What's Happening....

Oh so much is happening that I really haven't had time to write.  The garden exploding, the fruit trees dropping their precious cargo, sheep shows, future travel all keeping us running at full speed.   So here is an attempt to catch up in a quick way.

One of our little hen chickens finally found a very special place to hatch out a bunch of chicks.  A place out of the way of the farmer who searches out eggs to keep this very event from happening.  She disappeared for a few weeks;  we thought she had been eaten.  But no.  I got a call from hubby while I was at work.  He was in a desperate panic as to what to do with all these babies that were spreading around the pasture as the sheep were all trying to get a better look at these little bitty beings.  He was successful at chicken rounding and now they have a safe corner of the barn and are growing....all 13 of them!!!!

Momma trying to hide her little ones from me.

Let me know if you need any chickens.

Check out the nice little ditty done by Michele Ranard about McTavish Farm on her blog Hello Lovely.
http://hellolovelyinc.blogspot.com/  It's very sweet.

Also if you missed it,  Natalie Kilkenny did a great job interviewing us a few weeks ago about sheep and wheels.  Scroll down to episode 32 to hear about us.  http://nkilkenny.libsyn.com/  You have to download the podcast to hear it.

This past weekend was the Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival.  We were originally not going to bring any sheep, but then at the last minute decided we should bring just three, an abbreviated McTavish Farm Sheep team.  It turned out to be very busy, lots of people to talk to and lots to see.  The sheep, Ninkasi, Miso and Rudy had a good time training passerbys to pet them in just the right place. 
Of course I need to toot my own horn a bit.  I entered my felt vest in the fiber arts show.  I have never had a piece worthy enough to win an award so I wasn't expecting much.  But hey, I got a Judge's Choice award for best felted item and she wanted me to make one for her!  They unfortunately forgot to put my champion ribbon on the vest during the show, so I was a bit disappointed others didn't see.  So to make up for it, here is the finished vest with ribbon and all.

vest with "champion" ribbon

close up of horn button

So now we are madly packing for our Vermont trip.  Heading to the Vermont Sheep and Wool Festival.   Will have more to write about that on our return.

Fences again.....

     It seems we are always redoing fences or mostly just adding to them.  Just when you think you have the perfect set up there can always be a better way.  In looking at our ram area we could see some potential pitfalls including one length of funky electric netting super entangled in weeds.  Not so secure if the electricity goes out and some ram gets smart.  In hopes of making our trip this fall (a.k.a. breeding season) and leaving the farm to our sitter, we thought we should look close at our ram area and this particular length of fence.  See, they sense when you are away.  They will make escape plans and break out just as you are the farthest away from the farm.  They would love to break in with the girls and have a big ol' party.  So to thrwart their plans we decided we needed to replace this section of fence.
     Most Shetland breeders we know, us included, house rams in separate quarters from the ewes for a couple reasons.  Firstly in order to register lambs with NASSA (North American Shetland Sheepbreeders Assoc.), we need to know who the sire is.  Secondly, as we like to spend time with our babes and ewes, petting and the like, having a ram in with them can be a bit dangerous;  just look at those horns!  So our rams are kept at opposite ends of the property, with many fences between them.  So far we've only had one escape (of course while we were away;  you can get the full story from our neighbors) but no reprocussions (that would be lambs).   We'd like to keep it at that.
    Once we decided we needed another fence (or maybe it was just me) the question was, who will build it. Tom, the fiscally prudent one of the family as well as the talented builder/fix-it/handy dandy repair man, usually does the deed. I had some hope in my mind that he might decline this job, as much as I like his fences, he just doesn't have the time lately to actually finish something like that. Tom, on the other hand, is Mr. optomist and, not really being all that in touch with his calendar, is usually inclined to say yes.   So when I broached the subject with him, my fingers and toes crossed,  I was pleasantly surprized to hear "how about Greenhill Fence Co.". YES! 

   
     I called them and within in a week they had a new ram fence built and ready for use.  Now our rams are happily (at least in our opinion) contained in their ram area.  They can loaf around on the hillside and look out yonder in the far distance at the girls.  If they try to escape, they will have to really work at it.  And this Fall we will leave the farm to our sitter with no worries and no middle of the night phone calls.  Cross you fingers!

Our boys behind their new fence "girl watching" from afar.

Another learning experience......

Chalk it up to education, my mother always says when things don't go as planned.  Seems we are always learning new things around here.  Just when you think you have it all worked out on the farm mother nature throws you another curve ball.  This year I have learned more than I ever wanted to know about internal parasites related to sheep. 

We have always done the traditional parasite treatments and more recently have tried to use the dewormers a bit more sparingly, using more of the FAMACHA system on the adult sheep.  This helps avoid your worms becoming resistant to the dewormers.  I am also aware of the explosion of worms around the time of lambing so try to treat accordingly.  But this year things, for various reasons some which I will explain, seem to have gotten a bit away from us.   First off we had more lambs than in past years, 16 in total.  Secondly,  as you may have noticed if you live in the Pacific NW, we have had an unusually wet spring/summer.  Moisture, combined with warmth, is a perfect environment for the hatching of parasites.  Sheep are generally susceptible to worms.  They were meant to graze vast areas of land, not the same little paddock week after week.  They graze close to the ground where those little wormies like to hang out.   Another happening fact, like other organisms in our life, they are  becoming resistant to our treatments.  Many areas around the country, particularly the south, these parasites have become resistant to the conventional dewormers we typically use on sheep.  From my talks with other shepherds around these parts I believe it is starting to happen here as well.   Anyway, this year we were able to see first hand how destructive these buggers can be on little lambs.  Although we have not lost any lambs, most of ours have developed varying degrees of anemia, and, in spite of our rich feedings, are not putting on the usual weight.  We've also had a few cases of lamb pneumonia and plenty of coughing lambs.   As the weather is drying we now finally getting a handle on it.  We have done some strategic dewormings and are monitoring the anemia closely, although that will take a bit of time for them to recover from.
So from the lessons of this year we will make a few changes for next year.  We will have less lambs  for sure, that has many added benefits including more time with each lamb so in the end they will all be more friendly.  We have less animals in total, lower stocking rate equals less parasites. We will put newly weaned lambs on "clean" pasture, that is a different paddock than the moms were on and hopefully not as contaminated.  We may also have our lambing a bit later in the season so the pastures are dryer, something mother nature will have to help us with too.  And we will monitor very closely.  Certainly I will always have more to learn, but isn't that one of the joys of life!

Messy Sheep

     Seems like it is always something.  You want the grass to grow, and then it does, but then it goes to seed.  Some of those nasty seedheads stick to soft, fine fleeces and then you have a mess.  Nobody wants to spin a fleece with prickly seeds in it.   So much for fine, soft fleeces with low micron counts!  It is a difficult problem to deal with.  The tiny black burrs grow against the woven wire fence and the little ones like to reach through the fence (remember grass is always greener....) then the seeds stick to their fine neck fleece.  No fun to pluck out.  This year also seems particularly bad for those foxtails.  They are the ones that can ruin your socks with one run through the pasture.  We have mowed them, bagged them and tried to get rid of the seed heads for a few years now and they seem to get worse every year.  Short of  field burning I am not sure what else to do.  And of course the sheep don't like to eat them so the problem continues.  I guess we'll be resigned to sitting in the pastures and picking fleeces, on the sheep of course.  And for some reason, my sheep seem to love that attention.  Maybe they bring it on themselves???

      Back from the Black Sheep Gathering.  Every year I think how lucky we are to have such a fine fiber fair in our own town, just minutes from our house.  It was busy this year, showing sheep, fleeces, fiber creations and participating in the spinners' lead.  Tom also presented his first "handcrafted by Tom" spinning wheel!  He has been apprenticing with Magnus Drudik, driving to Salem once a week for the past 6 months.  And now he has something to show for all that work.  It created quite a stir at the show and we spent lots of time retelling the story.  At one point, as my sentences no longer were making any sense, I suggested that he just put that wheel back in the car.

                                                     Ninki and Rudy getting lots of attention
     People are asking how we "did" at the show.  Well I can say our sheep placed middle of the road in a class of a lot of very fine Shetlands.  Competition is tough and  I guess the judge didn't find anything we had particularly exceptional (of course I beg to differ!).  But we did do well in the wool show, placing 2nd and 3rd in the mature Shetland.  Julia and Strudel came through for us.  I got a blue ribbon on my felted vest and lots of positive feedback from my strut through the spinners' lead.

Weaning Time

Rikki was the first in line for weaning.  She was 10 weeks old and the milk bag was empty.  Her parents were darn tired of remembering to bring out the bottle every 8 hours.  Of course Rikki wasn't too keen on the idea, even though her belly looked plenty full just from the grass, and at times she just couldn't finish that big bottle of milk.  How much can you cram into a little sheep belly?  The thought of all that grass topped with a little milk, yuck!  So Rikki was the first lamb of the season to go vegan.  She still gives us the complete body search when she sees us, just to make sure we aren't hiding a bottle of milk in there somewhere.
     The other lambs had there mommies taken away at a little over 11 weeks of age.  The moms seemed ready, some looked like a bag of bones, the babes were sucking the life right out of them.  So last week we moved the moms into the lower paddocks and put in the earplugs.  Fortunately the weather was a bit cooler, less stress on the babies and more likely that the neighbors have their windows closed.  Oh and there was yelling.  We did get one neighbor calling about whether or not we had purchased a special noise permit from the county.  No, but they were just kidding, thank god.  All our neighbors are saints in that way. 
     So now everyone looks pretty settled.  The moms are quiet and drying up.  The babes are happy with the special foods they are getting and having the run of the barn.  All is quiet on McTavish Farm, except for the sound of the grass growing!

Little Kiki, a young ewe lady now!

Felting Fun

Yesterday I decided I needed to give myself a bit of a break and just "play". It was a holiday after all. I had been planning for sometime to try to felt a 3-d project and picked a vest as that seemed doable. About 3 years ago we had a yearling that got sick and then just never got her health back to snuff; a failure to thrive. We ended up having to put her down; a sad decision, but the right one. Sometime before we did the deed I had sheared her. As she had been sick and I did not want her to get cold, I did not shear her in February with the rest of the gang but waited until later that spring when she had begun to shed it. By that time is was well matted and I was able to cut it off her in one piece, almost like a pelt. I held onto this partially felted piece as it was lovely with lots of luster and softness, and I had memories of her.  My aspirations were to actually do something with this fiber.

Well yesterday I actually had the energy to act on what had been fermenting in the back of my brain all that time. I had been thinking about using Mandi's fleece to incorporate it into a felted vest. I consulted my felting books and came up with a plan to do the seams in one piece rather than do a flat piece and sew it together later. I had some very fine, soft Shetland wool, fawn color, from a ram we had (he had also since died, really, most of our sheep are healthy!). To save time I ran some of it through my picker and a bit through the carder. I had also died some of it a orange red. To add a bit of contrast I carded up a bit of very dark brown fleece as well. So in total I had 3 oz of fawn from the picker, 3 oz of fawn in carded batts, 1 oz of fawn overdyed red/orange, .3 oz black and 10 oz of Mandi's partially felted fleece.

Red and fawn fiber laid out, the carded batt not yet added.

I laid out a sheet of plastic on my fiber room floor then a big old white sheet. I drew out a rectangle measuring 3 ft by 6 ft to allow for shrinkage. I put down layers of the fiber starting with the red, then fawn, then some tufts of black, then cut up the Mandi fleece in chunks and laid it out as evenly as I could.

Close up of all the layers ready to be felted together.

Working on the side seams

I put some screening over it and wet it down with soapy water. Then I put on some rockin music and danced around on it for awhile, leaving the sides dry and undisturbed. I rolled it around my big PVC pipe and rocked it back and forth on the countertop. When it was holding together enough I unrolled it and "glued" together the seams. I used some sheeting between the layers and feathered the sides together. Then wrapped it more around the tube for more rolling.

When it was held together fairly well, but still quite large, I unrolled it and cut the front opening, neck and arm openings. At that point I moved upstairs to the bathtub. I used some bubble wrap and my hands, more hot water and soap and rubbed it all over to firm it up. At that point I began to realize it was very close in time to our proposed dinner date with our neighbors! Not wanting to leave it unfinished, I bit my lip and threw it in our front loading washing machine.

As we were getting ready to go out the door the wash was finished and I pulled it out. It looked a bit like a child's size but I pinned down hubby and made him put it on so we could stretch the begeezes out of it. And it worked! Now I have my new vest I'll name "Wild Thing". My sheep won't recognize me!

New felted vest, just needs some sort of button closure.

More Lamb Pics

Rahab and her girl Roslyn

Scarlet and her ewe lamb

Katie's kids enjoying a fleeing bit of sunshine

3 black lambs playing in the mud!

Kiki and Zora, the 2 girls out of a triplet set.  Rudy, their look alike brother is playing in the mud!