Busy With Farm Projects!

Wild Rose Farm Sheep Grazing & Garage Project Excavation

After 27 years, we've finally gotten a garage project underway. The picture above was taken from the kitchen window. With the big pile of excavated soil, it felt like we had a view of the Rocky Mountains! The footer is being formed up today, the temps are going up to around 90 degrees, and it is humid.  The good news is that the room above the garage will be a space for fiber & yarn, plus the floor loom will reside there too!  Fiber is fluffy by nature and it now fills the better part of one bedroom with show set-up stuff & tents squirreled away elsewhere. It will be great to have it all in one spot with easy access and no staircase to negotiate - yay!
Yes - those are the ewes and lambs grazing in the background. They'll probably head for shade in the barn as it gets closer to noon ...

Snow White Enjoys Some Down Time In The Shade!

Here's a look at Snow White watching me skirt Dorset fleeces over the weekend on Saturday. She was relaxing in the barn away from the meddlesome lambs (!). She was the only one who chose to come in at the time. The Dorset fleeces went to a fiber festival in Wooster, Ohio on Sunday to be delivered to Zeilinger's Wool ... they will be custom processed into wool quilt batts.
We're down to only 1 queen & 1 full size quilt batt available for sale right now - yikes!

Just Routines!

Wild Rose Farm - Done Grazing Here!

The ewes & lambs have settled into a routine now that everyone has been processed with ear tags and they're out grazing. They spent the evening & overnight in the "hospital pen" near the barn to graze it down. When you do a graze with high stock density in a limited area, they say it's a third, a third, a third. One third eaten, one third trampled, one third remaining.  That looks about right, lol, and now we'll mow off the stems & seed heads.  The sheep were off to the pasture on the other side of the Loafing Shed ...
Leading up to the Waynesburg Sheep & Fiber Fest, I noted that we were running low on our Rambouillet combed top and needed to have more made. We quickly skirted and took 20 pounds of raw fleece out to the Great Lakes Sheep & Fiber Show in Wooster, Ohio over the Memorial Day weekend. We dropped it off with Zeilinger Wool to be processed ... yay!  They make a lovely combed top for us and we'd sold a bunch at Waynesburg.  

Waynesburg Sheep & Fiber Fest Wrap Up

Very Cool Sheep Signs!

Finally, a report from the Waynesburg Sheep & Fiber Fest LAST weekend! Have I told you about the sheep signs before on this blog? They are sponsored by businesses and gather contest votes for favorite sign prior to the festival. Prizes are awarded, but that's not my area so I'm not up on the details, lol! They all have a little dry erase board on them and they're used all over the festival for directional signage.

Waynesburg Sheep & Fiber Fest - Fleece To Shawl Contest

The Fleece to Shawl Contest had 3 teams entered for the competition on Saturday.  Each team has a different theme and you can see the results above. The Loyalhanna Guild has a sea theme and here they are at work!

Loyalhanna Spinners & Weavers Guild - Fleece to Shawl Competition

There were also a lot of entries this year in the fiber arts contest and here are a few in pictures from the hand-spun skeins category.

Best Of Show

Waynesburg Sheep & Fiber Fest - Handspun Skeins

Overall, the weather was good - no rain to speak of until about 3:30 on Sunday afternoon, and then it cleared up as the vendors were packing to leave.  Even the sheep signs weren't having any trouble with the weather and the alpacas were working the crowds!

Couldn't Have Matched Better If You Tried!

Lippencott Alpacas Visit The Vendors ...

More pictures in the next post ... after a week of t-storms and lambing chores here at home, it's off to the Great Lakes Sheep & Wool Show in Wooster, Ohio tomorrow.  We have Rambouillet wool to drop off with Zeilinger Wool to be made into our Wild Rose Farm combed top ... just spent most of the day in the barn skirting fleeces. 

Fleece At The Hookstown Fair!

Wild Rose Farm - 1st Place Dorset Fleece At The Hookstown Fair

It's fair season again and that means taking fleeces to the Hookstown Fair.  Here is a Dorset fleece from ewe lamb #118.  I can't wait to see what her 2 year old fleece will look like next spring.  Funny thing with the fleeces is that this is the only one we had to show.  The other Dorset fleeces were processed into wool quilt batts this summer by Zeilinger Wool.  This one eluded me, likely because it was the nicest Dorset fleece we had and it was in the "spinning fleeces for sale" group!