finished

I was going to write about the sweater I just finished.  Only it isn’t quite done.

The sleeves are finally fitting well. I like the way it comes together.  Elizabeth sized it up a day or so ago and it wears well.  I was afraid that it might have been a bit short for the repeats.

It needs final finishing, seams sewn and the neck designed.

Today it felt like the sweater would be completed.  Time seemed to be on my side and the sleeve only had few more inches.  The neck has been a bit of a bugaboo.  Put off until the last moment.  Confident that it would make sense on how to construct when I got there.

Plans were that I would have it done, photographed and ready for the debut.  Thoughts about publishing the pattern or selling is ran through my mind through out the day.

I left the dairy farm late.  Got home to turn around and head back out to the market.  Sat down to balance books, pay bills.  Then phone calls, time for chores, supper.  Emails and conversation left me  looking out to the dark of a rainy night.

Knitting will have to wait.

Time for my writing.

Your gonna miss me, la la la la la laaaa

Cory.

She has given us 5 lambs. 2 black rams, a white ram, a moorit ram and a moorit ewe. Good mother.

She is a talker. The alpha ewe. She is pushy around food and I can count on her to lead to flock home. She is an A type merino with a heavy fleece, creamy white and a higher micron then the C type. She is hardy. A perfect Vermont Sheep.

She is going to a new home soon and I imagine her singing a little song about it.

I like the warmer weather because I can go out on the back deck and look down the pasture. By the time I am getting my coffee the flock is grazing and generally have stopped crying at me for grain. I am still on the 6 am schedule. They are on the sun rising schedule. Cory must hear me in the kitchen. She knows when I am mousing around and generally brings the flock up the hill. Bleating all the way.

I can call to the sheep and she will start with the bleating back, leading the rest of the flock into a perfect movie sound tract. It is great to live in Vermont.

I told Bub about selling Cory, he was ok with it. Elizabeth gave me a bit of guff.

Mum, she is like your favorite, that is like selling one of us.

Lulu, the sheep gotta eat, so I gotta sell sheep

Oh, I guess that’s ok. she is going to be mad at you.

No, she is going to a nice farm with good pastures. She is laughing at me cause I will miss her.

La la la la la laaaa.

Docked, rams quarters and more spring clean up

Yesterday Bub and I tried to head out to look at tractors and ATVs. He was paged 7 times. Yard work was the order of the day. There is always more work then can be done.

We have 20 acres, all on a slope ending with several beaver ponds. 60 years ago the land was pasture and now is covered with Poplars, Red Maples, Tameracks, Beech and Birch. There are some Spruce, Cherry and some white pine with a deer yard down at the bottom of the land by the ponds. We have harvested some of the wood for trim and flooring in the house. This past winter we burned about 6 cords of wood. There is also some lumber rough cut framing. I dream of a barn.

But in the mean time, the rams need a small shade shed across the road at our neighbor’s pasture. We need to separate out Moses and Jason from Cory and Tiny. Both rams are from Cory. Tiny needs more time to heal from this past winter. I am going to put Joseph up with them as well.

It feels really good to be working on the land as partners. There are times when Bub’s projects are not as important to me and vise versa. Generally the Sheep have been my project, but he has warmed up to them and has been more interested in what is happening on the farm.

So after being paged it was clear we were not going anywhere far, so then the question was which part of the outside work should we start on. We ended up cleaning up a section of the pasture where there is an old road through the middle of the property. Going across all parts of the pasture it was clear that an ATV will be more useful then a tractor. Because the land is sloped, and the barn area is tight, a tractor might not be as useful as we would like.

Going through the pasture was also helpful in deciding where the ram’s winter pen is going to be, where the wood shed is going to be and where we need to harvest wood next season. Today was action day on the ram’s shade hut. We got the framing done then had some time left over to do some sheep chores.

This is the kicker. Generally I do the chores, including the vetting stuff by myself. Today, Bub helped me as I trimmed toe nails, docked tails and trimmed up the sheep around the back area to prevent fly strike. We do not cut off the tails or trim excess skin away from the back area, a practice called mulesing. To dock tails we place a strong rubber ring around the tail, near the back end. The circulation is cut off to the tail and the tissue dies and the tail falls off after about 2 week. The placing of the band can sometimes bother the lamb for a minute or so.

Bub does not like helping with the vetting. But it is far safer to have one person hold the lambs, while the other docks the tails.

It was also nice to have his company. I am not supposed to blog about my husband, Conrad. However, his alias “Bub” is free game. I had a good time with Bub this weekend.

Meet Sue and Judith

Here they are, Sue is on the left with blackish markings and Judith is on the right with moorit markings.

The names come from two good friends of ours. Sue Low and Judith StAubin. They both love lambs and yesterday they came up to meet the girls. Sue is a retired Nun and lived at an Abby that had a small flock. She misses the sheep and gives me direction when naming the lambs. We have attended bible study in the past and she has a tremendous knowledge of the Word. Judith is semi-retired and directs the local community choir. When they lived in Washington, Judith was the director of the National Cathedral Children’s Choir. I love hearing her play the pipes. Judith has red hair and a fire like persona. She is a pistol. Sue is calm and the polar opposite. It is a joy having tea with them. They crack me up.

When we were waiting for the last lamb to come, Sue wanted the lamb to be named Susanna if a ewe. Susanna is a character in Catholic teachings who was accused of being improper. The wife of an important man and desired by two, not so nice men, she refused them and they accused her of being unfaithful. She won her case using logic. The last lamb is a ram and Ben named him. So Sue was a bit bummed.

When the lambs first came, I was thinking that there was going to be a single ram.

But twins, which I am pleased, although I find them really ugly when first born.

. I didn’t have names ready for them at first. I guess that I was a bit taken back by the color patterns and that one was with black markings and one with moorit.

After a day or so, they look a whole lot better. We named the moorit Judith because of the coloring but the personalities of the lambs are backwards from the names. The little blackish one is full of beans and the moorit one is calm.

Looking at the lambs this morning, I see that Sue’s coat is not true black and white. There are brown and gray fibers. She will have a really interesting fleece. Judith’s fleece will be cool looking too. Her white spots are really creamy looking. They are starting to explore a bit. They have noticed the ducks and the cat Brutus. Wu keeps chasing him away from them.

It will be fun to watch them grow and develop.

Names?

These twins are about 12 hours old. We don’t have any names yet. Any suggestions?