Shearing Day

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  Shearing Day was yesterday. What a wonderful time. Farm Club came through (as always) and handled all the various tasks of the day. (Except for Rusty's job, which he describes in his blog so I am not duplicating his photos here). I am grateful to the great shearer who has come for the last few years. He does a wonderful job--the sheep look good and the fleeces look good. John is so fast that he finished with 64 sheep in about 2 1/2 hours.

 

One important job is making sure that the shearer always has a sheep to shear as soon as he finishes with the last one.

I took some videos too but it will take me awhile to get those edited. You can sign up on the Meridian Jacobs YouTube Channel and see them when they are ready.

This is the BFL/Jacob crossbred ewe. I probably could have started a bidding war on her fleece, but I'm keeping it.

 

A couple of people bagged fleeces after shearing and  then each fleece was weighed.

Alison and Linda helped many new Farm Club members and other visitors evaluate fleeces at the skirting table.

 

The warm afternoon sun was welcome after the cold morning.

Good friendships and sharing the work make a day like this extra fun.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Color Everywhere I Look

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It's been awhile since I wrote a blog post--at least on paper...well, on on the computer. But you know what I mean. I write a lot of them in my head but they don't always make it here. So I was looking at my latest photos to see which in-my-head blog post to put here and these are the things that caught my eye.  The dye class that I taught last week.

The v-shawl class that I taught last week.

Socks that Jackie made for me but it hasn't been the season to wear them.

The color wheel class that I taught at Lambtown on Sunday.

Georgia O'Keefe's Purple Petunia which is now on the loom.

But when you think you've found the most fabulous colors of yarn, fiber, and dye, you walk outside  and see this:

 

A sunset from last week.

 

I think I need to find yarn in these colors.

 

 

Breeding Season is Here

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Four Farm Club members came today to help me sort out breeding groups. I told myself that using four rams was plenty but in the end I put ewes with six rams. I don't have a very big place and by the time I save spaces for non-breeding rams (a few ram lambs left), non-breeding ewes (my State Fair ewes and lambs and a few ewe lambs that I don't want to breed yet) and try to leave buffer spaces between breeding groups it gets tricky to find space for everyone. Kenleigh's Matrix, a ram lamb, was the first to go out with 14 ewes.

Meridian Loretta was obviously in heat, but we wondered if Matrix, smaller than the ewes, was going to manage the job.

Meridian Fogerty, a yearling ram, was next. He has 8 ewes.

Faulkner was happy to be given eight ewes.

Meridian Clapton, the ram who has been behaving badly wanted some of the action.

Clapton is temporarily in a small pen so he has just three ewes.

Puddleduck Sullivan has ten ewes.

When you first put the rams with the ewes they get a little carried away trying to find a ewe in heat and you may see random marks on some of the ewes. One of the Farm Club members asked how you can tell if the marks from the ram harnesses are the "real thing". I told her that you can tell.

This is in Fogerty's pen later in the day.

These are two of Matrix's ewes. One is Loretta, the ewe in the first photo.

It wasn't until the end of the day that I picked up the marker for the sixth ram harness so Meridian Miller (the ram lamb who was champion at the State Fair) didn't get his 7 ewes until evening. He is in the pen right behind my shop.

You could say that the ewes were a bit stand-offish, but Miller didn't let that deter him.

Where will you be February 21? I'll be in the barn with new lambs.

Pasture Maintenance

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Nothing very exciting in this post.  But I spent all day Sunday in the pasture  after thinking the job at hand would take only a couple of hours.  I find that I am always writing blog posts in my head so here it is.

I started by mowing the paddock that the sheep had just been grazing. Now that I have my mower (never meant for this heavy duty work, but so far still working) I have been working on the dallisgrass that gets ahead of the sheep this time of year. In the past I have tried burning, trampling, weed eating (photos and past efforts in this post and this post and this post), but I think this mower will be the answer. It is at the south end of my pasture(right side of the photo) that the dallisgrass gets so thick and tall. The idea is to mow right after grazing and then everything has an equal change of regrowth, and the dallisgrass will be in a more palatable stage and the sheep will keep up with the growth.

In this photo the paddock that I just mowed is to the right. The sheep grazed the one on the left a few days before. I mowed that one that last time they grazed it and that made a big difference. I shouldn't have to mow after each grazing--maybe once or twice per season I think. Notice the fence-line. That is a 3-wire electric fence and this was the other thing I wanted to deal with on this day. I have been putting off cleaning up the fence-line with the weed eater, but when you can't even see the wire, it's time. I have already used the weed-eater in the area where you can see the wire. This dallisgrass is tough. I have the heavy duty string on the weed-eater and it still gets used up quickly.  Slow-going. It took me about 3 hours to finish this fence-line.

Speaking of problem plants, here is another. This is what the medusahead looks like when it's dry. There are plenty of posts about my battle with this noxious weed also. This is along the perimeter fence.

And lets not forget devils-claw. This one isn't so bad because I don't have much of it and it is easy to chop out the big plants. It doesn't invade the irrigated pasture, but is along the edges where it is dry.

What is the problem with devils-claw? See the fruit? See those curved, pointed ends? When the fruit dries it splits in two and those curved points get caught in wool. I'll show you other photos sometime. This is seed dispersal in action.

Moving on to other plant problems. This is the small blackberry bush on the west fence. On this morning I actually had breakfast here because the berries are ripe, but in general the blackberry bushes become a problem when they cover the electric fence as they do on my west fenceline. (Note wheelbarrow full of devils-claw.)

I started irrigating Sunday evening. Here is a spot that I hoped to get water to this time. The last few times I irrigated the water didn't get here.

This is the pathetic state of the trefoil that didn't get water.

Here is what it looks like where it was irrigated.

And here is a view of a paddock that has had plenty of water, has a manageable amount of dallisgrass,and hasn't been grazed for a few weeks.

This is  self-portrait of the irrigator.

Green Pasture

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You have all seen photos of my green pasture.

This does not happen naturally here in California's Central Valley . We have what is known as a Mediterranean climate. I thought I'd give you a definition but what I found when I did a google search is more interesting:

There are not many places in the world that have our hot, dry summers and cool, wet winters. So how do we grow all that clover and grass in a hot, dry summer? Irrigation, of course. But irrigation water has to come from somewhere if it's not coming out of the sky this time of year.

Our irrigation water is provided (sold) by Solano Irrigation District and comes from Lake Berryessa which fills from winter rainfall. Here is how our irrigation water is delivered.

Do you see that low spot in the mountains on the right side of the photo? Lake Berryessa is behind there. The water is carried down Putah Creek. Eventually it works it's way into a system of canals. When I call for water the SID person opens a gate at the end of this ditch that is normally dry. The water flows to another gate at the northwest corner of my property (that cement box on the other side of the fence). When that gate is open the water flows under the fence into the standpipe in the foreground.

That black circle is the pipe carrying the water into the standpipe. It flows out the hole on the south side of the standpipe (at the top of the photo).

This is a close-up of that rushing cool water. It's not a rushing mountain stream but it sure looked appealing this afternoon when I was outside working.

Here is where the water flows out of the standpipe into the pasture.

There is a ditch at the north end of each pasture. The water is just starting to fill the ditch.

I have to dig cut-outs in the ditch to get the water to flow where I want it. It's not a perfect system because our ditches are worn out and trampled by sheep and the pastures aren't level, but I can usually make it work. I have the water on for 24 to 36 hours to irrigate everything.

This is the last pasture the sheep were on yesterday and I finished mowing it (a story for another day)  just before irrigating.

This is what we'd have in the summer if we didn't irrigate. (This is a small pen behind the barn.)

Here is what irrigation gives us.

Hot Day and Other Random Thoughts

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Higby's Country Feed is my favorite store. There is always something there I want to buy. I told them that if they started carrying underwear, then between Higby's and Ace Hardware, I wouldn't have to shop anywhere else. Today Higby's had an anniversary celebration of opening the new expanded store five years ago.

With the weather forecast of 104 degrees and north wind today I scoped out the most protected spot for the canopy and sheep pen. The winds didn't materialize, but it was breezy enough to help with the heat. Thanks to Jackie who met me there and stuck it out for most of the day. We were well fed as Higby's provided home-made scones and cinnamon rolls for breakfast, enchiladas for lunch and snacks and cold drinks all day.

I was impressed with the raised beds for the vegetable garden. (Since our tractor tires just shredded maybe I'll be able to use this idea too.)

This morning I caught a couple of lambs that I think I'll be keeping.I figured that I may as well bring sheep that I want to halter break. At the time I wasn't thinking of a blog post so I didn't take many photos. But here is one lamb that I brought:

She is the biggest lamb I have and she has a beautiful fleece. Does she look familiar?

Here is Dad:

By the way, he was sheared last week. The flock is shorn in November but some of the long-wool breeds can benefit from twice/year shearing. Faulkner's fleece looked so lovely that I decided to have him shorn since a sheep shearer was in the area to buy lambs anyway.

Penny, the shearer, chose to shear Faulkner standing up. He was a perfect gentleman about the whole thing.

Penny's son helped catch the locks as they came off. Ummm...don't look too closely at Faulkner. Maybe he could benefit from wearing a sheep size grazing muzzle.

Here is a photo that I took after washing half of Faulkner's fleece.

This is the site that greeted me inside the door of the shop this morning.

It's 7:30 p.m. and I think it's probably still in the 90's. I'm sitting under the ceiling fan I hope that in another hour it will be cooler outside than inside so we can turn on the whole-house fan. How many people go to Hawaii to find cooler temps? (For those of you who think, "wow, that's a random thought", stay tuned. Or maybe it's just heat stroke.)

Benny 1999 - 2012

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Benny was found cowering in a rain storm under the shopping carts at Safeway by the daughter of my friend, Colleen. Colleen rescued him and got him healthy. We had just moved to our current location a few months before and decided that we could handle another dog since we had only Flash at the time. Colleen had said that Benny was probably a Border Collie mix. What I didn't expect when I saw him was that his legs were only about half the length they should have been to match his body. Colleen raised Corgis--maybe Benny looked normal to her!

We'll never know what trauma Benny had experienced before he was adopted. He was always loving to our kids and their friends, but was not trustworthy with adult strangers.

Katie took Benny in the obedience classes at the 4-H Dog Shows, but he was never given the Canine Good Citizen award because of his tendency to growl at a stranger who approached with a hand out (unless the hand was throwing treats).

Flash (right) was also found in a parking lot as a puppy and I got him from my vet at the time. He was probably about 6 when we got Benny. Doc (left) was a wonderful dog who came to us later when the neighbors moved and they didn't want to take him. Benny looks as though he fits in, except for those short legs. Flash and Doc are both long gone.

The next dogs were Rusty and Bonnie. Bonnie has since found a good home in Modoc County where she is a lot happier than she was here.

Benny greets Ozzie when he moved in two years ago. What is it with animals with no homes?

Investigating this spring's temporary house-lamb.

Benny had congestive heart failure and kidney failure and is now buried under the trees here at his home.

 

 

Flash

You Can't Always Count on Genetics

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This is Ebony, a black and white Jacob ewe.

This is Hudson, a lilac Jacob ram.

Here is one of their lambs at almost 2 months old. He is lilac like Dad.

This is the other lamb at about a month old...

... and here he is at just over 2 months. He has been marked with a cull tag because of a severe split eyelid, but also, do you see how his horns are growing?

Both lambs today, at 3 1/2 months old:

I love the horns, the color, and the fleece on this lilac ram, but (as in the discussion over on Facebook) I sure wish that I could combine these lambs into one and keep just the parts I like. Look at those pretty blue eyes on the black and white ram...

...and he has nicely marked feet also.

Speaking of rams, here are a few more photos:

The photo above is of Meridian Clapton at about 6 months...

and here he is as a yearling.  Look at the photo below for horn detail on his right side.

The first thing that is unusual is how his horns go behind his neck instead of under, but there is also a fifth horn there.

Meet Puddleduck Sullivan, a 2-horn yearling ram. But is he really a 2-horned ram? I see a seam in those horns that could mean that he is a fused 4-horn. And he also has another horn on this side. People talk about 6-horn Jacob sheep, but I haven't seen any in which the 5th and 6th horns weren't scurs or some how compromised by the larger horns. After all, where would you put another full set of horns?

This is Meridian Fogerty, a another 2-horn yearling ram. I had so many rams last year that I didn't use him, but he will be in this fall's ram line-up. His horns are closer to his face than I'd like, but still OK.

One more ram. Sweetgrass Clint is Clapton's sire and here he is (above) at 6 months old.

This is Clint last fall as an adult.

Bottom line--you don't necessarily get the perfect lamb by breeding two "perfect" parents and you can't predict how the lamb will look as an adult when you buy it at 4 months old.

For more photos of how rams' horns change see my website photo gallery . By the way, Ebony, who is at the beginning of this post, stars in her own video over on YouTube. Click here  and find her video to see her having those ram lambs.

Free Range Chickens

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The other day when I was feeding the chickens one of them walked out the door of the chicken house. I decided to leave the door open and let them all out. My chickens have lived in a chicken house for years because a neighbor complained about them tearing up her garden. Now I realize that this was many years ago which meant it was a completely different batch of chickens. (And that batch of chickens gave new meaning to the term free range--they had a lot of traveling to do to get to that neighbor's place when I have a perfectly good barnyard full of bugs here.) Those chickens also used to roost on my feeders, making a big mess that I was not sorry to get rid of.  So that batch of chickens set the chicken-housing standard here....with one exception that I'll get to later. When Goldie (the tamest of the current batch and the only one with a name) walked out the door I had a revelation. If I could get them to go to the sheep part of the barn and eat bugs and maggots they would definitely earn a soft spot in my heart and I wouldn't have to spend as much on chicken food.

Guess which one is Goldie?

Somebody was not happy about this. Rusty was already having a tough morning with the hot air balloons overhead. Now the chickens were in the wrong place and he didn't know what to do. Read Rusty's blog for his opinion about this.

I wasn't sure if the chickens had found their way under the gate into the barn. Yesterday I made sure to entice them that way with a few bits of grain. I did the same today and watched as they scratched into old hay and manure. I watched closely and was satisfied to see them go for the wiggly maggots under the straw. Good chickens.

I think that Rusty might be happier about the whole thing tonight. When I closed the door on the chicken house one chicken was missing. I saw her on the other side of a fence and she didn't know how to get back.

Feeling better about the whole thing now, Rusty?

I was just rereading this for errors and realized that I hadn't yet explained the one exception to the chicken-house chickens. We used to have 2 banties who were loose in the barn. There is one left. This is an OLD chicken. She was around during the years when my daughter had her horses and cows here and she left for college in 2006. Every year she starts laying in the hay and I put her eggs in a rubber tub so that I can move her if I have to move the hay.

Don't get excited about babies. There is no rooster.

 

Wool Handling School

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Last weekend I attended a Wool Handling School presented by the American Sheep Industry. On Sunday we spent the day at Flying Mule Farm in Auburn where the flock was being shorn. It was fun to attend a shearing day and just be a spectator. Lots of photo ops. And lots of learning too.

We spent the day with instructor, Ron Cole, handling wool and learning how to class fleeces. Flying Mule Farm sells most of their wool through the commercial market and it was surprising to me how little skirting is actually done (none other than removing bellies and manure tags). Fleeces that measure in the low 20's (microns) or less would be skirted more carefully, but there is still quite different from what I do. When large flocks are being shorn, the skirting and classing must keep up with the shearing so they have to be quick. No agonizing over every little bit of fleece and of course there is no sorting of color. If there are any black sheep they must be shorn last and that wool kept away from the white wool.

Different parts of the fleece are examined.

Check for strength.

We learned how to throw a fleece. Normally you would pick it up right from the shearing floor and, using this method, throw the fleece on the skirting table.  The idea is for the fleece to land cut side down  already spread out for classing and/or skirting. In this case the fleeces were handed over the fence and then we all took turns learning to throw them.

I took videos of this as well and will post those when I have time.

Wool was packed into burlap sacks.

Blue-faced Leicester ram.

The attendees of this school were mostly new and/or small farmers and we spent some time at the end of the day discussing the differences in our perspective from that of larger producers. The focus of this school is how to improve quality and cleanliness of fleeces because all producers who send wool into the commercial market have an effect on the reputation (and therefore value) of U.S. wool in the world market. Farmers like me rely on niche marketing and we have direct contact with our customers.  I appreciated this opportunity to learn about other perspectives.

April Showers Bring....

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Flannel bush, a native drought-tolerant CA species. I planted this behind the chicken house.

Yarrow, another drought-tolerant (read neglect-tolerant) species.

An incredibly fragrant rose. Hardy enough to have survived being dug up and replanted years ago and then suffer through seasons of aphids, little water, and pruning by someone who doesn't know what she is doing.

I just planted this pink bottle-brush and will try to give it water during it's first summer. After that it's probably on it's own, but the red variety I have near the barn has thrived with similar non-care. (Come to think of it, I think there is a leaky faucet near the red one.)

I love iris because they grow almost no matter what you do or don't do to them. I have some fancy varieties that I got from my friend the iris farmer last year. I am embarrassed to say that I almost killed those by forgetting to plant them when I got them in the fall. They are in the ground and seem to be thriving but I was too late to expect them to bloom this year.

The clover is blooming now that it's getting hot. In the foreground is one of the plants we just call foxtails. I think this one is Hare Barley but I'll have to take my weed book to the pasture to know for sure.

I can't remember the name of this one but it's in the box at the end of my shop. I always think the plant is not doing well because the leaves are almost yellow, but   whatever I am not doing to it seems to be working. It has a lot of flowers every year. (This box does get some water.)

This is a Verbasum, a new plant that I just planted in a barrel near the shop. I was assured that it could live in the environment of heat and neglect. I saw that it flowered yesterday. Last night the flowers looked as though they had shriveled up, but they are open again this morning. Good plant.

I planted Walker's Low Catmint in another barrel. I just put a leave of it under Ozzie's nose and he doesn't seem to care.

Annual ryegrass, a much more desirable grass, than the annuals that we call foxtails.

The locust tree is in full bloom and fills the air with its sweet fragrance.

Ouch!

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I have been vigilant in trying to watch for mastitis in the ewes. It's not easy to spot until you see a ewe that doesn't want to get up or is lame. Lame? Yes, the infected side of the udder becomes extremely painful and the ewe doesn't want any pressure against it so she limps. Have any of you women ever had a breast infection? Then you know what I'm talking about. I am learning that mastitis in sheep can progress so quickly that you often don't see any signs until it is too late. Prevention or early detection is the answer. (Do I sound like a health care ad?) I noticed a lopsided udder a couple of weeks ago. I caught the ewe and her lambs. It was obvious that the ewe was not letting the lambs nurse on one side. I found a scab at the top of the teat--maybe something that started from vigorous lambs with sharp teeth (nursing moms can relate to that too). I used an udder cream to help soften the scab and I milked her out. Fortunately the milk still looked good--not starting to get chunky or cheesy. I kept that ewe in for a few days, milking her some, but mainly making sure that she let the lambs nurse--which she did when I used the cream on her udder. She is fine now.

Today in the pasture I saw Athena from the rear and thought that she looked a little lopsided, but not too much. I was able to sneak up on her and feel the udder. Hard. Immediate response needed. I brought all the ewes in so I could catch her and her lambs. Here is what her teat looked like:

It is hard and inflexible. A normal teat is squishy so you can actually get milk out. The good news is that the milk is still OK and I can get milk out if I milk her by squeezing the lower part of the udder and the upper part of the teat. The bad news is that it is very painful for her and she will get mastitis if I can't keep the milk flowing or unless I dry her off so that there is no milk production at all. You can't stimulate milk production on one side and not the other.

Here is what her lambs look like right now:

They are 50 & 55 pounds. Although normally I would have let them continue to nurse, at that weight and 2 months old they can be weaned. So they are on their own now and Athena is in a stall with a wether (with whom she is extremely annoyed) on no feed or water for a little while to help with the drying off process (discouraging milk production). Her udder will continue to fill with milk, but that in itself inhibits milk production. I will give her banamine as a pain reliever and anti-inflammatory and LA 200 as a prophylactic aid to prevent infection (not normally done when drying off). Hopefully without the stimulus to produce more milk she won't get mastitis and hopefully the teat will heal without damage that might inhibit next year's milk production.  Athena is a really nice ewe and I'd hate to lose her for this.

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It's been a week since Meet the Sheep, our spring open house. My internet service has been sketchy and every time I started to add photos it was too slow and I gave up. I think technology has been upgraded and hopefully all is well with our internet tower. I can see that tower on the mountain several miles away (one of many--I don't really know which it is--do you think they could put a ribbon on it so I can pick it out?) and if I can see it, shouldn't the little thing on the roof be able to pick up the signal? The Saturday of Meet the Sheep we had gorgeous weather and I know that was one reason we seemed to be so popular. Dozens of people came and enjoyed the sheep, the goats, fiber, fresh air, and a wonderfully sunny (dry) day. As always Farm Club members were a huge help.

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Paulette always enjoys a good scratch.
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This is an Angora kid owned by my friend, Julie, of Black Oak Ranch.
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Julie brought kids and a bottle lamb, all of which were very popular.
 
She also did a dying demonstration.
Shelby brought her tame chickens.
Jackie demonstrated carding and...
...Alison taught a visitors how to spin.
First handspun yarn.
Photo opportunities
Fashion footwear
Checking out chickens
Fresh yarn
Of course it was all about Meeting the Sheep:

The grass really IS greener on the other side

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Faulkner, the BFL ram lives with his buddy, Jerry,  because I don't want to put him up against the adult Jacob rams with horns. He lives in what used to be the pig pen back in our 4-H and FFA days. I have been meaning to expand his pen ever since last year and finally got to it (with the help of son, Chris) yesterday.

Happy Sheep.

Barn chores

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Today I decided to clean the ram pen. Over the last few months the rams have broken a few bars out of the feeder. I didn't realize until a few days ago that they had been pulling most of the hay through the broken area, so there was a big build up of wasted hay.

Rusty moved the rams to the back and I had him keep an eye on them while I worked. (You can read Rusty's blog post about this.)

This shed that the rams have for shelter is an old concrete building that has barbed wire instead of rebar for reinforcement (there is a hole where you can see that). I have reinforced the end of this wall with wood and this is where the gate hangs. That is also where I throw the hay into the feeder and hadn't noticed how it had built up. I was filling up the wheelbarrow and then I noticed this:

This pen had flooded a month or so ago and all that old straw was wet. Look at all those mushrooms. I was glad that my friend, Jackie, was coming over in a little while because I knew that she would be excited about mushrooms.

Jackie has been doing some natural dyeing so we scooped up a lot of these mushrooms and she is going to experiment with them.

Jackie's daughter and her boyfriend are visiting from New York. While her daughter visited with the sheep, Jackie and Mark pitched in and helped me finish cleaning the ram pen. That's my kind of visitors!

Farm Day

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Last Saturday was Farm Day and 8 of the 10 Farm Club members were able to make it here. We caught all the lambs and checked for split eyelids (a condition that sometimes happens in 4-horn sheep) and number of horns.

With this many people here it went quickly. Everyone else caught sheep and I weighed them. I don't usually weigh lambs as they grow, but I'm interested in finding out if my BLF cross lambs grow at a different rate than the Jacob lambs. I'll report back on that.

After working with the lambs everyone grabbed pitchforks and shovels and, with 3 wheelbarrows going, they made quick work of cleaning the barn.

What a great group of friends!

Summer is waiting

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Summer is waiting, but that's not the season. It's Summer, the sheep.

This is Summer on January 5.

January 17.

This is today, February 5. I don't have a breeding date for Summer but I don't think she lost any time after I put Clint in with her group. About a week ago I started giving her a little grain at feeding time, along with Paulette, who I know is pregnant with triplets after an ultrasound.

They both have to share their grain with the chicken who now comes running when she sees me get the grain bowls out.