Meet a New Fiber Farmer!

We met Darlene of Sunnyside Wools at the Oakland, MD Mountain Fresh Farmers' Market last weekend.  There were some really neat felted items and Wild Rose Farm picked up a felted "Man in the Moon" Christmas ornament.   Enlarge the picture & see the green & red & white bearded item in front of Darlene - very cool!  We talked about the Waynesburg Sheep & Fiber Fest and hopefully Sunnyside Wools will come to the festival next May ...... maybe demonstrating needle felting?????   Amazing how fiber people connect ..... I always wear a WS&FF t-shirt when I'm out a markets & festivals.  The fiber people always notice the shirt and a conversation starts!  Check out the products and summer farm tours at Sunnyside Wools.

They're Not Ours!

Attention blog followers and local friends!  The 3 sheep (one is a horned ram) that are wandering around the Hookstown area did not escape from Wild Rose Farm ........ they've been seen munching on gardens and roaming around wooded areas.  We've had calls and a couple of people have stopped by to check with us to see if we've lost any sheep.  I hope the owners find the escapees ..... call the Greene Township office if you know where they belong or if you've lost your flock!
:~)

Last Lamb!

We now officially have the last lamb of the season at Wild Rose Farm ...... #802, a 12 year old Rambouillet ewe delivered a ram lamb during the day.  It's still in the 90's here and she had the lamb under the shade of the pine trees.  We brought them down to the barn area this afternoon and created a shady spot for them for a couple of days.  I specifically went looking for her last night to see how she was doing.  She was looking pretty full and she had dropped in around her tail head.  Nothing going on this morning, so was thinking that something might happen today.  It's amazing in the spring that you have to worry about freezing temps, now we're concerned about the heat! 
A word about the late delivery.  A "tight" lambing season is preferred and most of our lambs are born in a 3 week time frame in late April/early May.  However, we leave the ram in with the ewes as long as possible if he's not pushing them around.  It's one less chore to do and the ram is happier in the flock.  If we were to cull a ewe for not having a lamb, we wouldn't be going to the auction until we weaned off lambs from the other ewes and put a little weight back on them.  There are always a few ewes to cull and she would just join them.  Now at least we got a lamb.  This is only her 2nd single lamb in her "career".  Not bad for a 12 year old ..... and yes, we checked, she still has her teeth. 

Evening grazing for the flock - temps in the 90's! 

Browsing Deer

Timing is everything.  Tonight I was sitting outside on the porch skirting a Rambouillet fleece that will be processed into yarn.  It's a nice spot to work since you can see the sheep if they're grazing in the front pasture.  I saw Claire with long ears pricked & looking attentively at something in the distance.   Following her gaze led to this whitetail doe browsing on the sumac leaves.  They don't really mind being near the sheep, but Claire's approach will usually run them off. 
A little research into natural dyestuffs found that sumac leaves contain tannin, which is especially useful for dyeing vegetable fibers.  We dye wool fibers, so I don't have experience with using sumac leaves.  Tannins are currently being studied for their natural de-worming properties.  So maybe there is something about the deer eating the leaves if they can reach them ......

Morning Chores

It's July 5th and the temperature will get into the low 90's today.  We decided to get out in the morning and do some work before it's really hot out there.  The ewes and lambs have been separated now for several days and the noise level is down, but they're still calling to each other.  Here's one of our good mothers with her lambs on opposite sides of the paddock fence.  We have to use the livestock panels to keep the lambs from slipping through the fence rails.

The ewes get shade in the barn and the lambs head up to the shade of the pine trees on the hill behind the barn. 

We did some work on our Rambouillet ram this morning.  He has small horns. or "scurs", and one of them was curving in towards his head just behind the right eye.  We removed the tip of the horn using obstetrical saw wire.  We slipped the wire behind the horn, held his head tight, and using a back and forth motion, sawed through the horn.  Care must be taken not to cut back where the horn is still alive and growing.  The horn is not "living tissue" at the tip, so it's like clipping a fingernail, but still rather annoying for the ram.  The things you learn on this blog!  

Saw Wire with handle grips ........

Before ......

A nice peaceful scene minutes before we moved the flock up to the paddock to separate the ewes and lambs for weaning ...........
By dark it was time to put the fans in the house on "exhaust" to get some sleep!  Deep "baas" from the ewes in the barn, more shrill "baas" from the lambs outside.  We did leave the 3 youngest lambs out with their dams, so that there were some adults in the pack of lambs to provide organization and guidance.  It's very hard to move lambs anywhere as a group because they just haven't figured out how to follow the shepherd with a grain bucket.   They mill around, they flee in a panic, and/or they jump sky high when cornered.   The yearlings are also in the lamb flock, but they're only slightly more tame (!) at this point.

Mary Todd Daylily - very thick growth & sturdy stems & flowers! 

Love my daylilies .........

Weed Eaters!

Here are the Wild Rose Farm lambs munching down on a big burdock plant.  All that's left after the ewes & lambs got to it are the stalks.  Sheep truly do prefer weeds.  Interesting sight tonight in the pasture field.  We are moving barn stones out of a pile to start working on a retaining wall.  Some sumac trees had grown up in the piles and it was time to cut them down and add them to the burning pile.  Well it seems that the deer not only investigated the skid steer loader tracks last night, they also ate all of the leaves off of the cut down trees.  Three deer were back eating the leaves off of the next pile of sumac tonight.  I wonder what they're getting out of those leaves?  Just like the elephants on the plains, the birds occasionally catch a ride on sheep!