It seems a simple thing to coat sheep….  You get some sheep coats, you catch the sheep, you slip one coat on each sheep, and you are done – right?  Well, not exactly.  You will find that shortly after you’ve completed the last step there, problems begin to arise.  Sheep whose coats seemed to fit when you put them on are now stepping out of the legs of their coats.  Or, they have found something, somewhere, that tore or punctured their coat.  And, on top of all that, the younger sheep quickly outgrow their coats  – well, you get the idea.  It seems that changing, washing, and mending coats is a very big part of keeping coated sheep for handspinners!
  

In getting ready to dissolve our breeding groups and once again group our sheep by sex (rams in one area, and ewes in another), we have been putting fresh coats on those who need them.  That job ends up being spread out over several days, as we check each breeding group for too-tight or too-torn coats.  Once we remove the old coats, they go into a hamper in the barn, and eventually, they find their way down to the house.

The first thing that we must do with these used coats is to wash them – I use the household washing machine for this,  but must do just three or four coats at a time (depending on the size and the amount of grease) so that they actually get clean without rubbing off the UV coating on the inside of each coat.  After they are washed, we once again mark each one with the size in two places: the middle of the back, and on the right rear leg.  Why two places?  Well, we hope we will be able to see the size on the middle of the back (which tends to be the cleanest area of the coat) so that when we need a bigger size, we don’t have to use trial and error to get the right one.  The size on the right rear leg allows us to read the size when the coat is folded up, and gives us a second place to look if the middle of the back has faded in the sun.

In any case, once the coats are marked with size, they are either folded to return to the barn, or they are put into the mending pile.  This time of year, the mending pile seems to grow each day.  The pile resides in my dining room (where I do my sewing, so that we can eat at the kitchen table), and after a while, walking past that room begins to become overwhelming.  The elastic across the dock, and at the sides of the coat are only good for about an average of two to three years, so replacing elastic is a very common project.  Also, regardless of how much we eliminate sharp corners and other places that might tear their coats, our sheep still find places to rip them up.  Certain sheep are more prone to tears than others, and for some reason, Celeste’s daughters always seem to tear their coats, no matter where they are!  I always end up with at least four or five coats that are perfectly fine as far as elastic, but that require major sewing to close up holes and rips.  I currently have about twenty coats waiting for washing, another pile on the dining room table (in the photo), and two loads of clean coats in a basket waiting for me to size and sort them.

Once the coats are clean and back in one useable piece, they are folded up and go back out to the bins in the barn where they are sorted by size and wait until they are needed to cover the sheep.  A lamb will typically wear seven or eight coats in the first year, not including any additional coats needed for replacing torn coats – those seven or eight are merely to cover their quick growth.  The adult Romneys will wear about three coats in a year, and the Romeldales will wear two – the change in size due to their fleece growth over the year.  That makes for a lot of coats being processed each year: being changed, washed, sized, mended, and stored.  Now you know why many breeders do not coat their sheep!  It’s a lot of work – but we think the fleeces we get at shearing are worth it!

We had a newspaper and TV reporter here today to see one of our eggs!  A couple of weeks ago, Rick (my husband) came into the house with an enormous egg.  Thinking that it was a "triplet egg" with three yolks, I put it in the 'fridge until I was ready to bake bread later in the day.  My bread requires three eggs, so I thought I would use the 'big egg' in place of the three eggs needed.  When I broke it open, imagine my surprise when I found another complete egg inside, along with the white and yolk of the big egg!  I did crack open that smaller egg that lay inside the big one and found the normal white and yolk.

As if that was not enough, two days later, we found another of these huge eggs.  Since I had told my Mom about the first one, I thought she might like to have the second one, and gave it to her.  She hard-boiled the egg for 25 minutes, and then was looking for a way to saw through the whole thing so that you could see all of the layers inside.  We eventually did cut through the outer shell and white so that you could see the whole egg inside, plus the white and yolk (on the left in the photo).  With my Mom living in a retirement community, this egg has become a popular attraction among her friends, and somehow, while I was in NY, the media heard about it!


Dave Rasdal came out from The Gazette to interview us, see Henny-Penny (the chicken who we believe laid the egg), and take a few photos.  There was also a photographer, who took both still photos and video, since it seems that our local KCRG TV is also interested in this story!  From what we were told, the story should come out next Wednesday, October 28th, so stay tuned!

After all of the egg excitement, we put ourselves to work skirting fleeces.  A couple of the lamb fleeces were just too short to do anything with, and there was another with a break in the fiber, so we ended up with nine market lamb fleeces that skirted enough fleece to sell. All are white and high luster in comparison to past years - our breeding program continues to improve our fleeces every year!  Tomorrow, I will work on putting descriptions together and uploading photos, and perhaps by late Friday or early Saturday, we will have the list to send to our e-mail list of interested artisans! 

We've had two wonderful days at the New York State Sheep and Wool Festival!  Although the weather was very cold both Saturday and today (there was even snow, on and off!), the welcome we received in the Breed Barn was very warm.  I have met and talked to so many people - both new acquaintances and old friends - that we got back to our hotel room tonight exhausted and "talked out!"

I made a quick call home tonight to find out how the flock has been faring since my travel began.  Today was the day to change the marking crayons on the rams, and Rick, my husband, had to find help to get the new colors into the harnesses. He called up our friends, the Stockmans, to get the girls to help him catch and/or hold the rams so that he could get the harnesses off, change out the red crayons for blue or green, and then re-fasten the harness for another week.  

My understanding is that it was not a quick project!  The Border Collies are all at the kennel, since I am not there to work with them, so Rick and the girls had to "sneak up" on each ram, in turn, to try to grab him by the harness before he ran off.  I am so happy I only heard about this job rather than taking part!  I've tried similar things in the past and it sounds much easier than it is - it is amazing how quickly those rams can move when they want to!!

Tomorrow, Chris and I will make the long drive back to Akron, Ohio, with the three little ewe lambs.  I will spend the night at the hotel there, and will take a flight back to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on Tuesday, getting home just in time to pick up the dogs from their "vacation spot" at Canine Corner and Cats Too .  It will be good to see them again after almost a week on the road, and then get home again to the flock!  It seems like it is always fun to leave for new places and new adventures, but then it is just as good to get back home to those we love!

Well, we made it to New York!  In order to get this booth together, I spent Thursday morning flying from Iowa to Canton, Ohio, to meet up with Chris Spitzer of YellowCreekCottage.com . I spent the rest of the day yesterday with Chris getting the display booth ready for the Breed Barn at the NY State Sheep & Wool Festival this weekend.  First thing this morning, we pulled out of Akron, Ohio, headed for New York!

Of course, with both of us being CVM/Romeldale breeders, much of our conversation focused on the animals and bloodlines we have in common.  The time passed really quickly - I suppose that happens when the conversation is non-stop!  It ended up being about a nine and a half hour drive, and we arrived about 5:30 p.m. at the festival site. 

We brought three very young CVM/Romeldale ewe lambs along with us for the animal pen.  Since both of us are currently dealing with knee issues, it seemed like a good idea to go small - these girls were born this past June.  As it turned out, small was very good - none of the three were willing to come out of the crate in the back of the pick-up, and I ended up having to climb in to drag them out.  In the end, I carried them into the stall - it just seemed easier than trying to walk them on the halter!  Small turned out being VERY good!!

The display looked really great with all of the beautiful items that various fiber artists had made for the occasion and allowed us to bring.  There is a drawing for a free denim shirt embroidered with the National CVM Conservancy logo - anyone interested can sign up at the Conservancy website.   I hope that those of you who will be visiting the festival will come on over to the Breed Barn and say hello!  I look forward to meeting at least some of you in person!

Because I am leaving tomorrow morning for the NY State Sheep and Wool Festival (www.sheepandwool.com ), my mom came out this afternoon to help me get everything together.  She and a friend, Deb Stockman, have also volunteered to come out and note which ewes are bred while I am gone - looking for the tell-tale crayon markings.  To give my mom an idea of how I go through each paddock, feeding out apple pieces and noting markings, we went out this afternoon on a kind of "trial run."

The ewes were, of course, shy around a new person, so didn't want to come over to get the apple slices that we had with us.  Eventually, their hunger and greed overwhelmed their caution and they came running over.  I noticed, however, that little Ivy, one of the ewe lambs born this past spring, was not among the group.  Ivy is easy to spot right now because she has a very obvious blue crayon marking - the only one of the group!  No matter where I looked in the pasture, I could not find little Ivy, who would normally be fighting with all her might to get her share (or more!) of the apple pieces.

I also had to fill the hay feeders for this Romeldale/CVM group because their pasture is about done for the year, so I trekked up to the lean-to to get that done.  As I came to the top of the hill where I could see into the lean-to, there lay poor Ivy.  She has had a habit of standing on top of the filled hay feeders to eat her hay, and although I had chased her out several times yesterday, she had obviously gotten up there at least one more time.  Here I found her lying on her side next to one of the feeders, with the back leg strap of her coat caught on the clip of the hay feeder!  I hurried to free her, but was afraid that I might be too late - she was not moving, and had obviously been there for quite a while.

As I freed her from the feeder clip, I felt a bit of movement in her leg - She was still alive!  It is so easy to lose a sheep to illness or accident - we were very lucky that I had found her in time.  I helped Ivy to get to her feet - she was wobbly and weak, but looking stronger with each breath.  By the time I had the feeders filled, she was walking fairly well and nibbling the fresh grass hay.  I did notice that she is no longer jumping up onto the bales of hay, though.  Maybe she has learned her lesson - I can only hope!

I did take photos of the group munching their daily ration of hay in the lean-to; both because you can easily see many of the crayon markings (including Ivy's blue), and because it is such a funny mob scene - you'd think they were starving, even though they still do have some grass in the pasture (just not the type of grass they prefer!).  Hope came over specifically to say hello and take a closer look at the camera - I've included that photo, too! 

My next post will be on Friday from New York!

Well, our shearer, Mason Kolbet, from Boone, IA, showed up mid-day Sunday to shear our remaining market lambs.  We had twelve to shear, and this was his first time at our farm.  It usually takes us a while to fall into a rhythm with any new shearer, where the shearer knows how we want them sheared, and we know how the shearer likes things set up.  We shear in the center section of our barn, with extra lighting added for the occasion.  It wasn't long before Mason was shearing, and I was doing the initial skirting, right there on the shearing floor!

We found Mason really easy to work with - he knew we were particular about the way we wanted the sheep sheared, and was willing to work with us as we went along.  He kept second cuts to a minimum, and before long, we had a dozen bundles of wool on one side of the barn, and a dozen much smaller ram lambs in the stall on the other side.  We are looking forward to having him back for the shearing of our breeding ewes in January, 2010!

Now the real work begins!  All of these individually bundled fleeces will need to be heavily skirted to become the fleeces that we will sell.  Unfortunately, that probably won't happen this week, as I am off to the New York State Sheep and Wool Festival, beginning early Thursday morning, and won't return until Tuesday, October 20th.  I have lots of things to get ready for the trip, so the skirting will have to wait a bit....  I hope to have them all skirted by the end of next week.

As for the NY Festival, if any of you are going to be there, stop by the Breed Barn to say, "Hi!"  Chris Spitzer, of Yellow Creek Cottage in Ohio (www.YellowCreekCottage.com), Marie Minnich from Pennsylvania, and I will be at the CVM/Romeldale display there all weekend.  I'm looking forward to seeing both old friends and new - we don't often get that far east!  Hope to see you there!

Shearing is one of those things in the sheep business that is really hard to nail down.  We normally shear during the first weekend of October, which would have been last weekend.  Unfortunately, our shearer's harvest was not in, so he couldn't get away to shear our market lambs, and we postponed until this weekend.

This shearer is new to us and fairly local.  It would be a great thing if we could find a shearer from Iowa who could shear our sheep for their fiber, and not just to get the wool off the sheep.  We have recently been bringing a shearer up from Missouri for our big January shearing, but have still been trying to find a good local shearer during the smaller June and October shearings.  Once we find someone local who does the job the way we need it done, we can bring him in for the January shearing, too.  We've tried at least a dozen shearers to date, and have only found one - the guy from Missouri - who shears for fiber rather than sheep: a totally different emphasis!

To prepare for shearing today, we moved all of the rams who are not in breeding groups into the barn in advance so that their fleeces would be dry for shearing today.  We cleaned the shearing floor (also known as the auxiliary lambing floor, and the extra storage area) so that the fleeces would not be contaminated as they were sheared.  We also cooked up a storm for our helpers - we can't expect help to come out in the snow (Yes, we had snow this morning!) and help for free without feeding them!

So, we are all ready to shear and now we've gotten a phone call from the shearer that he is caught at an auction this morning, his horse has not yet sold, and he won't make it until very late today - can he come tomorrow?  Well, we do need these sheep to be sheared, so tomorrow will have to work.  We have called all of our help and rescheduled them, put the stew in the 'fridge, and are off to feed the rams in the barn.  Hopefully, it will, indeed, happen tomorrow!

The rams have been in with the ewes for nearly three weeks, now, and this breeding season is unlike any other that we have had.  Not only is it much cooler and wetter this year than usual, but something is going on with the rams and/or ewes!  Usually, at this time of year, all or nearly all of the adult ewes have been bred - this year, it has been a bit slower.  As usual, we have separated our sheep into four breeding groups: two Romney groups, and two Romeldale/CVM groups, each having their own ram or ram lamb.  

Every breeding ram is fitted with a harness that holds a large 2 1/2" x 4" waxy crayon between his front legs.  When he notices that one of his ewes is ovulating, he will mount them, and the crayon in the harness will leave a mark on the ewe's rump, indicating to us that she has been bred.  I go through the pastures once or twice each day, looking for newly marked ewes and make sure to keep our list up to date.  The lambs are due 148 days after the ewe is marked.  We have to change the crayons every week or two to a new, darker color - both because the ram uses up the old crayon (or it gets rubbed off and covered in dirt), and because a new color means you can forget remembering who was already marked in the old color.

The one Romeldale/CVM group in the South Pasture got busy right away.  Ignatius is the ram lamb assigned to that group, and he marked two of his ewes the very first day.  He has a group of eleven girls and has marked all but two - Ireland, who was born last spring and may be too young to breed this fall, and Hope, who is a yearling CVM, and will hopefully be bred soon.

The other three guys are not quite so efficient this year.  Usually, at this stage, all but the very youngest ewes have been marked, but this year, only a handful of the ewes in those other three groups are sporting crayon colors.  Poor Ink, the other Romeldale ram lamb, had a rough start trying to figure out what to do in the East Pasture.  I came out on his second day in the group to find his ewes covered in yellow crayon - everywhere but their rumps!  We found yellow heads, yellow shoulders, yellow sides, etc.  The poor guy obviously knew he had a mission - he just had to figure out how to make it all come together!  After about a week, he finally got his act together, and we got our first correctly marked ewe in his group.  Thank goodness he has only six girls in with him!

The other two groups are both Romneys, with Ira, a white ram lamb in the smaller group in the Rock Pasture, and Goliath, a recessively colored adult ram, in the larger group in the West Pasture.  Goliath started marking his girls about a week ago, and is well on his way to having them all covered.  Poor Ira, however, is still thinking it all over and trying to decide what to do, it seems. 

Yesterday, his pal Irish decided to slip away from the "unused" rams in the timber, crawled under the fence, and joined Ira in his group.  As I came through the pastures to check on markings, I noticed Ira calmly grazing at one end while this white interloper was running from ewe to ewe, sniffing and mounting as if it were a race and he was losing.  Of course, we couldn't leave him in there to breed the girls meant for Ira, so Coda (my working Border Collie) was brought out to move him back to the timber.  Hopefully, Ira watched all the goings on and has figured out his role in that group! 

The goal here is to have all of the ewes bred in the next couple of weeks for lambs in late February and March - hopefully, the sheep will cooperate!