Leo getting some love from Kathleen
Our yearling ram, Maybelle Zorro Hello from Maybelle Farm. We have had a busy fall at the farm trying to get things taken care of before winter. The foliage was beautiful and lasted longer than usual, which meant we were able to have the sheep out on pasture until just a few weeks ago. Darcy, Todd, Rowan, and Declan have done so much work on the pastures, fencing, and in the barn.
One sad thing to share is that back in August we had to have the Vet come to put down sweet Leo. He was a bottle baby that came with the Border Leicester sheep we got from Putney in 2013. He was a silly sheep who was more like a large pet dog that had no idea he was the size of a small cow! Rest In Peace sweet old Leo.
We also have had three different Vets here to treat Charlotte - one of our Shetland ewes that has a mystery injury that we are working on fixing. We first noticed she was having a problem after shearing back in June. She seemed to be having trouble keeping up with the flock. All the Vets agree it’s a spinal injury that will take months to, hopefully, heal. One of the Vets even did some acupuncture treatments for her. We are continuing to give her medicine and she has had some small improvement. It is definitely a "wait and see" situation. She is very sweet and despite her injury is in good health and enjoys her daily animal crackers!
Declan has helped me get the Fiber Studio cleaned up and items on the shelves. We have had the fiber studio open weekends this fall and early winter which has gone well. People have been very good about wearing masks and being safe so that I can keep our studio open. I have been able to sell quite a few things from my fiber studio and that helps. I am making colored acorns, little bearded acorn men, knitting hats, and headed into making lots of Christmas items.
I also picked up my beautiful Shetland lamb’s wool yarn that was spun at Green Mountain Spinnery, in Putney, VT. We now have this to add to our Shetland/Merino yarn, Shetland/Angora yarn, Shetland yarn, and Border-Leicester yarn. We also have socks, mittens, roving, dyed wool, etc. for sale in the studio and some listed on our Farm Store on our website.
This fall we were able to sell our older moorit Shetland ram Everett to a farm in Windham. We can no longer use him for breeding and are happy he could go to a new flock where he can be used. We also sold Fritz and Franklin, our twin Border-Leicester/Shetland wethers, to go with Everett. Now life is pretty quiet on the farm with just one ram, Zorro, who is getting used to being the boss now! It will make things much more manageable this winter.
Lastly - we decided, after taking a break this year, that we needed to have some more lambs in the spring. This past weekend we put four of our Shetland ewes, Kacy, Keri-Jane, Katy-Did, and Enid, in with our Shetland ram Zorro. All of the ewes were twins, so we stand a good chance of all of them having twins. We love that Shetlands "come" in eleven different colors with many patterns - and the added surprise of what the lambs will look like! We should lamb towards the end of April 2021.
We will be having a quiet "socially distant" Thanksgiving this year and will not be getting together. We all decided it was the best way to take care of all of us and help us get through these uncertain times. We are grateful for living in the country on our farm where we can "escape" to the barn and the worries of the world.
Happy Thanksgiving from Maybelle MaMa and the rest of the flock.
One sad thing to share is that back in August we had to have the Vet come to put down sweet Leo. He was a bottle baby that came with the Border Leicester sheep we got from Putney in 2013. He was a silly sheep who was more like a large pet dog that had no idea he was the size of a small cow! Rest In Peace sweet old Leo.
We also have had three different Vets here to treat Charlotte - one of our Shetland ewes that has a mystery injury that we are working on fixing. We first noticed she was having a problem after shearing back in June. She seemed to be having trouble keeping up with the flock. All the Vets agree it’s a spinal injury that will take months to, hopefully, heal. One of the Vets even did some acupuncture treatments for her. We are continuing to give her medicine and she has had some small improvement. It is definitely a "wait and see" situation. She is very sweet and despite her injury is in good health and enjoys her daily animal crackers!
Declan has helped me get the Fiber Studio cleaned up and items on the shelves. We have had the fiber studio open weekends this fall and early winter which has gone well. People have been very good about wearing masks and being safe so that I can keep our studio open. I have been able to sell quite a few things from my fiber studio and that helps. I am making colored acorns, little bearded acorn men, knitting hats, and headed into making lots of Christmas items.
I also picked up my beautiful Shetland lamb’s wool yarn that was spun at Green Mountain Spinnery, in Putney, VT. We now have this to add to our Shetland/Merino yarn, Shetland/Angora yarn, Shetland yarn, and Border-Leicester yarn. We also have socks, mittens, roving, dyed wool, etc. for sale in the studio and some listed on our Farm Store on our website.
This fall we were able to sell our older moorit Shetland ram Everett to a farm in Windham. We can no longer use him for breeding and are happy he could go to a new flock where he can be used. We also sold Fritz and Franklin, our twin Border-Leicester/Shetland wethers, to go with Everett. Now life is pretty quiet on the farm with just one ram, Zorro, who is getting used to being the boss now! It will make things much more manageable this winter.
Lastly - we decided, after taking a break this year, that we needed to have some more lambs in the spring. This past weekend we put four of our Shetland ewes, Kacy, Keri-Jane, Katy-Did, and Enid, in with our Shetland ram Zorro. All of the ewes were twins, so we stand a good chance of all of them having twins. We love that Shetlands "come" in eleven different colors with many patterns - and the added surprise of what the lambs will look like! We should lamb towards the end of April 2021.
We will be having a quiet "socially distant" Thanksgiving this year and will not be getting together. We all decided it was the best way to take care of all of us and help us get through these uncertain times. We are grateful for living in the country on our farm where we can "escape" to the barn and the worries of the world.
Happy Thanksgiving from Maybelle MaMa and the rest of the flock.
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