It’s shearing time again!!!  Fresh fleeces and clean sheep.

In addition to shearing the ewes, I decided to have the lambs sheared as well.  Their fleeces are so pretty and they are starting to get full of hay and junk from being in the barn.

Sheryl agreed to shear the sheep in groups of 15 again.  She came this morning and sheared all of the lambs and will be back in December to shear the ewes.

Here they are – waiting their turn…

You can see Magoo, the llama, in the background watching over the whole operation.

Here is Chance, looking a little confused about what happened to her!

 I love the colors in this fleece.  It belongs to this big boy…

He is a new addition to the herding group.  His name is Thatcher and he is a Jacob/Border Leicester cross.  I love all of the leicester sheep.

There are several lambs in the herding group that are too dark for the Jacob standard, but look at all of the black/brown wool I have now!  It is beautiful.

My husband was here to help and it was so nice.   He helped with the sheep and I was able to skirt the fleeces. 

literally and figuratively!  I realized today, while I was needle felting another dog, that I am surrounded by dogs. 

There are the obvious ones…

Paisley, who is trying to stay warm on these cold, rainy days.

My chore buddy, Darby, and of course the two clowns in the previous post.

Then the not so obvious ones -

My son, who likes to pretend he is a dog, and all of his friends - Bernie, Deuce, Fetch, Major, Snook, Clifford, Clifford II, and Charlie.  He doesn’t go anywhere without at least two of them.  He crawls around on the floor, pants, barks, and loves to fetch his ball   Ah, to be a 5-year-old!

Then there are all of the felt dogs that have been created and moved onto their new homes -

Zsof is a Puli.

These Malamute bags are going to be given as awards at the large Portland, OR dog show in January.

A dark brindle French Bulldog named Bruce.

Borzoi brothers – Hawk and Wings.

Rocket the Whippet.

I just finished these and they have been added to my Etsy shop.  A poodle, cocker spaniel, and great dane felted onto my handmade felt and fabric totes.

Luckily I like dogs

When Deuce first arrived, Kate was very put out.  She was down right sullen for almost a week and was acting so wierd that I was afraid she was sick or something.  Luckily she snapped out of it and the sillyness began…

Can you see the smile on Kate’s face?  We have been going for a daily walk out in the pasture – Kate and Deuce running circles, my son on his bike, and I actually walk

Kate is amazingly tolerant of her puppy antics.

They could run, jump, wrestle, and play all day long. 

I think Deuce has been spending a little too much time with her though…

I don’t think I have ever seen a Lab with ‘eye’.  ‘Eye’ is the term used for the Border Collie stare.

Deuce is growing up fast…

and is quite the retriever.  She blasts into the water and dives for the object if it sinks.

I’m glad they have become friends!

There is an interesting discussion going on in the Jacob world at the moment  and as I was looking through the archives, it looks like it comes up every year. 

I ran across a great list of primitive characteristics that got me thinking.  Below is a list of charateristices I see in our flock…

Acrobatics – playing, jumping, leaping, bounding, etc.  Even older ewes will get caught up in the fun.  They are also very good at jumping fences, especially when they are feeling threatened or cornered.

Diet – enjoy browsing, much like goats.  They will eat blackberries, thistles, coarse grass, mixed herbs, etc.  They benefit from a nutritious, balanced diet and it drives me crazy when people say they are a scrub sheep and can survive on very little.  Sure they can survive, but are they really healthy.  They do eat considerabley less then larger, more modern sheep. 

Condition – carry little external fat reserves on the back, but tend to store it internally when overfed.  We have seen this in several sheep we have butchered ourselves.  One was an older ram and the amount of internal fat was amazing!!!  He didn’t look overly fat from the outside.

Intelligence – alert, aware of surroundings, investigative, and learn quickly.

Individuality – each sheep has their own idea of what the flock should be doing.  They are more difficult to herd than other breeds.

Prolificacy – singles or twins.  One or two lambs are much easier to keep up with in the wild.  Flushing and diet can have a huge impact on this.

Mothering – quick and strong bond.  Jacobs will very rarely take a lamb that is not theirs or one that they don’t perceive as theirs.   

Lamb survival – lambs are up quickly, feed early, and are seen playing very shortly after birth.

Hardiness – resistance to parasites, disease, and stress.

Self defense – prepared to defend their lambs against threat.  I have a couple ewes that are ready to take me out when I check on their lambs.  This is a bit extreme, but I know that they would defend their lambs to a true threat.

When the primitive thread comes up, it is usually in regards to ‘what does primitive look like?’  To me this list includes – triangular head, smaller boned, sloped rump, and narrow (but not cow hocked).  It is important to remember that there is more in a gene pool than just ‘what it looks like’ and this is where the list above comes in handy. 

If we breed just for looks, then we could be throwing out a lot of other traits that can’t be seen.

For example – these two rams have different body styles.  Reno on the left is more primitive, while Wrangler on the right is more improved.  

The biggest difference that you can see in these pictures is the structure of their faces – Reno’s is very triangular.  In person, Reno has much smaller bone and is narrower.  The interesting thing is that Reno’s fleece is what I consider ‘improved’ – too fine for my liking.  Wrangler’s is what I consider a truer Jacob fleece.  Both of their moms are very primitive acting and Reno’s mom has a trait that I consider very primitive.  When her lambs are young, she will put them in a corner at feeding time and she must give them a pretty stern lecture because they stay there until she is done eating.  The rest of the lambs are running and playing, but her’s stay until she comes back for them – much like a doe and fawns. 

I like both of these rams for different reasons and look forward to what they contribute to the breed.

I love the diversity that the Jacob breed offers and I believe there is room for many different looks and styles.

I love naming animals, but there are some names that certain breeds should never be called.  For instance – Rebel or Rowdy are not good horse names, Chase is a horrible name for a herding dog, Charger for a ram, etc.  Most of these observations are based on past experiences (most not good).  I’m sure everybody has negative conotations towards certain names.  I have often wondered does the name make the animal or is the animal living up to it’s name, but that is just silly – a name can’t decide the animal’s personality!

Nobody told this little girl that…

meet Queenie.

She is a very pretty ewe lamb from Joan at Mud Ranch .  She was named Queenie because her mom is named Princess and it has turned out to be quite fitting.

You see, she feels entitled.  She feels that she has earned the right to be in this pasture…

I have everybody locked off of it so it can grow and the new seed is coming in nicely.

She has been sneaking in now and then, but I was very surprised to see Queenie and her buddy, Annie, in there enjoying the tasty, tender grass.  I couldn’t figure out how they were coming in and out. 

Oops – BUSTED!!!

Oh, you guys are very creative!  They were born later in the year and are still small enough to fit through this crack.

Here is a picture of my glove to show you the size of the crack – little stinkers!!!

On a side note – Queenie’s grandpa’s name is Houdini

Even more shocking then having this in our front yard, is that the driver crawled out and was absolutely fine!

I was sitting in my office, when I heard this horrible commotion out front.  I feared the worst and my stomach did a flip flop when I looked out our front window and saw this.  I called 911 and was headed out the door when the driver crawled out.  I was so thankful because I was very concerned about what I was going to find. 

He doesn’t remember what happened, but he thinks he fell asleep and drifted off th road.  He hit our driveway and went airborne and then flipped in our front yard.

Aside from a tree being pushed over and some of our hedge being taken out, the damage was very little and there is so much to be thankful for.

My husband and son were gone for the weekend and Theron was so disappointed that he missed the ambulance, sheriff, and tow truck!  The tow truck driver flipped the truck over…

and all of the damage could be seen.  Looking at these pictures, I am still stunned that he was ok. 

It made for an interesting day!

Welcome to Fall in Oregon!  We are in a very nice pattern at the moment – a day of sun, a day of rain, a day of sun, a day of rain, etc.  This is also the perfect forecast for one of the items on our ’to do’ list – replant our pastures! 

Due to my husband being an avid hunter and gone a lot in the fall, it can be hard to get bigger projects done. 

This year I was bound and determined that the seed in the barn was going to get planted even if I had to spread seed one coffee can at a time with this tiny spreader!

I spread 1/2 a bag in this pasture and

this pasture and then my husband came to the rescue    He called his uncle and borrowed a much bigger spreader.

Look at it spitting the seed out!

Instead of a coffee can, it can hold 3 bags – 150 lbs.  That went so much faster! 

After spreading it, he rolled it with this item and pushed the seed in.

I am so excited that we got this done and can’t wait to see the results.  We will keep the sheep off the pasture until it is several inches tall and well established.

This last July, we lost our lab – Major.  It left a very large hole in all of our hearts, but especially my husband’s.  He was a graduation gift and had been part of his life for a very long time.  He has been unable to even think about getting another lab, until he had to go swimming this last weekend to get his ducks.  Major was an awesome bird dog and could always be count on to retrieve Tony’s birds plus anybody else’s that were lost.  He was such a great dog and left some very big shoes to fill.  We spent the beginning of this week researching dog breeders and talking about things that were important.  We were  both ready to wait awhile.  He wanted a black female this time and as it turns out there was a litter not very far from us that had 1 black female left.  We decided to go take a look at the parents and the puppy and as the saying goes…the rest is history.

Say hello to Deuce.

She is 10 weeks old.

She has a great temperament and is so willing to please.

On the second day, I sent a message to my husband asking him when he was getting himself a dog   He laughed!

Darby is just as thrilled as Theron is to have a lab puppy running around.  He was Major’s buddy and has missed him with the rest of us.

Kate isn’t as exuberant…

I think she is a little jealous – luckily he has enough love to spread around.

Tony has already started her training and they are both having fun.

As you can see – she loves the training bumper and she is already retrieving it!!!

She is so snuggly - she just melts in your arms.  I’m soaking it up now because she is going to be a big girl and I won’t be able to pick her up very soon.

Summer Lake is a large, shallow, alkali lake in Lake County, Oregon.  It is approximately 20 miles long and 10 miles wide.  The lake was named by explorer John C. Fremont on his expedition into Central Oregon in 1843.  It is also home to one of the tallest exposed fault faces in the world, over 30 miles long and 2000 ft. above the valley floor. 

The marshes around the lake support a wide variety of birds and other wildlife and the second weekend of October it becomes a very popular place for duck hunters.  My husband hasn’t missed opening duck hunting weekend there for the past 20+ years.  He grew up going with his grandpa, uncle, and cousins and has taken our son every year since before he was 2.  I haven’t gone the last couple years because it is just too tempting to have a weekend at home by myself, but this year a friend convinced me to go and I’m glad she did because I had a great time.  I went on numerous walks, enjoyed the campfire, and was able to finish 7 1/2 felted bags   I love having a craft that can go camping!

I was inspired by Joan’s recent roadtrip photos and took a couple from the passenger seat on our way there. 

I love the wide open skys in this part of Oregon. 

We saw a lot of antelope.

On Saturday morning, while everybody else got up at 4 am and headed out to sit in the freezing cold marsh, I slept in until 7:30 in the comfort of our warm trailer.  I took the dogs for a walk and enjoyed the sites. 

This is a muskrat mound and the hunters often use old ones to sit on to stay out of the water.  The younger boys like to go sliding down them

I love the various stages of cattails.

These two are such a couple of goof balls   Kate likes to lick Theron in the ears and he thinks it is hilarious. 

The crew.  Theron didn’t understand why Kate couldn’t be their hunting dog and go out with them.  I got some pretty funny looks when I was walking them around.

The mighty hunters.

This kid knows how to work it!  Complete with chocolate milk and bag full of snacks.

and they are off…

The weather was perfect and it was great to get one more camping trip in.

Over at Patchwork Fibers, she has started a “why” club – as in why was that ewe bred to that ram?  I love reading about why people make the decisions they do and hope other breeders join in.

We bred 30 ewes this year and some of the decisions were based on past performances – some crosses just work.  Other decisions are based on what doesn’t work because sometimes no matter how nice each parent is and how nice the pedigree looks – the results aren’t good!

For producing ram lambs – I wish everybody was like this girl.  This is Maverick Marloe and she is amazing in her ability to produce high quality ram lambs – no matter who she is bred to.  They all have amazing horns, consistent/soft fleeces, great structure, and luckily they don’t inherit her nasty temperament   Here are some of her boys…

Jaq

Wrangler

  Nitro

Torrent – currently for sale

Unfortunately, she doesn’t produce very many or very nice ewe lambs.  I chose Julian this year for her to improve fleece quality and they both have impressive horns and nice structure.  I am going to keep my fingers crossed for a nice girl.   

For Infiniti, I also chose Julian…

The fleeces should be incredible and they both have nice clean/clear black spots.  He has a nice nose patch and I know there are leg spots in the background, so will hope that they carry forward.

For Rae-Ann, I chose Junior…

This is a combination that looks great on paper (pedigree) and I hope the lambs are as promising as I think they will be.  There is a slight possibility that Rae-Ann is a lilac carrier, so I can’t wait to see if she is or not.

For Petunia, I chose Reno…

He has really nice leg color and they both have great lateral horns.  They are both black and white, but have lilac in their backgrounds, so it will be exciting to see their lambs.

This is our 8th year in breeding jacobs and I have definitely learned that it can be unpredictable   From now until lambing starts at the end of January, I’ll feature a few more pairs and why I made the decision that I did.