Summer's Recap (Warning- It's a long one!)

My commuter vehicle

I find it hard to believe... Summer is done. Well, not done exactly, but the mornings are cool enough for gloves while doing chores and that is a sure sign that Fall is on the way.

And it has been three (count 'em 3) months since I have posted.  geepers.  Well, let's see what I have been up to...

Critter Tour- Part Two

Mortimer- the Wonder Goat!

Yes, I know, he’s adorable.

Rather than follow any type of logical order, I am going from our oldest sheep to our youngest goat!  He’s just so stinkin’ cute, I couldn’t wait to write about him and share his picture.

We got baby Mortimer from some friends of ours who have a milk goat doe.  Mortimer was her buck kid from this Spring.  Being a boy doesn’t bode well for a dairy animal, especially when your mom is the only other goat!  We went over to visit one day and he followed us everywhere.  When I finally sat down on a log, he climbed right up in my lap and fell asleep…  Needless to say, even though we did not NEED another goat, we had to have this sweetie-pie.

Luckily his former owners were delighted to have a new home for him, especially once he was weaned and started jumping up on the propane tank, parked cars and head butting everything that moved.  We went to get him in our 2000 Plymouth Neon.  He rode in the back seat like he had been doing it his whole life.

Back in the small ruminant pen, he got picked on a lot since he was the new guy and little to boot.  So to make sure he got enough to eat, we devised this system for him:

He is up on top of the goat/sheep house.  Being the youngest and most agile amongst old, fat, lazy sheep has its advantages!

He grew up with free roam at his first home and still likes to come out and visit with us and help in any way (pulling down flower stalks through the fence, knocking over buckets of tools, even trying to get up on the food tables when we let him out during our annual Weaving Group potluck!)

He is a pure delight and I highly recommend a goat, if you have the inclination to own a farm animal!

Critter Tour- Part One

I had so much fun writing about BDR, that I decided to do a series of posts detailing all of our ranch critters. And since I was touted as blogging about fibery things in the Sandpoint Fiberarts Guild newsletter, I thought I would start with a tour of the small ruminant pen! (for our purposes that means sheep and goats)

SPOT

My first subject is ol’ Spot. She is a Jacob sheep and as near as we can figure is between 9 and 10 years old. She is the matriarch of our small fiber herd and uses those spear-like horns to boss the others around.

My husband and I adore Spot. She is very people oriented, likes to be scratched in all those itchy spots that a sheep just can’t reach and (my personal favorite) lets out the loudest, most pathetic bleat if her people walk by without stopping to love on her. She opens her mouth wide enough to put a softball in there…

Here is another photo of her, with fleece:

And after shearing:

Yes, she is a little embarrassed… but much cooler! and don't her horns look even more impressive?!

I haven’t washed her 2010 fleece yet (it is taking awhile with 8 fleeces to clean!), but I had her fleece from last year milled into roving at the Going to the Sun Fiber Mill in Kalispell. It is a beautiful, soft grayish white.

Now all I need is the time to spin it all up!!!!

Next up:

Mortimer, the wonder goat!

Have a fleecy day.