Shearing is Done!

Well - shearing is all done for another year.

Whew! It's a lot of work - and now I have to start sorting and skirting and cleaning fleeces to go to the mill. Most of the fleeces will be processed into rovings for the handspinning community. This year, we are looking at doing something a bit different - we have several weavers wanting our fleeces as well - so we are
going to be looking at offering shawls and throws that are hand woven.

That will take a while - since I won't get my rovings and yarn back from the mill until at least early October.



Anyway - this is Jeff, our shearer working on
Vivien. Jeff has been shearing since he was -

believe it or not - 8 years old. He comes from a long line of shearers.
Jeff is wonderful with the sheep and really knows his stuff.

I'm impressed with him.

In July - he will be heading to England for a month of shearing - and then this December - he's off to New Zealand to join one of the large shearing groups for a month.

I could do an entire blog about Jeff.



Here are some of the girls out on pasture now that they are sheared. I'm sure they are feeling a bit better without all that heavy fleece.




We did have a couple of surprises (sort of) during shearing. One night in January - our little ram lamb (who is now a wether) - Bernard, slipped under the gate and got two of my ewes pregnant. Little devil.
So - I have 5 pregnant ewes - due to start lambing in the next few weeks.

I'll start introducing them to you now:





This is GABRIELLA.

"Kalwa Taure Gabriella" to be specific. We call
her Gabby - or Gabby Goose.

She's one of my favourite ewes. She is out of Cherrington Alice, who we so sadly lost the day after Christmas this past Christmas.

Alice was my absolute favourite ewe, and her daughters are just like her. Gabby is now 2 years old, and after losing Alice, we decided that the
genetics were too precious to lose, and that
we should try to carry on that line. Besides, we have so many handspinners wanting our white fleeces, that we need more white sheep.

We bred her to Cherrington Merlin, an emsket ram, in the hopes that the white genes will give us some white lambs. In particular - we would like a white ram - so - fingers crossed.

Gabby is very friendly. And she has a fleece that is awesome!! Her personality is just like her mom's. I can't say enough good about this ewe. I just love her to bits.


And this has been a busy week as well. We went to Carrying Place to pick up a load of chicks yesterday. Carrying Place is about 5 hours from our farm. So Kevin and I went down on Friday night. We stayed at a great B&B called "Timberhouse".
It's a huge timberframe house set in the woods - beautiful. I didn't really want to leave.
Saturday, we picked up our chicks - and orders for several other people, and set off back home.


We had 170 day old chicks and ducklings in the back seat of the truck. With several stops along the way to deliver to various people, we finally made it home safely with our brood. There are quite a mix of breeds in there. More updates as they grow.










And lastly, I took this picture out in the woods last week.

It's in the same place as the week before.
The water has receded a bit, and the pollen is covering the water. What I really love about this picture is the light filtering through the leaves as they are starting to open. The colour of green. This is one of my favourite times of year - when everything awakens. But I love the colour of the leaves as the sun shines through.

That green is so hard to describe.



Until next time.