Breeding Season

Breeding season has officially started on our little farm and you could say we have sheep spread all over the state. This morning we separated our Natural Colored and White Romney ewes,and put a blanket back on Bitsy who seems to be a regular Houdini when it comes to wearing a blanket this year. Open class went home from State Fair and 4-H went in. Dolly and Eleanor went to a friends farm to be bred to different rams, later we will be taking some more ewes over to their place. We also brought home a new natural colored Romney ram named Alex who was introduced to the girls tonight. Bridget who is new to breeding season being a first timer, thought it was a game when he was chasing her around the field and bunny hopped away from him. We are starting to feel the change in the season now leaves are starting to change and the mornings are crisp and cloudy. Once state fair is over school will start and our preparations for OFFF will also begin.

Dolly getting shorn she was one of the public's favorites to look at.

Bridget's fleece in the ORBA wool show.

State Fair 2

Another day of showing in the heat. Guinevere is going to need major practice before OFFF ,we discovered today. Esther likes to climb on gates to open them and Eleanor thinks everyones her friend as usual. We didn't place high but this is hard competition and we are still developing our flock.

And what do we find when we get home? Escaped lambs running throught the drive way who had opened their gate and had to be herded back to their pen. Jr Show tommorow.

~Nicole~

State Fair

We have been so busy that it has been hard to find time to post,we have been fitting like crazy. We went up to the Oregon State Fair yesterday with some friends and had our first show today.

Today we showed two of our Natural Colored Dorsets in the Natural Colored wool show. We had fun, didn't place super high, but in the Romney fleece show our Natural Colored fleece took Champion in the Jr. Show and our dyed samples also got Champion. Tommorow we are showing the Romneys in Open and Saturday in the Jr. Romney show. Tommorow is also the first day the fair is open to the public to stop by.

Floss & Dolly

For More Pictures visit our facebook page:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Covered-Bridge-Farm/248314941855481

~Nicole~

August Green

On any typical year if you took a drive through our area in August you might notice the lack of green grass,many fields would be cut and baled and many fields would be looking rather dried up. On a typical year like that at our farm we would have dried up fields except for maybe the front paddocks if they had been receiving watering, which definitely doesn't happen regularly. We would be filling the barn with hay and feeders would be also full of hay for the ewes. This year though things seem to be a little different, the fields are looking rather green. Not just green but thick and lush with grass. This year we have had a unusual amount of rain all the way to the second week in July. It seems this green grass is our reward for enduring the endless mud and dreary rainy days that seemed to never end.

The Dorset ewes enjoying the neighbors very green and plentiful grass.

Canadian Geese enjoying grass seed in a field next door.

A couple other notes I'm not sure if any of you have tried to comment on our blog but I discovered today it wasn't set right but I've changed the setting so that you all can comment on it.

One other thing we are thinking about doing a small CSA next year, we have been reading other blogs and have decided it sounds like a wonderful idea. We will start small then depending on the response we get we will decide where to go from there. We are just testing this idea and are working on gathering ideas from others. if any of you have done a CSA or having ideas about what you might want to see we would love to hear about your experiences and ideas.

Queen Ann's Lace Dye

Over the past two days we have been working on dying some yarn.That may not seem to special, but how about I add that we were for the first time dying some yarn with natural dyes. Since we have lots of Queen Ann's Lace in our field, that's what we choose for our first natural dye. It was very much a science experiment because we had no idea how it was going to turn out.

Here is the very start of creating the dye bath.

The dye bath after being boiled.

The dye after being strained of the flowers.

We are finally to the dying part.

The final product, I think it turned out very nice.

Also this morning we had a rather exciting event involving two of our yearling ewes. Right now we have four yearlings in a different pen then the rest of the ewes because these four are going to state fair. Dolly, one of our NC Dorsets is a very big boss she also is very big and has horns. Eleanor, is a white Romney she is very new to the flock and so has been getting bossed by most of the ewes but mostly Dolly. I was finishing up feeding the lambs when i walked past the yearling pen and saw that Dolly had her horn stuck on one of Eleanor's blanket straps. this has happen once before only instead Dolly was stuck to Rachel who is gets really worried and didn't want us near her. But Eleanor is a big pet so i wasn't worried about catching her. But Dolly who is not very patient was trying to undo herself but managed to get her other horn around Eleanor's leg. We definitely have no need for any broken legs before fair or breeding season.

So I had to rush in and untangle this mess before anyone got hurt. Untangling them proved to be quite the puzzle but I managed to get it done without either of them trying to run off in the process

We just have to keep an eye on Eleanor to make sure she isn't limping but so far she seems perfectly fine. Now if only Dolly would stop being such a boss and then we wouldn't have these sort of problems.

~Nicole~

Fall Is Coming

This year we have had the strangest weather from rain in July, real summer weather ,and this morning it feels a little like October. The Oregon State fair is just around the corner which means more fitting but also just around the corner is breeding season. In preparation we had our Dorset's and Cross breeds shorn and our Romney's Tagged ( bottoms, heads, and bellies shorn). Tagging helps the ewes keep cooler while still producing gorgeous fleeces tagging also makes the fitting job a little smoother.
Also I didn't manage to put an update up on county fair but we had a good time and did well.
Also this morning we just picked up three boxes of yarn from the spinnery. We have White Romney lamb yarn which we will dye a variety of colors, a gray Romney yarn which will be over dyed, and a gorgeous natural colored Romney yarn mixed with brown lama. The Brown yarn is personally my favorite it is very soft and could easily be worn against the skin without much irritation I personally want to make a sweater out of it. It will be posted soon along with the other colors as they are dyed so got check out our Etsy shop :
http://www.etsy.com/shop/CoveredBridgeFiber?ref=pr_shop

Our new Yarn

Afternoon nap

Lamb & Wool Fair

Today was the second day of our towns annual Lamb & Wool Fair. We had a booth set up selling our yarn, roving,fleeces and my sheep ornaments. A big Thanks to all of you who came and saw us. Tomorrow is the last day and we will be spending it showing my sheep at the Lamb Show. Hope to see some of you there!!

Halter Lessons

Today I began to halter train some of our lambs. Since show season will be here before we know it I began training. Right now we have a total of 13 lambs that are old enough to begin halter lessons. I started out with 5 lambs I was able to catch. Today was really just an introduction. Each lamb was tied to the fence for 15 minutes. Bitsy's baby, Tinkerbell, found it horrid and was determined to get away. it didn't really help that Bitsy came into the barn calling for her and since Tinkerbell was tied up in the creep feed Bitsy was unable to reach her. Once I put some hay though in the feeder Bitsy was content to wait for he baby's lesson to be over while she munched on some hay. Ruth, Esther, Branch, and Carlos didn't get to upset over the lesson though they weren't happy about the whole thing. Hopefully tonight I will be able to catch the other lambs so they can start learning.



Esther and Ruth waiting for me to take their halters off.


Tinkerbell at the end of 15 minutes when she
had finally calmed down.


Branch and Carlos don't seem to
happy with me.

~Nicole~

Snowy Shearing

It is very cold and we have been having snow fluries all day. The snow isn't sticking very much but it was sticking a little. But four of our ewes aren't to impressed with the weather because they got sheared. These four ewes are going to lamb first so they are a little cold ,but there fleeces were beautiful! They will get to stay in the barn for a week so they can adjust to the weather. We will shear the rest of our ewes more towards January.

"We want our coats back!!"

Their beautiful fleeces!

~Nicole~

Fall Fun

Our sheep grazing in the field, in the center looking at you is our handsome boy Roosevelt .

The rain returned this morning after our break in the the weather. But there was a short break without rain this morning so I took the camera out to get some shots of the sheep. Our breeding season has come to a close. All our ewes have been marked and we are excitedly waiting for the first lambs to be born which we believe will be in the middle of December.

We are currently working on dying some yarn.

Check out our etsy shop at:

www.etsy.com/shop/coveredbridgefiber






Oscar hoping I will bring him some treats.



Dolly enjoying her breakfast.

~Nicole~

Growing Up

We received Woolbur and Emma when they were just a few days old. Woolbur's mother had rejected him. She had another twin and didn't want anything to do with him. In her effort to boot him out of the lambing jug, she broke one of the panels, and so, was finally successful in attaining her goal. She was rid of him. Woolbur went to the bummer pen where Emma already was and he quickly bonded to her. I don't know what Emma's story was, but Woolbur's, while sad, does occaisionally happen. A ewe accepts one lamb and rejects the other. A bummer lamb is a lamb that has been orphaned for whatever reason and must be reared artifically without mom.

Nicole had successfully raised a bummer lamb two years ago and she had been moping around, wishing she had another. So when we received the call that the farmer had two bummers, it was with much delight and enthusiasm that we went to pick them up. Now it is three months later. Emma is a whopping 86 lbs. and Woolbur is a respectable 74 lbs. It is time to wean them off the bottle. Emma has the potential to be a show lamb. She must stay in the barn so she doesn't become bedraggled by the abundant rain we've been having. Woolbur went out with another lamb we have to a little paddock next to the barn. He DID NOT like being seperated from Emma and was very vocal about it. Now, a few days later, we've taken the bottle away. He is not impressed by this change either. Growing up can be so hard to do!

Woolbur & Cookie in their paddock, looking rather bedraggled. It has been raining...again!

Emma in the barn...waiting. She's wondering if I've relented and brought her a bottle.