Mr B.

I have been really behind on getting new lamb pictures posted.   We are up to 7 ewe lambs and 10 or 11 rams.  I thought we had just a few more ewes to lamb, but it's looking like some of last years lambs -the yearlings, might  be milking up  

This little guy spent a night in the house with us last week.   I don't like to take them away from their momma, but this little guy was pretty unresponsive out in the pasture.   I checked on him several times and it seemed that he wasn't getting milk.   His mother was very attentive to him, and while best case scenerio would have been to take him to the barn with his family,  I couldn't get his mother in there.   (his mom is  wild Alice)   I had Alice in the barn to shear her when she had her babies and it seemed like he was getting milk then, but a day later it seemed a different story.

 Thanks to some wonderful goats milk from my neighbor Marlene, this little guy was up and running in no time!

 I took him back to Alice the next morning when it seemed like he was going to be ok and while Alice was a little uncertain about it all at first, she welcomed him back.    I was able to get her in the barn finally the following day and we were able to get the vet out to take a look at her.  It seems one of her udders has been damaged.  I thought she had mastitis last year, and after gathering the supplies needed, I tested and it was negative for mastitis.   I'm not sure, but think that she might have had mastitis in an earlier year and I didn't catch it.

 Despite that, she is a beautiful, hardy ole gal.   The vet said she is fine, and while I thought I would have to retire her, his advice was that we could keep breeding her as long as we didn't mind bottle lambs.  She has beautiful lambs, but I didn't want to keep breeding her if this was a condition that was hard on her.

 As far as minding bottle lambs ?  Does it look like we mind bottle lambs?

I just hate bumming milk!  (yet that goats milk is some really great stuff!)  Marlene is so kind and has always been so generous with her supply of goats milk.   We appreciate it and this little guy ? well, it keeps him coming back! 

Although he seems to hate to say goodbye, his mother is calling and he knows we'll be back in a little while.   Go ahead little guy - go be a lamb!

More Lambs

Out of 11 lambs, we are up to 3 ewe lambs. Fortunately we have several more ewes to lamb yet.

Meanwhile,
This little gal is one of Carlies' angels.

This is her sister:

This cute fella belongs to DiDi (from the lamb that had a broken leg/surgery, etc a couple of years ago)

And this is his adorable brother:

And this cutie is mine. He's been such a great helper. He showed me today that he can catch the lambs by himself now. (which is a skill that will be very helpful this fall come shearing time!) He sure loves to "hold the b mom!" "hold the b!"

Mug Giveaway

And the winner of the pottery mug (with the assistance of random.org) was comment #3 - Sharrie.

If you can get in touch with me with your address, I'll get this right out! Thanks for playing!

I'm a little behind on lamb posts - -ram lambs (looks like it's going to be a ram lamb year for sure -5 rams to 1 little ewe) - I'll post more photos soon!

Gray/Moorit Ram Lamb

Lambie had her lamb today. Her lambing record is pretty consistent: 1,1,1, ram, ram, ram. Her first lambing was a white lamb, 2nd year (last year) was a black lamb, and this year, she's had this lovely little gray moorit lamb.

I didn't realize Lambie carried the moorit gene, so that was a surprise. I guess a real surprise from her now would be twin ewes next year!

New Lambs

Deliliah had a set of twins yesterday, a ram (above) and a ewe.

This little gal here looks to be a gray black (see the silver around her mouth?) She'll have a gray undercoat with a black outer coat.

Big brother coming to check things out!

Pottery Mug Giveaway

I only do two festivals a year, but I like to have new designs for each show. For the Ky Sheep & Fiber Festival coming up in May, this will be one of the new items. I have several made for the show, so I'd like to give one away!

This is a 10-12 ounce mug and it's a little taller than it looks from the photo.
The mug was made on the pottery wheel, and the design was freehanded using the sgrafitto technique (painting liquid clay on the pottery and scratching away that clay to reveal a design)
Just leave your name below and next Saturday, with the help of random.org, we'll draw a name, and I will publish the winner in a blog post next Saturday evening.

These boots WEREN'T made for walking..

It's a little hard to tell from the picture, but these are Wyatt's favorite boots. At the slightest mention of putting up the cows for the night or checking the sheep, he's scrambling for those boots. "boots momma"

Unfortunately, they are way too big still and every 20 steps or so and this is what we have!

Sometimes you just have to sacrifice a little comfort and convenience for the sake of style.

Waiting on lambs

and it shouldn't be much longer!

Meanwhile.. the firstborn here is getting quite a bit of attention from us- not that he looks like he wants to be- is he sticking his tongue out at me?

oh wait, no that must have been a mistake-he's too sweet for that!

Aren't lambs cute when they're smiling? (and .. well, even when they're not?)

What a happy little lamb.

(And Alice, you were asking about a name... I haven't named him, but if you can come up with a name for him, it's all yours. While you're working on that, I'll work on shearing his momma)

All the signs of spring

Trees are blooming

Record breaking temps (83 yesterday) We have dandelions blooming too - doesn't it seem early for that?

We have a new lamb. It's time to be getting that wool off of the sheep. I have started shearing, just haven't got very far. Seems like spring used to come in a little slower than this. We're loving it though.

On the bookshelf..

Who doesn't just love a great book? I saw this book at the library and when I opened it, I knew it was going home with me for a spell! It's titled "Ceramics for Beginners". If you have every wanted to work with clay and want to get started making things without the wheel, this book will get you on your way. And while I agree it's great for beginners, I have to add there's likely something in there for many levels of potters.

There were so many great tips - and without giving away the contents of the book, here's just a small sample of tips:

Making a stamp using hot glue? I love it! If I was wanting to do something like this, I would have been carving on clay for days to make a stamp, but how neat is this? Just a wood block, and hot glue!

There were other great ideas for making your own stamps, and doing applique on the pottery.

I love this next idea here too - they are showing how to make a bird using newspaper as the armature. The paper will burn out during the firing. I love this idea too!

Hm, this would be a great way to make..... sheep!

Kiln Firing Complete

The kiln had lots of ewenice mugs (all brown) a few white sgrafitto mugs, (with the b&w designs) and some of the new "hot tub" or "fiber" mugs. I shared in a post before that the intent was that they were trying to get out, but they looked so relaxed, I just played on that with the others I made. This first mug was made for my neighbor that raises Nubian goats.
Their bodies would be much easier to sculpt if they had wool..lol. (i didn't do so well on the shape here)


and then sheep...

there's that wool. These mugs were fun to create, but had a few more challenges than the other style mugs. I look forward to trying more of them, it's really fun to watch the characters rise up out of the clay.

Sheep photos

It's been so long since I've posted pictures of sheep, it might seem as though we don't have sheep anymore! It's been hard to get out to get pics of them, and I had forgot how much time I used to spend trying to get good pictures. You can tell by these pictures, that this was a very quick photo session. We have 39 sheep right now, with possibly a few more on the way this spring.


above: Sweet Carlie.
Below: Lil friend.
Little Brown ewe. She doesn't have a name.. there are a few lambs that were sold, but never left here, so they didn't get named. I guess we need to come up with names for these gals -since they've been here nearly a year now. They deserve names.


This little lambs name is "carlies lamb"


Girlie:

These are the two new ewes we bought last fall. Daphne is in the corner with part of her face chopped off in the photo (great photography, huh?) And the other gal - well she's really one of my favorite ewes but I just can't remember what we named her! I'll get her a "HELLO, MY NAME IS_____" tag if I can come up with the name. My mind really is shot these days. I'm hoping it's just the lack of sleep.

This is another little ewe i didn't anticipate being here this winter, so she is lacking a name as well. I am going to have to get creative with naming sheep here.. or maybe buy a baby names book. Wow, that will get the family talking.


And Petey... he was going to leave us in the fall (to visit the butcher) but it's just been bad timing on our part.. when we were ready to take him, it was deer season - and lately, there's just been other things coming up. I was worried he would lose weight when the grass declined and we started feeding hay full time - yet, from the photo, he's either eating ok, or bloated. Maybe it's my camera? I sure don't remember him looking this wide, and one would think that would be noticeable?? Note to self, just in case it's the camera, I sure don't want to have my picture taken with it!

NOT another unfinished project..?

Oh YES IT IS! lol. I could spend a year just finishing up different thoughts and little ideas and projects around here.. and here's another example.

This is an idea that I knew I wouldn't be able to complete for a while (because I haven't found the glaze that I have in mind for it). I went ahead and started it, because if I didn't do it while it was fresh on my mind it would get pushed to that "i thought of doing that" pile.

This is an attempt to carve lil Wyatt onto a handmade tile. The original photo that I used, he was about a year old and had a blade of grass in his mouth. Well.. that ended up looking like a cigarette, so that didn't stay. It was a fun little project to sculpt/carve, but I really need to take a class or read a book on sculpting the mouth and eyes.. I had fun with the rest of it though.

Meanwhile, I'm looking for a glaze recipe that will have the look of something like bronze. When it's glazed, I'd like to make somewhat of a simple shadowbox style frame (without glass) to mount the tile to.

I need to focus on a few things, and not be so scattered with things i want to do, but there's just so many things you can do with clay! (and wool...) I just can't seem to stay focused!

Good news though - I'll be opening the kiln today, and the projects in it are completed..

Thank goodness.

A Shepherd's Cartoon

The caption is a little hard to read - "yes, I have a 2 o'clock footbath"

Woolworking Cabinet & Carding Station

This woolworking cabinet and carding station was something I drew up a while back and Jack made from wood he had down in the shop. It still needs to be painted, and it needs doors, but meanwhile I went ahead and started using it. (He's building a house right now..lol) Thinking of painting it with some sheep on either the top, or the doors.. something fun.

The cabinet is on rollers, so it's easy to move around (even though it's quite big) The carder is on a sliding shelf and it works nicely to card wool right there on the shelf while sitting in a chair next to it. I originally thought I would just store it on this shelf, and wanted the shelf to slide out so that the carder could be picked up easier and be placed on the top of the cabinet, but found that it's really more comfortable to sit and card the wool than to stand.

I would like to make one up that is just for a carder. I would put a drawer with sliders on it on the bottom to store wool that's being worked up in. Also, a thin drawer on the top to hold carding tools might be nice as well. The spinning wheel in this one, really was the motivation for a cabinet to begin with. (since i have a little boy that likes to pull on the spring, etc.. thought it would be nice to house it out of sight when not in use!) It's still in sight at the moment.

More Wool Experimenting

I am forever looking for ways to use up wool here..


Our former church goes to India every year and they take little dollies that are made and donated . I initially thought I would just be stuffing the dolls, (wool -of course) but when I was given a link to the pattern it looked simple enough. To think that some of the recipients may have never had a doll, or may never, was great motivation to make as many as possible before the deadline.

Even greater motivation was knowing that there would be a translator there to tell the girls the simple gospel message. The dolls were 2 sided, with a sad face on one side that represents life before Christ,

and a happy face on the other that represents the change that He can make in your life.


So that was the motivation behind the dolls, but the other advantages are that I'm 4 pounds lighter! (wool only..lol) And another advantage was getting to experiment with making dollie hair. The hair on these dolls were made from washed Icelandic lamb locks. They were made by taking a strip of black wet felted wool and the wool was needle felted onto the strip a layer at a time starting at the bottom working toward the top. (I used a strip of felted wool, but only because the doll had a face on both sides.. if the doll wasn't dual faced, i would have used a base the shape of a little cap to fit their head) Initially I was hand sewing the hair onto the dolls, but finished the last few by spraying Super 77 glue onto the back of the strip. It worked really great, much quicker than sewing and it was a good bond, but just had to be careful not to get any overspray of the glue on the hair. I'd like to experiment more with using wool for doll hair. If anyone has any experience they'd like to share.. . tips appreciated! :) Meanwhile, here in the upcoming months I'll be looking forward to starting dolls for next year- and hope to not be so 'last minute' finishing them this next time around!

Saturday Morning Doughnuts

Here's a little recipe that we've been enjoying here lately. They are doughnut drops and they are really quick and easy. The recipe makes more than this.. someone must have ate a few before the pic was taken! ?

1-1/2 c flour if using self rising flour, omit baking powder and salt.

1/2 c sugar

1-1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

2/3 cup milk

1 Tablespoon oil

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1 egg

Mix dry ingredients - add remaining ingredients and stir just until dry ingredients are moistened.

Heat shortening to 365 degrees. (i use an old iron skillet with at least an inch of melted shortening)

Drop the mix by the teaspoon into the hot oil -and cook 2 to 2-1/2 minutes, turning occasionally. Drain on paper towels or a rack. Once slightly cooled, roll in cinnamon sugar. powdered sugar, plain sugar, or serve plain

Cream, Sugar, and a lil Fiber

You know, I hate to waste anything.

(my mind being the exception to that rule)

This mug here was on its way to the recycle bucket. I had distorted the inside of the mug where the handle attached and it really didn't seem to be salvageable. I started to layer clay up on the inside of the mug where the problem was and thought maybe I should just put a sheep there instead.

For some reason I have an image of a sheep in my head that's stuck in a bag of wool with it's arms and legs coming out the top and an expression of "get me out of here!" on it's face. With that in mind (i don't know why it was there to begin with), but I thought I'd switch the thought up a bit and try it on a mug instead. This is slightly different in that the "bag of wool sheep" wants out, this sheep seems fairly content. She seems here more the girl along the edge of the pool... just kicking her feet, relaxing, and enjoying the warm water.