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Coconut - a Gray Moorit Ram and Salty - a Moorit Gray Badgerface Ram

It's been awhile since I've blogged - school started, we entered sheep at the wonderful Flock and Fiber Festival in Canby, Oregon, lots of work going on here at the farm and Turkey Day has come and gone... We've gotten our breeding groups together - using 3 herd sires (2 rams and a ram lamb) and 17 ewes. As far as herd sires go - I like them to have a very nice fleece - lots of thel - soft undercoat, and nice tog - not too coarse - outercoat. Size is important - we're looking at passing on good genes for fast growing lambs as breeding stock and grass fed lamb. Conformation - how the body is put together - straight back, horns far from face, back legs straight (not cow hocked). Personality counts too - so far our rams just run away from us, but if any ram turned aggressive, he would be turned into sausage quickly! So some pictures of our two rams - Salty and Coconut, and I need to get a photo of Romeo - a Black Gray ram lamb (my favorite of all the Icelandic colors, and I must say he has the most stunning fleece! So we are eagerly anticipating lambs starting around mid April 2008...

Early September musings...

Somehow August has flown by - busy with visiting friends, taking time out to savor the local wineries, enjoying our tomatoes from the garden and walking the hazelnut orchard. We visited the Oregon State Fair in Salem - always fun to see the dairy cows, pigs, dairy goats and 4-H sheep! This year we planted 3 types of tomatoes, started by my Dad -- Glacier - which is really early, we snacked on the first ones in July, small red salad type - Taxi - medium size, yellow and very sweet, and Big Beef - nice, meaty beefsteak. The summer weather cooperated by not being excessively hot and the tomatoes did well. Our sheep shed is nearly complete, the metal roof is up - it is painted a snappy barn red, has enough room for storing 5-9 tons of hay, alfalfa and room for the sheep to get out of the sun/rain. It is a USDA plan from the 1960's, with a hay room, feed/tack/extra room, shed roof, 20'X30'. It has board and batten siding, looks just beautiful! And my husband built it nearly by himself, with help from friends and family. We are walking the hazelnut orchard, we've put alot into pruning the nuts to bring them back into higher production. I'll delve deeper into the hazelnut orchard in a future blog. We also righted a shelter (half ton shelter, mind you) that goblins help lift over a 5 foot fence on Halloween Day last year during a wind storm. Thank goodness for our workhorse tractor!

We will be attending the Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival this year in September - in Canby Oregon. This is a new experience for us - I've attended the festival for the last few years, and am really looking forward to bringing some of our ram and ewe lambs/yearling to show and offer for sale as well. Come by and say hello!

Hey Hay!

We've been searching for good hay to feed our Icelandic Sheep - The lambs really benefit from second cutting hay which has a higher protein content. What with unseasonal rains here in late July which ruined much of the hay crop in the Willamette Valley, more farm land being sold for housing developments - drought in the west, well, that equals a hay scarcity and higher prices. This leads us also to another decision - perhaps to take out much of our Italian prune orchard - many of the trees are 80-100 years old. The gophers are taking their toll - digging around the plum trees and eating the roots- eventually the trees fall over. So every spring it has been a woodlot festival - cutting up the windfalls for our firewood. The plum orchard hasn't yielded a commercial size crop in years - the tree bloom early, and often there have been rains and cold weather, so the pollinators can't get to the blossoms. So the thought is shall we grow hay on some of these plums acres? That way we can control what type of grasses/weeds grow, nutrient levels and perhaps even grow our own organic hay!! Points to ponder... The photo above is our pastures in August, time to feed hay.


Through a local hay connection, a local farmer showed up with a trailer of beautiful second cutting orchard grass - very leafy - 2 1/2 tons at $180 a ton - we jumped on it as I just paid $260 a ton for eastern Oregon second cutting orchard grass - last year's crop. We are firm believers in grass fed lamb, and will be offering lamb for sale sometime in late October - November 2007. The hanging weight is around 35 pounds - Icelandic lamb is very mild and lean, being grass fed it has higher Omega 3 content - our customers have really enjoyed the taste of our lamb. I know Whole Foods is importing on occasion lamb from Iceland, but why not support a local farmer (and of course the price is much lower locally than the imported Icelandic lamb). If you would like more information contact us at http://www.dolcefarm.com/

Spinning From the Stash

Here is what is on the bobbin right now, Llama fleece that I bought before I had sheep and Llamas! I'm trying to use up my stash so I can plunge into all the Icelandic fleeces and rovings that I have. I am spinning this Llama fleece in the "grease", actually, Llamas have very little lanolin, however, they relish rolling in the dirt at every opportunity. I card it with my hand cards, then spin from the rolags. There are some guard hair in this fleece, I could have pulled it out, but am spinning it as is. The coarsest parts I just tossed out. I will ply this (then wash and set the twist) and send a huge skein to my Dad who is knitting up a storm and wanted some yarn this color! I use a double treadle Lendrum wheel, love the flexibility and portability of the wheel. I've got the plying head, haven't gotten the fast flyer yet (for lace yarn).

Cherry Jam

We've just picked a bunch of Bing Cherries, the trees were loaded, the kids helped so much. Together we all picked 10 pounds, ate fresh, juicy Bings to our hearts content - I put up 8 - 1/2 pints of Cherry Jam (it feels like such a luxury). We all took turns using the little German cherry pitter. Also made some Bourbon Bings, from the "Home" cookbook ( a little comfort food restaurant in NYC). I love this cookbook - great canning recipes, home cooked meals and all!

The Black berries on the back 40 are getting ripe, the Himalayan wild ones that I read are native to Armenia. Our black berry patch is around 1/2 acre, home to California Quail and the native little bunnies that live around here. The crop should be tremendous, due to the perfectly times rains courtesy mother nature. We make Blackberry Gelato which I will dig up the recipe and share here soon.

Icelandic Lambs are ready for new homes!

The lambs are just about ready to be weaned - many are finding new homes, but we still have several beautiful lambs available!

Icelandic Sheep are a triple purpose breed. We choose only the best to keep and sell for breeding stock. They have fleece that handspinners love, in many natural colors (white, black, gray, chocolate brown, brown, reddish brown, buff and combinations of these colors), they have mild, lean meat and can be milked for homestead use. Our sheep all have unique personalities, are a medium sized breed of sheep - ewes are around 150 pounds, rams 200 pounds. We have available all of the badgerface patterns in our lambs for sale, which are black, moorit, gray moorit and black gray. Also solid colors, moorit and white, as well as a couple of spotted lambs. We sell only lambs with the best conformation and horn set. Come visit our website at http://www.dolcefarm.com/ to learn more about Icelandic sheep and view our lambs!

Roving to Yarn

Just spun up some almost bulky Icelandic singles from roving, this is from a gray-moorit ewe ( grey on the inside of the fleece, moorit (reddish brown on the outside). I just love spinning the wool from my Icelandic sheep. She is Yvonne, a very curious and lovely gray-moorit Icelandic Ewe. (Here pictured in the front at the right, with her twin lambs, a morrit badgerface ewe lamb in the middle and here HUGE grey moorit spotted badgerface ram lamb to the far left. Roving is washed, and then carded fleece made into a tube shape (not hollow), and is such a lovely combo of light grey with the oatmeal - moorit colors. I made a skein on my niddy noddy, but am going to look into purchasing a skein winder to create a more even skein. I first learned how to spin on a spindle, then after a couple years moved to a double treadle Lendrum spinning wheel and I just love it (but I do enjoy spindles too - a spindle can go to the doctor's office, swimming pool, park, camping, well, everywhere a wheel might be a bit too cumbersome to carry along). Spinning on a wheel or spindle is just so very centering and relaxing, a fine tranquilizer after a stressful day.

Cloudy Spring Day

We've all spent much of the morning working in the fields, the kids helped clip the tops (garlic scapes) of the garlic going to seed - that helps the bulb grow larger and keep longer. (cut garlic scapes)They are also good sauteed in olive oil with a little salt and pepper - even the kids like them! They taste like really mild garlic greens, but with a hint of artichoke. They also have been chopping off the tops of wicked thistles, trying to use fewer sprays is our goal. I've been cleaning out the llama's favorite areas in the pasture- goodies for the garden come this fall! Kevin is cutting out the windows in the shed, much to the concern of the barn swallow couple who has taken refuge on the rafters and built a nest there. The siding has arrived and that should shore up the sheep shed. One of the black mouflon Icelandic lambs wanted to snuggle up to the ugly Bella the Llama, no such luck, she wouldn't have anything to do with him.

Icelandic Lambs are here!

I am finally finding the time to start my farm blog - Our Icelandic lambs were all born in the month of April - I just love the colors and patterns they come in, such beautiful fleeces they have, a mass of pin curls and ringlets... 17 in lambs in all. This little ram lamb is a spotted moorit (reddish brown) badgerface - Some are reserved for other breeders and others we'll keep for our flock, and those that don't make the grade will make wonderful grass fed lamb for the table. I've sent fleeces all over the country, and I'm a spinner myself, so I hope to include photos of current spinning projects on this blog as well. Our sheep shed is nearing the last stage of work - windows for light and ventilation soon, and then siding , and finally - proper roofing! My husband is quite the handyman and does almost all the work himself. Today was the last day of school, summer is now really starting - I celebrated by picking up a flat of Hood strawberries - they have got to be the sweetest strawberry I've ever tasted! I cooked up a batch of whole wheat pastry biscuits to go with the sugared strawberries, and then canned up 5 pints of Red Red Strawberry Jam from the Joy of Cooking, oh how good that will taste on a slice of fresh baked rye bread and butter... Also froze a container of strawberries and sugar. Well I've wandered a bit, but did help a friend shear an alpaca, some very nice white fleece, 2 years worth, and now I can think of blending it with Icelandic lambs wool or on it's own...