One ram at about 6 pounds.  He has longer less curly wool than his sister.

The ewe lamb is about 7 pounds and has tight little curls.  She had a little bit of trouble getting started with nursing but is now nursing like a champ.

I love to see lambs nursing.

I will add more pictures as the others are born.

The Shepherdess

Opal is one of Princess’s lambs from 2009.  She was sold as a pet that fall.  The family that purchased her decided last summer to downsize their herd of animals and called to see if I would like to have her back. 

So she came home and is about to give birth to her first lambs.

I am very eager to see what kind of lambs she will give me.   

She is very shy and does not like to get close to me at all.

Opal is wearing two years worth of fleece right now as every time I tried to catch her last fall she escaped and evaded.  I think I will have to be a little bit sneaky to make sure she gets a hair cut this spring. 

Also introducing…

The Ram.

This is Sweetie’s lamb from 2011 and he is replacing my former ram that died last year of unknown causes.

I am eager to see what kind of lambs we get from him this summer.  And from these pics.  I think we will see the results of his work very soon. 

Twins I think.

One maybe?

It’s a pumpkin, no a blimp, no a….

VERY pregnant Maggie.  Definitely twins or triplets.

I expect to be showing off new lambs any day so stay tuned for updates. 

The Shepherdess

Enjoy.

The Shepherdess

Yogurt  Recipe

Heat one gallon of milk to 180 degrees (just below a boil), then cool till between 110 and 115 degrees (warm but not hot to the touch).
Mix part of the milk with 1cup of plain yogurt with active cultures, and 1 ½ to 2 cups of powdered milk (for thickness).  Mix with rest of milk and incubate four to eight hours.   Refrigerate.
Add fruit and sweetener of choice and….  Enjoy!
I use two pans and make a double boiler to heat the milk.  If in a hurry cool milk in a sink full of cold water.  
To incubate I pour the final mixture into canning jars with lids and put in a cooler with hot water bottles and then tuck towels around to hold the heat. 
For a smaller batch use 1qrt milk, ¼ cup yogurt, and ⅓ to ½  cup powdered milk.

With temps in the 70’s and 80’s this week it sure does seem like spring.  Here are a few signs that let me know it is here.

Aimée’s  bare feet.  Oh, wait a minute.. they’re always bare!

Let’s try this one,

A freshly tilled garden.

Or maybe…

Yarrow just peeking up above the ground.

Definitely a sign of spring is…

The first buds of rhubarb about to break free!

What do you look for as signs of spring?

Leave a comment and let me know.

The Shpeherdess

Princess was one of my very first ewes.  She lived 11 happy years and gave me quite a few lovely lambs.  She was a very good mother and as you can see in the photo above she even took care of the lambs that were not her own!  (The white one belongs to Sweetie.)  

While I have had many sheep come and go in the last 11 years it is always hardest to say good bye to the first of the flock. 

Here is one last photo, that is actually one of the first.  Princess coming home in the van as a lamb.

(Sorry for the graininess of the photo, it is actually a photo of a photo.  Our scanner died.)

The Shepherdess

Aimée and Jeff have decided to go to Jobs with a couple of other homeschool teens.  So they of course need formals.   Mom, Aimée and I went shopping this afternoon to see what we could find for her Aim’s dress.  We thought we would start by looking around the mall and getting some ideas then go look at patterns and fabrics.  The mall had almost nothing by way of formals and most of what they had looked like it would barely cover the butt.  

So on to JoAnn’s.   Where we found the perfect fabric and pattern.   Here is a picture of the pattern and fabrics but you will have to wait to see how they get put together. 

The dance is a week from Saturday, I had better get busy!

The Shepherdess

So after being asked many times, “What are you going to make?”

I decided to make a shawl that I had found in “The Best of Knitter’s Magazine Shawls and Scarves.”  The name of the shawl is “Faroese-style lace”.  This was the beginning of my love for knitted lace.

  I think I un-knitted about as many rows as I knitted the first couple of months.   But I loved making it and knowing that it was yarn that I had processed from the lambs born in the spring,  to the fall shearing, then washing, carding, spinning, knitting and FINALLY wearing!  

Mom took all these pictures on Christmas day out on Grandma’s deck. 

But we had a little hiccup in there…MOTHS! Yup they found my shawl sometime after I finished knitting it and before I had had a chance to wash and block it properly. (Which I think was about a year.)  The little bugs ate holes in my beautiful shawl before I realized they had struck.  So, I got rid of the moths and set the shawl aside to try repairing when I had time.

  Another year or so passed and I was having a spin-in at my house when upon showing the shawl to some of the ladies, Carolyn (who is a Master Knitter) told me that my assignment was to fix it before the MCC (Mankato Children’s Chorus) winter concert which was about 4 weeks away.

This was one of the worst holes and took me the longest to fix. I forgot to take an after pic.

I found four holes when I started to repair the shawl. After fixing those I washed it and blocked it out.  I rinsed it with lavender oil in the water to keep the moths away before I blocked it. If you look closely at the pic below you can see what I found while blocking it, Yes more holes!  By the time I was done I had repaired a total of seven holes.

Here is the shawl being blocked (above),

And a close up when it was all done. (below)

I am very happy with the end result of this first shawl and now that I have it done, I hope to wear it for many years.

The Shepherdess

As we start the new year I thought I would revisit the list I made back in July and post an update as to where I am at with each item. So here goes,

1. Braid a rag rug out of denim. Started.  I have 3 rounds braided and mostly sewn together.
2. Spin enough linen to weave something from it. Nope didn’t happen.
3. Weave something from my hand spun linen. Also, hasn’t happened yet.  Someday.
4. Dye some wool with golden rod and/or other wild plants that grow around here. I did it!!  I dyed up some beautiful wool with golden rod.  I will do a post about this later. But here is a pic.
5. Finish my quilt that I started with the 4-H quilting club. Have the rest of the material for borders and backing.  Hope to have it done in the next month or so.
6. Spin and knit a pair of gloves from the alpaca fiber I have. Not even started.
7. Finish knitting my lace shawl. Only 57 more rounds to go!  To bad they are about a thousand stitches each round.
8. Sew at least 5 articles of clothing. Well… I think I made 2.  Not much time for sewing this fall, but will make up for it this spring as I am starting work on 2 different wedding parties.  Will post updates on this as I get them done.
9. Work on my cross stitch a little.  (I won’t say finish, as I have been working on this more off than on, for 10 years now, since I graduated and have a long way to go) Did not even pull it out of the basket it is stored in.

Tat something (nothing in particular, just don’t want to go so long in between tatting projects, I forget how. )  Another item I did not get to this fall.

After reviewing this I can see what I need to try to find more time for as we start the new year.  I have made progress on some of these things and if I think about it I could come up with a whole list of things I did do that were not on this list.  So I think I will just keep adding on to the progress I have made and hopefully do a better job of blogging about things as I finish them.

Good night.

The Shepherdess

For her birthday her mom asked me to make a dress based on the one in the movie.  This is what I came up with for her. 

The dress is actually two dresses.  An outer dress and an under dress that can also be worn as a summer dress or a jumper with a shirt underneath. 

Both dresses have zippers in the back.  The over dress also has lacing in the front for a little adjustability.  

I was a little disappointed in the sleeves.  I thought they would be much more poufy than they are.  But I didn’t have the material to redo them.

The other detail includes ribbon on the sleeves and down the front of the open skirt.  Also I wanted to make sure she would be able to wear it for a long time so I left the extra length in the skirts and added a deep hem to the over dress and growth pleats to the under dress.   

If you look closely at this picture you can just make out the edge of the growth pleats. 

Any way I hope she likes it and that it fits.  It should be arriving in Germany any day, so I can’t wait to here how she likes it!

Good night.

The Shepherdess

This year Grandma Ruth, Jeff, and I headed out bright and early at 6:30am.  (Aimée was going to go but wasn’t feeling well. She was fine after she ate something, though. )  The weather cooperated beautifully with temps in the upper 70’s and a nice breeze keeping the air moving. 

Grandma and I set up and run the food stand for the day. 

The day passes quickly as we watch the horses and sell treats and sandwiches to all the riders and fans.  

We don’t take any of our own horses but enjoy watching the ones that do come.  This year we had 136 horses!  That is about 20 more than last year so we are very happy with the turn out.  We sold out of several things at the food stand and came close to selling out on lots of other things.   That is always a good thing!

It was a good day all the way around and now it is time for bed.  I hope you all had a good day!

Good Night!

The Shepherdess