Shearing in Spencer, MA

Jerry sheared 21 Dorset and Dorset crosses on Sunday, the 1st. It poured the night before, but with the breeze on the hill where these sheep were, they dried out pretty fast.

Here the sheep are hiding in the shade. They are all standing with their faces up against the trailer as if to say, "Maybe he can't see me and I won't be shorn." Just like an ostrich....


Jerry had a nice young helper. Robbie's parents own the farm where these sheep are pastured. He helped Jerry catch sheep, while I was on the other side skirting and bagging fleeces as they came off the sheep. Here is one ewe looking all the world like she is just going to take a nap.
The ram (father of the lambs) is 1/2 Rambouillet and 1/4 Dorset, 1/4 Merino, and chocolate brown. That explains most of the color of the lambs.

Here Susan's German Shepherd is moving the 2nd group of sheep out of their pen and up to the shearing area.

It was a wonderful day for shearing & I thank you Susan for the fleeces and all the great conversations!!

Moving??

We met with a Realtor yesterday from United Country Guiding Light Realty and we are hoping to be putting our farm (officially) on the market for sale! We are waiting to hear back what she comes up with for numbers. What to asking prices will be if we finish all the trim work and finishing details as opposed to if we leave it for the next owner to do. If you click on the title of this post, it will take you to the web site for the Realty company.

In the meantime, I will be packing all the 'non-essentials' and cleaning like I haven't cleaned since the last house we put on the market. And we will be having at least one yard sale.


This means to you, my dear readers, that there will LOTS of things for sale!! I will be cleaning out my wool closet and offering my STASH of yarns, rovings, fleece and possibly some equipment for sale! Please watch my yarn page at http://eweifarmyarn.blospot.com/ and the fleece page at http://eweifarmfleece.blogspot.com/ for roving, top, fleece (both raw and washed), and possibly equipment.


I will keep this blog free from the for sale 'stuff', but will let you know here when I've updated one or both of those pages. It probably won't happen until Monday though. So please be patient with me, as this will be a journey for all of us!

Just as a teaser. This is my cedar lined wool closet. The two pictures on the right are of 'my stuff'. That I may offer up for sale. It is SOME of my washed fleeces, roving, and on the top shelf, some of my quilting fabrics. And on the left, are the for sale raw fleeces on the fleece blog and on the top shelf are SOME of the yarn that I will have for sale on the yarn page.

Check out my Slide Show!

This is a walk around the farm. When I went out to feed the boys, I noticed the Jack in the Pulpits. This is inspired me to see what else was blooming on the farm.

Matilda coats

The following comment was left on our fleece blog and I decided to show you in pictures how there is less lanolin in our fleeces.
Windyridge has left a new comment on your post "Corriedale ewe": Your fleeces are lovely! As a spinner and sheep farmer and seller of covered fleeces myself, I am curious how coating the sheep causes less lanolin in the fleece.

The white coat is a clean coat. (Brand new they are whiter than that!) As the fleeces grow, or the coats become dirty, we change them and then I wash them. (The website says not to wash them, but I've got to!!) Some of what is on the coat is manure, but the majority of it is lanolin and sheep sweat. And the coats are a lot heavier when they are dirty than when they are clean.
My Corriedale wether gets a new coat about every other month. And his coat looks just like these when we change it.
Because I am so happy with the looks of our fleeces with these coats, we will be becoming dealers for the Matilda coats very soon!!

A day in the country

http://www.bear-tracker.com/coon.html
This morning I awoke to this. Some little varmint, OK it was most likely a raccoon, dumped over the trash can, opened the lid and took out the trash bag. We are used to this here. We get out the broom and clean the entire deck. No sense in just doing where the coon did his thing. (o;
But, it had to get into the one bag that still had some left over paint in it. And it had to leave that paint on my deck. I did scrub the deck and it is not coming out, but I did get up all the 'extra' paint. I wonder if the coon would do my trim...........

Paw prints galore!! I hope it had a good time!

New blog

just for fleece!!

http://eweifarmfleece.blogspot.com

Mid May on the farm

After all the snow we had this winter, I was not sure that things would ever flower again. But God knew what He was doing. The lilacs, both purple and white, are in bloom about 2 weeks early. The peony next to the house is getting ready to bloom. The peonies in front of the deck are behind that one. Some of the irises are looking like they will bloom in the next 2 weeks. I have a tree in front of my office that has what look like apple blossoms on it, but I don't think it is an apple. I don't remember where I got it from. There is one more tree out in front of my office window that I do know what it is either. We will have to wait and see. I do know that I planted the 2 different colored lilacs, a Forsythia, and a Burning Bush.
The grass is greening up and the girls are 'mowing the lawn' about an hour a day. Any more than that at this time and they will get diarrhea. We don't want that!!
Shearing has slowed down for Jerry, so we are getting things done around the house and yard. We had planned a yard sale for this week end (Memorial Day), but there is still much that needs to be done.
We are still planning on putting this farm on the market and looking for a bigger farm. We are also looking at opening our own fiber processing mini mill!! We need to figure out financing for that though. We don't have $100,000 burning a hole in our pocket!
Please check out the newest farm blog!! http://eweifarmfleece.blogspot.com/ We have 80+ fleeces sitting in the kitchen that need a new home!! Another reason to open a mini mill. (o;

A narcisus peeks out from under my mother's roses. A peony bush and day lilies under the cat walk.

Azaleas in front of the rock. An ornamental cherry tree.

My mother's roses. Another look at the unknown flowering tree and the lilac bush.
Some unknown flowering tree.

In front of the barn is a flower bed with rhubarb, a Forsythia bush, iris, bee balm, (at this time) garlic, a lilac bush, a burning bush, and some day lilies.

Rhubarb and Forsythia bush. Lilac and burning bushes.

We just picked up some mulch today. So I plan on sprucing up all my flower beds.

Sheep shots

The girls are getting a little crowded!!

The boys. Cornelius is now a yearling. He looks odd without his wool.