Meet Myrtle - (aka. Lilly)

Myrtle arrived here at our place earlier this week. She was raised on a bottle by a family that we attend church with. Myrtle grew up with lots of love, and good attention! She is adapting really well to the other sheep, the goats and the dog. (which is a LOT more than I can say about the bottle lamb we raised last year, lambie. Lambie still doesn't know why she's out there in the field with those "other'' creatures!) But Myrtle seems to like the other animals - and they have accepted her quite well too. We're glad to have her here.

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Rosco giving her his blessing. I wasn't sure how he would be around a new lamb, and when he started licking his lips, she didn't know about him either! She thinks he's ok now.

The other animals realized with all the attention on Myrtle here, that if they wanted their picture taken, they better move that way. (Poor Josie, seldom gets her picture taken.)

Wool I planned on shearing this week...

Sometimes the best laid plans... are interrupted by the weather! It's done nothing but rain this week.. looks like i should have started shearing last week when the wool was dry and the sun was shining! Instead, I was taking pictures.. here are a few pictures that didn't make it on the post last week.
This is Alice. I think she likes us, but we'll never know for sure. She is a very hardy ewe, and that's good, because she is really hard to get in the barn. I have to plan ahead weeks in advance to work up to catching her. They say 'sheep are dumb' (i know, it's not my friends that talk about sheep like this!) .. well, this won't say much for me, because she generally out-smarts me.

This is her boy Frank... seems this is the only kind of picture i can get of him.. head down and eating! (well, it's that, or his back side and he's running away!) His mother definitely passed on her hardiness to him.

And this is gal is out of Alice from 2 years ago.. LeAnne.

And sweet Carlie and Ziggy.

I hope the weather is more cooperative next week for shearing!

A few sheep pictures...

I had the opportunity to take a few photos this morning... I am going to start shearing here soon (doesn't mean that i'll be "finished" shearing soon.. just starting..) But thought i should get a few pics before they're bare! It ended up being a bit of a contest to see who was the most photogenic... Delilah won.

But Lambie came in a close 2nd...

She seems to enjoy having her picture taken.. and once she realized what was going on, she relocated to another location and started posing...

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And Andy.. .not sure how photogenic he is

Handsome Joe...

Joe Again..



And Cody. Nice pose Cody.

Introducing Ewenice...

In preparing for the Ky wool festival that is coming up soon, I wanted to make sheep related pottery.. this is the first idea - Meet Ewenice.

Currently, her image is plastered on mugs, vases and flowerpots and will be moving onto pitchers and bowls soon. I have a lot of silly ideas.. i can see her with a baby lamb, or twins.. but she's quite young for that - however, it looks as though she could be carrying twins. We'll see.

Knitting and crochet needle holders.

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Of course this is all experimental... and a learning process here, but I plan to glaze the pots, leaving Ewenice "bare" .. well, she has a good covering of wool, so not 'exactly' bare, but she'll be unglazed.

And a few more yarn bowls and some "iris coffee" mugs.

I plan to carve a folk art style sheep design today to use on mugs, etc.. and I need to start thinking about horse ideas too. the Ky Horse Heritage Days is coming up even sooner than the wool festival! Oh no, I have to get going!!

lol

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Polyester and Wool

I ran across these pictures a couple of days ago.. they are of my brother, myself -and lambs!
(from approx 1976..1977)

All this good training and I take a lambing book to the field during lambing season? lol.

From the kitchen window...

We're planning on building a house.. we haven't settled on any particular plan as of yet, but i'm wondering first and foremost - where should the kitchen window face??? I enjoy washing dishes, but mostly because I can look outside while doing the dishes! This is a scene from earlier in the week when I put up yet another temporary lot to get the sheep off of the grass in their lots (the barberpole worm seems to be lasting more than 30 days on the pastures, so moving them back from one lot to the other after the "rest" period hasn't been so efficient this year) Temporary fence is a hassle to move, but it's worth it.

This is Frank.. one of the first ram lambs born this year. It was hard to get a "heads up" picture of any of the sheep once they were turned out on the fresh grass. Frank and his brother Jesse seem to have good potential to be breeding stock. They are quite young still.

Ziggy wanted to know if "this wool made him look fat?" Yeah, i think it's the wool, Ziggy.

And yarn bowls... I had not made any pottery for a month or so, but had an opportunity to throw a few pots yesterday and trim them this afternoon. These are the first yarn bowls I've made, and if anyone out there has any suggestions or comments, experience using yarn bowls, etc... I'm open for ideas!

Hope everyone has a great, safe Labor Day!