Lena and Hebe did a wonderful job in the Shepherd’s Lead. Lena wore a shawl hand knit from fabulous yarn hand-spun by Betsy Viola of Horse Shoe Run. Betsy used wool from her longwool sheep at her Quaking Maples Farm and dyed it in her Aurora colorway. Lena’s skirt was also hand knit from 100% wool yarn.
Hebe cooperated very well with Lena. Her hard work teaching Hebe to lead paid off with a first place in her class!
Congratulations Lena!
Mom and Lena are helping us train the lambs to lead. We take the lambs to the Buckwheat Festival in the morning!
The signs of fall are everywhere, here on the farm.
Ironweed blooming
tart red apples
bright orange pumpkins
We are hard at work on Lena’s outfit for the Shepherd’s Lead contest at the Buckwheat Festival. Here is her poncho which we are knitting from the ‘Aurora’ colorway, handspun and dyed by Betsy Viola from Horse Shoe Run. This yarn is very soft and the colors are just beautiful! A hand-knit, deep purple skirt with a flower and a pom-pom tie will complete her outfit. The contest is next Saturday, so wish Lena good luck!
We planted a small dyer’s garden this summer with yellow cosmos, yellow bedstraw, dyer’s knotweed, and marigolds, etc. We hope to do some natural dyeing experiments this fall.
In the meantime even the monarch butterflies are enjoying all the beautiful flowers like this great crop of ‘Hopi Black Dye’ sunflowers.
Lena and Hebe are practicing for the Shepherd’s Lead contest at the Buckwheat Festival!
Lena submitted a story about her wool outfit and gave a great description of the lamb. Hebe is a Wensleydale-Coopworth X Border Leicester-Coopworth. She really is a beauty. The lamb is beginning to get used to the halter, and sometimes Lena actually leads Hebe instead of Hebe leading Lena. They are really doing great! We are all looking forward to our county fair, the Buckwheat Festival, which takes place the end of this month in Kingwood.
Time to enjoy the end of summer bounty from the garden, and nobody says it better than Guy Clark in his song –
Ain’t nothin’ in the world that I like better
Than bacon and lettuce and homegrown tomatoes
Up in the mornin’ out in the garden
Get you a ripe one don’t get a hard one
Plant ’em in the spring eat ’em in the summer
All winter with out ’em’s a culinary bummer
I forget all about the sweatin’ & diggin’
Everytime I go out and pick me a big one
Homegrown tomatoes, homegrown tomatoes
What’d life be without homegrown tomatoes
Only two things that money can’t buy
That’s true love and homegrown tomatoes
Daddy’s cousin, Bill, talked him into letting us raise an orphan lamb from the ag farm. Sharon promptly named him Jelly Beans, J.B. for short. Well, he grew and he grew! Since J.B. was never around other sheep, we think he grew up with the notion that he was one of the dogs. When J.B. got loose he would run around the house and up the old concrete front steps. Then he would bang his head against the front door, trying to get inside to the kitchen where he had been bottle fed.
Spring turned to summer and summer turned to fall, and we just could not keep that lamb penned up or fenced in. The final straw came one morning when J.B. escaped as usual but this morning he came running out of nowhere and followed us right on to the school bus! All the children were delighted, but not the driver of the bus who was none other than Bill, Daddy’s cousin, who had talked us into taking care of the lamb in the first place.
