Sunrise Haven Farm

Spring is soooo busy on the farm.  We’ve had some wild weather recently, with insanely high speed winds.  The steel poles that support the temporary shelter in the lower pasture became bent recently, so I took it down last weekend.  I do have the new more permanent structure ready to assemble but haven’t gotten around to doing the actual construction yet.  I’m hoping to get to that next weekend.  The sheep are doing great, fat and happy.  I’ve stopped giving them any extra grain on the advice of another Red breeder, to prevent the babies from getting too fat as that can cause potentially difficult births.  I am also talking with a few local breeders and trying to find a nice fine-wool weather to buy, to keep Roscoe company when I separate him from the ewes.  I don’t want to put him in with the goat does (they CAN potentially crossbreed, but it is rare) and he doesn’t seem to get along with Argyle very well.  But Argyle is doing great!! Much better than I’d expected.  He is socializing with the goats and eating well and seems to be happy.  My son Ray has been visiting lately, and feeding Argyle grains in the afternoons.  He is Argyle’s new favorite person.

I attended a great workshop on making braided wool rugs from rovings in early February, and I completed two small rugs.  It was a lot of fun to learn how to make them, and hang out with other shepherds and fiber artists during the class.  I think I will make more of them for sale when I have more roving available.  The rugs I made were from Karakuls, which have much coarser fleece than my breed of sheep (or llamas) - Karakul are the traditional “persian carpet” sheep. I’m writing up a page with pictures on the rug making workshop and will link that here when I finish making the page. 

Part of the rug making process is to felt the braids, which inspired me to experiment with types of wool and felt lately also.  I’ve been having a great time with it.  I actually sheared Pinnochio right after he died, so I do have his fleece to work with and remember him by - and I still have a bunch of fleece from the Reds left over from last year.  To start with, I made small squares of felt from karakul sheep, california red sheep, and llama.  WOW - I had no idea that pieces of felt could be so very different, but I guess it makes sense since the fleeces are so different (duh!).  I will post pics of those also when I get a minute, but the real difference to me is in the feel of the different fibers.  The llama is incredibly soft, but not very fluffy or durable (and I think I have a large number of guard hairs mixed in with the fleece, a common element of llama fiber but not sheep fiber).  The felt from the Reds’ fleece, on the other hand, is very fluffy and sturdy but not as soft as the llama.

I’m sad to report that Pinnochio didn’t make it through the night. He will be missed.

Pinnochio seems to have gotten rapidly worse overnight last night and throughout the day today. I’m not very hopeful anymore - he’s breathing fast and shallow, and having problems even lifting his head.  I will post an update in the morning.

As the subject says, Pinnochio is still down.  He is still eating and pooping and chewing his cud, but no movement, and my rollercoaster of hope is down at the bottom again.  He does push against me a little when I roll him on his side and try to exercise and stretch out his legs, but it doesn’t seem like he’s shuffling on his own anymore or making any attempt to stand.  There is also blood in his urine now.  But he doesn’t seem to be suffering, he seems pretty happy - just not standing.  Argyle has been hovering by him all the time.  He wont go out into the woods anymore or anywhere that he can’t see Pinnochio.  He keeps his freind in sight at all times.  My biggest fear now is that after all the work we did on rescuing Argyle and nursing him back to health, he might be so heartbroken that he wont survive Pinnochio’s passing. As always, time will tell, and I’ll do all I can for my farm family.

In other farm news, the kids have been processed and their hides are curing.  I kept the two adult does, but did not breed them again this year.  I think I’ll keep them around as lawnmowers and such, but I don’t think I want to continue with the meat goat enterprise.  I want to focus more on the sheep. 

And oh my darling sheep! The ewes are all pregnant and doing great, and I can’t wait to see the crop of lambs (they’re due in April).  Roscoe the ram is bored as the ewes pretty much ignore him since they’re pregnant.  I am going to get a second ram to ensure diverse bloodlines when we breed again in fall 2009, and also to keep Roscoe company through the summer.  Roscoe will need to be separated from the ewes next month so I’m going to try to get the 2nd ram then also.