Shetland Island Trip Part 5 (picutre heavy)

How we got lucky enough to have such nice weather during our 4 day stay on Shetland is beyond me, but from what everyone has told me, the rain is usually an everyday occurrence during October.  After the ferry ride from hell, I'm guessing we got a small reprieve. 

We decided to stroll about Lerwick a bit in the morning, the weather was perfect for it with us only needing long sleeves and light jackets.

Mike on the left, then Amy, Suzanne, Kate and Garrett

Suzanne and Susan in a Lerwick alley that started as steps and was a steep grade to the bottom

Some of the ships at the docks

Fresh fish and chips

Lerwick Museum

Postal "tube"  I was intrigued by the cast iron tubes used for letters. 

This entire street is a no parking zone.........I

Shetland's Biggest Department store? ????  Mercy me.

Nothing says suppertime like meat hanging in the window.

Lerwick-fish and chips place on the left

This is me, being me.  Dorky  (No super hero costume, but that doesn't stop me) 

Crack filling news

Crack definition: That period of time between the end of spring lambs and the start of summer festivities.  

Not much going on in my world, the usual bustling about from one thing to another has me rolling right along.  My post surgical restrictions are in week 4, and I'm seeing the light at the end of the tunnel with week 6 looming on the horizon and the lifting of the restrictions. 
I had some great help from a couple of my friends on Tuesday night when we rooed 4 sheep.  Terri has helped me in past years and is a experienced veteran, but Tammy and Mike were both rooing virgins and we had a blast showing them the ropes.......and teaching them our rooing song.  What song you ask?  Roo, roo, roo your sheep gently down the lane, merrily, meerily, meerily, merrily, life is such a dream.  (sorry you asked, aren't ya?)

The highlight of my spring, aside from lambing, has been the installation of a new pasture fence!!!  That's right, the best Mother's day gift on the planet for this country gal has arrived and I am as happy as a pig in mud.  My hubby and a couple of our friends got the main pasture fence done in 2 days!!  No more escaping sheep because the electronet is shorted out, no more babies getting their ear tags caught in electronet.  

Non-sheep related news is that we worked a fund raiser this past weekend for the charitable organization, Juda Fore Fathers.   We had a beer garden and food stand at the Kutter Harley Davidson Open House, and since we are members of the Fore Father's we showed up at 9 am and worked till about 5 pm.   As usual, we met a lot of generous people that came out to support our fundraising efforts.  There we a solemn and touching flag folding ceremony done by some local veterans, as well as a living statue in honor of our service men and woman.  Both ceremonies gave me goose bumps and you could have heard a pin drop it was so quiet while these were taking place. 

The flag folding ceremony begins.  (excuse the portable toilets in the background)  

Various branches of our military are involved with the flag folding ceremony.

Living Statue

Some of the members of the Fore Father's dishing up the grub.  (my hubby, Mike, in the foreground)

Poor man's prime rib sandwich, cheddar and swiss cheese, Mike's potato chips, cole slaw and a pickle (pickle not shown) 

I'll leave you with some random shots of some of my lambs gathering at dusk to race around the field with glee........

And one of the dogs.......

Campbell, our Cardigan Corgi with the flowering crab apple and birch tree as a backdrop. 

All boys.............go figure.

Ok..............a few more lambs photos. 

Sisters.......left side is Lamba & Eriska on the right

The last of 2014 lambs

Winding down for 2014.........And here are the last 3 ewes that lambed for this year. 

Salicional's little ewe has a bit of a wonky birth coat, but I've learned to be patient with that line because the fleece can and probably will change to a tighter, crimpier style in a couple months.  I originally thought that the ram lamb was fawn, but after he got out in the daylight I see he is actually grey. 

Sheltering Pines Salicional x OK Acres Bing grey kat ram-Kennsington

Salicional's grey kat ewe-Cardoness

Sommarang Edrea x OK Acres Elvis moorit ram-Dundee and ewe-Ness (no horn buds on this guy and he's a looker)

OK Acres Shania x OK Acres Garth grey kat yuglet ewe lamb-Eriska 

Shania's black ewe-Lamba

7 more wooly creatures

Good Friday lambing surprise was OK Acres Celine x OK Acres Elvis' ewe lamb.  A lovely moorit smirslet that is Celine's first lamb.  I could not have hoped for anything nicer from these two, a truly lovely lamb that will be retained to see how she matures.

Meet OK Acre Lunna

Keeping your snarky comments to a minimum, but please notice the up side down heart on Lunna's uh hum....hooohoooo.

Next was OK Acre Seneca on Sunday night, very late on Sunday....

Seneca is one of my top ewes, she's a VCreek Sarah daughter and her structure and overall size and appearance is what I like to see on a Shetland ewe.  Her ram lambs last year were some of the best I've ever had here and this year's lamb seem to be following in their footsteps.  It's too early to make too bold a statement about them, but I'm pretty happy with that I see.

Black krunet ewe: Skye       Fawn kat smirslet ewe: Iona

Followed by OK Acres Vienna x OK Acres Bing at 12:30 am with a pair of really nice ram lambs, they both appear to be modified.

Dover is a great looking moorit with very rich color

Bristol is quite the little looker when he's not snoozing after a hard evening of being born.  

Finally.........Kimberwood Dot had a nice set of twins out of OK Acres Bing.

They were still pretty damp from their 5 am arrival, so not the greatest photos.

Black ram: Glasgow

Fawn kat ewe: Keighly

More lambs:

This nice set of twins is courtesy of Lil Country Meadow and a ewe that consistently produces outstanding quality lambs for me each year since I purchased her from Juliann Budde.

This Lil Country Meadow x OK Acres Garth pairing gave me a grey kat ram (Fetlar) and fawn kat ewe (Tiree)   Both appear to be spot carriers.  Both of these lambs have top quality fleece, so it will be tough to decide if they are staying or going.  Meadow is 7 this year.

Current lamb tally is: 10 rams and 7 ewes  (7 ewes left to lamb)

Lambing to date for 2014

Lambing has been a long, drawn out affair this year.  I think that the girls had a premonition of the crappy unseasonably cold weather we'd be having this spring way back in the fall when I decided to introduce them to the boys.  Sometimes Mother Nature just plain knows what she's doing and sometimes her warped sense of humor just likes to torment us.  As was and is the case this past couple years, she's showed us a bit of both.  
Bengal started off lambing this year on April Fools Day with a single black ram lamb (same as last year).   Next to lamb, after what seemed like years, was Anais on April 9th with 2 more ram lambs, then more waiting........(can you hear the crickets, cause I did) Sierra & Alabama finally decided to have single rams and Velma had a ram and my first ewe for 2014 all born on April 13th.  April 14th....Catherine had a ram and ewe, then the 15th Killian with a ewe, Santana with a ewe and my lamb stealer Garnet with a ram and a ewe.  Bee Sting had a ram and a ewe on the 16th and after a run home at lunch to check on sheep, no lambs for the 17th....yet.
10 ewes down and 8 more to go!!!  

Bengal's ram lamb (Carlisle) looking awfully lonely without other lambs around. 

Preston

Amais is one of my favorite girls, she's friendly, a good mother and I like he typey structure and overall look.  This year she gave me a black smirslet ram -Hyde(dog coat-but this line tends to get those and then they change. ) and a fawn kat ram (Preson)  that seems to scream "look at me".

Sierra produced this ubber flashy black flecket ram (Danby) this year and he has no sign of horns yet, and is the friendliest lamb on the property.  He will be held over for evaluation. 

Velma is another ewe that produces keepers for me every year. This year she's given me a moorit ram-Hastings (spot carrier) and a black ewe-Laxey (also spot carrier)

Alabama is a favorite around here, she had a flashy little fawn kat ram (Ashby)  that is the spitting image of his sire, Bing.  Fleece looks to be exactly what I'd want in a flock sire, so he will be watched.

Catherine is 9 this year and once again she's given me just what I wanted, a white ewe lamb-Victoria, with the bonus of a black ram-(Devon) that carries spots. 

Fawn kat smirslet ewe (Charolette)....born with a dog coat, but her mom & grandmother did the same and it changed at about 3 mos. of age)  The white on her head goes all the way around her neck too. 

Killian's fawn kat ewe-Tamara (i had originally thought she was grey due to poor lighting, but she is fawn.

Bee Sting's moorit flecket ram (Barlow) and her spot carrying fawn kat girl.(Bala)

2014 Micron data

Ok, ok......I admit it, I'm getting lazy in my old age.  This year's micron data has been scanned and uploaded to this blog because I just plain don't have enough time or energy to type out the information.

For those of you wanting to make informed decisions about sheep I may have for sale next year, here's the meat and potatoes of my flock fleece stats.  For conformation and breed type information, request photos when shopping at Ye Ole OK Acres.  I currently have nothing for sale except a couple ram lambs and won't have a sales list for a bit yet, but if you want on a waiting list, just let me know.  I've only bred 18 ewes this year, so I won't have 42 lambs to choose from again, Thank the Good Lord for that.  Last year was insanity. 

I've handwritten the age of each sheep after their name.  Also, there's 2 samples for Duchess, one is a mid-side and one is the area just about her britch.  Just satisfying my own curiosity with that.  All samples were taken mid-side last rib, same place every year to maintain consistency.  

My personal flock goals (my ideal) for fleece are as follows:
AFD   (average fiber diameter)  26 or less
SD   (Standard deviation)   5 or less
CV  (Coefficient of Variation) 20 or less
CEM (Coarse Edge Mean)   10 or less
SF (Spin Fineness)  this needs to be lower than the AFD
CF  (Comfort Factor)  -My ideal is 90 or more

Keep in mind that this is only the fleece portion of the whole sheepy package.  You have to have good breed type, acceptable to outstanding conformation, good mothering ability, parasite resistance (to a point), hardiness, and must be the proper size for a Shetland sheep.  So many things make the whole sheep, but since Shetlands are considered the finest of the wool breeds you really have to take a hard look at how good your fleece is and having micron testing done is scientific data that can help to train your eye and hands for fineness.  Another "tool" to help us evaluate our fleece. 

Just because a fleece is soft or silky does not mean it's fine.......and that's where a lot of us get off track, it feels soft so we assume it's fine and that's not always the case.   Fine can be measured and that's why we do the micron testing.  It's an unbiased look at our fleece stats, not just how an individuals' hands interpret "fine".   Testing removes the human opinion from the equation. 

Happy Lambing everyone.......

April Fools Day and Lambing 2014 begins

Bengal was the first of my girls to lamb this year, exactly as she did in 2013......with a single black ram lamb.  This little guy is out of OK Acres Garth, a shaela ram that I used for the 1st time this past fall.  His lamb fleece looks really nice and he is horned, so I may have a nice fine fleeced horned ram for all you horn lovers out there.  He has some minor head spotting, so probably a spot carrier too.  His dad is Smirslet sokket, his mom is a grey kat, so lots of possibilities genetically.

I've got Garnet, our resident lamb stealer, cooling her heals in a lambing jug until she lambs so I don't end up with her stealing lambs for the 3rd year in a row.  She is such a great mom that she just can't help herself when she sees lambs crying.

I only have 3 new moms this year, but if I leave Garnet out with the others, she's sure to grab a baby from someone and the new girls need to figure things out without the added frustration of an over zealous mom to be.

Life has interrupted my blog.......

I would like to take a second or two in order to thank Russ and Terry Dukerschein for purchasing OK Acres Pluto, a really nice fawn kat ram that I think will do good things for their flock. 
Russ and Terry came in December for an over night visit and our time with them was far too brief.  As always, my favorite thing to do is trap talk to other Shetland breeders about our mutual love of these little sheep.  I'm lucky enough that there is a small pocket in the Midwest of Shetland breeders that allows us to meet and compare notes or see each others' flocks. 

Here is Russ and Terry with Pluto loaded up and wondering where on earth he's going.