Goodness I am WAY behind in keeping you all updated with our farm happenings... It's been a crazy time of the year with lambing, finishing up this semester of graduate school at Cornell, and everything else that happens when the world wakes up in the spring. Last month in April, I had the pleasure of attending the Genesee Valley Handspinner's Guild (http://www.gvhg.org/) meeting to participate in their current "sheep study". Each month, members of the guild receive a small sample of a different breed of sheep so they can learn about breeds, textures, and discover new types of sheep. In March, we supplied the guild with some of our Lincoln lamb wool, and I wanted to attend the meeting to see what members thought of our wool and what they did with it. The results were pretty impressive, as you can tell from the photos below! While I don't spin, being a member of the guild will hopefully serve as a way to promote not only our business, but our breed and I look forward to being involved in the future. Maybe they'll even teach me how to spin one day!
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This has been one historical winter here in Western NY! Over 110 inches of snow, too many (>15) days below 0, and storms galore. While most people would probably agree that spring is coming in like a lion, on our farm, spring always comes in like lambs... Literally! We finished lambing in early February (I know, I'm slow on the updates!) and ended with 12 purebred Lincoln lambs: 6 ewes and 6 rams. We also had 3 Lincoln/Hampshire crosses that still descendants from my very first sheep, Juliet. We have already sold many if the lambs, and a few cull ewes and are working in adding some more ewes to our flock this summer. Dad is determined to breed 15 Lincolns next year, so it looks like we will be expanding a bit. Those of you who have been following us for a while know that last year was a terrible year with regards to lambing, and thankfully this year was much more successful. I think we aired out all our bad luck (hopefully for a while!). March ended with a storm dropping almost a foot of new snow (see photos below), but now that April is here, we are hoping spring is here for good. Dad and I trimmed some hooves last week, sheared a ewe that got missed in December, and started to clean up the barn. Spring is never a fun time on a farm with the amount of mud everywhere. I really cannot wait for it to dry out! The Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival is right around the corner and in a couple weeks it will be time to start washing the lambs and ewes who are going this year. It's hard to believe it's almost that time of year. We have also been very busy continuing to wash our winter fleeces for more blankets and yarn. We got a beautiful shipment of blankets and yarn in a couple weeks ago and I'm hoping to send more soon to keep up with the demand. Also a shout out to those who have been following me! Thank you for your awesome support and wonderful comments and encouragement! If you are interested in subscribing, please use the box on the right hand side of the page to receive emails whenever a post is published. :) People always ask me how I got interested in Lincolns, and "why sheep" in general. The first question is a much easier one to answer, and a story for another day. For the second question, the answer is not so clear. The easy answer is that I was born loving sheep. Seriously. My first stuffed animals were sheep, which was obviously not my choice, but my favorite animal has always been sheep. When my mom was seven months pregnant with me, my parents visited the Empire Spring Classic Sheep Show, and we think that's where it happened...
Anyway, for my entire life, I have loved and wanted sheep, and apparently was up for doing anything to convince my parents that we should get them. My dad reminded me of a persuasive essay I wrote in Mrs. Wallace's forth grade class and thought I would share it with you all. It must have been a good essay, because three years later I got my first sheep! Enjoy! A friend of mine recently once encouraged me to "try something that scares you every day". Well that something for me this past week was learning how to wash my own sheep fleece. Washing the wool is one of the first steps to processing it, and the main purpose is to get rid of the lanolin and organic matter. Lanolin is the oil naturally produced by sheep to keep the wool clean, act as a moisturizer and help shed water. Lanolin accounts for anywhere between 5-25% of the raw wool weight. I previously have had wool washed by several local businesses, and the price ranges from $4-8.00 per pound. We have been sending 50lbs or more at a time to have it processed into yarn, blankets and roving, so I thought I would investigate the process to see if it is worth doing myself. I have been nervous to try it for fear of felting (or otherwise ruining) the wool. Since I have been home on break from school with a barn full of freshly shorn fleeces, I figured I would give it a try. Below is the process I used, which I found on Spinderella's Wool Mill website. I have modified some of their instructions, which I will try to describe in my processes. If any of you are wool washing veterans and have suggestions for improvement, please let me know. 1. We sheared the middle of December (see previous post), and during shearing, we try to make sure we are separating out manure tags, belly wool, etc. in the barn to reduce the amount of skirting to be done in the house. Even still, I spent over 30min. on each fleece, picking through it, discarding organic matter and undesirable wool before starting the wash process. I usually did this the night before so I could get started with washing first thing in the morning. 2. The website calls for water up to 150 degrees. Our tap water didn't get that hot (until we turned up the thermostat), so for the first couple attempts, I was boiling water on the stove and dumping it in the machine... not exactly quick, but it worked. Once you fill a washing machine full of hot water, you dump in detergent (I used Dawn), stir in to not create suds, and add the fiber handful by handful. The fiber then sits in the hot water for 20 min. The article mentioned adding salt to the water, but our water is soft and our fleeces are not extremely dirty, so I did not bother with this. I also used less detergent (2/3 - 3/4 cup instead of 1 whole cup). 3. After the fleece sat for 20min. in the hot, soapy water, I lifted it out into the sink next to the washer. I then drained the dirty water and refilled with hot water and soap to repeat Step 1 for a total of 2 washes. The second wash I let sit for 15-18min. instead of 20min. I don't really think the time makes much of a difference. The first couple times I actually spun out the water as the article mentioned. Since then, I have not done this and lifted out the fleece to reduce the amount of agitation. I also ruined two fleeces by felting during this stage because I accidently left the washer on before the spin step. 4. Next, I conducted 3 rinses using the same method: Fill up the washer with warm water, add the fleece by the handful, and then lifted out after a few minutes. On the 3rd rinse, I actually let the washer spin out the water and the fleece to get a lot of the water out to assist with the drying process. The article mentions putting baking soda and vinegar in one of the last rinses, but I didn't find that necessary because the water was very clear by the 3rd rinse. 5. After spinning out, I laid a tarp out by our wood stove in the living room, and spread the fleece out. Throughout the day, I would fluff up the fleece, turn it over, and pick out large pieces of organic matter still left in the wool. It was actually amazing to see how much chaff still came out while it was drying! Our cat really loved laying in the wool! (as you can see by the photo above!). After ruining 2 fleeces, I was feeling a bit discouraged, but someone said I was paying too much attention to the little details of doing it right, and to not worry about the temperature of the water, measuring the detergent exactly, timing the soaks, etc. It took me 2-2.5 hours per fleece, as I was taking my time lifting out the wool and placing it back in the water each time. I have since washed 5 fleeces successfully and will continue to make this a winter project! Four of the fleeces will be going to Finger Lakes Woolen Mill to be made into roving, the fifth will probably get made into yarn. Only about 10 more to go... haha Again, any input to speed up the process or personal experience would be appreciated. :)
Surprises happen all the time on the farm. Those of you involved in agriculture are well aware... We start breeding our ewes right after the county fair in July, hoping that all lambs will be born before the middle of February. A sheep's gestation period is approximately 148 days, which is why were very surprised to find these two cute lambs in the barn Saturday morning! Counting backwards, this ewe must have been bred the first day they were in with the ram, and run a few days short on her gestation period. This is one of our Hampshire-Lincoln crosses, so its always a surprise to see what colors the lambs end up being. The black one is a ewe lamb and the white one is a ram lamb. They are 7/8ths Lincoln. We had to bring the ewe lamb inside for a few hours due to the temperatures being in the teen's and her brother being a more aggressive nurser. But after sitting by the fire in our living room for a few hours, she's been much more active. Because we are a small hobby farm with only a few lambs at a time, often end up with a few in the house during the winter "just in case". Hopefully this means more lambs will be coming very soon! So after a surprise on Saturday morning, we got to surprise the sheep by shearing. People often ask why we decide to shear at the beginning of winter. It is a bit odd, but we do it for several reasons: 1. We shear in May for the summer and for our shows in the fall, and by the time winter comes around, they have a very long fleece on them. They stay in the barn for most of the winter, so we want to make sure we shear them for a high quality fleece before it gets matted and dirty during the winter in the barn. 2. Our first sheep show is always the first weekend in May, and we like to have a minimum of 12 weeks of wool on the sheep, which means we have to shear in December. 3. Because our sheep have so much wool, lambs sometimes have a hard time finding the udder underneath the mother when they are born. Additionally, we keep a close eye on our ewes when we are expecting lambs, and you can often tell when a ewe is going into labor by a swollen vulva and mucus. These signs are difficult to see with so much wool. On ewes with full fleece, people often "crotch" the ewes, which is shearing just their rump and under the belly, to assist the lamb. We just prefer to shear them. While each sheep is being shorn, someone is nearby skirting the previous sheep's fleece. Skirting is the process of picking through the wool to get out any organic matter, straw, matted clumps, and short or low quality pieces (like stomach or leg wool). We now have about 30 fleeces to do something with! In the coming weeks, we will be packaging all the newly shorn wool to be sent to MacAusland's Woolen Mill and the Finger Lakes Woolen Mill to be made into blankets, yarn and roving. We also will be saving some of the nicer fleeces to be sold as raw fleeces to handspinners. Send us an email if you are interested! Our semi-annual shearing day is rapidly approaching, and after very successful sales at the NYS Sheep and Wool Festival, we are very interested in having more products made out of our wool. The question is... what will you all buy? If you could take just a second to fill out this quick survey, it will really help us determine what products to spend most of our resources marketing. Thanks! :) It occurred to me as I went to write this post, that I never updated you on how we did at the Big E! If you've been following our facebook page, you'll know that we won Best Fleeced Natural Colored Lincoln for the second year in a row! This year is was an especially awesome honor because it was the National show. We were very excited. Check out the picture below of Benny, our yearling ram. He is a bit (major understatement) feisty and never wants to set up, so sorry for the poor example of confirmation! Now, onto our last show of the year. We just returned this evening from the New York State Sheep and Wool Festival in Rhinebeck, NY. It is our last show of the year, and one of our favorites. The weather is always beautiful with the leaves changing and crisp weather (much nicer than showing in humid July!). We brought 6 sheep this year and had fun as usual. This show is always so nice because the festival goers are always so interested in what you are doing and ask a lot of good questions. Education is one of my favorite parts about raising Lincolns and going to shows, so I particularly enjoy talking to people.
We did fairly well in the show this year, not first, but not last either! We got second in the pair of ewe lambs, and third overall in the flock which was excellent! This show is always challenging because they show by type of wool instead of breed, so we show against Romneys, Border Leisters, etc. The thing we did best with this weekend is wool sales! Sold both of our pelts, a couple blankets, and lots of roving and yarn. We definitely will be placing more orders for yarn, blankets, and maybe even socks (I'll keep you posted on that!). If you would like a blanket, speak now while we still have them in stock! Next up on our farm schedule... shearing in December and lambing in Jan./Feb.! Winter is on its way. The Big E and the National Lincoln Show are approaching quickly! Dad got all 8 sheep washed last week, and Jenny and I worked on fitting them this Sunday. I don't get to the fair until Friday evening and with the show starting first thing Saturday morning at 8am, we figured we'd start the fitting process at home. It actually was much nicer than fitting at the show with people all around and the sheep nervous! The only observers we had were our chickens who really weren't too interested in what we were doing. We got their bellies sheared (which helps them look taller and longer), and quite a bit of trimming done. We will still have to do some final trimming the morning of the show, but the hardest parts are out of the way. Sorry about the picture quality below... we only had a cell phone out in the barn with us.
Overall, I'm very pleased with how the flock we are taking looks, and I am looking forward to seeing how we'll do this weekend! And if you won't be in Massachusetts like us this weekend, you should attend the Finger Lakes Fiber Festival in Hemlock, NY! I just wanted to notify everyone of a great educational event coming up this month at Cornell University. Previously, Cornell has annually held the NY Sheep and Goat Symposium in October. For reasons I'm not sure of, this event will not be happening this year, but will be replaced by the "Cornell Sheep and Goat Management Day". This will be a one day event located at Morrison Hall and the Livestock Pavilion on the Cornell University Campus in Ithaca. The date is Saturday, September 21st, with an optional evening program Friday, September 20th. Friday will begin with a cheesemaking workshop, Goat/Sheep bowl for youth, and "Basic Health and Management for Goats and Sheep", taught by Dr. Michael Thonney who is the sheep professor at Cornell. Saturday will have three different tracts geared towards 1) the 12 year-old and under crowd, 2) the teen crowd, 3) adults. I highly encourage anyone who is involved in goats and sheep (especially 4-H members) to attend. Not only are the workshops going to be taught by the NY experts on sheep and goats, but it is a great networking event as well! Also, if you know of anyone who would be interested in this event, please spread the word. To find out more about this event, registration, lodging, ect. visit: http://www.sheep.cornell.edu/calendar/index.html eWe will unfortunately not be in attendance that weekend due to the National Lincoln Show at the Big E in Springfield, Mass. but hope some of you will be able to go! It's great that it is just one day. Back in March, I received an email from the Cornell Small Farms program asking for submissions for the summer issue of the Small Farms Quarterly publication, specifically regarding the "New Farmer" section. I thought about this for a while, and what I could say to educate and promote my breed. I decided it would be fun to put together an article about the things I've learned raising my Lincoln sheep. I enlisted the help of Dave Popielinski, a long-time friend who I purchased my first sheep from (way back in 7th grade!), and together we came up with a list of 8 lessons we've learned. We entitled it: Counting our Blessings: Lessons Learned from Raising Heritage Lincoln Longwool Sheep.
Please check out the article at: http://smallfarms.cornell.edu/2013/07/01/counting-our-blessings/ We'd love to hear your feedback! (There's also an article this issue on how to build panels, jugs and creep feeders for sheep barns) A big thanks to Veronica and Leah for their editing help. |
AuthorEmmaline Long, main owner of Orchard View Farm, has a passion for Lincoln sheep and loves educating others about her breed and farm, She currently serves as the Vice President of the National Lincoln Breeders Association. Archives
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Orchard View Lincoln Longwools7617 S. Lake Rd., Bergen NY 14416 |
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