Shetland Sheep Sales List

Coming Soon!

       Sir Nigel is finally weaned and I have my life back. We had some rough spots w/ the vet out a few times but he's doing great now.

Nigel will be wethered and kept as a fiber pet. He's super soft and crimpy with the sweetest personality.Of course I'd say that ~ I'm his "mom"!

Time to concentrate on selling most of this years lambs. We have a total of 49 sheep (how did that happen so quickly??) and don't have enough pasture to accommodate more than 25 adequately.

This is our best lamb crop to date with a nice variety of markings, good conformation,perfect tails(yay!) and lovely soft fleeces.

Riggwelter and Sox

Jenny Wren had two ram lambs   ~ a dark moorit krunet and a katmoget sokket

Still using the suggested names from Shearing Day I decided to give the dark lamb above the name Riggwelter~until today I had no idea that is a dark ale from an English firm called The Black Sheep Brewery. Hey, he even has some foam on top! Wonder who made that suggestion...

Duet always gives us the sweetest lambs!

This dark moorit yuglet sokket is a girl

This little boy looks white but w/ the dark spotting I understand that can't be right... besides yuglet what is he??

This Little Lamb thinks He's a Puppy

Nigel is now 10 days old and thriving. This past weekend my parents , brother and sister-in-law came for Mother's Day.Little Nigel entertained everyone with his adorable antics. In this photo my mom is watching him nuzzle up to Misty, my dad's Golden Retriever. We're all quite smitten with him. The night-time feedings are taking their toll on my brain but I know it will over soon enough and well worth the effort.

Faye finally delivered her twins: boy and girl kat yuglets~ Emma and Gavin

More Ewe Lambs this Year!

Stunning ewe lamb~ Morgan Inverness~ out of Persephone
Katmoget,smirslet  ...what about the body markings of white ,black and tan? She has a very soft fluffy fleece.

This is Krystal (white speckle-faced katmoget) and Krista, whose fleece is two-toned above with a rosy hue to it and the dark underneath of a katmoget.These fleeces shimmer in the sunlight! Twin ewes out of Joy, who has a fabulous fleece.

And this is the now infamous Sweet Gum With her darling FIRST lamb,Grace

Nine days after delivering Grace we found Sweet gum with afterbirth hanging out her back end and this little guy standing alone in the middle of the pasture baa-ing his heart out...

No one would claim him. No one else had signs of a recent birth so we  forced S.G. to give up some colostrum,hopefully, she had some but she fought us terribly. This little guy went from ewe to ewe only to be butted away. Well, you all know the rest of the story, of course, he's in the kitchen nice and warm and being fed by THIS  mama every few hours. We were hoping one of the other girls would deliver soon so we could try to graft him on but no one is obliging and as each day goes by I'm sure that will be much more difficult. 

Has anyone else ever had this situation before ? Is this a separate conception or a late ejecting twin? Grace, the first lamb was 6lbs. Sir  Nigel (the rejected ram lamb) was barely 3lbs. Any ideas??

2011 Lambs Continued

Luka is a charming smirslet ram lamb out of Zephyr

Rosamund  gave us  a black krunet ewe lamb  Odile

 Bryn is a dark brown ewe lamb with a few white flecks on the top of her head that will most likely fade~out of Tasha Tudor.

Rosie had this grey katmoget ewe,Sarah, soon afterward. I had hoped for a white lamb,but with Shetlands you just never know.

Sweet Gum and ewe lamb Grace~ more about her later...

It's been an Exciting Week!

Our lambs were not due until Easter Sunday(earliest possible date according to a chart that I have used for years). So the Thursday before we planned to move the girls down to the "Nursery" close to the house in order to keep an eye on them.We're old pros at this now so I wasn't even anxious like I used to get those first few years. I knew we'd probably be waiting for quite awhile before anyone went into labor and I was NOT going out there every five minutes, no way.I had just returned from shopping for all the last of the Easter menu items and ready to move the girls when Lou got home. Glancing up the pasture I see all the ewes running or should I say waddling fast to the sheep shelter. Odd, I thought, looks like what they do when there's a birth. A birth??? No way! Dropping the groceries on the counter I pick up the ever present binoculars, and oh my goodness! A pair of tiny yuglet eyes are staring back at me!Zsa Zsa's ram lamb was all cleaned up,dryed off and hopping around when I got up there. We named him "Early".We gave them the "suite" all to themselves and moved the others down to the thankfully freshly prepared jugs~just in the nick of time! No waiting around this year.

Soon after Una delivered another ram lamb,Anatole, without us even knowing it... we turned around and there he was .

At our Sheep Shearing Day last month we had a "Name Our Lambs" sheet out for all to sign. We have 37 names listed. All of the names,except Early, are from that list.


Hours later Sweet Gum delivered a beautiful light grey yuglet,katmoget~ Grace.

Two days break enabled me to prepare Easter dinner for 10, get the house cleaned and even relax and enjoy our company. Easter morning was glorious with sunshine !

Lou made a very realistic tomb out of cardboard for the childrens' Easter Program. It was a big hit. Many families had they're photos taken in front of it.

Nana and Kylie Joy witnessing the empty tomb.

Monday we woke to find Bella presented us with twins~ ram and ewe katmogets~ Colin and Clothilde.

I'm being pulled away from the computer by my dear husband who wants to take me out to dinner. So I'll have to continue the saga later . Sorry, Donna, I'll get to today's adventure soon ,I promise.

April Spinning Group serenaded by Jan's harp

Once a month handspinners from around the Lehigh Valley gather in our home  for a few  hours to catch up on projects, share information , inspirationand in April compare our lambing and/or kidding stories.

Yesterday we had a harpist join us! What a treat!

Thank you Jan~please come again!

I'm Very Thankful For The Rain...but

...I need some color!

Ahhh, Memories ... and Promise

Shepherd Valley Farm - We're on two new sites!

LocalHarvest and Buy Fresh Buy Local~ Check them out!

Thank you Emily!

It was a pleasure to meet Emily Chamelin and her daughter Lydia on Saturday. Lydia kept us entertained while her mom did a fantastic job shearing our 35 Shetlands. Thankfully the rain held off (just some drizzle) and by 3pm they were all done. The fleeces are so lovely this year,especially the lambs. Three of whom have the emsket coloring we've waited so long for!

It was a joy to see old friends and meet new ones. Thank you for the yummy salad ,Stacy and the incredible chocolate cupcakes,Angie!! I hope everyone had as good a time as I did.

Krista demonstrated her wool carder and spinning wheel and hung out with Lydia a lot. Jenna, our daughter, skirted fleeces and skirted fleeces~bless you!

Dave was amazing at broom-making and Judy wowed us with her wet-felting demo. It was fun to see everyone walking around rolling a felted marble between their palms all day long .

We even had a table for Operation Christmas Child,a ministry of Samaritan's Purse, where two kind ladies shared about this worthy cause.

Thank you to all of you who helped!

Sheep Shearing Day 2011 ~ Saturday March 5th 10am-til they're all done!

These are some photos from last year's Sheep Shearing Day.We had a great time!

Eva showed us how easy spinning can be. She also read a delightful book,Charlie Needs A New Cloak, to the children.

Hoyt Emmons, the Gentle Shearer, gave us an entertaining and informative demonstration.

Emily Chamelin ,from Maryland,will be our shearer this year. She has demonstrated at the Maryland

Sheep & Wool Festival among other places.

This year we will have a broom maker joining us!

There will be spinning and wet-felt hat making.

We will have hot beverages,Chili and chicken soup to warm your bones after watching the sheep get their yearly "haircut". You may enjoy a trail walk around our pastures,collect rainbow colored eggs and visit our new Nubian goats and llamas.

Please leave a comment below if you plan to attend!

Still Obsessed

The Old Farmer's Almanac is helpful to determine seed starting dates!

I'm in zone 6a so I don't want to start my seeds TOO early.

I'll be using the Square Foot Garden method more accurately this year... at least that's the plan!

Partial view of last year's raised beds... and Grandpa practicing fly fishing

Just What I Needed Today

So much has happened since my last post! A grandson was born(an exciting, somewhat dramatic home birth), I lost my camera on the way home from said birth in Georgia and lost ALL the precious photos!! We've acquired two darling Nubian wethers(hope to have milkers one day) and two female llamas. This past week I have been obsessed with SEEDS. I did not look at the catalogs when they came in December,no,I was not going to get out of control( like every other year). After this last snowstorm ,though, I succumbed. I'm consumed with visions of this year's garden(plum tomatoes dancing in my head) and feeling somewhat guilty about it and then I turn to today's devotional from Joni. A confirmation of sorts for delighting in growing things but also a wake up call to get my priorities straight. What a joy to be gently prodded by the Good Shepherd~to be affirmed, encouraged and refocused.

Enjoy!

Joni and Friends Daily Devotional February 3, 2011 Dear Linda,

Dreams

"Strengthen the feeble hands, steady the knees that give way; say to those with fearful hearts, 'Be strong, do not fear; your God will come, he will come with vengeance; with divine retribution he will come to save you.'" --Isaiah 35:3-4 I don't know much about interpreting dreams, but I do know that the Lord used a few weird and wonderful dreams in days gone by to reveal His plans for the future. Take the prophet Isaiah. He lay down one night and had a very strange dream. He found himself in the middle of a desert with nothing but sand stretching to the horizon. He felt depressed in the dream, just like the bleak landscape. He felt hungry and thirsty and very unsatisfied. Just then, the dream took an exciting turn. Out of the sand pushed one small flower and then another. Soon grass sprouted and then trees loaded with fruit. Immediately upon awakening, Isaiah hurried to write down a fantastic description of the abundant paradise blooming and budding all around him. You can read about this strange and exciting dream in Isaiah 35. It's a marvelous chapter for anyone with a fearful, faint heart because it talks about going from gloom to glory, from depression to ecstasy. The good news is that Isaiah forecasts this for all of God's people! So... Is your spirit dried up like a parched desert? Has the joy and singing gone out of your life? Then ask God to replace the endless stretch of your dry days with the Living Water. Soon, out of the sand in your life, will push the beautiful Rose of Sharon. Lord of Joy, strengthen my feeble hands and steady my fearful heart so that I can praise You today. Come soon, Lord, to open the eyes of the blind, to make the burning sands a pool, to crown our heads with everlasting joy, and to make sorrow and sighing flee away.

Blessings, Joni and Friends www.joniandfriends.org