Getting Ready For Yarn Party Show

March 21st is the Ravelry Yarn Party in Savage,MD near DC. It was a great show last year! I am frantically dying BFL yarn and spinning Shetland skeins for the sale. Molly will be home on spring break so this year,so hopefully I'll have an assistant sales person. Lisa from Feederbrook Farm, who also has Shetland yarn, does the show with me. It's good to partner with an energetic young woman but she exhausts me! I come home feeling my age. Great thing about Lisa is we always end the show with a glass or 2 of wine. Raising sheep has gifted me with some of the best friends. It makes getting up every day exciting.

Tiny BFL Ewes

These 2 were born to a BFL yearling on Sunday. Wish mom had had one 10 pounder instead of 2 just barely 5 pounds each. They get cold easily so the felted sweater sleeve jackets keep them warm.

Baby Shetlands Everywhere!

Triplets this morning and twins this afternoon. Beautiful day to be born in the sun. Mom of the triplets helped clean the other ewe's twins off then tried to take them. Guess 3 wasn't enough for her. It was wonderful to be out there with them, sorting newly sheared fleeces and watching the activity in the pen. One of the triplets was leaping around the pen within 40 minutes of birth. Shetlands are great comic relief.

Sunny Shearing Day Finally 50 Degrees

Beautiful day for shearing the Shetlands. I let another shepherd take my original shearing date and this date was a little too close to lambing to suit me but my shearer, Nathan, is very gentle so I forged ahead. We saw some pretty full bags and breathed a sigh of relief when each ewe was done. With 2 more to go (21 sheared total) it happened. Half way through the shearing a water bag popped out. AAHH!!! Nate finished the job and the ewe wandered off. We watched her while we sheared the last 2 ewes but she was not pushing at all. Eventually, I had to pull the lambs but they were lively and strong. Up and nursing in minutes. Little shetlands are so cute and amazing. The Shetland lambing has begun!
Thank you Garrett for the suggestions about getting better results this year. Last year we had 20 Shetland ram lambs and 4 ewes. Another Shetland ewe lambed this AM and she also had a ram and a ewe. We are 50/50 so far. That's a lot better than last year.