Erin came over today to help Paige and I work the flock. It’s been about six weeks since we last wormed everyone and we also needed to vaccinate for CD&T and delouse the goats. Since we’re only a few days away from the nannies kidding and about a month from lambing, it was a good time to check the ladies to see how their pregnancies were progressing.

The nannies are so wide! Judging from the size of their udders, I’m betting that Hannah will kid first, followed by Mrs. Doubfire and, finally, Nanny McPhee.

When they aren’t bred, the udders on ewes and nanny goats almost disappears, becoming completely flat, and their teats shrink down as well. Although she’s laying on her side, you can see that this nanny definitely has milk coming in.

The end of each teat is plugged with a waxy substance that prevent bacteria and gunk from getting into the udder. When the kid is born, we will make sure that the plug is stripped out so that the babies can nurse.

The ewes are all showing signs of bagging up as well. They aren’t nearly as far along as the nannies, and with good reason; they shouldn’t start lambing until April 15th.

All the ewes have loads of glorious fleece! On March 19th, Emily, our A-MAZ-ING shearer, is coming on March 19th to begin the shearing process. We have way too many animals to shear in one day without rushing and risking excess nicks and cuts. We’ll shear about half the flock in March the rest at our Shearing Day Celebration on April 24th.

The bad news from today is that there is a possibility that Miss Linda might be bred. We thought we had kept her well segregated from the buck but it looks like she may have gotten caught anyway. Of course, there is a chance that she’s experiencing false pregnancy- Linda lives to have babies, and she has produced a set of twins every year of her life since she was a year old. (We think she’s around 15-years-old.) I am hoping very hard that she isn’t bred, because Linda is just too old to feed one baby, let alone two.  If she is pregnant, we will bottle feed her kids from day one but leave them in with Linda to mother. But keep your fingers crossed that she’s not, please.

I have been so busy dyeing yarn for the retail shop that I haven’t had any time to take new pics of the flock this week, so I’m posting some of my favorites from the last year or two. Some of these you’ve seen before but some are new to the blog. Enjoy!

Things were so nutso-bananas last week that I feel like some things may have slipped through the cracks. Just to be sure no one misses out I’m going to recap a bit.

Apropos of nothing. I just love this picture.

-Last week, I asked y’all what you thought about diverting some of the money we had been raising for the Heifer International to a Haitian Earthquake fund like the Red Cross. Although most of you agreed, Susan in Katonah pointed out that Heifer has it’s own Haiti relief fund. I think it’s a fantastic suggestion! We get to support Haiti and Heifer at the same time. I hope y’all agree.

-I am extending the deadline on our Finished Objects Photography Contest after hearing from some of you that have a special project very nearly finished.

Send us your pics of the coolest/prettiest/most lovely sweater/scarf/socks/whatever that you knitted up with Juniper Moon Farm yarn. We’ll chose a pool of finalist for all the blog readers to vote on and the winner will receive a $50 Juniper Moon Farm Gift Certificate.

The fine print: At least 75% of your project must be Juniper Moon Farm to qualify for entry. By sending us your photo you’re giving Juniper Moon Farm permission to publish your photo on our website. Send your photos to susie AT fiberfarm DOT com. PLEASE put “photo contest” in the subject line of your email. If you used a published pattern you MUST include the name of the pattern in the email so that we can credit the designer; if it’s an original pattern, indicate so. If you remember the name of the color and which yarn you used please include that info in your email as well. Also include the name you would like to be used with your photo on the site. You may enter as many FOs as you like but please include all the info above for each photo. All photos must be received by February 15th, 2010. Spinners, you will not be left out! Send us pics of your finest JMF handspun. We’ll have a separate category just for you.

-Big Shepherding Camp/Farm Stay news! After much conversation and planning, Paige and I have decided to convert Erin’s former room into another guest room for Shepherding Camp and Farm Stays. We are really excited because a second room will allow us to host families with children and larger groups. We will be taking more reservations this year than in the past, and offering weekends that focus on yoga, cooking, cheese making, photography and more. We’re lining up the instructors now and will publish a schedule ASAP.

If you prefer a more private weekend, we can arrange for private spinning, dyeing and knitting classes, as well as private yoga instruction and massage for an additional fee.

Reservations for Kidding and Lambing Season- March through May- are filling up fast. For more info, email paige AT fiberfarm DOT com.

-The 2010 Shearing Day Celebration will be April 24th. Mark your calendars and make your reservations.

- We still need YOUR suggestion for names for our 2010 kids and lambs. Please leave your entry in the comments on that thread so we can keep them all organized.

-I was a little bummed that this blog post about eating meat got lost in the shuffle last week. I was really enjoying hearing your thoughts and I’d love to hear from more of you.

-Finally, Juniper Moon Farm will be taking on one, possibly two spring/summer apprentices this year. These are unpaid positions but room and board will be provided. To apply, email me at susie AT fiberfarm DOT com with a resume and cover letter explaining why you’d like to live and work at Juniper Moon for a few months. We are especially looking for individuals with production garden experience but will carefully consider all applicants.

The thing about January and February on the farm is that there is never much to report. Our routine becomes much more, well, routine at this time of year. Farm chores in the morning, a quick change out of filthy farm clothes followed by office work, throw something together for lunch, back to answering emails and OH LOOK! it’s time to change back into farm clothes for evening chores. It could be monotonous if it weren’t for the animals and their personalities.

Don’t misunderstand me- I welcome the slower pace that comes in winter. Soon enough we will be kidding and lambing,the farmers markets will start up again, summer visitors will arrive and our lives will once again be just this side of chaos.

Speaking of lambing and kidding, it’s time for y’all to start thinking about naming conventions for this year’s lamb and kid crop. Long-time readers know that we chose a naming convention every year for the new babies. There are a few good reasons for this but my favorite one is that it’s a lot of of fun. Last year we named the baby goats after fonts and the lamberoo after states.

We will be taking naming convention nominations on this post. Because I’m feeling lazy, I’m going to copy and paste what I wrote last year about what kinds of names we are looking for. Here’s what you need to know: The category needs to be something with lots of naming possibilities. Candy was great cause there are umpteen jillion kinds. Think broad. Characters from fiction? Good. Characters from Dickens? Fine.  Characters from Salinger novels? Not so much.

We have already used Candy, Herbs and Spices, Presidents, Nannies from movies and fiction, States, Fonts and Islands. I am actually still a little bit in love with state names and could easily be talked into continuing on with that convention until we get them all. Last year’s lamb crop was pretty paltry and we only got as far as Delaware.

Come up with a convention for the lambs and one for the kids. Remember, we only have three bred nanny goats this year, so I’m expecting five kids, maybe six. We have LOADS of bred ewes so the convention we chose for lambs has to give us lots of options. Most of our ewes should twin and one might even triplet!

We will winnow the list down in a couple of weeks and have y’all vote. Put your thinking caps on! The first one to suggest the conventions we go with gets to name the first lamb or kid in that category.

I keep forgetting to tell you that I dropped my camera on New Year’s Day. It already needed to go into the shop but after the fall it was really, really broken. It’s fixable but it takes forever to get it to and from Nikon so I was really bummed. After struggling with it for days I finally gave in and ordered a new camera.

The timing was horrible- January is always our slowest month for sales- but I just couldn’t be without a camera for the next six weeks. I bought another Nikon that works with my lens so it wasn’t insanely expensive. But I still hated having to buy it.

Until I used today and completely fell in love with it.

I really enjoyed taking pictures today and feel like I’ve broken out of my creative rut.

A couple of quick housekeeping things. Erin has put up a Follow the Fleece for our Fall 2009 Shareholders. Wondering when you will receive your yarn? Click here to watch the progress.

For those of you coming to our Fort Worth Stock Show Meet-ups January 21st-24th, I’ll be posting a bunch of here in the next couple of days with our schedule, locations, etc. I’ve gotten some emails from North Texas readers wondering if they can join us and the answer is a huge YES!

This morning, Erin, Paige and I got up early to drive to Manassas VA to meet a stud.

His name is Aldo. Isn’t he cute?

We had planned to purchase a new ram for the farm this year, but a couple of unexpected expenses recently came up, so we decided to make due with renting one for now.  Aldo is  a great looking Cormo ram with good track record. He is also going to bring a new genetic line to our flock, which is very exciting. We were really lucky to find him.

Well be putting Aldo in with the ewes and yearlings tomorrw and we’ll keep him until January 10th or so, to give all the ewes time to cycle three times. That way we are pretty sure that all of the ladies will be bred and we’ll have plenty of lamberoos on the ground in the spring. Our window for lambing will be April 15, 2009 through June 9th, but will most likely focus around May.

We will be doing special Shepherding Camp long weekends during lambing season- more on this tomorrow, including a really cool giveaway.

Beats me.

We were expecting at least six more lambs this summer but the ewes are being totally uncooperative. I feel like I’ve spent months circling around the flock while they are eating, checking out hoo-has and udders and teats.

Oh sure, some of them bagged up a little a few weeks ago, but since then, nothing. Not one thing to indicate that they are anywhere close to lambing.

Which leads me to believe maybe they weren’t bred at all. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. We intended to lamb from May to June or July but the ewes obviously didn’t get bred during the first go round with Lincoln or with FDR, our backup ram. Daisy, Amelia and Sicily were all bred by wee Truman, and we hoped that he had bred the rest of the ladies as well.

Last week, I saw Andy Rice at the Fair. Andy’s a shearer and a shepherd and he’s seen just about everything. When I asked him about my lambing situation he said, “Well, they’re either bred or they aren’t. You’ll know they are if you start having lambs.” In other words, there’s no point in worrying about it either way.

Personally, I think we are done for the year. We’ll put Truman back in with the ewes some time in October and try again for late winter//early spring. And if any lambs come along between now and then it will be a bonus.

Still no lambs- more on this tomorrow- but our flock did increase by one over the weekend. My friend Glen brought a tiny little peanut of a lamb to the Fair and I talked him into giving her to me instead of sending her off to…well…to some place not very nice.

She is a triplet and was rejected by her mama. My friend Glen doesn’t believe in bottle-feeding lambs; on his farm, only the tough survive. And this little girl managed to survive by eating hay almost from the minute she was born. She’s an Icelandic cross, and very undersized, but she has a heart as big as Dallas. I love her already.

Erin gets the honor of naming her; I got her for the handspinner’s flock Erin wants to build. She’s still a little camera shy but she’s eating like a champ and starting to integrate into the flock. You’ll be seeing lots more of her in the coming days.

P.S. I took these photos with my new iPhone WHICH IS THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD.

First of all, thank you all so very much for your kind words about Agnes. It was a terrible loss and I know that many of our long-time readers shared in our grief over losing her. For those of you who’ve asked, Arno is doing very well. As the oldest kid he was nearly ready for weaning anyway and he will continue to thrive under our careful watch.

There is never a good time to lose an animal. Never. But I was so grateful for the distraction of Dakota and Delaware this week. It is hard not to be hopeful when there are newborn lambs around. Here are some of the highlights of the week.

Keeping up with Mama isn’t easy.

There was a good bit of leaping going on.

Which is exhausting for such little lambs.

There was also a whole lot of snorgling to do.

On another note, we have received the first batch of Unique Sheep Yarn from Laura and Kelly and will begin shipping it out in order of order date tomorrow. Thanks to everyone for being so patient. This is a brand new project for both us and the Unique Sheep and we are still working out some of the kinks.

Linda already mentioned our brand-spanking new gardening blog but I want to make sure you don’t miss it. All garden related posts will now be found on their very own blog, found by clicking the link in the menu bar above. Be sure to check back regularly for more great gardening post from Linda.

Erin giving Salina a little extra grain.

Dakota and Delaware

My lovely friend Jane came by to hold a lambarina.

Jane and Delaware got on famously.

It’s difficult to get a picture of Daisy in which she is not screaming for food.

See what I mean.

Colorado got in some sproinging practice.

The ladies in waiting.

Sleepy lamby.

Before I introduce you to the newest members of the flock, I have to thank the fates for sending me Lorna. Lorna arrived today to spend a week at Shepherding Camp and- praise the Lord!-  she brought her camera.

Long story short: my camera took an unexpected vacation to Canada with two lovely women who took my Hand-Dyeing Workshop. They accidentally left their much nicer camera at my house. It was sort of like a foreign exchange program for Nikon D-series SLRs. My camera is back in the states and waiting at the post office to be picked up. So, please take a moment to thank Virgin America and the Steamship Authority for bringing Lorna and her camera to us this afternoon.

This is Dakota. She was born first and is kind of yolky in this picture.

Delaware is a bit smaller.

Both babies are healthy and good eaters.

Many, many more pics tomorrow when my camera returns. In the meantime, I am so glad the Lorna, and her camera, are here.