My Favorite Sheep...Of The Week

Since Bullwinkle shared the top picture with Tessa last the other week, I picked him for this last week's SOTW.  I'll hopefully be back on track now.

"I really wasn't in the mood for a photoshoot, but whatever, lady."

This was one of his first baby pictures.  He loved sleeping on the fleece dog beds.  

Or out in the grass with me :-). 

He was a complete grump about cats and hated Betsy for some reason, but did ally himself with, of all cats, Claire Bear.  She may have taught him to hate Betsy and that's why she liked him.  We used to call him her little henchman.  That's a pretty fun post.  I'd forgotten about Comby schooling on him :-).

He loved riding in the car, but his favorite thing in the whole world was riding in the Unit (UTV/side by side) and the faster the better.  He'd jump into anyone's Unit and one neighbor took him for rides.  Another about had a stroke because a sheep jumped into his brand new Unit.  I'd try to take him for a ride now, but I'm not sure he'd fit.

Bullwinkle was always very "helpful", especially on the Wool House porch.  I'd forgotten about locking him off the porch.  I can't remember what he kept getting into long after he should have been living in the barn.  His "educational" video about the Proper Use of a Skein Winder was a classic.

His wool is very soft and very springy.  His mom was one of the "Texas cross" sheep over at Final Frontier Farm.  I prefer spinning the coarser long wool crosses, but I really enjoy using his wool for needle felting.  The finer texture helps with creating details in faces... Everyone else would probably spin it.

Bullwinkle is always one of the last sheep to head out in the morning.  He usually stops to check in with me as he goes through the gate and any time something is going on - sheep checks, foot trimming, shearing, he likes to stand right next to me.  I'll always be his mom :-).

Meanwhile, Back To My Favorite Sheep...Of The Week

I started this post near the beginning of May in honor of the 50th anniversary of the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival.  Their breed selection for this year was Jacobs, so I had picked Tessa to be our sheep of the week.

My favorite picture of Tessa is posted on IG somewhere, I'm thinking during Wovember or Fiberuary, but I haven't had time to scroll back through hundreds of pictures to find it.  That's my only real complaint about IG, that there's no good way to search my account.  The rest of that app I really enjoy and am so glad to have it.  It's such a fun diary of our daily life, especially when I can't seem to keep the blog current.

Tessa doesn't get much "press" around here, but none of the Jacobs do, really.  They prefer it that way.  In fact, other than Tabitha, who is happy to come up and jab you with one of her upright horns to make you give her whatever treats you are holding (but no touching!), they'd all prefer if no one noticed they were even here.  "Just toss us the cookies from a distance, please!"

Tessa (in the middle) is not super true to breed standard, fleece-wise, but she's always the one I choose for a fun spin.  Her color blend is gorgeous and her longer and while all good Jacob is easy to spin, her coarser wool practically spins itself.  I don't mind her extra texture at all.  While I might not put it right up next to my face, I wouldn't think twice about using it in any other application.

She's always been a bit, um, apple dumpling shaped and that also is not really breed standard...unless they are getting ready to have triplets ;-).  She's not a big treat eater and she would never stoop to walking up for a scratch, but if I have everyone penned up, she'll tolerate a little attention.

This is as close to a baby picture as I have.  If I stumble over the beautiful IG picture somewhere, I'll add it in.  And if not, I'll go take a new one in the fall.

My Favorite/Least Favorite Sheep Of The Week

MURphy (said like "Newman" from Seinfeld)

MUR-PHY!!! (yelled as he tries to open the gate at least four times Every Day to get into Easy Breezy to steal their food)

HeLLO, Murphy (said with appropriate eye roll)

Hi, Murphy, you big knucklehead.  Yes, I love you too.

There are times though...

Murphy can open just about any gate or door on this farm.  He can manipulate a double ended snap.  He can untie a casually tied hay string.  He can use his front legs to pull gates toward himself to open them. He can wedge his pointy head into almost any size crack in the heaviest door and then use his massive body/strength to force the door open.  About the only thing he can't do is jump his fat body over Pinto's gate.

He might not be able to go over a fence, but he can find a weak board and push his way under (see eye roll above).

I'm not sure of Murphy's status in the flock.  I know they will go out to graze without him if he's caught sleeping in, but probably 95% of the time he leads everyone out.  This happens in the morning and afternoon.  Is he actually the leader...or does he just assume that he's the leader?  

I'm going with he assumes he's the leader much like he has great confidence that everyone in the world loves him.  And we do.  Most of the time.  I try not to be crabby that of all those really nice Nistock boys who have lived here over the years, that I'm left with the only one of them that I've toyed with stuffing back into a box with some air holes and dropping off at the post office!

For all the trouble he causes (have I mentioned it's on a daily basis?), Murphy produces one of the nicest fleeces here.  His dad is Rocky and he gets his good looks from him for sure.  The devious brain must have come from his mother's side of the family ;-).

I started this post on Monday and here it is Thursday.  Murphy won't even know he's been cheated out of several days of being the SOTW because everyday is Murphy Day in his mind ;-).

My Favorite Sheep...Of The Week

This week's Sheep of the Week is Kaala.  Kaala actually has two names, but I never can remember the second part.  Hopefully Benita will chime in.  Actually Kaala has several names.  Tim calls her Klaatu, who I think is a character from a movie, and I call her Kaala Mary, pronounced kalamari ;-).

Kaala has been here for almost five years now, retiring here from a disbursing breeding flock in Indiana.  I'm guessing that makes her at least eight now.  She's a Clun Forest (always easy to spot because of their cute little upright ears) and interestingly she's not white.  She's actually a light gray, which is very rare.  You can see that where her wool parts. 

Note: in reference to Saturday's post about hair and wool, it's easy to see where Kaala's face hair (black) turns to wool (cream colored).

I love looking back at the history of these Sheep of the Week.  I'd forgotten about her and Lila being best friends.  Lila always did such a good job helping new sheep transition in.  Kaala sleeping on her hip is a good memory.  Nice to see old Buddy in there, too.

Kaala has a big personality.  She'd have been one of the popular cheer leader types if she was a person.  She is always popular with the boys and when the girls get into scuffles, she's almost always (probably always) right up in the mix.  When the boys get into scuffles, it's frequently something she started. She's very sassy ;-).

 "I am not sassy!"

;-D

Any requests for the next Sheep of the Week?

Meanwhile, Back At The Ranch...

What. An. Insane. Week.  So much so that as I was sitting here trying to remember what all happened this week and finally had to go back and check my own IG feed I realized there wasn't even much on there either besides the Great Bee Move.

That in itself is probably worth at least two blog posts, but before I do that I'm going to revisit Burrnie's Sheep of the Week post to answer a great question.

You say that his wool is creamy white but his hair is yellow. What is the difference between wool and hair?

There are actually some breeds of sheep that only have hair.  They are commonly known as...wait for it..."hair sheep".  Some examples would be Barbados Black Belly, Katahdin, St. Croix and Dorper.  All sheep have at least some hair though.

Here is a closer picture of Burrnie's face.  All around his face (eyes, nose, mouth) is hair and it feels much like a short haired dog's coat.  Where things get fuzzy on his cheeks and forehead is the start of his wool and his wool covers all of the rest of his body except his legs, which turn back into hair.  

The hair on Burrnie's face and legs is the same yellow color.  While his wool looks nearly the same color here, it's actually a creamy white...when it's clean.  You can see that in the hat I made as a thank you gift from him to Robin.

Burrnie's wool is very soft and, as we talk about in regards to wool quality, very crimpy.  What that means is if you run your hand over it, it feels "fuzzy", not smooth like hair.  If you look at it under a microscope however, each fiber that looks fairly straight and just fuzzy is actually zig zaggy (special pro term ;-).

A fine wool sheep (like a Merino) can have up to 100 zig zags per inch.  A coarse wool sheep (like a Cotswold) might only have five per inch and their zig zags are more like loopy curls.  I've never counted Burrnie's zig zags or crimps per inch, but I'd guess it's...well, I should just go pull a lock out of his bag and do the math.

Here's a fun way to think about the difference between hair and wool.  You would stroke Burrnie's smooth face, but you would bury your hand into Burrnie's soft, fuzzy wool...when it grew back out ;-).

Keep the comments and questions coming!  

My Favorite Sheep...Of The Week

I started this post at a not unreasonable time yesterday evening and then got so caught up in reading through all her old baby posts that it got so late I finally had to turn the computer off and go to bed.  If you'd like to stroll back through, follow the monthly archives (on the right side of the blog) from the spring of 2015.

Liddy was one of my most fun bottle lambs.  They are all characters, but she was especially fun and super snuggly and we spent many hours during her early days taking the best lamb naps ever.  She even slept in the bed.  

I'd forgotten how hard it was to get her moved out of the house and that she didn't like to eat normal sheep food.  How much she loved to ride in the car and truck.  I will never forget her sitting out with my friend Lisa or how she walked out of the barn, across the driveway and around to the far side of the car to visit with an ailing neighbor.

  

"Just doing my job, ma'am."

I tried to get a prettier "portrait", but mostly Liddy was annoyed I was disturbing her nap.

I'm sure no one will be surprised to see this is not the first time Liddy's been caught yawning on the blog ;-).

My Favorite Sheep...Of The Week

"I'm the what?"

You're the Sheep of the Week this week...or last week.

"Oh, okay."

Working down the list of special requests, this/last week's sheep of the week is Krista. I've always loved this sweet old ewe.  She retired over here from the ewe flock at Final Frontier Farm almost two years ago and what I've learned about her since she moved here only solidifies my love and respect.

I snapped this picture a couple of days ago.  Those two lambs of hers, Maggie and Christopher, will be two years old next month.  They are still a solid family unit.  That's Ellie back by the gate, running to catch up.  She's an adopted daughter.

When all the lambs got to be weaning age that summer, I decided to just let the ewes handle things.  Short Round kicked Ellie out of the house pretty quickly.  Krista continued to call her lambs over to nurse for a few seconds a couple times a day, long into the winter (!).

She'd probably still be letting them nurse if Pinto hadn't have shown up.  As soon as she realized an eligible bachelor had moved in, she sent those kids packing ;-D.  Well, she at least stopped letting them nurse. I don't think she'll ever actually send them packing.  

There is no doubt in my mind that this is a family.  That Krista is a mom who loves her kids and always will, given a chance.  When they got separated during shearing last month, she called to them and they answered until they were all back together.  Four legged animals are no different than twos.

Here are the oldest pictures I have of Krista. Those lambs were by one of the Nistock rams and they were super cute babies.  I've often wished Maggie and Christopher had come from one of the wool rams, but then Maggie might not have become who she is and I'd not trade her for anything.  Christopher is a good sheep, too, but I'm not sure he's destined to become a Super Hero like his sister ;-).

Remember you can always look back and find more pictures and stories from any of the sheep or other family by following their label on the right hand side of the blog.  You may have to scroll down a bit to find the labels list.

Okay, who's next?

My Favorite Sheep...Of The Week

Miss Ewenice

During the 2022 Tour de Fleece I spun quite a few samples of some of my oldest and dearest sheep.  The inspiration for that challenge came from finding a bit of PPPP's roving just before the Tour began and enjoying hanging out with her once again.  

After spinning her skein I decided it would be fun to make another Maggie Rabbit, but this time turn the rabbit into a sheep.  And instead of a sweet little cape, I'd make her a nice wool sweater with some cables or lace and change her paddock boots into wellies.  I'd use PPPP's yarn and it could be a tribute to one of my favorite sheep.

I finally got around to getting the project started this past week, but when I went looking for doll sized sweater patterns I found most called for yarn that was heavier than I'd spun.  Note to self, find a pattern and then spin the yarn.  

Not to worry though.  I can spin a new skein...but now I think I may have used the last of her roving :-(.  I don't remember finishing out the bag, but I can't find it if I didn't.  I did find some Miss Ewenice roving though.  She'd make a fun Maggie Rabbit/Sheep, too!  

I pulled out some roving, gave it a quick run through the drum carder to freshen it up a bit and then put it on Instagram with a little teaser, asking for guesses as to who I was getting ready to spin.  Turns out this is not the first time Ewenice was shared as a "guess who" post.  

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Sara Dunham (@thecrazysheeplady)

 

Trick or Treating with Ewen

The yarn turned out as pretty as Miss Ewenice and in honor of a grand old gal, Miss Ewenice is our sheep of the week.

Ewenice was the last sheep in a friend's handspinner flock and they didn't want her left all alone and asked if she could move here with our flock.  This was back in the very early days of the blog, March of 2007.  If sheep could live forever, she'd be 20 years old this year. Oh, if only sheep could live forever.

She didn't immediately take to our flock of mostly feral Jacobs and a couple of crazy Border Cheviots so she spent a good deal of time hanging out around the house with us.  She was  polite and well behaved and I don't remember her ever getting into any sort of trouble.

I know she took care of Ewen McTeagle when he was still pretty young and maybe that's how she integrated into the flock.  She babysat several bottle babies over the years, but she's most famous for taking the very best care of Renny.  

There are numerous Ewenice and Renny posts and I'm not going to link them all here.  If you don't know Renny's story, it starts out pretty horrible (heads up if you go looking back), but has a happy ending.  Miss Ewenice played a huge part in that happy ending.  Her ending, while heartbreaking, had a bit of a happy ending as well.

Interestingly/sadly, last night I didn't have the baby gate secured well enough and Rocky wandered out of the barn in the the middle of the night. I found him just before dawn, thankfully okay, standing right under that same tree.  Salt loved that tree as well.  Hopefully those good girls were keeping him company and I'd like to think they told him to stay put.

Sooooo, are you ready for me to knit another sweater?

My Favorite Sheep...Of The Week

I thought about just taking a week off from the Sheep of the Week.  I hadn't found the time to go out and get a good portrait and I'm running so behind on the Iknitarod that I really needed to focus on that.  I hated skipping a week though because then it gets easy to skip another week when I can't manage my time and then another week...

The request for this week/last week had been Tabitha.  She is one of the five young(ish) Jacobs we have.  She's the only sort of chummy one in the group so she stands out.  Chummy as in she will come up to you to get a cookie.  The rest like cookies...but you have to toss them from a distance.  Jacobs... ;-)

 

When I was doing the barn check this morning, I found her front and center, almost like she was reminding me I hadn't taken her picture.  It was still pretty dark, but the iPhone does a great job in low light and this is not too bad.  I will try to get a better portrait this week though.

Here is as close to a baby picture as I have of her.  She and her fellow Ts arrived in January of 2017. She would have been maybe eight or nine months old here. I don't have any funny stories about these five crazy Jacobs, but their trip up here from WV was a pretty cute post.   

I had them set up in the horse stalls for quarantine and I enjoyed using Kate to move them out to the yard to graze every day and then back in.  Tilly even helped a little.  Those were fun days.

I love Jacob sheep.  I think they are beautiful and if I could only spin one type of wool for the rest of my life, I'd pick Jacob.  Their fleeces are easy to care for and process.  They yarn spins easily and can do quite a few jobs depending on the individual and whether they are on the softer side or more medium.  The fun you can have blending the colors is the best.

What I don't enjoy as much about Jacobs is their more "primitive" personalities.  Henri was a friendly Jacob and Annabelly was sweet, too.  Tabitha is as close to "friendly" as we have anymore.  Tavia could probably be talked into being more friendly if she didn't have the other three bad influences around.  

That's okay.  We have quite a few less colorful...but more colorful sheep who are more than happy to fill the sheep are so fun roles :-).  Everyone has a place.

Special request for next/this week?

And One More Thing

"I'm just going to head out for awhile.  Don't wait up."

In my late night effort to not get a week behind on the SOTW I forgot to tell Baba's most unique behavior.  I'm not sure if I just raised her to be extra independent or if she would have turned out this way on her own, but on the rare occasion I leave the farm, I always have to leave a note for our farm sitter.

"If you find a sheep left all by itself in the barn when everyone else goes out to graze, this is normally a sign of trouble.  However, if the sheep is a fat, fluffy white one who also has a big black dot on one ear, that's just Baba...and she's most likely just fine."

Baba could not care less if everyone else has left her to go out to pasture.  If she's not hungry or is enjoying a particularly good nap, she's not going.  She also does not care if everyone is bedded down for the night in the cozy barn.  If she's hungry, she's going to go out and graze.  In the dark.  By herself.

She has always been this way.  Her favorite place to graze used to be down by the creek.  This could be due to fond memories of hanging out there in the evenings with me, Hank and Betsy when she was a lamb.  

I used to not worry about her doing that when Hank was alive.  Now I don't let her (or any other sheep) go down there at night.  When she moved herself into Easy Breezy this winter, she was happy to find she could now go out into the securely fenced yard all night if she wanted...until Rocky started having so much vision trouble.

Rocky stays out in Del Boca Vista during the day, but I bring him into Easy Breezy at night so he has some company and a warm, soft bed and can only get a little lost.  Jared really doesn't like being in DBV and prefers to be indoors.  He takes care of Rocky during the day so he gets to choose where they sleep at night ;-).

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Sara Dunham (@thecrazysheeplady)

Because I don't want Rocky to wander out the front barn doors at night and either get lost or tangled up in something he can't see, I've started putting gates up to keep everyone safe inside.  This is not making Baba happy.  

This is bothering her so much so that she and I had a big knock down drag out about it last night.  A literal knock down, drag out.  She kept trying to knock down the wooden gates or at least drag them out of the way so she could go where she wanted.  I felt a bit like I was trying to put a toddler to bed.

The incident reminded me that I'd missed sharing this trait in her SOTW post.  Putting the February end of the month photo compilation reminded me that I had a good picture of her at night.  And now typing it up here has reminded me that I forgot to post the month end on here as well. 

Two posts in one day, twice in a week. I wish I was just really ambitious and not just disorganized ;-).

My Favorite Sheep...Of The Week

"It's me, Baba!  Actually my name is Blossom, but everyone calls me Baba or Babababa. I'm going to be 11 next month.  I've lived here since I was just a couple days old."

"This is one of my mom's favorite pictures of me."

"This is one of mine.  I jumped up on mom's camping cot when she moved me out to the barn and decided I wanted to sleep on a cot all the time.  I eventually got too big, but it was sure fun while it lasted."

Baba was a funny lamb.  She and Betsy were best friends and she loved Hank a lot too.  Blizzard ended up being her best sheep babysitter.  I'd forgotten about that.  She was always (and still is) a good napper.  The cot was the funniest thing though.  I think that cot lasted a couple of months out there!  

There are a bunch of good stories and pictures if you scroll back through.  You can either use the "Blossom" or "Baba" labels on the right hand side of the blog or jump back to the 2012 archives.  She got here in April.

Blossom is mostly Texel with some other breeds mixed in.  I've always loved her classic sheepy beauty.  She has produced an amazing amount of wool in her 11 years here.  Her wool is easy to process and spin and is a really good for beginning spinners.  I include it in every drop spindle kit.

She loves to watch what's going on around her...when she's awake.  There is an hysterical video of her on IG watching Archie playing in the straw when he was a kitten.  I'd love to include it here, but I'm tired and need to call it a night.  Maybe tomorrow.

How about a Jacob sheep for next week?  Any requests?

My Favorite Sheep...Of The Week

Biscuit, one of the fleece "show ponies" of the flock, out grazing pastorally by the big pond with his friends, raising beautiful wool in preparation for shearing next month.

D'oh!

These pictures were actually taken almost three weeks ago now.  The grass has greened way up since then.  This is not good for fat sheep or fat horses, but does make it easier to keep them from foraging for snacks in places where I have to pull off a bunch of, ahem, vegetable matter.

Biscuit grew up to be one of the more "background sheep".  He's still cute and sweet and loves attention, but he's not going to fight his way into the mix of the big personalities that hog all the attention in the "foreground".

His BFF is still Muffin and I find them either side by side or near each other most of the time.  I just love that.  Mini Moose, the gray sheep next to him in the first picture, is another of his best buddies.  Mini Moose is another of the background sheep.  Both boys are polite and kind and well worth the effort to visit.

I can identify many of the sheep by their voice.  Well, I should say of the talkers in the flock, I can identify most of them.  Not everyone says much or even anything.  Biscuit is easy though.  He has one of the deepest baaas ever.  I don't think he's talking to me much anymore, but I should start paying more attention to see if I can figure out what he's saying and to whom.

Here is a link to his new baby post.  He was definitely a cutie.  

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Sara Dunham (@thecrazysheeplady)

If you'd like to hang out with the background boys for a bit, here's a fun new puzzle :-).

Any special requests for the next Sheep of the Week?

My Favorite Sheep...Of The Week

This week's Sheep of the Week is Spud, although as I scrolled back through all the old Spud posts, he was usually referred to as Sweet Spud.  

Spud arrived here in the summer of 2014 along with Murphy and Woody to be buddies for Baaxter.  They got into all sorts of fun that first year.  Besides normal teenage hijinks, they dressed up for Halloween and even had a Christmas party.  Do you remember the Spaceship?  He was one of the Spaceship sheep :-).

Spud earned Sweet Spud by, well, by being sweet.  He loved Hank and would always stop to visit with him and "close talk".  Hank never seemed to mind.  Spud would also check in with me almost every morning, lean into me for a sheep hug and we'd visit for a couple of minutes before he headed out for breakfast.  

My favorite Sweet Spud story however, is how he was one of the main Sheep Chicken sheep, helping the old hen up onto her perch each night.  My favorite of those posts was this video.  There are several pictures and a couple of videos of the sheep working to help that old hen.  I loved that.

View this post on Instagram

The picture up top was taken last winter.  It's the December picture on the 2023 calendar.  Salt was Miss December in 2022.  That calendar is still hanging in the wash room.  I can't bring myself to take it down.  I doubt I'll take 2023 down at the end of this year either.  I had to make the hard call this past week.  

Sweet Spud

Spring 2014 - February 13, 2023

He was one of the very best.