I have been out doing some sheep shopping:one of my favourite pastimes. Windblest Farm has supplied me with a beautiful BFL ewe lamb to replace my Isabelle, who died of a heart condition last winter. This girl is growing well and is already coming up for chin scratches. River Glen farm, near Ottawa, has sold me a nice little BFL/shetland cross ram lamb. Owen is on the tiny side so I am going to let him grow and ue him for breeding next year. He has a lovely thick coat. Bill ,from Willowgarden shetlands brought me a lovely little white shetland ewe lamb. Windy is growing nicely and has a finely crimped coat that Bill's sheep are so well known
I am not breeding her this year and will let her grow. Enjoy the pics.
My husband has been very busy of late cranking out pairs of beautiful socks on his antique sock machines. Years ago, I purchaed a Legare circular sock machine from ebay, hoping to make socks. The machine was quickly hijacked by my husband, a tool and die maker by trade, set up and used. We had a few problems with tension and as the directions were all en francais and it has been a while since I spoke french, it was put in the closet to collect dust for about 5 years. I then took my hubbie to the Michigan Fibre Festival, and one of the ladies there taught him how to make a sock and he has been happily cranking ever since. We do ell socks,: great gifts, and he will make socks to order. Come talk to us this weekend at the Woodtock Fleece Fetival, this coming Saturday, October 22 and watch a sock being created.
This week my husband and I had to say good-bye to the last pet from the childrens' past. Yoshi loved my boys and was always very upset as they started to grow up and move away. He was blind and partially deaf, but he always knew when the kids were visiting and would come to see them. His best friend, Sparky, died a few years ago and that was the last straw and when he first started to deteriorate. It makes me happy to know that they are together again.
From my interests in fibre, I have met many other shepherds and all of our goals are to raise happy healthy animals that give us lovely fibre to spin. I have been working over the past few years to increase the softness and fineness of my shetland sheep while maintaining the breed standard of a well built hardy self sufficient animal that grows well and has few problems at lambing time. I am starting to see the fruits of my labour pay off this year and have been able to launch a line of shetland wool products called HOPEFUL SHETLAND, all from my own animals.