Sorry folks, I just am not up to much.  I mostly rant on my other blog about things unrelated to fiber.  Why?  Well mostly because I have gotten so fat that my hands go numb all the time while typing or spinning or knitting so…

I don’t know when the next issue will publish, it lookes like sometime between now, and July.  Not very exact eh?  With my hands bothering me and other issues I am just not up to it.  Everyone has been just great about it and I thank all of you for understanding.

I am doing fine, and so is everyone else.  We are getting used to the new additions, of angora rabbits and goats.  We made goat milk ice cream the other day and it was wonderful!  The milk is quite sweet and very good, if it is handled properly and you take care of your animals well.

I go to a fiber festival tomorrow and I have also set up an Etsy shop.  I am going to offer a luxury batt club, and a spindle club with my stone whorl spindles.  I am also making some other kinds that will be offered there too, I can give you the address when I have more to offer.  I am in the process of organizing and arranging things.

I finally got silk and 16 micron merino ordered, and it shipped yesterday so I should be getting it soon.  I also got optium, and Eco Spun(made from walmart bags and such) firestar and lots of fun fun stuff to blend into batts.  I will be excited to try the new fibers and start making the batts for the club.  I am hoping to offer them at a reasonable price, as some batts I am seeing are as high as $`15 an ounce, and I just think that is ridiculous.  Mine will be about one third of that, or less depending, so very reasonable.

I hope all of you are doing well, and I’m sorry not to write much lately,  only 5 more weeks to go!

ttfn!

There just isn’t anything much of interest going on.  I am working on the next issue now, and because I am HUGE my carpal tunnel syndrome has kicked in, so less typing.  I think I will be able to peice it together, although I may have to make use of a typist….ahem I mean Beau.

The little lamb by the way seems to be doing great, he is in with the flock now and keeping up fine so he should be good.  Two weeks with splints on corrected his pasterns, and I am hoping time will correct his shoulder.  I guess I should have taken him into the vet, but for one, I didn’t see what they could do and also they said that if it was broken or dislocated that he wouldn’t be able to walk.

I am starting to doubt that, but too late now.  Hind sight is always 20 - 20.  So, he runs around fine and is getting bigger and stronger so I suppose it will work out fine anyway regardless.  Now we are just choosing the few lambs that will be registered, and their names…

I am still working on pictures for taking a batt and pulling it into roving.  I am seriously considering trying to do an online video (gasp).  I didn’t get this put in last issue because of time or laziness which ever you want to think… So now I can put it in this issue.  I have a bunch of great angora fiber given to me by Heidi, and Jordan.  Heidi is from Norway and Jordan is from Missouri.  So I want to make some lovely blends with it.  I prefer to blend it with some nice lambs wool or something than use it straight.

Speaking of angoras, in the next week or two I will own some.  Dominic is doing rabbits for 4H, and so instead of a meat type rabbit, why not fiber I says?  Well, he says “Fuzza-buns….CUTE!”  so we will be getting 4 show quality breeding rabbits for him.  I wanted one, but found someone who wanted to trade for lambs, so Clare and Star will be going to live with Jeanette, and four fuzza-buns will be living here.

Pictures when I get them home.  I still have to make cages, although I now have all the supplies so Dominic and I can start working on that soon.  (heh heh, does anyone see an article here?)  Angora rabbits: The fiber pet for ANYONE!

Can’t wait!

Michelle at boulderneigh wins the contest.  So, thanks to everyone for guessing.  Since nobody guessed on Justina, I guess I will close the contest and get on with life.

My kids are all in 4H and Elizabeth and Teresa are in Clover Kids, which is for the 5 and upers.  Teresa is only 4, but they let her come anyhow.  We taught all the clover kids to spin this month at  the meeting.  It was really great. 8 kids ages 4 - 8 were able to learn how to spin on a drop spindle.

There were boys, and girls, 8 in all who learned and everyone had a fantastic time, despite the leaders all being wound on backwards by some assemblist I employ.  Ahem (Beau)  will learn someday which way to wind it on…  Anyhow all the kids had a blast and I have to say it was the fastest meeting ever and a huge sucess.

All the kids picked it up pretty fast, and the parents were nice enough to let me post their pictures on my blog.

Well, I took a bad picture, this one would be me!  Still she’s cute even blinking!

It was kind of hectic teaching 8 littler kids all at once, and the meeting only lasts about an hour, thats  not much time, but we made it count well.  They all left with yarn, that’s what counts, and they spun it themselves.  William took the extra spindles and unspun it… He’s a real out of the box kind of spinner…little stinker.

Heh heh, as you can see, amny of these little kids can do better than most adults lol.  They learn it so fast it’s amazing.  I am always so impressed with how well they do.  Look at that little boogers yarn!  Better than mine was for a few hundred yards….but maybe I’m just a fantastic, amazing and wonderful teacher….probably not.

I think that is all of the kids, except the last two.  Can you believe I forgot to take a photo of my own kids spinning?  What a horrible Mother I am…

On a rather depressing note, Mist finally lambed on Monday and it wasn’t pretty.  I managed to save her and the lamb, but lets just say poor Dominic had to hold her down, and I came away covered in gore head to toe.  Mom is doing great after a pretty aggressive round of antibiotics and anti inflammatorys, and baby is improving, but I suspect he is irrepairably damaged.

I thought I had taken pictures of him but I guess I forgot as they aren’t here on the camera.  I’ll post some in a few days.  He was huge, almost 10 pounds, which in Shetlands 7 pounds is a big boy….  He had one leg back as well, so the leg that was presented got pulled and yanked to the point that his shoulder is all out of wack.  It seems to be improving, there isn’t much to be done about it except hope and give it time.  He would get up and put weight on it from the start, so he has a good chance.  He also had some sort of tendon issue, and walked on his wrists instead of his hooves in front.  Imagine if you walked on the back of your hands instead of on your palms while crawling… I made him some little splints and I am happy to say his left foot is now normal, but the right one (that I pulled on) is still pretty floppy.  So he has to keep wearing his blue shoe on that foot.

His back legs also have something wrong with them.  Poor little guy is floppy in the opposite way back there.  He walks on his pasterns instead of his hooves.  Imagine a cat walking flat footed if you know what I mean.   Anyhow he nurses and gets around well enough to take care of himself.

Mom worrys about him, and I can tell that she wants me to make it ok, and resents that I am not.  Poor girl, I am desperatly trying to save him, so that at least she has a baby to take care of after all that pain.  He is improving and I hope to have him out with the others in a another week.  If I can get that right front leg to working better I think he can manage.  He has a really strong will to go on.  Anyhow, kind of a depressing way to finish off lambing season, and thus why I have been so late to post about him.

So, new contest starts, same rules as always, comment and enter to win!  Every comment is entered into a drawing that will take place around the 15th of next month.

Congratulations Michelle, good guessing.

First Brietta and Lucy, and then I’ll explain about Maria.

Brietta lambed two twin ram lambs on April 3, at about 3:50. We have bought breeding stock to breed for spotted sheep and Jerome (the ram we used) was chosen to bring this into the flock. You can read more about that here. Well, so in short, I expected this year to get what I got from Ashlin and the others. Mostly plain sheep, with a little white on them. My poor preggo self almost had an accident when Breitta presented me with this:

In Shetland speak, this is a moorit yuglet flecket ram. That means mostly white, with brown patches of color on the body, and brown eye patches. I wasn’t expecting this at all, but this is exactly my breeding goal…

I put her in the jug and went in to use the bathroom and when I came back out, she was grunting again when I got back, and low and behold another one had been born. I did expect another lamb, but not another yuglet flecket! What a surprise. With pounding heart I did the butt check, another ram…oh well.

What a cutie though! They really are so much cuter when they are all spottie! This one was born at about 4:10 pm.

So all that was left was Lucy, who we thought may have not settled after all and Mist. We caught Lucy and checked out her udder, and she was bagged up, so we knew that she would be lambing after all. Friday night Beau went out to feed the sheep and Lucy ran up as normal and ate with the rest of them. He thought nothing of this. A few minutes later as he was feeding the horses, he heard a lamb bleating, so he went to look and found this cute little booger:

So he was born about 9 pm on Friday, but that’s sorta a guess lol. So the lambing saga continues.

Mist has still done nothing, and I am beginning to suspect that she will lamb on about the 14th instead. Sometimes even though they breed, they don’t take or settle. So that would mean she will lamb on the next cycle, although no other breeding activity was seen. Mist however did not deny us some excitement. As Beau had found the lamb on Friday night, he forgot the scoops (empty) on the ground out in the yard. The sheep run on the yard so we don’t have to mow. But, watch where you step, if you please. Saturday morning I was called out of bed to witness how Mist’s tendancy to stick her head into things finally backfired.

moar funny pictures
So you might go over and vote for it and help make me famous. I would really like to see it get published.

But what about Maria? Maria is Mist’s daughter from last year. She is one year old at the end of this month and she has been in the past quite the burr under my blanket. If you need a good laugh, read this. I only share this stuff to keep from going crazy, and also because if I can laugh at myself, well then it isn’t so bad when everyone else does too. Besides, it was really funny.

Mist and Maria are houdinis, and they drive me insane. I have thought about selling them, because they are too smart for any fencing system. Maria is not supposed to be exposed to a ram, and out of the blue, Elizabeth our 5 year old daughter came in to tell us that Maria was lambing. Say what????

Maria had this georgeous Ag flecket ewe lamb at about 2:50 this afternoon. We plan on naming it oopsie.

So, all that is left is Mist. I am too tired to look back and see what anyone guessed right now. But just to spice things up, here is one last one. Justina was dumped here on us by some animal lover who thought she would be happier living in the wild no doubt. Many people have the misconception that they can just set cats and dogs “free”. Well she was half starved and beat up, and now she is expecting anytime. Lucky for us, unless she has a huge litter we already have excellent homes for them all.

I feel rotten about this, because although many people breed their ewe lambs, I hadn’t meant to, and she really wasn’t big enough in my opinion. There was a time when she escaped into the breeding group, but I could have sworn she cycled after that, so we thought she wasn’t bred. She did have some trouble, as it was another big ol single. We got two of them this year. Lucy’s was a good normal size, but Ashlin and poor little Maria had big babies. Poor thing. She seems to be happy as a clam now though.

Whew, what a week! Only one more to go!

We haven’t chosen a name yet, but Ashlin lambed this morning at about 9:45.

This little guy had a rough start.  His Mama was SO spooky that when we walked outside she got so excited apparently her labor stopped.  We didn’t even go within 50 feet of her…But once I started walking towards her she did go into the catch pen.  And once she tried to run through the fence I caught her and stuffed her into a jug with the babies head and feet hanging out.  It had been a nose and two feet for over an hour, so time to intervene before baby gets overly stressed.  So with just a bit of help he was born and even though she was a real pain in the patootie, she is a great Mama.  Everyone is doing fine so far…

I am breeding for spots so, I got some at least, I wish he had been a girl lamb, but that’s the breaks.

Mary L guessed someone would lamb today between 9 and 10. one of each, so she got a 50%, Michelle is still in the lead.  Must be becuase her husband is a vet….  Mary and Lesley, you can guess again if you want.

Anyone else is also welcome to reguess, Mist and Brietta are left to lamb, Mist was due on Sunday, and Brietta was due today.  Mist is a second year lamber and Brietta is a firstimer.

Here is a picture of Mandy’s kids that were born Sunday morning - I haven’t had much luck getting a good photo of them yet.  I’m tired from being up and all.  Soon…

Well, we have 5 new babies for the contest.  Yesterday on March 29, DuClair had twin lambs, a boy and girl at 11:20 am.  As far as I know, there was no guess that was more correct than Michelles.  Donna, you can guess again.

This morning, Mandy had triplets!  Two girls and one boy from 9 - 9:45 am.  I don’t think anyone made a guess that was accurate on her either.  To say the least I was afraid she would kid all night, so I had to check her every few hours.  I don’t have a picture yet, I will put some up soon.  They all look like Mandy.  One girl will stay here with us, and one will go back to the Lady I bought them from.  That was part of the deal.  The buckling is free to a good home.  I have two people who would like to have him.

I don’t need any pet wethers, so I am just giving him away.  On names, (I forget if I explained this yet) I was going to choose Saint names again, but I was informed by the children that they wanted something more fun this year.  They decided to name the lambs after children’s rhymes, songs and stories.  So the first two lambs were renamed Star and Twinkle, and these two cute little black boogers are Peter and Piper.  The one baby girl we are keeping from Mandy will be named Mercy, as today was divine Mercy Sunday.    Yeah well so it’s outside of the theme, shoot me.

I have a lambing jug that I have made out of an old campershell.  The sheep and goats love these because they have windows, and they can see out.  I have been wearing a pair of overalls around for lambing and stuff, because skirts just don’t do well, and none of my pants will go over my huge, fat, lard- butt, cow body  Rubanesque, voluptuous pregnant figure.  Anyhow, I like to make sure the bedding is nice and fluffy-comfy, and I forgot to put some around the edges to block any drafts.  So I managed to crawl in there and Beau took this picture of me, beached testing the jug for comfort.

My children have taken to calling me “Farmer Preggo” since I have been wearing the “preg-alls” that are also Beau’s.  What he uses for height, I use for width.  well, it all works out, usually I wear some jeans or something when working with the sheep or something, but as I said, I don’t have any that fit any more.  The overalls are really more comfortable anyway.

The bedding was very deep and cushy.  I was quite comfortable in there and seriously considered taking a nap.   I was very comfie and besides I would never be able to hear the kids screaming and fighting  playing from all the way out here.  Then I discovered that the sheep needed it more than me, what with having just given birth.  Stupid sheep, sigh.

Of course when I had hauled and wiggled my rear in there, I didn’t really think about getting back out again.  Beau took this picture of me laying there thinking on it.  Well, there is another jug, I could just insist that Beau put her in the other jug, and stay in there until it was time to go to the hospital.  Well, ok maybe just until I have to pee so bad that I can’t wait any longer.

Well, we now have two new arrivals!  Monkey kidding this morning at about 9:30 am.

Look how proud Mom is!  These two little doelings are experimental.  That means they are mixed blood basically, but the American Dairy Goat Association lets you register them anyway.   They are half LaMancha and have little elf ears that are so cute! Mama is 3/4 Toggenburg and 1/4 Alpine.

The closest guess was Monkey on March 21, with two twin does.  So Catsmum, only got a 40% Correctness score.

So, Catsmum, Anna Stein, and Mary L,  you should all guess again.  Also, if you guessed Cecilia or Agnes, you should also guess again, keep the contest going!

Michelle is still in the lead with an 80% correct guess.  This roving is the prize, and it is merino, with lots of pretty angelina in it!  So, if you want to win this yummy roving that was drum carded then hand pulled (drafts like a dream I might add) then make a guess on the ewe or doe of your choice.  Here is what you need to guess on.

Mom, day, time, number of babies and sex of babies.  Each correct guess gets you 20% of a correct guess.

“HEY, where are you going?  Get back here brat!  That’s the wrong end!”

Kids are not the quickest at finding the teats….Being used to the shetlands who are born knowing their times tables (hee hee) the kids were quite a lot slower to pick up on how to nurse.  They are also a lot slower to be on their feet and trying.  The first Shetland baby will often be up and nursing or trying by the time number 2 arrives, which is usually in about 15 minutes.  Anyway, these two are now doing great.

“Give Mama a kiss….”

We were going to take the doe kids off their Moms and bottle raise them, but since I wasn’t dressed and out there in time, Monkey had already fallen in love with the white one who came first.  So we will just let Mom raise them, since Mandy will have kids too.  Many people take the kids off and heat treat the milk to prevent CAE which is a diesease in goats.  But I don’t have the heart to break them up after they are all in love with each other.  I have been told, that when you are there, and take the kids away before Mom sees them, that Mom will lick and bond to YOU and be happy without the kids, but Monkey was too fast for us!  So, since she tested negative this year, it is probably fine that she keeps her babies.

I’m not sure how much I want to worry about CAE anyway, from what I have read, many many of the positive animals are merely carriers, and do not get symptomatic, further, the disease is not super easy to spread.  The most common way, is from milk from Mom to babies.  Many farms do not test, and never have any sick animals either, so it is a debatable topic at best.

Anyhow, there are the new pictures of the latest arrivals, make your guesses if you guessed wrong!  Also Lucy almost must have not settled the first time around, so if you guessed on lucy, you might want to reschedule your guess for around the 31st.

Well, so Michelle is in the lead with the guess of

“Cecilia will have a ewe lamb between 1:00 and 5:00 a.m. on March 10, followed by twins from Agnes by midnight that night”

Michelle has the closest day, the correct sex, and she nailed the time.  BUT she has re - guessed.  So Michelle, you have only the day off, so you have a correctness score of 80%  You can keep your guess with Cecilia, or choose your guess with Mist.  Tammy, you may guess again if you like. Your current guess is 60% correct.  (I assume you meant that Cecilia would also lamb in the early morning.) Once you are out of the running, you can always guess again, that will make it even more fun.

This isn’t quite how I planned to choose the winner, so you can edit your guess as you like to reflect this change.  If you get the sex and time right, that’s pretty good, so I don’t want it to not count.  So you get 20% for each correct part, ewe, day, time, number, and sex.

But I guess you want pictures right?

This is Tatiana, named in honor of St Tatiana

We will call her Tawty for short.  This years theme is Martyrs.  This tells us the sire, and year they were born.  We choose a type of Saint each year and so we can sort of track our pedigrees off paper, just by names.

It was an easy birth, I worry about the new Moms, they can be so ditzy sometimes.  Cecilia did a great job though, excepting that she didn’t understand the lamb could nurse from BOTH sides, not just one.  So everyone is cared for, and temorarily housed, and when Beau gets home we will get things sorted out better.

Everything normal and doing fine!  Now, Agnes, Lucy and Monkey are next.

First of all, there is a really neat site I found today.  It shows you all the local knitting shops in your area, and you can add a shop if your’s isn’t there.

www.knitmap.com/map

For all the good it does me, there are none nearby…But maybe you guys will find some.

Now, to lambing, two of my sheep are seemingly SOOOO ready, but nothing. Yesterday was a day of the sheep torturing me, you can read about that on my other blog if you are interested in how funny the sheep can be, and how much of an idiot they made out of me yesterday.  I reserve this blog for posts that make me look smart, not uh the opposite…

So today I am trying really hard to NOT watch them, but I am not very good at it. I just want those cute little Sherino babies! I am also making up more batts for tutorials on various methods of getting interesting effects in your batts.

Don’t forget if you haven’t to guess that lamb from the last post. The roving is REALLY much prettier than the picture shows. You can’t see the tons of shiny angelina/tinsel stuff in it. It absolutely glows!

I will post pictures as soon as I have any!

Sooo, lambing will begin anytime now, and we are still getting ready. Being sick has us so far behind, I feel like we will never ever catch up.

So, for this months contest, I am having a guess when the lambs will be born contest. I got the idea from my pal Tammy . Some of you might like to take a peek at my other blog, as I posted birth pictures from last year, but beware they are graphic!

I am making some changes though, from what Tammy did, you can guess any lamb, not just the first one, and you also guess the number of lambs and boys/girls. After lambing, I will send out the prize to the person who guessed the closest time and day. Sound Fun?

First up, Cecilia, due March 9 (1/4 Dorset, 3/4 Merino) Wool is lovely, soft, crimpy and about 4 inches long.

March 10, Agnes, same breed as Cecilia.

Now comes Lucy Due March 17. She is a “Sherino” Half of the above mix, and half Shetland. Her fleece is soft, and wonderful! It felts SO easy, and also spins so well. It is my favorite fleece from my flock. I will have more of them after this season. It really is the best of both worlds.

Now comes Monkey, who is not a sheep at all. She’s a dairy goat. Hopefully we can get lots of yummy milk from her. She is due to kid on March 19.

After Monkey comes Mandy on the 25 of March. Mandy is an American LaMancha. They naturally have no ears, nobody cut them off! Actually they have small teddy bear type ears that are very cute. They are a bit odd looking but they are super sweet and nice.  She is very sensitive, and was developing a complex from SOMEONE WE WON’T NAME (cough BEAU)!  Calling her “no eared freak” poor thing.

Mist is a pure bred Shetland and she is due on March 30. She has a lovely intermediate fleece that spins so fast you can finish enough for a sweater in what seems like no time. It also spins up to lace weight very easily. It is very pale gray and she is a real sweetie.

DuClair is also a purebred Shetland. She is due on March 31, and she has a primitive double coat. It is very unique and fun to work with. The outer part makes a great addtion to sock yarn for the heels and toes, and the undercoat is as soft as the finest Merino. She is a horned ewe, which is allowed but more rare. I wish I had all horned ewes, I admit that it is much easier to handle her than the others.

Ashlin is lambing for the first time, and she is also due on March 31. She is a spooky little booger, and a purebred Shetland. (I can’t believe my spell checker didn’t recognize the word booger :P) I haven’t made friends with her yet. I hope that I can do so when she is confined with her lambs. I hope I can catch her to confine her with her lambs lol. It’s too bad, these pictures are all from last fall, and so they are not in full wool. I’ll go out and snap a few so you can see it, it’s magnificent!

Finally is Brietta, another purebred Shetland ewe. She is due on April 2, and this will be her first lambs. She is freindly, but a little reserved. I think she will tame up nicely while she is in with her lambs.

Its funny, because some bot grabbed this photo, and stuck it on a baby names site. It says something about, “This is what someone named Breitta looks like” ROFL. I looked it up, because I wanted to link to it, but they had changed it Oh well.

And that is everyone who will be having babies except me, and that won’t happen until June, lets hope. We can have a contest about that too, but not for a while hee hee.

So, here is how it works. Choose a sheep and make a guess on the day and time they will lamb, also guess how many lambs, and boy/girl. After everyone has lambed, we will look and see who guessed the closest.

Here is the prize…

These are from a batt I carded up. It is 100% Merino. I dyed the wool, then carded it, then hand pulled it into roving. It is red, pink, blackish purple and a very blue violet. The colors don’t do it justice. There is about 2.5 ounces here and it is in pencil roving. There is tons of glittery angelina sort of stuff also carded in, that is the stuff that looks like long white hairs lol. One final thing, if the winner lives outside of the US, then I will ask for them to split the shipping with me, as it gets very expensive!

Have fun and make a guess. Here is a little information to go by. The due dates are figured on day 145. I believe the average gestation period is 147 days, so it is fairly accurate. They are grained very lightly in the morning (to get them to go out!) and turned out to graze. Then hay and a ewe ration in the evening. (There are those who are of the opinion that this encourages daytime lambing) The sheep and goats will most often twin. Both the goats I have may triple, as their lines carry this trait strongly.

Last year DuClair had two boys, Mist one boy, and one girl, and Lucy one boy and one girl. The others are all first time Mamas.

So remember, day, time, number of lambs, and boys/girls!

I hope you will all have a go!