Just Lamb Pictures

I know there are a couple of you out there that really only read the blog for the lamb pictures, so here you go.

First, one of our cross bred lambs.  She's 1/4 Coopworth, 1/4 Polypay and 1/2 Icelandic.  And I might just keep this one.  I'm curious to see her fleece in the spring.

Next, our youngest baby, a little Shetland ewe - fawn gulmoget.  She was born to one of the few lambs I exposed to the ram last fall.

Below is the lamb from the first picture, with her twin sister.

Ram lamb, he's 1/2 Coopworth and 1/2 Icelandic.  He was born to a yearling (coming two year old) Coopworth, a first time mom and he was HUGE when he was born.  I don't weigh lambs anymore, now that we don't have a production flock, but I should have weighed him.  He's about a month old (this picture was taken awhile ago) and is almost as big as our Shetland yearlings.

And this little guy was almost a bottle baby.  He is one of Lily's (Shetland) lambs.  He had a twin brother, but Lily had some health issues and lost the one.  I supplemented him with the occasional bottle, but Lily is now back on her feet and he is off the bottle.  But still very friendly.  Which is unfortunate, since a friendly ram cannot stay on this farm.

And, last, but not least, another of the younger Shetland lambs.  A pretty decent sized ram born to a first time mom.  Grey katmoget.

And, I did a count and we ended up with 48 lambs and kids this year.  Mostly twins, except to the first time moms - many of them had singles.  I like crossing the Icelandic ram on the BWS ewes - the lambs end up with shorter tails and I didn't dock any of them.  Just that big ram lamb above has a tail that is a bit long, but as he will go to market, I wasn't too concerned about that.  It just didn't seem to make sense to dock off bits that were no longer than my finger (and I have little hands).  And, since we are primarily a Shetland flock again, I figured all the sheep can now have small tails (we tried to leave longer docks on our BWS anyway).

So, there are some lamb pictures for you.  Enjoy!

This is a Test, This is Only a Test . . . .

 OK - Blogger has informed me that they no longer support my browser and I have to switch to Google Chrome.  I'm not sure what that means and, as it's 11:00 at night and I am not 100% at this hour, I'm not sure I want to download Google Chrome without researching it a bit.  (Anyone that knows something about this, please feel free to chime in here - I'm open to any and all advice).  But, my blog SEEMS to be working, although it appears a bit funky, so I'll try a short post here and if it works, maybe another post in the next day or two.

Since my last post, I have skirted about 50 fleeces, which have been listed on the web page, if you're interested.  And I've sold a bunch, which is the idea, but it does take up time that I could have been using blogging or researching this Google Chrome thing.

And I have been dyeing yarns and rovings for shows.  In mid-April, we did the Wisconsin Spin In, which looked like this from the balcony at the Waukesha Expo Center - that's our booth down there - the first time we had a double booth and we finally had room for both the staff (me) and the customers.

The week after that we did the Great Midwest Alpaca Festival, which was at the Coliseum at the Alliant Energy Center in Madison, WI.  The alpaca shows were going on in the show ring without me while I was manning the vendor booth in the mezzanine around the outside of this picture. 

And meanwhile, back at the ranch, we were lambing and kidding.  I think we have about 45 lambs and kids on the ground.  One of these days I should total up the reports and see how we actually ended up.  There is one lone ewe who still has the opportunity to lamb, but she doesn't look bred, so I'm guessing we are done for the year.  No lamb pictures in this post, since I didn't want to get carried away if Blogger is just going to delete this since I don't have the almighty Google Chrome.  But here are some kid shots to entertain you this go round.  I'm not sure who this is, but he/she is cute regardless.  He/she is a Nigora kid - that's a cross between an Angora and a Nigerian Dwarf.

These three are Hermione's and Sequoia's (there are two black and white ones there and a brown one.  They are often sleeping together is this old feeder.  They are also Nigoras).  And I do mean they belong to both Hermione and Sequoia, as the mother/daughter pair kidded at the same time in the same corner of the barn, without witnesses.  When I went out to the barn that day, there they all were and I didn't have a clue as to who really belonged to whom.  So the two does are sharing the three kids, as best I can tell.  But it's all working out, so, as they say, "all's well that ends well"!

And last, but not least, my bottle baby for the year.  This is one of Manya's - a little black and white Angora doe.  When she was born, she couldn't stand on her front legs, so I tube fed her and put her back in with her mom, thinking she probably wouldn't make it.  Well, Manya fed her for a day or two, she managed to get up on all four feet and then her mother abandoned her.  So she became my bottle baby for the year.  She's still walks a little funky, but she manages just fine.  She plays with the other kids, goes out to pasture with the rest of the herd.  And she is my most colorful Angora kid.



Just Checking In

Just wanted to check in before March ended. And before it gets really busy here, as lambing/kidding should begin any time now.

We sheared the sheep and the few Angora goats about a week and a half ago. We've reduced the flock size quite a bit, so it wasn't as hectic this year and the barn wasn't as crowded. And before we started that morning, I took a few snapshots of the sheep waiting for their turn to get a haircut. That's Pikachu in the middle of the group, a Polypay ewe - she's about four years old and was one of our bottle lambs that year.

Going every which way in the chute. Fortunately, it's not my job to muscle some of those bigger girls around in the chute. How they manage to get themselves turned around in there is beyond me! That pretty brown ewe is Brownie, a Polypay/Coopworth cross ewe.

The Shetland ewes, waiting their turn. They look a bit menacing, with those glowing eyes!

And Zeus did his part to help with the shearing. We actually tried giving him a little pen, so we didn't have to keep such a close eye on him. But he managed to squeeze under the fence and spent most of the morning in with my dad, who was in the pen area the sheep went through after they were shorn. His lead was tied to the fence, so he couldn't chase the sheep, but if the sheep didn't go straight through the "exit" area and tried heading back toward the shearing platform, Zeus would bark at them until they turned around and headed in the right direction!

And now that shearing is over, I have boatloads of fleece to skirt and get up on the web site. And I've got tubs of yarn and roving that I have to dye before Wisconsin Spin In. It's April 21 and 22 at the Waukesha Expo Center in Waukesha, WI - if you're in the area! Please stop by and say hi if you can make it.

Well, must get back to doing something more productive than blogging. I've got some of our Star Dust yarn waiting to be dyed - what colors should I do today? And I have a bunch of worsted weight waiting to be tagged. It's too dark and dreary today to take pictures for our Etsy store. Oh, who am I kidding? You all know that before I get to that, I have to have another cup of coffee!

In closing, a couple more pictures of Zeus - often when I am on the computer, he is under the desk. It's hard to get a picture of him under there, as he is usually up as soon as I push the chair back - he must have been very tired on this occasion.

And a more typical posture. Ready and waiting for his next command.

Anyone Want to Win Some Yarn?

I have a cold, and it's late, so no long blog post tonight, no pretty pictures. But I would like to refer you to another blog - Yarn On The House. Ve has a really nice blog over there and she features indie dyers and knit designers. And the really nice thing about her blog is that she gives stuff away. All you have to do is comment on her blog (and maybe follow her blog - not sure about that, but I follow her). And this time around, the yarn she is giving away is ours! Hearthside Fibers "BaaBoo" yarn (our bamboo blend fingering weight yarn). Three skeins, one to each of three winners. Two in "Purple Haze" and one in "Annie's Snowy Mountain". Please pop over there and have a look. And maybe you'll be lucky enough to win a skein of our yarn!

Meet Zeus!

I would like to introduce you to the newest member of our family. This is Zeus:

He is a Border Collie. A bit over 2 months old, tri-color, very sweet and very smart. I'll probably jinx it, but I have never had a puppy this young with such good toilet habits. He was born in a box stall on a horse farm and confined there, as the breeders were afraid the horses would step on the puppies if they were left to roam. The owners bred their female on purpose, then decided after the puppies were born that maybe that hadn't been the smartest thing they ever did, so the puppies ended up at a nearby rescue. He was at the rescue for less than a week when we picked him up this past Wednesday evening. He sleeps through the night (although those nights are pretty short right now), has yet to have an accident in the house (although we are pretty vigilant about taking him out when he wakes, after he eats, etc), so far has ignored the Xmas tree, which is still up, but is very interested in the cats' litter box. He is not afraid of the goats or the sheep (of course, they are on the other side of the fence at this point in his life). He responds well when we tell him "no" for inappropriate behavior. He does seem to be curious about chicken poop, but it is hard to avoid that on a farm. At the moment, he is curled up behind my chair here at the computer.

It is wonderful to have a puppy in the house again, although I did hope to sleep beyond 6:15 this morning. Oh well, I've lived through sleep deprivation before in my life. But I think I was better able to handle it in college! So if you see me on the street and I don't respond - well, I might be sleep walking!

Happy New Year!

And this year, I will try to post here more often. I would say that this is my New Year's resolution, but that would just be asking for trouble, as I don't think I have ever stuck with any of my resolutions. But I did so poorly at posting last year, that it shouldn't be too hard to improve this year!

Looking back on last year, in addition to not posting on the blog, we started our new business venture, which most of you know about, if you still read my meager posts. Hearthside Fibers began in earnest just after the first of the year, we did about half a dozen fiber shows, I finally got the Etsy store launched in the fall, I set up a Facebook page and we placed our product in the local yarn store, Kaleidoscope Fibers, in Lake Mills, WI.

In the coming year, we are already booked into an additional one or two fiber shows and are considering a couple more. I plan to get more product into the Etsy store. We are adding a few new yarns and rovings.

On the sheep and goat end of things, we have downsized the commercial/meat sheep, but have retained most of the goats and fiber sheep. So for our fleece customers, we will have Shetland fleeces in a few months (and some of those fleeces look absolutely gorgeous "on the hoof"), a few Icelandic fleeces, maybe some mohair and a few other assorted fleeces off of the "pets" that we didn't sell. Lambing/kidding begins at the very end of March, and may continue into June, as we still have one ram in with a few of our ewes - he was put in as a clean up ram, just in case the ram lamb we originally had in with that group didn't do his job!

Not much in the way of pictures with this post. We have had very little snow here in SE Wisconsin so far this winter, unlike much of the rest of the country! So no pretty scenery shots. Very odd for us and I am nervously waiting for the other shoe to drop. There is no way that this mild weather and lack of snow can last much longer. Today it is hovering around freezing, though, and the winds are brisk, so I am glad that I will be sitting in the living room, watching the last regular season Packer game (GO PACK!) instead of in Lambeau with my cousin and his girlfriend.

So, since every year I try to get a decent picture of the Xmas tree, I will leave you with best wishes for the New Year and a shot of our tree from early Xmas morning -

Going Forward Into Fall

If there is anyone out there who is still following this blog - well, thank you for hanging in there. No excuse really, although I like to say that I have been busy.

We have survived the hot summer weather and are now enjoying the cooler, and sometimes rainy, fall days. Today the temperature was fine - almost 60 - but we had some rain. We have three young Nigora goats who sometimes graze our backyard and today, when it rained, they took shelter in the most convenient spot they could find. The picture is a bit blurry, as I have a new camera and forget to adjust the settings, but Billy found shelter in an old rabbit cage that we have under an overhang off the back deck -

I must say, that while I love my sheep, goats certainly are entertaining!


The summer wrapped up for us with a couple of fiber festivals. Yet another picture of one of our booths - this one at Wisconsin Sheep and Wool Festival in Jefferson, WI - the show was a success and we can't wait until next year!

This is what our barn looked like before the festival began:

And this is what it looked like the rest of the weekend:

My favorite weekend of the year! This was our first year vending - and while it was loads of fun and financially rewarding, I did miss spending the weekend with our sheep in the Hall of Breeds, talking with festival-goers about the pros and cons of the different sheep breeds, seeing old friends and meeting new ones.

And speaking of the sheep, we are downsizing a bit this year, as we switch our focus to the fiber end of the industry. We are already booked into several shows for next year and I am finally getting some work done on getting an Etsy site set up (since I can't seem to master Zen Cart for our web site). Tonight I was finalizing the choreography for getting the sheep/goats all moved around to their respective breeding groups. The plan for this year is three Shetland breeding groups, one non-Shetland group, one goat group, a bachelor boys group and a group of lambs/kids who are not ready yet to be bred. I'm sure the rams are ready - at least it seems that Gallifrey is saying "Let's get this show on the road, already - I could go for a little female companionship!"

Yes, I'm Still Here!

I know I haven't posted in a couple of months. I don't know why. I've taken pictures, intending to get them here on the blog. I could have posted more about the end of lambing. Or getting ready for Midwest Fiber and Folk Art Fair. Or the dreadful heat that we have had on certain days (we are about to get hit again with heat and humidity and I am not looking forward to it). But I guess I just haven't been very talkative.

Here is our booth at Midwest Fiber and Folk Art Fair. The weekend was disappointing. And I know we weren't alone, as in talking to other vendors, they were saying the same thing. Several don't plan on going back next year. Larry has family living in that area, though, so for us it is a good excuse to get together with them, even if we hardly cover the cost of getting into the show in the first place.

And since I don't have a lot of good things to say about that show, here are some goat pics. We haven't decided yet who is for sale and who is staying, but I think I would like to keep this little doe here on the farm. She is just adorable.

The kids fit through the fence and help themselves to whatever they like in the yard.

At least they are grazing clean "pasture"!

Below, you can see the mommas in the background, in the barnyard where they belong. And the kids are out climbing on the old hay bales, having the time of their lives.

We have started weaning the oldest lambs. The kids will be weaned soon. We are downsizing the flock drastically this year, so many of the ewes are going to market as soon as their lambs are weaned. The Shetlands have to be photographed and those that we decide are for sale need to be posted on the web site. But very little will be done in the next few days - I think I mentioned we are in for an extended period of heat and humidity? I could really go for a couple of inches of snow right about now!

Kids and Lambs

Last night, when I would normally be in my jammies and watching a little TV before bed, I was helping a new mom deliver a baby. This is Elfine, a Nigerian Dwarf goat, and her new little buckling, who appears to have more of an Angora fleece like his papa. She is a wonderful mom and both were doing fine this morning.


And another of the Nigerians, Sequoia, who has two little bucks, one brown and the other, pictured here, who is brown and white. Their fleece is more "Nigerian-like". This is Billy, with his mom.


Shetland lambs, so far, have been mostly ewes. This is Fontina with her moorit (or maybe musket) ewe lamb.

And the newest member of the flock, Arcateen's moorit gulmoget ram lamb, who was born sometime last night or early this morning while we slept. He looks a lot like his papa, Tarpan. Gotta love those Shetlands - he was all dry, fed and sleeping in the barnyard with his mom when Larry did the first check this morning. (For those of you who know that I never put our Shetlands in jugs - a few of the Shetlands ended up with the "BWS" and they have gone into jugs and then into the nursery as I "funnel" them out into the Shetland pasture to rejoin their flock. The majority of the Shetlands are lambing on pasture without the "benefit" of jugging, since they don't really need it - they bond so well with their lambs and are very protective by nature.)

I'll have to check the lambing sheets, but we must be at about 50 lambs and kids at this point. The majority of the "big, white sheep" are done - we still have six or eight Shetlands and Icelandics to lamb and most of the goats - although I'm not sure all of them were bred, some are still slender with no udders. Lamb percentages are down a bit this year - feed quality wasn't as good. But the lambs and kids that are on the ground look good. And such a variety - Shetlands, Icelandics, Coopworths, Polypays, goats. Colors and patterns. It's like Christmas!

Dress Rehearsal

Well, the fiber is mostly all packed and ready for Spin-In this weekend. Just a few more skeins to label. We had a dress rehearsal this past weekend: This is the main part of the "store" - there's more towards the front of the booth, but the camera was dying and this is the only decent picture I got. But we're pretty pleased with the way it looks - now on to the main event. Set-up is Thursday - the vendors are open for business on Friday and Saturday. Hope to see you there!

Just Checking In

Not a lot to blog about lately, although we have been very busy. We are almost daily dyeing yarn and roving, in preparation for our first fiber show - Wisconsin Spin-In - Pewaukee, WI at the Country Springs Hotel - April 7 - 9 - click the link for more information. We are Hearthside Fibers - look for us if you are there. We're on schedule for product, I think we have just about everything we THINK we need - of course, that list could be different than what we find we actually DO need, come the weekend of the show! Just so you have something to look at in this post, here are some of our yarns - I think these are the fingering weight highland wool that we will be selling.

Yep, after studying the closer shot, I have identified these correctly.

In other news, we sheared the sheep (or rather, Roger sheared the sheep) last Wednesday. Only a few glitches this year, starting with the day we moved the half of the sheep that weren't already in our barn. The majority of the sheep and goats moved fairly easily - three of our Jacobs, though decided they were not coming with us. We tried enticing them into the barn with grain - not successful. In fact, one of them leaped over the fence, ran around the goat pasture, then decided it did not, in fact, want to run away to the neighbor's. So she leaped in with the goats, decided that wasn't right, leaped back out and finally made her way back to her Jacob buddies and leaped back in with them. At that point, we decided they could stay put and we left them where they were. I am again trying to train them to the grain bucket, so maybe, if they are bred, we can reunite them with the rest of their flock here in our barn, where we are equipped for lambing. But, as I said, the rest of the sheep and goats were fairly cooperative and the rest of the move went fairly well, in spite of the fact that the farm is a sea of mud and a fairly large pickup truck pulling a good sized livestock trailer filled with many animals does have a tendency to get stuck in said mud. But, in the end, all of the animals got into the barn and, although the truck and trailer are very muddy, they are not stuck. Must see the glass as half full. (By the way, our Nigerian dwarf goats were the easiest to move - they did not come over for shearing, but after, in preparation for kidding in a few weeks - they followed the grain bucket right onto the trailer and hopped right off when they got to their destination - I sure wish the sheep would behave that well.)

The day of shearing went smoothly - except for the two Shetlands that managed to squeeze through the fence and escape - I'm not mentioning any names, but Lavender and Maia still look awfully woolly! I will most likely throw (well, not literally) them up on the fitting stand and shear them with the hand shears in a few weeks. Maybe if I wait long enough, they'll roo for me. By the way, to my customers - the reserved fleeces have been skirted and those customers have been notified. The remaining fleeces will most likely not be skirted for a bit, as we prepare for Spin-In - but as soon as I get the new web site up and running and fleeces skirted and made ready for sale, those of you on our customer email list will be getting an email.

Lambing/kidding does not start here until mid-April - many new ewes and does this year, so it could get interesting. Fortunately, the "veterans" are all good moms and, barring any unforeseen circumstances, shouldn't cause us any headaches. I hope the new girls all do a good job, too.

And, for a parting shot - our washer died quite awhile ago - and our dryer was making an unearthly screeching noise every time we turned it on, so we finally took the time to replace them. Fuzzball thinks the new dryer is grand!

Introducing Hearthside Fibers!

I haven't posted in awhile - as usual, my excuse is, "I've been busy"! I took holiday pictures, intending to post them, but that didn't happen. This is what I have been doing instead of posting:

Those are hand dyed rovings, dyed right here in our "dye kitchen".

And we have hand dyed yarns as well:

Just a small sampling of the hundreds of skeins we will be taking to Spin-In in April (April 7 - 9, 2011). It will be our first show - if you are anywhere near Pewaukee, or planning to be anywhere near Pewaukee at that time, mark your calenders!

This is loads of fun - I usually start my day by putting some fiber in to soak, then washing the fiber I dyed yesterday, then dyeing the previously mentioned soaked fiber. Larry and I have "packaging" days - he skeins yarn, I label product. And he has been wonderful in taking over feeding most of the animals (I like to work in my PJ's and really hate having to throw on jeans first thing to feed all before I start in on the fiber). I do still tend to the chickens, the guineas and Alexander Goose, so I do get out each day and get some fresh air!

In other news, THE PACKERS ARE GOING TO THE SUPERBOWL!!! I will not be working next Sunday during the big game - I do not want to be distracted even for a fraction of a second by needing to rinse a skein of yarn or some other silliness. I have been a Packer fan for 50 years and I do not intend to miss a moment of this game.

The rams are still in with the ewes, as the weekend we were going to remove them from their harems, it was extremely cold - I believe the girls are probably all bred, as there has been no courting going on for weeks now. I'll suffer through a late lamb or two if I must.

No sheep pictures today - I wanted you all to concentrate on the fiber - the label will say "Hearthside Fibers" - we decided we wanted something cozier for our fiber line than Maplewood North, although that is also on the label, just in smaller print, below "HEARTHSIDE FIBERS" - remember the name (I'll let you know when we finally get around to creating a web site - at this point, we thought product was more important). And come to Spin-In, if you can - we'll be there!

Blow That Horn!

I would like to briefly blow my own horn. In the summer of 2009, I contacted Interweave Press, sent off some Polypay fleece samples to Amy Clarke Moore, the editor of Spin-Off magazine and Carol Huebscher Rhoades, the author of their Fiber Basics articles. I talked to Carol at Wisconsin Sheep and Wool Festival, where she teaches some of the Wonders of Wool classes. We emailed several times, I sent some more fleece, took some sheepy pictures, figured out how to transfer said pictures to a disc, signed the appropriate releases and in the winter issue of 2010, our Polypay sheep and fiber were featured! If you look on the left side of the magazine cover, you will see (under "Try these fibers!), "Polypay (what's that??)"

And inside, they answer that question in the form of a Fiber Basics article,written by Carol Huebscher Rhoades and using several of my sheepy pictures and spinning up our fiber for their samples! That's one of our ewes in the picture below.

The entire Polypay spread is eight pages, including pictures and projects. I have to say, we are just thrilled with the article - my 15 minutes of fame, I guess!

More New Additions!

OK - I think this is it for 2010 - additions to the flock/herd, that is - hopefully not blog posts, although I have been very bad at updating it lately. The flock has changed dramatically in the past few months. We still have the Shetlands and the Coopworths and the Polypays - and one Clun Forest - and two Dorsets - and a handful of crossbred ewes. And you know, if you have been reading along, that we added some Icelandics and a Jacob earlier this fall - and some Angora goats - and some guineas - oh, and we still have some rabbits and some chickens - and one gorgeous, but mean rooster - he might have to go. But anyway, I digress.

We have recently added some more Jacobs - I think this is the wether - hard to tell sometimes, when they no longer have the normal male equipment.

And we have added some Nigerian Dwarf goats. These should be the two wethers, Jack and Dexter, although I'm not sure which is which yet. They love the fallen leaves from our London Planetree - somebody tell me quick if those are poisonous.

And a few more Jacob ewes. Although this is only one of them. Must be Zola? She is supposed to be the friendliest, and as the others were hanging way back, I'm deducing that this is she.

But the cutest ones are the Nigerian Dwarf girls. This little girl is very friendly - her name is Magic, I think. She would stand forever letting you scratch her chin, neck, back if you had the time. (Stasia, if I have all the names wrong, I apologize - let me know!)

Two more of the Nigerian girls. They come in all colors and are just the cutest things. Although what in the heck am I going to do with them? This is a fiber farm, after all. I guess we will have to make some goat cheese or maybe some goat's milk soap.

Or we can breed them to Valentine (aka Bucky), our new Angora buck and maybe get some nice, fibery Nigoras. That's him in the picture below, sort of in the middle, with the orange ear tag. It was very hard to get a good picture of him, as he was very intent on breeding one of the girls and only paused long enough for me to get this shot. He came from Bleating Heart Haven in New Holstein, Wisconsin - and after he jumped a solid wall that must have been close to five feet tall and tried to bash his way out of our truck, he settled down nicely for the trip home and is now behaving himself. Although if he didn't have all those lovely girlfriends, I'm afraid he might jump the fence and head on down the road!

And we also now have a goose. Alexander came from Tuppinz Farm with the sheep, as he thinks he is a sheep - and as Tuppinz Farm no longer has any sheep, we felt he should come along with his "family". So, while the goats and sheep rode in the livestock trailer, Alexander got the back of the truck to himself, where he settled down on the rubber mat for the three hour trip to his new home. Here he is getting to know some of his new sheep family - some of our Coopworths.

So, the breeding groups are now all together. Lambing/kidding will begin mid-April. With all the different breeding groups and the bachelor boys group and the lamb/retiree group, I have 9 different pens/pastures to feed, water and check on every day (well, that's stretching the truth a bit, as a couple of those groups have big bales of hay, so I don't really have to feed everyone every day). But for the next six weeks or so, I basically need a checklist so I don't leave anyone out! So here's hoping the rams/buck do their job and we have lots of bouncing babies in five months!