Category Archives: Wool

Family outing

Sunday afternoon our family took an outing to visit an old wool mill up in Ulverton. It was neat to hear of how the old mill was used in the past, fell into disrepair, and was recently restored – including bringing back in machinery that was used in the time period.

The shredder loosens tangles in the wool before it goes through the carder. Most of the machinery was up and running except for this one which still needed some work on the adjustments. When it is fixed, it will spin the carded and drafted wool. A “dévidoir” for unwinding spools of thread into skeins. An old hand-loom. It takes a lot of time to set it all up! And here is the machine that lines up all the threads to go on the loom. They had a more modern machine (from the 1950’s) that made socks in long tubes. One just had to cut them apart and sew up the toes!

Outdoors they had a few sheep just as “looking sheep.” They don’t actually harvest the wool from them. The covered bridge leading to the mill was burnt down the day after it was restored. So they built it again: the only covered bridge in Quebec to have a sprinkle system in it!There were also some paths where people could walk around and enjoy the outdoors. And while we were there, we took a quick family photo!

Honeycomb’s lambs

Honeycomb lambed today – a very quick delivery! Evelyn had just checked on her at 2 p.m. and when I went out at 4 p.m., there were two little lambs standing under her drinking! Apparently they didn’t need any help!

Then Apple and her lambs got up from their afternoon snooze.

For a moment it looked as though Apple had quadruplets.

But they sorted themselves out in not too long.

Honeycomb is a little too friendly for photographing.

Cleaning her daughter up… The little ram lamb has ears like his Daddy! Congratulations, Marie-Pier, on your correct guess!

And one of Honeycrisp, just because she was looking so cute!

Surprise, surprise!

Apple surprised us yesterday evening by lambing! We thought she was due in three weeks, but I guess we were wrong.

We needed to help the first lamb since it was coming out nose first instead of feet first, but the second arrived pretty smoothly and we just gave it a little helpful pull.

Honeycrisp is a pound smaller than Gala, but both sisters seem to be doing fine so far.Black Currant looks huge now! Will they make good playmates?

And the cat actually didn’t get into the pictures this time… because the sheep usually chase her out of their stall!

A Second Lamb Guess!

Our purebred Finnsheep, Honeycomb, is due to lamb in about a week or so! We wanted to get some pictures of her, so Evelyn and I headed out to the barn.

Blackberry and Currant were easy to lead out.

Aren’t I cute?

The warm, sunny day made for a frisky lamb!

And of course, the cat had to come inspect.

Timid little Apple didn’t want to leave the barn even to get some corn.

But our subject for today was Honeycomb. With a little coaxing, she followed Evelyn out of the barn and was rewarded with some corn.

After a while, Honeycomb got curious and ventured farther.

She certainly looks pregnant! How many lambs do you think she’ll have? And will they be ewe lambs or ram lambs? (Just a hint, Finnsheep normally have more than one lamb at a time, though not always.)

Hey, what about me!?

Lamb Update

Black Currant is growing quickly! Today we had to put in her ear tags (Quebec law for all livestock), but we thought we’d take some pictures of her first. Blackberry and Currant are so friendly they had no hesitation about following us out of the barn.

And of course the cat was around too… Snow is a new taste for Currant and the freezing rain yesterday made the driveway a field of broken ice. How does the cat always manage to get in the picture!

Since Currant is 4 weeks old today, we also wanted to weigh her. So we brought her and Blackberry up to the house.

This is a nice-looking house… Anybody home? And then it was time to return to the barn.

The cat decided to join in the race! And the winner is……but that wasn’t fair – Blackberry slid on the ice.

‘Till next time!

Lamb guess answer!

As it turns out, no one guessed right! Blackberry just lambed this morning with one black ewe lamb. And is she ever cute!

After observing for 1/2 an hour with nothing more progressing than seeing two little hooves, we stepped in to help. But all the help Blackberry needed was having the lamb’s legs straightened out and she managed the rest just fine. Mother and daughter seem to have bonded well.Now what should we call her?

A new barn tenant

A newcomer arrived in the barn yesterday evening…

She is 8 months old and very friendly. She was worried at first about being separated from her original flock, but she’s adapting quickly and already seems to be making friends with Yoghurt in the next stall. Her wool is very dense and such a beautiful colour! We’re thrilled to have found a black sheep at last!

We’ve come up with a couple ideas for what to call her. Anyone else have a suggestion?

Hair Cut Time!

It was hair cutting time in the barn this week! Well, not technically hair actually – wool.

Chipit and Maple had theirs cut a while back, but the three younger sheep still needed to be done. Yoghurt was by far the most agreeable. He loved the back rub! Strawberry and Raspberry were more ticklish and wiggly, but even so it was nice to work with sheep that aren’t afraid of us.

I forgot to photograph Strawberry before and after, but here are Yoghurt and Raspberry.

Before

During

After

Before

During

After

Quite the change! We measured Yoghurt’s fleece at 9 inches long. It is really beautiful wool. The ewe lambs have a lot of hair in their wool, so the quality is less good.

And of course while I was in the barn… How could I resist photographing those cute little lambs?

And now we are watching Maple and wondering if she’s pregnant…

What do you think?