sheep n such

Sheep for sale

2011-06-19T16:35:00.000-06:00

Too many sheep, not enough grass. It's time for a major flock reduction here. Since we started crossbreeding the Shetland ewes to BFL ram for market lambs we don't have enough grass for them all.
Plus I got 3 replacement ewe lambs from last Fall's breeding. These are purebred Shetland ewes that all have been born and raised here. Its a little atypical to breed for length and depth, but much more productive.

The ewes being sold are not culls, they are all productive, healthy sheep. Age varies from 3 - 8. All ewes sell with twin lambs alongside. Lambs have been banded on tails and testicles. The tails have fallen off. Except one late lamber which we havn't gotten too yet.

We have always bred for depth, length and productivity, with nice wool naturally following. All the ewes have long staple wool, still soft and processes up beautifully. All the ewes have lambed on their own. Once in a while I have to loosen an elbow on these xbred lambs if I'm around.

Price, I'm not sure how to price them. My idea is to sell a group of 3 ewes, 2 young ones and one older one, with lambs for around $800. Hopefully that's not too low. I see that the list is half older ewes and half younger. So a bunch with older ones will be a bit less. The lambs will pay them off in the Fall. I am negotiable on them also, preferring they go to an experienced shepherd. Total ewes to sell is 6.
Hershey - 7 year old with twins
Laura - 7 year old with twins, unbanded ram lambs
Clara - 3 year old with twins
Ginger - 2 year old with twins
Oreo - 2 year old with single
Skittles - 6 year old Shetland/Icelandic with twins. An amazing producer, her dam(Icelandic) has been our top producer in lamb weights, Skittles is quite round in the rib cage and less deep.

White ewe in top photo is a 3 year old, Clara. She is doing an amazing job with her twins. One is almost her size already.

Brown headed ewe with lambs behind her is 7 year old Hershey, one of the older ewes.

This black headed ewe is 2 year old Oreo, she is the only one who had a single. Packages including her will be less $.

Skittles with lambs.

hoop house !!

2011-05-27T22:51:00.000-06:00

Here is what our new and revised cattle panel greenhouse looks like.
It is about 15' x 27'. Hopefully one day the wind will quit blowing and we can get the plastic on.
The cattle panels have their own curved shape that wants to sproing out straight. With the front wall being set up for a wind-up area for the plastic, we needed some good structure to keep the panels from pushing out straight. If we could have found the 20' panels we wanted, it would have been simpler. The door is on the east side, and we'll make some sort of window on the west end.

Hopefully I'll get some curtains made from this rowcover material so I can snug things up when a chilly night threatens. There are several tomato and pepper plants waiting for their new home. I think I'll direct seed the zucchini. Tonight I started a few seeds of Kazakh Melon. Its from Kazakhstan and should be suitable for short seasons !!

Plus I have a randow arrangement of row covers made with Agribon 30. One started out with wire wickets to hold the row cover up. The cats made short work of that, so I put in some small rebar hoops that we had. Another is a small Caterpiller Tunnel, the others are rebar hoops with row cover on them that is gathered and staked at the ends like the Caterpiller Tunnel. Then there is the patch of carrot and lettuce seeding that just has the rowcover 'dirted in' along the sides.

As you can guess, the row cover is new and exciting to me. A month ago when we had 24 degrees, the row of small broccolis under 2 layers of rowcover were cosy at 36 degrees !!

Inside the Caterpiller tunnel. The 4H kids practiced transplanting and got the lettuces and such planted !!

Beautiful February Day

2011-03-14T21:14:00.003-06:00

View of our Winter garden ...

Agriculture Notes

2011-03-14T20:52:00.001-06:00

After encouragement to advocate for Agriculture by posting ag related things daily on 'Social Media', I thought I would add the posts from Facebook on here. Just for your daily ag notes !!
I'll just put a few days worth in each post, and try to put a picture in once in awhile.

My contribution to being a voice for Ag. I just read and article in Progressive Farmer that encouraged everyone in Agriculture to spend 20 minutes a day informing the public. Maybe 2 minutes so y'all don't get bored : )

Friday - Today we sheared our sheep flock. The sheep do not have to die to have the fleece removed !! Shearing the sheep gives them a chance to be cooler in the coming warm days, we hope ! Plus we can inspect them eaier to see when they will lamb, l...ambs can find their meals easier, the ewes will seek shelter to protect them and their lambs when they are sheared. This is controversial as people who shear later in the year say the lambs just snuggle in the ewes fleece, sounds cozy !!

Plus, the wool gets converted into nice, warm yarn to be used to keep people warm. So there you have it, your lesson on the benefits of shearing sheep !!!
Comment from my friend Monica ...The rest of the story is if the ewes still have their fleece on when they lamb they don't give off body heat when the lamb lies next to them their fleece insulates them only. They also have no feeling in their fleece and are more likely to lay on their lambs thus accidentally increasing the mortaliy rate.Pretty interesting !!
Saturday - Ok, my ag moment for today started yesterday >> The broccoli, cauliflower and such is sprouting nicely in my countertop garden. They are planted a bit thick so I was thinning afew yesterday. As they piled up on the countertop, my thoughts were with the people of Japan...
It came to mind that sprouts of broccoli and such were first promoted as food from Japan and the Orient, which made me wish I had container ship loads of sprouts to send those people. But then, again, what do the sprouts taste like anyway, so I bit off a few of the leaf ends and ........ yum !!! A few bites of Cabbage sprouts, some celery and parsley, with a bit of onion sprouts on the side. My health food of the day. Pretty easy and quick food, relatively speaking.

Sunday - We have just broken several composting rules in the greenhouse !! 1. Add compost in the fall so it has time to breakdown. We just added it yesterday.2. Compost chicken manure for a long time before using. Just took the chickens out of the g...reenhouse last weekend.

This is the first time the chickens have been in the greenhouse, and the first time we've added compost in any great amount since we built it. I'll keep y'all posted !!!!!! Will anything grow ??

Monday - Ag moment of the day - While planting leek seeds today, i was struck that the plants to produce these seeds were started themselves 2 years ago. The leeks overwintered, then flowered the next summer, seeds collected at summer's end, cleaned, sorted, etc and packaged available for sale this year. That's some planning ahead !!

How to Grow Onions from Seed - Vegetable Gardener

2011-03-12T14:46:00.000-07:00

How to Grow Onions from Seed - Vegetable Gardener

This is a great tutorial on growing onions from seed !!
I learned alot from it and hopefully our onions will do better this year !!

Thinning Broccoli

2011-03-11T08:47:00.000-07:00

Wow, stunned by the images from the Japan earthquake and tsunami. Just thinking about all the turmoil in people's lives today that wasn't there yesterday. Coincidentally I was watering the onion, broccoli and cabbage seedlings for this summer's garden. The land that got Tsumani'd may not be the best for gardening for awhile. Then noticed how the broccoli and cabbage need thinned a bit, so I pinched off a few from each part of the 6 pack. Absentmindedly I set the thinnings aside on the counter, then realized that they would be potential food in Japan, so I tasted them. Just bit the top leaves off and found out they were yummy !!

There is potential treats, onion thinnings, a bit of parsley and celery, topped off with broccoli sprouts. If only I could send a few trainloads to Northern Japan !!!!

Brussel Sprouts

2011-03-03T22:38:00.000-07:00

Brussel Sprouts, the vegetable that amazes me.
Last year we grew 8 - 10 Brussel Sprout plants, ate lots fresh, gave a few plants away. That was fun since we left them on the stem for people. Most had never seen a brussel sprout plant before. The rest we put in the root cellar with the potatoes and carrots. Today I went down to get some more potatoes and carrots for dinner, and there was one Brussel Sprout stem left, so I brought it in. Granted, it was a big ugly. Some sprouts had a blackened outer leaf, and a few other designs. I cut the sprouts off and just peeled off the outer leafs until it looked edible. Then steamed them up and super good on the dinner plate !! March is the latest we've ever kept one, and this year, it worked !!

Is it working ?

2010-12-08T13:26:00.000-07:00

This blog might actually come together one of these days. I think I'm learning more about how these work and what to expect. I found out I can't add posts to the other pages, but can change and add to the posts as much as necessary. What fun. Please let me know if it all works for you !!! Now to return to regular life and plan dinner .......

Working on blog

2010-12-07T20:50:00.001-07:00

Maybe I can learn how to snazz up my blog so that is functions as farm, family, garden, sheep and product info and news. Could it happen ?? Stay tuned !!!

2010-12-06T14:11:00.000-07:00

2010-11-22T22:47:00.001-07:00

Here's a heap of garden stuff. The flowers sure were abundant this year.

2010-03-18T10:11:00.004-06:00

Here's our latest additions. We bought two piglets from a neighbor, to raise for another neighbor. They have almost doubled in size since they came 3 weeks ago. Hopefully they'll be freezer size by June. Some more "farm to table" business, or maybe its "field to fork" "pasture to pantry", hmm pick your favorite title !

Its fun to have piggies around again. Our oldest daughter will be getting her 4H pigs in another few weeks too.

Ready for Shearing Day

2010-03-18T10:06:00.003-06:00

Tomorrow is shearing day at our place. Just in the past week the ladies have started looking especially huge, both in fleece and pregnancy-wise. With the pleasant weather they'll probably be happy to have less to carry around. Its supposed to be a nice day so that I'll keep hoping for that.

Felted squirrel

2009-12-31T10:49:00.003-07:00

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 : )

2009-12-04T14:58:00.001-07:00

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

Happy December !!

2009-12-04T14:32:00.002-07:00

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 !!!

2009-04-12T20:13:00.002-06:00

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.

2009-04-12T20:04:00.002-06:00

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

2009-04-12T19:57:00.002-06:00

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

2009-04-12T19:38:00.003-06:00

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.

2009-03-11T22:09:00.004-06:00

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

2009-01-31T17:16:00.003-07:00

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.

2009-01-31T17:08:00.002-07:00

processed yarn

2009-01-31T16:40:00.003-07:00

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.

squash soup recipe

2008-09-24T09:49:00.003-06:00

Squash Soup

serves 4 - 6

takes 30 minutes or so to prepare

saute these 4 ingredients:
3 T butter
1 medium onion chopped fine, about 3/4 cup to taste
2 ribs celery, chopped fine. Include the leaves if they're on there
2 medium carrots, chopped fine
1 t parsley
1/2 t salt
1/2 t garlic
1 t savory if you have it

1, 2-3 lb winter type squash. I like the orange ones.
meanwhile: prepare squash by cutting in half, gut out the seeds. Slice in 1 - 1 1/2 inch slices and steam on the stovetop for 15 minutes or until fork tender.

add prepared squash to vegies and mash with potato masher : )
add 1 box chicken broth.
add 1 can white beans with liquid
add 1 can black beans, drained and rinsed!!!
if you have 1 cup or so of leftover mashed potatoes, its a nice addition.

let simmer for 1/2 hour or put in crock pot until dinner time.
serve with sour cream to top it, maybe some leftover ham, a bit of grated cheese.
Also good with corn bread.

I hope you like it !!!

squash soup

2008-09-24T09:42:00.003-06:00

Yesterday I had squash soup on the menu, so began early with hopes of actually getting it done before going to the kids' soccer game after school. Well, sometimes my idea of fun contradicts my toddler sons' ideas : ) So he was tired of the whole indoor idea just about when the squash was cooked. So I barely got it peeled. How was I going to cube it up ??? An ah-ha moment, I grabbed the potato masher and simply mashed them in the soup pot withh one hand while holding The Kid with the other. A simple thing, but a victory nonetheless.

Garden pickings

2008-09-24T09:23:00.003-06:00

Monday looked like nearly the end of our growing season here. My toddler son and I were out in the garden picking peas and an idea came to mind !!! While he was engaged with eating peas one by one, I could do some harvesting. So I grabbed a nearby flowerpot, thankfully had my scissors in my pocket, and began picking broccoli, then trimmed all the flowers off a tall sunflower that tipped over in the wind on Saturday night. He was still munching so I scooped up some baby potatoes that got left behind, then picked peas until he was ready to go swing. I got quite a bit harvested. Plus I learned something, it might be a good idea to leave a few empty flowerpots or buckets around the garden for when the harvesting moment presents itself

!!!

chokecherries

2008-09-20T10:33:00.000-06:00

On Thursday I had a chance to pick some chokecherries at last. The season is about over for them, I think. Usually the bears and birds have gotten them all by Labor Day. This year must be a bumper crop. It was interesting to observe the bushes where I was picking. The first bush was along my friends driveway, in a sort of windbreak of many different bushes. The berries were pretty ripe, not real full along the branch though. And the strands were only about 2 berries thick.

Then this huge propane truck started up her driveway, so I had to move the van so it could get by. I picked a while more, then the propane truck came by again on its way out. So I just drove down the road a bit to a big shed on their ranch. Right along the fence was a lone chokecherry bush. It was loaded beyond normal loading with chokecherries ! Each strand of berries was a huge handful. In no time my bucket was full enough and I headed home.

This made me think about how us people are. How much we often struggle against loneliness and want to be with our friends. The bush that grew in a group was way less productive than the loner. Plus the lone bush had a stronger trunk from weathering the weather (so profound !!) than the one in the windbreak. I was encouraged to think about gathering strength during alone times, instead of struggling against loneliness. I think there is a difference between loneliness and being alone.

I usually like being out by myself with the critters, rubbing my sheepies chins, watching the piglets play, harvesting the garden and such. The times I struggle with loneliness are usually when self pity is knocking at my door. Thankfully at times like this, I can remember my friend Jesus, who sticks closer than a brother. Not that i always remember, sigh.

wow, finally did it

2008-09-15T14:29:00.000-06:00

Well, here is my first blog. Hmmm, hope to write about our sheep adventures, family escapades, possibly some thoughts. Hoping to find ways to connect to family and other folks of like interests.

We have Shetland sheep, plus one BFL ram for crossbreeding. Plus a big garden, 3 kids, hubby's ranch. I am working on establishing priorities and picking one art type activity between quilting, spinning, dying wool / yarn, knitting and painting. I'd much rather do the extra curricular activities than the core ones !!!!

Tuning in, Jean P.