How Tuesday: Dealing with Grief

We have sheep, but we are not sheep farmers. We don't make lambs because we wouldn't want to lose any of the mothers, and we aren't quite ready to send off any mean little boy lambs to come back in little white packages. Our sheep are like pets, not like farm stock. Sure they don't make the greatest pets, they can be pushy and loud, and they won't cuddle up on the couch when you are sick. But they are pets we love, and this week we lost one of our pets. Blackberry, one of our oldest girls, died on Monday evening. She is now buried on the hill with all of the other lost pets: dogs, cats, and sheep, all frolicking together. 

Blackberry coming home June 2002

Losing any pet can be difficult, but we have to look on the bright side. Blackberry lived a very long and good life for a sheep, she was over ten years old. Let's face it, she had a pretty cushy life at our little hobby farm, lots of grain and grass and goodies from the garden. Plus, since she was technically still a working farm animal, we have plenty of her yarn to remind us of her for years to come. 

It is hard to say goodbye, and sometimes it feels like we have to say it far too often, but while Blackberry may be gone, she will never be forgotten.

How to Wet Felt

This is by no means a comprehensive tutorial on wet felting, it is simply a chronicle of my wet/needle felting project thus far! (Read more about this in an earlier blog post: Outside My Comfort Zone) Honestly, I am still working out the design details. They are coming together...but very slowly. Actually, I'm better at the details than the big picture, so some details are coming together better than the overall design!

First I started with a very dirty fleece, which I then washed. I hand carded a bit of the wool, but left most of it in locks as I only have a hand carder - and this was a big fleece!!

Then, with the help of a fellow fiber enthusiast, I laid out the locks in a grid pattern. The bottom layer faces one direction, with the second layer perpendicular to the first, and so on. Time constraints meant we only put down three layers plus a little extra.

Then came the fun part (and my exercise for the day!!) Hot, soapy water is smished into the wool, deep down in so the wool is soaked through. Then, using some elbow grease, the whole piece was hand rubbed to start the felting process, covered with a clothlike shower curtain, and rubbed some more. She had a nifty little tool that you could use to really dig into the fiber! Then, it is rolled up, we used a pool noodle and some pool grade type of bubble wrap, secured with some rubber bands, and rolled up and down a driveway for a solid 10-15 minutes. Halfway through, the piece was flipped, rubbed and wet down a bit more before heading back out to the driveway.

The really scary part came in the rinse down - she rinsed it, then slammed it hard against the ground several times, just to make sure the felt would hold. It held, and the bubble imprints came out too!! Then a final rinse, a spin cycle to dry, and I now have a piece of felt I can hang on a wall, and needle felt. Part two will follow within the month!!

Etsy Weekends - Roving

A person can never have too much roving. At least, that's what I tell myself. Here's a sampling of roving I wish I could get my hands on!!

Swirled Alpaca from North Star Alpacas

Bamboo/Wool/Alpaca from Aloha Blu

Angora from Cashmere Bunny

Purple Merino from Divinity Fibers

Check back next weekend to see what else we've found on Etsy :)

Sheep Fleece Anyone?

There was always one creature who was super excited for sheep shearing day every year. Her name was Spike, and she has since left us. These images really convey her feelings toward Sheep Shearing Day :)

Etsy Weekends - Sheep

It's no secret that at Hide and Hair we love sheep. Really, who doesn't? They are big fluffballs that you get to shear every year and play with raw wool!! That love extends to household goods depicting sheep, and here are a few of our favorites from Etsy!

Little Lamb Print from enrouge

Sheep Print from Mary's Montage

Felted Lamb Christmas Ornament from Bossy's Feltworks

Sheep Earrings from Stickman Jewelry

Pam's Sheep Experience

Hello from Pam, and Kirsten! 

Today we'd like to tell you a story about sheep! More specifically Mom's sheep. It's her story, so I'll let her tell it. 

I had an experience a few weeks ago. It was in the late afternoon, and I went up to feed the sheep their evening meal. I gave them some cucumbers and zucchini and then I filled their feeder full of hay. I was getting ready to go through the pen, I had opened the wooden gate and then reached down to pet one of my sheep. It looked like Gracie the llama had spit on her back, so I scratched her head and said "Poor sheep!" It was Rosa - she is the feisty one, always butting heads with the other sheep. She stepped back and tried to butt me, but I was able to side step her. Then she did it again, and this time hit me hard in the thigh. Thank goodness it was the thigh and not lower, because I think she would have broken my knee. My leg was all bruised for a good long time, and it hurt when my pants would touch the bruise for the next few days. After she butted me, I got behind the gate and thought "Great, how do I get out of the pen?" I thought about taking the back door out of the barn but then I thought, Rosie is going to think she's in charge! So, I put on my brave face, walked between her and two other sheep, sticking close to my other sheep until I made it out of the pen. I don't know if she had been naughty all day, and that's why Gracie spit on her. Of course this would happen on a night when my DH wasn't home. If she had broken my leg and knocked me down, I'm not sure what would have happened. I don't know if the other sheep and Gracie would have protected me, or if they would have all started butting me - complaining that I'm not giving them enough grain.

Mom and Dad live a few miles out of town, and aren't terribly close to their neighbors. If the sheep had knocked her down, and she wasn't able to get out of the pen and back to the house to call for help, she could have been in the pen all night. As she mentioned, Dad wasn't home, and wouldn't be back for a day or two. They would have missed her the next morning at work, but that wouldn't be for another 12-14 hours. My parents may not be old and feeble yet, but stories like this still make me nervous that they live alone and with decently large farm animals. 

We don't mean to tell this story to scare you, but as a cautionary tale. Sheep are strong creatures, not to be taken lightly! So if you know someone who owns sheep, think of them tonight and remember that even hobbies can be dangerous!

As a footnote, the sheep in question - Rosa, is part Merino and Corriedale. All my other girls are mixes of Romney and Corriedale. 

100th Blog Post

This is our 100th Blog Post! It's only taken us three years! :)

I thought I would come up with something really clever to talk about to commemorate this momentous occasion...but I can't think of anything worthy. So here are some pictures of sheep and a llama!

Family Visit

The grand kids came up to Wisconsin this past week, and they had all kinds of fun:

First at the Boscobel Civil War Reenactment, they got to pet horses and watch a Civil War Battle!

 Then they got to help Great Grandpa pick vegetables at "The Farm". (BTW, can you believe this man is 93 years old and still works in his garden every day?)

They also got to help Grandma Sheep feed the sheep and llama!

All in all, a great trip to Wisconsin!

Lucy and General Fancy Pants agree!

Sheep Shearing May 2013

What a strange spring we've had here in Wisconsin. Normally my sheep get sheared in April but this year it was too cold so we decided to wait till the end of May. The end of May was almost too cold! My sheep and Gracie the llama all were sheared on Saturday by Dylan Weaver. It was the first time he sheared my sheep and he did a good job. He doesn't like llamas! I told him we had Gracie the llama to guard the sheep and I added we could have a donkey instead. He told me he wished we would have had the donkey!

We were expecting Dylan around 2:00 and he called at 12:15 to say he was on his way! We had to get the sheep locked up in the barn so he could grab them to shear them. Things didn't go so well! The sheep are pets but they get concerned when both Randy and I show up! I had them munching on grain and when Randy went to shut the gate they all took off. Just about then Dylan arrived! I managed to get Gracie on her lead and took her inside the barn. Randy had let Lucy the dog out and she decided to stand near Gracie.  Lucy is a toy Australian Shepherd and she is a whiner! I don't know if Gracie stepped on her, looked at her or just got too close, but Lucy decided it was time to cry! We have a gate that folds down and keeps the girls inside the barn. We folded it half way down so that the sheep could still come in. Since we weren't having much luck getting the girls in the barn, Randy and Dylan went to his next stop, shearing Flower the sheep. Gracie and I went for a walk and put Lucy in the house. By the time we came back the sheep were back in the bar eating grain and I was able to fold down the second half of the gate, securing them inside. We were finally ready to shear!

 When Dylan sheared the sheep he started with the belly wool (which is normally very dirty and you throw it away) he would throw that over the gate to me and as he finished shearing each girl he handed me the fleece.  I was able to "skirt" the fleece (pull off the gross stuff) and have it ready to go to the mill while he sheared the next sheep. Watching sheep get sheared is very interesting but it's hard for me to see them get nicks. It always happens, just like when you shave your legs! 

I was able to talk Dylan into shearing Gracie, she has a nice new haircut and I didn't get a picture of her after being sheared. The girls spent some time in the sun yesterday and snuggled together in the barn last night and today. The weather is supposed to get better this week so they will be comfortable.

The best part of this years shearing: although I know there are bats in the barn and I could hear them every so often, none of them flew around in the barn!

I'm going to mix this year's fleeces with last years and take them to Black Berry Ridge to have it made in to yarn. You know you can never have too much yarn! I also have a few ideas for the llama fleece. I've only processed one year of Gracie's wool but I think I might get it turned into pencil roving to use in weaving rugs.

Etsy Weekends - Yarn

Like most knitters I have a problem with yarn. One day I'll have Pam describe her yarn stash, and then mine won't sound so bad! When we looked at our current apartment I made the decision to move in the second I saw the closet in what would become our second bedroom. It is a little room with rails on two sides of the walls and a shelf on top of the rails. It is perfect for hanging hanks! We've lived here less than two years and that poor little closet is stuffed to the brim...with yarn, finished products waiting to be shipped to new owners, some of Matt's video game paraphernalia, and an entire wall of fabric to be used for projects I come up with in the future. I've actually been a pretty good girl (read: sooooooo broke) since we've lived in MT and have only added to my stash when Mom sends newly dyed wools and when The Yarn Shop closed and I went a little wild buying closeout alpaca yarn...but that's a story for another day. Even though my little room is so full of stuff that I can't even close the door anymore I can't help but dreaming about filling it up just a little more....
     

Woolpaca from lambkamp

Camel Down from Spinner's End 

Wool Braid from Souptoknits

                 

Lace Weight from Recycle&Repurpose

Don't you think all of these would make wonderful additions to any collection? But especially mine? :)

Wool/Silk from hilltopcloud

Merino from jirbydesigns

Sheep Shearing In Wisconsin

This year we did something different on sheep shearing day.  We sheared the sheep in the barn! Randy put up a gate to keep the sheep in, and since it looked like it was going to rain we locked them up the night before.  I expected to find them wandering the yard in the morning, but instead I found a Sand Hill Crane!

It kind of freaked me out!  Randy was able to sneak out and take a picture of it.  He said he should have done a movie so he could have gotten a picture of it's wingspan.

The shearer couldn't believe how friendly and well behaved my sheep were.  Buttercup was the first one to get her wool cut.  When he finished with her she was turned loose in the yard and had access to the pen.  She went over to see the other sheep and they didn't know who she was with her sporty new haircut!  She kept wandering into the barn to keep an eye on the shearer!  Gracie the llama had the last hair cut of the day, and now we're good for another year. The wool is all in bags ready to go be processed into either yarn, roving or socks!

Our friendly Amish Sheep Shearer

Sheila watched!