What's Happening On The Farm ...

Wild Rose Farm Ewes Grazing

The cooler weather means that the sheep are happy and frisky now! There's a flush of fresh cool season grass to munch on too.  It also looks like we'll be able to schedule a fence repair "finally". I didn't mention it here on the blog, but for the 3rd time in 3 years, our fence above the Loafing Shed was hit by a car. It happened in late September and after yet another call to the driver's insurance agency, "the check is in the mail".

Fence Damage Above Loafing Shed

Luckily, the gate post wasn't hit. If it had been, there would have been more damage to the electrical wiring and a deeper post to pull and set. After running over some large stones, again even more fortunately, the driver wasn't hurt - the police report didn't say what caused the accident.

Fence Brace Knocked Off - Top "Hot Wire" OK.

Red Switch Open to Cut Power ...

Once we have the check in hand, we'll call our fencing contractor and get this repaired. For now we have welded wire panels secured in place to close the gap.
In other good news, we have almost completed the finishing touches on the "studio" above the new garage. I'll move the wool and yarn, plus the floor loom, in after the show this weekend. No sense moving it twice!  Come see me and another 25 vendors on Sunday, November 11th at The Ace Hotel in Pittsburgh for the November Indie Knit & Spin show!  Scroll down on the link and check out all of the older posts too to see what everyone is bringing!

Waiting For Tomorrow ...

Ewe Flock Heading Up To The Barn

It's been bone dry here for the last several weeks. We finally got a small shower this evening & it was enough to send the sheep running back to the Loafing Shed, but not for long!  Here they are coming back up towards the barn once the showers stopped. It still wasn't enough to soak the ground under the trees, but the temperature dropped.
That's a good thing for tomorrow - Saturday is the 2017 Beaver County Self-Guided Farm Tour and Wild Rose Farm is on the map. With the cooler weather, we plan to have the flock grazing in the pen above this one along the driveway. The grass should have been about 4 inches higher in that pen, but there hasn't - been - any -  rain.  :(
The tour starts at the Beaver Farmers' Market where everyone who is registered picks up their swag bag and a tour map.  Snow White and her sheep with their soft wool yarn await!

The Dyeing Goes On ...

Natural Dyeing at Wild Rose Farm

Greens & Lace Weight Indigo Skein 

Here are the results of our natural dyeing yesterday ... some of the goldenrod has been over-dyed with indigo to produce some lovely greens. Once you have an indigo dye vat up & running, it can be used until it is exhausted. The dye vat will take multiple dips of the yarn skeins to darken the blue color.  The yarn airs out between dips as the dye vat rests. The light blue lace weight yarn skein was done after we finished the greens ...
Everything from yesterday is rinsed and hanging out to dry, whew!  Next up - more blue & purple.

We're getting prepared for the "Beaver County Self-Guided Farm Tour" on Saturday,September 30th. We'll have our Wild Rose Farm Rambouillet yarn, combed top, & wool available for sale.

Of course, we have lambs for sale too if you need some of those, lol!   

Sign Up For the Self Guided Beaver County Farm Tour!

*** Wild Rose Farm Is One Of The Tour Stops *** 

A Look At Our New 2-Ply Rambouillet Yarn!

Wild Rose Farm - 2-Ply Rambouillet Wool Yarn

Here's a glamour shot of our yarn finishing up the process at The Mill At Meadowlands. We have ~200 yard skeins of this 2-ply, but I don't have a total skein count or wpi on it at the moment ... details, details!  Rumor has it that it's soft & squishy too ... a lovely farm yarn.  You'll have to stay tuned for the details on this batch!

Yarn Processing Continued ...

The Mill at Meadowlands - Skein Winder

Wild Rose Farm 2-ply Rambouillet Yarn

Here's another picture of our Rambouillet 2-ply yarn in process at The Mill at Meadowlands. The skeins will be ~ 200 yards. The bobbins below will be wound off next and turned into skeins ...
It's interesting to see the process and Ruth makes sure to keep you posted every step of the way as we make decisions on the final product.  Or, as she likes to say, "what kind of yarn the wool wants to become", lol! :)

More Yarn Coming!

The Mill At Meadowlands

Ruth Processing Wild Rose Farm Rambouillet Wool!

 

Wow! We had a chance to view our Rambouillet wool processing at The Mill At Meadowlands a couple of days ago. We visited family in the Chester County, PA area and then took a ride to the mill in Maryland to see our wool being processed. Thanks to Ruth, owner of the mill, and Brianna for taking the time to explain & show off the process.  Brianna was operating the spinner and here is a sample of what our current batch of 2-ply looks like ...

The Mill At Meadowlands

Wild Rose Farm - 2-ply Rambouillet Yarn Sample On The Spinner!

We picked up our finished 3-ply "sport/DKish" weight yarn while we were there. It's currently resting and releasing the moisture from the mill spinning process. All in all, a great visit and we've gotten some really soft, squeezable fine wool yarn ... can't wait to gather some natural dye materials as the season goes on and start dyeing some yarn!

Grazing & Waiting!

Putting Up Net Fencing Before Grazing

We're getting ready to start some light grazing at Wild Rose Farm. We usually wait until mid-April when the grass starts jumping to begin grazing. The electric net fence is up to guide the ewes up to the top pasture on the other side of the Loafing Shed. We'll graze this area first before bringing them to the pasture around the barn for lambing season ...
Meanwhile, here's a look at the 2-ply yarn that we were waiting for at The Mill At Meadowlands.

Rambouillet 2-Ply Bulky Yarn!

This batch is moving on to the skeining process ... Yay!

Watching & Waiting!

Rambouillet Ewe #401 Has News For You!

That's Wild Rose Farm Rambouillet Ewe #401 (with the horns), and her siblings, #404 & #405 with some news for their wool wearing friends.  As we speak, our Rambouillet wool is in process at the The Mill At Meadowlands ... whoo-hoo!
Mill owner Ruth has been corresponding back & forth with videos & pictures once the carding process started. 

Nice & Airy Rambouillet Wool Roving Before Spinning!

Here's a sample of the first 2-ply that we were looking at ... achieving a hand-spun look & feel. Keep watching on the mill FB link above.

Wild Rose Farm Rambouillet 2-ply

Sorted It Out ...

Cones & Skeins

Here's something worth sharing.  My SIL gifted me with a one of those giant Ziploc bags stuffed full of assorted yarns for Christmas. She got all of them for $25 at an auction.  It looks like a weaver's stash to me ... what do you think? The first group above is all wool, with the exception of the blue cone - that's a fine cotton. The 7 Rowan yarn skeins were tagged at $4.10 each ... whoo hoo!

Quite a Mix of Yarns Here

The second group contains the fabulous orange Scottish Shetland skeins & the Noro skeins. The cream is a cotton core spun & the blue cone is a cotton novelty remnant. Blue & white bumpy/funky Orlon (!) and a slightly faded aqua cotton round out this batch.

Wools, Chenille, & Rayon ...

 The third collection has 2 nice French wool singles, a little group of exotic wool, the commercial wool sock yarns, a brown Rayon cone, what looks to be leftovers from a Christmas project, and 2 chenille tubes.

True Miscellany & Thrums!

The last group is a true mishmash of old novelty cotton, wool & wool blends, a ball of jute (can you say macrame?), purple chenille thrums, and the thick ends of various rug yarns.
All in all, a great little haul for the price. I'll sell some, use some, & gift some. It looks much neater now that the project of sorting it and packing it is done.  To think that this stemmed from a comment I made when we were out thrifting/antiquing.  I bought a full cone of wool yarn for $2, but by-passed two big tubs of synthetic novelty yarns for sale at $10 each.  Someone was listening, lol.

Headed For The Wool Pool!

Wild Rose Farm - Loaded For The Washington County Wool Pool!

We're loaded up and ready to leave for the Washington County Wool Pool. We drive to the Washington County Fairgrounds and volunteer for 2 days. Hours are Monday 1PM to 6PM for farms bringing 125 or more fleeces and Tuesday 8AM to 3PM for those bringing less than 125 fleeces. Usually we see the big guys and some sheep shearers bringing in fleeces on Monday. On Tuesday, cars with as few as 5 or 6 fleeces pull in ... some are backyard flocks and some are young shepherds just starting out!
The big bags with the blue ties are skirtings, tags, belly wool, and "heavy vegetable matter" wool - we generate a lot of this when I skirt for spinning fleeces, show fleeces, and wool going to the mill for yarn and combed top.  If you ship junk to a mill, you get junk back!
Not all of the fleeces are suitable for sale individually, so they go to the wool pool ... more pics from the adventure later ...
Hoping for overcast, but no rain, since I'm the one who is outside with the clipboard checking in the farmers!

Wild Rose Farm Sneak Preview At Old Economy Village - 2015 Christmas At The Village!

Old Economy Village - Feast Hall Decorated For Christmas At The Village

Wild Rose Farm will be at the 2015 Christmas At The Village this weekend at Old Economy Village along with a great diverse group of vendors. The hours are Saturday 2PM to 9PM and Sunday 2PM to 9PM. Here is a sneak preview (cell phone pics!) of a couple of vendors who were in setting up Friday afternoon.

Wild Rose Farm - Naturally Dyed Yarn, Wool Quilt Batts, Combed Top, Santa Beards

One of the vendors has a great selection of paintings, small ornaments, & primitive painted wooden cut outs. I love this reindeer scene!

Christmas At The Village - Reindeer Painting & Ornaments!

Here's an unusual booth - Clean Creek Products. They are marketing products that use metals recovered in the acid mine drainage stream clean-up process. Proceeds go back to fund additional restoration efforts and to maintain existing treatment systems. Click on the image to check out the cool pottery wildlife & fish replicas!

Christmas At The Village - Clean Creek Products - Wildlife Replicas, Pottery, & Jewelry

Who else/what else did we see setting up? Some really nice, up-to-date crocheted hats, scarfs, finger-less gloves, & whimsical figures set up in the Feast Hall hallway. Patty of Pine Knoll Herb Shop was setting up in the Rapp House, and by extension, it follows that husband Dorrin, the resident Horologist of Pine Knoll Clock Shop, will be there (!) with clocks of his own design and perhaps some restored antique clocks. Miss Kitty was setting up her packed table of jellies, jams, & spreads. Kim will be there on Saturday with her detailed punch needle art. Birgitta of All Strings Considered will be set up next to Wild Rose Farm with her hand woven rugs & place mats. Those are just the folks close to the WRF set up in the Feast Hall & Museum Building ... there were vendor tags on tables for fused glass, jewelry, baked goods, & hand made wreath bows ...

Waynesburg Sheep & Fiber Fest Fun!

Customers At Michelle's Assortment & Kim Goodman's Punch Needle Design

It seemed that the crowds picked up on Sunday after the rain threatened all day Saturday.  The festival only got about 15 minutes of rain on Saturday!  Not so for the rest of Western PA, but the folks on Sunday said, "enough" and came carrying umbrellas just in case ...  :)

See The Little Sheep In The Middle & In The Sheep Bowl?

It seems that no one can resist touching the yarn from the unique Annadele Alpacas booth set-up running down the center aisle of the building!

Annadele Alpacas - Feel The Alpaca Yarn! 

River Ridge Fiberworks has fantastic handspun yarns, felted flowers & purses, sock yarn, and their famous, great smelling "Mothzilla" sachets, but take a look at these great glass window hangings & mirrors!

River Ridge Fiberworks - Wow!

We had several vendors spinning, felting, rug hooking, pottery decorating, & treenware carving during the festival ...

Spinning At Barbara's Weave 'N Wear

Finally, we have pictures of our fantastic Vendor Booth Award winners.  Vendors are "secretly" judged during the festival by a couple of young adults in 4-H or perhaps a mother/daughter pair who visit each booth.  Booths are judged on signage, visibility of pricing, product display, and ability of the vendor to relate to the public and describe their product or craft.  And the winners are:

HipStrings - 2015 Waynesburg Sheep & Fiber Fest - Best Fiber Booth - 2nd Year Vendor

CasDesigns - 2015 Waynesburg Sheep & Fiber Fest - Best Craft Booth - 2nd Year Vendor

First Lambpede Of The Season!

Wild Rose Farm Lambpede !

Well, there they go!  The first unrestrained, full scale lambpede of the season was underway ...  The temperatures dropped from the 80's on Monday to the 50's tonight with cloudy & overcast skies.  Perfect weather for a lambpede.  By the time I got closer, the lambs had made another lap and were tired and stood panting with their little sides heaving.  I bet they're in the barn taking a nap now!
I spotted them while I was at the kitchen window rinsing indigo dyed yarn for the 2015 Waynesburg Sheep & Fiber Fest this weekend May 16th & 17th.   Stay tuned & I'll have some pics of the yarn and some spinning fleeces that will be going to the show!

Yarn Pics ......

After washing and drying some of our naturally dyed yarn, I took it outside to take a few pictures in the natural light.  The sun was starting to set & our Rambouillet ram seemed to think that it was feeding time again.  Here he is walking up to see what's going on.  See the pumpkin growing in the pasture?  Several pumpkin, squash, or gourd plants end up in the fields every year ..... they germinate on their own from the seeds of the pumpkins that we feed to the sheep after the season is over. 
In fact, it's time to go out and buy the Wild Rose Farm fencepost pumpkins for this year!

The colors of the yarns didn't come out well in the slanting sunlight, so here they are again on a stack of fence rails that we're saving for another project.  (Notice that the ram is behind the posts with new rails and 2 strands of electric high tensile wire.  You can just see the wire above the pumpkin.)
The blue yarn is dyed with indigo and the green/multi yarn is deep yellow osage orange overdyed with indigo.  The wild grapevine gives a better idea of the colors .........

U - Hoo!

Time for an update on Wild Rose Farm "U" for all of her fans ...... several people have asked about her lately and here she is. She seems to be a very active grazer, but is it just that we notice her because of her color? Speaking of color, we have some new naturally-dyed skeins of yarn washed and ready to be labeled. The dark indigo and yellow/green are full skeins. The other colors in the middle are on shorter, "irregular" skeins. We offer these in "mini skeins" for accent colors (when you don't need/want another full skein) and also for punch needle & rug hooking projects. The yarn can also be "un-plyed" and used as a single strand. Here they are with the sheep that make them possible! It was very sunny & in the high 60's today .... the forecast is for 70 tomorrow. We did a little hoof trimming & deworming of a few lambs today. Also made note of a couple of ear tags that need to be replaced. Our 11 year old ewe, #802, was checked and she still has her teeth. Good for another year!

Mystery pic

You'll just have to wait on this ....... The Wild Rose Farm fleeces were dropped off at the Hookstown Fair on Sunday. They will be judged on Friday. If you'd like to see wool from different breeds, go to the fair and you can get a good close look at all of the fleeces. The entry tag tells you the breed of the sheep. Two of our best fleeces - they would have been entered in the wool show - were sold already. One sold at the Waynesburg Sheep & Fiber Festival, and one sold here at the PASA Summer Local Farm Tour. Next, we will be sorting off the Rambouillet fleeces that weren't entered in the show to have them made into yarn later this year. It's a lot of work, but the yarn is beautiful ...........

Yearlings & Yarn

I promised to share a picture of yarn made with Wild Rose Farm combed top in my next post and here it is. Tiana hand spun the combed top and then dyed it ...... she brought it out to the PASA Summer Farm Tour last weekend. We love to see what everyone makes with our wool & yarn!

We also got a call last week from Andrew, the breeder of our Rambouillet ram. He was checking up on the lambing season & how our yearlings were coming along. These pictures were taken this evening of our 2 Rambouillet yearlings, #328 & #329. They are out of our aged ewes who are both 11 this year.

In trying to work around them and avoid looking into the sun, they're both running downhill in the picture .... oh well. Also below is WRF ewe #315 with her twin lambs and one of the yearlings behind her.

We'll be weaning the lambs in the next week or so ....

And the WINNER is ......

After the 2009 PASA Western PA Summer Farm Tour, we have 2 gift card winners from the folks who visited Wild Rose Farm on Saturday! We've all been to an event where one of the door prize winners is the person who traveled the longest distance, right? Since this program is all about supporting local agriculture, we decided to give one of the prizes to the person who traveled the SHORTEST DISTANCE to our farm. The winner of the "Most Local Visitor" Bocktown Bucks gift card is Regina H. from across the river in Industry, PA. It turns out that Regina is already a fan of Bocktown Beer & Grill, one of PASA's Buy Fresh/Buy Local Restaurant Partners.

Our 2nd winner is Liz D from Pittsburgh. Liz (above) wins her gift card for being the first person to show up with something "Made From Wild Rose Farm Wool". Liz visited last fall with the Herb Society of America - Western PA Unit and needed more yarn to complete her project. Liz brought along a friend whose little granddaughter had a great time visiting with Stripe, one of our barn cats. She didn't seem to be too interested in the lambs .... couldn't pet them!

We demonstrated indigo natural dyeing throughout the day. As the group gathers around to watch the demo, it's always fascinating to see the white yarn go into the dyebath and change from yellow to blue when it is pulled out and the air hits the yarm. We spent a lot of time talking & answering questions about the ewes & lambs. Everyone was able to handle a fleece that was laid out in the barn to be skirted for a wool show. We even went out and looked at one of the water tanks that we have in the field from a spring development conservation project. The partly sunny/overcast weather was great for the ewes & lambs who were brought up to the paddock next to the barn, although some of us were wearing light jackets on a cool July day.

We're looking forward to hearing about & seeing what everyone makes from the yarn, fleeces, & combed top that they got on Saturday! If you were here and bought something, send pictures when your project is done. We'll share a picture of the handspun yarn that Tiana made from WRF combed top in our next post.

P.S. - We'll be mailing out the gift cards this week .......

P.P.S. - Thanks to our WRF Event Staff who helped make all of this possible. You know who you are!

Going or Staying?

Three of these skeins of Wild Rose Farm naturally dyed yarn will be going to a new home soon, destined to become a childs' sweater. The peach toned yarn is from madder roots. The berry colors are from cochineal. We're just waiting on a decision!
The other six will be available at the PASA 2009 Summer Farm Tour on Saturday.
Here's another look at the farms hosting visitors on Saturday.

Get Back In There!

Looks like the power went out and the sheep had a little excursion today! Believe me, sheep are always "testing" the electricity in the fence. You can usually count on them to break out if the juice is off for more than a few hours. Anyway, here they are being escorted back to their grazing paddock du jour ...... your blogster was assigned wingman duties to haze the flanks of the phalanx (!) in case anyone straggles, hence the opportunity to get the above pic. And what a great section of grazing & browsing tonight ...... look at the ewes & lambs just munching on this brushy little strip of hillside. It will only be grazed once each year since it's a hillside. Whoops! We thought we were free and now we're back behind the fence. Actually what you're seeing is a group of sheep exploring the boundaries of the area that they were just fenced into ...... part of "testing" the fence and looking for openings even though they have an abundance to eat. Just sheep being sheep ......
And now for a complete change of topic. Just as we were about to go out and gather the wayward sheep, the phone rang ..... Alaska calling! Seems that 3 skeins of Wild Rose Farm sport weight yarn naturally dyed with onion skins were given as a gift to our caller. She was checking to see if, by any chance, we had more of the dye lot left. It turns out that we have one of the original 8 skeins remaining in inventory. Here it is shown with 4 skeins of a similar color also obtained from an onion skin dyebath. Posting a couple of pictures here is one way to get the photos out. Both pictures were taken outside in natural light.

P.S. - It must be a long distance day. I got a $1 bill today with the Where's George? stamp on it. When I logged it in, I found that it originated in Washington state in 2003. This was only the 3rd time that it was tracked since then. Last stop tracked was Cleveland in 2008.