From Then Till Now

Poor neglected blog. No entries since coming home from Maryland.   Let's catch you up.

We've had lots of weather.  Rain......

and worse than rain - snow.

"Maybe there's a slow, cold mouse in the grass over there....."

"Less picture, more indoors, please."

We started letting the sheep out on grass, beginning in the Baby Pasture as usual.  Just a short time each day so they don't overdo on the rich stuff but they will get accustomed to it again in a couple of weeks.   The pasture is slow because of the cold but maybe that's good - maybe they'll be able to keep up with it better when they get out on the bigger areas.

The old girls made it to grass!  Alfalfa pellets and beet pulp pellets made a big difference for those with crummy (or non-existent) teeth.  The lucky dozen - Alexandria, Bug, Bunny, Drambui, Pickles, Kahlua, Nibbles, Gilly, Ruby, Dollar, Fiesta and India.  Some are still gaunt but not deathly so and they are old....    Bunny and Drambui are the oldest at 13 each.  Four more are 12, and a couple each at 11, 10 and so on.  

The Shepherd's Market was a good day.  People shopping and also just taking the opportunity to sit and chat and do fiber things in the central gathering area.

My space consisted of 2 big round tables (a bit odd to set up with round ones, but we made it work.)...

And a smaller table in a corner.  Andy built a nice book stand for the booth.  We're starting to carry a small collection of books and DVDs that pertain specifically to spinning, knitting, and weaving - mostly basic materials that will compliment our fiber and yarn and be excellent resources for newcomers to the fiber world.

I've been working in the wool shop getting reserved fleeces skirted and also filling online orders and trying to keep dyeing to have more roving processed.  Kittin has been a big help.  At least she thinks so.

The deadline (it's a flexible deadline but I made it a firm one in my head) for handing in the guild KAL project was Saturday so I had to  found time to finish knitting the shawl.  I played yarn chicken twice, once on the border with two colors .....

And then on the bind off.  That little ball is all I had left and there was nothing else in the stash that was even close.  Whew.

 

And then it got a bath and was blocked and had a fan on it all night to get dry.  Nothing like waiting till the last minute.  It's bigger than I thought it was.  It got kind of hard to tell what was going on because of being all scrunched up on the cable.  Gee, I bet a better knitter would have figured out that that might mean something. Sigh  :-/

Spring seems to have come this week and I think it's going to stick this time.

The main flock has moved to the big pasture by the road and is enjoying fresh spring grass as only sheep can.  It's kind of quiet without lambs in the pasture, but boy - there's a lot of sheep out there.  :-0

OK, back to work!

I've Coined a New Term

You have a herd of cows, a flock of sheep, and...... behold!

A scamper of lambs!

We have been letting the flock out on grass in the 'baby pasture' for short periods since last week.  The cold spring delayed the grass and it isn't good for the pasture to be walked on and gnawed on until there's enough growth to stand up to grazing so we are about a week late.  Because the sheep have been on dry feed all winter they have to be reintroduced to fresh grass in a controlled manner or they will overeat and scour at best or bloat at worst.  The lambs are thrilled to be out of the barn and have room to run.
The ewes immediately dispersed to find the 'best' forage but the lambs were just interested in investigating things. Everything in the pasture is new to them - dirt, rocks, tall wavy plants, uneven ground.  They were entertained without going more than fifteen feet from the gate.
It was an overcast day and I used the camera phone due to its portability so excuse the less than great photos.

The bottle lambs followed me a ways and brought a bunch of their friends along.

A tilted slab of discarded concrete was really intriguing.

 "This looks tasty and it's just the right height for chomping on."

"It looks harmless.  You say it BIT you??" Dandelions get targeted quickly.

It helps when you stick with mom and she shows you what to eat.

"I'm so happy it's spring again!"

We all are!

Happy Mother's Day!

What lovely weather we had today - perfect for getting Mom out of the house and having something good to eat.  Here's hoping moms everywhere were as happy as our ewes today.  We let them in to the Baby Pasture for the first time this spring.   (If the flock looks small it's because the unbred ewes haven't been integrated back in yet - hopefully in the next few days when time allows for some hoof trimming).

 

Peanut and I got to enjoy a little time outside in the sunshine.  What a treat!

 

 

 

Every day is mother's day when someone loves you.  :-)

At Last

Spring has been a long time coming this year.  There were no teasing warm days in March or April.  We just hung on to winter and temps that couldn't crack 40 for weeks.  Things finally changed last week and we've had full sun and temps in the 70 range.  That brought on the pasture enough that we could start introducing the flock to green grass again after seven months of being on dry hay.

This is the small pasture directly adjacent to the barn yard we call the Baby Pasture.  It will only last a few days even though we only allow them a limited grazing period to help them acclimate to fresh forage.  Sheep have no self control and would eat themselves sick on this lovely stuff.

Of course the lambs have never been beyond the fence and everything gets thoroughly investigated.  Apparently, bare dirt is the best. stuff. ever.

The ewes don't waste any time or energy - they just graze as fast as they can (although they do run to another spot if they think someone has something better than they do.)

 

This is a dreadful picture of him, but this little guy has very cool moorit and white markings and is going to live in KY at Equinox Farm when he's weaned along with a companion or two.

 

 

But these lambies have a few more weeks with mom before that happens.

 



 

I'm sure the time will flash past like lightning.

 



Catching Up

Blogging has gone out the window the last few weeks.  Events have swept along pretty rapidly, some great and some pretty lousy (kinda the way life usually goes, but compressed into about 20 days).

The first good thing was that Julie and I trekked to the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival.  I carried down five fleeces for the show and sale, fleeces for someone who had reserved some and could pick them up there, and fiber to be made into roving and quilt batting.  It was less fiber for processing than I had hoped to take, but at least there was some.

".... Eastbound and down, loaded up and truckin'..."

The weather was perfect - sunny and warm - and we made a couple of stops along the way, most notably at a Mennonite bakery along the Susquehanna River where we indulged in their annual Moonpie Madness weekend (twenty different flavors, but so large I could only eat one at a sitting and that's saying something.) 

The festival was heavily attended, as always, but honestly I didn't see the quantity of goods being carried out that I normally do.  I heard later that sales were uncharacteristically light. 

Just a hint of the throng

One of the first stops we make is the Skein and Garment Show.  The sheer mass of lovely, intricately made things to look at is staggering.  Considering the amount of talent and time represented by the items in the show makes the ribbons earned there really mean something.  And so it was thrilling to find a skein made from my Frog Pond roving had earned top honors (Best Novice Spinner) for fellow guild member Carole "CC" Clark.

Way to go, CC !

Other fantastic creations included this realistic sheepy footstool....

Baaaa 

and felted landscapes....

Created from felted wool...amazing.

Without doubt, however, the best part of Maryland was a surprise appearance by my brother, who drove 6 hours one way in hopes of finding me on the grounds.  We got lucky and walked into each other within 15 minutes of them hitting the front gates.  (He admitted to being pretty nervous when he arrived and saw an ocean of cars worthy of a Super Bowl lot.  He had no idea how many people actually attend MD S&W).  He and DW Shirley could only stay a few hours and then turn and go 6 hours back.  Thanks, Steve.

Me and "Brother"





 The sheep shows are always fascinating to me and I could spend all day watching the classes, but there is so much else to do our attendance in the bleachers was spotty.  Of course, though, I had to watch the Cotswold show and was even pressed into service helping the Crossman's of Ewetopia farm in the flock class (a yearling ram, 2 yearling ewes and 2 ewe lambs from the same farm).

The winning flock of Cotswolds at Maryland









Now for the crummy stuff.  Just as I was preparing to leave we started seeing scours in the lambs.  We've seen this in previous years, and it's always been a few lambs who have an upset for a day to two and then it clears up.  This time we had a tidal wave.  A group fecal showed coccidia, so we began treating the lambs that developed the runs with an oral medication - a weight-based dose of liquid once per day.  By the time I left we had 25 lambs on a chart that had to be found by ear tag and treated daily. 

Hi.  I'm not on the chart, so of course I'm going to stay right here, under foot.

While I was gone the number doubled and we lost a lamb, and then another Monday when I returned.  To make a long story tolerable, we were having a coccidia overload brought on chiefly by the extra-large lamb crop and the two freezing wet weeks in late April that delayed us getting the flock out of the barn and on pasture.  It's normal for coccidia to exist in sheep without causing problems, but too much of it in young lambs DOES cause problems and being housed so closely (even though our barn is clean and well-bedded) put more coccidia into the lambs than they could tolerate.  Additionally, I took the lamb that died on Monday to Cornell for a full necropsy (along with fecal samples taken from some other sick lambs) and those findings included the presence of Clostridium which is a very unwelcome discovery since we have a strong vaccination program to prevent that.  Either the coccidia debilitated that lamb to the point that the passive immunity from mom failed to protect it, OR there is a strain other that the C and D types that our vaccine includes.  The lab at Cornell is typing the Clostridium now so we'll soon know if we have to begin vaccinating for additional strains.  This unhappy situation caught us flat-footed since we haven't seen it before.  We now have a protocol of treatment for next year that will begin with the ewes even before they lamb and continue with the lambs themselves.  We've started it with this year's lambs too, but the damage is done to several and they are going to be unthrifty, poor-doers assuming they live. 

I hate lessons that come at the cost of dead animals.

Things appear to be under control now and we've not had any new cases since the second week of May.  Now that we've got the flock on pasture the pressure *should* be off.... but we're still wary, believe me.

The flock worked through the Baby Pasture in just a few days, but it gave them time to acclimate to fresh grass.

OK, we're done here.... next pasture, please.

They didn't go far when turned out to the big pasture.

Yeah, baby!  This is what we're talking about!

Perfect. Pasture. Picture.

This looks yummy.

I don't know about this grass stuff, but the sun is sure nice.



While the situation with the lambs was very time consuming, other things have been going on, including Shepherd's Market (which I have no pictures of - drat - but which you can see over at Caroline's blog), and....drumroll......

LaLa is done!  Yes, the guild KAL which I cast on for in October on the bus to Rhinebeck is finished and blocked.  Well, blocked sounds pretty aggressive - all I did was give it a soapy soak and rinse and laid it out in the sun to dry.  I did take a ruler to it to make sure it was symmetrical in all directions but I didn't need to crucify it with pins - it laid there very obediently and dried as I wanted. 

Awkward angle, but I had to step sideways to accomodate the wide wingspan.

The Molly fur in it raised a nice halo like angora.

It's soft and fuzzy and warm and the shawl pin (Stone Edge Fibers) that Julie gave me looks smashing with it.



Thanks, Julie.

I would never wish away the warm weather, but I'm going to love wearing this when it gets cold again.  This and all the LaLa Shawls will be on display at the Finger Lakes Fiber Arts Festival in September. 

Phooey.  Can your shawl be THIS cute??



That a girl, Holly.  Keepin' in real.





The Promised Land!

We have had a miserably cold and wet spring, and pastures are about 2 weeks behind where they should be.  (Note to self.....you really can't have too much hay in the barn.)  While I was away at the MD Sheep and Wool Festival, Andy started fixing pasture fence.  Snow load, clumsy deer, falling trees, time, rot.... all those things conspire every year to make the fences tip, sag, or get squashed flat.  The rams went out the day I left, and the ewes and lambs got their first taste of grass on Tuesday.

Sheep are not stupid, although they can make very bad decisions under pressure.  Their strong suit is memory.  Everyone over a year old knows perfectly well that when people are in the pasture they are Doing Something.  The last few days they have been really agitated any time you walk toward the gate, toward the fence or into the feed bunk (it goes to the big pasture).  And yesterday was the Big Day.

GRA-A-A-A-A-S-S-S !!

This is the Baby Pasture.  It's only about an acre and a half in size and is the closest one to the barns and barnyard.  It's a good one to start the flock in each year because of it's ease of access, ease of rounding the flock back up, and lack of serious clover.  After not seeing fresh grass for 6 months, everyone needs some time to acclimate to it to avoid serious digestive problems, including fatal ones.  We allow the sheep 20 minutes only for the first 3-4 days, and that's in the afternoon after they have eaten all the hay from morning chores.  No one OD's on lush pasture and it gives the rumen microbes enough quantity to work with that they can start switching over to processing fresh forage. After that initial few days, the most lush and problematic plants have been eaten down and the sheep can stay out longer each day.  By the time the Baby Pasture is thoroughly eaten down, they can start safely going out to the Big Pasture for a couple of hours in the afternoon, after all the hay has been eaten inside.

I don't know what you call it...but I LIKE it!

Most of the older lambs go right to grazing.  The younger ones nibble, but also do races and jump around a lot.  They have all. this. space.!  

And then the time's up.  It's astounding how much grass they can chow down in 20 minutes of frantic eating and they are actually not too hard to shoo back through the gate.  

Go in??  We just GOT here!

   Don't worry, another 24 hours and we'll let you out again.