Afternoon airshow

Posted by kenleighacres on May 28, 2012
Posted in: Farm Life, Photography. Tagged: , , , , . 3 comments

Today was filled with lots of sheep chores – weaning, tagging, worming, foot trimming, and other fun stuff.  While we were outside trimming hooves on some of the older sheep, I looked up and saw a HUGE bird being chased by crows.  Luckily my camera was close at hand…

Those are crows, not little tweety birds.  My husband confirmed my thoughts that it was a Golden Eagle.

It was amazing to watch the crows diving and swooping and chasing this big predator away from their territory.

Here is a great picture to see the wingspan and size difference.

The show was over just as quick as it started and the eagle was headed somewhere a little less harassing!

My, how they grow!

Posted by kenleighacres on May 26, 2012
Posted in: Farm Life, Jacob Sheep, sheep. Tagged: , , , . Leave a Comment

We are often asked how fast the horns grow on the Jacob sheep.  People are often shocked to find out that you can see the horns on the ram lambs when they are born.  The horns do a lot of growing from birth to 9-10 months, but the growth that really amazes me is in the Spring of their yearling year.  Here are some pictures of Byeburn Hector showing just what I mean!

Here he is October 15th, shortly after moving from New Jersey.

The date of this picture is March 18th.  Not a lot of growth, but some.  He looks to be pretty big….

 until he stands next to one of the big boys :)

This is at the end of April, he is getting bigger.

This is a current picture of him.  Amazing  how much he has grown in the last month!

He doesn’t look so small next to Mac anymore!

The girls don’t go through such a dramatic growth spurt, but it still surprises me how they go from looking like a lamb to looking like an adult in a short time frame in the Spring.

Ruby Peak Pentstemon joined our farm at the end of August last year.

Here she is in October.

In March, she was still going through the ‘teenage’ phase.  Not really a lamb anymore, but not quite adult looking either.

 

The lovely lady today.

I love watching them change and mature this time of year!

Signs of Spring

Posted by kenleighacres on May 20, 2012
Posted in: family, Farm Life, Jacob Sheep, sheep. Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a Comment

Spring has been beautiful and there are signs everywhere!

A Canada goose and a whole batch of babies.

The adults…

and the babies were enjoying the warm, Spring day.

The swallows are out in force catching bugs and building nests.

Thanks to all of the grass growing, the babies aren’t so little anymore.  This is Althea with her daughters, Fleury and Folly.

Speaking of grass, it is growing everywhere!

The yearling boys are getting bigger and challenging the big boys, luckily it isn’t too serious…just some friendly back and forth with a lot of bluffing.  This is Mac (Windy Acres MacCallum) just freshly shorn and Hector (Byeburn Hector).  Hector has done a lot of growing in the last couple of weeks.

and my favorite picture…I always get a kick out of what my son chooses to put on :)

Dusting off my spinning wheel

Posted by kenleighacres on May 16, 2012
Posted in: Farm Life, Fiber, Jacob Sheep, Spinning, whippet. Tagged: , , , , , . 3 comments

It has been quite a while since I have sat at my spinning wheel and I had to dust it off - literally and figuratively :)

Just like riding a bike, it came right back and I was spinning away in no time at all.

I was excited to spin the roving I recently got back from being processed.

 Here are the large bags of roving – a little over 4 lbs. of each color!

I was curious to see how the different colors spun up.  I was delighted to find that all three colors were lovely to spin.

Dark brown/charcoal

White

Gray

I have small sample packs made up and available in my Etsy shop if you would like to try Jacob wool.

Always willing to lay in the sun, Paisley kept me company while I spun away.

I have now made a goal to spin once a week, no more dust on my spinning wheel!

Lamb Field Trips

Posted by kenleighacres on May 7, 2012
Posted in: Farm Life, Jacob Sheep, Lambing, sheep. Tagged: , , , , , , . 2 comments

I went on a couple of field trips last week to see lambs at some friend’s houses.

Her lambs aren’t very small anymore, but I always love my visits at Tammy’s farm.  She has a combination of Border Leicester and Bluefaced Leicesters with an emphasis on the Bluefaced.

How can you not love those ears???

The fleeces are awfully nice too!

She wanted an opinion on what ram lamb she should keep and we always have a great time discussing certain qualities and fleece types.

In the end, she decided on keeping this guy…again, how can you not love those ears???  It took a lot of self-control to not come home with a wether ;)

My son was disappointed that she didn’t have her goats anymore, but was happy to see the local castle again.  How fun would it be to live in a castle!

 

The other visit was to Bethany’s, to see her new jacob lambs.  She bought a couple of ewes from us last year and bred them to our rams.

This pretty girl is Poppy.

This adorable girl with the pretty blue eyes is Daisy.

With our pasture full of BIG lambs, it was fun to see cute little babies again.

Look at the barn that was next door!  Put that with my castle and I would be a very happy girl :)

I’m working!

Posted by kenleighacres on May 1, 2012
Posted in: Border Collie, Dog Photography, Dogs, Farm Life, Llama. Tagged: , , . 2 comments

Kate and Magoo have come to an agreement that she will give him space and he won’t harass her.

He must have forgotten their truce this morning…

Poor Kate was just trying to do her job.

Her focus never wavered though.

In time, Magoo walked away and let her get on with her business.  I wish I could have that fierce determination to not get distracted :)

Mountain climbing sheep

Posted by kenleighacres on April 29, 2012
Posted in: Border Collie, Dog Photography, Farm Life, Herding, Jacob Sheep, sheep, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , . 11 comments

Joan at Mud Ranch is hoping to add a border collie to help with their sheep chores.  They are going to get a trained dog, but the sheep need some training as well.  Jacob sheep can be challenging for a dog, they like to intimidate and some do a little more than intimidate…especially when they have lambs.  I offered to bring Kate with me when I came to visit and work with their sheep a couple of times.   You can read Joan’s tale of the day on her blog.

Kate and I had a slightly different take on it ;)

Her sheep have mountains and they are very good at climbing them!

I love the look on her face in this photo.  Kate had never seen anything like it!

She is used to working on flat ground without any obstacles.

The sheep thought they had outsmarted her, but after convincing her that the sheep were up there (she couldn’t see them) she went up and around and brought them back to the barn for us.

 

I forgot how much fun it could be to work ‘challenging’ sheep.  Most of our sheep are ‘dog broke’ meaning they are used to being worked by a border collie and ‘give’ to her when she puts pressure on them.  We have individuals that still like to give Kate a run for her money, but for the most part she has done a good job training them.

It took her a little while to get a feel for the different environment and the different sheep…

but she soon had them bunched up together.

She had to keep going left and right or in herding terms ‘away’ and ‘come by’, but she managed to keep them together so we could get a closer look at all the lambs.

It was much warmer than she is used to and her tongue was hanging WAY out in no time at all.

Luckily there was a little creek close by for a cool down.

Mud Ranch

Posted by kenleighacres on April 26, 2012
Posted in: Border Collie, family, Farm Life, Herding, Jacob Sheep, Photography, sheep. Tagged: , , , . 2 comments

I will never forget my first visit to Mud Ranch, I swore I would never drive there again!  The road is twisty and turny with several places where the road turns back on itself.  Since then, I have become very good friends with Joan and driving to see her and all of our friends at Mud Ranch make the drive worth it.  Plus, the drive really is beautiful!  This is the first time I made the trip with a trailer though, I am happy to say that it went just fine :)

The welcoming committee was just as sweet as at Mendenhall’s.

When we pulled in, the three bottle lambs came running at us and Kate immediately felt like she needed to control them.  I did tell her that she was going to get to work sheep, but this isn’t what I had in mind.

After unpacking the truck and settling in, we headed out to see sheep.  The kids were very happy to play in the creek.

I wish every child could experience the imaginative play that comes with playing next to a creek.  They had little horses that were floating on logs down the ‘raging’ river.

While they enjoyed themselves, we had Kate gather the sheep and looked at all of the beauties.

There were many that I liked and I did a little bit of ‘in person’ shopping…

here is one that will probably call Oregon home in the future.

I also got to see some familiar faces…

Lancelot moved to California last August and he has matured nicer than I could have hoped for!

Joan has told me about his personality, that he is a funny guy and he was certainly showing off that evening.  He was having fun stirring things up.

The weather was outstanding while we were there.  We enjoyed a fire on the back porch and…

SMORES :)

   

Good memories!

After a visit that was too short, we were back on the road and headed for home.

Tomorrow’s post will be about Kate’s adventure with Joan’s mountain climbing sheep!  It was an adventure.

Lots of blue!

Posted by kenleighacres on April 25, 2012
Posted in: Farm Life, Herding, Jacob Sheep, sheep. Tagged: , , , , , , , , . 3 comments

California did not disappoint :)   Plenty of blue skies and sunshine.

After a couple stops in Oregon, the trailer was full and we were on our way.  We had 5 jacob lambs, 5 Romney lambs, 3 Romney ewes, and a Wensleydale ram.  While my son and I enjoyed the warm weather, the poor sheep weren’t sure of the 95 degree weather.  It was quite a change from the wet, soggy, cool NW!

We arrived at our first destination Friday night and more importantly it was where all of the sheep were getting off the trailer.

The Mendenhall Wool Ranch is beautiful and their welcoming committee made my son feel right at home…

He was in heaven!

I loved looking at all of the sheep and the colors.

They raise Romneys – white and natural colored.

 

As well as white and natural colored Merinos.

I also really enjoyed this little dog work.  Her name is Jill and she is only 6 months old.  She had the maturity and work ethic of a much older dog.

She had so much confidence and self-assurance, even with sheep all around her.  Nothing like watching a good dog work sheep!

Dapper Dan, Felice, and Hoopla will be making the big trip with the Mendenhall’s all the way to the Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival.  From there they will be going to New Jersey and New York.  They looked good when we left Saturday morning.

 We headed North Saturday morning, but we had another stop in California before heading home.

A visit with our good friends at Mud Ranch!  More about our visit there tomorrow.

Looking for some blue…

Posted by kenleighacres on April 19, 2012
Posted in: Farm Life, Jacob Sheep, Photography, sheep. Tagged: , , . 2 comments

The days continue to be gray and dreary and I am really longing for some blue skys and sunshine.  After talking to some friends that are dealing with the exact opposite and are heading into a drought…I am trying to be thankful for the rain.

So, for now, I will have to look for blue elsewhere…

this day, my eye caught the blue eyes in our jacob sheep.  We don’t breed for blue eyes and we don’t make breeding decisions based on them, but they are very pretty when they appear.  This is Maelstrom and his pretty blue eyes.

One of my favorite girls, Molalla.

Aimee has just a hint in her eyes.

As does Reno.

Avalon is a daughter of Reno and Aimee and has very similar eyes.

As mush as I like looking at their pretty blue eyes, I am really hoping to see some blue skys when I go to California this weekend.

Here is a picture from my trip last year, ah…I can feel the warmth on my skin now!

I am delivering sheep that will be catching a ride to the Maryland Sheep and Wool show.  It started out as a small load and has grown into 19 sheep, 3 piglets, and 2 chickens.  I will be making several stops along the way, picking up animals and dropping off animals - should be interesting!!!  Hopefully I will have a lot of pictures to share with plenty of blue sky in them :)