119 Comments

The pregnant ewes are now all shorn. Whew! It's the group I fret over the most so I am hugely relieved that they're all now freshly coiffed and dressed in clean frocks. Without their ten pound fleeces, it's much easier to see if any ewes are over conditioned or under conditioned. The group looks just right. Carrera is the only one who looks as though she might possibly be eating pickles and ice cream on the sly. This afternoon as Andy finished shearing Galveston and while she was still seated on the board, Holly and I patted her tummy to
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Brown and White and Wooly all Over

March 2, 2010 | 10 Comments

I am so enjoying the different colored fleeces in the wool clip this year! Thought you'd like to see these photos of Latte's first shearing. Such a peanut, Gabriel scooped him right out of the holding pen and sat him down on the board. He and his sister Bailey have the finest wool of the four moorit yearlings. I am loving every second of comparing the shades of brown, the different textures and varying lengths of the wool staples. Since the fleeces are now snugly wrapped like "wool burritos", I haven't snatched any lock samples for close-up shots, but
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Men at Work

March 2, 2010 | 10 Comments

Day two of shearing and we're still not done. Finished the boys today and made good progress with the bred ewes. Will finish that group on Wednesday and then on to more ewes next Monday. Looks like shearing will span more than a week this year. A little bit like the winter Olympics, minus spandex tights . . . Decided to change things up a bit with a new skirting technique this year. I hate bagging fresh fleece in plastic. A steamy, freshly shorn fleece exudes sheepy moisture and needs a chance to breathe. And I hate the way a
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Cilantro’s Awesome Fleece

February 28, 2010 | 20 Comments

Cilantro is a handful. If you're a regular here, I'm not telling you anything you haven't heard before. Although he was wethered at an early age, he is just as combative as any ram. The bad boy of the big boys, we give him plenty of room. One of the things I like about shearing day is working closely with each animal. In the confines of the holding pen, there's no room for a ram to draw a bead on you. I enjoyed wrapping my arms around Cilantro's wooly head to extract him from the pen, and he didn't give
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White Out

February 23, 2010 | 11 Comments

Holly took the hoggets for a stroll in the snow today – moving them to the big barn for their very big date with the shearer on Friday. Since fleeces need to be absolutely dry for shearing, we moved them as early as possible this morning to get them tucked into the most protected building before the storm really got cranking. Which it is right now. I can barely make out the barn from my window. It's suppose to storm all night and we could get as much as a foot here in the hills before it's over.
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Early Arrival

February 22, 2010 | 12 Comments

My game plan was to immerse myself in working on my book this weekend. And while I got quite a lot of that accomplished, a call from a neighbor Saturday morning put a different spin on the weekend. My neighbor Barbara (another Barbara; funny, there are three shepherds living here in the Patten, all Barbaras) had a newborn lamb in her kitchen when I arrived with my lamb emergency kit. Her eldest ewe surprised her with an early delivery of a seemingly healthy set of triplets on Friday night. Oddly enough, by Saturday morning one had died and another, a white
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