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Rams and Ewes, oh my!

Saturday, October 17th, 2009

It has been three weeks since my return from Denmark. Since Nanoo Nanoo has stolen my thunder and already touched on what she thinks I think were the highlights of that journey, I will not try to elaborate further. I will only add that it is always special to be able to be with my Danish family and my Danish friends. Jeg vil gerne sige rigtig mange tak til Axel og Kirsten, Jens og Kirsten, og Søren og Pige for de hyggeligste besøg. Det var dejligt at igen bor hos jer Susanne og Per, Dorte og Nils. Finally thanks to all the Danes who make my adopted “home” such a special place. Tak allesammen!

The final day in pasture #3

As was expected my return home to Whitefish Bay Farm did not allow for much time to catch my breath. A day after I got back the last of this years lambs went to market. We are now down to our “winter” population: this year it is 129. Immediately after selling the lambs we had to begin preparing the pastures for the fall breeding groups. While I worked on the other pastures the entire ewe flock was together for one last period of six days in pasture #3. At least they were spared having to be out there during the heavy rains of the previous two days. They had beautiful fall weather to be together as a group. The ash, birch and maple were starting to show nice fall colors and there was still plenty of grazing left in #3.

As September and October tend to be one of the most attractive times of the year to visit Door County due to the fall colors, we also have been exceedingly busy in the Art Gallery and B&B. Gretchen especially has spent hours in the Gallery. Yarn and finished fiber products have sold especially well this year, for which we are always glad. The pace has, however, been frantic at times. It will be very nice to finally close the Gallery for the season in a couple of days. Gretchen finished up spinning fleeces from Nutbread and Ruby while she manned the Gallery. cosmos-1 In addition we continued with our dye project with the cosmos flowers from the garden. It is truly amazing the lovely yellow color they produce considering the intense red and violet shades of their flowers.

The results from all three projects are pictured here: Nutbread’s yarn on the left, the Cosmos dyed yarn in the middle and Ruby’s yarn on the right. fall-yarn

In the midst of all the other activity, we devoted an entire day (as we always do in October) to sorting the ewes into breeding groups and getting them together with a ram, each in their own separate pasture. This year we decided to cut back on our breeding numbers. There are 63 ewes currently with 4 rams (that is a drop of over 20 ewes from last year). While we plan to retain about the same size adult flock next year there will be more ewes who are “retired” and whose sole major job will be the production of wool. We are scaling back significantly our emphasis on selling breeding stock. As of October 13th Rhett, Ulmer, Stud Muffin and Vermicelli have their own pool of ewes. So far breeding appears to be going well. With less than a week gone over 50% of the ewes have already been well marked, despite often miserable rainy, cold weather.

This year we also decided to try to keep the breeding groups as close to home as possible. It is the only time of the year when the sheep (at least the breeding flock) does not come into the barn at night. It is physically impossible for us to keep all of the groups separate and also bring them inside each evening. Throughout much of the summer and into fall we have had what sounds like a pretty good size pack of coyotes in the neighborhood. Their howling has been rather intense most nights. While we have yet to experience any loses to coyotes we do not wish to loose any sheep to them. Hence, our breeding groups are all as close to home as possible. They are hopefully protected by as many layers of electric fence as we can possibly set up for them. We will not be really comfortable until everyone returns home in a little less than 4 weeks.

In order to not end on such an ominous note we would like to present the following view of the farm as the fall colors began to appear. fall-20091

Posted in Fiber Projects, Gallery, Sheep, What's New | 5 Comments »

Heading into fall

Monday, September 14th, 2009

The seasons are definitely beginning to show signs of changing at Whitefish Bay Farm. There are touches of reds and yellows already appearing in the sugar maples. After bountiful and very timely rains in August, September has remained sunny every day, save for dense ground fog nearly every evening and into early morning.

sept-graze

The August rains did give our hay fields and pastures a good kick in the pants. They put on a phenomenal spurt of growth which was very welcome. Earlier we were concerned that we would not have enough hay for the sheep to make it through the winter. Suddenly we were able to cut and bale hay that a month earlier was non-existent. Between what we baled ourselves and what we were able to purchase from neighboring friends and diary farmers we are now comfortable for the rest of the year with the barn nearly full.

The hay crew and the last 98 bales in 2009

The hay crew and the last 98 bales of 2009

Our poor vegetable garden has become totally confused this summer. Much of our crops have struggled to reach maturity. All our tomatoes are still generally green. Melons and onions are as they would be expected in early July. This spring we planted an entire package of cosmos seeds in a corner of the garden. (They were one of the “free” packages that we received with one of our seed orders). cosmos-1 Our intention was that we would harvest the blossoms for use in our dye pot. Initially they refused to germinate. Once they finally did sprout all they produced was a solid, tall wall of foliage. The late summer rains have now done the trick. The vegetable garden is now at least a visual treat. The cosmos seem to be blooming faster than we can pick and freeze them. In the future we will report on their dying project.

cosmos-2

The Art Gallery is now in its final exhibit of the season. As part of the International Year of Natural Fibers, we are featuring the work of all of our current fiber artists, plus additional work from fiber artists who have exhibited with us in the past. Besides some lovely finished pieces, we have a wonderful selection of yarns, both hand spun and mill spun. Serendipitously, the fall issue of Door County Living Magazine has featured the Gallery with a wonderful article and photos. The magazine is available free through out the county. We wish to thank Madeline, Paige and Dan for the wonderful job they did. The article will presumably also appear online when the winter issue is published.

Lest it seem that we never get away from the farm (after all there is little reason to leave), we did spend a lovely, sunny afternoon hiking with old friends at Whitefish Dunes State Park. A lovelier day could not be asked for!

Whitefish Dunes State Park

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June routines

Sunday, June 14th, 2009

It is now the middle of June and we finally seem to have passed the threshold into more summer-like weather. Our apple trees are dropping their blossom petals after retaining them for a wonderfully long period. It has been an extended and beautiful show for them. Everything benefited last weekend from a couple of days of steady and significant rain fall. The vegetable garden is almost completely planted. Until this week the soil temperatures have been too cool for the squash, cucumbers and melons. The cool hardy seedings have finally begun to germinate. The peas, at least, have loved the cool weather. For the peas we are now into the defensive mode of warding off the marauding deer. Electric fencing is up and the motion sensitive sprinkler is aimed at the peas area. Now all I need to do is avoid getting sprayed by inadvertently walking in front of it.

Yes, there is the more sinister aspect of the little spotted guy of the previous post. If he or she makes it to adulthood, it will mean just one more mouth in an excessively large population of deer to over-browse the native trees and flowers, not to mention the plants that we try to grow. I have nearly stepped on a fawn a couple of times since my first sighting. It is impossible to tell if it is the same one. If it is, mom is moving the fawn all over our pastures. It has become much more mobile and more inclined to flee when I accidentally stumble upon it. The next big deer challenge will be to avoid any and all fawns in our hayfield as I start cutting hay in the coming weeks. Avoiding the turkey nests in the middle of the hay will be next to impossible.

Kassia and friends in clover

The sheep are now grazing in the pasture we have named “The Orchard” (the site of our cherry trees of some years past). Hopefully they are all quite happy there. It is high ground for our farm, which means that it tends to catch any breezes that blow and make it a bit more tolerable in terms of both temperature and biting insects. Last spring we “renovated” the forage in “The Orchard” and the results this year are staggering. The renovation consisted of broadcast seeding two types of clover in the pasture just ahead of the sheep. As they grazed it was hoped that their hooves would help pack the clover seeds into the ground where, with a bit of rain, they would germinate. Last fall it was evident that the seeding had taken. This spring the growth of clover is tremendous and lush.

Clover: tomorrow's on right, yesterday's on left

Clover: tomorrow's on left, yesterday's on right

It is also easy to see where I did not quite overlap with passes of the spreader, i.e. narrow strips of grass without any legumes. The clover provides excellent grazing and nutrition for the sheep and also is an excellent natural source of nitrogen fertilizer for the soil. It is too bad that they will just about finish grazing the area when the clover was just about to be in full bloom. The smells would have been sweet!

Sadie

The Gallery has now been open for about three weeks. Currently it is featuring photography from Tom Bast and Gale Wandke, plus the accumulation of the last year’s handweavings by some fellow the sheep (and others) refer to as that grumpy old bearded shepherd guy. The Gallery is open from noon till 5PM every day except Tuesdays.

Opening the Gallery for first day of the season

Gretchen has been busy with a bunch of natural dyeing projects. Earlier this month we picked a couple of buckets of Dandelion blossom for dyeing. The most recent project used the leaves from Common Mullein.

Mullein growing in #4

It is an alien weed with large, flannel textured leaves. Later in the year it will produce tall yellow spikes of flowers. It seems to like thin, poor quality soils, which means that it thrives in the eastern edge of our #4 pasture. For whatever reason it is one of the plants that the sheep refuse to graze. So rather than just pulling up the offending plants and casting them on a compost heap we cooked down some of the leaves into a dye solution. They yielded a number of lovely shades of yellows and browns.

4 Mullien dyed skeins on left, 2 Dandelion on right

4 Mullein dyed skeins on left, 2 Dandelion on right

Eventually the resulting dyed wool and yarn will work their way into our spinning, knitting or weaving projects. If you visit the Gallery, you may see the big, red crock-pot bubbling away on the back porch. It is getting a good workout. Just ask to see “what’s cooking”; it can be quite interesting.

Posted in Bed & Breakfast, Farm, Fiber Projects, Gallery, Sheep, What's New | 2 Comments »

The 4th and Last week of Lambing (and then some)

Wednesday, April 29th, 2009

The thermometer certainly does not want to convince us that it is spring yet. Nonetheless, the pace has quickened like it always seems to when we hit spring. Lambing was finished a month and a day after it began. On the 10^th of April Ursa Bear delivered a single ewe lamb, Winnie the Pooh Bear. She was followed by Pookie who gave birth to twins, Wascal and Wabbit . Since then the ewes and their lambs have been doing well. In total we had 112 lambs born this year. As always some of the lambs are growing faster than others. A few lambs have had minor health problems and a couple of ewes have had to deal with mastitis. In the later situations it looks as though we have it under control. It should not result in any devastating losses as it sometimes can.

Enjoying the sun on a cool morning

As we worked through the final week of lambing we also had enough time to prepare for the annual posting of our fleeces to our web site. The 127 fleeces went up for sale on April 15^th. The vast majority were sold within the first 24 hours. (A couple of our long term customers refer to the first day as a fleece “feeding frenzy”. At the time it often seems to be an apt description.)

Ulrika's fleece

Since that time sales have continued on at a more dignified pace. As I write, we are down to two remaining fleeces, both colored. Ulrika and Roxie both need their fleeces to find a loving home. They urge any and all spinners to visit our colored wool page.

Roxie's fleece

Despite the cool temperatures we are still experiencing, we are creeping onward into spring. The last few evenings as I have done my evening “bed check” in the barn, the sounds of peepers and tree frogs could be heard in the pond to the north of us. “Our” barn swallows returned during the last week of lambing. The barn is now a happier, noisier place with them swooping in and out. The first few pairs that arrived are already rebuilding nests. With any luck we hope to have at least 30 nesting pairs by early summer, the majority of whom will bring off at least two broods of chicks before summer’s end.

It is time to get the pastures ready for grazing. Once the grass is high enough the fences must already be repaired from the damages of winter and the pasture watering lines pressurized and checked for leaks. The first day that the flock gets out on pasture cannot come too soon for both the sheep and us.

One of Q.T.'s boys, Wazir...14 days old and serious about it!

On other fronts, the two of us are starting to gear up our other operations. The Bed and Breakfast will once again open for guests on the 1^st of May. The Art Gallery follows with its opening just a little over 4 weeks later. Sandwiched in between is the 15^th annual Shepherds’ Market which is put on by the Door County Sheep and Goat Raisers and hosted by us in and around our gallery space on May 16^th and 17^th. There is always a diverse collection of fiber related products for sale. The two of us will be selling any of our fleeces that otherwise have not yet sold. In addition we will have a selection of handspun and mill spun yarn, some finished products made with wool from our flock, plus a beautiful selection of rovings that Gretchen has been working on over the winter. (More about the roving next time!)

So far the Hepatica are blooming along the edges of the woods. Soon their blooms will appear throughout the hardwoods to be accompanied by Blood Root, Trillium and Trout Lilies. It is a good time to be where we are and to be able to be out to enjoy the show!

Posted in Bed & Breakfast, Fleeces & Wool, Gallery, Sheep | 3 Comments »

Lambing in 2009 – Week 2 (and 3 & more)

Saturday, April 4th, 2009

It had been my hope to post an update to the Ewe Turn about once a week throughout the four plus weeks of lambing. I managed to attain that goal just once. The second and third weeks have already passed and we are working feverishly to make it into the heart of the fourth week. At least the pace has slackened and I can bring the Ewe Turn up to date.

The first week went so well and the weather that accompanied it was so beautiful, one had a foreboding that it all could not last. Mother Nature definitely came through in that regard. The weather turned colder and produced a series of snow storms and cold, wet east winds off Lake Michigan. It was not pleasant for sheep and shepherds alike. While the temperatures have moderated recently, it still does not qualify as spring.

QT with her twin boys, about 10 minutes old

Unlike the first week in which we experienced numerous robust healthy lambs and no labor and delivery problem, the next two weeks threw a bit of everything at us, good and bad. We had 2 lambs that were still born, 1 that died at birth because the ewe did not clean its face quickly enough (and we happened not to be with her at 3AM), and 1 born with major birth defects which resulted in his death. One ewe had a uterine prolapse. We and our vet managed to save her and her lamb. Another ewe that had triplets last year had only a single this year. That lamb is dumb as a log and did not/has not learned to nurse from mom. We have struggled to teach her to nurse and continue to supplement her. At 2 AM a first time mom had left one of her new born lambs in a corner and followed the other to a different location, eventually forgetting about the first. When we found the first lamb it was ice cold and barely breathing. We managed to get her warmed up and fed, but mom rejected her. After a week in stanchions where the lamb could nurse, mom finally found “religion”. At least it is now a happy family. We have lost a ewe to pregnancy toxemia and have another ewe (who we did not breed) come down with salt toxicity. Most of these problems we have experience over the course of 19 years of lambing. The salt toxicity is a new one for us.

On the positive side we have lots of healthy, vigorous lambs who are growing rapidly. One realizes how the time has passed when you see that the early lambs are already loosing their tails. We have already started our 4^th mixing pen. The first three pens are already combined, allowing the lamb races to begin in earnest (more on the races next time!).

Toodles with her lamb, Wuddle

As of this morning we have had 105 lambs born. The last four pregnant ewes are due to deliver sometime in the next 8 or so days. The pace has been frantic enough that I have yet had time to figure out how many ewe and ram lambs we have and how many of each are colored or white. I do sense that we have achieved our goal of producing quite a few white ewe lambs and that we will also have a good choice to make between our colored ewe lambs.

Lambs in the 1st mixing pen

The two of us are a bit “punchy”. It has been 4 weeks since we started getting up at 2 AM every morning. We look forward to sleeping 8 hours straight. I knew I was in trouble a couple of mornings ago when I was shredding lettuce to feed to the chickens and realized that I was systematically dropping the lettuce into my coffee cup rather than the plastic container I use for the chickens. Then again their eggs may turn out to be laced with caffeine….

Posted in Farm, Gallery, Sheep, What's New | 3 Comments »

Six Months of Avocados

Saturday, January 17th, 2009

The “summer shades” blanket is almost complete. There are only about two inches left to weave and after that there is the finishing work (tying the fringes, trimming, pressing and the like). It should be a good day for that type of activity. While it is bright, sunny and warm at the loom, it is cold outside. A couple of nights ago the temperature got down to -12.5 F (24.7C) and today is not getting much warmer. We are coping well, as are the sheep. It is relatively warm in the barn (20F) with no major drafts. The sheep are fully fleeced and are quite comfortable as long as they have plenty of clean bedding, they stay dry and have a bit more than usual to eat.

While it is cold, there is plenty of good snow for cross country skiing and snow shoeing. More snow and more moderate temperatures are also on the way. Four of the state parks in the county have groomed cross country ski trails. In late January and through February there will be special candle-lit trails for night skiing in the parks. The first evening is schedule for the 31st of January at Whitefish Dunes State Park, just down the road from us. Check on the park’s website for details and current ski conditions. In addition, here is a general list for snow and trail conditions at all of the county’s park with trails.

With an emphasis for us on indoor activity, it is time to think about the next project for the loom. Gretchen has dyed a good collection of wool in blue, red and violet shades using natural dyes from indigo, cochineal and logwood. Those dyed yarns plus some of our naturally colored gray yarns will most likely be the source for the next blanket.

Just down the road is another dye project. Over the last six months we have saved and frozen all of the peels and pits from the avocados which we have consumed. A couple of weeks ago it was time to make room in the freezer and thus time to make use of the avocado remnants. The peels and pits were rinsed and dried. Once dry, we ran them through a food processor. The resulting small chunks have now been “fermenting” in water in large glass jars, one each for pits and peels. Every couple of days we have brought the solution close to a boil to stop any mold from developing. The resulting liquids are currently a lovely, intense shade of red (from the pits) and a more subdued red/brown (form the peels).

avocado-dye

Sometime this coming week we will get a couple of skeins of white yarn dyed using each of the two solutions. We also will probably dye some light gray raw wool. Once the first dying is complete for each set of yarn and the wool we will assess the remaining liquid and perhaps do a second set of skeins in the diluted solutions. The result should be light shades of the same colors. Interestingly the color of the solution does not always translate into the same color that is permanently dyed into the fiber. We will post an update and photos once the yarn has been dyed.

Once we have separated the dye bath from the solids, we will try grinding the chunks of peel and pits down to a finer consistency. At that point we will try replicating the “fermentation” process again to see if we can extract any further dyes.

Lastly, we have again started saving peels and pits for another session either next summer or winter.

Posted in Fiber Projects, Fleeces & Wool, Gallery, What's New | 5 Comments »

Summer Shades in the Dead of Winter

Saturday, January 10th, 2009

It is the time of year in our part of the world when winter seems to have us firmly in its grasp. Fall is ancient history and springtime, green grass and frolicking lambs are still so far away. And, by the way, it does not help that it is also cold! Nonetheless the first week of January can also be a wonderful time. Even more predictable than the return of Bluebirds in March, the seed and garden catalogs all seem to arrive. They are like a warm breeze out of nowhere. It is time to plan and dream of next spring’s and summer’s vegetables and flowers. Our favorite catalog is often from Johnny’s Selected Seeds in Winslow, Maine. Like most seed catalogs available today, Johnny’s is available online. Yet somehow, having a printed catalog in front of you is akin to reading a good book, which you can pick up, read for a time and come back to later. The cover of Johnny’s catalog this year is especially “warming”: strings of red and orange hot peppers.

The arrival of the seed catalogs also has complemented the project that is nearing completion on the large Glimåkra loom in our studio. It is the fourth in a series of blankets which will be for sale in the Gallery. They are woven in blocks of warp-faced and weft-faced twill. The original blanket utilized various shades of our natural colored wool in the warp and white in the weft. The subsequent blankets have substituted various naturally dyed yarn for some of the gray shades. The dyes for the last two blankets have come from plants from either our vegetable and flower gardens, or from plants which grow wild somewhere on the farm. The current blanket includes yarn dyed from artichokes (three different shades), purple bearded iris blossoms, carrot peels and the berries from buckthorn (two shades).

blkt01-092

Weaving the current blanket is a gentle reminder of last year’s gardens. In the case of each of the vegetables that we used for dying the materials were merely left-overs. We had great success growing artichokes in 2008; the dye stuff was merely the juices that remained after cooking the artichokes. The iris blossoms were collected after a strong wind storm knocked most of them over. We thought for sure that the dye color would be in the purple range, but surprisingly came out a bright yellow-green. The buck thorn is an alien shrub/tree, the spread of which we are trying to control. We can collect their berries without fear of endangering a native plant. In fact collecting the berries will, in a small way slow down the spread of the buck thorn. Their purple berries yielded lovely shades of brown, a pleasant reward for trying to control an alien plant. One of the wonderful characteristics of natural dyes is that their colors always seem to compliment each other (unlike many chemical dyes which can clash). As a result, the blanket is a warm mix of colors which, in its totality, is a pleasant reminder of summer.

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