Passing it on

Today was the dyeing day segment of my three-day sheep to shawl class. We start with spinning and shearing and fiber types and more spinning.

Having great fun with COLORS!

Then on the second day we teach spinning and dyeing (with acid dyes, koolaid and natural dyes) and spinning and carding and more spinning and fiber blending and finish up with spinning.

Tomorrow we'll start with spinning, then weaving on the triangle loom and we'll finish up with some spinning. It's my hope that every student in the class has a great time and is at the very least comfortable with the drop spindle when they finish class.

Several of my students weren't able to make this class due to health issues, but the ones who are here are having a great time. Lena is team teaching with me and that's helping me to keep up with class and a bit of work at the same time.

Teaching classes is one way I enjoy passing on my love of fiber arts and fiber animals. This winter, I had another opportunity to share that passion with a young person. Kolt is the son of our assistant superintendent at the Ozark Folk Center. He really seems to enjoy helping us do chores - everything from hauling hay to worming, trimming feet and shearing. With his parents approval and understanding of the work it was going to mean for them, I gave Kolt his choice of two wether goats or sheep for Christmas. He decided his preference is for the sheep. He gets to pick the two he wants during this lambing season.

Kolt finally has a lamb!

You know how the fates seem to have a perverse sense of humor sometimes? Well, here we are, half-way through lambing and every baby born has been a girl. Until Franny's twins. Finally Kolt has his first lamb! And Demi, Cowslip and Basil are due this week, so he might finally get a pick of some lambs. I'll let you know what he names his choices.

Boomer's jungle gymn

Boomer's new pen shares a fenceline with the girl's pen.

Several people have asked me for updates on Boomer. He's doing great. He spent most of January with Finesse, Fiona, Greta and Gypsum. Toward the end of the month, they went back in the girl paddock and little brother and Nibbles came to live with Boomer in the pen next to the house.

As the month went on, it became obvious that young rams need something to keep themselves entertained. Boomer was starting to explore the noises that a house makes when you bash it. Ram, the verb, is based on ram, the noun. And Boomer, like many rams loves making noise by ramming things.

So yesterday, Lena and I fenced off two paddocks for spring seeding and made pens for Dapper Dan and Boomer up in the woodlot at the top of our land. Mouse and Dan are settling in together like an odd couple of old bachelors. Boomer, on the other hand, is running back and forth between flirting with the girls and showing the trees who is boss! Nibbies and LB are just trying to stay out of his way. 

All the girls are now sharing a pen. There are still two fiber wethers in with them, George and Mr. Bones, but they are fairly quiet and low ranking, so they aren't pushy at the feed trough.

I seeded the far east paddock last week with perrenial rye. Today Lena and I are planning on tightening up the fencing we did yesterday, trimming some hooves as needed  and seeded and packing the two new paddocks. We are planning to broadcast the seed and then tamp the ground by rolling a smooth log over it. I'm hoping to pick up a rye grass/bermuda/chickory/clover mix of seeds at the Co-op this morning to plant.

We've already disbudded Harley and Henna. I left my little dairy goats with horns last year and rediscovered that dairy goats should not have horns. My trusty Rhinehart 30 disbudding iron had kept the horns off literally hundreds of goat kids before the move to Arkansas. It didn't survive some of the more primitive conditions of our early years here. So, as soon as Harley and Henna were born, I ordered a new one from Valley Vet Supply. I've been doing business with them since I lived in Fort Collins, Colorado, o'so many eons ago. It arrived in 3 days and now, we don't have to worry about this generation of little girls getting their heads stuck in the fence!

Geo Rural

 As we head toward sustainability on our five acres in the Ozarks, I have to grapple with the questions of how many animals our land can support, and how many we need to live the way I want to. One of the reasons we moved to the Ozarks is because it is legal to sell goat's milk here, direct from the farm to the customer. I love my dairy goats. Milking is my morning and evening meditation. But, I really only need two milkers to supply our family's needs

Geo is a great mommy and she has the nicest udder to milk.

My favorite doe is Yampa. She is half Oberhasli and half Lamancha. She looks like a big Ober. Born in 2003, she had twins every year until we moved to Arkansas. Then, she wouldn't settle. She milked for four years and finally bred last year to Footsie, our yearling half-Lamancha, half-Saanen buck. The results were Geo and her brother, who found a new home as an infant. 

Harley is two days old. She's sure that she is big enough
now to climb up the roof like Auntie Ginger.

This winter, with hay being hard to find and time seeming to be an ever tightening resource, I decided to sell most of my dairy goat flock. I kept three does, Yampa and two yearlings, her daughter Geo and little Ginny. This Thursday Geo had two big, strong girls. We went through obvious H-names - Honey, Heidi, Heather.. and none of them fit. My son Juna suggested Hydro, to go with Geo. I've always appended "Metro" onto Geo's name, so Hydro just didn't work for me. 

Saturday afternoon, while we were fixing fence I was watching the little blonde baby, two whole days old, trying to follow her Auntie Ginny up over the roof. The little one could get up on the foundation log of the hoop house, but she can't quite reach the tarp, yet.

Harrah's quite the wee showgirl. She thinks Pequena llama
is a good, long-legged role model.

And the little red baby is so, Red. What's H for red? 

These two little girls are so independent, they are little enough that they go right through the fence, so they are as likely to be in the sheep pen or following the llama as they are to be hanging out with their mama.

Geo Metro, Honda? Nope. Suddenly, it hit, the blonde is Harley!

But red, who was visiting with the long-legged llama. What a show-off. She's a so red, Henna!

Naming is not usually this much of a struggle. Maybe it's a good thing we won't have a lot of to name this year.