DESERT PEACH FARM

Catching Up

2012-02-18T13:13:00.000-08:00

It seems like forever since the last post.This winter was warm and dry till this month. We have gotten some rain and snow in February, enough to get the grasses going but not much up in the mountains for the skiers and the water for Reno.
Stating with Simon and Casey my Livestock Guardians. Simon will be two in April. He is now a solid, calm sweet heart to those he is introduced to, and a force to be reckoned with for any dog or wild predator on the other side of the fence.

Then there is Casey! She was one year old in December still too young to be trusted with the sheep while she is alone. She's the same height and length as Simon but lacks he's over all bulk and mature brain. She is just starting to learn to walk and keep her head down while moving with the sheep. Until the last few months when she greeted the sheep it was a free for all. She truly loves to be with them but she was treating her wooly friends with what I called "reckless abandon". Like in this picture she thinks life is good, full steam ahead and if "I love you, I jump all over you."

Sally the emu and the chickens are in full laying mode! The first chicken egg was found on Christmas morning. Merry Christmas to me and now I get 6 to eight eggs a day. My older hens, at least five years old, were to first to lay. Then the new hens, my Easter-eggers followed about a week later.
I'm proud of the old girls and think the kiefer and alfalfa they get each morning is helping with their good health and the large eggs they've been laying this year!

This coming May our spinning and weaving guild was invited to participate in Reno's first "Living History Faire" to be held at a park in Reno. The Celtic group in Reno has adopted our guild so we will be setting up with them to form a very large showing at the Faire!
I've been felting hair clips or dreads to sell at the Faire. It feels so good to get back into felting again.

Since people participating at the Living History Faire are encouraged to wear "period" clothing my sweet friend Jo is making us some skirts and blouses with the Celtic look, and for shoes I felted these with some Shetland roving and stuck some of my old Birkenstock sandals inside for arch support!

Fall Color

2011-10-28T14:20:00.000-07:00

Sumac Trees

Apple tree

Ornamental grass, Virginia Creeper, and the orange color is a native bush. Not sure of it's name but we call it a Logan Berry. It is not a true Logan Berry but it did come from seed out of Mrs. Logan's yard!

A new area all turned, mulched and ready for garlic. If you biggify this picture you can see some red seed packs on the Asparagus plant.

This picture was taken a few weeks back. The pumpkins are all orange now ready for Halloween.

Ash tree and an Aspen Tree.

Ornamental grass.

Pretty little dwarf Cedar next to our house.

Fall Crocus (Colchicum) are great fun. In the spring large green leaves fill their area dieing back in the hot summer. Come this time of year the flowers poop out. They are always a surprise to me.

Hattie and her lovely moorit ewe lamb Betty. Shaela ewe is Limerick.

Mud Monkey

2011-09-19T12:44:00.000-07:00

Casey and I were walking up on our mountain today and she found her first ever live Rattle Snake! She was ahead of me and was barking at a Sagebrush plant. When I got up to her and saw what was going on she learned a new lesson. Casey now understands very well what it means when I go into panic mode and scream "RUN AWAY!

Her favorite summer activity. Cooling off in the mud on a hot summers day!

Drama Queen

2011-07-07T14:28:00.000-07:00

July here has been hot and wet. In one weeks time we had another inch of rain.Yesterday the clouds rolled in about 2 in the afternoon. This means thunder storms and the potential of range fires. Dry lighting is when the fires start and if your lucky you get the huge rains that come with the clouds and fire is not so likely if lighting hits near buy. So far so good and our area has been under the rain clouds.

I have some new additions to the farm. They came in June. Eight little Easter-egger chicks. Wynonna Wyandotte a three year old hen has taken over their care. I purchased the chicks at the feed store at what proved to be the perfect time. Wynonna had been broody for a few weeks so when the chicks were placed under her she was thrilled with a job well done!

Good Mother

Her three golf balls that she had tended to for almost three weeks had hatched into eight beautiful pullets.

Now the reason for the title of this post. Dear sweet Casey was snatched up bright and early last Thursday June 30th and taken to the vet to be spayed. I picked her up in the late afternoon. Literally. It took two of us to get her in the car in the morning and two helpers at the vets office to carry her back to the car for the ride home. Of course they weighted her, she was a whooping 80 pounds at 6 months old, and we had to carry her to the scale and then back to the kennel to wait for her surgery.

Drama Queen

Over the years I've seen several dogs and cats come home from the vets after a spay or neuter and marveled at the way they came out of such surgery's. After the first day of sleeping off the anesthesia it seemed an effort to get them to rest and heal. They were always ready to get back into life. Not so Casey!

She wanted to hide in small spaces while she jumped up every few minutes to look at her belly then lick, lick lick! I found that if I wrapped a small bath towel around her and duct taped it securely were it over lapped on her back she would settle down. She even let it stay around her and didn't try to get it off. About the third day she was resting much easier but only leaving her hiding place to go potty. She always ate good but she had to be fed in her "hole" never coming out to eat. Her wound never was infected or any of that bad stuff that could have caused her to be so upset. Now she has been dubbed "The Drama Queen" .

It took six full days for her to follow us on a walk up the mountain! Simon is thrilled his best buddy has returned to the act of living. He stayed back behind the barn those six days and kept a watch on Casey. It is sure great to be back to normal!

June

2011-06-17T11:58:00.000-07:00

This blog post starts with some lambs that were born in May. Oma has two ewe lambs (no picture). They were born May 5th nice looking little black girls.One will fade to grey.
Then on May 18th Kenick had one ram lamb, awesome little black guy with a short tight crimp, and one of my cull ewes with no name had one ram lamb. These lambs are the result of Watson getting out into the ewe's I did not want bred!! And it's just the beginning of another flock of lambs born in June.

Ceilia's ram lamb growing fast. His ram twin, solid black, went to California with Jorga's black ram to be part of Cissy's show string.

Stevie and Artie's ram.

One morning after a night of heavy rain I checked my rain gauge, a red wagon. It had over three inches of water in it. An extreme amount of rain for our area. And the entire back half of my barn had two to three inches of water and muck! Poor ewe's were all standing around in the dry half. No room to lay down. That morning I fed the ewe's out side. It was still raining a bit but was dryer outside on the hill than in the barn.
Needless to say I spent the better part of the day cleaning out two large piles of wet heavy muck!

Now back to June lambs. Miryah started things off the first of this week with a YUMMY, AWESOME, ram lamb.She did very well being a small yearling who was suppose to wait till this fall to be bred.

Underneath this coppery brown coat is a dark grey, shaela? Or maybe since I see some lighter grey also maybe emsket. Time will tell no matter what he stays! I even gave him a name.

RIO

Miryah had her lamb before I went out in the morning on June 11th. In the afternoon I found Charlee with two lambs a ram and a ewe out in the field under the big Poplar trees. Then just before I came in from the evening chores another cull ewe had a ram lamb.

Monday the 13th Bella had one ram (above) and Siskin had two ewe lambs. Note Watson covered six ewe's in one outing!

OK, number six ewe Jilly Bean, another cull who would have been butchered last winter lambed this morning June 17th with one ewe lamb. The great thing about this birth was it is the first time I let the puppy's stay and be with a ewe as she lambed. Both puppy's and the ewe were very relaxed. The sheep are getting use to having the dogs close by and I think the main interest with the puppy's was soon if they wait patiently there would be an after birth as their reward!

Watching the New Baby

May Pictures

2011-05-05T11:25:00.000-07:00

Casey on our mountain of green. "It's getting hot out here".

Thought I'd get some picture posted of the green mountain before it drys up for the summer.

Great time to climb the hill and watch the sheep grazing.

Two previous years the sheep started grazing grass in late February or early March.

This spring we had grass up here but between snows and cold days it wasn't growing much. They were not able to graze much till April.

Now it is all going to seed. The rich spring grass was lost to all the cold. Some of my ewe's that lambed are getting TOO thin from nursing their lambs without the rich spring grass to fatten them up before lambing.

Today it will be in the high 70's and Simon is feeling the heat.

New Stuff

2011-04-29T13:24:00.000-07:00

And some of my favorite things!

Casey pup is now 4 months old and growing well. She adores her sheep and goats threw the fence. They don't have the same feelings for her yet. When I take her in with the sheep she sticks close to me or Simon for protection. I have a few evil sheep who would love to clobber her but everything is coming along well. The sheep are getting use to her and Simon little by little.

Thunderhead Argentina, I call her Jo, has other ideas when it comes to the dogs. She comes straight at Casey to get a good look. If Casey doesn't stand still then the chase is on. Jo just has to get up close and personal and Casey is not sure it's very safe thing to be doing yet.

I don't have much in the way of fancy colorings in my Shetlands yet, so Jo is a favorite. She is a two tone gulmoget, my only gulmoget, that I picked up at Black Sheep Gathering last year. Friend and guild member Heidi bought a "Time Share" with my sheep and choose Jo's fleece as part of her share. Jo produced a great fleece that starts out black at the neck and faded to white at her britch. Heidi was thrilled with her new fleece, some lamb chops from the freezer and several buckets full of compost for her garden! Just part of the benefits of a "Time Share" at Desert Peach Farm!

Another pretty face is WSR Miryha. She came down with Jo from BSG last year. Calm and a born leader Miryha is a tiny well built katmoget.

She is just a little girl but she is built wide and is very correct from one end to the other.

We sheared 20 sheep a few weeks ago and here are two samples of some yearlings fleece. Shirley is on the left, a washed lock and in the center are the unwashed locks. The short locks are from another yearling ewe Kenick. I'm in love with the fleece I got from Shirley! LONG, tippy, shiny and Oh so soft! I do like Kenicks fleece too. It is very soft not as shiny a bit felted at the tip so you lose the tippyness and it did wash up well.

The reason I'm showing the difference in the two fleeces is that when Shirley was born a few people felt it was wrong, or at least undesirable to have all those "Shirley Temple" curls on a new born Shetland. (picture of Shirley below) Seems a tight close crippy fleece is the goal. I love breeding for the 6 inch fleece as opposed to the three inch fleece as long as they are as soft and shiny as Shirley's!

Lambs and More Lambs

2011-04-13T12:08:00.000-07:00

My goodness since the 7th of April things have been crazy here when it comes to lambs. We still have not sheared the sheep. Our last date was snowed out. We had another foot of snow two days before the date to shear so I canceled. I'm trying desperately to clean up around here since we will be shearing on Sunday the 17th. But the ewe's have other ideas.
I'll start from the beginning. This is Hattie with her two ewe lambs born on April 7th. Sired by Stonehaven Watson.

Hattie (Who)

Then in the afternoon I found Kess with two ram lambs. Sired by WSR Artie. (Whiteoak Shetland Ranch)
One note for Kess she had a blind lamb last year when bred to Stonehaven Duncan. Good going Artie no blind lambs this year!!!

Kess

April 8th Jorja had one ewe and one ram. Sired by Watson. Jorja had a single lamb two years ago and was bred last year but slipped her lambs a month early. Good to see she's OK this year.

Jorja (Ray)

April 9th I went to a guild meeting in Reno. Before I left everyone, sheep that is, looked normal out on the field grazing. When I got home I found Stevie and Hazel up on the hill each with their two new born lambs! Stevie below lost her little ewe lamb last year to a predator, coyote, eagle, neighbors dog? still not sure. She had a ram and a ewe this year. It was about an hour before this picture I found her ewe lamb dieing! I'm not sure what happened. She was laying by herself and soon after she was taking her last breath. Stevie's ewe was three days old and doing fine. At least she has her ram lamb. I'd hate for her to go two years in a row without a lamb of her own. I'm leaving her dead lamb with her for awhile so she understands what happen to her. Was she hit too hard by another ewe? Not sure. Stevie was bred to Artie.

Stevie

This is Hazel below:

Hazel

and her two lambs. A ram in the feeder and her ewe lamb behind. Have you noticed a theme? Most everybody has a black lamb and a dark brown lamb! Hazel was bred to Watson.

On April 10th Valla was out in a snow storm and gave birth to her twins and ram and a ewe! It was not very cold, in the high thirty's, and the snow was not sticking but I was still surprised that they were nearly dry and not chilled! Valla (La) was bred to Artie.

Now Pepper (Pots) had her two lambs on the same day as Valla another ewe and a ram.

Pepper

Here she is with her two lambs. Both very black.

It was nice and quite here for two days. I was even able to good to town without coming home to any surprises. This morning Stonehaven Cielia gave birth to two ram lambs! One little guy has some white splashes of color on him. Cielia is marked the same. The sire to her lambs is Watson.

This is not the end of lambing yet. Evie is looking big and ready to lamb but after her God only knows!
Total count 8 ewe's 16 lambs 7 ewes, 9 rams and one ewe lamb died. All eight ewes had twins.

Fiber News

2011-04-07T12:52:00.000-07:00

This is a long delayed post on some of the fiber news that has happened here in the last few months. First and foremost here is the fiber I won from Laura in her blog drawing. Beautiful spring bling BFL/silk roving! I have some felting ideas ready for this fiber.

A few months back I felted these scarves from some fiber I got at Black Sheep last summer. I bought it from Capistrano Fiber. I took them to show and tell at our guild meeting. Virva our president sent me to her friends shop in Reno "My Scandinavia" and Pia has them for sale in her store.

Another lady at the store saw my Tiny Sweaters and bought 7 of them. Her husband, now diseased, grew up on Gotland Island. She still visits his family every summer and is taking the sweaters as gifts. Most of her choices were the Shetland sweaters. I told her all about my sheep so she could let her friends and family know what type of wool the sweaters were made of. I also put in an order for a few Gotland Sheep fleeces! ;o)

Sharon made up a hat pattern so I gave it a test run with some of my hand spun Shetland yarn. The brown hat shows the complete pattern. I modified the gray hat a bit just because.We are going to make Hat Kits with our home spun yarn and Sharons hat patterns. Sharons been doing most of the work, planning out how much yarn we need for each hat and finding jars to display our kits in. She has a nice looking plastic jar coming from a company on line. If this sample works we'll put three colors of hand spun and a pattern in each jar for a cool gift idea.

Another new fiber event that took place just last night was Hattie "Who" presented me with two ewe lambs this morning! Here we go! I have no idea how many ewe's will lamb this spring. I do know it's at least 12 and it should go on till June 24th. That date is according to the last time Watson made his escape into the ewe's pen on January 24th. YEEKS

Kiddin' Around

2011-04-03T12:35:00.000-07:00

It's been almost two weeks ago my two Mini Lamancha's, Ginger and Nutmeg gave birth. Megan had triplets on Monday the 21st of March. Two bucks and one doe. Doe in the front they are all dark brown. One little buck has some white on his side and tail. She had them on her own during the night. I went out that morning to find her kids all dry and with tummy's full. Just love that kind of birth!

Doe. I just burned off their horns yesterday. I haven't had baby goats to disbud in years. It wasn't hard to do after all those years. Well one hard part is getting me down on my hands and knees to disbud them. I figured out kneeling on a bale of hay while I restrained them gave me the height to get back on my feet! I'm not good about getting up off the floor any more.

It's so hard to get a good picture of three baby goats at the same time. Lambs are cute and bouncy but goats have them beat in the bouncy category! Note the brown kid. Where ever there is a feeder kids must be in side.

Tuesday morning March 22nd Ginger was acting like she wanted to kid. I know her breeding date was somewhere around a week after Megan. After watching her for a few hours I gathered her up to feel if she truly was trying to kid. Right there waiting to get out was two feet and a head. I'm not sure why she didn't push so I pulled and out came the first kid. The second and the third kid were the same. Position was right but no push from Mom. Maybe because each of these three doe kids were so tiny. I'm not sure why she didn't push but all three are happy and doing well and half the size of the kids born one day earlier!

Three little does all brown, they have the same father as Megan's kids. Megan and Ginger are litter mates.

The little brown kids are hard to tell apart. One is "Little" one is "Middle" and one is "Big" until I come up with real names.

Whine and Roses

2011-03-19T14:37:00.000-07:00

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times" or as I will put it "Whine and Roses".
"Whine": I hurt my knee a few weeks back and can't find the time to rest it.
"Roses" last Monday I took a field trip with Paula and Paula. We seem to have an abundance of Paula's in our neighborhood. We went to Nevada City CA to visit a nursery "Peaceful Valley Nursery" and I found some organic seed for the garden this summer. Good way to rest a knee!

Whine: I have at least 20 more sheep than I feel comfortable taking care of this year. My total count is around 40. Cleaning the barn has been the pits this winter. Wish I had a farm hand.

"Roses": I found my farm hand a few weeks back a DR Power Wagon! I've been spreading the mountains of barn litter out on our other piece of land. I fill feed sacks with the moist litter, and stand them up in the wagon. Nine sacks fit in the wagon which is about twice as much bedding as it would hold by just filling it to the top of the wooden racks. You can't see it but the wagon has an engine in the front. Say "Power Wagon". After it's full I start up the engine and out the barn to other side of the property we go. The wagon does the heavy work and I walk behind. It's a marvelous invention!
"Whine": Since our warm dry February it has been raining, snowing and in between we have had some fierce winds. Then this morning I woke up to two more inches of snow. Yuck

"Roses": the fierce winds do wonders when I spread barn litter. Just dump the bag and kick the litter to the next county. Today's snow melted fast and made a perfect play ground for two puppy's! In the picture above Casey is mouth fighting with Simon and in a flash she has jumped on his head and over she goes to the other side.

Simon and Casey play endlessly. This morning they had a "Bully Stick" to run with and play catch me if you can.

On March 24th Simon will be 10 months old and Casey will be 3 months old. What a difference in size 7 months makes when your a growing Gampr.

Another rose is that under the snow is green grass. In the next few weeks I can let the sheep out on the mountain to graze. Just in time for lambing!

Casey is such a beautiful puppy!

She walks the fence line of the sheep and gives them her little "wiggle butt" action telling them she would love to be their friend. I do take her in with the sheep but she's still not safe to stay on her own. I have a few killer sheep and goats but soon they will get the message that Casey is a friend.

More "Roses" the chickens are now laying eggs full speed. I even was able to sell a dozen to Sharon the other day. Life really is good!

Fat sheep and fat goats means it's time to kid and lamb. I also have a date to shear the sheep next week end.
Biggify this picture above. Nut Megan the goat could just be carrying a litter of kids in that belly.

Soon they will be out grazing and I can stop my whining about the price of hay this time of year.

Puppy Love

2011-03-06T13:59:00.000-08:00

Last spring when I lost two lambs in one morning got me thinking I needed more protection for the sheep. Llamas came to mind but never did find one and really wasn't up to learning about llama care.
So when Paula found some great Gampr pups for sale I gave it a try. Simon has been here since October 2010 and I just love him! He is 9 months old now. Simon lives behind the barn and has access to our other ten acres during the night. Our other dogs are older and don't seem to want to play as much as Simon does.


About two feet of snow 2/2011

So Simon got a puppy!! This is Casey. She is around 11 weeks old, born on 12/24/10. She is a cousin to Simon. Half Gampr, her mother looks just like Simon and the other half, dad is Pyrenees/Akbash. Well this is a match made in heaven.

Casey (just thought of the name today) needs Simon, whimpers when she can't find him and Simon runs to her aid when he hears her cry!
The picture below is their first day out on the back field. Simon brought a bone over, Casey took it and Simon just watches her enjoy the bone.

They play together in between puppy naps. Simon has been very gentle when he plays with her.
My dogs have been getting mostly raw food this last month with some dog kibble at night. Casey loves a good chicken leg. Simon has his leg quarter but finds it more interesting to watch puppy eat! I tried to feed her alone in the barn so she could set back and eat with out interference but she would have non of that. She wanted to be with Simon so I guess it works.

She looks a little wet and pitiful in these pictures. It has been raining all morning. Our snow is finally retreating. Casey already follows us up the mountain. After about a half hour she's ready to go back to the barn.

Jake comes into the field threw the garden gate. Jobeth, Simon and Casey waiting for Jake to get there.

I was concerned about how rough Simon was with Casey when we first got out to the far north field. He came up and mouthed her neck pushing her to the ground. Then he ran off to the far fence to check on the neighbor dogs. She sat and watched him go. I believe he was keeping her from following him out in the dangerous unknown where little puppy's could get hurt. With all my dogs I believe I will have one BIG happy family. Jobeth is big at heart!

Spring Showers

2011-02-13T11:49:00.000-08:00

I know I should not complain but it has been way too warm and dry here in Reno the last few weeks. It will be in the 60's here today and almost 70 degrees in Reno! I want winter to be over and this just isn't right for February. Someone loves the weather lately. Junior and Sally the emus are begging for me to give them a bath every day. So I get the hose out and it's shower time.

Junoior lays in the water and then poops up and gives a great shake sending water in all directions.

Sally takes the reserved approach and sits quietly while the water flows under her belly and I take the hose and shower her over her back.

It was only 40 degrees the morning these pictures were taken. Seems 40 degrees is the proper temperature to start asking for their bath.

Who would have thought emu's loved the water so much.

From approximately November/ December Sally starts laying eggs. This goes on every three days till early spring. Junior is the nest builder and what a fine job he has done! Once he gets about six eggs in the nest he'll get broody and start to set. Male emu are the egg setters and chick raisers. Females go off and find a new male and his nest since they will lay up to 30 eggs in a season. I take the eggs away though because I don't need any more emu!

Life In Prison

2011-01-26T11:38:00.000-08:00

without parole. Or maybe death by electrocution? Meet Watson the ram from hell. He is almost two years old and has been the sweetest most calm laid back ram until about a month ago. This is when he decided he had to go back in with the ewes. He started by getting threw gates so I went to town and bought chain to fasten all the gates between him and the ewe's.

Most times when he got out I had my back up plan. One more field and another gate to go threw in order to be in with ewe's I did NOT want bred. He can not even see the ewes from the boys field. This got Watson thinking and he became more resourceful in finding ways to break out.

Pull fence with horns up root t-posts and over the field fence and in with the ewe's. OMG he knew he could get out there and there was no stopping him!
So the next plan of attack was to get him in a smaller pen without field fence and all livestock panels. This would keep him out of the field with the other boys. My only other pen like this is right next to the ewe's but he could not go over the fence or uproot t-posts. To stop him from bashing the panels I set up some electric fencing about one foot off the ground. After I set up all the hot wire I walked down the hill to plug in the charger. BAM he hit the fence before I could get the charger on and broke the electric line. Back up the hill I went to fix the wire and I ran to the barn to get the charger on. Yes! back up the hill I went, but wait why is Watson laying on the ground? His body was pulsating every two seconds like short seizures. Sh#t his horn was caught in the electric wire. Run back to the barn to unplug the fence. I have to admit as I ran back down the hill I thought I might have killed him and was relieved that all this crap was over. Fear not Watson is fine and I have finally won this battle. Watson is still in his new home (three days now and has not settled down yet) and has learned to stay about 10 feet away from all fences with electric wire! The ewe's don't bother him because as they poke their cute little noses threw the fence they get zapped too. As much as I hate electric wire I could not have stopped Watson without it!
I bought more insulators for the electric fence to go along the field wire I've fixed and hope to keep him in with the other boys so he can go out a graze in their field. Not for awhile though I'm scared to death this will all start over again.

Tiny Sweaters Revisited

2011-01-20T11:32:00.000-08:00

This month has been boring. If you can call cleaning barns and rounding up neighbors dogs boring. So in between stressing my back and my mind knitting proves to be a great get away.
Some of these sweaters were shown in a previous blog post. I was looking across the room at the light colored plain sweater, they all hang where I can see them, and the arms looked too long and body was too short. So I got the idea to crochet a row of little picots across the bottom.

Well these sweaters are like chips I can't stop at one which lead to a flurry of picots. Just love the little pink and white guys.
Now back to the barn for a few hours then it's time to dig threw my yarn stash for the makings of the next Tiny Sweater.

Flocked

2011-01-05T12:47:00.000-08:00

This is the time when winter really sets in at Desert Peach Farm. Yes it's been cold and snowy since November but with all the Holidays to keep your mind off the winter it seems January has a life of its own. This is when maintaining the farm is the main focus. Cleaning the barn, hauling hay for the sheep and warm water to the chickens and bunnies and keeping the house water from freezing are everyday projects . Then nature turns beautiful with a low fog that flocks the entire farm!

The trees and the sagebrush are flocked.

The wire fencing is flocked.

Even the flock has been flocked!

Cielia the black ewe shows off her new flocking the best. Nana must have been in the barn all night. No flocking on her.

And biggify Simon to check out his flocked ears and eye lashes. So handsome!

A Little More Simon

2010-12-30T12:04:00.000-08:00

Simon has continued to grow this last month. I estimate is weight at over one hundred pounds now.

He is a very good boy and listens to me when I tell him "Not to play with the sheep and goats". "Walk quiet". My message wasn't coming threw very clear at first. Then after chasing a goat down off the hill. I gave him (in his mind) a near death experience. Once I caught up with them Jake was standing with the goat. I growled and cried at Simon jumped on his body and continued to growl and holler "LEAVE IT" "MY GOAT". Being the bright livestock guarding dog that he is Simon got the message. He is still full of puppy and will be for a few years. He has never bit or grabbed the sheep, it's just when they run he can't help himself and runs right behind them. I need to keep reminding myself that this big lug is only seven months old. I even had to tell Ginger the goat to stop trying to play with Simon. "No Ginger, leave it, my dog". She's not helping.

Simon was seven months old on December 23 rd and is as big or bigger now than Jake our Great Pyrenees/X. Jake is 12 years old now.

Every morning the dogs and I walk our hill. We go by the road and greet the neighbor dogs first. He knows were each dog belongs and if our far neighbors dogs are out he will give them a bad time and we send them back to their home. Gampr's are cool in the way they communicate. They do bark but most of the time it's a low "gurrr" sound that they use to tell offenders that they are not pleased with their actions.

Simon is getting very muscular from running up and down our hills.

Jake is teaching him how to unearth ground squirrels and moles.

And Jobeth has been giving lessens on how to flush out rabbits and quail. All and all I am very pleased with my new Armenian Gampr lgd.

My first four tiny sweaters have gone to new homes. Christmas gifts. So I needed to replace them with some new sweaters. Brown and grey are Shetland wool. The pink sweater is alpaca and the white is merino/angora mix with the alpaca.

Tiny Sweaters

2010-12-23T14:22:00.000-08:00

Last week Michelle posted her tiny sweater and the link to the pattern at Ravelry. I couldn't resist and now I can't stop making them. First two top and bottom are Shetland wool and the two pink ones are alpaca dyed with Cochineal at a dye day we had a few years ago.

We have two new babies in the family this year. I'll give their mothers the two on top for babies first Christmas. Olivia Love (born in March) gets the pink sweater and Cooper John (born on Dec 19th) can have the brown sweater.

What Weather?

2010-12-19T11:47:00.000-08:00

The weather here has been very odd. Of course Reno is like that so really the weather has been fairly normal. In the post before this one we had about six inches of snow. That snow was around for about a week. With the thaw came green grass. The sheep spent their days grazing and very little hay was needed to keep them happy. I was happy also! The green was here for about a week and a half. Then this last Friday it snowed again all day. I would guess we had eight to ten inches. Yesterday it rained all day. The picture below shows some of the snow that slid off the roof just about all the rest of the snow melted.

I was trenching around the barn off and on during the day to keep the water out of the barn.
We have this beautiful out cropping of rocks in the canyon behind our property. Hum looks like more snow today.

With the sheep being out in the rain and snow their fleeces are nice a wavy. This is the best time for fleece pictures.

It also smells like wet sweaters in the barn.

This morning I finally remembered to get a picture of Chaparral, Paula's mini LaMancha buck on loan to breed Ginger and Megan my does. He fits right in with the sheep and goats so I'll keep him for the winter. Ginger likes him too. I should have kids born here this next spring in late March or early April. The plan was to get the goats to kid before the sheep lamb just in case I need some extra milk. We'll see. You will find a better picture of "big Al Boy" here. He is at the bottom of the page.

Proof there is grass in the high desert of Nevada in winter. Until the next snow!

Even under the sage brush. I've been told over the years by "experts" that grass does not grow under sage brush (Artemisia tridentata). In the dry arid parts of Nevada not much grass will grow anywhere, but in the high desert with more water, enough for the grass but not so much to drowned the sage brush, they do grow together. We have Brome, Crested Wheat and Cheat grass around and under our sage brush.

Cold Times and Old Ladies

2010-11-24T12:51:00.000-08:00

This morning I was up when the thermometer read 8 degrees. Not bad considering Sharon, my neighbor, said it was below 0 at her house. We live higher on the mountain in the Banana Belt!

This was the first day in the last week the sheep were able to eat outside. We've had high winds so they need to eat in the barn to keep the hay from blowing away. Eating in the barn makes for a wet and messy place. I like to feed them out so this old lady does not have to clean the barn.

Everyone felt good to get out and stretch their legs. Jo Beth gets cold easily. When there is six inches of snow and your not much taller it gets cold on the belly! She found a good place to stand out of the snow. I pulled the hay up on a sled with my burlap hay bag that made a nice almost warm landing spot for little dogs.

The sheep even followed us, two big dogs, out to the field to eat some snow. Jo Beth went back to the house.

We have a 100 gallon water tank in the barn for our house. When the weather gets this cold I need to put a heat lamp on the gizmo that turns it off and on. Without this we have no water! The pipes are packed with wool to keep them from freezing.

I have another "Old Lady" in my life. Sharon (not her) and I went to a craft fair a few weekends ago. We brought our spinning wheels. I was selling Shetland yarn, pelts and roving so thought it would be great to spin. Sharon has pictures on her blog. I never seem to have my camera. Anyway a man and his wife were watching me spin and said they had an old spinning wheel from Elko NV. and would I like to have her? This was a craft fair for the locals here in the North valleys so he went home and brought this cute little wheel. She needs a little work, her "Mother of All" is loose but all the parts are there so she will be great to take to spinning demos. Biggify the picture and see how she is put together with wooden pegs. I love her and hope to do many demos with her in the future.

Simon says "Happy Thanksgiving!" " I love the snow, I love the snow." Run Simon run.

Pumpkin Chunkin

2010-11-07T11:13:00.000-08:00

It's that time again to feed all left over pumpkins to the sheep.

Bring the pumpkins to the back field. Simon inspects the produce. This one has a nice handle to help drag it around.

Throw the pumpkin to the ground and split it open.

Yum not bad. If Simon can eat them fast enough the sheep won't get any!

I wonder if the seeds are helpful in worming dogs?

Opps, Simon hears the neighbors ATV, must run like the wind to see if there is any danger. Everything is cool so run like the wind back to get more pumpkin guts. (The poor sheep are still getting use to this "Cheetah dog". He runs everywhere at full speed. On lead he is soft and quiet while we walk threw the sheep headed for the field then away he goes full speed ahead.)

Hey, all the pumpkins are in with the sheep.

Now what do I do?

Stick your nose threw the fence grab the stem and pull hard.

Gee's the pumpkin is stuck on the other side of this wire...

and it won't come with me.

Poor Simon will have to settle for a big chunk of beef heart for dinner!

We weighed Simon on November 6, 2010 a little over six months old and he weighs in at 85 pounds.

October Colors

2010-10-25T16:07:00.000-07:00

Sumac Trees

Arborvitae in the back yard.

Sydney the munchkin Halloween kitty with the flaming eyes!

Some Blue Face Leicester/silk roving dyed in my favorite colors. Each color shows four ounces of the roving before and after it is drafted out and braided.

"Kenick" a black katmoget ewe lamb. One of four beautiful ewe lambs I kept from Duncan, Hazel is her dam.

Her fleece surprised me. At birth she started out with an almost white fleece and her black, black face and legs. She has just started to get the half moon markings under her eyes. Under the white her fleece fades from a darker gray to a light gray.

"Morgan" a moorit katmoget ewe lamb by Duncan and Siskin.

Batts of wool from my Shetland ewe Yeesha.

Simon is now six months old. He will have to stand in for Halloween's Black Cat!

"Ya if you say so!"

Simon Says

2010-10-04T15:43:00.000-07:00

"I finally got a real name". We've had Simon over two weeks now. So young and full of beans but he is very sensible. He likes to visit the chickens and only tries once to see if he can get them to run then he'll walk slowly around them to check out their coup.
Twice a day we walk up threw the barn to get past the sheep. I let him off his lead so he can run around with the two other dogs out on the hill. He has it all figured out as to who the neighbors dogs are, the ones in their own yards so don't bark at them, and the sound of the coyotes the guys that you do bark at to show them this is our home. Almost everything I show him he will pick up after just a few lessons. Things like sit for a treat, sit or stay back when the gate is open for Jake to come in, and walk on a lead.

Sunday morning we went for a ride to see a lady about a ram. The story started earlier last week when Wally Rutledge drove two rams down to meet another man in Oregon. Other man shows sheep for Terry Mendenhall and was headed to her place to deliver her sheep back to their home. My ram stayed at Terry's house and ram # two went down to Southern California.
Terry lives in Northern Ca about 3 1/2 hours from me so off I went with Paula to pick up White Oaks Artie.

Some of Terry's sheep. If you don't know Terry she has some of the most beautiful Merino's and Romney's you could find.

All the sheep wear coats and they live on irrigated fields. Because she lambs and shears in spring and fall she was getting ready to shear some ewe's soon before they lamb in a few weeks.

Here's little Artie. He is this years lamb and just look at that "Man" face he has already! After his long trip to Nevada he was very strong and sure of himself when he got here last night. I let him in with the two wethers and Watson this morning.

I fed the boys to distract them from the new guy. It wasn't long before the chasing settled down and Watson made friends. Watsons face just changed with the new wrinkles this last week. T'is the season.

Watson has always been a quiet stay to your self type ram so no real head butting went on. Now he seems to like his new buddy.

The wethers went back to the barn.

Good Times, Bad Times

2010-09-17T17:59:00.000-07:00

I'll start with the good times. Wednesday morning we left for Paso Robles in Southern California to see a lady about a dog. Meet my new puppy, who doesn't have a name yet. We call him Puppy or Skunk. He got the name Skunk because of his coloring. He is a five month old Armenian Gampr Dog. The link will give you some history about these cool dogs. He has the sweetest temperament, and he has already made friends with little Jobeth and Jake or should I say Jake and Jobeth liked him from the start. At his birth home he would go in the barn with some five week old pups and lay with them. He is already showing his ability to be level headed and evaluate the situation before taking action. I've only known him for a few days and I'm in love! He's a real dogs dog. My favorite thing about raising any kind of animal is getting in their head to understand why they work the way they do. This guy is going to be fun.

Landrace dog for some landrace sheep.

Can't wait to walk him up the mountain but he's still a baby. I started him in the barn. Now we're out on the lawn. Tomorrow we'll go up the the emu pen and head towards the sheep. The sheep will not come to the barn. They need to learn what that big black dog is all about.

I wish the pictures of his feet would show how really big they are in life. The pads of his feet are as big as Jake's and Jake weighs somewhere between 100-120 pounds. Puppy/Skunk is 5 months old and around 50 pounds.

Okay now bad times. Duncan was off and on for more than three weeks with Urinary Calculi. Wednesday morning first thing I found he had died during the night. He was my favorite ram for many reasons plus we won't be able to do the genetic study for the blind lamb "thing" I found here in my flock without him.

Does anyone have a ram for lease!!!!! And if he has ever over the years produced a lamb that was blind at birth that would be a plus! I could use him.

Show And Tell

2010-09-04T15:53:00.000-07:00

Some of the stuff that has been happening and I haven't gotten around to blogging about.
First Duncan is back in the BCU (barn care unit).Don't let the look on his face fool you he is doing fine again. This morning he was straining and in pain. Probably another stone working it's way down the pipes. He was easy to catch so I brought him down to the barn and gave we him a shot of Banamine for pain and inflammation. He is now happy and eating again.

I received some Ammonium Chloride in the mail after his first episode. Now Duncan will be on the seven day treatment plan to hopefully dissolve more stones in his bladder. He has the ol' "Oh no here she comes again" look in his eyes.
This little ewe lamb "Ziva" surprised me last mouth. She was born in May from my ewe Desert Peach Zephyr and Stonehaven Watson. Take a good look at her head. I guess this is what happens when you try not to breed for horned ewes!

I also thought that if a ewe was horned that it was noted on the pedigrees? I need to research ewe horn genetics.

There's Ziva again behind Ginger the wonder goat. I often wonder if she is on the wrong side of the fence more than the right side of the fence with the sheep? I have a darling young buck picked out for her and her sister "Nut"Megan. I can't wait to get them bred and have fresh milk next year.

I came across a lonely Navajo loom, I cleaned her up and oiled her wood, so here we go. This will be a good purpose for all the yarn I have had stored forever. You know the yarn you spin from the roving you had forever to give it a new life.
My new loom needed a few tools. I didn't have a weaving fork or a batten. Now I have one of each, hand made by the cool man who lives with "paula up the street". He checked out my book "Navajo Weaving Way" to make these.

Since we're both new at this I'll need to work with the tools to see if they might need to be altered in any way. Now to warp the loom!

Duncan's Story

2010-08-31T16:20:00.000-07:00

This is one of those OMG moments when the dread of loosing one of your animals hits hard.
It all started last weekend, about August 22nd. Duncan was not getting up to eat his hay as readily as he had the previous days. Monday morning he did the same thing. I went over to were he was laying and made him get up. There was a small damp spot under him and as he walked away he was dripping pee. Old age incontinence? Duncan is only 7 he is in good shape still. Next thought as he was straining to pee and nothing but drips came out urinary calculi! Eeeks I did have this happen to an Alpine buck about 15-20 years ago when I fed alfalfa to all my goats. Hey, my boys eat mostly grass hay and no grain. This can't be happening!

This is Duncan after he was sheared in March. He is so handsome I didn't want to lose him.

So first thing I ran up to Paula's house to get a second opinion which was to get to the vet. I called the vet and we were in their office by 1:30. I can't tell you how much support it is to have a friend who knows about sheep and goats be at your side in these/my panic situations!
Vet Tanya was there to help. These vets are all primarily horse vets. She sedated Duncan and with one lady holding him by the horns up on his butt me holding his front legs Paula sitting on his back feet and husband vet holding Duncans "equipment" out so Tanya vet could put a catheter in the tiniest of holes all to try and flush as she went and clean out any stones. I think this took forever!
No stones out this far from his bladder but she did hit an end to where the catheter would not go any farther. So it was wait till third vet came back with the mobile ex-ray machine. We left Duncan in the truck with catheter sewn to his belly and had dinner across the street from the vets.
Third vet came back and so did fourth vet and his assistant. The ex-ray machine went into action. We all gathered around to see the results on the computer screen. Humm, fourth vet thought the catheter was in the bladder plus he saw more stones in there. Duncan was still just dripping pee so maybe just before the bladder there was trouble. So now do a PU, flush out his bladder and risk having a ram who can't make lambs or try anti-inflammatory meds and antibiotics and wait to see what happens. It is now 6:00 or 6:30pm.
It was touch and go for a few days but for the most part Duncan kept dripping pee to keep his bladder from bursting. Paula found information on the computer about Urinary Calculi where it said to drench goats or sheep with lemon juice. For five days poor Duncan got about 2-4 ounces of lemon from once to four times a day. I was at the fair several days and he didn't get the every four hours dose they recommended.
Yesterday he was fighting hard when I tried to dose him and seemed to want to go threw the barn wall last night trying to get away from me and the lemon juice. Ok he is starting to feel too good now. If he looked good this morning I was going to leave him next to his friends, my other ram, Watson and two wethers, K.G. and Sailor. Duncan seemed just fine so over he went next to the guys. First thing he did was stretch out and start to pee. He even turned it off and on all by himself!
He still has me on full alert so as long as he is eating and drinking, water with cider vinegar to keep all the boys acidified, he can stay up in the ram pen. I have my fingers crossed!

Summer Time

2010-08-01T14:21:00.000-07:00

...and the living is easy. Maybe for some of us but I'm not a fan of the hot weather. We had a very cool spring all the way up tell mid June. Now we are in the 90's with a few 100's. A dry heat but still hot. All the natural grasses are dry now so the sheep are being fed grass hay.
The hay barn is almost empty and I've been cleaning it out getting ready for a truck load to be delivered this week. One hundred bales, 120#s each, will get me started. Then later when I have room again I'll get another load to get through the winter, maybe! I have more sheep this year so I'll see what happens. This spring/late winter the sheep ate out on the hill for almost six months. Best year ever for free feed!

I have a few sheep who after they are sheared in March get an inch or so of wool then start to lose their fleece. A natural spring shedding of the fleece. Hattie had a thin layer of felt covering most of her body. This morning she was in the barn and allowed me to start cutting off this sheet of wool.
If I get good at this, cutting it off, and she would get a full body felt, I'll have a pre-made rug next year. My other plan is to shear her and a few other sheep that do this in May or June to get a longer, full years worth of fleece.

The yard is green the hills are dry and I can't wait for October and cool days. I love to wear a sweater while I work. I have been spinning fiber this last month. August means Fair time in Nevada and when I was looking around my room, studio is a better word if I were to use this room to make things, but as I was looking around I do not have one knitted, or felted item to enter in the fair. Luckily I have been spinning some of the Shetland wool I have prepared over the last year. I will enter two of the skeins below and it would be nice to actually have a sweater or vest made with my Shetlands wool. One I can wear and is made by me.
Also after the discussions this summer about Shetland Sheep and the type of wool they should and should not have I needed to prove to myself that my sheep can make the grade and these sheep passed! Mostly because they were to ones I had fiber washed and ready to spin.
These are all two ply. First skein is Bella, then Sisken, and Annie (I no longer have her) then Cielia and Charlie. Cielia is my new yearly ewe I got from Lois Moore last fall as a lamb.
I can get light colors on sheep to be soft but not as lucky in my breeding for black that soft. Cielia's fleece is to die for, a keeper!!

Then these, three ply yarns dyed by Capistrano Fiber that I got at BSG will be entered in the fair.

Why Shetland Sheep?

2010-07-02T14:05:00.000-07:00

This post is my take on Shetland Sheep and why they are the best type sheep for a small land owner and what brought me to love them so much, diversity! I get tired of hearing how they should be just one thing. Like for insistence their fleece an "improved" fleece like all the others breeds of sheep, all the same, even from neck to britch, all short with x number of crimps per inch, soft and silky.

I live on a smallish piece of property with no irrigated fields in Nevada with the annual rain fall for an average year of 7 inches. I was first introduced to Shetlands in 2003 with the soul purpose of raising them for fiber to spin. In my mind they were perfect, small, I can keep more animals per acre, easy to handle with all the colors any one breed of sheep could have plus neat markings to keep them diverse. The next best thing was that they all had different types of fleece. Some were long and lustrous all the same length. Some were very double coated with the softest under coat, 4-5 inches and longer outer coat of 5-7 inches. Some were short coated with a nice crimp from end to end. Most of my sheep now are soft and fine, some with high bold crimp some with small tiny crimp and a few are not so fine. This is just perfect. Instead of having six or eight different breeds of sheep I could have just one, the marvelous Shetland with all it's diversity in one small package. Not improved to the point of other breeds who had one main objective in the way their fleeces grew.

My sheep have a fleece weight of 2-5 pounds. Even when you divide the fleece, softest fiber on the neck, soft/medium fiber in the middle, and the britch being a bit coarser there is more than enough to do most projects. If there is not, say I need more britch for a project I have many more animals with the right colors to add to the pile. If I were to do a sweater the fleece will give me at least two pounds of fiber more than enough to finish a nice sweater, warm mittens and a hat. I know this because my first ever sweater weighs about two pounds and you don't want a sweater to weigh that much! It needs to be -20 outside to even wear it for more than a few minutes.

Judith at BSG passed a Shetland sweater around and it had to be just ounces. Very light and airy yet warm to wear. She also passed around our NASSA tartan woven fabric, not soft at all but a cloth made to wear like iron both made from our little Shetlands!

And yes my sheep will always have a diverse fleece, softest neck, soft middle and not so harsh britch this is an unimproved not for commercial fleece. A perfect fleece for a spinner who likes diversity and can not afford to feed large massive sheep or buy a 14 pound merino fleece. Sounds like a Shetland Island land owner would want a sheep like this!

I can do almost any project with my Shetlands fleeces. If I want to make something that is drappy and fine like a shawl my sheep have that type wool, small tiny crimp with less memory. If I make some thing that works up best with more memory I have that type fiber too. I can felt slippers that are next to the skin soft with microns about 30 for a durable end product. Or a purse that felts up easily and does not scratch your arm as you wear it and does not "pill" like softer cotton like wool would.
I love my Shetlands just the way they are diverse.
And in answer to a comment on a Shetland Yahoo List we west coast Shetland breeders are not morons! I will preserve all the diversity in our sheep you can do what you want. They are all Shetland Sheep.

Black Sheep Gathering

2010-06-23T14:35:00.000-07:00

I'm having a difficult time finding words to start this post. So much has happened in three short days. I met many wonderful people and made some new friends. So many beautiful sheep and wonderful people (great meeting you Michelle!) were gathered in such a small space I found it impossible to meet them all in one weekend.
I'll start with the sheep.

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This little Romeldale ram lamb was found in the pasture with his Mom by Laura while she was tending some of Corys ewes, opps, so he became the mascot. More Romeldale sheep at the show.

Friday morning Becky and I even helped show a few sheep for a breeder who needed some more hands.

Blue Face Leicester sheep. I think these are Jared's.

Churro's

Jacob's- his horns are nice but look at that fleece. (click to make bigger)

Gotland's

Lincoln's

Wensleydales-these sheep just have to live in the house to keep such nice fleece!

Lets not forget the Shetland sheep. There were large numbers of Shetlands at BSG this year. Too many to just look at so I brought two ewe lambs back to Nevada with me! The two tone ewe in the back comes from Quintin Kreth. Thunderhead Argentina is her name. She is a gulmoget with black on her front and under that light grey is a darker shaela coloring. Very unusual coloring and a soft silky fleece.

Argentina needed a traveling and quarantine friend so this little brown katmoget ewe with a soft silky fleece, came with. She is from White Oak Shetlands, Wally Rutledge, she was in a pen right next to Garretts new ewe!

I've been thinking of naming the katmoget ewe Miryha after an awesome young lady (www.blarney.com) running a booth with Lori Lawson, Capistrano Fiber Arts Etsy Store, with the most beautiful dyed fiber and yarn. I could not get enough of their booth. I'd look and look at the other vendors around BSG then continue to come back to their booth to buy more roving.

At the end of the weekend I had six braids of roving from "Capistrano Fiber".

A few pounds of Romeldale fleece from Becky's purchases. We traded fiber for fiber.

And one of Laura's fabulous hats, hand made for me from Booger my wethers fleece. The grey in the hat is his fiber.

It was a wonderful trip. I only regret that I didn't find Kathy, Tina and Garrett before they left. Maybe next time because I plan on doing this again!

Marking Territory

2010-06-02T13:38:00.000-07:00

Saturday May 22nd was a bad day here for myself and the sheep. I went out in the morning to find Oma in with the rams??? No way would she want in there. Then as I was getting Oma in the right pen Stevie and Pepper were crying and looking for their lambs. Not uncommon but then I couldn't find Peppers ram lamb and Stevie little ewe either. Peppers twins and Stevie's ewe lamb were good buddy's and stayed together almost all the time. On further investigation the fence by the gate to the inner field was bowed in so far that it detached from one t-post. Bella had blood on her side and her ram lamb had a bloody neck? Oh no!

After I caught Bella's ram he was OK but had knocked his horn almost all the way off getting blood on his neck and his Mom's side and still no sign of the other two lambs. Something big happened here and not that long before I got out at 8:00 in the morning.

So I locked up the sheep got the dogs and started walking my fence line. Up toward the top of the north side of the field something had dug a hole under the fence. Coyotes!!! There must have been a pair because I lost two lambs. We don't have too much trouble with coyotes because in the last 28 years I've only lost a few baby animals. Now are they going to keep coming back for more? How can I ever feel safe and let the sheep graze on the mountain? Jake my LGD is over ten years old now and in the last two years he has been in the front yard so doesn't guard sheep. Getting a new puppy will take years to train. That left me to do what a guardian dog would do, walk the perimeter of the property and mark our territory.

Jake and Jo Beth did mark some but we have twenty acres and one more hole under the fence at the very top of the hill. Our soil is sandy and there are few rocks to fill the holes. This plant is Desert Peach and it has great thorns on it. I found a large plant that died and brook it up to block the holes and line certain places that would be easy digging. Natures barbed wire!
Every morning now before the sheep can go out on the hill I bring my own jar of "marker" and continue to let the coyotes know this is our property "Stay Out". Almost twenty acres of fence line and straight up and down a mountain every morning makes a fit shepherdess. Jake won't even come up with Jo Beth and me any more. He sits with the flock, midway up the hill. So far no coyotes have even tried to dig again anywhere along the fence so this works wooo hooo and I made an appointment with a llama to come stay and hopefully bond with the sheep!! Toni a neat lady and friend rescues llamas so we should be able to find the right guardian.

Till then it's up the mountain again. This is Mijo the "friendly" lamb. A few days ago I had the yearly T-party. All little rams were banded and all ewe lambs were tattooed. It only took Mijo a few hours and he was back to his friendly little self. Everyone of the rams, six to eight weeks old, did great and were out grazing with their Mom's in just a short while. Glad that is over!

Zephyr's Lambs

2010-05-12T19:18:00.000-07:00

Here are a few pictures of Zephyrs lambs.

They have graduated from the nursery to grammar school.

Still much too small to go in with the big lambs.

but now they have more room to run and learn to follow their Moms. Hanging with Tru's lamb Kiko who is bigger but the same age. All three will be gray as adults.

One more week maybe then in with the big guys. Their Mom's are getting ready to go out on the mountain and join the flock.

Finished Lambing 2010

2010-05-08T15:07:00.000-07:00

My last two ewe's bred for 2010 lambed on May 5th and 6th.
First on May 5th in the afternoon Tru came to the barn by herself and I helped her with this 7 pound ewe lamb. I get antsy once I see the feet and nose coming so after several contractions I helped with a few pulls on the feet to speed things along and out pops a fancy little black and white spotted ewe. Brought to you by Desert Peach Tru + Stonehaven Watson

So different then the other lambs this year I thought she needed a close up picture. Watch she'll get the Ag gene and that will be the end of all the "fancy".

The next day, May 6th, late morning Zephry went into labor and I watched her have twin lambs. A five pound gray ewe lamb, front, and back behind her is the smallest lamb born this year a four pound ram lamb also gray. I'll get a better picture later. These last three lambs will be staying in the nursery for a good week so they can get some size on them before going out in the field with all the big lambs. It's a zoo in the barn now with 18 lambs!!
Tru and Zephyr look like twins. They are both from McTavish Newton and were born in '08 but from different ewe lines. Zephrys dam is Oma so she could be a carrier from both of her parents, her brother was the first lamb that died in '08. Tru just has her sire that was a carrier so has less of a chance to carry the gene that causes my sick/blind lambs.

So my final tally is 12 ewe's bred 20 lambs born. I lost two ewe lambs to the DLD, Oma's ewe died fast, within hours of birth, and Kess's ewe lamb I had to have put to sleep because she was not handling being blind. Strange noises sent her into a panic and it was too heart breaking.
The other eighteen lambs are all doing great and growing like weeds! With 9 ewe lambs and 9 ram lambs I came out even this year!

Newbies

2010-05-04T13:11:00.000-07:00

...and a great Shetland Sheep story.

I'll start with my story of how clever Shetland Sheep can be even at a very young age. Or should I say instincts are strong in these little sheep. Late in the afternoon I bring the lambs and their Moms to the field behind the barn. There is a tall fence for protection from wild things and stray dogs, and the barn is right there for a warm, dry place to sleep at night.

The ewe's get a few last bits of grass and the lambs rest or hang out after the races have ended. I stand and watch the sheep for awhile. This is my favorite time to just sit and contemplate on my little flock.
Then all of a sudden lambs started baaing, jumping up from their resting spots and running full speed to the nearest ewe. About eight lambs formed a tight bunch around two of the ewe's as they all moved in unison like a school of fish in the ocean. What? Then I looked up and saw a big crow soaring over the top of us. I have never seen this happen before. With no brush to hide under the group made it's own safe place by sticking close together and moving in a large group to keep what could have been a bird of pry from picking out a single lamb for dinner. Shetland sheep never cease to amaze me!
Now the newbies on May 1st Pepper a two year old first time Mom had twins, a ram in the back and a ewe lamb. I call Pepper a gray Ag and she was bred to Watson my black ram and both of her lambs are brown! If you look at Peppers face and legs she does have brown in them. Her face is very black in the winter and it browns out in the summer. Michelle I need some color advise with this type of coloring. Is Pepper gray?
The little ram is tiny but not as much as this picture shows and he is just a crack up. Were ever he goes it's full speed ahead!

The next newbies are my new bees! We have had a bee hive for several years but all the bee's swarmed last summer and my new bee man had to restock the hive last month. We keep the hive for someone else because I do not want to open a hive of angry bees to steal their honey. This way we get to share the honey and Mark the bee man has a place to keep more hives.

New Arrivals

2010-04-30T13:11:00.000-07:00

All is well here with all the new arrivals, new lambs that is. According to my calculations all lambs born here since Kess had her blind lamb, will be healthy and with three ewe's to go it should be all down hill.

On April 17th Hazel gave birth to twins one black katmoget ewe and a black ram lamb. All legs.

Pictures on the day they were born and growing up fast not quite two week later. When we sheared all bred ewe's I missed Hazel so she lambed in full fleece. When we sheared on the 22nd she had already lost all the wool on her neck that is why she has a bald spot.

On April 19th I found Yeesha in the morning with her 9 pound ewe lamb! A beautiful little? fawn katmoget! She is built like a tank The width between her back legs is tremendous. Some of the boys two weeks older are not as wide as she is over all.

This morning April 30, 2010 out in the field close to the barn Stevie the only yearling to be bred last year had a sweet little ewe lamb with her.

It's sunny and the wind is gone today so they will stay out and enjoy the spring weather. Stevie is proving to be an excellent mother.

Some of my older lambs investigating the new field.

Above is Hattie and her ewe lamb. Below Sisken's ram lamb.

Bella and her Easter Sunday ram lambs. First lambs born here.

Hattie's ewe and laying down is Mijo her brother who will have a home with Sharon as a fiber boy! Just like his half brother Spud from last year they are born too friendly to ever make a ram you could trust. Born to be pets!

Sisken with her katmoget ewe lamb and dark brown Ag ram lamb.

Trouble In Paradise

2010-04-15T12:38:00.000-07:00

I'm going to start this post by quoting from Eddie Stratons sheep book. Sorry I don't know the title of the book. Becky sent me this quote in an email two years ago.
"Daft Lamb Disease:
Like swayback, daft lamb disease is a condition of new born lambs and is the only disease know which is likely to be mistaken for swayback: in fact the two conditions are sometimes indistinguishable.
Fortunately, however, daft lamb disease is uncommon and is seldom, if ever, a major problem. It is chiefly in the Border Leicester breed and its crosses, e.g. the Scottish halfbred and the Greyface.
Cause
Daft lamb disease is not due to a mineral deficiency but is genetic in origin. Part of the lamb's brain the cerebellum is congenitally atrophied (imperfectly developed).
Symptoms
Most cases have a characteristic jerking backwards of the head. They carry the head high and have the mouth pointing backwards or towards the side. In the more severe cases the lambs are blind and walk in circles. Despite this the appetite remains good.
Treatment
There is none, though mild cases can be hand reared and given a chance. Most cases are destroyed by shepherds or die of exposure or starvation. Those that can walk may improve gradually, and some may become apparently normal except when excited.
Prevention
Cull the mothers and change the tub (ram). One obvious preventative measure is to avoid buying rams from flocks where the condition is know to exist." end quote.

Since 2007 I have witnessed lambs born in my flock with these symptoms. Now in 2010 I can be sure that it only happens to the sheep I have identified as "carriers" bred to other "carriers". I get totally healthy lambs when a carrier is bred to a non-carrier or of course two sheep who do not have this recessive gene. I had all healthy lambs born last year. That ram, Cider, I believe was not a carrier since all his lambs were healthy but was culled because of horns that turned into his head.

Kess's ewe lamb born the morning of April 12, 2010 and below is Sisken and her two lambs born the same day from the same ram. Siskens two lambs are both doing great. Sisken has always had healthy lambs and I do not consider her a carrier because of this. She has been bred, in my experience, to both carrier and non carrier rams.
Kess was considered by me to be suspect since her full sister Bella had the two blind lambs '08. Kess had a normal ewe lamb last year and this ewe lamb of hers is blind. Oma bred to the same ram was to me a carrier, she had twins in '08, one blind and died the other healthy. She had two healthy lambs last year. This year when Oma was bred to the same ram as Kess, she had twins again one was blind and died, her ram lamb is doing well.

I culled my rams and most of my ewes who were carriers but kept a few ewes that are carriers to test any new rams I would get in the future. So each of my rams were given two carrier or suspect ewes as a test. Bella bred to a different ram than Kess or Oma has two healthy ram lambs this year. Plus she had two healthy lambs in '09. This after her two blind lambs in '08.
So far this year one ram has had four ewes lamb. Two carriers and two non carriers, like I say this is my opinion, both carriers had blind lambs and both non-carriers have healthy lambs. Two more ewes bred to this ram have not lambed yet. One Yeesha I believe is a non-carrier, from a ewe and ram who's genetics do not link to daft lamb in my flock and Hazel, suspect because her sire was one of the original rams to plant this seed of daft lamb in my flock. Hazel is a two year old and this is her first lambing. She will have a one in four chance of carrying the gene.
My other ram has had two ewes lamb one Bella a carrier and Hattie who could carry the gene both have healthy twin lambs.
This is an ongoing study and bless you Laura Cunningham for getting in touch with Phillip Sponenberg DVM PhD who has encouraged me to compile all my records of affected lambs. God bless blogs who got me, a fairly lame record keeper to document my lambings since 2008.
I was ready to just cull all animals who I have, that have had trouble with this and hide these lambs from everyone. Instead I find this very distressing since it has been talked about in the Shetland sheep for more years than I have been breeding Shetlands and I find more "hide it under the rug" people than ones who wish we had a way of testing our sheep to rid the Shetlands of this problem. My Opinion
P.S. these sheep have been followed by vets and had necropsies and blood tests done from the West coast to the East coast where all the common viruses, bacterias etc have been ruled out. And if it were one of these why does this happen to only Shetlands and only some family lines of Shetlands. My sheep are proof of that.

Skirted Fleeces

2010-04-09T13:17:00.000-07:00

Seems I've never shown the types of fleece I'm getting from my sheep so here are the few I've skirted the last week. All these are from ewe's that were bred last fall and one from Watson my new black ram. All of my sheep get no grain and very little if any alfalfa. Their main diet is grass hay and grazing on our hill side, native grasses and brush.
First is Desert Peach Charlee, four year old, the ewe who has the Shirley Temple lamb. I hope her lamb has a fleece much like her dam. I love Charlee's fleece. She gives me close to three pounds, 2.6, of heavily skirted fleece every year. That is a dirt line in her fleece but no color. Great hand and blends wonderfully with silk for a smooth silky next to the skin yarn. With or with out the silk. Beautiful shine!

Desert Peach Hattie three year old ewe. She has pretty much the same type fleece as most my sheep but too short for what I want. Black Ag ewe very little black left in her fleece.

Desert Peach Siskin four years old bred ewe gave me 2.9 lbs of heavily skirted fleece this year. She has more britch than I like but her fiber also has a great hand and makes next to the skin soft yarn, with great shine. Yes the micron count on most these fleece will be high, never tested, it's the end product that I have judged my fleeces on so far. No her fleece doesn't touch the ground at this length! The piece on the left is from her britch area.

Desert Peach Zephyr, two years old and bred this year for the first time. Intermediate type fleece with nice hand. 1.8 pounds on her skirted fleece. I haven't been weighting my fleeces before I skirt because how much usable fiber is more important to me. I do not coat my sheep so I loose some of the fiber over the top of their backs and skirt the britch out if it is way coarse.

With all these Ag sheep so far it makes me wish I had more solid colors in my flock. My moorits and blacks do not have as nice as fleece as my Ag sheep yet. We will shear them this next week.
This is Wilson a yearling wether. Beautiful color and you can see next year his fleece will look much like the ewe's above. His fleece is very much a single type coat. I have about a pound of his usable fleece and spun up that piece of yarn. He's fiber makes a nice lofty yarn with candy strips from the layering of colors. This fiber is lower in the micron range of all the other fleeces so far.

Stonehaven Watson yearling ram with teeny bitsy crimp all the way up each lock. One pound of skirted fleece jet black and appears that it should spin up into a nice lofty yarn. Very soft too for a black fleece. Can't wait to work with it!

Desert Peach Tru, pending, two year old first time bred. On her body her fleece looks like a single/tippy type fleece. Great hand loads of usable fleece. (I need to get the weight). I also need to spin some to see what type of yarn I will get.

Desert Peach Stevie, yearly bred ewe. Awesome length but eeewww not very soft!! She is breed to Watson so hope her lambs do better in the fleece department. I will keep Stevie because I want that length of fiber on my sheep. Four to six inches.

Desert Peach Pepper, pending, two year old first time bred. Black Ag ewe with a moderate double coat type fleece. Very little color. I love the length, hand and she gave me 2.5 pounds of usable fleece.

Sugar Lips

2010-04-08T15:16:00.000-07:00

Yes we do have sugar lips! Almost all of my lambs carry the gene, Ag, so when you see "sugar lips", white hairs around the lips of an otherwise dark colored lamb you know that lambs color will fade to a gray or almost pure white like in most of my ewe's.

The ram lamb above from Oma and the ewe lamb below from Charlee are are both what you call katmoget, with dark points on their face, legs, tail and belly. Other breeds of sheep call this marking badger pattern. They already have near white fleece on their backs. I can't tell for sure if they are pure white since their fleeces still have some coloring from the birthing. I'm not sure how they came up with this light fleece since both dam and sire have color.

Charlee, above, has the Ag gene so she is near white now but was dark like her son when she was born. I can't find the name for the white on the ram lambs face, help please. I do think the little katmoget ewe has these markings also. Both have sugar lips!

Above is a little black ram lamb, Bellas, with sugar lips and below my sweet little spotted ewe from Hattie. Her brother will stay pure black! Should the black sugar lip lambs be registered as black or gray?

New Lambs

2010-04-07T14:50:00.000-07:00

Charlee... on Easter I left Charlee in a jug while we went to my brothers in town. When we got home she had lambed and gave me a ewe and a ram. He has white around his face and will fade,ag, like his Mom

Charlees ewe is katmoget, my first ever. Very light almost white with brown points. She has Shirly Temple curls so should have a wavy crimped fleece like Charlee.

Oma lambed on the morning of April 6th she also had twins, one ram and one ewe lamb. I was here to see the birth but there is 'trouble in paradise' reminiscent of my lambing in 2008! Excuse me but OH SHIT! I'll talk more about Oma in another post. This little guy is a katmoget also. His sister was a dark brown.

Hattie's lambs were born on the evening of April 5th. She had a black ram and a black ag ewe lamb. The ewe lamb has a white spot on each side of her body right by her front elbows. So she is spotted, but by the time her color all fades she won't show her spots!

"I see a goat Mom."

Happy Easter!

2010-04-04T10:04:00.000-07:00

The Easter Bunny was here early this morning. Two ram lambs from Desert Peach Bella and Stonehaven Watson! These are Watson's first babies. Bella's third set of twins. More information when I have more time.

Shearing Day Part One

2010-03-25T12:07:00.000-07:00

I'm shearing late this year. Usually I try to shear in February but for what ever reason I tried to shear later this year to see if we could shear under the "rise" of the Shetlands fleece. Well it doesn't work! but the weather was right. Seems that once the "rise" begins that sticky part of the fleece keeps holding the new fiber down. Some of the sheep still have one inch of fiber left on them after shearing, stuck in a one quarter inch "mat" next to their skin. Not felted just stuck tight with lanolin and no way to save it.

Maybe if we shear in January? I know most Shetland people have this problem but is there a better way, a better time of the year to shear Shetlands? Any information would be appreciated.
Ladys awaiting to be herded into the barn. These lambs are learning some new tricks from the goats!

All of the ewe's that were bred are being sheared today so that when they lamb in April I can watch them better. The lambs and the few ewe's not bred will be sheared in a week or two when David can get back here again.

The goats were caught in the mix of sheep so they will be witnessing their first sheep shearing. I want to catch up Ginger to remove her collar anyway.

My eight boys, four wethers and four rams, also were sheared to make our day of shearing 19 sheep. The two little guys looking at the camera are from my 2009 lambs. If you click on the picture to get a bigger version you can see the tremendous amount of horn growth they have which has all happened since this February!

Sailors turn, with Jeannette watching his side so he won't jump side ways off the stand as David shears. David does not usually shear sheep. His expertise comes from shearing and grooming his Llamas for show. So we shear on a sheep stand in two sections, one side at a time. Then he goes back and cleans up the short and dirty fleece left around the belly and rear end of each sheep.

Sailor all sheared with K.G.waiting in the background. K.G. or King George is from two registered Shetland sheep. He is a giant in my flock with a five pound fleece, long and silky, which sheared off clean down to the skin. Wish they all sheared so easily.

Megan and Ginger thought this whole shearing thing got to be a bit boring.

The Meaning of "Snow Day"

2010-02-21T11:22:00.000-08:00

A weather-related cancellation or delay is when an institution, operation, or event is closed, canceled, or delayed as a result of inclement weather conditions. Or in my case is when the weather man says we will be getting 1 to 3 inches of snow and it turns into 1 to 2 feet!!

"Snow Day" means knocking snow off the wire out side of the chicken coop. I use the back side of a shovel and always wear a hoody to keep snow off my neck.

"Snow Day" means being careful not to lose your dogs when they are small or have short legs.

That would include all small animals.

"Snow Day" means wearing taller boots while blazing trails for all those small guys and yourself.

"Snow Day" means finding a place to spread wild bird seed for the "other" livestock.

"Snow Day" means going out to the railroad tie wall to measure the snow and see if we got 1 or 3 inches of snow.

"Snow Day" means awesome pictures, enjoying the beautiful scenes out of doors and knowing the trees and grasses will thrive with all this moisture. Do this all before the hard work takes its toll on your body and mind, on the days after a "Snow Day".

January

2010-01-21T08:08:00.000-08:00

January brings cleaning my Mom's house out with husband Bob, son Dana, brother Mike and sister-in-law Dale. We are almost done with sorting and moving 84 years of memory's and stuff! Lisa, my brother Steve's wife took pictures of all the rooms before we began. Great idea Lisa.

Having more time at home brings cleaning my own house so I can fit in all the treasures I brought home from Mom's and facing a barn that has had no attention since October. Yeeeks!
Benefit from cleaning the barn...

a well mulched vegetable garden. Oh, if only the people mentioned above were as willing to clean out my barn. :-(
Fun stuff in January I was able to do some crafting. But first, last November I purchased several tons of meadow grass hay. Each bale weighs about 120 pounds, was delivered and stacked in my barn, with my help, for the price of $6.00 per bale!! This is wonderful green grasses and a few types of clover at an unheard of price plus delivery! Well as wonderful as this hay is, as my friend Jeannette put it, this hay is not user friendly. The flakes of hay have a way of falling apart as I carried them to the sheep. Hay was everywhere and it was taking many trips to the barn to get enough feed to were it was needed. So necessity being the mother of invention gave me the idea to make a hay holder. I'm sure I'm not the first to come up with this idea but I did use the things I have around the barn

making this an original. In "the day" when feed came in burlap bags I saved several of them as things changed to our now plastic and paper sacks. I cut one open, sewed in two survey stakes from our fencing project last winter across the tops with my hand spun Shetland yarn and braided paling twine for the handles. The twine across the bottom is a handle so when I put the loops at the top over my shoulder and can hold up some of the weight with my hand. It opens up, I stand several flakes of hay in the center, fold it up around the hay and can carry more than twice as much hay with no spilling in less than half the trips to take hay were I can feed the sheep away from the barn for less cleaning on my part. I'm in love!

Now the picture above I would like to introduce Ginger in the front and Nutmeg (Nut Megan) in the back. Two Mini Lamancha dairy goat kids. Ok, I was never going to have dairy goats again, yeah right. Well with the country the way it is and the want for "real" food and my love for goats what could be so bad about having two small milkers to supply our milk needs. I can't breed them till this coming fall so we're just having fun getting to know each other for the next year. They came from Paula my friend and neighbor up the road. Check out her web site "Creamcup Minis" the link is to her 2009 kids page were you can see another picture of my new girls!

December

2010-01-20T13:22:00.000-08:00

December began with 1 and 1/2 feet of snow on the sixth. Some of that snow still remains on our property. I'm writing this post on the 19th of January. The sheep are unable to walk on the north side of our mountain in the new section we fenced last February.This is how it looked on the morning after the big snow.

In the winter I feed our other livestock, the wild birds. Zephyr seems to be saying "Do you see what I see" all that bird seed just out of reach.

We get Black Eyed Juncos, click on the pictures for a close up view. After this huge snow fall the temperatures for a week ranged from low 20'sF in the day to 17 below 0 at night. These are the times when living on a mountain is a benefit. Heat rises so our lowest temperature was 2 degrees above 0. Fifteen degrees is a big difference.

and Western Quail. The bird book calls them California Quail but they make their home here in Nevada also. I feel bad for these little guys trying to find feed in the snow and cold.

Ewe's lambs from the spring of '09 checking out the snow and wishing everyone a "Happy Ewe Year"!

November

2010-01-19T15:56:00.000-08:00

This has been an amazing three mouths. Since I've missed so much time with my sheep I want to introduce Duncan and the six ewe's he bred last fall. I have Watsons girls on a previous post.
This is Stonehaven Duncan S16861 soon to be seven years old.

The first ewe is Hazel a long yearly and behind her is Kess. Desert Peach Hazel has not been registered yet. I wait till after they lamb the first time to evaluate the ewe and her lambs first. Desert Peach Kess S29877 will be three this spring. Her sister who is two years old is Bella. They are totally different.

Desert Peach Charlee S26266 four years old. and Desert Peach Siskin S26267 coming four year old also. Gee's my sheep look all the same!

Then we have miss "long in the face" Yeesha S26265 she will be five this spring.

Last but not least Desert Peach Oma "the big" S26272 she will be four this spring. I'll post December next.

Virginia Ruth Gonzales-Vollmer

2009-12-30T13:00:00.000-08:00

1/27/1926-12/21/2009

This is one of the hardest post I'll ever do on my blog. After a short illness on the morning of December 21, 2009 my Mom passed away. She was active and working two part time jobs until November when her liver said it had enough.The picture below is of her and my younger brother Steve polishing cars. Her dear loves after her family, were cars and baseball! I was fortunate to be with her every Thursday for lunch and shopping, but before we took her car "Ruby" out for the day she had to dust her off and put clean towels on the floor so we would not get the floor mats dirty.

It seemed like everyone knew Ginger. As we went from store to store each week it would take twice as long to shop because she never met a stranger. We talked to people as we shopped and made friends with anyone standing in line at the check out.
As hard as this is to live with we all had a wonderful time at her bed side and after her death. Manor Care here in Reno took care of her on her last days. They allowed our entire family to be with her at all hours of the day and night. Sister Tracy came from Texas with her three girls and husband. Steve and his wife Lisa were up from Vegas. Mike and I live here in town so at any given time Mom had from 5 to 15 people with her. Her brother, nieces, nephews, sons, daughters, grandchildren, great grandchildren and even her beloved dog Dudley were there to see her off. Up until her last four days she was talking and joking with family and care givers. Her last wish was to tell everyone that she had a wonderful life!
So for my Mom we all ask for everyone to do an random act of kindness in Ginger's name!

Songs of the Season 1

2009-12-07T13:42:00.000-08:00

Oooooh, the wether outside says frightful...

and the barns are so delightful...

And since there's no place to go, let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!!

Ewe's Bred to Stonehaven Watson

2009-11-29T17:39:00.000-08:00

The rams have been with their ewes since the first week of November. I've moved Watsons girls next to a fence with Duncan on the other side to watch and see if any of them haven't been covered. So far things have been very quite.
First in line is Pepper a long yearly, first breeding. Right behind is Hattie (Who) two years old and the mother of Spud the show lamb. Watson is in the back looking at Duncans' girls. Love his top line and chest!

Next picture is Tru a yearling and Stevie , one of this years lambs. I have not bred a lamb in the last three years but have no problem with breeding young. Anyway Stevie squeaked threw the fence to be with Mom so Watson and I let her stay.

Jorja is a two year old. She had a ram lamb, Zorro, that was showing in California last summer. Strong boned ewe, long intermediate fleece. All of the black Ag ewe's are in with Watson.

Zephyr is a yearling. Pepper, Tru and Zephyr are half sisters from "Newton" my ram from a few years ago, Enfield Grayling on both sides of his pedigree.
One more daughter of Newton's is Hazel (black) and she was bred to Duncan.

Another Stevie Picture.

Desert Peach Bella

Bella will be three. Yes her fleece does reflect light. It's shiny, tippy and dense. I love this ewe! She just does not have much poll fleece.

Stevie and Bella. She is her mothers daughter.

On A Field Trip

2009-10-27T16:24:00.000-07:00

To The Farm...to bring back new genetics. Which lead to meeting some wonderful new friends. I left home Saturday morning and drove to Winnemucca, NV where I met Becky. This first leg of the trip took me three and a half hours and Becky was forty five minutes from Winnemucca. Becky left her car and we proceeded north into Oregon then Idaho and a time change and back to Oregon to reach this beautiful farm!

Home of Brook and Lois Moore, horses, dogs, cats, chickens, guardian llamas and their awesome Stonehaven Shetland Sheep. This leg of the trip was over eight hours. We were welcomed with a wonderful dinner and conversation to end our day.

I went to pick up Watson my newest ram. His brother is wildly spotted, Lois's words, so maybe he could carry some "chrome" He has nice width, legs and a very soft black fleece. Love the horns, something else I need here at Desert Peach. Horns with a wide sweep out away from the face. When I have his papers I'll post the information.

And look who followed him to our house. She is a black and white spotted ewe lamb. Her brother and sister are black and white HST humm more of the markings I want to get started in the flock could be hiding on her future lambs. Of course since she has a brother and sister there is another trait I'd like to see more of in my flock, ewe's who produce triplets.

She has a nice square body the thing I look to first in my sheep.(Weak shoulders and rear ends will not a productive ewe make.) and her fleece is also soft longish and tippy. Her name will be Celeste, coming from all the star like spots over her body.

I had such a good time, and I believe Becky did too. Great way to shop for sheep!

Say "Good Night Gracie"

2009-10-13T10:16:00.001-07:00

Here is the last picture of the vegetable garden two weeks ago. The wind is blowing about 50 miles an hour. Dust everywhere.
This same night there was a killing frost. Zucchini and pumpkins last stand.

There are mountains behind this tree.
What a mess! Our old white birch tree, the one that died last year, blew over.

The spruce tree in front, our Dr Seuss tree, because of it's odd shape, is bending way to the left.
So ends summer, "Good Night Gracie".

"Angel Face"

2009-09-09T19:16:00.001-07:00

..the rose. Our only rose in the yard.
This is her first year from bare root stock.
These are the second set of blooms since early summer.
The flowers are beautiful from bud until they are fully opened. Wonderful scent also.

New Sheep

2009-09-06T16:12:00.000-07:00

Meet Stonehaven Duncan! He came from Tammy Knights in Washington state down to Laura in Walton, Oregon last week. Laura came to Reno for a Labor Day Fest at Sharon' s house right down the street from us. His first evening was spent in a pen close to the ewe's and wethers. By the next day he was able to go in with the boys and did not butt heads even one time. Duncan is such a gentleman that he payed no attention to the others. The boys, four wethers and two ram lambs all give him a wide berth. With horns like this and a great presence Duncan has earned his way to the top of the pecking order by just looking their way!

Rocco was peeved because till yesterday he had the biggest horns.
Bella and Stevie her lamb were cautious about this new guy right in the next pen.
Then at the fair I was gifted with this darling ewe lamb, fluffy one in the lead, made by Carolyn Thompson. She made some of the sweetest little lambs with yarn and wool.

Away So Long

2009-08-22T11:36:00.001-07:00

I can't believe it's been over three weeks since my last post! Some of this time has been spent with a computer who decided to freak me out with the "Blue Screen of Death" two times in less than two weeks. Paula who lives up at the end of our road loves computer challenges and helped me threw this ordeal. She showed me how to get into "Safe Mode" so at least I could read emails. We never did truly fix my computer with anything we did. It seems that it is a self healing computer. ;o) After three days of the blue screen the first time and about four days later the second time the blue screen appeared, this only lasted one day, I would turn on my computer the next morning and Wa-La it was better. I here this is not normal.
Paula was over yesterday and spent four hours with me removing cookies, old file thingys, defragging and what ever else. I now even have Firefox installed. Paula says this is better then Internet Explorer but I can't sign into my email. Still more learning going on .
A week ago today Kay and Ed, they have Lazy K's Alpaca's, took me to Loyalton, Ca with their flatbed trailer and I came home with 83 bales of wheat grass/alfalfa mix hay. They park the trailer in front of the barn and between Bob and I we have it inside with room to spare for the next load this up coming Saturday. This next load of hay will be straight grass hay or field grass. A fine bladed grass with other wonderful bits of clover, dandelions and assorted plants that grow in the hay fields around Nevada.
edit( Wow I was just looking over the pictures to make sure they biggify and I saw the barn snake coming down the hay! I didn't realize I caught it in the picture. I believe this is the same snake that I see most days in or around the barn.)

We have been harvesting and eating potatoes from the garden for the last few weeks. I planted Yukan Gold and these red potatoes There are plenty for family and friends also. These are my first two zucchini just picked today!

The most exciting thing in my long absence is the purchase of two lovely rams!! No money has pasted hands yet so I shouldn't jinx this but here are pictures. The first guy is Stonehaven Duncan from Tammy Knight. I'm sure some of you know Duncan already. He is a six year old katmoget with a dense single coated fleece. Tammy has been having some trouble with sheep viruses predator, so she is selling her shetlands. Tammy has pictures of Duncans lambs from this year, awesome!
Lois set me up with Tammy while I was shopping for rams from Stonehaven. I do want to put some black back into my flock and with Lois's help picked Watson. Watson was born this spring and has a lovely brother Holmes that will be staying home with Lois and Brook! Holmes-Watson cute! I'll be making a trip up to Eastern Oregon to pick up Watson in October. Duncan should be able to hitch a ride from Laura when she comes down for Sharon and Ian's Labor Day Fest!
Here is an update from Spud the show shetland. He has been spending some R&R time down at the beach in Ventura, Ca. by the ocean. Here he is as he swooshs in on his boogie board. The poor guy has a scrotal hernia that put him out of the running for more grand champion ribbons on the show circuit but in his absence Zorro the other ram lamb who went with Spud has taken his place in the champion line. Zorro has taken three champion shetland ribbons at the last three shows!!! Some day I hope to get a picture of him to post.

Tis' The Season

2009-07-29T12:35:00.001-07:00

To braid as in garlic braids... To weave some lavender wands...

Tend, the garden, flowers and grasses...

Make soap like in goats milk soap. This is a soap box I made back in the 80's
and the guillotine type cutter a friend made for me. The goat milk came from my neighbor Paula who raises mini Lamancha's called Creamcup Mini's. Harvesting like in I had five yearlings butchered here a few weeks back. I hate it but they sure taste good!

Hanging out in the shade.

Marin, is Siskins ewe lamb a keeper.

Watering-watering and watering. I'm watering the back side of the ram house to keep the sandy soil from creeping down the hill and covering the barn. Now that it is so dry I need to stop letting them out on the hill to keep the soil where it belongs.

Enjoying the flowers in the yard!

Fires

2009-07-18T13:32:00.000-07:00

Since Wednesday the 15th we have been skirted on two sides by range fires. The fire to the north of us is closer to Sharon who all tho we are neighbor's she is on the side of a hill in another valley. She has good pictures of the smoke that was coming from each fire here.
Yesterday, Friday the 17th, brought all the action to our neighborhood. The fire to the south of us was starting to come over the ridge and if it did it would be on the our side the mountain we live on, part of the Peterson Mountain Range.
This picture is from our front porch looking east. A good part of the day there were three helicopters dipping water from the pond and flying the water over to the fire. (Don't forget to click on the pictures to biggiefy) The helicopters yesterday had shorter ropes where the bucket was attached. They had to get way close to the water in order to fill their buckets. This picture the copter is still not as low as he would go. The ridge between the copter an me would hide the entire helicopter and all you could see were his "propellers"?

This picture above he is still not down as far as he needed to go. Then below he is off to the mountain ridge to help douse the flames. We never did see any flames come over to our side.

Now today there are still helicopters coming to the pond but they are taking the water a bit farther than yesterday. I feel safer today because yesterday along with the three helicopters there were 15 to 20 fire trucks, all different types, parked at the pond ready to protect the houses if the fire did make it over the ridge. Love those firemen!!!

The helicopters in the pictures above and below have a different set up with long ropes attached to the buckets. They don't get anywhere near the water. I don't know for sure but these helicopters look bigger then the dare-devils from yesterday.

We feel pretty safe with the sheep on our hillside grazing down the small fuel. We have been hit with fires in the past years and the fire on the most part will stop at the fence. The small dry plants under the brush gets the big stuff to catch fire and without it the fire has too few places to catch thus slowing the fire as it hits our fence line.

Then I even have another fire break as you get closer to our house with watered grass and no brush at all. Oh and the house has a metal roof.

Catching Up

2009-07-13T12:03:00.000-07:00

It's been so busy here I have no time left for myself, meaning fiber stuff. I don't like summer!

Today I was out in the barn before it got too hot, to clean the floors of hay and poo and cave dust. Cave dust is the pulverized hay and poo from the last few months. Hattie and Valla are waiting to start refilling the barn with new poo.

I took seven wheel barrels full and started mulching the back field. It is so hot and dry the ground does not stay moist for long plus our Nevada soil is void of any organic matter to feed the grass. I started at the back edge that drys out fastest and will work my way over. May be another 50 loads should do it! Thankfully there isn't that much in the barn.
Last fall I planted garlic. Garlic does well in Nevada and is easy to grow. Like tulips or daffodils

after you plant them it's just wait till spring water a bit till about July and harvest. Here they are drying on the front porch waiting for me to braid them. Got to find more time!

The potatoes are doing well and the corn is tiny. Spring was cool and rainy so the corn was not planted till the third week in June. It's happy and green so we should get some sweet corn in August.

Also planted pumpkins and squash not a very big garden this year.

Volunteer Sun Flowers round off the garden. Yesterday there were some gynormas winds. They seemed to be like 35-50 mile an hour winds. Not so usual in the summer here to be that strong

This morning I found many "sleeping" Sun Flowers blown over by the wind. Some of the trees lost branches and green leafs are all over the property.

All fodder was donated to the "Feed the Flock Fund" a charity for starving Shetland Sheep in Nevada.

All sheep enjoyed the branches, leafs and Sun Flowers that were hand carried to them in their now dried out fields.

This last Saturday the spinning and weaving guild met here, which was for me the second annually meeting out at our house. There was a great turnout but of course I didn't bring my camera out for any pictures. Maybe I can use some from anyone else who may have taken pictures and show you. I will say that with all the commotion, 15-20 cars coming up and down the drive, gates opening and closing, mostly open, Jake stayed and honored his parole by not leaving the yard even once. Here he is guarding the wood lot.

Last I posted some new fiber on my Etsy store. This is reinvented fiber with stuff that hasn't sold. I carded this fiber with Anglina to add bling.

This is a wool, silk, mohair blend, more bling.

Then my favorite is this merino, silk blend! Soooo soft.

Shetland Pictures

2009-06-29T13:19:00.001-07:00

Front views: starting with Cider sire to all lambs and K.G. a 4 year old shetland wether with the 5 pound fleeces.

Bella (back) and her ewe lamb Stevie. She is nursing two lambs that size! They graze on this blue grass in the evenings by the barn. The rest of the day they get a small amount of grass hay and browes on the brush in their other 10 acres. They don't even come back to this grass during the day. No grain and no improved pastures! Front views: This is Charlee's wether.

Stevie again. She was named after her blind sister from last year who died.

Charlee's ewe lamb and her wether.

Charlee and her ewe lamb.

and some rear views: the grass has a special appeal right here. Nothing that I did.

This is the best view of one of the ram lambs I still have, Rocco. He kept laying down when I went to get his front end. He is so big and sturdy and is younger than the moorit wether standing in front of him.

Grand Champion Shetland

2009-06-23T17:45:00.000-07:00

Wooho! I've been busting at the seams waiting to blog about little Spud. I wanted to make sure I had permission to post this picture. Here he is in San Diego, California at his first big show. As a matter of fact he is the first in the 6 years I've been raising shetlands. There were 17 shetlands at the show, three ram lambs and 3 yearling rams in the ram classes. The judge was Glen Rask from Colorado. He said that Spud was "one of the most correct (shetlands) he has seen". I believe this judge has judged shetlands at the Nationals in Estes Park? I'm so not into the show circuit.
How could Spud miss. I'm told Nattee, in picture, spent two hours brushing him and polishing his horns. He even has a woolly poll not very common in my flock. I was told he was the hit of the barn. Shetlands are like little toys when they show with the big guys.
Spud is from Hattie "Who" and his sire is Cider. Both Desert Peach animals and third generation born here. Now if I can get some horns on my rams to grow right I might get some herd sires from my flock to sell!
Spud was heard saying when asked what he'll do next. "I'm going to Disneyland!"
He really will be going to a few more shows in July. This is so fun. It's like having a dog handler who takes your dog on the road. Even better when your animal shows well.

Hens With Jobs

2009-06-10T12:26:00.000-07:00

Here is a picture of the front of the chicken yard. About 10 or 15 years ago I planted some hops to grow over this fence to keep the area cool and hide the chicken wire fence and top. Now the hops grow so thick in the summer the chickens can't see out except for in places I pull the hops away. You can see one little window I've cleared. Each year the plants can grow as much as 15 feet to cover the chicken wire that is over the top of the yard. This works great because in the winter the hops die back to the ground and the chickens get the warm sun.

I really dislike keeping the chickens in a coop. They should be out scratching and picking around the yard. My three little silkies are loose in the yard but I never get any eggs because the Magpie birds we have in the neighborhood eat them all before I have a chance to collect them. In order to get eggs from our new hens they most be confined to the coop. So, like the saying goes, if you can't bring Mohammad to the mountain you bring the mountain to Mohammad.

This week I started a new layer of "stuff" from the barn. I'm almost always cleaning the straw, hay, and sheep poo out of the sheep's side of the barn. So it goes to the chickens to give them something to scratch and pick threw. If it's kept moist it starts to break down.

With all the rain lately the last bunch of stuff I put in here was ready to be cleaned out. Can you believe in a two week period we've had over two inches of rain at our place, and the Reno area gets 7 inches of rain per year on a good year!

The hens have been using their roto-tilling skills to break the organic matter to a fine texture. With the big rains if I dig in the soil the chickens have a new project of finding earth worms and keeping their numbers under control.

At the feed store last week I found a few more pullet chicks that were looking for a home. Sort of left overs, poor gals. There are two Rhode Island Reds, one Buff Orpington and a Wyandotte. There was no place to put them until I discovered an old rabbit cage works great. Scrap hay from around the hay bales on the bottom a bowl for food and a bowl of dirt from the yard so they can hone their scratching skills before they are turned in with the others. By the end of the day the hay and poo have fallen threw the wire bottom and you just start over.

For all the work the chickens have been doing I am blessed with a pile of beautiful compost for our flowers! Not exatly the easy way to get compost but the hens and I are happier about chickens living in a coop.

Great Weekend!

2009-06-02T11:11:00.000-07:00

This weekend brought many wonderful and fun things to Desert Peach Farm. First after many days of thunder storms to our area we finally got some rain! Our ground is wet after many weeks of dry hot sunny weather. Now that it is wet the sheep have spent far more time on the new field they have next to us. It's cool now and they love the moist foliage to graze on. You can water from the well till your face turns blue and the grass does not grow much once the summer heat hits. After two good rains I can't believe how the grass is now out of control with new growth!

Another fun thing is a lady from California who shows her Colombian and Cotswold sheep at several shows during the summer also brings with her a show string of Shetlands she gets from her friend in California. They were short two rams so came to me for some to fill the show string. I sent my two oldest rams, only 7 weeks old with them. Another one of her friends was in Reno this weekend to attend a large sheep show and sale at the Nugget Casino. She was purchasing a Dorset ewe from the sale. Zorro and Spud went with her in a large dog crate. I never sell any body this young but with no papers I sent them off knowing that these ladies are real sheep people and would give them the care they need and deserve.
I'm promised updates on the judges comments. Their first show will be in another two weeks! So far they are responding well to their new home and the little rams mothers, Jorja and Hattie, did great with the loss of their kids at such a young age.

Becky came this weekend also for some marathon sheep and fiber talk. She came Saturday night and left Sunday afternoon. She brought a large bag of her beautiful yarn for me to look threw and take what I'd like. The picture above is some silk yarn, left and a skein of mohair on the right, now I need a pattern to knit these into something that will do them justice.
We also had a T-Party! Becky helped me band most of the ram lambs. I left two intact to watch how horns grow and use if it becomes impossible for me to get a new ram from another breeder this fall. There are loads of rams out there for sale but I'm not sure how to get them here to Reno with the budget I have to work with. Something will come up and I have back ups just in case.

Flowers In The Yard

2009-05-27T13:30:00.001-07:00

This post is loaded with pictures. I didn't even get to all the different flowers in the yard.
First is one of our Purple Robe Locust trees. If you click on the picture you may see the bumble bees. It is loaded with them and no honey bees. This apple tree is not blooming right now but it was full of flowers. This was the honey bee's favorite!

Snow Ball Bush.

Purple Johnny Jump Up's with some Candytuft. The Johnny Jump Up's are all over the yard where ever there is water for them. Some are yellow and purple and other have no yellow.

Oriental Poppy's

Black Iris

Little white flowers that are a bulb. If I find their name I'll edit this any guesses?

Thrift.

Phlox.

Small perennial Geranium

California Poppies turn up all over the yard each year.

Columbine

And a dog who believes its too hot to sleep under the covers!

It's a Meme

2009-05-18T12:02:00.000-07:00

I was chosen by Sharon for a Meme to list six unimportant things that make me happy. Like Sharon says if it makes you happy it must be very important. I could use more of these things some times! So here goes.

The way munchkin kitties walk with those little short legs. They wattle like Corgi's when you watch them walk away.
Watching sheep graze.
The smell of the heat from the wood stove, that first fire of the season.
The feel of a new soft sweat shirt. (Dislike summer, looking forward to fall)
Going to a guild meeting or family get-together and talking and laughing so much I'm exhausted when I get home. (a Starbucks latte helps on the way back)
Listening to people talk about their passion, even more so if we share the same passion.

Ok, now for six people to spring this Meme on, or who would I like to learn more about!

Becky Wish I could spin like Becky and a friend in life.
Carolyn Love her beautiful pictures also a fun guild friend.
Kara I'm in love with her sheep.
Jenny Always fun to read her blog about her "dream" of a life.
Nancy I need a Zorro in my life or at least a HST ram.
Amy Wonderful projects in purple and a another guild friend.

We Interrupt This Shetland Blog...

2009-05-11T09:47:00.000-07:00

for a weekend of Alpaca shearing. This is my friend Jeannette Miller's place. As you can see she raises alpacas and has tons of them! Shearing started last Thursday and went till Sunday. I go to town and shop with my Mom on Thursdays and had a guild meeting on Saturday so only helped two days. Thank goodness I had a day off in between helping. After Friday from 8:30 am till 4:00 pm of bending over my legs were soooo sore!

These are some of the girls. We sheared mostly females and then the show fleeces on Sunday. When I first saw several years ago how they lay the animals out and pull their legs I wasn't sure shearing alpacas was so nice. Then when your dealing with the long legs and slender necks you get a better appreciation about the safety in this way of doing things. Three people hold the alpaca as she stands on the mats. David the shearer slips a noose on each leg then he pulls the ropes and we help her down slowly and stretch out her legs. Zack gets a towel and puts it under her head and sits there holding her head.

My job is to trim her feet and hold her hips if she begins to jump around. David shears the blanket off first (mid-body). Megan and Jeannette and/or I gather the fleece as it comes off. Then the seconds come off, leg and neck, and placed in a separate bag. Any fiber too short to keep is in the garbage.

Next picture is Prince in the back ground and his show fleece in front of him. Wow he is just over one year old and this is his tui fleece. (tui fleece is their first fleece like hogget fleece in sheep talk. You can see this is just the middle of his body and his legs and neck will be sheared next.

Shearing a show fleece takes twice as long. In the picture below Mystified is half way done with his show fleece. The first half is folded over like David is doing with the second part. It took two people to hold the first part and two people to roll Mystified over so we could keep the fleece from separating in the middle. The first half and Megan are sitting on a shower curtain. Once the second part is free of Mystified body we roll him back straighten out the fleece and it is folded and rolled in the shower curtain. Mystified has a few Grand champion ribbons for his past fleeces, even at the Alpaca Nationals, I believe it was last year.

Below is the last alpaca sheared. A not so happy older girl who hates shearing!! It was decided to let her stand, her fleece is not one to keep, very course, and she has a towel over her mouth because "not so happy" alpacas can scream, kick and SPIT green crap everywhere! She did not scream much nor did she kick but the towel was green and wet by the end of the shearing and we were happy the day was done! In four days David sheared 89 alpacas with 5 show fleeces.

Big job I'd say. This last stand up shearing was a big help from all the bending over.

Can't leave without showing you Apollo a future show 'paca sporting his new Lolly Pop cut.

Flock, Flowers and Fiber

2009-05-06T06:41:00.000-07:00

May Day brought us two more lambs. Desert Peach Nana had twin rams. At the 6 AM check she was out with the flock grazing and at 8 AM when I went out to work in the barn she had both lambs over by the barn The dark lamb is little and whispy and his brother is the opposite heavy bones and flashy.

Both lambs are Ag.

Spring has come again to Reno. We've been getting flowers off and on since February. With loads of rain this last weekend the alyssum and phlox are going strong now.

More Basket of Gold alyssum.

Our little apple tree is just budding out. Love the Hobbit Tree shape.

With all the rain I spent Friday and Saturday dyeing some Blue Face Leicester wool.

Evie's Story

2009-04-25T12:14:00.000-07:00

This is Desert Peach Eve. She was born here five years ago. A mistake from her father getting threw the fence and breeding one of his daughters. I like her personality and build so she has stayed. Steve, her sire, produced daughters with very small fleeces, like 1.5 to 2.5 pounds in a year so Steve now lives with a friend and sires meat sheep. His little square body makes him great at that job. Evie looks just like Steve! Eve was in labor yesterday morning when I went out at 8:00 AM. Standing away from the others and not going out on the hill to graze. So I kept an eye on her. By 11:00 no progress was made and her water had not broken so I did wash up and checked her out. I could not find a way to the lambs and guessed she was not dilated yet. She continued to paw at the straw lay down get up and generally be very uncomfortable. She was not pushing nor had her water broke so I gave her till 2:00 and checked again, no progress! Vet time! I called our large animal vets in Chilcoot, California and was told to bring her in to the clinic which is only about 1/2 hour away.

When we got there she was checked over inside and out with a few hands and a cool scope with a camera and light. Yap, her cervix had not dilated yet. She was the hit of the horse clinic! We were placed first in line and the farrier there was so impressed. He had never seen a brown sheep nor a "miniature" one. He was on his knees giving her kisses.

It was decided that she would get a shot of Banamine to help with the cramping but if that was not successful she was to be brought back for a c-section because this could be "ring womb" when the cervix does not dilate on it's own. Everyone was sure she was not even full term because her colostrum had not come in and she was not bothered any more with cramps as she sat and soaked in all the attention.
Back in the truck with a few more syringes of Banamine for the days ahead if she was uncomfortable again and we went home. We were back around 4 PM and Eve was feeling fine and went out to the hill to get some grazing in before dark. At 6 she was still eating by the barn so I went in till the next check of her a 8 PM. Surprise! She had already given birth to a large ewe lamb, picture below, the ewe is in the middle of the picture. After an hour I checked her and she had a large ram lamb coming breech so I pulled him. He's is so big his head was stuck at her hips for a moment.

Evie is one of the smallest ewe's I have and each one of these lambs is around 7 pounds! Evie might weigh around 75 pounds and look at the first picture. After giving birth to 14 pounds of lambs plus after birth and water she is not sunk in or gaunt! Inbreeding did not make a weak sheep in this case. She'll stay longer!

Kess's Ewe Lamb

2009-04-21T10:11:00.001-07:00

With all the moorit happening here I do have one unusual lamb in the mix. Kess (left) a two year old moorit ewe. Truffles / Dugan

Bred to my ram Cider

Newton / Limerick
had this pretty little ewe lamb. Her coloring is not like the other lambs. She has the lighter moorit color around her ears upper legs and tail and her face is a grizzled brown. I don't have a better word for it,

like a grizzly bear! Unlike the Ag gene most of my sheep carry she does not have "sugar lips" nor is her fleece growing in lighter now like the others. (Click on pictures for a closer look)

Strong sturdy built lamb with soft, soft fleece she is special!

Do I just call her moorit or brown? She should have a special shetland color name. In the mean time I'm still looking for her Desert Peach...... name.

Lamb Update and Pictures

2009-04-20T19:38:00.000-07:00

Valla lambed back on Wednesday the 15th. She has twin ewe's this is her and one ewe lamb. Here they are together out in our new field. The temperature outside today was around 80 degrees, so it was back to the barn for a larger piece of shade. The back ewe is an Ag and the front ewe has no "sugar lips" so I'd say she is solid like her Mom and the dark, dark moorit.

More pictures of some of the lambs. Most less then one week old.

Tess's tiny moorit ewe and her dark moorit brother.

Zorro (below) is the large single of Jorja's and does he know it! The class bully. He's black. A dark moorit ram lamb behind him, not sure who he is at this angle.

Sweet little ewe lamb of Bella's with her brother, another dark moorit.

Here they are again. I admit I'm not patient with a camera but I can't get the dark moorit to show anyway but black.

Sunday morning Kate had given birth to this little ram lamb out on her own. She is another wild child. Soon she'll settle down and I can get a close up picture. She is black and look at her ram he is, oh no, dark moorit.

And then there are the lambs and ewe's who you have to hold back to get a picture. Hattie and her ram are two of a kind. He's the little "spud-nut" short, broad and in your face like his Mom.

Black Ag. Hattie has a black face in the winter and now it is turning brown for the summer.

2009-04-15T18:32:00.000-07:00

The last ewe lamb born is moorit. So dark her legs look black. One more ewe, Vala, lambed and had twins, more moorit ewe lambs. I'll get pictures in the next few days.

Can't forget Clarita...

This is a picture of Mtn Niche Clarita (3/4/96-3/10/09 I bought Clarita from Susie Sizemore in August of 2003. I have a few of her daughters. They are some of my best sheep. I'll miss her because she was always like a pet and grandmatron of the flock. She could not get around any more so it's good to have her find relief from her old body!

Holy Moly!

2009-04-15T12:50:00.000-07:00

Four ewe's lambed today before noon. This is Tess she had twins a ewe and a ram. The little ewe, and I mean LITTLE, bet she doesn't weigh more than three pounds, was having a hard time finding the teat. So when she was laying next to Mom I showed her an easier way. That got her going and she didn't stop nursing till her belly was full! I watched her be born at 1 AM. Brother was already here. I'm betting this ewe is a solid moorit.

Then at 7 AM I found Kess with a single ewe, right, check out her color! This must be what some of the other lambs would look like if they didn't have their spotted faces. Rich red moorit and light fringe on the inside of her legs, on her ears and face. Please help with a color name on this ewe lamb?

By the way Kess and Tess were named years apart. Wouldn't you know they would lamb within hours of each other.

After getting Kess set up in a jug I started feeding and couldn't find Charlee. I have a small old building up the hill from the barn and this is what I found. Don't they look just like Bellas lambs? Exact colors only the reverse, her ram is light splashy brown and her ewe lamb is the dark one. That makes five sets of twins with each set a ewe and a ram.

I thought I was done for the morning. Everyone was fed and the new Mom's were in their own jugs. I went back to the house for the camera to get some pictures of the new babies. Last on my list was Charlee up in the little house. WOW, Siskin was in there with her pushing to give birth to her lamb. I saw some feet so gave them a little pull to help her out and she gave birth to a ewe lamb!

Minutes later she was up and nursing. The lamb is wet and the little house doesn't have the best lighting but I'm betting this ewe is black, like in pure black. Mom is brown. Dad is brown. Grandma on Dads side is shaela. Can't wait to get her dry and in the sun. Is a sheep that has Ag and gives birth to a solid lamb an ag?

The little house was easily divided to make two jugs so little Charlee's ram would stay on his own side.

Watching lambs being born is cold, hard job...

Lambs, Lambs and

2009-04-13T12:33:00.000-07:00

... more lambs! Easter Sunday began with a early morning check to the barn where I found Jorja "Ray" with her new large single ram. Healthy strong and legs that are almost as long as his Moms. He looks like Zorro with his identical eye patches. Jorja is an independent "Wild Child" who after only a few hours in her jug broke out and joined the flock with baby in tow. He's doing great!

Easter Sunday is our family holiday. My brother, sister-in-law, Mother and son Dana came for a day in the country. They were able to see two lambs and we kept an eye on Oma as she looked ready to lamb. Soon it was time to eat and visit so Oma was forgotten for a few hours. After 4:00 in the afternoon I did another barn check and Oma "Jean" had her two lambs dry and fed. One ewe and one ram lamb. This is the best picture I got with all three. The ram and his sister look the same only less white. This is the ram. It's a shame I will loose all this color as most of my sheep carry the Ag gene. This ram lamb has the light brown around his belly and legs.

All went well Sunday then this morning at the 4:30 AM barn check Bella (Portabella, her Mom is a Truffle) was out on the grass with two new lambs a ram and a ewe. So far three sets of twins and even number on ewe's and rams. One ewe lamb died and one single ram.

Altho this ewe lamb is pink from birthing fluids she is almost like the ewe lamb who died. Not gulmoget but dark brown over her back and light brown on her legs and belly. Her legs are not as light as the first lamb.

Now the best news of all! Bella is the ewe who had two blind lambs last year. Oma had one blind/sick lamb die and a healthy ewe lamb, and Hattie and Jorja had a one in four chance of having blind lambs because their father is Dugan. All have healthy happy lambs so I venture to say that the lambs sire Cider (Newton and Limerick) does not carry the gene that caused all the trouble last year.

Camera Found

2009-04-11T12:27:00.000-07:00

Pictures from yesterday. Yes I found the camera and it was safe and sound on the kitchen counter! At least in my forgetfulness I was careful with the camera. Ewe's on the hill.

White ewe in both these pictures is Tru. She is a yearly and not bred for this years lambings. This is the sort of fleece I've been getting after introducing some UK genetics. Enfield Greyling

Jake in a squirrel hole. Check out his fleece! Nice but no crimp!

Hattie "Who" on the lookout yesterday.

Hattie this morning!!!! And who's that? Her little ram lamb. She had given birth to him before I got out to check this morning. He was almost dry and I thought she might not be done lambing and sure enough she had a dead ewe lamb in her when I checked. Damn she was full term too. This ram will be Ag like Hattie and the ewe was different than any lamb I've had born here. Dark on her back and light brown from the front of her neck under her belly and around the inside of her legs?? Any guesses. I've never had a katmoget or gulmoget here.

Well I should be getting more lambs soon now. Several other ewe's looked like Hattie as far as udders and bums go.

Like Charlee here.

Nothings Happening

2009-04-10T14:23:00.000-07:00

I've mostly been working so haven't had much time to blog. Cleaning the barn and the house getting ready for lambing and Easter. Then this morning I took a long walk and brought my camera to get some pre-lambing pictures of the girls. Well some where up on the hill after several shots my camera must have fallen out of my coat pocket! Grrrr I went back up the hill and still can't find it. Now watch the ewe's will start lambing and no camera. Plus it's snowing and raining out there on my lost camera.

I did get a picture on my computer the other day of the felt curtains I made many moons ago but didn't care for them on our front door where they were meant to hang.

My African Violets needed more sun and I moved them to the kitchen window facing west. Then I hung the curtains under the valance of the smaller back window and cut then to fit. The white shetland wool lets the sun light in and when closed keeps the hot sun off the violets. Now I like my curtains! They also have dyed silk and BFL felted in for a touch of color.
This is Chester my last goat. I once raised Pygmy's and Alpine Dairy goats and Chester is the last of a long line. I call him my "Judas Goat" now. He lives with the ewe's and thinks he's their leader! He does not have blue eyes.

Judging

2009-03-27T11:58:00.000-07:00

A new project that has been keeping me away from my blog has been judging an "Alpaca Spin Off" for the up coming AWE show in Reno on April 11th and 12th. Participants send in 2 ounces of their alpaca fiber from a raw fleece to the coordinator in January who in turn sends them to me with all the paper work and classes for each sample. It is my job to find a few ladies from our guild plus myself to look at each sample, spin a portion of the fiber and give comments and placings for each age and color group. Here is a class in the fawn division my favorite colors of alpaca.

It can take a few hours for each sample so each of us only had to judge a dozen or more entries. What with all the other things going on here it has taken me a few weeks to get my 10 fawn samples done. Now I will start working on the Suri Alpaca samples I have and write in all the final placings and comments. Maybe another week and I'll be done! Thank goodness the samples do not need to be shipped off again being that the show is here in Reno.

Speaking of judging. We are over another judging here as of last week. Jake our LGD is now on probation for "Dog at Large" not "Dangerous Dog". Back in October he ran out the gate and had a 5 second fight with the neighbor dog who was running at large. And since the other dog had a wound Jake was the bad guy. The original ticket was for dangerous dog because the neighbor said Jake was after her son as her dog provoked Jake threw our fence. And since Jake has never in his 9 years of life ever even growled at a human the accusation did not stand but he did bite their dog.
I found this cool sign at the Anatolian Shepard Dog International site to hang on the new fence. Hopefully it tells people that a LGD is not dangerous but also to leave him be so he doesn't think your dog is a threat to his home and the animals he is in charge of protecting.

February

2009-03-07T10:11:00.000-08:00

February has been loaded with work, fun and excitement! The most thrilling thing is our new fence! You know the saying if life throws you lemons make lemonade, well here is my lemonade! 3000 feet of five foot no-climb horse fence. This encloses our 10 acre parcel next to us and the 4-5 acres at the top of our property we live on that was never fenced.

A big Thank You goes to Juan Padilla of "Juan's Lawn Service" for a job well done. We would have never done this, but when our Livestock Guardian Dog Jake was "arrested" for being a dangerous dog we went looking for money to hire a lawyer. When Bob's Mom passed away about 8 years ago and we sold her house bought this land and had a small annuity. Well "Wall Street" was spending the annuity for us so we took the money and invested in our own economy and built a fence. Jake has 21 acres to run and the peanut JoBeth can't even get out.

This property has loads of grasses brush and perennial plants to feed my flock all summer! There are also large Poplar trees on the land for shade in the summer and leaves to eat in the fall. The picture below is my new gate from the sheep pen to their new acreage.

Speaking of sheep on February 28, last Saturday there was a large flock reduction happening! David Armer sheared my shetland flock, reducing their size to about half! With the help of my friend Jeannette the three of us spent from 9 AM to 7 PM shearing 28 shetlands. David is a student at UNR and has been involved with llamas most of his young life. Jeannette raises alpaca so I was the only sheep person. We sheared them on a stand. It was slow going but no major cuts happened and they look wonderful.

These picture were taken today, one week later and the temperature is 25 degrees. We got a foot and a half of snow the other day and the sheep are all doing very well. They have straw in the barn and the sun is a blessing in the mornings.

Their little bodies are so darling!

Hattie, below, is just the cutest thing! She does stand square and her shoulders and butt are so broad. She is a coming two year old and should have a lamb or two in there somewhere.

Oma's straight top line broad stance and full of babies. She will be three and this is her second lambing.

This is Pepper like in Pepper Potts "Iron Man's" girl Friday. She is not bred and will be one year old this April.

Now meet Hazel. Also a yearly this April. I completely lost her hogget fleece. Well almost all. What happened? Poor David could not get his clippers threw most of the fleece so he sheared above this tangled mess. There is what looks like about a half inch of fleece that is stuck down to her body. If I sit and pull on it the fleece puffs up to about two inches. Now it is loosening up on its own somewhat. This is her hogget fleece and very soft. We don't get much rain and she was not coated. There is one other ewe, Kess a dark moorit, I have that had a bit of this happen. This is her second shearing.

When the weather warms up I'll need to give them a bath and re-cut their fleeces.

I have some new pullets. They came to live here about three weeks ago. Jeannette traded some of her Egyptian Geese for these young just starting to lay pullets. Five Barred Rocks and one black hen maybe a Black Australorp?

We've been getting two to four eggs per day, I share with Jeannette, and Sally the emu is still making a showing every third day!

Lastly I've been dyeing roving to sell on my new Etsy Store and I must say it is selling very well.

The "Feed the Flock Fund" paid for the shearing. Now with the new land to graze I'd like to be able to save enough money with the sales of my roving for next winters hay.

Fiber Projects

2009-01-19T10:35:00.001-08:00

This month has been full of fiber projects. Snow and cold days can do that since I'm inside more than usual. Blue Face Leicester dyed for the guild meeting. I've even been spinning yarn. The two colored skeins are from fiber I got at Christmas from Ann up in Idaho. She sent me some blends of wool, silk, mohair and bamboo dyed different colors and get this a small bag of some yak right off her own yaks! I'd say the wool and mohair are from her animals also. The white skein is from my shetland ewe Charlee with 20% silk blended on my Pat Green Super Carder. Charlee's wool is as bright as the silk.

Felting has to be part of my fiber work so I gave this purse a try. I saw a picture of a knitted purse like this. The long handle fits inside the shorter handle closing the purse and leaving room to put your arm in the long handle to carry easily. This is all felt, no knit, over a cardboard resist. The fiber is from Becky, her "feel good" fiber I got from her about a year or so back. It is a Romney cross fleece I believe and was it hard to felt! Hard meaning it took forever to felt tight. Now it's still soft and fluffy but holding together enough to be durable. The center is some more fiber from Ann that was spun and knit together then felted into the black fiber. As the saying goes it's never done till it's embellished, or more is more, so I'm looking for buttons or beads to embellish with now.

Last but not least Sally has been busy this month also. I now have four beautiful emu eggs. The eggs are sitting on some shetland felt. Pre felt to be more accurate. These will be for some rugs I'd like to make. Pre felt is felting fiber to a near done state then cutting designs from them to place over new fiber and felt them into each other "inlays". The designs stay sharp and clear that way.

"If you talk to the animals , they will talk with you, and you will know each other. If you do not talk to them, you will not know them, and what you do not know, you will fear . What one fears one destroys."

Chief Dan George

New Stocking

2009-01-01T15:14:00.000-08:00

Just finished another Christmas stocking. The plan was to have three done to sell for Christmas. Figured I'm way ahead of schedule now. I have eleven months left to do the third sock. Now I can set my goals even higher and do a few more sets before the Holidays come around again! First stocking is made of shetland wool (light color), hand dyed corriedale X (red) and the gold wool is BFL hand dyed. The newest sock is made from corriedale X (red and green) and the gold is the same BFL. Stitching and tassels are hand spun BFL.

Wethers

2008-12-28T10:46:00.000-08:00

Here are some pictures of my wethers. There are three wethers that live here full time. Since I only keep one ram at a time I find wethers to be the perfect companions for my lone ram. They do a great job of teaching a young ram some manors and at the same time don't have the need to bash the ram around. I believe the ram learns to be the boss eventually without having to fight to the death to prove his supremacy.
Cider my latest ram did have a father with a passive attitude and being raised by my three wethers has become a very respectful man. He lets me catch him with no effort yet leaves me alone as I feed and care for him and his ewe's. I will continue to let him live with the ewe's as long as he continues to act in this manor. Picture above is K.G. (King George) when he has his picture taken he always acts the part!

This next guy is Kalus. I have a black wether named Sailor that I can't get a good picture of yet. All three of these wethers are coming four years old.

Poco (Charlee/Newton) the bigger guy and his friend (Shay/Newton) are from this spring. Amazing difference in size. I don't name everyone because some just don't name themselves and I have to butcher so many it isn't fun to name them all. The little wether has a sister, "Tru" the same coloring. With the black, brown and white I called them calicos.

Here is "Mac" this is Ciders brother and keeping to the apple thyme he became Macintosh or

Teddy Mac because he is so teddy bear like. He got the teddy name because of his fleece. He just may stay longer than next spring. Newton, sire to all the lambs this year gave his lambs some soft crimpy single coats and some strong solid bodies.

Here is the biggest guy born this year. He was a large single from (Siskin/Newton) and has remained the largest of this years wethers. Beautiful fleece and large strong boned lamb.

Here is the little guy. Born very tiny and twin to a sick ewe lamb who was even smaller Sofie/Newton. His mother was culled and if he doesn't find a fiber pet home he will be too.

Merry Christmas

2008-12-23T06:41:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas from our Home...

...To yours ................This white Christmas is no dream.

Chief Dan George

Sunday Morning Walk

2008-12-07T09:59:00.001-08:00

In the mornings I like to walk up our hill. As I walk up this is looking toward the top of our property. You can see the fence line but there is more property past there. The hill is so steep we never fenced any higher. This is the east side of the Peterson Mountain Range altitude is about 5900 feet were I'm standing.

Walking up the fence line. To the right is our other eleven + acres not fenced yet.

Looking down toward the pond our house center right. I walk with the dogs down to the pond occasionally. It's a good destination in the summer when it's hot. All the dogs get to take a swim before walking back home.

Same view almost. This just shows more of the other piece of property we own on the left. It already has a well, not hooked up yet and a few trees, two spruce and a line of poplars on the right of the two little spruce next to the fence line. There is a drip to these trees so I can water them from our well. I hope to fence this some day for the sheep.
My barn and if you follow the road on the top right of the picture it leads to our small community church. Really someones house. This is Sunday morning so there has been a lot of action as people drive by for church services at 10:00 AM.
Jobeth hunting rabbits. We have been over run with rabbits the last few years. These walks have helped to make the rabbits move on to other places. Also the quail needed to move on their own land above us with the local chucker. All of Peterson Mountain is BLM (Bureau of Land Management) land so they can live up there! I will never be without a Jack Russell dog. Jobeth is worth her weight in gold, all 13 pounds of her!

And then we're home!

Happy Thanksgiving!

2008-11-27T09:26:00.001-08:00

from

Desert Peach Farm