Four Karakuls and a Southdown are on deck for shearing. And they are more than ready to lose these fleeces.
Come on out and see the sheep, check out the newest fleeces, help shear, or cheer us on. We are starting at 9:00am on Saturday, May fourth at the Caldwell pasture. Use the gate at the north end of the shop.
We have three sheep remaining to be sheared in Flock 1. Tolkien, Oats, and Cady. We will do that on Saturday April 20th.
We will be taking the 27th. off because we will be at the Paawzitively Created Craft Fair on the 28th.
We will return to shearing on May 4th. with Flock 2. That is the Karakuls and Southdown. Raphael, Donatello, Sadie, Rosie, and Teresa.
We will be mustering at the Caldwell pasture at 9:00 am. Contact us if you need more information.
Today it was in the seventies and sunny, but Friday evening we are supposed to get a little bit of showers. Hopefully it will be dry by Saturday morning. We are going to give shearing a chance. Saturday the 13th is still a go.
But the thirteenth of April is looking good, so that will be the next date.
Del laying out in the rain today.
As you can see, Donatello needs to be sheared. in fact, all the sheep need shearing. It was decided at the open board meeting last week that Saturday April 6th. will be the first shearing day. As always, the shearing will be open to the public, for those who want to learn to shear, work with the sheep, or just to cheer us on and pet the sheep.
Weather permitting, we will be starting at the Caldwell pasture at 10am. Contact us to get in the loop on weather cancellations and information on how to get there.
A while back, we got a morning call from the county Animal Control Officer. She was good humored, and confirmed that she could not find a problem. The reason for the call, someone had called 911 saying there was a sheep in our pasture that had a steel rod sticking through them. So, fast forward. One day this last week, I went out to the Caldwell pasture at lunchtime, and guess what I saw. Oats loafing in the pasture looking like he had a t-post sticking through him. Believe me, seeing him from head on, it looked real bad, and gave me quite a start.
When I finished feeding in the morning, it was starting to spritz snow. You know, just the occasional tiny bits that may have come from freezing fog. I headed across town to first service at church. When I came out of church the snow was coming down good in pretty big flakes. Decided I should check on the sheep shelters before heading home.
There was no accumulation on the shelters, but you can see what I saw. Cookie (the llama) was enjoying second breakfast, and everybody else was under the shelter. Everybody except Cady, she was laying out in the falling snow. Maybe it is her breed, I don’t know, her mother for sure was a rambouillet range ewe. They typically live an unsheltered life in our region.
Between the last post and now, we have been posting onto our social media accounts, principally on Facebook. We are turning a new page, and returning to our blog posts.
Today we put in a windsock. This has been planned for over a year, but has not been a priority. This winter has been pretty stable with streamlined daily chores, and simplified rotation patterns, (yes, we have two flocks now). It has been taking just over 2 man hours a day to do all that the sheep need, and that includes the always important scratches and treats. All the parts were prepared over the last two weeks, pipe was cut and threaded, parts were ordered or bought locally. The day was good for the job, until the last few minutes. As the windsock was being attached to the frame the wind came up and it started to hail. I was not sure we were going to get it dropped into the base tube. Eh, piece of cake.
We have been wanting to put the windsock in because the only way we could know wind direction or speed was to look at the sheep shelter and look at the difference between the two sides. You can see the uplift on one side of the shelter, and pressure on the other.
I was concerned that the sheep would be freaked out by it, but they do not mind it at all.
We have florescent orange paint for the mast, but with the weather, we decided to wait for a better day to paint.
We have a new resident. Well, new as of last August. He came to us with the name of Oats. We decided to put him in with Cady and Beauty. Beauty being a 13 winter ewe has been a perfect auntie to the two lambs. Oats had a bout with Blue Tongue not long after he got here, but has fully recovered.
We thought he needed another name, and we decided to call him Oatis, but the name Oatis never really caught on. We are guessing that surprisingly, he really is an Oats after all. Oats is two months younger than Cady
Cady had never had another lamb to play with, and us shepherds tried to play tag and lambpede with her as much as possible. Well, Oats has been a great playmate for Cady, they have become best friends, and they are almost inseparable.
I am sure there are going to be more Cady and Oats posts in our future.
It has been said that the greatest blessing you can receive is to be a blessing to others. I can personally attest to that being a fact. I saw this new intersection as I was hauling hay on Saturday. It seemed so perfect. There are many worthy organizations out there that could use your help, please help them when you can.
