Aimee – the cover girl!

Posted by kenleighacres on July 14, 2010
Posted in: Jacob Sheep, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , , , . 3 Comments

Aimee is a very special girl with a special story…

She arrived here in 2005 in a round about way.  A sheep buyer that we know called wanting to know if I wanted 3 Jacob sheep.  He had a pretty good idea of what a ‘true’ Jacob looked like, so I took a leap of faith and told him yes.  I went to his place and picked up 2 ewes and a wether.  All were lilacs and I had no idea where they originally came from. 

They were a little haggered looked, appeared to all be yearlings, and all had ratty looking tails.  We quickly took care of the tails and some good feed took care of the haggered look.

We didn’t have them for very long when a couple of gentleman came looking for some sheep and really liked her and her friend, Ellie.  They were a wonderful home, but got in a little over their heads and called in the summer of 2006 wanting to know if we would buy their whole flock.  We had just sold all of our commercial sheep and were looking for more Jacobs and they had some very nice sheep, so the girls came back.

Unfortunately, Aimee had a very bad experience with a shearer while she was gone.  He sheared one of her teats off.  When she lambed a few months later, she got gangrene mastitis and lost that half of her udder.  Not only did she lose that half of her udder, but she had a major infection that ran down the inside of her leg.  The owners nursed her through it and she continued to take care of her lamb through the ordeal. 

She now has half an udder and a scar that runs from inside her leg all the way down to her foot – you can see part of it here.

I was a little hesitant to breed her with only half an udder, but couldn’t sell her after she had been through so much.

She had a beautiful set of twins and didn’t need any help from me.  Not only did her lambs get enough to eat, but they grew at the same rate as the rest of the lambs!

She is a very devoted mother and loves her babies.

Since that first set of twins, she has thrown twins every year since.  They always grow well and she never complains.  The last couple of years we have worked out an arrangement where she comes into a smaller pen at night, always with her lambs right behind her, and I give her some extra food.

Here she is with her lambs at weaning time this year.

I may not know her background, but she has thrown some exceptional lambs.  Here are just a few…

 

Lancer – a very wide 2-horn ram

Royal – a handsome 4-horn ram that went to California

and Breeze – a 4-horn ewe that is in Indiana.  The horns on this girl are incredible.  She is pictured here as a yearling and the lamb on the other side of the panel is hers.  She is also a GREAT mother.

She is a wonderful representative of the breed and I was so happy to see that she made the cover of the Jacob Sheep Breeder’s Association Calendar!!! 

I love this picture!  The look on her face is so serene and truly captures her spirit.

JSBA Calendar information

Calendars can be pre-ordered until the 15th of July – you receive a discount and free shipping if pre-ordered.  Jacobs from all across the country are represented in this beautiful calendar and all of the proceeds go to support the association!

Tour de Fleece and favorites!

Posted by kenleighacres on July 9, 2010
Posted in: Fiber, Jacob Sheep, sheep, Spinning. Tagged: , , , , , . 7 Comments

At the end of June, I made the goal to spin some yarn this summer.  My handspun jacob yarn is almost gone and I was thinking about buying some at Black Sheep Gathering and that just seemed silly, so it inspired me to spin some of the wool I have here at home!  After I made this goal, I read about the Tour de Fleece on Punkin’s Patch’s blog.

Here is a simplified description from Ravelry:  The Tour de Fleece is a spin-along during the Tour de France – July 3rd through July 25th.  The concept is simple – they spin, we spin.  A real spinning themed spin-along.

Sara at Punkin’s Patch started a group through Ravelry called ‘My Favorite Sheep’ and here are the guidelines –

This TDF group is open to anyone who has a favorite sheep, wishes they had a favorite sheep or didn’t even know you could have a favorite sheep. While we’d prefer your Tour de Fleece challenge is spinning wool, we’ll still let you join in if your challenge involves spinning other fibers…but might make you sing a silly sheep song to prove you are worthy of ‘sociating with Miss Ewenice and her Punkin’s Patch friends at Equinox Farm ;-).

Your challenge should be a true personal challenge of any level and anyone completing their challenge will be entered in a drawing for a special needle felted Miss Ewenice sheep at the end of the tour.

Enjoy the ride!

Great motivation!!!  I love her felted sheep and Miss Ewenice is so cute…

look at her all dressed up 🙂

I definitely have some favorite sheep and a LOT of wool to spin up.

Here are some pictures of both…

Progress!

It is so hard to say which one of my sheep is ‘my favorite’, but Infiniti is high up on that list.  She loves to be scratched and is so sweet.  She out did herself this year by producing one of the prettiest lambs ever 🙂

Lulu is another favorite.  She may not conform to the breed standard as well as she should, but her sweet demeanor and excellent mothering skills has earned her a permanent place in the flock.

Chevelle was born a few years ago when we used car names as a naming theme.  She was one of my favorite lambs and was given the name of one of my favorite cars – having a fast, muscle car would be so much fun 🙂

This yarn is from the following roving.

It is a lamb fleece from a daughter of Wrangler.  It is delightful to spin and such a pretty color!

Here is what I have accomplished so far – it is amazing what you can do when you put your mind to it.  There is a little over 12 ounces, 2-ply yarn in charcoal, lilac/white blended, dark gray, and a yarn I am calling lumpy, bumpy, and chunky in light gray and dark gray.  My personal challenge was to spin every day and I am happy to say that I have done just that! 

Last but not least – one of my original favorites, Holly.  Such a good girl.  She isn’t pushy, stands patiently at her spot at the feeder (an uncommon thing in our flock), great mom, beautiful fleece, and loves to share quiet moments having her ears scratched.

Next on the spinning wheel is Wrangler’s fleece from this year – a favorite to spin!

Fourth of July = Camping

Posted by kenleighacres on July 8, 2010
Posted in: family. 1 Comment

The 4th of July weekend is one that we always look forward to camping at the river.  Ah, camping – no phone, no tv, no dishes, no laundry – a great way to get away. 

We felt very lucky that the sun finally came to the Northwest. 

It still wasn’t very warm, but the boy and his dog couldn’t wait to get in the water.

I have so many pictures to share of the two of them.  They have such a special connection. 

Something they both share is a very big LOVE of water! 

He was so happy to see her run in the water without any hesitation.  He was afraid that she wouldn’t like it or be afraid of it. 

No worries here!  She would jump in, biting at the bubbles and jumping back and forth.

She wasn’t the only dog that got to come camping – they ALL came.  Welcome to the dog compound.  Yes, this was all necessary – there is a very busy road close to the property and we wanted to keep them safe.  Most of them spent a lot of time in the dog yard we set up, but Rose had to spend a lot of time in her crate because she is proving impossible difficult to keep in ANY enclosure.  She can climb, crawl, jump, spring, like nothing I have seen before. 

In addition to camping in real life, he also brought his cars and RV and had fun using his imagination.

The boys spent a lot of time in the river, but it was too cold for me.  They headed out to look for crawdads, but I think it was too cold for them as well, so they ended up fishing.  They lost count of how many fish they caught and had a lot of fun.  Most were too small to keep, but they enjoyed catching and releasing.

   

While they were fishing, I spent a lot of my time here.  I recently signed up to participate in the tour de fleece and have committed to spinning everyday from July 3rd – July 25th (a post about that coming very soon). 

So relaxing and rewarding!!!

It’s hard to know what was his favorite – smores, swimming, fireworks, playing with his puppy, staying up late, or camping in general???  Memories that we will all look back on and cherish – it was hard to leave!

Black Sheep Gathering – All about the Jacobs

Posted by kenleighacres on June 28, 2010
Posted in: Jacob Sheep, Uncategorized. Tagged: , . 7 Comments

Thank you to my friend, Lora, for the following photos.  Warning…there are a LOT of photos 🙂

The Jacobs show on Friday of BSG, it is nice to get it out of the way early.  I enjoy showing, but my back doesn’t!  The sheep were easy to handle, which made the job a little easier.  I love having halter broke sheep!!! 

 

It is so nice walking 3-4 sheep at a time, instead of dragging them one at a time like we used to.

The classes started with the yearling rams…

 Left to right, 1st to 5th place – bideawee Glyn, Kenleigh’s Imagine (owned by bide a wee), Patchwork Abraham (owned by us), a Drumcliffe ram, and not pictured – a Swallow Lane ram.   All were beautiful representatives of the breed!

Next class was the ram lambs…

It was a big class with 14 being shown.  Left to right – bideawee, Kenleigh’s Silverton, Kenleigh’s Buchanan, and Meridian.

Left to right – Meridian, Black Oak Ranch, Black Oak Ranch, Mud Ranch, and Swallow Lane.

Left to right – Swallow Lane, Mud Ranch, Drumcliffe, Drumcliffe, and bide a wee.

The placements were:  1st – Meridian, 2nd – Kenleigh’s Buchanan, 3rd – bide a wee, 4th – Swallow Lane, 5th – Kenleigh’s Silverton, and 6th – bide a wee.

Pair of ram lamb placements – 1st – Kenleigh, 2nd – Meridian, 3rd – bide a wee, 4th – Swallow Lane, 5th – Mud Ranch, and 6th – Black Oak Ranch.

Champion ram was bideawee Glyn – front left and Reserve Champion was the Meridian ram lamb behind him. 

 Next it was time for the girls.  I really liked all of the sheep that we took to Black Sheep this year, but I especially liked Flirt, one of our yearling girls, and both of the ewe lambs, Sublimity and Mollala.  The ewe lambs are quite special because they are out of older girls that have thrown really nice ram lambs, but haven’t had very many/nice ewe lambs.  I was so excited when Sublimity and Mollala were born!  They are both pretty girls with gorgeous fleeces.  I am happy to say that the judge liked them as well 🙂 

Yearling ewes, left to right – Kenleigh’s Flirt, Windy Acres Delight (owned by us), Black Oak Ranch, Swallow Lane, Swallow Lane, Drumcliffe, Mud Ranch, Mud Ranch, and Drumcliffe.  There were two bideawee yearling ewes as well, but they aren’t pictured.

Placements:  1st – Kenleigh’s Flirt, 2nd – Drumcliffe, 3rd – bide a wee, 4th – Windy Acres Delight, 5th – Drumcliffe, and 6th – bide a wee.

The ewe lamb class had 16 sheep in it, including my son’s first lambs.  He showed Precious with help from a friend.

Here is a picture of our 4 ewe lambs in the top four spots!  Kenleigh’s Mollala, Kenleigh’s Sublimity, Hunter’s Glen Echo, and Hunter’s Glen Florence (Precious). 

Here is a picture of the Pair of Ewe lambs class.  Placements:  1st – Kenleigh, 2nd – Hunter’s Glen, 3rd – Meridian, 4th – Mud Ranch, 5th – Swallow Lane, and 6th – bide a wee.

My sister is showing Mollala and I am showing Flirt – they were awarded Champion and Reserve Champion ewe.  I love having my sister’s help!

I also love having my husband’s help!  I don’t know what he is laughing about here, but these are the moments I really enjoy about showing.

These moments are pretty fun too!

Mollala is the result of a love affair that I couldn’t say ‘no’ to.  Her mom, Holly, wasn’t going to be bred – but her and Julian had different ideas 🙂  I finally gave into their longing glances through the fence and am so happy that I opened the gate.  She is a very pretty girl. 

Flirt had a lot to say 🙂  Every picture of her had her mouth wide open.

Young flock placements were:  1st – Kenleigh, 2nd – Meridian, 3rd – Mud Ranch, 4th – Swallow Lane, 5th – bide a wee, and 6th – Black Oak Ranch.

His expression says it all – we had a great time 🙂

Making sheep work easier

Posted by kenleighacres on June 25, 2010
Posted in: Border Collie, Farm Life, Jacob Sheep, sheep, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , . 4 Comments

As I get older, I am realizing that I need to work smarter – not harder. 

We have a good working system for catching and doing routine maintenance on the sheep.  I make little adjustments to it and buy better gate panels as the budget allows, but it still means a lot of hands on work.

This last weekend at Black Sheep Gathering, I had the opportunity to use a piece of equipment that would make sheep work much easier…

It is a 3-way sort made by Shaul’s.  I love their equipment and you couldn’t ask for nicer people. 

I was asked to do a herding demo at Black Sheep Gathering and I said ‘yes’ and then it hit me that the area wasn’t very big and what was I going to do, besides walk around and around and around in a circle.  A week before the event I called Susan at Shaul’s (they are a regular vendor at BSG) to see if they would be willing to help me with the demo and set up a working system.  She said ‘absolutely’ and had several ideas.

The idea is you can have a big group of sheep in one pen and sort them into 2 or 3 different pens.  For the demo, we sorted them into 2 pens.  As I was moving the sheep through the chute, the scenarios were running through my head – this would work great at breeding time to sort the different breeding groups without having to touch the sheep, weaning time, shearing time, routine maintenance, sorting sheep off that have been sold, sorting sheep off for potential customers to look at, on and on and on.  So many possibilities!

The sheep figured it out pretty quick and Kate had no issues going through it!  Thank you Joan for the great pictures.

I went back on Sunday to make my equipment purchase of the year and it was GONE!!!  Somebody else saw all of the possibilities as well!  Luckily they are going to be back in the area at the end of September and will have one just for me on that trip.  I am so excited!!!

The other tool that has made sheep work easier, is much smaller, but has been invaluable several times in the last week.

A shepherd’s crook.  How have I had sheep for this many year’s without a shepherd’s crook??? 

This is what I asked for, for my birthday and my sweet husband came through for me!  My friend, Joan, gave her’s rave reviews and I have to agree.

We sheared the rams today and I used it to move them to the barn.  They started veering away from the barn door and I was able to stick the crook out and all of a sudden, my arm was 6 feet longer!  The crook part can also be used to catch lambs, which I am looking forward to this next lambing season!

  What makes your sheep chores easier?

A ducky delight!

Posted by kenleighacres on June 24, 2010
Posted in: Ducklings, Ducks. Tagged: . 6 Comments

Thanks to all of the rain we have been given this year (trying to stay positive) we still have a lot of water in our ‘pond’ in the pasture.  It is just a seasonal pond and is usually dry by this time of year.  I love all of the wildlife that it attracts during the winter and spring – geese, ducks, frogs, tadpoles, blue heron, swallows, and killdeer.  It is also the perfect place for the mallard ducklings that my husband is raising.  They have to be locked up at night, thanks to the many predators we have, but it is a great place for them to spend their days.

So, I let them out of their pen yesterday morning and headed to the pond.

Can you see my helper hiding behind the tree?

She is such a serious girl, but it makes me laugh when I watch her herd the ducks – she NEVER stands up – she belly crawls the whole time 🙂

The ducklings are eager to get to the pond!

and once they get there, they are off! 

Doing what ducks do best – dibbling and dabbling and digging and dipping.  They have a lot to say while they are taking care of their ducky duties and so fun to watch. 

Kate couldn’t take her eyes off them either.

I am amazed at how well they blend into the background!  Truly a ducky delight!

Black Sheep Gathering – Colors and Textures

Posted by kenleighacres on June 22, 2010
Posted in: sheep. Tagged: , , . 1 Comment

Walking into the vendor area at Black Sheep Gathering can be a little overwhelming.  There are so many colors and textures and sights to take in. 

This is the booth that was across the aisle from us.  I love the colors!

  

This was one of the most unusual looking things I saw.  It is a Navajo-Churro pelt. 

It is kind of creepy looking – reminds me of ‘It’ from The Adams Family 😉

In addition to the bright and vibrant colors, there was a lot of natural colored fiber as well. 

I didn’t get a picture of our booth, but it was a nice blend of both.

Sheep could be found everywhere – there were metal sheep…

painted sheep…

knitted sheep…

and LOTS of woolly sheep!

Two different breeds of sheep had their National show/Annual gathering in conjunction with Black Sheep Gathering.

Shetlands were one of the breeds and it looked like it was very well attended!  I didn’t count how many sheep were in the shetland show, but I’m guessing there were 35-40 in each of the lamb classes.

The Bluefaced Leicester was the second breed – I love this breed!  It was fun seeing so many of them.

There were many, many breeds there.  I think the following two sheep show just how diverse the breeds can be…

A beautiful black Navajo-Churro…

and a gorgeous Wenslydale.  This fleece was incredible to touch, but looks like a management nightmare!!!

Coming soon…a post all about the Jacobs!

Black Sheep Gathering – a quick recap

Posted by kenleighacres on June 21, 2010
Posted in: Jacob Sheep, sheep. Tagged: . 4 Comments

It has been a very long, but very fun few days!  I will be doing several different blog posts about the various aspects of this fabulous event, but for now I am giving you a quick recap. 

The Jacob show was large this year with 8 breeders bringing sheep.  There were several breeders from California and Oregon and one from Washington.  It was great seeing so many quality representatives of the breed.

There were sheep in every size, shape, and color!

The Spinner’s Lead was well attended Saturday night. 

Plenty of colors and textures for your visual delight.

and LOTS of friends!

All packed up and ready for some fun!

Posted by kenleighacres on June 17, 2010
Posted in: Felting, Fiber, sheep, Uncategorized. Tagged: . 7 Comments

As I mentioned in the previous post, we are headed to Black Sheep Gathering.  This is one of my favorite events of the year!  I love the sheep, and the fiber, and the colors, and the textures!  The best part though – is seeing all of my friends.  Several are staying with us and I am looking forward to visiting. 

My goal for this year was to be well prepared and not get overwhelmed like I was last year.  I am happy to say that I have accomplished this and am feeling ahead of where I should be instead of terribly behind – what a GOOD feeling!!!

The beds are made…

The felting projects are done…

The boxes are packed and in the car…

The display boards, signs, and marketing materials are ready to set-up… 

The event officially opens on Friday, which means we will be very busy tomorrow setting up our vendor booth and moving the sheep in.  I will take lots of pictures and fill you in on all of the fun!

and you can be assured that everybody at this event will answer ‘yes’ to the following question –

Showing off their stuff

Posted by kenleighacres on June 12, 2010
Posted in: Farm Life, Jacob Sheep, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , . 3 Comments

I finally have the sheep picked that will be attending Black Sheep Gathering.  Nothing like waiting until the last minute – the event starts in 5 days!

Here are the yearling ewes and lambs.  Abraham, a yearling ram, will also be attending.

They have been in the barn for the last couple of days due to the rain and because we have been working on halter breaking – but now it is sunny, sunny, sunny – so we moved them to the outside pen.

Flirt is one of the yearling girls, she will also be my spinner’s lead sheep.  She is setting an excellent example by walking nicely on the halter.  She has so much poise and presence!

Delight is the other yearling girl.

Sublimity

 and Mollala are the two ewe lambs that will be shown.

Silverton

and Buchanan are the two lucky boys.  They both have wide swept horns and are handsome guys.

Florence, aka Precious, and

Echo are my son’s lambs that he will be showing.

I think they are a nice group of sheep and will feel proud presenting them to the judge.  I always hope that the judge will like our sheep, but I do not make breeding decisions or flock decisions based on a judge’s opinion – because that is all it is – an opinion.  I go to the show with a mental list of what I like and don’t like about a particular sheep and I leave with that same opinion.  We do not show for the prestige of showing (we certainly wouldn’t be showing Jacobs if that was the case, lol).  The main reason we show is to give exposure to Jacob sheep.  I am still amazed at how many people have never seen a Jacob and I really enjoy educating them about the wonderful breed.