Sage - Icelandic Ewe Matriarch Extraordinaire

Sage's lambs from 2009, a moorit ewe and her flashy black and white spotted brother on the right.

Sage's most recent fleece-

Below, Sage in all of her glory

When I first saw Sage, I was impressed by her sheer size and holstein black and white big spot pattern! Now that she has been a member of our flock and farm for several years, she's made steady contributions - having some of the largest, fastest growing and lovely fleeced lambs! Not to mention, her own fleece which many have spun and I've had made into a heathered black and white blend roving.

She is a pushy gal, very clever - first to the feeder and the last to leave. She carries the spotting pattern to her lambs if she has been bred to a ram who also carries that recessive spotting gene.

And the color moorit too, reddish brown - such a stunning color!

A while ago someone who had been involved with Sage in her earlier years asked to visit her.

Several years had passed since their last meeting. When he walked into the paddock to visit, she

walked right up to him and looked into his face. I was very moved and so glad they could re-connect again.

My father always asked how Sage was, she was his favorite for some reason... last year as

my Dad was ill - he was so sad because he was unable to come down to see the latest spring lambs, we were at least able to share a photo of Sage's lambs with him before he went to the great Art Studio in the sky.

Shed is Ready!

The sheep shed is ready to shelter our ewes with their newborn lambs! Here is Beau the Llama being feed a tasty tender branch of hazelnut sucker last fall. The shed withstood the horrific rain and winds storms of last December 2007. It is a true shed, from a USDA plan from the 1960's. We can store almost 5 tons of hay, and wish we had even more room for hay! I visited a neighbor recently who has a huge giant shed, and he says his is not big enough - either. Hmmmm. Family activities and life and outside work have taken me away for awhile from writing/blogging, so hope to make a little time to make regular entries from now on. We did have many wonderful pounds of Icelandic rovings processed recently, we have creamy white, smokey black, morrit/reddish brown, ligth gray/buff, a sturdy black with white, and even our first batch of lambs roving that spins up a heathery gray! You may view the rovings at our website www.Dolcefarm.com Back to the lambs, they are arriving any day - we started a waiting list for lambs, and after the people on the list make their choices we post it for everyone else. I'm getting ready to send in several beautiful lamb pelts, we sold out pretty quickly on our first batch we posted.

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!

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...