Wonderful woollies farm sale!

We're at the Wonderful Woollies Farm & Fleece sale today.  Well, The Shepherd isn't here yet because another one of the ewes went into labor just as we were leaving.  More later!

The fruits of his labors

This is always the most fun part of shearing, seeing what this year's "crop" looks like.  What do you think?

New kids on the block

Sadly I have no new news about George.  If I haven't gotten back to you personally, please accept my belated Thanks to everyone who has left such nice supportive notes.  I am more heartbroken every day.

In the mean time, I'll share some other news with you.  I really need to figure out if I can post to my blog from my phone, because I take picture after picture, thinking "Oh, this will make a good story for my blog" - then the pictures just stay on my phone.  I'm on the computer for 7 hours a day at work, so, sometimes my home time is "off line"  -  well, it's gotten to be "Kindle time" lately - I am such a brat - ha ha...

Anyhow, we have some new sheepies here at the farm.  The brown one, of course, is Katie, from this spring.  But The Shepherd likes to have a buddy the same age for his sheep, so the black one is Kayla, who was born in the Olympia area.  Looks like I needed to have wiped off the lens on my camera - but she is a real pretty girl - black, black, black and very fine wool (which is unusual for black - it tends to be a courser fiber)



This is Jefferson, on the left, in the black coat, and Buddy in the brown coat on the right.  The Shepherd decided that the two ram lambs that we had here were not going to work for his breeding plans, so he drove over to Port Ludlow on the Olympic peninsula and picked Jefferson up from Ananda Hills Farm.  Handsome boy with a black/brown fleece.  Again, much finer than normal blacks, so he's looking for some good lambs in the spring.  Of course he will not breed Kayla until 2017 Fall, so a couple of years out on that one.

And Buddy - the same as with the girls - he likes to have a "friend" of the same age and especially for the boys, company in the pasture.

So, that's the news.  I'll be in touch. 

Meet the "Flockers"

Halo Effurybody and Effury Kittie!

George here with the summer "state of the union" event - W&W   -  or Worming & Weaning! 

Our friend Nurse Nancy came over to help, since Mummy is not too steady on her feet out in the barn.  

The Shepherd tried a new approach this time - he gathered everysheep into a smaller pen inside the barn using panels from the lambing jugs! 

It worked like a dream. Everyone was calm and, most importantly, easy to catch - no running or jumping - what a concept. 

So, without further ado - Meet The Flockers! 

This is Frostiana - her wool is much like her daddy, Elliott's wool - lusterous and long.

This is Lori - she needs a new home. 









Her wool will eventually be white - but I think this first fleece will be fawn colored.

This is Ana - She needs a new home too. 

Ana's fleece is more mioget - golden - and I think this lamb fleece will be beautiful! 

Elsie is what we call a "snausage sheep"  - she is a little roly-poly -   but she is one of The Shepherd's favorite little girls.  She likes to lie down on his feet! 

Elsie is Ana's sister - and she'll be staying here on the farm.

Lettie is Lori's sister - she really does have a sweet face when she's not being strangulated to death by The Shepherd. 

And Whoo-ee - look at the color of her fleece!

Vikki is also a favorite of The Shepherd.  We thought she was going to be black and white from looking at her when she was born - but look at her now - soon she'll be white. 










She also has her daddy, Elliott's fleece characteristics.  Soft and lustrous.

Christopher will have a nice white fleece - he needs a new home - because we have limited space - the only wether that we can keep is the ram buddy - that will be Jackson (see below)

Christopher will have a beautiful white fleece! 

Here's our "ram buddy" Jackson - he is very close to Django in size and temperament.

I'm hoping that we will have some fleeces to take to Black Sheep next year.  What do you think? 

And here's our new little man himself.  Django! 


Pretty color, good nature, and nice fleece - we have 3 or 4 ewes who are not very closely related who will be put in with him in the fall. 

Talk about a golden fleece! 

Donna, Sandy & Vanessa look somewhat relieved that the lambs are out in a pasture by themselves - but oh, what a racket!  Great amounts of wailing and gnashing of teeth! 

"Gracie, do you think they'll ever shut up?"

"I don't know George - those lambs sure can do a good holler" 

Mummy here - The lambs pretty much cried for 24 hours, STRAIGHT!  Then they realized that they were on this wonderful lush pasture, and one by one, they quieted down.  Thank heavens! 




.

A long ago promised post...

Oh me, oh my... it seems like eons ago that we promised you a Caturday report on the 2014 Wonderful Woolies Farm Sale - in fact the sale was a WHOLE MONTH AGO!

But, you see, I have a good 'scuse - Mummy came down with a bad case of "The Mizzries"  She said on a scale of 1-10, her pain was a 15!! (pain from the right side of her neck down to her fingers & back!)  Her kiropraktor said he thought it was a pinched nerve in her neck - and when his ministrations didn't work Mummy even went to her GP doktor, (and if you know Mummy, you know she praktikally has to be dying before she'll go to her GP doktor)  He said - "oh, yeah, it could be a pinched nerve.  Here, take these good drugs and maybe they will help."  She actually missed two days of work at the Salt Mine - probably only the 4th or 5th time in 20 years that she has missed days for being "sick" - Poor Mummy.  (but we had lots of cuddle time on the big bed.  I made it a practice to lay down on her middle so she couldn't get up and go anywhere)

But I promised to tell you about the farm sale that she and The Shepherd took part in - That happened B/4 the Mizzries, thank heavens)                             

Their friends Yvonne & Dr. Doug invite about a dozen or so other "wool farmers" to join them for a day and people are invited from far and near to come & buy the fiber that they have to sell. 

Set up was Friday afternoon - Here are The Shepherd, Dr. Doug and another Shepherd called Rocky pushing racks form the house to the barn, where everything is getting set up for customers to come on Saturday morning.  We have people come from as far away as Seattle (90 miles or so) because they know that the fiber we offer will be top notch. 

Here is The Shepherd getting his booth set up in the barn. 

 Meanwhile Mummy was in the house helping Yvonne tag bags of roving.  That's Niki with Miss Daisy.

Over the years, one of Mummy's favorite spinning fiber sources has beem Kathy Green Roving - She buys bulk fine micron white wool, dyes it and processes the roving into 6 & 8 ounce bumps - Kathy has announced that she is retiring from the wool processing business & selling her mill.  Darn.

There were lots of choices for people to make -
batts, bumps, colored or natural fibers. 

Yvonne has CVM Romeldale sheep.  She sends some of her fleeces off to be mill spun. 

Sadly, the one thing that they didn't take a picture of was Mummy's yarn display.  She had eleven skeins of yarn to sell and sold 5 of them, including the one of Blue faced Leicester/silk for $69!!

Here was the happy sales desk crew.  There was ONE check out counter - that way the different vendors didn't have to worry about keeping track of money separately. 

Vikki (with her back to you in the beautiful hand made vest) was making her annual deal with The Shepherd for her annual Shetland Fleece.











The finished booth.

Mummy thought that the 4 oz packages of white roving would be very popular, but only a couple of them sold.  She's hoping she can tempt some of her spinner guild buddies into buying them. 

Mummy here -


So this is what I did with the money I earned from selling my yarn - bought a stash ahead of Kathy Green Roving. 










These fun little 4 oz. bags of mystery colors spin up quickly and make pretty yarn.  I've already got plans to make presents for the ladies that I work with out of some of the blue/green (Seahawks colors, you know)

The Wonderful Woollies sale is always fun and it is nice to see so many people come and buy our local fiber.  I can't wait for next years!! 

It's Caturday!!!

Hello Effurrybody and effurrykitty!

It's me, Bella and I get to do the Caturday report this week!  It's almost St. Patrick's Day, so Mummy decorated me with this very cool hat & green ribbon.

And for all those who've been waiting, yes, the sheepies got their furs all cut off this week. 

 

The shearer guy's name is Dan Riley and he came up from Arlington (about an hour's drive to the south) on Thursday and sheared our sheep and our friend Nancy G's sheep.

Mummy seemed to think he did a pretty good job. 

He had good control of those squirmy things and didn't make any cuts or nicks on them.

And Mummy said she didn't see any second cuts - what ever that means...

This fluffy goodness looked very appealing to me, but The Shepherd shooed me away. 

I thought it would be great fun to jump in the middle of that puddle-o-wool and just roll around.  He didn't think so at all. 

It always amazes me the different colors that come off of the sheepies. 

This one was The Shepherd's favorite, I think. 

And see - they look pretty skinny and geeky, don't you think. 

They got all freaked out when Mummy tried to go into the barn, and ran out into the rain.  Silly things.


Mummy took a movie of the shearer guy at work for all of our friends who don't have sheep of their own - but the ebil blogger would not let her down load it today. She'll try again next week.

 

Now  that the guy with the scissors is gone, I can lay back and relax - I didn't want to add my pretty furs to those big piles, so I kept far away from him.  Hope you had a nice weekend.  See ya next week! 

More Shetland Wool (this time it's for sale!)

As I mentioned in my "Colors of May" post, we went down to Gretchen's Wool Mill last month to pick up some fiber that The Shepherd had her process.

This roving was the result of cleaning out the shed. He took the best parts of three or four fleeces and bagged them up. Gretchen's new "magic machine" was able to wind the roving into these nice bumps - I think they are 4 or 5 ounces each.



I was really pleased with the quality of the roving - and, it spins up really nice, and I think would take an over- dye of most colors and make a nice heathery looking yarn.








I still have to fiddle around with my McMorran Yarn Balance to see how many yards per ounce my yarn is - it all seems to be pretty much the same size - sport weight, I guess....

There is also a big sack of "cream colored" loose roving - I haven't played with that yet, but it looks like it will be very nice as well.

The roving is $2/ounce plus shipping. Leave me a comment if you are interested.