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!"

Random Monday

Yes, I am still here - if there is anyone left who is still reading my blog, I apologize for my lack of posts lately. I have taken pictures and have had many things to post about over the last few days, weeks, months, but just haven't gotten around to it.

We did go to the Wisconsin Sheep and Wool Festival again - exhibiting Shetlands, Polypays and Coopworths in the Hall of Breeds. We talked to lots of people, sold some sheep (thank you to Kathryn Hammond, Lori Behnke, the Randy Taylor family and the Fulks), caught up with old friends, made some new friends, saw many different breeds of sheep and made a few purchases in the vendor barns - on the left, from River's Edge Weaving Studio, Bluefaced Leicester roving, and on the right, Calypso yarn from Creatively Dyed. I also got my annual t-shirt and some really cute sheep napkins from Ewesful Gifts.

In talking to the many people at the Festival, we found out that the Grand Champion Shetland Ram was the son of one of our rams! You can see him on his farm's blog, www.wheelywooly.blogspot.com.

In other news, it finally rained last night, after 22 days without rain. The pastures were all brown and stubbly and we are nowhere near the date when we should start feeding hay. But maybe the pastures will green up a bit now and the hay fields can put on a little new growth before the snow flies. I don't know how people live in dry climates - it has been driving me nuts, watching everything green shrivel up before my eyes. But before this drought hit, we had pastures that looked like this:


This is the ewe flock after we turned them out into new pasture awhile ago. Our plan was to flush them on this, but with the lack of rain, this field is now mostly brown. In their attempt at greener pastures, a few of the sheep have braved the electric fence and gone through to the hay field adjacent. The other morning, one of the ewes was on the wrong side of the fence, so I set up some temporary fencing to block her from my parents' backyard, closed off the catch pen so it was empty, propped open the gate back into the pasture and herded her back in. Throughout all this time, the rest of the flock was very interested in what I was doing and being quite vocal about it. As I was closing the gate behind me, having successfully reunited her with her flock, I saw one of our adult Shetland rams come flying across the lane. He went through the electric fence (I don't think he ever saw it!) and began courting the Big Whites! I then had to round up most of the ewe flock into the catch pen, grab Eddie (the ram) and drag him back to his pen (now on the opposite side of the barn, so he can't see the girls!) I don't know if he bred anyone, but he had about 15 minutes while I was grabbing the bucket of corn and the halter. If he did breed anyone, I hope it was one of the few Rambouillets we have left, as I have been curious about the fleece from that cross!

One thing I meant to put in the blog earlier this summer, were the before and after pictures of our barn deck. The barn has been there for a few years - this is the end that faces the house and our back yard:

Larry decided, sometime during lambing this spring, that he would build a deck there. It came out very nicely and is a nice shady spot to sit in the afternoon, when the sun is on the other side of the barn.

The trellis planter had both sweet peas and morning glories, but the morning glories won out. Next year, though, I have to remember to plant a darker color, as the white with faint blue stripes blends into the barn too much:

Well, Blogger has been giving me headaches this morning, so I think I will wrap this up. My parting shot today is of a nest I found out in the Shetland pasture a few weeks ago. If you look closely, you will see that much of it is wool - you know how most nests are really quite heavy for their size, packed densely often with mud? This nest is as light as a feather :) - being about half wool! I'm sure those baby birds were quite toasty in their wool house!

Better Late Than Never?!?!

I know, I know - it has been almost a MONTH since my last post. If any of you are still actually reading this, thank you for your patience! I do actually have some sort of an excuse. The week after the festival, I decided to take it easy - relax a bit after the weekend, get used to the new junior high schedule - good excuses for being totally lazy. The following Monday, I went over to the hospital for some routine tests, came home and was having a cup of coffee with Larry, when I started feeling ill. After about four hours of really not feeling good, we decided to go off to the emergency room (two visits to the same hospital in one day is WAY too many for me). I knew from experience what it was before we got there - a kidney stone - but this way I got the official word from the ER doc - only one - and they gave me some nice pain killers. But, by the time we got home, it was 11:00 pm or so. The next couple of days I laid about in agony. And to top it all off, by the time I had recovered from that, I got the cold that Larry and Nicholas had been suffering from, so I basically lost a week. Then Mom and Dad had family visiting from out west, so time was spent socializing with them - well, hopefully the stone has passed (I don't have any physical evidence of that), my cold is gone and the family has returned to Washington. Now I can concentrate on farm stuff again and maybe blog more often (but don't hold your breath between posts!). So, here we go ---

Well, even though Wisconsin Sheep and Wool Festival was about a month ago, I still have these nice pictures to share with you (and no new pictures), so that's what you're going to get. First off, the basket of roving and yarn that we included in our farm display, which you all saw on the last post. This is some of the roving we offer for sale, in addition to some of the yarn I spun from various fleeces.

Next, the basket that we donated to the silent auction, a "Coopworth Sock Kit", which contained two ounces of medium brown Coopworth roving, two ounces of dark brown Coopworth roving and some knitting needles. Thank you to all of you who bid on this. I was afraid no one would want it and I would have to have my mom bid on it, just to avoid being embarrassed if it was still sitting there after the auction was over!

Next, a picture of my purchases for the weekend. I wanted much more, but tried to limit my spending. I got my annual apparel - this year one of the green t-shirts (the other choice was brown and I just do not look all that good in brown). Also, a sheep calender for 2009, a garden flag (I have been looking for a garden flag with a sheep on it for years - I've got one with a rooster - now I have a sheep!), some extra bobbins for my Babe Production wheel and some gorgeous sock yarn - Toe Jamz - I don't think they have a web site. The t-shirt, flag and calender are from Ewesful Gifts - I'm a regular customer.

A closer shot of the sock yarn - I got two skeins of the Packer colors - glad I bought those on Friday - when I went past their booth later in the weekend, they were sold out! The blue/green mix will become socks for me, most likely. The Packer socks will be gifts.

Well, it was a fun, fun weekend - as always. Only 11 months to wait now until next year. Again, it will be the weekend after Labor Day, so mark your calenders!

I will leave you with a final shot of the last monarch butterfly that I hatched on the kitchen counter. This pic was also taken a while ago, but I took it with the idea of posting it on the blog, so here you go - - -

The last one for this year, as fall is upon us. They are talking about patchy frost this weekend. Time to start thinking about which herbs to harvest and dry and which to try to bring into the house and make houseplants of them. I think the pot of mint I may put into the barn over the winter - it is a perennial and hardy, but since it is in a pot, the barn may offer it a bit more protection. The basil I will dry, as I just used up the last of last year's dried basil in the spaghetti sauce last night. Soon the lambs will go to market and the fall breeding groups will be put together. Yep, fall on the farm!

Wisconsin Sheep and Wool - Part 1

First of all, I apologize for not blogging for over two weeks. We have been busy. School started again the day after Labor Day. I can't believe that Nicholas is in Junior High already. It seems just yesterday that he was learning the ropes in elementary school. Now he has to remember his lock combination, must go from room to room for his different classes - has to keep track of his homework, without so much help from the teachers! I am kind of glad he decided NOT to go out for Junior High Football - especially since the first game was held the day that we were experiencing the all day rain that was the remnants of Gustav here.

Of course, the start of the school year also means Wisconsin Sheep and Wool Festival for us. Always the weekend after Labor Day. We again took three breeds of sheep to exhibit - Polypay, Coopworth and Shetland. This year we added a table display to the sheep display. In addition to the general breed information, we took a Shetland pelt, some yarn and roving samples in a basket, farm brochures, breed organization brochures and newsletters - the "Sheep X-ing" sign was purchased from one of the vendors after we set up the display to balance it out!


The three sheep pens looked very similar to last year. Same three breeds, same sign. Different sheep. This year we didn't have any available for sale, so we took all six home with us. In fact, we took seven home, as we added a Shetland ram that we purchased from Psalm 23 Farm in Kiel, WI. I don't have a picture of him - right now he is in the tall weeds with some of our ram lambs - if I can see him over the greenery, I'll try to get a picture of him at a later date!



Here are our two Shetland girls that were at the festival. The picture is a bit washed out by the sun, but the sheep in front is the famous Sparx. Behind her, with her head in the feeder, is one of our lambs from this year - what some of the Shetland breeders would call an HST - her Head, Socks and Tail are white, while the rest of her is black. Hard to see on this pic - I apologize - my photo skills are lacking!

The two Coopworths we exhibited. I guess I should take pictures after they are done eating, so you would get to see more than just their rear ends! One colored and one white.

And now a couple of pictures of other people's sheep. This is the famous Chuck - a Dorper owned by Trophy Acres (Troy and Phyllis Antoniewicz). Troy organizes the Hall of Breeds and he and his wife, Phyllis are fun, friendly people. We enjoy seeing them each year at the festival. The Dorper is a hair sheep, so for those shepherds who don't want the hassle of shearing, they go with one of the hair breeds. The Dorper does get a coat of hair for the cold months and then sheds in the spring. This is Chuck's second year at the festival and he is very friendly and personable. Very stocky and nice looking, but wouldn't do me much good, since part of the reason we have sheep is for the wool.

This is one of the Lincoln Longwools that was across from our girls. I'm not sure who the owner is, but I just think the Lincolns are pretty.

And finally, a shot of me standing in front of the Fairgrounds map. Larry thought I should put a picture of me on the blog. Also good advertising for Briggs and Stratton, I guess!

Again, an absolutely wonderful weekend - the weather was fabulous - the rain held off, the temperatures were great - not hot, like some years. As you can see in the pic above, I had a long-sleeved shirt on, which in my opinion, is perfect weather - high 60's, low 70's! We talked to a lot of people, made some new contacts for wool sales, talked with friends we only see at sheep events. We take the sheep over on Friday afternoon and load them back up late Sunday afternoon. But we are spoiled - the fairgrounds is only about 10 minutes from here, so by 5:30 Sunday evening, we were all unpacked and the sheep were happily grazing back at home. I will try to get a few more pictures posted tomorrow - some fibery stuff for those of you who are more interested in that end of the festival. But all in all, a fantastic weekend - can't wait until next year!!