Saturday, April 6, 2013

Getting The Sheds Built and A Day With Wool!

Hello sweet ladies.......I have missed posting. Life has just been so full with so many things going on. We are winding down at the college and I can hardly wait until it is behind me. I am so ready for farming.......gardening.......sewing......staying home.......and posting more about Prairie Flower Farm and what is happening around here. I have so many things that I want to do this summer!


This morning I had apple pie for breakfast, what a way to start the day don't you think? My Tay made it for the family. It was delicious. We always use this recipe for our pies. Very very easy to make. I pinned to my Pinterest Pies, called Perfect Pie Crust (photo)


Today was going to be a busy day......thunderstorms are in the forecast starting Sunday night and every day until this next Wednesday. That meant with Sweet Magnolia having her baby soon and Willow already having her babies, we needed some more little sheds in the sheep pen. I wanted them to all be under cover because of the lightening that could be happening each day. 

Vitaliy was with and he was ready to start building. We have a lot of what I call hog panels and some plywood, so we could make two sheds real fast. 


A farm girls best friend!!!!!! Zip/ties.......they are one of my favorite things to use on our farm!!!!!!!


Another favorite is a drill!!!!!!


Ties are great for tying the fence to the plywood. We went through a bunch of them today! Speeds our work up!


We also like to use lots of baling twine. LOTS!!!!! It was neat today.......we were tying the twine and there was a feather hooked on. Not sure how it got there, but I love things like this.......just "simple"!


We made two of these. I am so thankful that we took the time to do this today. 


Later in the day we had to take the girls and babies over to get them sheared. Not the babies though. They went so they wouldn't get stressed. Getting the Mommas in the trailer was not easy. It took us a good halfhour. We were run around the pen quite a few times! 


We got over to the our friends farm around two. When we drove up this is what we saw. The sheep shearer brings his own little wooden trailer. It is really neat on the inside. I kind of stayed out of the way, but I did get a few pictures of the way he does things. This is the lead Ewe. With her being at the head of the shoot, the others will fall in line. She won't be here for long.


The whole family works together. The kids make it look so fun!


The children help by pushing the wool down into the wool burlap bag. Notice the steel ladder on the right hand side of the bag? Everything is so neat! 

I was able to buy 5 extra wool burlap bags. I can't wait to find things to use them for! 


It was time for Willow. It took two to hold on to her. Sweet man on the right. 


Willow had to sit on her backside! That is what the shearer has to do so they won't move. 


Then it was Olivia's turn. My sweet man was stroking her face to calm her down.

You can see what it looks like when the wool is sheared off.


Sweet Magnolia was not "goin' in there"! Do you see her front legs all stiff? She is one heavy girl and with baby or babies inside she is weighed a ton. Vitaliy and sweet man had their hands full!


Sweet Maggie is somewhere in that wool!
We loaded them back up and on the way back home we went.


The one good thing about the girls getting sheared was we could for sure see Sweet Maggies udder. She is ready and I bet this storm that is coming will help her go into labor. She is so pregnant!!!!!!



I kept my wool.........I can hardly wait to learn what to spin it......that will be down the road! My dream. I had to pay for getting them sheared. $4.00 a piece. I could not believe that it was that cheap. It was so interesting watching the process. V really liked watching everything also. I was glad the weather was nice, it would have been miserable had it not. 

I hope you enjoyed the day we had. I love having sheep, they have added so much to Prairie Flower Farm!

Hugs and God bless,

Linda



























11 comments:

  1. Linda, the pictures are wonderful. I always feel like I'm right there with you. Thank you for sharing your day.
    Hugs,
    Regina

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    1. It was so fun Regina. I loved the day! It was so nice and warm and everything was so interesting. You are so welcome! Hugs to your day! me

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  2. i will bet once you start spinning, you will be hooked!!! just like we knitters who knit w/o spinning...you will undoubtedly learn to knit sometime in the near future too!! i really enjoyed your pics of the sheep shearing event! what a turn your farmlife has taken with adding sheep!! i love it! i follow several sheep farm blogs! always interesting!! back to my prayer shawl...
    ^)^ linda

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    1. Hi Linda, I can't wait. I already know how to knit, my time is limited with being outside the home everyday. I love it though. My momma taught me when I was young. She used to make beautiful sweaters with animals on the back side.

      I watched a video on cleaning the wool. Looks easy. I thought it would be really hard. Can't wait to try it, but will wait until we are done at the college.

      Hugs to you sweet friend, me

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  3. Those sweet mamas must have been really stressed, glad it doesn't take long! More babies, oh boy!
    Have a good week at the school Linda!
    Hugs and blessings
    CJ

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  4. WOW!!! $4.00 each is all he charged??? That is unbelievable. Sounds as though you are a bust lady.

    Apple pie for breakfast sounds yummy to me.

    BLESSINGS!!!

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  5. I am overwhelmed for you about what to do with all that wool... clean it and all that work to prep it? WOW! You go girl. Guess I will be seeing some PINS on pinterest for that stuff from you! haha.

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  6. Oh...Those cute little lambies...They're going to catch cold!
    Thanks for sharing this delightful post!
    Have a wonderful week,
    Blessings,
    Carolynn xoxo

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  7. Cheaper then humans getting their own hair done. I am surprised it doesnt over stress a pregnant sheep to sheared like that. Cant wait to see her sweet babies. Or baby.

    God bless

    ERIKA

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  8. Wow! Only $4?! I'd like to meet that nice farmer. I'm sure having all that beautiful wool off feels so good to the sheep. I like your idea of using the plastic ties. I must remember that for my next project that needs putting together. Loved the post...it must have been a fun day! Have a great week, Linda. - jean

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  9. We are expecting thunderstorms today here as well. I enjoy reading about your days.

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