Tag: shepherding

Meet the Animals + Something Special for YOU

On By elizabeth kay boothIn Challenges and Celebrating Learning, From Sheep to Skein8 Comments

As I mentioned in my post about all of this year’s changes, we went from living on a small rental in Los Angeles to a 5-acre property in Tennessee. By far, the most FUN part of this entire process of change has been adopting and raising farm animals. I will leave the birds for my next post (although to my great surprise, the birds give us more entertainment than even our house pets).

We started with 5 wool sheep, and then, for my birthday, added a pair of Nigerian dwarf goats. I will not write too much in this post, as I am sure you’ll find the photos much more entertaining. The important things to know are that the sheep are a Bluefaced Leicester/Shetland/Cotswold mix, which my spinning friends tell me is going to make some lovely yarn, and were about 6 months old when we got them and are now, as of this writing, nearing their first birthday. Sheep are not easy, and if anyone is interested, I can do another post about all the things we have learned so far about raising them, but I really do enjoy our new life. Despite the hard, and often dirty work, going out to the barn to take care of the animals is one of my favorite parts of the day.

5 lambs having a little snack after arriving at their forever home
Front row, right to left: Freckles, Roman, and Nona. In the back – a little black sheep named Molly and Mr. Percy, a proper English gentleman …when he’s not begging for grain that is.
It took us awhile to get paddocks set up and to learn how to herd the sheep where they need to go. At first, there were days we had to pick them up and carry them – just a little morning workout.
The horned ones… I always thought it was just rams who have horns, but ewes can have them too. Molly and Mr. Percy just wouldn’t look the same without them!
If one takes off running, most likely they will all follow. Sheep love to be together. A sheep thing that is sometimes annoying, and other times, super helpful! 🙂
Enjoying the summer pastures. Truly a sheep’s happy place.
After shearing. Yes, we did it ourselves, and yes, it is SO HARD! My husband and I were quite proud of ourselves when we finished Mr. Percy and Roman.

And the goats… what can I say except that they are as people-loving, cuddly and fun as they look!

Happy birthday to me! Graham really does love cuddles and being held.
Leia loves cuddles too, and if I’m sitting down, will jump right into my lap.
One day when we were out and about, we left them to roam in the yard. When I came inside a few minutes to cool off, look who showed up at the front door!
My baby nephew thinks the goats are pretty funny too.
Leia is our female – and she’ll be a good mama some day. She doesn’t tolerate nonsense.
Graham: the sweetest, most lovable little goat I’ve ever met! He does try to eat my clothes however…
It’s true: goats really do love a nibble of just about everything!

This has all been a huge learning process for us. We did lots of reading and research before buying our animals so that we’d know how to keep them healthy and happy. It has been so fun and rewarding, but I always feel like I have so much left to learn. Next up is learning to process wool and spin it. I hope you enjoyed meeting our ruminants, and I will do another post soon about our birds.

I can’t yet sell any of my own fiber, but if you’re in holiday shopping mode, I do have a little treat for you. Lovecrafts.com gave me a discount code for my blog readers: Use EKB2019 to get 15% off orders over $10 (excluding PDF patterns, sale items & value packs). One use per customer, valid until December 31, 2019.

(And if anyone is wondering, I don’t make commissions from any sales, this is just a treat they are letting me offer you!) Please enjoy – their site has goodies for knitters, crocheters, quilters, and cross stitch and embroidery.

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