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.