Final days until the move! Fiber prep for Tour de Fleece

It‘s been too long since my last update! I’ve started this several times but by the time I get started there’s something new to add.

The fence wire is completely up! Everything is stretched and stapled. Yay! I know Chase is happy about that!!! We’re working on the barn now and got the copper metal roof up yesterday! It’s looks spectacular. We have 3 of the 8 gates complete, the waterline is in, roof up!, and the siding will go up in the next day or two. Excited to finally have the sheep and all moved to the new farm!!

Chase has been working so hard the last few months to make my dream come true. I’m so grateful to have such a supportive and loving husband. Mason has also enjoyed being on the farm! Digging in the dirt, walking everywhere he can, trying to climb ladders (yikes!) and just loving being with us and his puppy.

I have learned so much practical farm knowledge over the past few weeks from Chase, Wayne, my grandfather, and other farmers and shepherds. The farming community is truely amazing.

We also bought a square baler! Wayne bales our farm each year with a round baler. I can’t manage a round bale for my sheep easily. So for the cost of what it would roughly cost us for a years worth of hay to feed the animals I bought an old New Holland 273 and I’m so proud and excited to use it!!! It’s an old, one family owned baler that has been well cared for over the years.

Tour de Fleece!!!

I heard about the TDF not long ago and knew I wanted to try it. It has been a great motivator getting our fleece washed, carded into batts and now spinning it up! I’ve spent so many nights after Mason goes to bed working on prepping for this month. As a mother, I try and be fully present and engaged with him as much as possible so I do most of this when hes napping or down for the evening. He’s just getting big enough to want to really watch what Im doing or turn the handle on the drum carder. So we only do a little of this together.

I have 30+ batts ready from 4 of our sheep and 1 alpaca. I did a range of our natural color fiber so it feels like I’m making progress! I still have quite a bit of fleece to card even from those sheep, but just having it washed has been helpful getting my craft room more organized. Lol. So excited to be apart of the TDF this year as a rookie!!

New Additions to the farm!

Yes! Despite the big eye roll I’m sure my family is giving about more animals haha, I did get 3 more gorgeous lambs from Love Ewe Farm to add to our flock. They are beautiful, healthy and settling in great!!! I got another ram, Carson, and two ewes, Aelin and Aria.

Carson is a beautiful recessive natural color and is exactly the shade of grey I was thinking of when I first fell in love with having a flock of my own. Aelin and Aria are white.

Also, two new alpaca will be joining our farm! I’m currently writing this blog in the truck heading down to pick them up! We have a new black male and a white, pregnant female. Need name ideas! Lol. I still have sheep that have names, but I think of them first as their tag numbers some of the time because that’s how I learned to tell them apart in the beginning.

We debated a long time on what our goals were for the farm and if breeding alpaca was in that setup. We’ve invested a lot of time, money, and effort into creating this farm to pay for itself at the very least. Only from a practical perspective, not to take away from our passion of farm life and raising Mason appreciating this lifestyle. But we can’t go negative every year. In order to do that I believe a small breeding program for the alpaca will be part of helping us. And more importantly!!! More fleece to work with in new natural colors and adorable babies to play with!! who doesn’t love baby animals to snuggle!!

Very busy the last few weeks and we’re excited about our progress so far!! Look for some soft and fluffy yarn in our shop soon!!