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 🙂

Big Babies!

Posted by kenleighacres on April 9, 2012
Posted in: Farm Life, Jacob Sheep, Lambing, sheep, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , . 8 Comments

It seems like just yesterday that our sweet little lambs were being born.  Look at them now!

Sublimity is a first time mom and she kind of out did herself with her son, Dapper Dan.  I am sure he is close to weighing more than she does at this point.  She is still just as protective of him as the day he was born.

Poor Flirt has to brace herself before her lambs go diving in for a meal.

Especially when her daughter has horns like this!

Some of the mamas just love their big babies 🙂

We still have a few little lambs here, they are definitely outnumbered!  I think the moms can sense this because they are extra vigilant of their wee ones.  They don’t want them to grow up too fast!  I don’t have the heart to tell them that it is going to happen whether they want it to or not.

An afternoon walk

Posted by kenleighacres on April 7, 2012
Posted in: Border Collie, Cardigan Welsh Corgi, Dogs, family, Jacob Sheep, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , . 6 Comments

The weather beckoned for us to go on a walk after school today, so we took a couple of the dogs with us and out the door we went.

Of course, we had to take Major too 🙂

Rose at the beginning of the walk…

and at the end.

It wasn’t very warm, but anytime is a good time for a swim when you are a crazy border collie!

 

Especially when there are sticks needing to be retrieved!

She really isn’t picky when it comes to what you throw for her.

Not sure how I managed it, but I actually got them to sit still for a second!

Darby is getting a little grayer and a little slower, but he had just as much fun running through the water.

It was a great day to be outside!

A trip over the mountain

Posted by kenleighacres on April 2, 2012
Posted in: Farm Life, Jacob Sheep, sheep, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , . 5 Comments

I love the sky on the east side of the Cascade Mountain range…

open and vast and most importantly on this day – BLUE!!!

We have been in the gray gloom that has encompassed the valley for the month of March and some sun was desperately needed.  We made the trip for the High Desert Wool Growers Fiber Market Day and to bring a new/old ram home.

My sweet husband made the trip with me and pulled the stock trailer over the pass in the snow and did a fabulous job.  I kept my head down and enjoyed my book.

 Not only did he drive over the mountain for me, but he also helped me set my booth up!

Wool felt, bags, felt soap, felt scarves, felt sheep, felt birds, felt bowls…

felt flowers, felting kits, felt pillows, jacob batting…

felt sheep, felt dogs, felting supplies, and jacob horn buttons.

Whew!  It was so nice to have his help and he even manned the booth for me to do a little shopping of my own!

We had a very busy day at the fiber show and had a wonderful time!  Once we had everything packed up, it was time to drive to Bend and pick up Abraham, the ram.  On our way, we enjoyed more blue sky, sun, and beautiful surroundings.

The ram we picked up was Patchwork Abraham, we sold him in December of 2011 and kind of regretted the decision afterwards, so we are very excited to have him back!

We bought Abraham from Linda Bjarkman at Patchwork Fibers as a lamb.  He lost a side horn while he was gone, but he is still a handsome guy!

 

We enjoyed a pretty sky on the way home and look what else we brought home with us…

blue sky and sun!!!

Great way to start the day!

Posted by kenleighacres on March 27, 2012
Posted in: Border Collie, Farm Life, Herding. Tagged: , , . 3 Comments

Especially if you are a border collie 🙂

It was time for my brother to move the cows to another piece of property and we went along to help if needed.

My son had a great time warming the dogs up by playing a little ‘fetch’ with them.

Newt is Rose’s brother and is just as obsessed with retrieving as she is.

Time to go to work!

The goal was to move the 120 mama cows and their calves to the working pens and separate them, so they could be trailered to the new property.  My brother parked his truck and trailer across the road and we were to block the holes and convince the cows to go into the pens.

Here they come!

I just love the little guys!

Kate wasn’t sure what we were doing…these big things didn’t look like sheep or geese or anything else she has worked before.

She was happy to bring up the rear with the other dogs though.

The cows were very cooperative and it went a lot smoother than my brother was anticipating.

Next, the calves had to be separated into a different pen.  This is for their safety while in the trailer.  The cows are moved first and then the babies are brought over later and everybody is paired back up.

There was a lot of bellowing going on.

The dogs were very eager to help, unfortunately they weren’t really needed for this job, so they had to sit back and watch.

In no time at all…

the calves were all in one pen and it was time to get the trailer.

The dogs could feel that the job was done and this guy took advantage to roll in something REALLY good 😉

 Kate thinks she would like to do this again very soon.

Clarification needed…

Posted by kenleighacres on March 23, 2012
Posted in: family, Photography, Snow. Tagged: , , , , . 12 Comments

When I asked for the rain to stop, I guess I should have been more clear with what I wanted it replaced by.

This is not what I had in mind 🙂

Two days ago, we woke up to several inches of snow and no power.  The snow continued to fall until we had about 6 inches and then it poured all day long.

The snow was very heavy and with the rain on top of it, the poor trees didn’t stand a chance.  We didn’t have many issues, but the stories from around the area are crazy!

Don’t get me wrong, I love the snow and it is so pretty to look at, but really…snow at the end of March???

The trenches along the barn needed cleaning again, but they did their job and kept the sheep and hay dry.

Our poor pastures were temporarily turned into rivers.

This little pasture was definitely the worst, there was 18 inches of water up against this barn.

The Thrushes…

and the Robins didn’t look very happy with the change either.

We are on day 3 of no power, but the rain has stopped and the snow is melting and I am sure the real Spring will be here soon!

Rainy day projects

Posted by kenleighacres on March 21, 2012
Posted in: Chickens, Farm Life, Fiber, Jacob Sheep. Tagged: , , , , , , . 6 Comments

I have been singing ‘Rain, rain, go away…come again another day’ all day long, but it doesn’t seem to be working.

Today is the first day of Spring, but it feels more like a good ol’ NW winter day…cold and gray.

Part of me would like to crawl into bed and stay there until the sun is shining again, but that really isn’t an option, so I am trying to keep myself busy with fun stuff – inside!

I set two fleeces aside for myself to work with and washing them sounded like fun.

Here is one of the fleeces…

Byeburn Hector is the donator.

Here is his fleece separated and washed.  I still have the mixed section, black/white, to wash.

Infiniti’s is the other fleece I washed.  Here is her mixed section…

and her black fiber in the sink.  I am starting to run out of places to dry them!

Another product from our sheep – horn buttons!  My husband cut a bunch for me and I sanded them, sprayed them, and drilled holes in them.

Here is another type.

He also cut some bigger pieces and I was experimenting with what I could do with them.  I’m sure someone who is good with wire could do something very cool, but it was fun!

 

I also started laying out my Black Sheep Gathering Fiber Art project.  This is my pile of goodies that I bought at the Spring Fiber Sale last weekend.  I don’t usually buy much at the fiber shows, but I had a list of colors I was looking for and I was delighted to see that Dicentra was there with her beautifully dyed Bluefaced Leicester roving.

I used some of her roving for the background of this wall hanging.

For my Black Sheep Gathering projects, I chose…

Maritime and…

Sienna.  These colors are vibrant and bright and different than outside today – just what I wanted 🙂

These poor little guys need some sunshine to play in, who knew the lambs born in January would have nicer weather than the guys born in March!  They seem quite happy to romp and play inside.

 

I think the chickens are starting to morph into ducks…they don’t even seek shelter from the rain anymore and I found them in the creek eating tadpoles and little snails.  True northwest chickens!