Nice Surprise

The Fine Fleece Shetland Sheep Association got a nice mention from a fellow blogger.  This gal did a very nice write up about our Shepherd's Harvest rooing demos on Mother's Day weekend.

Check it out at: Independent Stitch Blog

As usual, I have my mouth open.....for those of you that know me, that should come as no surprise.  :)

6 Reasons to smile

More beautiful wool =Reason to smile
Love our new shearer, David Keir and I highly recommend him for Shetland sheep.  He understands the "rise" in Shetlands, he's gentle, calm and my fleeces aren't full of second cuts!!!!  

I admit that this week has had some trials that I could have done without.  Without trials, we can't fully appreciate some of the little jewels in life, nor can we fully appreciate the priceless jems...Friends & loved ones. 

My hubby, Mike, the my #1 reason for smiling on a daily basis,.....and the reason I can do what I love in life.

Just when I think I'm having a horrible week, little things pop up that make me smile.  One of those is a little "contest" given by a friend, fellow shepherdess and blogger.  I shamelessly promoted the fact that I wanted to win and guess what? I won!!!  I opened my little package from Michelle of Boulderneigh and I found a yummy bag of candy and a mini raglan sweater that she had knit.  Thank you Michelle, I love the gifts, especially the little sweater because it was made by someone special.  

This picture made me smile

My friend , Terri....holding the oops lamb, Santana, that was born yesterday
Terri helped us with shearing yesterday, as did my friend Donna.  Since Donna was our photographer for the shearing, you won't get to see her .  (big grin) Reason #2

Candy!!!!  Who doesn't love candy?   Smiling again.

A perfect mini raglan sweater, THIS was a very pleasant surprise since I secretly covet these little
works of art.   Yep, smiling.

A couple weeks ago I got this wonderful gift from Pat, she is a fellow ASK member (Argylian Society of Knitters).  I was so touched by this kind gesture that I actually cried.  She paints a lot of dogs and when she saw that I had posted a picture of our new Maremma pup on Facebook, she picked out a rock and painted  a profile of Bianca's head on that rock.  My dad took the rock home and mounted it on a nice little wood plaque so I could hang it on my wall.  Another thing that makes me smile.  

Pat is a friend and fellow knitter that belongs to my knitting group, and she paints too.  I was delighted to come to knitting to find this little treasure waiting for me.
(the rock is about 3 1/2" in diameter)

Smiling can be quite contagious.....Happy Wednesday everyone. 

Roo, roo, roo your sheep....

Merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream. (yep, I've finally gone completely wacko)

Thank you Tylor for your graphic expertise....

The kids loved it when we handed them some fleece to touch and take with them.

We had to blade shear this guy a bit to finish.

Another large crowd for the demo

Most of this one was roo'd easily, but the neck wool wasn't quite ready and she was finished off with hand  shears

Garrett showing the fleece to the crowd, this fleece was sold right off the sheep and Kim donated the proceeds to FFSSA....Thank you Kim!!! 

Display Booth.....next to the demo booth

Shepherd's Harvest was a great experience and loads of fun for myself, Kim and Garrett this past weekend.  We had planned on doing 4 demos, 2 on Saturday and 2 on Sunday, but the response to the the rooing demo's were so positive and well attended, we just kept going and managed to do 10 sheep!!!!  The weather was perfect and I understand from the event organizer that there were over 8,000 people in attendance at this year's festival.  Sunday morning Sandy (part of the festival organization crew) commented to Garrett that our display and demos were getting a lot of buzz and some very positive comments about how interesting there were to watch.  The response exceeded our expectations, and despite it being a lot of work, we had a blast.  We were given permission to sell the raw fleeces we roo'd as long as the proceeds were going to our organization and we sold 2 fleeces right off the sheep.  We have been invited back for next year's event, and maybe we can use a few of the things we saw and heard at this year's festival to make changes for next year.

Some of the comments that were made were.... "I had no idea that Shetland sheep did that". The best part was that so many people said "This is Shetland? I didn't know Shetland was this nice". And that's why we are working so hard to educate and give the fiber community the chance to see how wonderful Shetland fleece can be.  We also had a range of finished garments that illustrated how to utilize the fleece from various areas of the sheep, as well as a handout that indicated how each fleece type could be used in a finished item.   And once again, Eek, the felted mouse sculpture created by Sabrina was a big hit.

A huge Thank you to Kim Nikolai for letting me stay with her this weekend, plus a giant Thank you to Bob for grilling those perfect steaks on the grill Friday night.  I can't forget to thank Garrett and Tylor for all their help too.  None of of could have done this alone, so I'm grateful for the time and money spent to make this whole thing a reality.

Shepherd's Harvest rooing demo

Rooing.........it's addictive.

I got my first complete sheep rooing under my belt this weekend.  Actually, I got 2 of my rams done and although my fingers are still stiff due to the new job they had to do, I am quite pleased with the results.   I gathered up my plastic bags, halter and camera and headed to the ram pen.  My first victim candidate was Bug and I flipped over a bucket next to him and got started.  The neck went quickly, but then I got to his shoulders and realized that his rooing must have started at the beginning of February, just as I had thought, and the new growth likes to hang onto the old growth, which slowed things down a bit.  It took about an hour of unhurried "plucking", but when I got done, I was very pleased with my efforts.  I was so happy with how Bug turned out that I decided to grab one of the ram lambs from last year that was losing large amounts of wool and roo him too.  That took approximately 15 minutes and he looked to be freshly sheared when I got done with him due to his new growth of wool being fairly recent.
I was able to rid the fleece  of VM and skirt out the dung tags as I went, so everything I put in the bag was ready for washing.  Another advantage was that I was able to put all the belly and britch wool in another bag to be used for the more durable knitted garments, just as the ladies on the Shetland Islands did years ago.
I guess the entire experience really made me appreciate how much work it takes to simply clothe a family from that era.  The rooing was only a small part of that process...there was washing, carding, spinning, weaving or knitting of the wool too.  My quiet day of sitting on a bucket to roo 2 sheep made me realize just how much work those poor women had to do just for clothes....  yikes..I'm spoiled.
Here's a link to a picture of the rooing process from the Shetland Archives:   Shetland Museum Archives.

Here's another link:  Rooing shetland sheep, both links clearly show the Islanders rooing Shetland sheep.
Since it's very obvious that rooing is a Shetland trait that was of great value to the Islanders, it's confirmed for me that this trait was and is a very Shetland Sheep-like trait that should be preserved.  Now I must ask myself if there is cross breeding going on that has masked this trait in some of our little sheep over the years, or if there's always been a few that never roo?  My quest for further education of these little wonders continues, but in the meantime, I'm loving the journey.

Bug right after I started rooing his neck 

Closeup of the neck being roo'd 

 Bug's staple length before stretching this year was 3" and after stretching it was a shade over 4", he has very tiny organized crimp.  His wool that we sheared last year was spectacular when spun up, can't wait to see how much different it will be to spin now that it doesn't have the blunt ends from shearing.  And I had virtually NO VM in this fleece.

Bug just after I finished rooing him.  Notice how long his new growth of wool  is in March!

A fawn Kat ram, Barron.  Notice how clean he looks....due to the fact that he has just begun to go through the "rise".  His fleece practically fell off his body.
He is super crimpy and had a staple length of 4", can't wait to get this wool carded and spun up.

 I know I've said this before, but it bears repeating.......I need to quit my day job.  :)