Winter Is Here!

After a beautiful, long fall, winter has finally arrived. This morning we awoke to find a nice blanket of snow on the ground. With more snow and below zero temperatures forecasted for our area, we set to work preparing the animals quarters for cold weather.

Even though we have plenty of shelter in the barn for all the sheep, most of them prefer to stay out in the snow!

Bernie chose to stay outside

Dora chose the barn

Edison and his flock of girls munch on fresh hay while Benjamin carries a bale of straw into their shed.

Spreading fresh straw in the sheep sheds.

Emily carries extra straw back to the barn for later use. 

Blossom prepares to go out to pasture.

Our flock of sheep meander out to pasture. Even with the fresh snow, the sheep know how to find plenty to eat.

Carrots, Parsnips, & Potatoes

The last of the garden is now harvested! Our root crops were still in the ground, so we dug them up just before the ground froze.

Ben and Doug sort through the carrots and parsnips.

The orange carrot harvest.  

Ruger (our lab puppy) admires the red carrots.

Ben displays our two largest parsnips. Together they weighed almost 4.5 pounds!

Purple, red, and gold potatoes.

Our Yukon Gold potato harvest.

Flowering kale 

After harvest, Benjamin relaxes with two of our dogs, Rocket and Ruger.

Daniel, a Lawn-Mowing Sheep!

One day while the lambs were in the barn, we noticed something unusual. Upon closer observation, we saw that there was a sheep standing on our riding lawnmower. The mower happened to be in the barn at the same time the lambs were, and Daniel had decided to try out the mower.

Normally the sheep mow our grass by eating the grass. Daniel, however, wanted to drive the lawnmower.

Daniel

Daniel attempts to drive the lawn mower while his friend Dixon waits for his turn.

Sheep May Safely Graze

Our sheep have been enjoying their green pastures. They go out to graze in the morning and come in at night with big, fat bellies!

Foreman (foreground) takes a rest from grazing while Corinna, Caramel, and Belvedere munch on grass in the backgraound.

 Cathy

Charity, Cathy, Rachel, and Blossom (foreground)

Annie and Curlianne (lying down)

Christina likes to eat the sanfoin in our pasture.

Heather, Cathy, and Charity

Meet a young spinner!

One of our sweet customers sent us a few pictures of herself and her grandson Graham spinning Betsy's wool. Graham wanted to learn how to spin so Grandma began instructing him.

Grandma teaching Graham how to spin. 

After a little bit of learning, Graham takes over and starts spinning. 

"Look, I did it!"

  

Here, Betsy's wool was spun into yarn. The little skein in the upper left-hand corner is Graham's skein. The big skeins are Grandmas.

This is Betsy's 2010 fleece, the one being spun in the photos.

Garden-Fresh Tomatoes

After being out of state for a couple weeks, we returned home and found our garden overflowing with tomatoes. We picked tomatoes for half a day and still didn't get all the ripe ones!

The island in our kitchen was covered with tasty-looking tomatoes!

In the spring we had planted several varieties of tomatoes. Here you can see the yellow Lemon Boy, red Beefstake, an orange heriloom variety, plus smaller plum tomatoes and cherry tomatoes.

We also had an additional box of red cherry tomatoes and orange heirloom cherries.

 

The big orange tomatoes were very meaty. 

A tomato with a nose!

After we assessed our tomato situation, we quickly set to work canning and preserving our tomato harvest.  

Emily strring the hot tomato juice just before canning.

The hot jars are filled with tomato juice. 

Sally cleans the rim of each jar just before applying the lid.

Canned tomato juice with fresh, home-grown parsley.  

The orange and yellow tomatoes give the juice a lighter-colored cast.

We experimented with making homeade ketchup for the first time. Here the ketchup simmers with its spice ball, shortly before canning.

The ladies also canned homeade pizza and spaghetti sauce.

We are very grateful to our God for blessing us with this healthy and colorful harvest!

Vegetable-Eating Sheep

This year we were blessed with an abundance of cucumbers, zucchini, and yellow squash from our garden.  We ate as much as we could and preserved some of the bounty.  However, we had much more left over; our sheep friends enjoyed the harvest with us.  Not only do they like the vegetables, their health seems to benefit from the variety in their diet.  

Doug feeds Dale vegetables. (Dale was our very first sheep. She was given to us by our neighbors as a welcome gift.  Dale is a Columbia, Hampshire, and Suffolk cross. She is the flock leader.)

We cut the veggies in slices so the sheep can easily eat them. Vegetables give the sheep extra nutrients.

Caramel and Carolyn eat their veggies.  During the fall harvest, they will receive carrots, apples, and melons.

Sheep Laundry

At Grace Valley Farms, most of our sheep wear coats to protect their wool from excessive vegetable matter and soil. It is necessary to change a sheep's coat three to five times a year, increasing the size each time.  For the Spring 2010 lambs, not only is their wool growing, but their body size is increasing also.  For a mature ewe, not only is her wool growing, but her girth is also increasing due to the developing lambs inside her. After shearing, each sheep will receive a coat three to five sizes smaller and the cycle starts over again.

After the coats are changed, we wash them and hang them out on the clothesline to dry. 

When the coats are dry, Emily mends any tears in the fabric. The clean coats are then stored until they are needed again.

We're Growing Wool!

The sheep at our farm have been busy these days... eating green grass and growing beautiful wool! We've had very pleasant fall weather this year so the grass is still quite green.

Autumn (foreground) and her friends take a break from grazing to get their picture taken.

Clarabelle (L) and Corinna (R) both have outstanding wool. Clarabelle is uniquely colored (silver-gray wool with honey-colored tips) and has a very long staple length.

Clover, one of our Romney-Hampshire cross ewes.

Brooke and Cathy

Murphy, one of our guardian llamas, keeps watch over his flock of sheep. His job is to protect his girls from a dog or coyote attack.

Murphy is devoted to his sheep and they look to him as their leader.

It is breeding time at Grace Valley Farms and this is Foreman, our white ram, with his group of girls.

Foreman has around 25 girls this year so he is a happy ram these days!

Happy Fall from our farm to you!