A bad thing happened on Sunday morning

Hello Everyone:

My cat, Norphan (abbreviatin for An Orphan aka "Norphan" like in the Pogo Comic strip), wouldn't come when I called her as she usually does, and I waited quite a while and looked for her, but no Norphan. We were doing spring clean up and went from the peach and apricot trees to the Hazelnut and cherry, and there she was, curled up beside the hazelnut tree, but she wouldn't come to me. My Hubby, Lance, climbed over the cattle panel and tried to pick her up, but she cried. He was gentle and brought her to me and handed her over into the cradle of my arms. She snuggled a little, but I could tell she wasn't feeling well. I carried her to her bed in the garage and set her by her water because her nose was warm and I thought she might need some, so she lapped a bit up, then went and curled into her bed.

Lance went back in and checked her over and we think she was hit by a car or something, but nothing was broken. Today, she was walking around gingerly, but moving nonetheless. She did that for about 10 minutes and then went and lay back down in her bed. We have an incandescent light over her area so her water wouldn't free and her food wouldn't be frozen during the winter and we decided to keep it on to help her stay warm. Her water is near her so she can climb out and get some. I put a few drops on her nose and she licked it off, and then did that a few more times to make sure she got some in her. She went and licked up a bit more, then ate a bit of her food. So, she seems to be on the mend.

I have 20 sheep, 11 lambs and one more ewe to lamb (1-3 lambs maybe) yet. I have 6 Icelandics (2 ewes, 1 ram, 3 wethers), Finns (1 ewe), Finn/Icelandic crosses (four are 50/50 crosses, five others are 25/75 crosses Finn/Icelandic), a Shetland/Lincoln cross (50/50 cross), a Merino/Rambouillet/Finn cross, a Romney ram, and a Cotswold ewe. We had an error when I bred my Icelandic ram to two icelandic ewes I'd sold last Summer as part of the sale, and the Romney ram got in with the ewes by sneaking in when I got the Icelandic ram out. So, I was surprised to see the long-tailed lambs that all but one ewe (and I also hope my Icelandic ewe, that hasn't lambs yet, was impregnated by the Icelandic ram) were Finn/Romney, Finn/Icelandic/Romney or Icelandic/Romney lambs.

The interesting thing is that last year, my Icelandic ram threw mainly ram lambs with three ewe lambs our of 17 lambs. This year, he has again thrown more ram lambs (2 rams to 1 ewe lamb again), but the Romney ram has thrown all ewe lambs, but one ram lamb. They have the curliest little fleeces as can be with some white, some black and some black with white markings on their ears, faces and/or chests. I'm hoping that Blesa, the Icelandic ewe left to lamb, will have Rocky's lambs (1-3 lambs) and that it/they will be ewe lambs. Keep your fingers crossed.

I have two bottle fed ramlings:Bart is black with white ear marks and a white spot on his butt, and Bullwinkle is pure white with nice stocky legs and sideburns. Both are cute as can be. It can be a pain in the morning though, when I'm trying to get my cup of coffee and there are two lambs yelling: Maaaa, Maaaa...wanting their bottles of milk. I'm a lazy shepherdess in that I keep the bottle fed lambs in my laundry room so that I can feed them in the morning easily, especially when it has been raining with cold winds and I don't wnat to lose them to hypothermia. I take them out in the morning after things dry up some and they romp and play with the other lambs and each other. Bullwinkle has a twin sister our of Rabbit, a 50/50 Finn/Icelandic cross; and Bart is one of triplets having both a brother and a sister out of Madge. Madge is my Finn ewe, and so she had the 50/50 Finn/Icelandic lambs.

I've been spinning up my wool to make some nice yarn. I have 100% Icelandic wool (aka Lopi), some Romney, some Targhee and some Finn. I have some alpaca spun up also in dark brown and cinnamon and a marled cinnamon and dark brown. I now have Al Paca, a white Suri; Eldie, a white Huacaya, and Earl Grey, a Rose grey Huacaya, along with the dark brown, Java, and cinnamon, KoKo, Huacayas. All of them are male with 3 being gelded. Eldie, the white Huacaya has 15 micron fiber. Earl Grey, has 21 micron, as does Java, the dark brown. Koko, the cinnamon has 24 micron and Ak Paca, the Suri has 11 micron fiber on the average. It's hard to know exactly the micron count because it varies over the animals. They are nice animals over all, so I keep planning on having a larger parcel of property to keep things comfortable. We're hoping for 20 acres with water rights.

I'm working on some other projects right now. I saw a beautiful afghan in Spin-Off this issue, so I'm creating a special afghan for a friend of mine as a gift. I'm excited about it, and I'm hoping it will work out fine. It's black, maroon, and gray squares done in the Domino Knitting of Vivian Hoxbro. So far, it's coming along well. I've got 5 rabbits and 4 cats that I'm done knitting and all I have left are to embroider the faces and put some whiskers and tails on them. I sell my hand spun yarn, hand spun/hand knitted or crocheted items at the Farmers' Market. I need to make some money with what I make so I can get the hay and other products I need for the animals and to keep up with the costs of the various things I do in terms of education and guild dues.

I'm teaching a beginners' Spinning class at the local Yarn/Fiber shop called Knitochet in Walla Walla, WA. I'm also teaching a beginners' knitting class at the newly re-opened Hancock Fabrics in Walla Walla as well...this class is beginning on May 6 and continues on May 14. Farmer's Market starts on May 6 and continues through October 28. I get done at the market, then mosey over to Hancock's to set up for the class. I'm hoping for 8 people, but we'll see how it works out. I love teaching crafts to people and have had many classes that I've taught over the years...to homeless children and to people I took classes with in tech school/college. I taught spinning for two years at the Lambtown Sheep and Wool Festival in Dixon, CA, when we lived down there (http://www.lambtown.com) and won several competitions for both knitting/crocheting and for yarn, judged by Stephanie Gaustad both years. People enjoy learning and I had my first male student in that class. He was learning to spin so he could create the yarn his wife would weave with. I thought that was fabulous for him to do such a nice thing for her. Not many men would do that for their wife.

I have been working on some new scarf/shawl patterns to sell at the market, and am working on some exotic wood knitting frames made from rosewood, cherry, purpleheart (very hard as it's grain is so irregular), hickory and oak in a variety of lengths. I also make sets of beaded knitting markers and sets of crocheted markers as well. I make Icelandic horn buttons in sets of 4 or 6. Lastly, I have naturally colored eggs for those who enjoy egg crafts (carving, egg shell mosaics, etc.). The colors I have so far this year are: two shades of blue, 3 shades of green, 3 shades of brown, ivory and a ivory pink. I blow the eggs out after I wash them, then let them air dry. I also have feathers from my Americana chickens, Barred rocks, and Austalorps. They are beautiful feathers... I make and create more products as time goes by, so check in to find out what else is going on.

If there is anyone out there who's interested in purchasing a Romney ram, he can be registered. I'm selling him for $125 unregistered or $150 registered. He was named Timmy, but when I bought him, renamed him Rommy. He's a friendly boy and was collar trained, and loves to be petted and scratched.

In June/July, I'll have some crossed ewe lambs that will be fabulous in terms of fiber. I may keep one of the lambs for myself just for the fiber. My Finn/Icelandic lambs (50/50) are already sold, and if my Icelandic ewe has Icelandic lambs, they're also sold unless they have a ram lamb. The Icelandic/Romney and Finn/Icelandic/Romney lambs will be sold as they get older...and as I said, I believe the fiber will be nice.

My Finn/Icelandic (5o/50) ewe lambs have nice fiber and felts exceptionally well (which I found out when I scoured some that I cleaned like I did the Icelandic fiber and it felted so easily, I had to scour the second batch even more gentle and I sold out of both the white and the black last year). The 25/75 Finn/Icelandic fleeces also felt easily and are single coated as are the 50/50, though a little coarser than the 50/50.

I'm not entired sure how the 50/50 Finn/Romney fiber will be, but I'll know this fall when I shear again in October. Right now, the fiber the lambs have is soft and crimpy, so I suspect it will be about the same when they're older.

I have some nice, dark-gray Icelandic that will make great rug yarn and if blended with a softer black yarn to help it full... You'll be able to punch or crochet the rug, then wash it gently, it will felt or full to a wonderful comfy rug that will last for years.

Well, have to go for now, Write me if you have any interest in fleeces, yarn or lambs.

It's Lambing time again in Walla Walla

Hi Everyone:

Well, I've recovered (almost) from my cold/flu thing-y and though I'm still exhausted, I'm pretty much back in the swing of shepherdess and fiber artist and instructor. First the lamb news: I've got 11 lambs so far and one more ewe to go and she will have either twins, as she had the last two years, or triplets. I'm so excited. I have 5 ram lambs and 6 ewe lambs to date with two ram lambs being bottle fed babies. They are the cutest little boys, one black cross lamb (Finn mom and Icelandic dad) and a white cross lamb (Finn mom and Romney dad). I'd been putting registration tags on them as well as Scrapies tags, so that's all finished.

I wasn't supposed to have any Finn/Romney or Icelandic/Romney crosses and didn't plan on having any, but I was using Rocky (as in Rocky and Bullwinkle), my Icelandic ram, to breed to two of my former Icelandic ewes in the front pasture, Rommie, the Romney ram, got in with the ewes. I'd never seen Rommie mount the ewes, but apparently he did when my back was turned. So, I may have some cute curly lambs, but they aren't the ones I was breeding for, so I'm S.O.L. I believe they'll go to a nice buyer because the fiber appears that it will be, especially on the Finn/Romney crosses, quite nice with lots of crimp.

One last thing about the Finn/Romney or Icelandic/Romney crosses lambs, they are all long-tailed, so when I noticed that, one of the things you do is dock the tails by banding them...they lose blood circulation and the tip drops off. It sounds cruel, but it's not...it's a sanitation issue to keep their tails from getting full of sheep manure and helps keep them healthy. If there was a way to keep them healthy without doing that, then I would.

All the ram lambs, but the ones people want to have to breed to their sheep, will be banded in a couple of weeks when they're testicles drop. I do not want to have any rams to breed indiscriminately to my ewes. You put a band around the testicles that will do the same thing to them as it did to the long tails. It bothers them for a little while, but for the most part, they seem to bounce around within minutes of banding. It bothered me the first time I did it, but they rebounded to quickly that I could see it wasn't an issue. It's rather like putting tags in their ears. I don't think they have the same pain senses as humans do. I had my ears pierced 3 times (when from 1 hole to 2 holes, then 3 holes, but let the 3rd holes close up and still have 2) and it didn't hurt nearly as much as I thought it would and I was doing fine in less than 15 minutes. At any rate, this is all part of what a Shepherdess or Shepherd needs to do with sheep.

The reason I breed and raise the sheep I do is that they tend to let you know when they're lambing or something is wrong, so all you have to do is listen to them. Domestic sheep do some of this as well, but they are not as protective of the ewes and lambs as the Icelandics are. I researched sheep for over 2 years before I decided which breeds I wanted to breed. I love the Icelandics and the Finns.

BTW, the black cross is named Bart and the white cross is Bullwinkle. When they're bottle fed babies, you get more attached to them and then the next thing you know, they're named. One of the ewe lambs is all black with a white cross on her face and some are all black with various white markings on their faces or their bodies and are so full of pep. They jump all over the pasture looking like little black frogs sometimes. So, it's amazing watching these little lambs move around.

It's been raining like crazy here and the lambs don't particularly like the rain because the ground is wet, so when the feed bins are empty, they get tipped over and the lambs are usually inside of them staying warm and dry. I was so surprised yesterday when I went out to put hay in the bins and here were 4 lambs inside. I hated to evict them from their warm home, but it was a warm and sunny (for a change) 60-degree day and they needed to be out and about. They enjoyed themselves immensely, lazing about in the sun, or playing, so they did just fine. I even put my bottle fed lambs in with them and they all played together. So, it's obvious that the bottle fed lambs are not mentally disabled due to the bottle feeding.

I butcher the culls and the sheep I cannot sell so that I keep the number of sheep down to about 15-20 (my hubby wants no more than 12). I love my sheep adn want to have more acreage so I can raise registered Icelandic and Finn sheep, mainly, but I'll have a few that are different so that I can have a variety of fiber to work with.

I traded two Finn ewes for a Merino/Rambouillet/Finn cross ewe and two black Merino/Rambouillet/Shetland fleeces in January, and I traded another Finn ewe for a brand new Cotswold ewe lamb this spring. So, I mainly have my Finn/Icelandic crosses, Finns, Icelandics, Cotswold and MRF cross. That's 5 different types of fleeces that I have (not counting the Romney I have this year, who I hope will be gone later this spring/summer). I don't mind making trades and bartering at all.

Does anyone want to buy a gentle, handsome, Romney ram, named Romney? I can get him registered if you want him to be for an extra $25. I can't afford to have any more mistakes with rams breeding that I don't want to breed.

March 23, I sheared the sheep as well as trimmed hooves, put Scrapies tags in, and gave shots for tetanus and such. It helps keep them healthy and you only give it once a year. Rommie gave me a 12 lb-fleece which is amazing for me to see.


The Icelandics and Finns are medium-sized primitive sheep with short-tails. Romneys are large-sized domesticated sheep with long tails (as are all their progeny). It took from 9:30 AM until 3:30 PM on a Thursday and we just finished when it started to rain. I bagged the fleeces and lightly skirted them (skirting is what you do to get rid of the dags, the manure, second cuts, and other bad parts), then put a card in the bag with the name of the sheep on it. I got 23 fleeces and I still have 5 more to scour from last year. It takes a while to scour fleeces (scouring is washing in spinning-ese) and then card them. You can only put so many net bags of fiber into your washer, so the fiber will get clean.


Instructions on how to scour a fleece: You use Dawn dish detergent (least expensive), baby shampoo (if you buy it in bulk at Costco or Sam's Club, a bit more expensive then Dawn) or any of the commercial fleece soap (tres expensive). You separate the fleece into 1/2 to 1 lb sections and place in a net bag. You put 1/3 cup of Dawn (or whatever soap you're using) into a full tub of HOT water. Swish, then add your bags of fiber. Do not put more in the tub than you can push down into the water (probably about 5-6 lbs worth), but do not agitate or you'll felt the fiber. You wash the fiber until the water is clean when you rinse. In the final rinse, you add 1/2-cup of vinegar to bring the fiber back to neutral pH, and you hang it to dry on a wooden rack, out of the sun, with lots of air circulation. Then you place it in a clear, large plastic bag. A fleece will lose 1/4 to 1/3 of it's weight due to the decrease in lanolin and dirt after washing. After it's dry, you can card the fiber by hand or with a drum carder, or you can send it off to a professional fiber processor (and there are a lot of them out there with varying skills and charges to do what you want to the fiber).

I do ithe whole process myself because I enjoy it, but I have a hard time processing as many fleeces as I've had the last two years. In addition, I pick the fiber of vegetable matter (vm) so I'll have a nicer fiber to spin. The processors charge more if they scour and pick the fleeces for you, so most people scour and pick their fleeces themselves, then ship it off to the processor to spin into batts (wool sheets that you can spin, felt or to put into a quilt), roving (an inch thick, loose rope), pencil roving (a 1/4-inch thick, loose rope), or yarn of varying plies (usually from 2- to 10-ply). It saves you time to go through a processor, but IMHO, you lose the individuality of fleece yarn if you do.

I tend to spin from the lock or run it through my Fricke/Strauch drum carder once or twice (unless I want my yarn to look like it's spun by a processor). That way, I get a self-striping yarn which turns into beautiful socks or sweaters.

My alpacas will need to be sheared in May and I'll be doing that myself. I don't want to pay the going rates for the people who tend to shear then around our area. Can you tell I don't like paying someone else if I shear my animals if I can do it myself? The 'pacas all have nice fleeces (a white Suri and Huacaya, dark brown Huacaya, cinnamon Huacaya, and rose grey Huacaya) this year so I can hardly wait to start. I have two other alpacas I will be shearing for a friend in May or June as well, so this will be a good beginning of my practice before I do hers.

I sheared one alpaca for a friend last year and though the job wasn't perfect, I learned a whole lot about what NOT to do. I'd rather have a shearing table, but I don't have one yet, so I have to use alternative means. It will work just fine once I get the practice in with my five alpacas.

My plan: One alpaca will be sheared every two days, so they'll be finished over 10 days time. I'll be putting come Calm Forte, a natural herbal calmative, in their water so they'll be calm enough not to fight me when I not only shear, worm them and trim their hooves. It will probably take me about 3-6 hours to get it all done per animal at first, and once I get the practice, maybe one every 3-4 hours or less. I'll let you know.

My 16 Americana chickens have been laying between 6-13 eggs since March and in January they were laying between 1-5, so their egg production is on the increase. I'm raising Americana chickens, aka the Easter Egg chickens, so that I'll have naturally colored eggs. I'm blowing them out and I'll be selling the empty eggs at the market also. As you can see, I try to use all of what I grow and raise on my farm to make enough money to feed my animals and get what they need to continue doing this.

I also give tours of the farm to school-aged kids (schools, pre-schools, brownies/girl scouts/boy scouts, etc.) on Saturdays, and read them a sheep, shepherd/dess, alpaca, or sheep dog story. It gives the parents a short time to have to themselves as the kids are tired from the tour, so they need to take a short break so they're not overtired before going home. It helps remind me why I only had a daughter (who's now grown) and a stepdaughter (who's also grown). Other people's children I can enjoy and then they go home--sort of like a token grandparent. I love kids, but not ALL day and ALL night, every single day. I had enough of that with my own children...and they haven't had grandkids yet, so I'll keep in practice for that with other people's kids. *G*

The farmers market in Walla Walla, WA, starts on Saturday, May 6, and will go until Saturday, October 28, so it will be a long season this year. I sell my fiber, yarn and various items I make from wool, alpaca or wood, so I have a wide variety of items to sell there.

I'm making some horn buttons this year which I'll sell for $10-$15 for 4-6 buttons depending on how large the buttons are. I make children's hats and booties for 0-1 yo and some hats for toddlers and school aged children, toys (rabbits and cats are most popular), shawls, scarves, and hats for adults, garden markers, knitting frames and other odds and ends. I'll be selling some plants I grew from cuttings I took from my own house plants and rooted. I put them in cute little containers so they'd be more enticing to buyers.

I'll have some produce (apricots, peaches, nuts, strawberries, etc.) that I grow on my farm and ripens throughout the season. Some I'll dry or freeze for our use here and the rest I'll sell at the market. My garden is going to be bigger this year than last years so I expect to make more from the additional produce.

I'm growing some feed vegetables for my sheep and alpacas (mangels, beets, squash, pumpkins, carrots, etc.) as well as what I'll grow for us to eat. As long as the animals are healthy and happy, that's the main thing.

The plants I ordered from various catalogs are starting to arrive, so I'm excited to start planting them soon. I'm working on getting some hardy Kiwi to grow here. I tried last year, but it didn't work out, so I got new plants this year: 1 male kiwi and 4 females. That's how they come and you need to male to fertilize the females. I'll continue adding to the group as you can fertilize 6 females with 1 male, so next year I'll order another 2 females, then the year after I'll order another set of 1/4 like I did the year before that. It takes 2-3 years for them to start producing. I have 100 everbearing strawberry plants, 4 different types, growing now and hope to have enough strawberries to freeze 25+ lbs for home use, then sell off the rest at the market. I'm so excited...and hope this all works out. I don't think I can sell them as organic, but they are definitely chemical-free as I use beneficial insects rather than chemicals to kill the bugs. Those little parasitic wasps kill maggots and other insects in larval form so they never get to the pest stage.

That's all for now. Hope to hear from you soon.