More Grass ......

Ever heard of the book called "More Sheep, More Grass, More Money"? The title alone should tell you that it's a classic, right?!? Well, here's a look at more sheep & how we're making more grass ...... The ewes & lambs are grazing the green grass and moving each day to a fresh section. They are kept inbounds by the electric net fencing. In the foreground is a section of the pasture that has been allowed to go to seed. This area is a little thin & we'd like to thicken the stand of grass on this gentle slope.

Here are 2 common types of "cool season" hayfield & pasture grasses ..... the fluffy brownish heads are orchardgrass (aka cocksfoot grass). The greener cat tail like seedhead is timothy. Both are going to seed. When this area is mowed down, the seeds will be knocked to the ground and will be available to germinate in the fall or next spring. We won't run the sheep through this area before mowing. The tall stems with seed heads would be too close to the sheep's eyes and we want to avoid scratching their eyes and risking pinkeye or other problems.

Look at all of the seed that comes out of a few stems!

On another note, this is why you're not supposed to throw hay over the sheep's back when you feed them. Imagine all of those seeds falling out into the wool. That makes for a dirty fleece.

More lambs .....

It's hard to get decent pictures of the lambs since they're always moving. Here are some of the Wild Rose Farm Rambouillet lambs. We're planning to keep most of the ewe lambs. We have 6 and they're all twins this year. The first picture is ewe #327 with one of her twins ewe lambs .... the other ewe lamb is in the next picture.

Below is ewe # 330 (herself a triplet), with her twin ewe (left), & ram lambs. The ram will be polled.FOOTNOTE: Went & checked on Saturday .... the bluebirds are gone ..... flew the nest!

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.

It Won't be Long Now .......

The bluebird box now has 2 young ones. I guess nature sorts out the weak ones. We'll see how this story continues. No one has been near the box for several days and the adults weren't there when I quickly got this picture. As I left though, the female made herself known by her angry chattering from the fencepost. She must have been reurning to the nest & popped right back in after the coast was clear .......

We won't go near the nest until the weekend, but I wonder if anything will be left in there? They grow pretty fast.

How about a Wild Rose Farm lamb picture or two? Here's a Dorset x Rambouillet crossbred twin ewe lamb. She and her twin ewe lamb will be for sale once they're weaned. They were born on May 4th. Remember if you're thinking of buying a lamb, or any sheep for that matter, you really can't buy one unless you already have sheep at home. They are flock animals and can be quite terrified if they don't have at least one or two more to hang out with. The exceptions are the bottle lambs, but it's every shepherds desire not to have any of them!

This is a nice close-up of a single Dorset ewe lamb from our #105 ewe. She was born on May 5th. The Dorsets have a chunkier build than the Rambouillets. She just pulled her head out of the trace mineral salt feeder ..... zoom in and you can see the reddish brown mineral on her nose. She will also be for sale after weaning.

Calm Before the Storm

Here's an evening view at Wild Rose Farm taken before the recent rounds of evening thunderstorms. After finishing up in the garden, this is how the sky looked.

On the Move

Here come the Wild Rose Farm ewes and lambs back from the far pasture that they've been grazing. They'll spend the day in this paddock and then move to a new section of pasture. Now here's an eye test ....... click on the image below & look closely at what they've brought along with them ......... When they rush into fresh sections of grazing, they stir up insects. The barn swallows come diving and swooping all around them feasting on the invisible cloud of bugs! This is a nightly happening here since we move them to fresh grazing every evening. There were at least a dozen of the swallows swirling overhead & dive bombing between the sheep.

Also nearby are a family of bluebirds. In fact, we have several bluebird pairs in boxes scattered around the farm. This pair found an unconventional spot for their nest ..... inside an electrical box in the picnic shelter. The cats roam all around here, but they can't get at this box. There seems to be 3 or 4 young ones in the nest, but they're hard to see & we don't want to disturb them since we just discovered them.

Well hey, the hay was ready!

Excellent drying weather, so the hay was ready today! If you've ever made hay, hauled hay, or stacked it the barn haymow, you'd appreciate the weather today. It was 77 degrees F -vs- some of the temps in the 90's when this gets done. It was fairly breezy in the field, but of course there's no breeze in the barn where we're unloading & stacking. What a great picture of Jerry and his son following along making sure each bale pops out just right. He sure has a lot of energy!
And look what awaits for tomorrow ..... the bales that we picked up today are on the left & of course, the raked hay on the right will be baled for us to pick up tomorrow after work. That will be all of the 1st cutting square bales that we'll need this year. We carried over about 100 square bales from last summer. That's a good thing ..... you really don't want to run short of hay in the winter. Once we get this done, I'll get back to some wool emails that I'm working on! This is just like getting the sheep sheared .... when the shearer is available, you drop everything. And as we all know, you've gotta "make hay while the sun shines"!