Category: Farming

Shearing day

Not long ago was shearing day. Before had we have to get pens and shoots set up to direct the sheep efficiently to the shearer. I had to go get wool bags, from the Wool Co-op I got half bags this time. The full-size ones are too hard to pack, they are taller than me. We also got my nephew to come and help out. Wrangling sheep is best done by young people, my son and nephew.

There is a crowding pen is at the far end of the shoot so the sheep can fairly easily be pushed into the shoot and past the one-way gates. You can see lambs on the right-hand side. They are small enough to pop through the fence and get out of the way. On the left are some late lambs from last year. They have been put there to be kept separate. They are too big to get back through the fence.

Despite taking many pictures most of them were terrible and I didn’t get any sheared sheep pictures because I had to grab the fleece out of the way as my husband handed the next sheep to the shearer. By the time I stuffed it into the appropriate bag, the sheep was long gone.
so here are the best of the bad shearing pictures. I am not sure that’s all the same black sheep but you get the idea. you can see how brown they look from being in the sun and weather and how black they are underneath.

I also have one lincoln sheep named Dolly. You can see how different her fleece is.

These are some of the wool sacks. I was sorting black wool I want to look at again and white wool I want to look at again and the stuff to go off to the co-op because I don’t want to look at it ever again. LOL

 

And some close-ups of some wool.

This one has so much lanolin the shine bounced the light and it looks grey.

It took about 4 hours to do 55 ish sheep. That’s about one sheep every 4.5 min. I know it’s no record but I still find it amazing. When it was all done we released the lambs to find their moms. There was a lot of noise while the lambs work out who mom is now she is sporting her new summer look. And the kids my 2 grandchildren and great-niece and nephew came in and gathered up all the little bits of stinky wool to play with. They had so much fun and smelled just like sheep in no time.

 

I wish I had better pictures for you. Maybe next year with no pandemic I can have Jan come play photographer.

Next Step for Needle books.

Continuing on from my last post about making felt for needle books, Felt for Needle Books I started sewing them together. Well, first I had to iron them all which always takes much longer than you think it will. Everyone forgets to mention this step or they just say iron your pieces like it’s nothing at all. There are no pictures of ironing, as fascinating as that might have been, I didn’t take any pictures.

I also only took one picture when I was sewing them together. There was much swearing, and unpicking that you didn’t need to see.

After sewing them together I had to think about how to decorate them. I went online and looked for line drawings. You can find them in any theme you like. I looked for sewing. I also used some I had saved from other projects. I traced them onto a nonwoven dissolvable stabilizer. This is great stuff and it doesn’t take much to dissolve it. You can’t use a marker for tracing, it dissolves the stabilizer. I used a thick pencil to trace my designs.

On to the stitching. The first one is a snail. I picked a variegated embroidery floss. I used all 6 threads because I wanted a heavy line.

You will notice that in the first of the snail pictures the book is sewn together but in the other 2 pictures, it is pinned together. After stitching the snail I realized I stitched it so the inside is upside down and so I have unpicked the thread holding it all together and will sew the inside in the right way.

This one I really didn’t know how to embellish, I have another one almost the same. I decided on a backstitched chain stitch using 2 similar colours. I didn’t need the dissolvable stabilizer for this one. It’s a bit wonky, but there you go.

I also did the smallest book.

Closed the little book is only 2.25 inches (5.7cm) square. That is big enough to hold some needles and a thread saver. This book only has one double, needle page. All the others have two, and they all have 2 pockets. I have one more smallish one and the rest are all bigger. The biggest ones are 4.5 inches (11.3 cm) square so big enough for a small pair of scissors. After I get all of the embroidered I will have to add some buttons and ties or elastics to them. Elastics can look messy if you don’t have layers to hide the ends between. How do you deal with cut ends when adding them to a project?

This is what’s new on the farm this week. These are baby chicks.

And these are baby turkeys. There is not much difference between them as day olds. But only a few days on and the turkeys have grown necks.

Five of them got stepped on by there friends and had isolated themselves away from the heat so they had to come inside and live in a box with a heat lamp, in my sewing room for a few days.

Here they are all better, in a bucket for their trip back to the group. this is the safest way for them to traves without getting hurt or too scared. You can see how they have grown in just a few days. Not sure why the look so grubby in the picture because they weren’t, just the light I guess.

Lambs

This is a short post today.  There is not much time for felting at the moment. We have started lambing here on the farm. We are a little early. Seems we missed a ram lamb and he was a very active little  fellow. Naturally with the weather being cold and wet we have some in the house.

Here is a brand new lamb, still all wet. Mom and baby were moved to a pen of ther own shortly after I took the picture.

These are the house lambs They are on bottles. This is ther first top in the living room. They have now moved to a Big pen in the basement.

And this is one that is getting warm sitting on my knee as I type this for you to read.

I am not sure how I am supposed to get ready to teach  Techniques for Intermediate Felters on Saturday. No rest for the weary as they say.

Well thats it from me , I have lambs to feed.

 

 

 

 

Around the Farm this Week

This week we’ve had some new arrivals. first was this lovely red Dexter heifer. born just before dark so the picture is of my son in the dark with my husband holding the flashlight.

Colin and Rosalee

Then we had some lambs.

lamb 1 lamb 3 lamb 2

This morning it was Chrissy’s turn. My hubby was going to feed the bottle lambs when he fount them. Lamb was up and dry. No problem bringing them in till Chrissy saw the bottles lying on the ground and was more interested in trying to get a drink then going in the pen with her lamb.  Once a bottle lamb always a bottle lamb. she was to busy nibbling my coat to get in the picture herself.

lamb 4 chrissy

 

I also washed some wool mostly it is still yucky with to much chaff in it. The brown looks ok and some of the white I can cut the curls from the felted base.   The rest will end up as mulch. Free fleece is seldom usable fleece.

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