Everywhere we look we are surrounded by yarn and fiber in beautiful vibrant colors, dark earthy colors, brilliant jewel-like colors. If you have not visited the festival it is hard to describe the atmosphere. It is exciting and overwhelming!
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Day One – Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival
By the time we got here, traffic was backed up the off-ramp all the way to the interstate, but we finally made it! First priority – visit the sheep barns – Border Leicesters first, of course.
Pictures above are from various barns and farms. Sorry, we neglected to make notes. We visited with Kelly from Spring Breeze Farm to give her an update on Liam and made our way around the barn. Check out this cute little Border Leicester ram lamb from Spirit Hill Farm.
We really enjoy the Sheep Breeds Display barn. Our ‘neighbors’, Dave Moran and Lori Walls from Crimson Shamrock in Eglon are here with their Wensleydale sheep. Who can resist a face like this…
Next, we are off to a seminar ‘Preparing your wool for show and sale’. Good info, learned some things and learned a lot browsing through the wool show – lots and lots and lots of great raw fleeces.
Friday night…the eve of the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival…Annie, the final ewe yet to lamb, decides this is the night. We were reminded of the old cartoon: Farmer “I wish she would lamb so I could go to bed” and the ewe “I wish he would go to bed so I could lamb”. No, really it was not that bad. Around 9:00 a beautiful border leicester ewe lamb was born! A EWE lamb!! Jonathan was very relieved. He is the main provider for the weekend and was not looking forward to dealing with a lambing ewe on his own. (He would have had plenty of support from the rest of the family.) Well, it is off to bed. We must get rest for the long drive at the crack of dawn tomorrow. We are off to the MSWF!
Quiet Week
It has been a pretty quiet week. We are patiently waiting for the final ewe to lamb. Annie was due on Monday and is taking her good old time.
There is a lot of anticipation for the weekend. We are going to the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival! We could only attend one day last year, but this year we are taking in the whole weekend. This is THE EVENT OF THE YEAR! Barns and barns and barns of sheep, wool, yarn, equipment! A shepherd/spinner’s dream come true!
This is where we got our first up close and personal glimpse of Spring Breeze 5017 ‘Liam’, our registered Border Leicester stud ram, shown here napping between shows. We will have lots of pictures and info to post next week, and you never know maybe a few surprises.Many thanks to the family for taking over the chores for the weekend!!
Hail-storm lambies update
What a great couple of days for the little fellows! Yesterday we moved them to a bigger pen and boy were they excited. Bounce, bounce, bounce…bounce, bounce, bounce! Today temperatures rose to the 70’s and the cute little coats came off. Another milestone!
Blackberry Twins
About 8 o’clock this evening, Blackberry began wandering back and forth between the two gates in the corral bawling to get out in one of the fields. She had decided there was no way she was going to have her lambs in the barn; too warm and dry, I guess. Luckily there is a spot light on the back of the barn, but we still had to follow the poor ewe around with flashlights so we could check her progress. Around 10 o’clock, a ram lamb arrived, 12 lbs 3 ozs, very strong and rambunctious. He was bouncing, yes bouncing, around the corral in no time at all. Blackberry was so worried and distracted by him, it took her a really long time to begin pushing for the second lamb. Finally, a little ewe lamb, 9 lbs 6 ozs! We got everyone into the barn about 1 a.m. and gratefully headed to bed.
Tough morning
It has been a very emotional morning as Queen Elizabeth’s little ram lamb died. It was doing fine when we checked on it during the night and early morning, but at 9 o’clock it had died. Queen Elizabeth kept pawing at the straw, crying and looking for her lamb. Jonathan and his friend, Megan, buried it near the Oreo’s lamb that was born dead last year.
We have been so lucky both this year and last – to have only lost one lamb, not to have lost any ewes, but nevertheless it has been a tough morning.
Queen Elizabeth’s lamb
The Q Liz had a tiny little ram lamb late this morning. We have been working with it all day as it was not strong enough to get up and eat on its own. Finally this afternoon it perked up and was eating unassisted. We are checking on it every hour or two. When we checked at midnight he was actually pawing at his mom demanding to be fed. Rejoice!
Enough snow already!
Spent all morning repairing the goat fence, again, from this very wet, very heavy snow!
Goats everywhere; dog mad, dog chasing (he doesn’t like the goats); little lambies freaking out from all the confusion.
Enough with the snow already!
Hail-storm lambies update
We made coats from the legs of old sweatpants following a tip from Martha at Deer Run Sheep Farm. We are also supplementing with about an ounce and a half bottle milk per day as Daireann does not seem to be producing quite enough milk yet. The little fellows are a lot more active now, and very cute in their little coats.