It's hard being three

It has always been hard to find someone to shear my sheep. They have to drive 1 1/2 - 2 hours to get here and I only had 15-20 sheep. Well, imagine how hard it is to find somebody to come for only 3 sheep! The word impossible comes to mind. I would have just sheared them myself but my clippers are not working. That is actually a bit of an understatement. They go flying into about 8 pieces every time I turn them on. Luckily, I found a family about 40 miles away who had a shearer coming to their farm this week. So, we loaded into the goat tote and with a great sigh of relief, got the job done. I was feeling a bit guilty about how crowded they were until I put them back in the tote to come home.

Plenty of room now! I love this little tote. It is just perfect for a few sheep. I had to take my son to school with the sheep in tow. Lucky for him, I couldn't maneuver thru the school traffic and had to let him off down the road a bit. They say it's hard to look cool with sheep in your back seat!

Here is Lucy.....kind of guarding the sheep. You might remember I had trouble with her hurting the lambs. She has been permanently removed from the pastures. She roams the yard and about 2 square miles around our house. She digs under any fence, walks right thru our electric fence and so I gave up. It is actually working out great. I still have a great guard dog and she gets to roam the open range!

Up and Running

Well, it is good to be back in the land of Internet. Our satellite system basically blew up and we had to wait on them to come install a whole new system. I never realized how much I rely on the Internet! I keep up with my checkbook, the weather, my kids grades and homework assignments, email and of course my blog and the blogs I enjoy reading. Hopefully, this new system will work better than the old one. So much to share since I last posted so here goes...

The shearer came. All I can really say about him is he did get the wool off the sheep and he was a nice guy. Several cuts and not very even shearing. When he left I was both relieved and irritated. Relieved to have the wool off the sheep and irritated at how they look. I really shouldn't complain since I didn't have to do it myself this year!

We still don't have any babies! There are 4 girls who look like they could go any day. I think they will be spread out quite a bit this year. I was hoping to have all the babies on the ground by spring break and that is obviously not going to happen since that starts Friday. Oh well. I have started picking through all the fleeces and washing some. I am very happy with most of them and hope to have them all ready to take to The Fiber Event in Greencastle, IN in April. Frankenmuth Mill will be there to take your wool. Saves me having to box it all up and mail it.

I have also been experimenting with dyeing. I have one fleece that I'm not crazy about so I am using her fleece to practice on. I am also using colors I'm not crazy about. This is a lime green used on a light gray fleece. The color will be variegated since her fleece is gray, brown and even has some black in it. Should be interesting.