An Old Blessing

 This is my Pepper.  She is one of two Shetland sheep that I purchased from Nancy Ellison's flock down by Zumbrota probably 12-13 years ago.  I started with her and a morrit ewe that I named Sassy and the two of them are/were the grand matriarchs of my flock of Shetlands.  I was not real inventive about names...Pepper because she was black and Sassy because she would stamp her foot at me whenever I got near her.
Sassy starting having some strange seizures a few years back and I would find her laying over on her side kicking or her fleece all full of dirt and dung and hay and I would know she had been on the ground thrashing around.  If I was there and got to her while it was going on I could settle her quickly and get her back on her feet and she would slowly come back to herself and return to normal.  A few months ago Sassy moved on to greener pastures with Our Good Shepherd.  I think Pepper feels a little lonesome for her and she knows that her time is probably getting short also.  The two of them used to be penned up with my big polypay sheep, "Polly"...see not real inventive but it helped me to remember what breed she was.  Anyway whenever those two little shetlands would find a hole in the fence and get out, Polly would sound the alarm as she was too big to fit through the same hole.  Pepper would walk through the garden like it was her own private salad bar... a bite of this, a nibble of that...let's even try the rhubarb!  I was really running for her then.
 Pepper is single coat and Sassy was a very long double-coated ewe.  Her fleece would be dragging by shearing time. 

I think I know how Pepper feels somedays when she sees all the new little lambs running all over the place..."kids"..."feed them sugar and let their moms take care of them!"  Pepper just stands there and watches them all be crazy with that quizzical look on her face. Such a sweet girl.  I hope that I get to be her shepherd for a while longer. God has blessed me with her and hopefully her with me.  May we all be a blessing to someone today.
Pam

Our Icelandic Ewes

This is our Muffin with one of her twin lambs.  Muffin is a mouflon Icelandic and don't quote me on this as I sometimes get confused between the Shetland sheep descriptions and the Icelandic sheep ones but I believe that the mouflon is the lighter (or secondary) color that runs under their belly to up under their chin and quite often up the backside of the sheep also... as you see in the lamb that is having some lunch...such a wonderful picture!  I take a lot of ...pardon my language....BUTT SHOTS.. when trying to take pictures of the flock as you can see in the rest of the picture as we see very little of anything else!  They are so funny.  So I am especially grateful to our vocal Muffin who stood nicely for this picture.

This is our Icelandic ewe Ophelia and I love this regal picture of her.  She looks like she could be royalty. She came from a polled mother and a polled father and her twin sister is also polled and yet her she is in all her glory with her beautiful horns.  Her two lambs rest near her in this picture, one is a ram and one is a ewe.  We keep the lambs and mothers in dry lot a good share of the time when they are so little due to coyotes and other predator animals as the babies are able to crawl through the hole pattern in the cattle panels but the hog panels work pretty well in keeping them corralled.
God blesses us so....

Lovely Icelandic Sheep for Sale

I cannot believe how much this bunch has grown in the last week and they are not the oldest ones. The feeder is not a problem for this long legged Icelandic ram.  He is such a "looker" and he is for sale along with a few others.  Much too pretty to be lamb chops!

This is my darling Pansy the youngest of the triplets.  Love the baby curls! She is going to be horned just like her mama.
Stay tuned for more cute lamb pictures in the next few days as we are looking for good homes for several ewes and their lambs. 

Our last Jersey cow...

It must be close to a year now that we sold our last Jersey cow and her bull calf.  We milked our almost-all Jersey herd for well over 30 years.  How we loved those girls and how they each had their own quirks.  That same old well-used barn which is leaning more and more every year now houses the sheep and their babies until we get some new shelter for them.  It may be an ark!  God continues to bless us with rain.  You all have a good weekend. I will be doing sheep "stuff"...on the hoof and off! 
Diamond D Shetlands & Icelandics

Some or our Girls!

I hear the weekend is going to be hot again so the moms will probably be hanging out here again.  It is just a simple shelter i put up with cattle panels and a tarp to give them shade when out in the barn yard.  From left to right we have Muffin, Ophelia, Shetland Morrit way in the back, three white icelandic mamas, Chocolate Chippy Shetland in the back and Opal (Icelandic in the front, as is Muffin).  They are all lovely and give me so many natural colors to do things with and the white girls give me beautiful fleeces to spin, dye and felt with.  I like them all so much and wish I could keep them all but our space is so limited that we will have to at least be selling some of the mamas and babies.

I am thinking that I will have to sell beautiful chocochippy and her little black beauty to someone that is looking for some wonderful fleece, a very nice sheep and her baby ewe.  She has the single coat.

I love the curls and color of these Icelandic babies.  We have a few ewes like this and several ram lambs with the same coloring.  They are seeming to be polled.
One more lamb was born yesterday and I think we have one more ewe to lamb.  The lambs are all so sweet and even the mothers seem more mellow, after all they have to set a good example....but you know how those baby lambs are! God's blessings to all of you....Pam

LOUET SPINNING WHEEL FOR SALE

I have this Louet spinning wheel for sale.  I believe that it is a 70 or a 75.  It comes with the three bobbins which are the two speed bobbins, the metal lazy kate the bobbins are sitting on which fits into the frame base and has the poly drive band. Single treadle as you can see (sorry about the shading-and-sun light difference in the picture).   A real nice production wheel.
Three more lambs last night and I am sure there will be more shortly.  God blesses us some more.  Thank you God. 

Icelandic Ewes

I always think it is funny how little lambs and little chicks need to try and sit on top of their moms.  Our Icelandic girls are some wonderful mothers.  The last time that we lambed two years ago I was at a show on the occasion that Iris lambed and Stephania was close by her with another baby so my guy thought that it went one mother and one baby as pairs and he was in a hurry to go somewhere so he took them and put the two moms and two babies in a separate pen and off he went.  When he got back there was the two moms and four babies.  My guy decided that Iris had delivered one and Stephania had delivered triplets.  That worked for us but Iris always wanted one of the other babies and was not happy feeding the one that she had so that little girl who has grown to be one of the other horned Icelandics in the picture above, had to wait for us to get in the pen and make Iris behave so she could nurse otherwise she suckled from the backside and took her chances with pee showers.  The little ewe lamb soon developed a yellow ring around her neck and upper shoulders!  Well this time Iris was separated and she was the one with the three babies and I am thinking that she probably had twins last time and Stephania only had twins also.  We don't know the answer to that one but it all worked and all the lambs grew fine.  Iris is a wonderful mother to her three triplets and Pansy came into the barn yesterday morning after grain was eaten and told me "we need hay!" in no uncertain terms so I reached down and loved her up.  We keep the babies in a pen close to the barn when so small that they can go through cattle panel fencing simply because of coyotes and dogs.  When they get a little bigger they will be heading out for grass with their moms.

This is a basket of flowers I have hanging by the back door and I was taking a picture of the hawk moth who was flying around sucking nectar out of the petunia-like florwers.  It is just a brown blur about half-way up in the middle of the picture.  They are very cool to watch, so much like hummingbirds. 
Have a good day...................

"KICK UP YOUR HEELS...IT'S SUMMER!"

It definitely was summer last weekend with highs in the nineties and some steaminess to match.  Thank goodness we had some breeze to go with it.  These cool cowboy rubber boots are at Deer Lake Orchard where we had a local Art Festival this past weekend and I could not resist taking a picture of them and wondering how they would be to walk in.  Perhaps next time I am there I will see if they have any my size!

My little helper was with and her she is with Mimi one of the cutest little residents on this farm.  She delighted everyone with her tiny little demeanor of friendliness and cuteness. Actually both of them did!

This is a picture of some of the plyed yarns that I had there for sale.  My next sale comes up in a few weeks so I keep busy getting things ready and we are still having lambs born at the farm...there was (3) new ones this morning and I think 6 more ewes to go.  God truly blesses us.

..."JUST A LITTLE OFF THE SIDES PLEASE"...

This little guy is also sporting a summer do!  A couple of the lambs had a fever for some reason which caused a wool break and most of their wool came off but it is once again growing nicely.  This little fella is a wily guy and runs fast.  He looks like he has a lion cut hair do.

I counted and we still have (8) girls to lamb yet and I am hoping that all will be okay in that heat that we are supposed to have tomorrow.

Our 2012 lambs!

This handsome guy is the son of BonBon, one of our lovely Shetland girls.  He is a lovely ram and growing nicely.

This is ChocolateChip (don't ask me how she got that name!  I have no idea) and her new little black ewe lamb.  I would love to sell the pair to someone looking to start a nice flock of Shetland sheep.

This is Iris, daughter of Violet who was daughter of Buttercup, cousin of Rosebud...notice the flower theme? So I had to think of three more names for her triplets...so welcome to Pansy, Daisy (who is sporting the cool summer do) and Marigold.  They are just a wonderful family and Iris is a wonderful mom.  Other little Icelandic babies just seem to like to hang out where this gang does.

We will be lambing for another week or two.  We choose to lamb late for the warmer weather. 

This weekend I am at a Art Festival and Farmers Market which celebrates fine, LOCAL Artisans and Growers and it is being held at Deer Lake Orchard at 1903 10th St. Sw, Buffal, Mn. 55313  It is from 10-6 on Saturday and 11-5 on Sunday.  They are planning on live music, nature walks through the orchard, visit with animals and babies and purchase wonderful local art and locally grown flowers, fruits and veggies and other local delicious food. There will be demos put on by some of the artists there, including me as I will have my spinning wheel along and my lovely wool items like handspun yarn for sale.  It is supposed to be a hot weekend but we should be in a cool old dairy barn and it should be great fun. If you have questions about the event please call 763-682-4284 or visit their website at http://www.deerlakeorchard.com/.