The ENTIRE Fall, in many segments! Part 1

Hello again. I just reread my last post. Whew. Do I have a lot to update.
The fall got very busy. The garden languished. We did not sell our produce.
The festival at Spoutwood went well, in that we did NOT have to get a Pennsylvania tax ID, as we "became" an educational booth. Danielle took the two older babies. By that time they could be away from their mom for the day. They made it until the late afternoon, then they let Danielle know, in no uncertain terms, they wanted to GO HOME!

Hm, we got our ram lamb, "number twelve", the last week in October. He went right in with our "ladies" and started "taking care" of them. I refuse to get too involved with him, as he is there to do his "job" and then he will be our Passover Seder meal.

We went to the quarterly meeting of the Baltimore County Sheep Breeders Association meeting a few weeks ago. We met Emily, the sheep shearer. What a fortuitous occasion. Not only is she coming to shear the yearlings, but she also has a male goat to lend us! For FREE!!
He is beautiful, if you like handsome male goats. He is also a registered alpine, and it turns out, our "alpines" are not alpines after all. Still don't know for sure what they are, but their babies will be half registered alpine. Buck was with us for about a month. He took care of all four ladies, and I should tell you that the babies are all weaned by now. We also get no milk right now, but at least we should have babies all at the same time, in five months or so.

Hm... it is also possible that Magic was already pregnant by Stubby, but I don't know. I thought Prissy might have been, but then it seemed that she wasn't and Magic was. Well, we'll either get babies from one or both of them early, one or both of them in five months, or it's back to auction with whomever is not producing. Another reality of the farm is that you must be able to "earn your keep". Again, I'll let you know how things are progressing.

So another fortuitous thing that happened with Emily is that she was willing to trade shearing and travel expenses for a massage! As it happens that Danielle is a very talented Licensed Massage Therapist, we saved cash outlay on the service in exchange for the service!

Emily got her massage today, and then they both went out to the Farm and Emily picked up Buck (his real name is Lincoln, being as he's "registered and all") and took him home. He'd done his "job" and was ready to go find another temporary home to do more "work"! We'd had Magic and Prissy in his stall for pretty much the whole month, so they were glad to get out. The other animals were glad to get in to more stall space, too.

We also have purchased four new registered sheep. They were part of a new group that came up from Georgia a couple of weeks ago. Lisa found them, and did all the research, and offered us four of the group. They're beautiful. Then she gave us another sheep. This one is a Horned Ewe! It's a genetic trait. She does not want horned sheep, and we don't know if we do either, but her wool is nice, and her baby (babies) wool might be worth keeping before (if) we do decide not to keep her.

Speaking of wool, the day that Emily came to shear, we boxed up all the wool from the five sheep we had sheared and sent it off for processing. We had sent off the alpaca wool, and it came back about a month ago. Oh my goodness, it's so soft and fluffy!

Well, I did it. I finally purchased a spinning wheel. I got a wonderful deal, as this wheel is Lisa's old one, so I know it works perfectly. She sold it because she just got a distributorship with another company and wanted to work with that company's wheels. So I got the wheel, extra bobbins, a bobbin wrack, a knitty knotty, a pound of wool, and private lessons on how to spin. I learned in one sitting, and did such an even job that Lisa's husband thought that my spinning was Lisa's! However, I still have to learn to draft, which is taking the wool from a larger mass AS I am spinning. But the way I do it works, for now.

Okay, that's the end of Part One. I'll try to get to part two soon.