I can't believe it's the end of May already!

It's been a hard weekend! I was going to do a spinning demonstration at the Folklife Festival at the Seattle Center on Sunday, May 28, but my car broke down and I had to get towed home. It wouldn't have been so bad, but I had a bad headache anyway and the tow only made the headache worse. What a pain! I'm on the list for next year's volunteers, so I'll be there then. Keep an eye out for me!

The two ram lambs below are Bart (the black 3/4 Icelandic cross with a white/gray undercoat) and Bullwinkle (a white 50/50 Romney/Finn cross) are my bottle-fed babies. They'll be wethers soon. Aren't they cute?

So, they're already sold to a woman in Goldendale, so they'll have a happy home with her and her grandkids. She's a spinner and a soapmaker, and is a very busy woman. She already has a couple goats, but is selling one and keeping the other and doesn't want the one to be lonely. Not sure how they'll do with a goat, but I'm also not sure how the goat will do with them.

I'm going to be picking up a black mouflon Icelandic ewe lamb in Oregon on June 23, a little less than a month away from now. I'm going to be picking up some items I entered at the BSG (Black Sheep Gathering) in Eugene, OR, and the sheep is in Sandy, OR. One more to my flock of registered Icelandic sheep. I'm also going to enter some items into OFFF (Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival) in Canby, OR, as well into Frontier Days in Walla Walla, WA. This will be the most things I've entered anywhere since I moved to Washington State, so I'm very excited.

I have some Romney cross ewe lambs for sale and their father, Rommie, a beautiful Romney ram with an excellent disposition (calm, centered, sweet--not aggressive) and is a dark gray color (picture coming soon) and they all have nice crimp. Their father, Rommie, had 18 # of fiber sheared from him this year and it's beautiful. Take a look at Bullwinkle, who's a Romney cross, in the above picture to see the crimp. He's as cute and fluffy as they come.

I'm working on several more knitting projects: one a sweater for my hubby in silver gray Icelandic wool. It's self-striping because I spun it from the lock instead of carding into roving or a batt before I spun it into yarn. It's will be just lovely when it's finished. I'm also working on writing up my patterns so I can sell those as well. I've got some new ideas for shawls and things that will sell nicely when the weather cools down again, plus some new toy ideas as well. So, watch this page for more information.

Still very worried about the NAIS (National Animal Identification System) that the government is trying to implement. The government says that it's "voluntary," but we *have to be* registered by 2009. If you have to be registered, then it is not voluntary. How can they use that kind of double speak? Do they think we're all stupid or what? Sometimes I get so angry with the current administration that I could spit nails. I'm fighting it with all the might I can garner, writing letters to WA State governors, sentators, legislators, etc. to get support to stop the NAIS. Unfortunately, the UK, Australia, New Zealand and a few others already have an NAIS-type of system already in place. This is not for the small breeder, but for the large scale operations in the US that they are doing this for...it is supposed to prove that the meat we ship overseas doesn't have diseases. All it's going to do is put control of ALL the breeding and meat into the hands of the large producers and out of the small ranchers and farmers hands. Every time I get a response from Christine Gregoire, one of WA States Governors (who shouldn't be in office in the first place), it's nothing but the mouthpiece for the NAIS saying, no that's not right, you're interpreting it wrong and we changed it being mandatory from 2008 to 2009. Mandatory is not voluntary no matter how they try to word and re-word it! How did we all come to this? Our tax dollars at work or not voting when we should be voting? I don't know, but it's scary as anything I've seen in the last 30 years.

Give me a break...not only do we have to register our animals, but we also have to register our fowl and poultry. That's not going to stop the bird flu...the bird flu is spread by wild birds, not domestic birds. If we get bird flu, it's just a mutated version of the swine flu... That's what viruses do. So, how do they think that registering poultry and fowl is going to stop the bird flu?

Well, I'm planning on continuing to raise and breed Icelandic sheep for sale to other breeders, spinners, weavers, and people who want gourmet lamb/sheep meat. This is the only meat I eat now because I don't use a lot of chemicals and drugs on them and they eat mainly grass when it's available half the year and the other half, they get hay, and they get their sheep minerals and whatever else they need to stay healthy and very happy. Can't you see the little smiles on their little faces? The blue tags in the right ears are their Scrapies tags (another government implemented voluntary program that is now mandatory if you want to sell your sheep) and the purple or green tags are their registration numbers. These are just two of my Romney cross ewe lambs.

I'm already taking reservations for the forthcoming spring Icelandic and Icelandic cross lambs for next year, so that's the only way I can get people the ones they want now. I still have some 2005 fleeces (scoured or raw) left if you're interested. And I have my Romney ram, and the Romney cross ewes and ram lamb left to sell.

So, Have a nice day and I hope to talk with you soon!