Felted squirrel

Here is the squirrel I needle-felted for my Dad for Christmas. He has newly become a squirrel collector. Somehow my needlefelting supplies wound up in my suitcase on our trip to my folks' for Christmas. It started out as a running squirrel, but looked terrible, so he turned into a sitting squirrel and is much happier. Its Icelandic wool and about 6" tall. Now I know that most squirrels are grey, but that's ok. Maybe the next one will be grey.

Its one of my first animals and was much fun. Thanks to the felters list for sharing ideas !!! And to Kathy Barger for inspiration as well : )

Fall in Montana. We have more time of dry and snowy grass than green grass !!!

Happy December !!

Well, here it is December. The lambs are grown and sold. Being able to sell lambs was a new and fun experience. Hoping to be able to sell most of the lambs privately next year.
We've been going through the Chicken Pox at our house, all the kids have finally had them. One dd was covered with 100's, the other two kids had 3 each !!!!

I'm getting some Icelandic fleeces ready to get processed into roving. It will be combined with mohair, should be lovely when its done, brown, curly and shiny, much fun. This is a special order for a lady.

Hoping you all are having a great start to Winter !!!

This is M & M. She is an Icelandic ewe. The lambs are either Shetland X or BFL X. They were too busy too look up, I guess.

Here is the Icelandic X lambs. Its hard to see the black one. They were tuckered out from playing out of the jug.

Here is the Icelandic, and either Shetland or BFL cross lamb. You can see the brown spots on his face, plus he has a big brown splotch on his neck.

First Lambs

Well, lambing started 5 days earlier than expected when Rekja lambed at midnite Friday. Thankfully my dd was out checking the new chicks and heard her bellering. She is an Icelandic ewe that was, well, high capacity. She looks pregnant most of the time. The first lamb came out ok but the second was stuck and dh helped her out. he thought the lamb was stuck on its wool ( ? ).
When I went to record it in the sheep book I was reminded that last fall we noticed the late July ram lamb riding a few ewes on the day we separated everyone for breeding. Yikes !!! The ewes intended was our new BFL ram, Ramses. We wanted to try the crossbreeding in an effort to get a more saleable lamb. So a Shetland cross was not what I wanted !!

Then when I got a good look at the lambs, I got to wondering what really happened. These lambs have sticking up ears, yet Shetland/Icelandic coloring. Especially since the ewe is white, and Ranses is white, I kindof expected white, y'know. Rekja usually has a black and a white lamb anyway.

Take a look at this lambs nose, he has wrinkles on it. Is that a BFL thing ? But how does the white with a big brown neck splotch fit in ? Could it be a three way cross ? The other twin has super thick, soft wool, very curly and thick. He is black so I can't tell the wrinkles or not.

The next day the other Icelandic ewe lambed and hers look more like a regular Shetland X Icelandic. Let me know what you guys think !!! They are all rams.

Yikes, -17 degrees this morning !! Thankfully we had to reschedule shearing for this Sunday from 2 weeks ago. The sheep would have really wanted their coats back on today. Shearing is always an interesting time. I get to see the condition of the sheep and see how the feeding has been going. Plus its always fun to see the fleeces. Plus it will be interesting to see how preggers the girls look. All 16 ewes were with a ram, so it could get pretty busy come April. I am excited and a bit anxious about the Shetland x BFL lambings. Hoping and praying for the right preparedness and smooth lambings.

Thankfully the temps this weekend are supposed to be in the 40's, hopefully that means a warming trend.

After shearing is done, I plan to get the greenhouse going. Someof the seedlings inside will want to get into some real dirt pretty soon. There is Bok Choy, parsley, 3 kinds of lettuce, 3 kinds of tomatoes, plus thyme and savory. This weekend I'll probably start a zucchini and cucumber plant for the greenhouse.

Nugget - yarn namesake

Here is a picture of dear Nugget. It was just after sundown so it came out a bit dark. The next nice day Timmy and I will go out and take some fresh pictures. I'm hoping to catalog all the sheep on my blog so people can look at them if they want to buy any fleeces in March.

processed yarn

wow, I've been knitting with some of the Shetland yarn that arrived from the processor just before Christmas, yes, it was a nice Christmas present, all 22 pounds of it !!! Its made from some of my favorite sheep, Nugget, the bottle lamb we kept as a wether, Lacy, Cody-our first lamb born here that we kept for a ram for many years, and a few other whitish lambs that have passed through here.
I am calling it "Montana Nugget", after dear Nugget. I've been working on mittens for Timmy and am now on my second pair. Hopefully I'll be able to make some that fit soon. I'm using the 'Homespun, Handknit" book, which has a nice simple pattern called "Family Mittens".
If anyone is interested, I would sell a few skeins. Its in 4 oz skeins, about 333 yds/skein. 2 ply spun on an old fashioned spinning mule from Custom Woolen Mills in Carstairs, Alberta.