Shearing Day at Wild Rose Farm!

Wild Rose Farm "U" and Friends After Shearing

Saturday was shearing day for the bred ewes at Wild Rose Farm.  We had 33 ewes sheared and now we're ready for lambing to begin!   We brought the sheep into the barn on Thursday since the forecast was for heavy rain Thursday night and Friday morning.  Yes, it did rain and the temperatures also dropped.  Shearing day was about 10 degrees cooler that we like it, but it was dry and sunny. 

Wild Rose Farm Rambouillet #403 Gets Started!

We were very pleased with the fleeces this year.  It's great to have a nice group of young Rambouillet ewes and Dorset x Rambouillet ewes in their prime!  We will have some wonderful fleeces skirted to take to the Waynesburg Sheep & Fiber Festival. 


Wild Rose Farm Rambouillet #401 Shears A Show Fleece!

Can you see the "Rambouillet" in WRF #401?  Small horn scurs and our shearer plowing through a dense white fine wool fleece!   And she's got a nice open face.  She is out of the Colorado Andrew Schafer Rambouillet ram from several years ago.  She had triplets last year ........ we retained the ewe lamb and the horned ram lamb.
I'll have fleece pictures up on the blog in the next couple of weeks when I can get to them around the lambing season!

2013 Waynesburg Sheep & Fiber Fest Is Coming!

2012 Waynesburg Sheep & Fiber Festival Shoppers!

Well, sheep & fiber friends, it's time to start thinking about our 10th Anniversary Waynesburg Sheep & Fiber Festival!  This year it will be held on May 18th & 19th at  the Greene County Fairgrounds in Waynesburg, PA.  We have a great variety of over 40 juried vendors signed up so far this year.   There is still time to enter the photography contest and the fiber arts contest - check the WS&FF web-site for applications. 
Here are a few more pictures from 2012 to get everyone in mood!  As usual, there will be chef demos, lamb recipe sampling, sheep shearing demos, the Breed Pavillion, and kids activities.  A recent feature story in Lancaster Farming by Laura Zoeller provides a nice background on the festival & how it got started.


Fantastic Fiber - Rivers Edge Fiber Arts - Back in 2013!

2 Friends - From Many Threads - Back in 2013!

Annadele Alpacas Gorgeous Yarns - Coming Again in 2013!

Black Cat Valley Farm Jellies - Back in 2013!

Waynesburg Sheep & Fiber Fest 2012

 

Wild Rose Farm Wild Turkey Trot!

Wild Turkeys in Pasture

We looked out the other morning around 7:30AM to see this small flock of turkeys in the paddock below the lower driveway.  We're not sure what they were up to, but they headed up the driveway to the barn.  

Wild Rose Farm Turkey Trot!

They milled around in front of the barn for a few minutes and then turned back down the driveway the way they came ......

Beavers In Beaver County?

Beaver Lodge Near Wild Rose Farm

A close relative, who shall remain un-named, once said, "there are no beavers in Beaver County!".  Well, we know better around here.  A couple of years ago, there was a roadkilled beaver out in front of our property.  We took it for a beaver heading to new territory ..... and he never quite made it!
Mr. Wild Rose Farm was out hunting the other night and had to pass around these newly discovered beaver dams a couple of properties down stream from our place, so he went and got some pictures.


Beaver Work In Progress

  These dams weren't here 2 years ago, so they've done a bit of work fairly recently.  They're called busy beavers for a reason .........

Bark Stripped Off .....

Also seen walking off was this flock of wild turkeys.  Stay tuned to our next post for more on the local turkey flock ..... really local, you'll see!

Wild Turkeys Leaving The Beaver Dams

Rambouillet Ram Rambles .....

Securing Wild Rose Farm #402!

On Friday, our big Rambouillet ram left for a new home in South Central PA.  His new "job" will be with a commercial Rambouillet farm flock.   After breeding our ewes this fall, we're glad to see him move on to another farm.  He'll be 3 in July, so he has several good breeding years ahead of him.
The gentleman & his son also left us with a jar of their own homemade maple syrup!  They were able to squeeze in a trip to pick up the ram in the midst of their maple boiling season .....  :)

Wild Rose Farm Ram #402

An Artistic Mood ......

Wild Rose Farm Ewe Lamb

Wild Rose Farm Triplet Ram Lamb

Here are a couple of pictures taken with a little different look ...... black & white seemed to suit them.

Sorting Sheep!

Wild Rose Farm 2012 Ewe Lambs

I know a blizzard really hammered the folks in the Northeast, but we got by with some relatively mild weather here .... it hit around 40 degrees today ... perfect weather for sorting out our lambs.
We made some final decisions today on which lambs we're going to keep for the flock.  We've been selling some freezer lambs lately too.  They were really nice lambs, but many of them are singles, so they've grown quickly and were ready for market.   We ended up choosing 5 registered Rambouillet & 4 Dorset x Rambouillet ewe lambs.  We look at the lambing history of the dam as well as her micron test & wool staple length when we pick out lambs.  Of course, we'd love to keep more, but every farm has a limit on how many animals you can keep (!).   We also kept a ram lamb out of one of our older ewes.  She has been a consistent twinner.

Wild Rose Farm - Back To The Loafing Shed!
 

After we finished with the lambs, we sent the ewes back over to the loafing shed where they are wintering on round bales.  Yours truly is bringing up the rear to make sure that Lisa & the lambs all trail along ..... no one straggles behind!