Knitting with 5 bored Border Collies (Jen)

Well, I made the tough decision to deconstruct the sweater I’d been knitting out of Roark’s fleece. Roark is my chocolate BFL/BL ram that sired all those beautiful lambs last spring. He has stunning fleece and lots of it. I’ve been painstakingly washing it, careful to maintain lock formation and then flick carding the tips and spinning it into a fine (fine for me anyway) 2 ply yarn.

Stormy December Day (Jen)

Just got back from taking the dogs for a walk in the back pasture. I can do that now that my friends horses are gone (all 15 of them). I missed taking the dogs back there but the horses were a bit too curious and the dogs were seriously outnumbered.

What Bridget Doesn’t Know About Farming (by Bridget)

One fall day we were gazing at the bucolic picture of the sheep grazing in the pasture from the front porch. If you listened you could actually hear them munching eagerly on the grass as the moved slowly across the pasture. That is…all but Kelly. Kelly is a black Shetland Mule lamb (Shetland/BFL) born in March of 08. Kelly is, we think, “acting” as though he is a strapping young virile ram. It is comical to watch this little guy mounting a much larger Cheviot. It kind of reminds one of a Dachshund having affection for a Great Dane. Like all the other ram lambs, he had been banded a few days after birth.

However, we began having an unsettled feeling that perhaps we should check for hopefully the absence of anything on his belly. So the next day we captured the indignant Kelly and discovered that alas his jewels were intact. Apparently the band broke.

Beautiful summer day! (Jen)

Today I got up early, the fog was thick which is unusual for a July morning. It was cool but quite muggy which meant it would be brutal later in the day with temps approaching 95. So I decided to grab the chain saw and finish cleaning out the cedars in the fence row. As much as I love cedars, they are death to the fleeces as the tips of the cedar breaks off into the wool when the sheep lay under them. I’ve already seen some sprigs on the back of some of the sheep which I hurriedly plucked out (ouch!). Bridget is on thistle detail this summer and it is her goal to kill each and every thistle on the property, bless her!