Weaving Boot Camp!

First Weaving Project - Tabby & Twill!

Well, I've returned from a class that others have termed a "weaving boot camp"! Five days of beginning weaving at The Mannings in East Berlin, PA taught by Thomas Knisely - it's a big deal! :) The cotton dish cloth(s) above represents my very first attempt at weaving - lots of room for improvement, but we all came out with a bunch of towels to be finished at home. I have been wanting to take this class because I have a 1946 Sears & Roebuck 6 harness folding floor loom here at Wild Rose Farm collecting dust in a spare bedroom. It was last used by my Mother-In-Law in the late '70's to produce rag rugs. So ... I signed up & off I went last week!

Classmate Amy At The Warping Board For Her Scarf 

 There were 5 of us in the class and by the middle of the week, we each had projects in process on 3 different looms. Yep - 15 looms in use at one time.  We did a sampler and also a scarf of our own design.

The Mannings - My Beginning Weaving Class Sampler In Process!

We all felt that we learned quite a bit and Tom was an excellent & patient instructor. We had all kinds of "learning opportunities" ... broken warp threads, crossed heddles, treadle tie-up cord breaking, etc. ... you get the picture. "OK, everyone come down here and look at this" was the phrase of the week!

Tom Knisely Teaching Our Warping Lesson

Wool Scarf Project On Warping Board

My personal experiment was to work with a commercial warp to see if it was suitable for use with WRF fine wool yarns or if I should have our own warp thread made.

Tom Knisely Demos Direct Tie On With Wool Warp

Scarf Project On The Loom

My classmate Amy was very artistic and inspired me to flick bits of blue yarn into the scarf to break up the solid green on blue heather ... very subtle, but of course still regimented for those that know me! LOL

Weaving & Using The Warping Mills

What's next? I found the original manual for the 1946 loom and now we need to set it up and hope nothing is missing ...  

Getting Ready

Black Walnuts Gathered & Soaking For Dye

We are having visitors tomorrow at Wild Rose Farm & it happens to tie in with gathering black walnuts to soak out for a natural black walnut dye.
The squirrels already got to the ones on the left and removed the nut meat from both sides of the shell. I need to gather more walnuts (say a 5 gallon bucket full) to make enough for a nice strong dye bath ... then let them soak & ferment for a week or two!  

Apples, Grapes, & Sheep!

Wild Rose Farm Ewes Coming For Apples!

We've been having really sunny & dry weather this week, but it looks like a T-storm is on it's way tonight. Excuse the glare, but you can see that it's perfect fall painting weather and that's where I was when the sheep came trailing along. I had picked up a bucket of fallen apples & pears to throw over the fence.

OK, So Dump The Bucket!  We're Waiting!

These pics were taken with my cell phone, but you get the idea.  Once again, the wise old ewes came right up and waited.  Later today after it got a bit overcast, we noticed an apple that I had missed and got a chuckle out of it lodged in the tree.  :~0

Apple Resting Comfortably In Tree ...

Mr. WRF was out spreading our composted sheep manure & signaled me to come look at something along the fence line. This has been a great year for blackberries, cherries, apples, and now the acorns & walnuts are falling.  Take a look at this huge crop of wild grapes that he spotted in a wild cherry tree!

Lots Of Grapes For The Winter Wildlife! 

Cow Pies, Sheep, & A Goat Competition!

Canfield Fair Dairy Exhibit

Yes, we endured the heat for our annual visit to the Canfield Fair last weekend.  The trick is to go early in the day and be on the way out after lunch.  Passing through the dairy barns on the way in, we came across this sign & it couldn't have been more nicely framed! 

Use Caution On Ye Olde Cow Path - Watch Thy Step!

We chatted with some Tunis sheep who were waiting for their part of the sheep show to start ...

Canfield Fair - Tunis Sheep Ready To Show!

We'll end the post today with a contest that we stumbled upon back behind the 4-H area and next to the llama & alpaca tent.  It was a Pack Goat Obstacle Course!  The first competitor was a white goat who had done well up to this point, but was not happy with the water hazard ...

Ain't No Way I'm Go'in In There!

The next competitor was a little black goat that knocked off both hurdles (was he a tad too short legged for the course?), but was happy as a clam to do everything else!

Happy Goat Pole Bending - Note Fallen Hurdle In Background!

Next they walk the elevated plank ... the judge in the purple outfit is scoring each component of the course as they go along.

"Spotting" The Goat As It Walks The Plank!

Up & Over The Ramp With No Trouble

They were through next station and only the water hazard remained.  It was over so quickly that I almost missed the shot!  She scampered right through, popped over the end, and headed for the home stretch ...

The Audience Was On Their Feet Cheering! 

It turns out that we saw the class winner dominating the course.  Whoo-hoo! Now if you want to try this at home, here is a llama packing class schematic for those of you with intermediate & advanced skill sets.  ;)   Remember, it's all about having fun at the fair! 

Canfield Fair 4-H Llama Pack Courses

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!

Wild Rose Farm Summer Routines

Wild Rose Farm - Snow White & Ewes Getting New Hay

It's the time of summer when things have settled into a routine ... "sort of".  Here the ewes are waiting for the new round bale of hay to be set out for them.  Snow White is really laid back as she waits!  The other exciting break for them is when we dump in a bucket of apple drops for them to munch.   After a long run of dry weather, we got a heavy T-storm that contributed to the apples falling in the yard.  They make perfect sheepy treats, but I stay with the sheep until they finish so no one chokes on a round slobbery apple piece.
In other news, our young Rambouillet ram managed to knock off both of his horn scurs in the last 2 weeks.  The first one wasn't bad, but the second one really had to be cleaned up.  How?  A drenching hydrogen peroxide rinse, drying off the stump as much as possible, a generous dump of "blood stop" powder, and finally a liberal coating of an aluminum based wound spray to cap it off and seal the area.  Then he got an antibiotic shot & also an iron shot for good measure.
Keep in mind that this is a 2 man job - it's not like they stand quietly for the process.  As they say, never a dull moment!  :~0

2015 PA Performance Tested Ram Sale Results

L to R - #2 Senior Dorset Ram, #2 Suffolk Ram, & #1 Senior Dorset Ram
Arrive In Beaver County, PA!

On Saturday August 1st, Wild Rose Farm headed up to the PDA Livestock Evaluation Center in Pennsylvania Furnace, PA for the 2015 Annual Ram Lamb & Meat Goat Buck Sale.  The facility is on "this side" of State College and we  took a fellow Beaver County sheep producer along with us.  Between the 2 farms, we ended up bringing 3 of the top performance tested rams in the sale home with us!
The #2 index Suffolk and the # 2 index Senior Dorset rams got off the truck at JAS Registered Stock Farm. The #1 Senior Dorset ram, in the front with the red halter, came home with us.

Hollystone Farm #14-78   TW RR 4.25 Adj LEA
Senior Dorset Ram At Wild Rose Farm

Our "best effort" highlights from the 2015 PA Performance Tested Ram Sale:
Suffolks - 6 rams sold, #1 index ram out of McCauley Suffolks sold for $1100 on a phone bid.  Range of sale prices were one at $350 and the rest between $575 & $975.
Dorper - The 1 Senior Dorper out of Pushback in MD sold for $575. Then the 7 additional Junior Dorpers sold. The #1 indexing Dorper @ $800 was out of Black Creek Dorpers.  The prices ranged from $375 to $700 for the remaining 6 Dorpers sold.  1 Dorper was scratched from the sale.
White Dorpers - Top indexing ram out of Scott Mountain sold for $425, & the 2 others (also Scott Mountain)  sold for $400 & $475.
Texel - 7 rams sold with the successful bid on the #1 indexing Texel ram out of Clay-Nob at $900.  The balance of the 6 rams brought between $400 & $475 each.
Dorset - 5 Senior Dorsets sold.  The #1 indexing ram out of Hollystone Farm sold for $475 (that's him above!) and the other 4 Senior Dorset rams saw successful bids ranging from $400 to $700.
The Junior Dorset walked.
Hampshire - The top indexing Hampshire walked and the 3 other RR rams sold in sale order at $600, $400, & $350 respectively.
Shropshire - The top indexing Shrop out of Clay-Nob sold for $350 and the 2nd Shrop walked.
Both the Natural Colored & Crossbred rams walked.
A disclaimer here since we could have missed an exact bid amount & we did miss one of the Senior Dorset rams in the flurry after our bids ... :~0  There was also some spirited bidding on the Dorper, White Dorper, Texel, & Dorset ewes offered after the main sale, but we had to clear out to load up the rams, so we missed half of that action.
We do have to say that the sale was well organized this year and the paperwork & help with loading was quick!