Six Days and 21 BFL Lambs!

I KNOW!!! Whew...lambing is over! Now I can regroup and take a breather. It all started Wednesday (Feb. 17th) morning at the 5:00 a.m. barn check before I went to work, triplets. Thursday, two sets of twins, unfortunately one lamb was stillborn :-(. Friday ended with triplets. Saturday was the only day of no new lambs, but that was the calm before Sunday's storm. Four ewes lambed: a single, twins, triplets and quads. I KNOW! Quads! Totally unexpected. We knew she would at least twin, but quads? I don't know where she hid them all this time. It was like someone slapped me upside the head. I was blindsided! Then this morning, oh, this morning...!

One ewe left to lamb. Walking down to the barn at 5:00 a.m. this morning we heard the last ewe bleating/bellowing. I knew she was lambing (of course she had to wait until the snow storm was in full force) and expected to see at least twins in the lambing stall. We get to her stall and see one ewe lamb almost completely cleaned off. Few minutes later the ewe passed all the afterbirth. I couldn't believe one lamb was it; she was so big. She did seem a bit anxious, but was concentrating quite a bit on the one ewe lamb so we went about our business feeding, cleaning stalls, etc. After about 1 hour and 45 minutes in the barn, we gathered up our stuff to head back into the house. I heard a lamb bleating quite a bit. I heard it occasionally while doing chores but figured it was one of the 20 lambs. But as we were leaving the barn the bleat seemed a bit frantic and coming from a corner of the barn that was used for the horses. Sure enough I peered in the cold, dark stall and saw the little erect head of a lamb and heard him bleatin' like crazy. Turns out that she did twin. This little guy must have been born first, squeezed through the gate, wandered over to the barn aisle, crossed the aisle, meandered through hay bales, pieces of wood, a dismantled cattle shoot to reach the dark corner where he sat. AND he had to be there for two to two and a half hours.

Once we got him back to his mom it took him a while to settle down. She was very glad to see him and now it makes sense why she was so unsettled. More excitement than I'm used to in the morning. I took the day off of work and am going to try to take a long nap and bake some bread!

But first, the numbers: 16 ewe lambs (10 white, 6 natural color) and 5 ram lambs(4 white, 1 natural color). A few 7 pounders but the rest were between 8 and 12 pounds. All doing very well!

Here's the line up:

Ewe: Bonnara - triplets born 2/17/10 (2 ewes, 1 ram)

Ewe: Magpie - twins born 2/18/10 (2 ewes)

Ewe: Edwina - twins born 2/18/10 (1 ewe, 1 nc ram - stillborn)

Ewe: Mereion - triplets born 2/19/10 (2 ewes, 1 ram)

Ewe: Lorna - single born 2/21/10 (ewe)

Ewe: Tia - twins born 2/21/10 (2 ewes)

Ewe: Annadale - quads born 2/21/10 (3 ewes, 1 ram)

Ewe: Shonah - triplets born 2/21/10 (2 ewes, 1 ram)

Ewe: Gretta - twins born 2/22/10 (1 ewe, 1 ram)

A Few More BFLs

Shonah delivered twin ram lambs on March 20 (11 and 12 pounds). They're doing great! To date that makes six ewes that lambed. Two more ewes (Gretta and Edwina) are due after April 9. At least we have a chance to regroup (ah....well maybe...taxes :-(, a few bottle feeders, and everything else that was put off). Anyway, a few pics...

Shamus and Shotzi - twin ram lambs - ewe: Shonah

Apollo trying to get a better look

Lazy days, soakin' up the sun

Lacey in the sun

Act 1: Add Color

Now that the dye baths are done and the mordanting is done, it's time for color. In addition to the dye book (containing samples from 10 different natural dye materials) I have to spin and dye enough yarn for a small individual project.

I filled four bobbins with Bluefaced Leicester wool from my sheep for my individual project. I think I'm going to attempt (FOR THE 5TH TIME) a pair of socks. I know, I'm sort of embarrassed to admit that I never made it through a pair of socks. But by the mere fact that I'm committing here will get me through to completion.

So, the four bobbins produced two 8 oz skeins of two ply, sport weight yarn (14 wpi). One 344 yard skein went in the marigold dye pot because I had enough dye for a skein that size. At first I wasn't crazy about the color, but I let it simmer in the pot for a good couple of hours. After I took the pot off the heat, I let it cool in the dye bath all night. The color seemed to solidify and came out a much richer shade. I like it.
I was amazed, though, at the amount of dye that kept bleeding out of the yarn during the rinse baths. I must have rinsed the marigold skein about 10 times. Yet, it didn't take away from the yarn's shade...didn't lighten it up. I thought with so many rinses that it would.
And then there was walnut. The second 8 oz skein made the walnut dye bath. I didn't get a chance to pick up walnuts in the fall so I ordered some walnut crystals. Because alum was used as a mordant, the walnut came out a lighter shade than it would have with no mordant. I like the fact that you don't need a mordant with walnut.

For my project I was thinking of the marigold and a much darker walnut, but since it didn't come out as dark as I thought I'll have to rethink my project. I'm on some tight deadlines here too so to spin and dye more to produce the exact color I want is not an option. So I'll work with what I have.
And now the sampling starts. I have ten groups of sample skeins. Each group has samples with different mordants. I'll spend this week stirring the dye pots of dahlias, cosmos, eucalyptus, logwood, osage orange, madder, and cochineal (bugs).

Stay tuned!

Sheep Cookies Win!

The department taste tested the cookies and voted. They liked the sheep cookies best! Yippee!

How could anyone not like the BFLs? Presentation counted too and everyone liked the frosting wool. There was white sheep, black sheep, and a light brown sheep. Although Bluefaced Leicesters are not light brown one ended up on the platter. I think it was a frosting fluke. All the other cookies and treats were excellent. I think they were all winners :-)!