Wednesday morning Holly rounded up the lambs and ewes and grabbed the buckets of clean sheep coats. The gang is really putting on wool at this time of year and we had been noticing quite a few jackets with snug fits. 

We're also transitioning now from pasture to hay feeding. There's still grass out there, but as the earth hardens with each frost it gets more and more difficult to set the stakes of our temporary electronet fencing into the ground. I've learned from past experience not to wait too long to take down the electronet. Mike and I once tried extending grazing right up to Christmas. While there was no snow, we had to chisel each and every stake out of the frozen ground. No fun at all.

Here's a closer look at the gang in the huddle. Personally, I hate crowds, but sheep for some reason are most comfortable when they are nearly on top of one another (at least in a handling situation). It's the prey animal, safety-in-numbers mentality, I suppose. Anyway, they absolutely hate being chased and it's much easier this way to grab them one at a time .

An hour later, the coat check is complete. Here they are looking pretty spiffy in their clean white jackets, exiting the wardrobe.

On Saturday, November 29, you can stop by to meet this wooly gang. I am hosting my one and only Open Farm/Open Studio event for the year. The lambs will be in the carriage barn, and you can also meet Gypsy, my new Angora doe (who, as you can see from this photo, is a free-spirited nudist). If you want more details, like how to find my farm, click here.

Tomorrow I head west on the Mohawk Trail, round the infamous hairpin turn to Williamstown MA. I'll be attending and vending  Clara Parkes' Knitters Review Retreat this weekend. That means today I will be very busy wrapping things up in the dye studio . . . 

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copyright 2008 Barbara Parry, All rights reserved.

Foxfire Fiber & Designs at Springdelle Farm

To follow up on yesterday's promise, here's a better look at Butch with his new sidekick Gypsy together in the pasture. Enjoy.

Caitlyn &  company:

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copyright 2008, Barbara Parry. All Rights Reserved.

Foxfire Fiber & Designs at Springdelle Farm

Fall means a farm in transition. Temperatures dropping, trees unleaving, daylight shrinking, the sheep keenly sense and respond to the change in season. At one minute, they rest at ease, here enjoying a moment just after dawn. A moment later, they're charging at each other, ears back, heads down. The rams get territorial, squaring off in the pasture. It's nearly time for them to join the ewes. The ladies are restless and short-fused as well. Lots of sparring at feeding time in the barn.

The landscape here is changing in other ways.The birthing barn is getting a badly needed roof job. When we purchased Springdelle Farm this building housed a herd of holsteins and the equipment for running a dairy. We've since removed the milk lines and tank and use this secure building to shear and to raise lambs each spring, while storing the bulk of our hay harvest in the loft.The building has been shedding its original shingles, circa 1969, since we took ownership eight years ago. We decided last spring that we couldn't afford to wait another year. Last week Jim Jarvis and crew began stripping the dead shingles down to bare sheathing (which was in surprisingly good shape, given the number of bare spots). The "unroofing" went quickly.


The new roof, a 30 year architectural shingle in charcoal gray, is steadily spreading its way over the 111 square foot expanse. As of today at dusk, the east, west and north faces are nearly done. With tomorrow's iffy weather forecast, the guys tarped the unshingled peak. When they finish here, they head right over to roof the studio.

Smaller changes elsewhere on the farm. This little gal hopped off the tailgate of Andy Rice's truck and into my barn yesterday. This new addition to in the flock  was much needed as a companion for Butch, my angora buck, who has been terribly lonely since his brother Sundance died six weeks ago. 

"Gypsy", a tiny bundle of mohair and personality was a "lone goat" in Andy's flock. It seemed to us like the two might make a good pair. Apparently, they agree. They follow each other everywhere. When I returned from voting today and glanced up into the pasture, there they were, together within the flock of 37 sheep. I remembered my camera at evening chore time.


She has a beautiful, glossy coat of ringlets. You can really see it in the flash (which also made her eyes appear alien-blue, unfortunately). Her "handle-bars" curve straight back over the top of her head, unlike Butch's horns which flair out to the side. What else can I tell you about her? She is more vocal than the boys, calling out to me each time she saw me step outside the studio. In addition to grass, she loves apples, bananas and carrots.

She's a sweet, tiny, pushy little thing. No bigger than the smallest of my lambs, she bosses her way through the adult ewes who are quickly learning to stay out of her way. Her "goats rule" attitude is pretty funny. She has no idea of her size. My ewes could easily flatten her, if they weren't afraid of her.

More photos later. Will try to catch some pasture shots, if it's not raining tomorrow. In the meantime, back to the tv where I tonight follow some pretty big changes elsewhere . . . .

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Copyright 2008, Barbara Parry, Foxfire Fiber & Designs. All rights reserved.

Just returning from a rather long blog hiatus to share a slice of autumn morning with my flock.  In the seeming blur of summer and early fall, the lambs have grown and the flock has burgeoned to 100 – filling our pastures. When not changing sheep coats and checking fence lines, and filling water troughs, my summer days were hugely occupied by teaching fiber art classes and writing a book on hand dyeing.  I am now in the thick of fall sheep & wool festivals, which means many hours in the dye studio. Time outside with my sheep helps me stay grounded.

 as the rest of the gang fan out at the far side of the south pasture.

The solstice is a pivot point, marking both a transition in season and a change in the work flow at the farm. This week the border leicesters were joined in the high pasture by the yearling ewes and Caitlyn, my eleven year old llama. This pasture is huge and really ought to be subdivided for intensive grazing, but for now I am letting them have it all. Happy sheep.

Using the shed as a vantage point, Catilyn surveys the flock.

The upper pasture is quite some distance from the barns. We constructed this outpost last year so the sheep would have shelter in the event of severe weather – like the hail storm that struck last week. It's also cool inside and a good place to escape the black flies.

Yesterday was moving day for the lambs and mothers. Crackerjack led the entire procession as the flock of 46 crossed over to the west side of Reynolds Road. Unlike the enclosed and cavernous birthing barn, which was formerly a dairy, the west barn is open on two sides. It was called a "free-stall" barn when cows lived here. The stalls are gone and now it's the summer bunker for the lambs.

The move created lots of excitement for the lambs, who have never set foot inside another building. At first, all was confusion with frantic baah-ing and blatting. The ewes quickly settled once they arrived at fresh grass. Once the mothers were quiet, the lambs tentatively stepped out the doorway to investigate their new pasture.

Happy summer . . . .

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copyright 2008, Barbara Parry, Foxfire Fiber & Designs. All rights reserved.

On the downhill side of the dairy the pasture slopes toward the dell. There is a brook fed by several springs. Grasses and multi-flora roses nearly obscure the view of the brook now, but you can hear the rushing water, especially where it tumbles through the rocks. The sheep don't go there, since we have yet to run secure fence around the perimeter of the dell. The slope pasture is where the lambs and ewes spend much of their time now, at least until I move them across the road to the upper pasture.

There are several pastures adjacent to the birthing barn. To keep the flock healthy and the grass under control, I rotate them from field to field every few days. They enjoy a change of scenery.

When the lawn needs attention, I bring them around the yard. Inspecting the shrubbery is part of the fun.

The recent heat and humidity has significantly dampened the flock energy. While the sheep eagerly head out the pasture gate each morning, they dog it back to the barn within an hour. I pile the mangers full, so there's always plently of good food indoors, out of the sun, and I keep several fans running which create a cooling breeze down the aisle of the barn. The lambs adore the fans, which keep the vexing flies away.  When not near a fan, a llama can serve the same purpose. . .

My time is split in these early summer days. The rest of the flock – fifty-something sheep- also need attention. Before setting them out in the far pastures, they get a spring tune up. Today that included administering wormer, trimming hooves and uncoating the yearlings who live in the barn on the west side of the road.

The girls were wet from morning grazing in a drizzly fog. Penning them together to trim their feet and pulling off their smelly wet coats was not much fun, trust me. I have no pictures to show you. The only way to tackle this project is to just take it one sheep at a time – and to try not to think about how many sheep are yet to be done. The fleeces were quite damp from the recent rain and humidity, so the coats will stay off until the wool is dry. Each day, we'll tackle another group.

By Friday, I will have worked my way through the entire flock of 100. While I'm sure the sheep would prefer to avoid this type of attention, it feels quite good, knowing I have handled and inspected each sheep individually. It's easy to miss things needing attention when viewing them as a flock.

At evening feeding the wind kicked hard from the northwest, bringing a monster thunderstorm, complete with marble-sized hail stones. Holly and I were pulling bales from the hayloft when it struck. The sound was deafening. Fortunately, the sheep were all indoors. Unfortunately, my car was parked just outside the barn with the windows down. It was a soggy ride home, but at least the storm has broken the humid blanket that has been parked over western Massachusetts for the past week.

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copyright 2008 Barbara Parry, Foxfire Fiber & Designs. All rights reserved.

Sheep traffic has worn a muddy line along the pasture's upper edge. I follow in their hoof steps and walk the mud-slick path each morning, inspecting the flock.  Observation: the lambs have caught on to grazing – big time.   They beat the mother's to the pasture gate and practically jump over each other in impatience as I fumble with the gate latch.  In a wooly rush, they spring out into the field.  More  confident, less dependent of their mothers, they bunch together, a mini flock within the flock, shoulder to shoulder, heads to the ground. 

Boosted by recent rains,  the pasture is getting ahead of the flock. The lambs are wading through a shoulder-high sea of green.   I notice how their bodies, sleek and sturdy, are rounding out over the last two weeks, another sign of good graze. 

Enjoying the freedom of the wide open spaces, they are still pretty interested in my comings and goings.  They will follow me out of curiousity.  If I stop to look at them more closely, they stop to inspect me. Especially the bottle lambs.

No matter how emphatically I declare that I WILL NOT raise a single lamb by hand, I invariably end up with one or two or a handful of lambs who, for one reason or another, need supplemental feeding.  Ok, I'll admit it.  I like bottle feeding lambs, and I have a good system.  I keep a blender, a mini-fridge and a small microwave oven in the "milk room" of the dairy barn.  Once a day I make enough lamb milk shakes to last through evening.  I nuke the milk just to kill the chill, and stick two nursing bottles into the pockets of my barn coat.  The bottle lambs find me, as I move about morning chores.  I feed them two at a time. Those who must wait entertain themselves by jumping on my back or chewing my hair.

I have help.  Mike is a good sport about taking the last feeding if I need to go to bed early.  Holly is great back up and never lets a lamb go hungry.  Friends stop by to pitch in.  Everyone gets a turn.

This year, it's just three bottle lambs:  Issey, who sometimes nurses from his mom but really likes to take a little more at each feeding, Calvin (pictured above) whose mother developed a mysterious aversion to him at about 2 weeks of age, and Diesel – who earlier this season spent a night with Issey in our bedroom after my botched attempt to graft Issey onto a new mother (you can read about this in an earlier post, if you missed the story).  Diesel is my most enthusiastic customer.  He's always first in line and has no patience with his half siblings getting any of his share.  It's a bit of a circus when all three lambs come at once.  Other lambs come to check it out.  They press their noses in – I give them random slurps.

First feeding is at 8 a.m.  Last Call is around 10 p.m. There won't be too many more late feedings now that they are getting bigger and eating grass and hay. I will enjoy this while it lasts.

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copyright 2008 Barbara Parry, Foxfire Fiber & Designs.  All rights reserved.

Foxfire Fiber & Designs at Springdelle Farm

The month of May is a time when I could really use a clone- so one of me can keep tabs on the lively group of lambs and their ravenous mothers  at the farm – while the other me takes the farm on the road.  Each spring I become a fiber road warrior for the series of festivals that are circled on the  calendar from April through June.

New Hampshire is always my first show of the season, and it's a special one for several reasons.  When my business was very much in the fledgling stage, NH  was my first "big" show.  Since both sisters, Trish and Kathleen, are residents of the Granite State, they are always there for booth support.   Here Kathleen is shepherdess to a flock of drop spindles from Grafton Fibers.

NH S & W  is also about reconnecting with the fiber community and visiting with friends I haven't seen since Rhinebeck.   We had a very special friend join us for the weekend.  Melissa Morgan Oakes, author of 2-At-A-Time Socks was on hand to sign copies of her book and to chat about her technique for avoiding single-sock-syndrome.  If you missed her in NH, she'll be joining us again at Mass.  Sheep & Wool on Saturday May 24 from 11 – 1. 

We had lots of visitors over the weekend.  Terry dropped by to score a pair of batts and then found the perfect drop spindle to accessorize, demonstrating the art of color coordinating one's tool with one's fiber. . .

It was also great to see Meg, Laurie, Manise, Julia,  Marcy, Deanna, Cheryl, Cate, Alice, Sue, Vangie  (and I know i'm missing names here – so sorry!)- and great to make some face to face connections with some Ravelers who came by.   

Lisa Lloyd, a friend who couldn't attend, was with us in spirit.   So I gave autographed copies of her gorgeous new book , A Fine Fleece, a special space front and center.  No one could pass the booth without stopping to admire her work.

The weather cooperated and the vibe was great on Saturday.   The news on Sunday morning that one vendor's cash box (Morgaine from Carolina Homespun) had been stolen during breakdown on Saturday night cast a pall over the following day.  After reading Clara Parkes' reports of theft at Maryland this year, it was really disheartening to see this trend had made its way to NH.   My experience has always been that there is a strong level of trust among those in the fiber community.   I'm hopeful that the  unfortunate events of the first two major shows of the year were aberrations and not a sign of what's to come.

We were pretty exhausted by the show's end (but still smiling).  Somehow Trish managed to avoid the camera's eye by remaining behind the camera.  So I will be sure to get her in a shot or two at Rhinebeck.

Now it's back to the farm!

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copyright 2008 Barbara Parry, Foxfire Fiber & Designs.  All rights reserved.

Foxfire Fiber & Designs at Springdelle Farm

It’s official.  Lambing’s done.  I have a severe case of  lamb-lag brought on by  five weeks of not sleeping through the night, heading to the barn at all hours, eating sporadically.    Our last lambs arrived during this past week.  Holly was alone in the barn to help the last set of twins into the world, while I was out of town.   She called to tell me they were on their way and then handled everything beautifully on her own – her first solo delivery.  I’m so proud of her.

This year’s lambing spanned four weeks.  35 lambs, 9  ewes 26  rams!   While I wish the gender numbers were reversed,  it was our smoothest season ever.  Not a a single loss.  A happy barn full of mothers and babes and one tired shepherd.

The wide range in lamb ages makes management a little tricky.  Developmentally, there’s quite a difference between a four week old lamb who has already filled out like a barrel and doubled his birth weight and a twiggy legged, dewey-eyed newborn.  I like to give the young ones time and space to take in their new world before turning them out with the wild and woolly crowd.  While the older lambs and ewes were out in the south pasture one morning, I let the late lambs and moms out of their pens so they could explore the barn in peace.  Here two ewes tentatively inspect each other’s lambs.

And here a newcomer inspects his shaggy nanny.

Some of the bolder lambs now help out with barn chores . . .

Anything new is an adventure, as they get out into the world.  I love watching a lamb ford its first puddle or rip its first tiny mouthful of  turf or take its first outdoor nap nestled beside a hummock in the pasture.

In the midst of the lamb-a-thon, I’ve also been busy preparing for my spring fiber shows.  New Hampshire Sheep and Wool is just a week away.  It’s always a challenge having spring shows on the heals of lambing season with not much breathing room in between.  I figure I will recover from lamb lag,  read my mail,  put the house and studio back in order some time in June, maybe.   The barn-keeping is actually in pretty good shape.   The ewes are dressed in fresh coats, the birthing towels have been washed and stored for next year.

As for my housekeeping  . . .

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copyright 2008 Barbara Parry, Foxfire Fiber & Designs.  All rights reserved.

Foxfire Fiber & Designs at Springdelle Farm