Shearing Day was absolutely lovely and a good time was had by all! The weather seemed custom made for our outdoors-all-day party. Blue skies and sunshine with just the hint of a nip in the air.  Yarn was knitted, fiber was spun, food was eaten and most importantly, sheep and goats were shorn.

These pictures capture the moments that words will never be able to. Enjoy!

Hannah’s horns grow towards her head, so every few years we have to trim them, It doesn’t hurt her at all and keeps her horns from growing into her head.

 We also sheared the colored Border Leicesters because their fleece was already nearly six inches long.

 We had forgotten how black their fleeces were underneath the sun fading.

 As always, shearing day photos by my sweetie, Joel Eagle. I was way to busy to take pics.

I am heading out the door for lovely Asheville, North Carolina for a trunk show at Purl’s Yarn Emporium tonight. The party is from 6-8 p.m. and it will be a great time. If you’re already heading to Asheville for SAFF, come by and see me.

Tomorrow (Friday), I’ll be in Charlotte, NC at The Fibre Studio. Trunk show starts bright and early at 10 a.m.!

I am just crazy about North Carolina in general and I’ve heard great things about both of these shops. Hope to see you there.

After the show on Friday, I will hightail it back to the farm to help with the preparations for our Fall Shearing Celebration! Caroline and Zac (and Zac’s Dad) are already hard at work, as always.

Saturday we’ll be here at the farm for our Fall Shearing Celebration. A good time will be had by all.

On Sunday, October 23, Caroline and Zac will be representing Juniper Moon Farm at Shenandoah Valley Agritourism Festival, in Waynesboro , VA. Some rock stars of the Agriculture world will be there and so should you.

On Monday night, I’ll be at The Yarn Company in NYC for a trunk show from 5-8 p.m.

On Tuesday, 10/25, I’ll be at Down Cellar Yarn Shop in Basking Ridge, NJ.

Then it’s off to New England and the Midwest but I’ll write more about this later.

We are getting very excited about our Fall Shearing Celebration Party next Saturday. Very excited indeed. The farm is buzzing with preparations. So far we have tidied the barn, spiffed up the landscaping and harvested honey from our bee hives. Next week will be a whirlwind of errands, list making and cooking. Fall Shearing might just be my favorite time of year.

This Fall Shearing is going to be extra special, because in addition to all the usual hullaballoo, I sent Zac and Caroline on a secret mission this week. It involved waking up very early and driving to the westernmost reaches of Virginia to retrieve something that was custom made, by hand, just for our once-a-year celebration of Autumn.

So without further ado, I present to you Juniper Moon Farm’s very own Apple Cider Press!

Isn’t it gorgeous?

We will be giving the press a few test runs between now and shearing day (well, Zac and Caroline will, anyway. I am still in bed recovering from the hideous virus that’s going around, although I’m definitely on the mend!) and next Saturday, we’ll be stocked up with bushels of local apples that are ripe and ready for pressing.

If you are planning to attend, be sure to R.S.V.P. on the Fall Shearing page, and plan to spend the day celebrating the harvest. We’re planning games for the kids, a lovely potluck lunch (bring along your favorite dish to share), knitting, spinning and animal petting. We will once again set up the craft table for the kids.  And, of course, we’ll be shearing the goats as well.

Besides a dish for the potluck, you may want to bring a picnic blanket (we will have tables and chairs as well), your camera, sun block, and your family and friends. A good time will be had by all.

On Monday, our fantastic, much-loved, representing-the-USA-in-the-shearing-Olympics shearer, Emily Chamelin, came by to take all the wool off of our Cormo lambs and Angora goat kids that were born this spring.

We had about a million lambs to get through, and it took us about three hours– most of the afternoon– of straight shearing (I say ‘we,’ but that’s too much credit: I just watched, took photos, and cleaned up the wool once it came off the sheep).

You’re bursting with questions:

Why did you guys shear the lambs at all? And why just the lambs? And what’s going to happen to that wool? And don’t they need that wool for the coming autumn & winter– why take it off now?

I was a bit confused myself when I learned we were shearing the lambs– but once I learned why, it makes perfect sense.

Here’s why (bad news version): the lambs have had a really rough summer. They were born fighting White Muscle Disease, and, once they’d finally beaten that, were faced with some nasty Barberpole Worm and a scorching-hot summer. The adult sheep & goats came through the summer rather unfazed, but the little ones took it harder, being just babies and all. But stress like that shows in the fleece. It’s harder to shear, which results in a greater number of second cuts, and is also more prone to breakage. Frankly, we wouldn’t want to sell yarn made from fleece like that. So we’re shearing it off.

And here’s also why (good news version): With all that fleece off, the lambs & kids will suddenly be a whole lot cooler. This will prevent any heat stress that they might yet experience during the hot weather we have left between now and Full-On Autumn. It also makes them a whole lot more eager to eat– one of the biggest problems in the hottest weather is that animals will sometimes refuse to. Since they’re cooler, their metabolism speeds up slightly: enough to make them lots hungrier, but not so much that they’re burning off the extra calories they’ll be taking in.

In other words, this our way of squeaking in a bonus growth spurt. They’re literally unburdened by their fleece, eager to eat, and quicker to put on weight.

The lambs & kids will go in to winter with extra weight on them, which will keep them warmer. Since we’re shearing them so early in the fall, their fleece will definitely be long enough for use in the Spring 2012 CSA clip– never fear! Plus, since they’ll be healthier, their fleece will be all the nicer.

Admittedly, however, they do have a bit of that naked, bewildered, “who am I?” look that only a freshly-shorn sheep can have (I believe this look is called sheepish).

And as for the wool: although it’s not going to be milled, that doesn’t mean it’s going to go to waste! We’ve had quite a bit of interest in the wool mulch we’ve been putting on our garden– people are having a hard time finding it as a commercial product, and have asked us to make ours available. No word yet on when or how, but, if you’re interested, watch this space– you’ll soon be able to get your three bags full of Cormo lambswool mulch.

The autofocus on my camera isn’t working.

This wouldn’t be a big problem, except that I was trying to take this pictures right before a big storm that was rolling in just before sunset. It’s hard far the camera focus even with the autofocus in this light.

I only ended up with a handful of pics that aren’t blurry.

I was lucky to get that many before the rain came.

This one is for my sister, who always asks for pictures of our colored flock. Here you go, Carrie!

The lambs are at long last becoming a flock, sticking together to graze and sleep at night. It makes me happy.

This pic makes me happy too.

Our pear trees are covered with fruit and nearly ready for picking. The tastiest pears come from your own trees, I think.

Once the rain started, I came inside to work on my color stories for the new Juniper Moon Farm Spring/Summer yarn lines. I have been forbidden to even hint about the fiber content or construction of our Spring/Summer yarns, but here’s a sneak peek at how I build color stories. I can also tell you that the yarns are lovely and amazing!

In other news, our Lizzy House workshops are selling like hotcakes! You can read Lizzy’s post about them on her blog.

We’ve been getting loads of great feedback about our Culinary and Photography Camps. Several of you have asked if and when we will hold those two again; we’d love to do both! Looking at our schedules (which are already filling up for 2012) it looks like mid-November or early December would work. Let me know if those very vague dates will work for you and we’ll set it up.

Our Fall Shearing will be held at the farm on October 22, 2011! We’d love to have you come spend the day at the farm. The Fall Shearing is a bit more low-key than Spring Shearing, but loads of fun. We’ll have live music and…

games and races for the kids,

face painting,

cotton candy and so much more!

For more info, check the “Shearing” tab at the top of the menu bar from time to time.

]]> http://www.fiberfarm.com/2011/08/yesterday-in-pictures-and-news/feed 9 http://www.fiberfarm.com/2011/05/shearing-day-is-almost-here http://www.fiberfarm.com/2011/05/shearing-day-is-almost-here#comments Thu, 12 May 2011 15:07:48 +0000 Jenny http://www.fiberfarm.com/?p=11815

We are two (count ‘em TWO!) days away from our biggest Spring Shearing Celebration ever and the excitement is so palpable here the air is practically shimmering.  It feels like we’re preparing for a wedding- one of those really great DIY weddings where there are tons of little personal touches and everyone has a wonderful time and no one thinks “6 months, tops.”

A little sneak peak of what’s been going on and what we have in store

Tomorrow we’re picking up the cotton candy machine (for maple cotton candy!) and the popcorn machine.  Since it’s supposed to rain a bit on Saturday we have rented ALL THE TENTS IN FLUVANNA COUNTY to keep you dry, dry, dry- just be sure to bring boots because we can’t control the wetness of the ground.  We’ll have vendors selling paintings, photographs, yarn, pottery, baskets, knitting notions, turned wooden bowls and all other manner of art and craft, plus our across the street neighbors are having their annual art and craft show so you can pop in there and see what treats they have to offer.  We’ll have coffee-sack races, three-legged races, and contests galore, plus our Vietnamese pot-bellied pigs, friendly goats and sheep, little adorable baby lambs and our BRAND NEW MINI-DONK DAISY for everyone to pet and snorgle and love.

Little Miss Daisy

Indigo wants to help.  Or Indigo wants milk.  It’s probably actually that Indigo wants milk.

We shut the front gate the other night and let the boys out for a little night graze in the front yard.  Frodo was a-okay with that!

A few of the boys decided to go lounge on the porch and take a peek into the house.

Hey wait… do you guys have hay in there?

That guy’s probably feeling a little warm, fortunately he will finally get some relief on Saturday!

Below is the schedule of events- if there are any changes we will post them here.

10:00 Gates Open, Shearing Begins

1:00 Relay Races and Games

2:00 Contest Judging

2:30 Contest winners announced

3:00 Raffle and door prize winners announced

4:00 Blue Grass!  The Lovell Coleman Band

6:00 Gates Close

All day events include a kids’ craft table, face painting and animal snorgling.  We’ll be putting out the Potluck food as it comes in so everything can be as fresh and yummy as possible, and once the Pie Contest has been judged the pies will be sliced up and put out for all to enjoy.

One more exciting thing for the yarnies- Susie has been dyeing up some MASSIVE skeins (like, 800 or so yards each) of our lovely pure Cormo with natural dyes.  This is new to us and is producing such awesome results we just can’t wait for you to see it!  We’ll try to save some to put in our shop for those of you who can’t make it to Shearing.

Can’t wait to see y’all there!

I am getting crazy excited about this year’s Spring Shearing Day party. Crazy, can’t-sleep, butterflies-in-my-stomach excited. Our Shearing Day parties are always lovely and amazing but this year’s is going to be EPIC!

WHEN: Saturday, May 14th 10:00 a.m. til 6 p.m. RAIN OR SHINE (but let’s go with SHINE, shall we?)

WHERE: Juniper Moon Farm, 1036 Venable Road, Palmyra VA 22963 [For information about nearby lodging, click here.]

COST: $10 per person OR $20 per family. Shareholders are admitted free. (Everything except purchases from vendors is included in the entry fee.)

WHAT TO BRING: A dish to share. A picnic blanket. Sunscreen. Insect repellent. A camera. Your knitting, spinning, or weaving projects. Friends and family. All are welcome but absolutely NO DOGS or other animals, for their own safety and the safety of our flock. No exceptions.

Of course we will be shearing the sheep and goats throughout the day, starting at 10 a.m., but that’s just the beginning.

This event will feature our usual 2 p.m. potluck luncheon, when we all sit down together and share a meal, meeting new friends and catching up with old ones. I love tasting what everyone brings and, if the past is any indication, the food will be delicious and amazing!

If you are coming for the potluck, please bring a dish to share. Paper plates, cups, napkins and disposable cutlery are always a good choice for people traveling far from home, as are chips and other non-perishables.

After lunch, we will begin the judging for the first ever Juniper Moon Farm Pie Baking Contest! This contest is open to anyone who wants to enter. The only rules are that all pies must be homemade and the contest is not open to professional bakeries. Blueberry, strawberry, apple, peach, banana cream, Boston cream- whatever your specialty, bake one up and bring it to the farm. After the judges have selected the winners, the rest of us will feast on the pies, so save room from lunch.

While we’re on the subject of food, Maple Cotton Candy and Fresh Popped Popcorn will be available until we eat it all or explode, whichever comes first.

Throughout the day, we will be giving away door prizes, including some precious skeins of the brand-new, not-yet-in-store Juniper Moon Farms Yarns.

This year’s celebration will also feature the first ever contests for the best Knitted Object, Crocheted Object, Quilt, and Handspun yarn. This is the time to show off what you’ve been working on and are most proud of! Ribbons will be awarded in all categories. I am so very excited to see what y’all have made, so please don’t be shy!

For the kids, we will have a Three-legged Race (with prizes for the top finishers) and a Sheep Decorating Contest, open to all ages (Edit from Jenny: not a real sheep, a drawn picture. Figured I should clarify ). We have a JUMBO BOUNCY for the little ones (supervised by their own parents, of course) and a craft table will be set up inside one of the tents all day long for parents and kids who need a little creative down time.

This year’s shearing will also feature a handful of wonderful vendors selling their very own, handmade treasures. I’ll post the final list of vendors as we get a bit closer but I know we will have lovely yarn, handmade toys, notions and more.

Sounds like a great day, right? And I haven’t even MENTIONED the band yet! The Lovell Coleman Band will be playing live from the front porch starting at 4 p.m. Lovell is an 87-year-old fiddle player and we are in for once-in-a-lifetime treat! Bring your dancing shoes and your joie de vie! We’ll dance until the sun goes down.

See why I’m so excited? We’re are basically putting on our very own county fair! It’s going to be so lovely and I can’t wait to see you here.

Whoa! Less than 2 months till our Spring Shearing Celebration on May 14th. How did that happen? Jenny and I are hard at working on the details because I want this to be our best Shearing Day ever.

In addition to the sheep shearing and enormous potluck lunch that we have every year, we will definitely have a whole pasture full of lambs and kids on Shearing Day this year. And we’re planning all sorts of activities that will go along with our Country Fair theme. I am super-excited about the pie bake-off were having, complete with 1st, 2nd and 3rd place winners (details on how to enter to come) and the Maple Sugar Cotton Candy we’ll be making.

We’ll also have a potato sack race and other fun activities for kiddos, a sheep-to-shawl demonstration, and a “Best Finished Object” contest for your Juniper Moon Farm yarn handknits. Oh, and live music!

If you’re planning on attending, scoot on over to the Spring Shearing page and rsvp with the number of people you’re bringing.

We’re also going to have a handful of outside vendors this year in an effort to share the fun. We’re looking for creators of lovely handmade things who’d like to spend the day at Juniper Moon Farm. Do you raise your own honey? Weave baskets? Metalsmith jewelry? Make candles? We want you! Since we have lots of non-knitting visitors on shearing day, makers of handknits would be great too.

There will be a small vendor fee to help us cover the costs associated with the event. If you’d like to be considered (we’re going to keep the numbers small this year since it’s the first time we done this) just shoot us an email to JENNY as fiberfarm dot com with the following info:

1. Business Name

2. Contact Person

3. Phone Number

4. Email Address

5. *Website (or pictures of your products)

6. Product Description

*Farmers who sell things they grow themselves don’t need to worry about this one.

Please pass this post along to anyone you think might be interested in vending.

I have so much going on right now that I keep waking up in the middle of the night panicked that I’ve forgotten to tell y’all something. Consider this round-up my pathway to sanity, okay?

We’re giving away TWO flock of sheep and goats this year. Have you voted yet? There is still time for you to help us figure out who should win a flock of their very own!

Have you nominated a naming convention for our 2011 lambs and kids yet?

I have an exciting announcement to make about our new retail yarn next week- stay tuned!

Also, don’t forget that our Spring Shearing Celebration is only 80 days away, Saturday, May 14th. Once the flock giveaway voting closes we’ll be putting up a page dedicated to Spring Shearing complete with local hotels and other cool stuff to do in the area while you’re here. But go ahead and make your plane reservations now.

Okay, I feel better now…

In other news, Jenny, Amy and I are driving down to Nashville tomorrow with the puppies to meet Cindy and company for a LGD hand-off. We’re taking the video camera and I’ll post from the hotel tomorrow night.

To prepare Vanni and Tella for the trip, we took them to see Dr. Grover this morning for their first round of puppy shots and a general check-up. Dr. G fell in love with them and pronounced them robustly healthy. Tell weighed 23 pounds and Vanni checked in at a WHOPPING 31 pounds. Most importantly, Dr. G gave me motion sickness meds for the dogs trip. Maremma- all LGD really- get famously car sick. I’ll be getting up at 4 a.m. to give them their pills, but it will be totally worth it not to have to smell dog vomit from here to Nashville.

What are your weekend plans?