Meet the Sheep

Meet the Sheep is our annual spring open house event. That was last weekend. Rusty already shared his story but here is mine. I rely heavily on Farm Club to make this event a success.

First was getting pet-able sheep into pens. This is Jazz who is a big pet and has twins, one of whom I'm going to keep and is now named Jasmine.

Amy, Mary, and Sumi ready for visitors.

We had vendors. Colleen, with Fiber Confections.

I offered space to Farm Club members this year. Gynna brought knit caps and other goods. Here is her website.

Brenda has sheep-shaped soap and other items. Here is her Etsy store.

Jackie with Sheep to Shop brought a new item--plant boxes made of felt!

This is another felted piece using Jacob wool.

Carol of 2NFrom  brought hats and these fabulous new pouches. After Farm Club members saw this there were only two of the sheep pouches left.

Many visitors come just to look at sheep. But there are other things happening as well.

Rigid heddle demo by Lisa.

Blending Board demo by Roy (of Clemes & Clemes who makes the blending boards as well as carders, etc)

Great Wheel demo by Deborah. By the way, this Great Wheel lives at my house and I have no room for it. It is for sale but I don't have it listed on the website yet. Contact me if you're interested.

Laura demonstrated inkle weaving.

Alison sketched sheep off and on -- in between spinning -- and left her finished product with me at the end of the day.

Julie is the person who many people look forward to seeing year after year. She brought her dyeing demonstration, but also...

...bunnies. Oh boy, were those bunnies a hit!

Julie also brought a couple of Karakul lambs and an Angora kid. They all had plenty of attention.

I can't believe I got through the day with hardly any sheep photos (although I did spend most of the time in the shop and when I got out I tried to get photos of all the other things going on). That's Jade who is our best pet sheep ever.

And this is my bottle baby who found a new mom to take him home.

This is most of the Farm Club crew who made this possible. Thanks, everyone!

Shearing Day Revisited

Shearing Day here was way back in early February. I wrote a post about shearing the rams, but never got to the rest of it. As I went through my photos I realized that a lot of them are of people, not sheep. But that is what makes Shearing Day here so fun--my fabulous Farm Club. The Fiber members chose their fleeces this day, but other members were here too. Everyone has a job and it makes the day go so smoothly.

The star of the show is our shearer, John.

John's shearing shoes.

Stephany and Gynna...

...and Brenda were sheep wranglers, never letting John run out of sheep.

Deborah and Lorrian  pushed sheep to the shearing pen.

Kathleen weighed fleeces.

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Amy worked the gate in where the sheep left after being shorn.

Mike swept.

With all these other people working...

...I could just lounge.

Here is Hallie after shearing...

...and this is the beautiful result.

Trista: "Does this shearing job make my head look big?"

Speaking of heads several of us wore our Baa-ble hats.

Some people left before we took these last photos, but there was still quite a crew for this photo.

First Farm Day of 2017

We have a lot of new members in the Farm Club. This was the first official Farm Day of the year. The goal was to get the barn ready for Shearing Day next weekend and to get the sheep ready too. I never seem to get time to take photos during Farm Days so my iPhone got handed around and other people took most of these photos.

Right now cleaning the barn involves the trek around or through the mud and muck to get to the manure pile. We spent about an hour and a half cleaning and organizing the barn.

Then it was time to look at the sheep.

We caught each sheep.

We cleaned off ear tags so that the crew will be able to read them next week and won't have to find me to identify a sheep.

This is Onyx and Esmerelda, two of the BFL-Jacob crossbreds.

We brought all the ewe lambs (born last March) in to replace their lamb ear tags with bigger, more legible ones.

Two ewes had horns that needed trimming to prevent them growing into their faces. It takes one person to hold and one person to use the wire saw.

Last we went to the ram pen. I was standing with the rams and looked up to see everyone looking in.

The ram in front, Buster, had something on his mouth to look at more closely.

I'll call my vet about this on Monday because I don't know what it is.

A few people left before I rounded everyone up for a photo. This is the biggest group that we've had here. This is a great way to make the chores go quickly. Thanks, Farm Club.

Farm Club in the City Again

I have to look back at my blog posts to know how long it is that Farm Club members have been going to San Francisco for an annual one-night retreat. It seems that the first one was in 2011 so this is the seventh. As always we had a fabulous time. Eight of us met at the NDGW home Friday afternoon (see this post for some views of this fabulous home) and then went to FC member Stephany's  home in the Glen Park District of San Francisco.

Stephany and Ian invited us to see the recent addition to their yard, half of which has been inaccessible since they have lived there except for going half way around the block and through the property behind them.

This spiral staircase, which was lifted OVER their house by a crane a couple of months ago, gives them access to the upper level.

From the top of the staircase you cross this bridge to get to solid ground.

There is a spectacular view of the city and the bay and Stephany and Ian have a wonderful garden spot with a sunny exposure that is often above the fog line.

After enjoying afternoon snacks with Stephany she led us on an urban hike. The first point of interest was this tiny garden.

Only two blocks from Stephany's home we saw the 78-acre Glen Canyon Park.

I had no idea that something like this exists in the middle of San Francisco.

Note the rock climbers on the smooth face of that rock.

This is us on the other side of that same rock.

We walked a loop trail and returned to Stephany's for more scones and brownies. We had dinner at Green Chili Kitchen, only a block from the NDGW Home...

...and spent the rest of the evening knitting and spinning in the parlor.

Janis showed off her snazzy handspun/handknit socks modeled after the sheep-motif Baable Hat.

Three of us are knitting the Fleece Flight KAL.  Mary is working on the third triangle. Stephany's is in blue and mine is the small one in Jacob wool.

Our plan for Saturday was to have No Plan.

Well, there was one plan. Every year we have lemon pie for breakfast. We have bought pies across the street but this year Janis offered to bake them. I think this is now our regular routine. Lemon meringue, blackberry, and apple. Way to go, Janis!!

The serving line. We each had a piece of all three pies. Of course.

And while not eating pie we chatted and worked on projects. Amy almost finished a sock...

...and I made progress on my Fleece Flight shawl.

What an inspiring, fun 24 hours. We may expand this to a whole weekend next year.