Ask About MD Sheep and Wool At Your Own Risk

For my 5th birthday I got a baby brother. We not only share this day, and the birthday cake that goes with it but looks, personality and temperment. That would be Type A. Just last week I bragged to that brother that I had really mellowed with age. Well, we all know that "pride comes before a fall" and my fall was MD Sheep and Wool.
My Aries temperment reared its ugly head in the heat and the dust of my new booth location. (When they told me I had been moved they did not say I had been banished from my prime location to the Gobi Desert complete with yurt.... Mongolian felted tent). With few sales and temperatures over 90 "little miss sunshine",your congienial vendor had disappeared. I threatened to strangle the fire marshall who had caused the move and assault the EMT who left his ambulance parked directly in front of my booth with the motor running while he took a break in the AC in the back. The musicians accross the road egged me on by offering to accompany the whole confrontation with appropriate tunes. The vehicle remained there for an hour blowing exhaust into my tent. Now I was not only hot but sick. My lambs in the pen beside the tent, altho shaded, were panting. When the speaker directly overhead loudly announced the time was 3PM I was ready to pack up and go home. Three more hours to endure! My son Tim was there and his only comment was " Mom, this booth is craptacular." He encouaged my evacuation by hooking the truck to my trailer. My friend Geri who BTW was also sharing the heat and exhaust of the booth and Nancy Starkey encouaged me to stay for Sunday. Geri and I rearranged the booth hoping to create more shade on Sunday. Thank you both for being patient with me and enduring my periodic fits of rage. After a wonderful dinner in AC, wine and great company,I felt calmer. Thank you Nancy for a cool place to sleep.
The BFL gathering under the trees was the best part of the day. Such a great group of people. Lisa, I promise to be more cheerful and behave myself at Wooster. Thank you all for sending customers my way. Lord knows I needed them since my sales were down about 70%. Jolene and Paul Vezzetti always make me feel wondeful.
Sunday was hotter, dustier and also lacking in customers but by then I was resigned to endure the day without hostility.
Mrs. Goodpastor and I invented a new olympic event......the ???? meter ram lamb relay. This is how it goes.... a team of 2 women.... one over sixty, overweight, overtired,overstressed and overheated,the other woman overdressed,overheated and over generous to have gotten herself into this in the first place,... must carry a 70 pound ram lamb from my booth to her truck, a distance of North fairgrounds to South fairgrounds, fortunately all down hill, through human traffic. Why not walk him,you ask? Simple,he isn't halter broke. Mrs Goodpastor,definately the stronger member, carried til her arms gave out,passing the ram to me for short relief stretches. Never was I so happy to see an open tailgate! Now I know how the finish line looks to marathon runners.
Well that's my tale of MDSW 2010. I intend to call my brother and recant my mellow with age statement! Some personalities never change.

Last shetland Lambs and OH MY

Oh My (that's her name) lambed this morning. She wasn't suppose to be bred but was caught by a errant ram lamb.She is a favorite around here. My only wish was that she lamb before Sheep and Wool or my trip to Utah. Thankfully I got my wish because leaving this delivery to someone tending my flock would have been a disaster. The lamb was in perfect position but Oh My was just too small for a head and 2 legs at the same time. Having seen my vet do a delivery like this I pushed the legs back, snared the head...the first time I have ever gotten a snare to hold...pulled the head out and managed to get one leg out too. The lamb was breathing and very much alive. There was no getting the other leg,no room for my hand, so lots of lube was poured in and I just pulled on what I had and prayed. Guess you might say that lamb witnessed his own birth. Oh My was a real trouper through all this. Mom and baby are doing great. The lamb was up in minutes and Oh My loves her baby but I'm down for the count. Shetland lambing is over!!!
What a way to end the season! I'll get a picture of Oh My and her new baby when I can move my hands and stop shaking. I am just so grateful that this ended well.

3 Days Til Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival

Three days and I'm still dying skeins and trying to print labels. Dying skeins is a lot easier!! With my new location at MD. I don't quite know what to expect for this year's festival. Hopefully my customers will find me. Since I will have a bigger space there will be lambs in the booth this year. 2 BFL ram lambs and 2 BFL ewes and maybe 2 Shetland ewes......if I can catch the little buggers.

My new BFL tweed yarn arrived yesterday. It turned out beautifully. Very soft and bouncy. It's double ply DK weight. Skeins are 150 yards. The picture doesn't show it well. You'll have to check it out at MD.

Garrett's Visit with Sadie and the Puppies

Garrett, a fellow BFL/Shetland breeder from MN, has Corgi Nationals in Gettysburg this week so he came in early to visit a few spots in the East. We headed to DC where I got so lost...too much talking and not enough sign reading.By the time we got downtown we had to speed walk to see as much as possible before our parking meter ran out.(We passed a jogger at one point, that's how fast we were walking.) Garrett took pictures without even stopping. Our intent was to see the sights and return to the plant sale at the National Arboretum before it closed. Getting lost on the way out was not in the schedule but...we never did get to the plant sale. It's fun to travel with someone who likes the same things and wants to stop at plant sales! From DC we headed to Annapolis,MD. It's a beautiful historic town with great restaurants. A bad parking job and another fast walk later we finally sat down for a while and ate everything Maryland...crab soup,crab cakes, mussels, rockfish. Annapolis is one of my favorite places to visit. I don't think I'll ever tire of being there. Hope Garrett enjoyed the whistle stop tour and the food. He taught me so much about Shetland genetics that I'm on information overload. I needed for him to stay longer. But we'll meet again in Eugene,OR for Black sheep Gathering in June. More sheep talk then.

Garrett and Sadie, his Corgie, are doing agility trials in the rain right now. Hope all is going well. Wish it was a better week weather wise.

Got My Ticket

After MD Sheep and Wool I'm flying to Utah to drive home with Molly for the summer. I am so excited that she will be home for a few months. Our trip will be our usual sucession of off beat stops like the World's largest ball of stamps, the Pony express museum (seen in less than 15 minutes),the wagon train ruts,and maybe a Lewis and Clark intrepretation center or two. Molly has endured most of these centers with me altho she is not into the Corps of Discovery like I am. Tim gave me a book that lists all the stops the Corps made from St. Lewis to the Pacific. Carried on every trip west, it has become my bible. Well, Molly, the good news is, I can't find it!!!! Never fear tho....I know the stops I've missed on the trail. And of course we HAVE to stop in Lincoln, NE for a prime rib dinner. MMM the best beef in the whole US. (Hopefully someone will read this and be offened and provide another stop where they feel the beef is better. I'm always in search of the best steak.) If we are lucky,Tim will join us for our cross country drive, his first road trip with us. For the first time I am wishing MD Sheep and Wool was over so we could be together on the road. Stop wishing your life away, Kathy.

April

Now that I've started this blog the phone will ring at least 3 times and my husband will return from the store and beep the horn for me to help carry the groceries in. Happens every time. My computer stresses me enough without additional distractions. Besides, I normally have a very one track mind. Last week while tring to order signs from Vista Print for my next show I got a zillion interruptions and screwed up the sign design royally. I was dumbfounded when I opened the box and saw what I had designed. Nothing was correct. And of course, I ordered 2 of the bloody things! Finding a use for them will be a test of my creativity.
Back to April. I think it's my favorite month. And this April been spectacular. Perfect gardening weather. I put in a new garden over by the barn. It has more things in it than planned but I locked my keys in my car at Home Depot last week and spent my time waiting to be rescued shopping for plants. Not a bad place to be stranded....they even had a coffee truck with breakfast sandwiches. The garden is beautiful. I used old unusable fleeces covered with mulch around the new shrubs and flowers. The wool really inhibits weeds and keeps the mulch from washing away. Going to the barn is a happy time anyway but now I can stop and smell the flowers along the way. It will also remind me to have my keys in my hand before slamming the trunk lid.

2 Shetlands Left to Lamb and the BFL Are Done!

Last BFL ewe lamb was born on pasture yesterday. Mom brought her in during a downpour. She's tiny but very healthy. Another yearling mom with a great mothering instinct. Final tally.....53 BFL lambs

This morning Potosi Abby had her beautiful yuglet (rings around the eyes) ewe lamb. Abby has been miserable for 2 days. On Thursday, she attacked Roxy and tried to take her newborn lamb.Roxy actually hid herself and her lamb between a gate and a fence to avoid Abby. I knew Abby would lamb soon since she wanted a lamb so badly. Well, Abby's lamb is really special. Wish Abby had a better disposition tho. She is really happy to have her own girl. 30 Shetland lambs and counting. 2 more left to lamb and we will be done.......maybe! Next year I'll remember to take the rams out. Yeah, right. I say that every year.