Rooing

 Just checking in here quickly to share a couple of photos.  Life has been pretty busy lately, and I ended up sick again for about a week :(

Spring has certainly sprung here, and I thought it might be fun for you to see what we do to roo the sheep - our sheep are pretty small, and I can handle the yearlings on my own.  This is a picture of Yadira, partway through the process.  You can see the area that has been roo-ed is darker, over her front leg.  The roo-ing process allows me to pull most of the wool, leaving the hair behind.  The roo-ed wool has almost no kemp in it, either.

And because he is so lovely, a picture of the ever-curious Yves.

Hope all is well wherever you are,

Lisa

Spring here at Leaping Shepherd Farm

The star of the show today was Yves, the young wether on the right (he's the sheep with horns in the foreground of the picture).

Had I known what the day would bring, I would have taken the camera out with me in the morning before all the excitement, instead of taking pictures at the end!

When I went out to feed the sheep I could see that Yves had begun to drop some of his wool -so, being the curious fibre-loving girl that I am, I had to try giving a little tug...

Twenty five or so minutes later, I'd liberated all of Yves last year's coat. This is his lamb coat, and the final pre-cleaning dry weight was 7oz.  It's lovely and light, fluffy and smells all sweet and lanolin-y.  Max came out part way into the process and helped me with this little fella.

For those who are not familiar with sheep, the trick is to roll them on to their bottoms, belly up, supporting their weight against your legs. If you can keep their little hooves off the ground, they will not struggle.  Sweet Yves relaxed into the process without much struggle at all.  We took little breaks from time to time (for grain), and I was able to roo his whole coat in a surprisingly short period of time.  To roo a coat, you pluck away at it much in the same way as you would pull at a dog's shedding undercoat - it lets go with very little resistance.  Not every breed of sheep can be roo-ed, but Soay can.  In the spring, the previous year's coat gets a weak spot in it and, left to their own devices, the sheep will lose the wool in clumps as it gets caught on sticks and branches. Roo-ing is the process of plucking or pulling the coat.

Our sheep have fast friends within our little flock, and Yadira and Yves are close.  Yadira (the blonde) followed Yves around for most of the rest of the day, sniffing him and keeping an eye on him.

He hadn't minded the whole experience all that much, and had come back to us for more grain after Max and I'd finished with him, so we know that he hasn't become hand-shy.

She sniffed and sniffed at him, almost like she was asking, "Are you okay? - how about now?  Really? Okay?"

 The other sheep stayed nearby during the process, and didn't seem terribly bothered by the whole thing.

Yorick, our Ram, showed that he's not above eating hay out of the other sheep's coats, and spent some time rooting around in Winniandy's ruff, looking for tidbits.

You might be able to see in the background that most of the yard and field is still under a foot of accumulated snow.  The sheep's foot -er, hoofpaths are all cleared down to the ground, but the rest of the field is still blanketed in white.  It was a sunny and glorious day, and little Youella spent a good amount of time sunning her tiny self.

Max and I spent a few hours walking on air after the experience.  It was so much fun, and easier than expected, all 'round (I have a hunch that Winniandy and Yorick will be another story altogether).

Hope you had a lovely Easter Weekend.

:)
Lisa

Sheep!

Here they are, at daybreak, the first morning on our farm.

Our starter Soay flock consists of 5 sheep, all from Carla at Rhyant Rock Farms.

*ahem-later edit* SIX sheep.  There are SIX sheep. 

It was really nice to meet Carla (and Larry, too!) after the last few months of correspondence.  She was tremendously generous with her information and infectiously enthusiastic about the sheep - and sheep in general.  Not that we needed inspiration for enthusiasm! The boys have helped through each stage of the process of researching and getting ready for flock's arrival.  

 All 4 of us have been so excited about becoming Shepherds!

The oldest of our little mob is Winniandy, and she is the undisputed leader of the group right now.  She's two years old and has come to us with her ewe lamb.

The sheep are very small, even as adults, and are supposed to be good 'starter sheep': they don't need their tails docked, or to be sheared.

 They seem to have settled in okay, and are busily munching down our back pasture area, the area that will eventually be more for the rams.

I think our learning curve is entering it's steep phase...there is certainly a lot to know.

And, for the fellow fibre lovers in the audience, I have already spun up a teeny tiny sample of fleece (Winniandy is still shedding) into wool...it's a short fibre, so I'll probably end up blending it with other fibres until I get better at spinning it.  I've been reading about Soay-specific spinning and fibre preparation techniques, and am chomping at the bit to play some more.

We've taken about eleventy-seven-hundred photos of them all already, and are still getting to know who is who a little.  Three of them are very distinct looking, even to our untrained eyes, but I keep getting two of the ewes confused.  As long as they don't expect me know each of their names to call them to dinner, I think we'll be okay.

:)


 The ram lamb's name is Yorick, which I absolutely love.  He's very cute, with lovely markings and colouring.

So, in among all the other changes we have in our lives right now, we are now a farm (as Max said, "We're a REAL farm now, because we have farm animals").

For those who have been in closer contact lately...yes, we did sell the van, but it won't change hands until later next week.

Randy leaves tomorrow to go to the coast in preparation for his knee surgery, which will take place in the middle of next week.  Our thoughts are all about his speedy recovery and increased mobility. His pending surgery would completely occupy my head if I let it.

The course that I've been writing with my colleagues launches on Sept 12, at Selkirk College.  I'm still working on aspects website which will be the portal for the course, both in this iteration as a pilot, but also in the iterations to come. More pieces of the site are there, but not visible until we go live. We're currently putting the finishing touches on everything, and getting ready to work with some real live students.  It's so exciting, I can hardly stand it when I think about it sometimes.

So, yeah, lots going on right now.

Change can be really good, not baaaaad.

:D
Lisa