Have you heard?

Posted by kenleighacres on September 23, 2010
Posted in: Uncategorized. Tagged: , . Leave a comment

Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival (OFFF) is this weekend!  We will be there and hope you can make it too!

There will be lots of sheep, fiber from every animal you can imagine, herding demonstrations, workshops, inspiration, llamas, alpacas, bunny rabbits, demonstrations, a cook-off complete with taste testing, goats, fiber craft competitions, and a parking lot fleece sale.

We are very excited to see all of the sights and hope that our cheerful colors will bring the sunshine out for the weekend!

Click here for a full schedule.

Bringing new sheep home

Posted by kenleighacres on September 20, 2010
Posted in: Jacob Sheep. Tagged: , , , . 8 Comments

Our new sheep are here!  A couple of them have been on the road for two weeks.  I wish I could tell them that their travels are over because I’m sure they are just waiting to be put on another trailer. 

Bringing new sheep home is fun, but it should be done with care.  As much as I would like to turn these new sheep out into the pasture, this would be haphazard because they have been exposed to a lot of different sheep and farms over the last couple of weeks. 

I would hate to expose my sheep to an unknown threat, so the new sheep will have to wait a little longer to enjoy the Oregon grass.

I have them in a quarantine area in the barn.  This will help acclimate them to our property and I can watch them closer for any signs of distress.  I am also taking this time to worm them.  In addition to buying new sheep, you could also be buying worms that you don’t currently have in your flock.  It is recommended to worm with 2 different classes of wormer.  It is best to flush the worms out in your quarantine area and not in your pastures.

In addition to Albus, whom you have already met – we have…

   

a handsome 4-horn ram lamb from Peg Bostwick.  His name is Sweetgrass Clint and he will be traveling to California with Robin Lynde in the middle of October.

Albus’ traveling partner – Blue Ewe Meg.  Very pretty girl with a lovely fleece.

An unplanned (but one I am excited about) purchase from Dan Carpenter.  Such a cute face on this girl.  Her name is Dandy’s Hope.

This girl may look a little out-of-place 🙂  She is a Navajo-Churro from my friend Karen at bide a wee farm.  Her name is Ursa and she is the ewe that I mentioned briefly in a previous post about breeding to one of my ‘brown’ looking jacob rams.  I can’t wait to see the resulting offspring and am hoping for something other than black.  I wish I understood color genetics better (I am TRYING) so that I could discuss it with some intelligence.  So, please don’t ask any technical questions – but feel free to help me in understanding the extension brown and dominant black aspects!  On another note about Ursa – her name means ‘bear’.  So far I haven’t seen that she takes after her name, except for maybe looking like a big brown bear.  The churros aren’t much bigger than the jacobs, but just that little amount seems like a LOT!!!

After Albus realized that Clint is NOT a girl, they have settled down…

now he has his eyes (nose) on Ursa.

More sheep from AGM

Posted by kenleighacres on September 18, 2010
Posted in: Jacob Sheep. Tagged: , . Leave a comment

A yearling ram of Bob May’s

Byeburn Basil

Sweetgrass ewe lamb

another ewe lamb from Sweetgrass – she was so inquisitive.

A pen of yearling ewes owned by Anthony Berger.

A ewe lamb owned by Kay Kreutzer.

Another ewe lamb owned by Kay Kreutzer.

A Byeburn ewe lamb.

A lilac ewe lamb owned by Dan Carpenter.

A Southwind ram lamb.

A pasture of pretty ewes at Royal Unzicker’s.

and after being on the road for almost two weeks, this boy should be home tomorrow 🙂

JSBA’s AGM in NJ and PA

Posted by kenleighacres on September 16, 2010
Posted in: Jacob Sheep, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , . 11 Comments

A whole lot of letters = a whole lot of fun! 

This last weekend, the Jacob Sheep Breeder’s Association (JSBA) held their Annual General Meeting (AGM) in New Jersey (NJ) and Pennsylvania (PA).

I traveled with a couple of other Oregon Jacob Sheep breeders…

 

Ingrid Painter – Puddleduck Farm and Karen Lobb – bide a wee farm.  This is not the first AGM we have attended together.  A few years ago, we drove to the AGM in Colorado.  We travel well together and they are great fun to hang out with.

We flew into Philadelphia and were all a little intimidated by the BIG city!  We quickly rented a car and headed out of the city…

the New Jersey countryside was a pleasant surprise.  Rolling hills and wide open spaces.

The townships, villages, and quaint cottages were delightful.

We arrived Thursday night and even though it was a little late, Karen and I went to Royal & Sue Unzicker’s house for dinner.  Ingrid opted to stay at the hotel, which turned out to be a wise choice!  We had a couple adventures on the way.  We learned very quickly that New Jersey doesn’t allow left turns.  It was quite a shock at first and then it became a joke!  We finally arrived at the Unzicker’s and had a nice visit with them and Linda Bjarkman.  Thanks to Ms. GPS, on my phone, we made it back to the hotel without anymore adventures. 

The AGM started on Friday afternoon with a Jacob sheep show.  It was a very educational show with Ingrid judging.  She took her time and explained certain traits (good and bad) to everyone.

  

Yearling rams

Ram lambs

Aged ewes

Yearling ewes

Ewe lambs

Royal Unzicker’s ewe, Bryn Gweled Bryn, was Champion ewe and Overall Champion Jacob at 7 years old!

My new boy, Blue Ewe Albus, was Champion ram!  I really liked him in person and having him do well in the show was just icing on the cake.  He should be in Oregon today and I am going up to Portland to pick him up on Saturday.  He has been on the road, intransit for almost 2 weeks – Kentucky to Indiana to New Jersey to Portland to home.  Thank you to Sally, Carl, Kay, and Doug for making this happen!

After the show on Friday we enjoyed a nice dinner and visiting with other jacob breeders.

Saturday was educational and fun.  It started with the mandatory business meeting – well run and stayed on task.  This was followed by Peg Bostwick and Linda Bjarkman giving a very informative talk about fleeces.  Well presented and thought provoking.

This year’s AGM was held in conjunction with the Garden State Sheep & Fiber Festival.  During lunch time we had plenty of time to visit the vendors, eat lunch, look at jacob sheep, and of course ‘talk’ jacob 🙂

The afternoon started with a presentation about looking at lamb fleeces and horns to predict how they will look as adults.  Karen put this together and I think it was very eye opening.

An old video of jacob sheep put together by Edd Bissell was shown followed by a discussion of  ‘Jacob Sheep – a guide to the selection of breeding stock’ compiled by Ingrid Painter and Mary Spahr.  I loved how the video and the guide and the previous presentations all essentially said the same things.  We may each have our own ‘favorite’ look in a jacob sheep and certain characteristics that are more important to us, but at the end of the day, we can all agree that they are a jacob!

The real highlight of the day was the after dinner speaker – Susanna Davy Gilbert of the Fieldwood flock.  Here is an article about her and the work that she did for Jacob sheep from The New York Times May, 1992.  She told stories about her time as a shepherd at the Rockefeller estate.  She was funny and endearing and amazed that people still remember her after all of these years.  She was awarded with a Lifetime Achievement Award by JSBA.

There was a wonderful raffle with everything from a t-shirt and there were several things that I was really hoping I would come home with, but it just wasn’t to be.  Karen and I were the only ones sitting at our table that didn’t have their names called…darn!  Thanks to a new jacob friend, we both came home with a cone of jacob yarn.  She won several cones and thought we would each enjoy one – she was very right! 

Sunday morning we woke up to rain…but it didn’t bother us Oregonians and they were very happy to see the rain.  They have had an unusually dry summer.  We had a lovely breakfast at the Unzicker’s and had a tour through their barn and flock of jacobs.  By mid-morning we were saying our good-byes to people that were driving home or flying out on Sunday.  We made our way back to the Garden State Sheep Show where Ingrid was scheduled to judge a Navajo-Churro show.  I had an afternoon free to visit with more jacob people and watch a herding demonstration…

The dogs were wonderful to watch and the handler was entertaining and informative. 

I LOVED watching this dog!  He will be running at the USBCHA Nationals later this year. 

I had such a good time and met so many people.

Thanks again to Ms. GPS, we made our way back to the big city, returned the rental car, and made it for our flight with plenty of time!  Whew…a long weekend and a long post!    

Making it work

Posted by kenleighacres on September 7, 2010
Posted in: Farm Life, Jacob Sheep. Tagged: , . 3 Comments

Due to a jam packed August/September, I decided to do a staggered breeding season with our Jacob sheep.  We usually put all of our breeding groups together at the same time and pull all of the rams out at the same time.  This has its benefits, but it is also a lot of work.  It is much easier to feed one group of ewes and one group of rams as opposed to 7 or 8 different groups.  I don’t mind the extra work at chore time, but I will be leaving for two different trips during September and didn’t want to ask someone else to do the extra work.  The result is that Wrangler and Reno went in with their girls at the beginning of August. 

Wrangler was bred to Mud Ranch Queenie, Kenleigh’s Holly, Kenleigh’s Celeste, Kenleigh’s Liberty, and bide a wee Tess.

Reno was bred to Kenleigh’s Ellie, Kenleigh’s Aimee, Sagebrush Rae-Ann, bide a wee Dolly Doll, and Kenleigh’s Legacy.

Wrangler and Reno have bred all of their girls, with the first lambs due to arrive at the beginning of January.  They have been seperated from the ewes and are back to living the bachelor life.  I am leaving tomorrow for my first trip and my plan was to have these two breeding groups finished by the time I left.  I am so glad they followed the plan 🙂 

Abraham went in with his girls after our county fair at the end of August.

He will stay with his girls while I am gone.  He is with Kenleigh’s Flirt, Kenleigh’s Chevelle, Kenleigh’s Infiniti, Kenleigh’s Symphony, Timber’s Hallelujah, Kenleigh’s Azera, Windy Acres Delight, and bide a wee Althea.  A few have been bred already and the plan is for that breeding group to be finished towards the end of September so that I can use that pasture for another breeding group! 

We are using 3 ram lambs this fall…

Kenleigh’s Ironside – Greenwater Julian x Maverick Marloe – is being bred to Kenleigh’s Sahara, Kenleigh’s Petunia, and Mud Ranch Jonquil.

Kenleigh’s Buchanan – Kenleigh’s Wrangler x Kenleigh’s Liberty – is being bred to Rolling Hills Veronica, Meridian Bronwen, and a brown Navajo-Churro ewe as a color breeding test (more on that later).

Blue Ewe Albus – Springrock Shadrach x Blue Ewe Freedom – is being bred to Kenleigh’s Bliss, Kenleigh’s Patience, Kenleigh’s Pacifica, Windy Acres Amber, and Kenleigh’s Star.  This boy is from Kentucky and will be making his way West in the next week.  I am leaving tomorrow to go to the Jacob Sheep Breeders Annual Meeting in New Jersey and will be seeing him in person.  His fleece sounds sounds like it is lovely and I love how wide his horns are!

The three ram lambs are going to be bred at the end of September after my second trip, which will be the Oregon Flock and Fiber festival.  

The lambs are going to be VERY spread out, but I am hoping this gives me the opportunity to thoroughly enjoy each one.  Having all of our lambs come within a short window this year was nice, but it was hard to keep up with them!  We’ll see how this goes and if I end up liking the staggered breeding plan or not 🙂 

One last summer hurrah – part II

Posted by kenleighacres on September 6, 2010
Posted in: family. Tagged: , , , . 2 Comments

 

After the dinosaur exhibit, it was time to visit some modern day dinosaurs.  We were excited about seeing some real sturgeon, but this was the only one we could find.  He enjoyed the Oregon Fish and Wildlife exhibit.  Lots of stuff for kids to see and do.

He even got to give Smokey a hi-five.

Next it was on to the animal exhibits – bunnies, chickens, dairy cows, pigs, goats, and lots of 4-H animals.  We visited with our friends who were studying up on the sheep showmanship in preparation for showing themselves.  It would have been fun to stay and watch, but they were showing at his bedtime!

They pointed us in the right direction for the petting zoo – where we saw deer, goats, llamas, sheep, potbellied pigs, ducks, chickens,  

wallabies,

and our favorite – the miniature donkey.

He wanted to save the best for last…

BMX riding and…

rock climbing.

I left the fair with a very happy, tired, sweaty boy 🙂

One last summer hurrah – part 1

Posted by kenleighacres on September 5, 2010
Posted in: Dogs, family. Tagged: , , , , . 3 Comments

First of all – where did the summer go???  I can’t believe school starts on Wednesday.  I am going to miss the flexibility we have had this summer. 

I thought we were done with fairs for the year, but I heard that the World Champion Dock Diving was going to be at the Oregon State Fair – only an hour away!  I looked at the fair’s website and also discovered that there was a BMX track, animated dinosaurs, reptiles, a petting zoo, and our 4-H friends from the Lane county fair were there showing their sheep.  So many fun things to fit in a day!  We arrived mid-day on Friday and were greeted by a variety of  sights and sounds.

We headed to the dock diving first – mainly because it was easy to find!  We showed up at the perfect time, we only had to wait 5 minutes for them to start.  The first event we watched was Speed Retreive.  In this event, the handler does not throw the bumper.  The bumper is waiting for the dog in the water.

I

I really enjoyed watching this team.  The handler was showing his dog where the bumper was waiting for him and the dog was so animated 🙂

This dog  was very vocal!

In speed retreive, the dog is timed from when it is released to when it pulls the bumper down.

Watching the youth was a highlight and educational.

It was warmer than it has been in awhile and we were both getting hot, so we headed towards the indoor dinosaur exhibit. 

I wasn’t sure what to expect and was prepared to be disappointed, especially since we had to pay extra – but I was surprised…it was awesome!

The exhibit was educational and enjoyable.

Almost all of them moved and there was a lot of dinosaur noise to listen to.  It was a little loud for my son, so he kept his ears plugged but he was happy that we went.  He really likes all of the pictures.  I wish I had taken my smaller lens, but I made the big lens work.

This little guy was my favorite!

He wouldn’t let me take his picture with a meat eater, but a meat eater in an egg was ok 🙂

Stay tuned for part II…

 

Three little piggies…

Posted by kenleighacres on August 30, 2010
Posted in: Farm Life. Tagged: , . 8 Comments

is what I came home with!

I have the reputation for coming home with various animals from the auction – luckily this was a planned purchase.  I heard there was going to be a bunch of weaner pigs at the auction yesterday and I went to see what kind of deal we could get on them.  As it turned out, there were 35 weaner pigs and the price was very reasonable.  The plan was to get two, but I got caught up in the moment and bought three instead – auctions can do that to you 😉

  We raised pigs a couple years ago and still have the pen set-up.  Our property has several large concrete pads that are leftover from the chicken barns.  They make a great foundation for a pig pen. 

We used hog panels for the fencing and leftover roofing material to make a 3 sided shelter.  I would love to give them access to the pasture, but pigs are very good at rooting around and can pick up field fencing and go under very well (been there, done that).  An easy solution to this problem is to put a strand of electric at the bottom of the fence, but this pasture is too large.  So, they are having fun rooting around in the leftover wood chips and eating veggies from the garden. 

Their first order of business was digging this bed for the three of them to sleep in.

My first order of business was training them where to go to the bathroom.  Pigs are very clean and prefer to go to the bathroom in one spot.  Unfortunately, they chose a spot under the shelter and I would prefer they use this corner.  So, I am moving their waste to this corner until they have it figured out.  It makes cleaning the pen a snap.  One shovel load out of the corner in the morning and night is all it takes. 

I love the different colors.  We have a red/white girl,

a black/white boy,

and my favorite – a pink boy with gray spots around his eyes.

Pigs are amazing animals – they are smart, cute, clean, and very efficient at turning food into meat.

For now we are enjoying the cuteness!

A high flying dog!

Posted by kenleighacres on August 26, 2010
Posted in: Border Collie, Dog Photography, Dogs, family. Tagged: , . 4 Comments

 We have been going to the creek a lot the last couple of weeks and we have discovered that Rose LOVES the water.  She has also inherited her mother’s obsession with retrieving.  A dog that loves to retrieve and swim is made for Dock Dogs!  A little searching on the internet found a club in southern Oregon, not far from our house. 

Jumping off a dock into water is a little different than jumping from a bank, so we weren’t sure what to expect.

 

It didn’t take her long to figure it out!

She didn’t act like a novice for long!  We all took turns throwing the bumper for her and quickly realized that getting the dog to jump off the dock is the easy part.  To maximize the length of the jump, you need to throw it in a swooping arc up – not too close and not too far.

She is a great swimmer and was quick to bring the bumper back to us…

and then begged us to throw it again.

He had so much fun with his dog!

She may be small, but she makes a big splash!