Solstice Sheep Of The Day - Liddy

Liddy's claim to fame?  She got kicked out of a fiber festival!

"I did?"

Well, they didn't make her leave early, although I'm sure they wanted to, but we were asked to never bring her back.  Why?  Liddy is a talker...and she has the voice of a three pack a day smoker.  People complained that she was "growling".

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Volume Up

I had a question about Andy's bell back at the beginning of the Solstice series and I thought I would just answer it when Liddy's turn came about, figuring she'd not be far behind...and here we are three from the end.  Liddy is the other belled sheep.  There are just two even though it sometimes sounds like more.

The bells do a couple of jobs here.  First I can always find the sheep, just by listening for them.  They don't go out in the dark, but we can have some really foggy mornings and because of the bells I've been able to tell which field they are in even when it's so thick I can't see them.  

The other thing the bells do is tell me what the sheep are doing.  If they are just grazing or walking back in from the back fields, the bells just jingle.  If something has spooked the sheep and they are running in, the bells CLANG CLANG CLANG and I know to go check.

Sometimes the bells also tell me when Liddy is into something she shouldn't be.  Liddy comes out for an extra breakfast in the mornings and sometimes stays with the Easy Breezy sheep longer than she's able to keep herself out of trouble.  

Liddy loves all treats, but especially loves her special breakfasts.  She could just move into Easy Breezy...but she doesn't stay out of trouble.  Ever.  That bell is always ringing.

Solstice Sheep Of The Day - Tavia

Tavia is our little "blond with blue eyes" cheerleader.  Well, that's what Saint Tim calls her, The Little Cheerleader.  She is very pretty and she does have blue eyes.  Wait, what?  Blue eyes?

Yep, if you look closely she has blue in both eyes.  I think this mostly happens with spotted sheep, but maybe it can show up in other breeds.  I haven't researched that.

Tavia is very sweet, but pretty shy.  Once you catch her she likes to be scratched and talked to and easy to handle, but like most Jacobs, isn't going to initiate much cuddling.  While her coloring is a little too "blond" (missing her leg spots and some extra black on her face), her wool is gorgeous and is always the first Jacob fleece picked on shearing day.

Compared to Tessa's longer and coarser locks, Tavia is very even in not only length throughout her fleece, but also crimp and texture.  Crimp is the way the fleece curls as it grows.  A Cotswold has big loopy curls going down the lock, maybe 10-12 curls over 5 inches for example.  A finer wool like Bullwinkle might have 50 curls over the same 5 inches.  The more crimps per inch, the softer the wool will feel.  In 25 words or less.

Tavia loves sweet treats, but is also in the chopped alfalfa camp.  She will try to sneak up to the front if there aren't too many sheep pushing and shoving. 

Merry And Bright

If I had time I'd probably go back through the archives to see if this is the latest I've ever posted the Christmas card.  If it's not the latest, it's probably tied for the latest.  Whooosh!

I'd originally planned to paint this fun picture of Short Round, but as I sketched it out on my iPad and started figuring out the colors on there, I really liked it just as it was so decided to just go with it and use it as an exercise to learn more about Procreate, which is a fun art program built for Apple devices.  

This was my hope when I finished out the 20 year series of folk art farm cards last year.  Mostly I was out of new story lines, but also I wanted the opportunity to learn some new skills.  Once it was finished I realized I could still draw the back as an outline and it would probably work as a cute rug pattern, which is something else I'm hoping to learn more about.

This has been a hard year for so many people.  I hope this funny old ewe brings you some joy and the silhouettes of sheep grazing in the moonlit sky behind her bring you some peace.  The inside of the card this year says "Merry and Bright".

Solstice Sheep Of The Day - Tessa

If I were to pick a current Jacob to spin, Tessa would always be my first choice.  She doesn't have the most "correct" Jacob fleece, but it's the one I like the best and isn't that the beauty of handspinning...you can like whatever you like.  What makes her not an ideal representative of the breed standard?  Her wool is a bit too long and a little on the coarser side...just the way I like it :-).

Other than her fleece (and maybe her dumpling shape ;-) she's what I like to see in a good Jacob.  Two horns, distinct face markings with both eyes covered in black, good balance of black and white in her fleece (they should be about 60% white and 40% black) and lots of black spots on her legs with all four hooves black as well.

Her personality is a little bit more relaxed than the other Ts, but she's still no Cotswold or Border Leicester, and that's okay too.  She doesn't panic when I walk through the stall, but she's not going to be wearing any Santa hats any time soon ever.

Like all Jacobs, Tessa has a sweet tooth.  And like most Jacobs, you need to toss her some cookies from a distance because she's not going to fight her way through the bullies in the front.

Solstice Sheep Of The Day - Kaala

With the way the draws have come, with so many matching their real personalities and traits, I expected to not see Kaala until Sunday or Monday.  

Kaala got here in 2018 and her first shearing here was 2019.  She was the very last sheep to be shorn that day.  In 2020 she was again the last sheep to be shorn.  In 2021 she was the last.  In 2022 she was second to the last.  I don't remember where she fell in 2023, but it was definitely in the last two.  She was at the end of the line again this year.

Some sheep figure out to just go on through.  Most fall in the 'wherever they land' category and some sheep put it off to the last minute rather than just get it over with.  This frequently happens with lambing too.  You know who the early lambers are going to be and the same couple of ewes will always be at the tail end.

Kaala has spent this year teaching people how to spin yarn.  Her fleece is perfect for this because it's not too long, but not too short and has just enough gray running through it that you can easily see your angle of twist.  She's in all the drop spindle kits these days.

Kaala likes treats, but what she really likes is to wait while everyone else goes out to graze in the morning because she's figured out Liddy, who also waits, get a special breakfast and she's figured out how to capitalize on that.