Saturday, August 12, 2006

Yesterday, Ferguson and Rebel were sent to market. It was hard to send Ferguson because he was my original flock sire and produced very nice babies for me but I only had 2 ewes he could safely be bred to as everyone else was either a daughter or granddaughter of his. I will miss him and I know the ewes will too. Rebel is another subject. He had hit me 1 time too many and even tried to get me yesterday, so he was haltered and placed outside the pen until the driver got there. I had planned on taking all the babies to market, along with Fergie and Rebel and a couple of adult ewes that were not going to be used in the breeding program again, but was only able to catch 5 sheep ( but they totalled 395 pounds ). The guy at the stockyards said if they were heavier I would get paid more. I keep telling him that Shetlands don't get heavy like the BIG sheep ( Suffolk,Montadale,Hamps ) but he just looked at me. He said that he was at the state fair on Thursday but didn't see any Shetlands and I told him to come back on Sunday ( at the earliest ) and they will be coming in because we had the national assoc coming in for the annual meeting and show and there would be a lot of Shetlands there then. Hopefully, he will come by then and see and LEARN more about these little sheep.

Wednesday, August 09, 2006



This is a close up of the scarf that I knitted for the AGM in Indy next week. There was a small ripple in the border after it was blocked, but it's not noticeable if it's worn. It's hand-spun from 100% Shetland lambswool and hand-knit from a pattern I found on a calendar about knit items a year ago. It is soft to the touch and doesn't itch at all. The color is natural, which is a sort of cream color - even though the ewe who gave this wool was white, her fleece turned out to be this color after it was cleaned and spun into yarn. This wool and yarn was a joy to work with.