Sunrise Haven Farm

My yarn has arrived back from the mill!  My California Red fleeces have been turned into 2 ply worsted weight yarn, and I have been having a great time knitting it in different ways to see how it behaves.  I’ll be selling yarn, and some braided rugs I’ve made from roving, and perhaps some of the things I knit over the summer too, at a few events this fall.  So exciting! Some examples:

In other news, I am getting out of the goat business for good.  I have found a buyer for our last two does and I’ll be delivering them to their new owner on Friday.  So that leaves us with a bunch of California Red sheep and our darling Argyle the llama.  I think this will make farm management tasks quite a bit easier for me.  Sad to see them go, but I think it’s a necessary step for the long-term health of the farm.

April 15 1994 - May 15 2009
Somewhere just over the hill, you are surely chasing rabbits.

Beloved friend, you will be sorely missed.

The lambs have been keeping me very busy for the last few weeks. They are all healthy and growing well, and still oh so cute.  See?

They’re enjoying the springtime very much. I have opened up the fence to the woods, so the ewes, lambs, llama and goats are all now sharing the upper pasture and wooded area. The fence that will divide the lower pasture into two sections is almost complete as well, so they will get to go graze that long lush pasture soon.

Meanwhile, I went to Paris last weekend (laugh!). Yes, France. I was only there for a couple days but made a point of going to Versailles and Marie Antoinette’s adjacent farm hamlet while I was there. Lo and behold, there is a painting of Marie hand-spinning wool inside the Chateau de Versailles!

I also saw her happy flock, in full fleece, grazing nearby. Well OK, her flock’s descendants perhaps.

A little video I took this morning, the lambs range from 4-9 days old in this.

Our last pregnant ewe Rosie delivered twins today (or overnight actually), one male one female, who we have named Miracle Max and Valerie in keeping with our theme.  That makes seven lambs this year, three females four males. Here are our latest additions:

Valerie

7.5 lb female twin born 4/4/09 ~6am Rosie x Roscoe

Miracle Max

7.5 lb male twin born 4/4/09 ~6am Rosie x Roscoe

The lambs so far, in order of appearance (pictures @ one day old):

Buttercup

7 lb female twin born 3/30/09 ~12:00pm Violet x Roscoe
As of day 2, Buttercup is the most curious of the bunch. She acts like a llama!

Westley

7.5 lb male twin born 3/30/09 ~12:30pm Violet x Roscoe
Westley is a little more on the shy side, unlike his sister. It was hard to get his picture, he kept trying to hide!

Fezzik

9 lb male twin born 3/30/09 ~1:00pm Daisy x Roscoe
Fezzik is larger boned with longer legs than the other lambs, and has a much lighter fleece color as well.

Inigo

7.5 lb male twin born 3/30/09 ~1:30pm Daisy x Roscoe
Inigo is adorable, active and curious, but seems to be a little on the stupid side (even by sheep standards)

Princess

11 lb female single born 3/31/09 ~7:00am Tara x Roscoe
Princess was born big with a lush dark fleece and regal demeanor.

Tara gave birth to a single ewe lamb this morning.  That means three of my four ewes delivered five lambs in less than a 24 hour period! I’m exhausted, but extremely happy as well. The four born yesterday were up and bouncy, eating and playing, when I first went out to check on them this morning.  Everyone has had their umbilical cords snipped and dipped in iodine, and Tara’s new little girl has gotten up and had her first drink of colostrum too.  On today’s agenda is getting the scale hung and recording the official weights, pics and vital statistics of all the new lambs, and docking their tails. More pics/video when I get a minute to breathe! At the rate things are going, Rosie will probably decide to deliver this afternoon (though realistically I think that is doubtful, she appears to be about a week behind the other ewes… but my estimates haven’t been that great so far so it wouldn’t surprise me too much).

EDIT: everything I’m reading says that elastration should be performed only when the lamb is between 36-72 hours old, so I’m going to wait to do the tail docking until tomorrow for the first four, and Thursday morning for Tara’s new little girl.

EDIT again:  another little video, of the newest lamb.

Violet and Daisy both delivered today. Violet went into labor at around noon and gave birth to twins, one female one male.  Daisy went into labor just after Violet and delivered twin males.  Everyone is doing fine - so exciting!!

A video of Violet and her lambs in their first hours:

We’ve decided to name the first batch of lambs after characters in one of our favorite movies, The Princess Bride. So Violet’s lambs are now named Buttercup and Westley, and Daisy’s boys have been named Inigo and Fezzik.  They are all now bedded down for the night with full bellies, and I will be up early checking on them again.  I’m not quite sure when Rosie and Tara are due but it wont be long.  Sometime within the next couple of weeks the rest of the lambs will be born.

Sheep typically have a 144-151 day gestation period, across breeds. It’s now been 148 days since I posted this picture, but the first lambs have not yet arrived!

Daisy and Violet are the two that had already been marked in the picture above. Right now, Violet looks like a small dairy cow; I thought for sure she was going to be early! Daisy is also very large and could deliver any time now… I will continue to (not so patiently) wait for nature to take its course. I want lambs! I’m sure I’ll be overwhelmed soon enough. Rosie and Tara are also very definitely pregnant, probably a week or maybe two behind Violet and Daisy. Soon soon soon there will be baby lamb pictures to share I’m sure. Stay tuned.

In other news… I attended sheep shearing school yesterday in Westminster Maryland. It was a great class, and actually is continuing today as I write this, but I am not there today. I managed to shear half of a sheep before being unable to stand the pain in my lower back. It was far more taxing on my body than I’d imagined it would be. I simply could not tolerate the right-angle-bend-at-the-waist position used for most of the process, it was excruciating! It was fascinating and fun to learn as well though, so I’m glad I went and tried it at least. Rachel did a much better job of it than I could have, that’s for sure. And the fleeces have been shipped off to the mill for processing into yarn. I think I barely had enough to meet their minimum order by adding in some fleece I had put away from the previous shearing. I have to try to be patient yet again, as the yarn wont arrive back to me for about six months. I’ll report back on that in the fall. Meanwhile, I must move learning how to spin higher up on my todo list. I will at least try every aspect of the process, to see which parts might be possible and desirable for me to do myself going forward. Ah, endless learning. Now… where are those lambs?!?!?!!

Today was shearing day!  I am taking shearing class this year, but it is being held the last weekend of March and the ewes are all due to lamb during the first week of April, so I asked Rachel Summers to come shear the sheep for me.

She sheared Roscoe the ram, all four pregnant ewes, and then we tackled Argyle too! A couple before and after shots of Argyle the llama and Violet, one of the sheep:

Next step: pack up the fleeces and send them off to the fiber mill for processing into yarn.