Category: Uncategorized
Moe could have told you that
“Tell sheep they all look alike, and they may beg to differ. Like primates, sheep, in studies, recognize different faces (about 50 other sheep and 10 humans) and still know them two years later. They are calmed by familiar faces and can tell both happy and angry expressions (they prefer the former). These are sophisticated abilities in an animal not widely known for smarts, says Babraham Institute’s Keith Kendrick. How the sheep brain encodes facial identity and emotional cues may be relevant in some human disorders, he says.”
— “Minds of their Own”, National Geographic, March 2008
In which Tiger gets a new home…
Tiger took the ride to the big city this morning. He cried quite a bit on the way which resulted in Raven, worrying, whining, pawing and staring at me most of the time. Raven could not figure out why I was not doing anything to help the distressed little kitty. Well, we made it, and Tiger met his new best friend at The Book Exchange and was pretty much a spoiled little kitty the rest of the day.
Thank you, Sean, for giving this great little guy a new home!
Busy in the fiber room
The Sheeps and Peeps fiber room has seen a lot of activity during these dreary February days. There are racks of drying fleece.
This beautiful fleece is from Blackberry, a Border Leicester-Coopworth-Cotswald cross and is a beautiful mix of shades of grey, black, brown with some sun-kissed tan tips. Portions of it are a dark blue-grey that is just wonderful.
There are screens of fiber in various stages of preparation and plant material being prepared for the dyeing process.
There are skeins of yarn dyed with plants from last summer’s dye garden; shown below (l. to r.) Hopi Sunflower, Cosmos exhaust and black tea.
More naturally dyed skeins shown below (l. to r.) Coreopsis, Tansy, Cosmos and Cosmos with added baking soda.
More fiber being picked, blended and carded.
All resulting in some, what we think, are some pretty wonderful spinning fibers, available here.
Rowdy Kittens
Muffy’s kittens are about 4 weeks old now. They are becoming very active and more independent.
So much so that we moved them downstairs into one of the lambing jugs this weekend.
They are beginning to eat out of Muffy’s bowl. Kitten jealously guards the bowl until it gets its fill.
Each one is so different and is developing its own personality.
Dipstick and Bootsie spend a lot of time wrestling.
Tiger is perhaps the most independent of all and spends a lot of time in ‘attack mode’.
A Productive Dyeing Day
We began the day by preparing a Marigold Dyebath, breaking up a large amount of dried stems, leaves, and flowers in the dyepot and simmering for an hour.
From this stinky ugly brown concoction, we got some very lovely yellow hanks of yarn
and the next day a more golden/tan color on some locks of wool from our Coopworth cross ram lamb, Goliath.
While the marigolds were beginning their magic, we used our canned hibiscus liquid to begin dyeing another hank. This yarn is still soaking for a couple of days.
We also did some rainbow dyeing of yarn and mixed lamb locks. First, using turquoise, purple and periwinkle.
And then using emerald (brightened with some yellow), pink and turquoise.
Using up our left over emerald, we rainbow dyed some additional locks.
Woo Hoo!! We feel like we accomplished a lot!
Warm Wooley Hats
I have recently finished two hats made from my spindle-spun yarn:
The beautiful brown was gifted to us from our coopworth cross ewe Hera. The blue yarn is spun from wool we dyed in a spinning/dyeing classes we participated in.
It is so fun, and such a feeling of pure accomplishment, to make something starting from the very beginning of the process — raw wool.
This one looks better on a model!
Ohh, they are so warm!!!!
Thank You Hera!
The Ram Cram
How many large rams will fit in a 3X4 pen? Well it turns out that 3 large rams fit perfectly. We broke up the breeding groups and very snugly, penned up 3 of the rams together for 24 hours. We used this method last year with success and it worked very well this year also. By the time we turned them out, they were not interested in much more than eating and getting a drink of water.
They behaved fairly well as we led them around the perimeter fence to the top of the hill and are now pretty much settled in.
We kept Liam, Sally and Dawn in another small, separate group. Liam has been very busy with a large breeding group and we wanted to give him a little less competition at the feed trough. Sally is our old girl and needs a little extra TLC. Dawn is our special girl and does not handle stress well. The three are quite happy in their small paddock.
The four remaining ram lambs (almost yearlings) are also in their own small paddock. We used Goliath in a small breeding group but he seems to be fitting right back in with his buddies.
We have the large group of bred ewes, ewe lambs and wethers in the graveyard field and by the barn. Snostorm is standing guard and enjoys being reunited with everyone. We were really fortunate that the weekend weather was unseasonably mild and warm.
Our beautiful, rescued barn cat, Muffy, gave us a belated gift. Well really four of them.
Muffy made a small, warm nest upstairs in the hay. She is being a wonderful mother!
The kittens are just beginning to open their eyes and crawl around a little bit.
DaVita hangs around close by.
Kismet keeps a watchful eye from up on high.
Oh, the weather outside is frightful…
the ram lambs are frosty….
the rams and ewes are pretty snowy too…
and Samson sounds like a wintry wind chime when he runs, as icy balls chime a frosty song.