Tag Archives: lambing

Vote Early and Vote Often

Vote to Name Juniper Moon Farm's Lambs!

Oh my goodness you all made this so hard this year!!! In the seven years we have been asking our blog readers to help us name the lambs, we have never had so many really strong suggestions. Narrowing down the nominations to a reasonable number was a total Sophie’s Choice– we had to leave so many great categories on the table. For example, it nearly killed me to have to cut Tracy’s suggestion:  ”How about Coppolas? Francis, Sofia, Roman, Talia, Nick and a zillion others.”

But narrow we must and narrow we did. And just in a nick of time, too. Lambs could start hitting the ground at any moment now, so we’re going to be wrapping this up quickly. You have between now and Wednesday to vote for your favorite TWO options. And you can actually vote as many times as you want. (I figure that if you want to spend your weekend refreshing your browser and voting for your faves, that’s your business.)

I will not try to bias you by telling you that Amy is really pulling for London Underground Stations or that I will be devastated if Military Alphabet doesn’t win. This isn’t about us– vote your conscience.  (Although it’s worth bearing in mind that Amy does all the work around here…)

There are seven options to chose from and we will be picking two conventions– one for the Cormo flock and one for the Colored Flock.  Go forth and vote, vote, vote!

 

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

It’s time to name some lambs, y’all!

 

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HOLY SMOKES! Lambing season is nearly upon us and it has completely snuck up on me this year. My dear friend Sarah VV reminded me this weekend that we haven’t come up with a naming convention of this year’s forthcoming lambs yet.

Every year, we chose a category from whence the lamb names will come.  In the past we have used candy bars, herbs and spices, islands, U.S. presidents, Jane Austen characters, Muppets, Downton Abbey characters and fonts. Here’s the cool part: you get to help us pick the convention!

[My friend and former business manager Jenny says that I never write about naming conventions without including this link. I was going to leave it out but I didn't want her to be disappointed.]

As I said last year (and the year before that, and the year before that) the category needs to be something with lots of naming possibilities. Candy was great cause there are umpteen jillion kinds. Think broad. Characters from fiction? Good. Characters from Dickens? Fine.  Characters from Salinger? Not so much.

Put your nominations for this year’s convention in the comments of this thread.  Amy and I will narrow down the choices and then y’all can vote on which one you would like us to use.

The first person to nominate the particular category that ends up winning gets to name the first lamb and -BONUS!!! – will win a bag full of JMF swag. In fact, the first person to nominate any of the conventions that make it to the voting will win a yarny prize. [I have an insane amount of yarn in my office, y'all, and some of it has got to go to a new home where is can run around of leash.]

So nominate away!

In other news, shares in our 2015 Yarn and Fiber CSA went on sale today. This shares will include the fleece grown on the very lambs that are currently snuggling up inside their mamas, waiting to make their grand entrance next month.* I’m not sure that we will keep doing the CSA forever, but I’ve decided to go ahead with one more year, at least.

I may be accused of burying my headline a bit here, but there is one more bit of news about the 2015 CSA Shares. I’ve lowered the price this year to make the shares more affordable to everyone.  Why? Good question. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this over the past few months. See, the entire point of the CSA when I started it back in 2007 was to give knitters a more personal connection to their yarn. To give the yarn a little context, if you will.  Back then, CSA Shares were JMF’s only source of income and we had to pay all the bills associated with raising the sheep and running the farm from that income stream.

Since then, due to the hard work of a lot of people who believed in what we were doing, and the very generous support of our shareholders (both moral and financial), Juniper Moon Farm has grown and expanded beyond my wildest dreams. The sheep no longer have to shoulder the entire burden of supporting several people’s livelihoods. I am more grateful for that than you will ever know.

I wanted to pass that good fortune on to the people who have supported us along the way, even if it’s only in a small way. I’m not sure if all that rambling will make sense to anyone else or not, but it makes sense in my head. And it lowering the price of shares by $50 lets more people participate who couldn’t before, well, that’s just a bonus.

You will find the Cormo Shares here and the Colored Flock Shares here.

* Don’t worry– the lambcam WILL be back in time for lambing.

All the Naked Ladies

Yesterday our friend Emily came down to shear the ewes in advance of lambing.  I’ve been around for lambings done with wool still on and with wool removed, and I can tell you I FAR prefer them to be sheared before they lamb.  It makes it soooo much easier to see what’s going on, and much cleaner as well, without all that dirty wool hanging over their back ends.

What I love about Emily is she not only shears them; she clips their hooves and gives me an idea of how healthy she thinks they are.  Susan and I were  happy to hear (and see!) that they all look great, and she thinks all but two are bred. Emily handles countless flocks of sheep all through the year, so her opinion carries a lot of weight around here.

The rest of the flock will be sheared at the big shearing party on April 5; we didn’t want to move the ewes to the park that far into their pregnancies, though.

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It was chilly when we went out at 8, but sunny, and bright.

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We stuffed them into the mini barn the day before so they wouldn’t get wet in the rain; and I do mean they were stuffed in there.

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As the wool came off, however, they had so much more room!  It’s amazing how much less space they take up when they’ve been shorn.

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They’ve been getting extra grain and hay so they stay warm.  I elected to keep them near the barn since we’ve got snow today, but they are happily munching their hay and chewing their cud, more or less oblivious to the white stuff.

If you’re wondering, Emily wrote up an excellent post about shearing sheep and cold weather HERE.

Your Friday Fix

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This is the view as I attempt to walk through the lambing paddock.

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The mamas are already ready getting that “We are not amused” look.

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I am heading to Chicago for Yarn Con this weekend! More news from the road.

 

The Last Lamb?

New Lamb

Monday night, this whopper of a ram lamb was born around Midnight. After I got him and his mama all set up in the lambing pen, I checked out the last of the ewes that I was waiting to lamb (hoping she would hold off till morning!) and found nothing.

Nothing where her udder full of milk should be, that is. So it looks like she is not bred. Oh well. I went to be confident with the knowledge that lambing season was over and I could sleep all night again.

But then on Tuesday I was out working with the rest of the flock and saw a ewe who we didn’t think was bred sporting a sizable udder. She clearly was bred after this crop of mamas, since she isn’t as far along, but I think we may have one more lamb on the way. Stay tuned…

In the meantime, this lambo needs a name. Suggestions? Remember, we are using names from Downton Abbey this year…

A very lamby weekend

Hughes

If you follow me on Twitter you may have already seen this picture of Hughes. If you don’t follow me on twitter now is a great time to rectify that situation.

sleping lambsViolet and Imogen taking a snooze.

lamb nap!Thomas

GranthamGrantham

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Amy and Paul came over on Saturday with Oona and we were treated to lethal amounts of adorable.

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New twins!

Then, on Saturday night, Jeykll gifted us with another set of twins. Both ewe lambs, one black, one while. (Insert your own “ebony and ivory” based platitude here.) My friend Cris wanted to name one of the ewe lambs after Beryl Patmore, the cook on Downton, so I present to you– Beryl and Patmore!

Only two ewes left to lamb. Is it possible that we could be finished before I leave for Yarn Con in Chicago on Friday?? BTW, here are 8 Awesome Reasons you should go to Yarn Con. I am number 3, which is beyond flattering!

Finally, you all have been asking lots of questions in the comment lately and- due to internet suckage– I haven’t been answering them promptly. I’ll be making up for that this week.

More Lamb Pics for Your Friday Afternoon

Hughes, one of this year's lambs at Juniper Moon Farm

Hughes Violet, one of the new lambs are Juniper Moon FarmViolet

Violet, one of the new lambs are Juniper Moon Farm

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Hughes, Violet, one of the new lambs are Juniper Moon Farm, being cheeky.

Hughes sticking her tongue out at Bates.

Lambs, lambs, everywhere lambs!

Brand new ewe lamb!I went out to feed this morning and walked up to the ewe pen just in time to see this beautiful, enormous ewe lamb hit the ground.

New Ram LambBefore I even had time to check on the first lamb another was born inside the barn, a black ram lamb. Both are healthy and huge!

I had to evict a Grantham and the twin ewe lambs from the nursery stall to make room for these two. Only three mamas left to give birth.

I’m going to need some help naming all these lambs– I’m 5 lambs behind! If you have any suggestions (within our Downton Abbey naming convention, of course) please post them here. We need to name:  Done and done. Y’all are so good at naming lambs!

twin white ewe lambs  Isobel and Violet

a single tiny black ram lamb   Thomas

a single white ewe lamb Rosamund Painswick

&

a single jumbo black ram lamb     now named Carson

More pictures this afternoon.

Today in Pictures

Lambing season finally caught up with me today. I am just beat! So please forgive this giant, under-edited photo dump. I hope it will help to make it up to those of you who are missing the lambcam. Don’t worry– we are already working to bring it back next year.

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Another set of twins!

Lambs!

Both ewe lambs. More pics to come.

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And here’s one of Grantham and Capri this morning.