It's All About the Wool, the Yarn and the Farm

Hello again!

So I mentioned in my last post (way back four months ago) that I had something exciting to share with you all.  And it's taken me this long to prepare myself to share it...ah, life, you do have a way of throwing stumbling blocks and detours our way, don't you?  But here I am again and thrilled to be able to talk a bit about what we have to offer.  Can you guess from the photo what it might be?

Yes, it's yarn!

Farm yarn.  Our farm yarn.  Completely Michigan grown, nurtured and processed.  Small farm, small batch, heirloom quality Corriedale and Corriedale cross yarns.  All natural colors. Not just single breed yarn, but yarn from a single sheep (or two).  Woolen and worsted spun!  I can't tell you how excited I am to have this worsted spun yarn, it makes my heart and my fingers sing holding it in my knitting hands!  If you've never tried Corriedale wool, this is a delightful way to treat yourself.

I want to write a little bit more about each of the yarns individually, and the sheep who have provided the wool for them, but as we've been getting questions, I'll share quickly that these lovely skeins were spun at Stonehedge Fiber Mill in East Jordan Michigan.  Each one is a 3-ply, plump sport weight.  With names like "Dunbonnet", "Breath of Snow and Ashes" (SOLD OUT) and "Gravel Road at Dark" (ONLY A FEW SKEINS AVAILABLE).  The moorit brown and the pale silver are both worsted spun yarns.  The charcoal gray is a squishy woolen spun.  There are approximately 250 yards each and if you are interested in having one of your own, the cost is $20 per skein.

I thought it would be fun to offer a sample pack.  Four Corriedale "skinnies" , junior sized skeins 50 yards each of the three foundation yarns plus one of our Corriedale~Alpaca blends (either the natural black "Murmurations" or crystal white "Wise-Woman") a total of 200 yards for $18.  
ETA: Sample packs are not available at this time as three of the yarns are sold out.  We'll offer them again as we get more yarn back from the mill!

I can't tell you how proud I am of these yarns and how happy I am to have them.  As you can imagine, there's a lot of knitting going on around here!  For that reason, these have a very limited availability.  If you're interested, I'd love for you to have some for yourself!  We accept Paypal, personal check or money order for payment.  I'm happy to ship outside the United States.  Prices listed do not include shipping.  You can reach me at serenityfarmswool at yahoo dot com with any questions and I'll be happy to give you a total with shipping and make all of the arrangements.

Happy sheep, happy yarn.

It's Mothers Day

Happy Mothers Day ~ from Francie and one of her daughters, ewe lamb "Nan"

~~ SALE CANCELLATION ~~

Hmmmph, I was afraid of something like this happening ;(   

Despite our best efforts at preparation, some things are just beyond my control and I'm afraid our Fibers, Feathers and Furnishing Sale has been cancelled or at least postponed for a time.  Items are ready to go, for the most part, but location is not.  I'm so sorry for any inconvenience and hope you'll "stay tuned" for a possible future date!

Who would have thought that we'd still be putting up hay in October?!?  This is where the sale was supposed to be!  Not much room for anything else ;)

And now the baler, waiting for parts and repairs, sitting here as well!  The good news is that the barn is filling up with hay, more than enough to feed the sheep and horse this winter, hurray!  Its just that the sale will have to wait...sigh.


So, no Barn Sale here at Serenity Farms in October.

Fiber, Feathers and Furnishings

That title makes it sound a little bit like I furnish my home with feathers, doesn't it?  Well I don't, but it is beginning to feel like the house is being taken over by fiber!  The Burnham Barn is being taken over by vintage and rustic furniture that we're not using and the Main Barn is being taken over by our special Silver Bantam chickens.  What's a farm girl to do?  How about a little sale to share with her friends!  

~~ A Fun Fall Sale at The Barn of Serenity Farms ~~ 

NEW DATE!!! Friday and Saturday, October 10th and 11th

That's right, a first ever for Serenity Farms ~ a Barn Sale featuring Yarn; Spinning Fibers; Patterns; Books; Notions; Jewelry and Soap Making Supplies and a small but interesting assortment of vintage and rustic furnishing and architectural features.  Quality goods at thrift store prices!

And as long as we're at it, how about offering up some livestock as well, something just perfect for your farmstead, large or small?  We still have just a few of our Corriedale and Corriedale cross sheep for sale and I need to find homes for one or two breeding pairs of our Silver Bantam chickens.  

So why not mark your calender for the first Friday and Saturday in October, October 1Oth and 11th and pay us a visit?  You're sure to find a treasure of some kind and even if you don't you're sure to enjoy the big cozy barn in autumn, well-lit and dry, interesting to look at in its own right.  Enjoy a visit and a cup of coffee or fresh Michigan cider.  I'll have more pictures here on the blog in coming days, so keep checking back ~ feel free to drop a note or call if you have any questions, especially about the livestock.  

Sheep and chickens are ready to go any time, you don't have to wait for the sale if you're interested in any of them but please no early sales on furnishings or crafting supplies.

There will be plenty of spinning fibers to choose from!  Yarn, too...

Lambs and Lilies

Well, the title of my last post was "Lambs and Ewes" and this one will be lambs and lilies, you'll see why in a minute.  Summer has been pretty good to us with cool temperatures, great pasture and hay so far.  The lambs are growing like crazy and the ewes are staying in good flesh, not getting thin from nursing lambs.  I haven't been doing as much spinning or knitting as I'd like and that's mostly because I had an argument with a big barn door a while back (I lost!) that resulted in some pretty bad strain to my back and hip.  I've been on the mend, slowly, but sitting (or driving) are still very difficult and painful...maybe it's the good Lord's way of keeping me on my feet and moving this summer?  I'm so thankful for our wonderful family for helping me out in extra ways over that time...

Now about those lambs, here are a couple of pictures of two personal favorites.  A head shot of a white Corriedale ram lamb that I'm quite taken with.  Might keep him around for a while to see how he grows.  Fleece is very nice and he's a stocky guy.  It doesn't show in this picture so much, but he has good Corriedale characteristics, nice typey ears and head, though I wish his nose was more solidly black:

And then one of the ewe lambs I'm keeping, the daughter of "Image" so a granddaughter of "Violet" :

How's that for a badgerface - teardrops and sugar lips!  I'd been calling her "Lily" and I think that will stick, which leads me to the next part of this post, some of the lilies from my garden that are in bloom right now.  I've been adding more and more of these every year, they're just so amazing.  I've got daylilies, Asiatic lilies, Orientals and Trumpets.  I'll leave you with pictures of a few of them. 

 

I wish you could share the amazing color and fragrance with me as well!  Do you have a flower garden?  What's blooming for you right now?

Lambs and Ewes

What can I say, it's a sheep farm and the lambs are growing so well, I wanted to share a picture or two!
. 

I love this picture of Collette and her ewe lamb, Little Britches.  Collette, more than any other of our ewes, stays very attached to her lambs.  We have two of her adult daughters, and they all stay right together.  Its not unusual to find Collette with her chin rested on one of her daughters.  I made the difficult decision to offer Little Britches for sale and she'll be making her way to another farm this fall, will probably have a new name.  I just hope that having her older girls still in the flock will be a comfort to this mama sheep.  I regretted the decision almost right away, but its done now.  (Sorry they're laying in the barn yard and not out on the fresh green grass or clean straw, lol!  Not as pretty of a picture, but real life)

Ainsley and her boy, he's one of the youngest lambs but he's an eye-catcher, all of her lambs have been.  He was actually a twin, but his sister took on fluid at birth and didn't live, sadly.  I really wanted another ewe from Ainsley.  This ram lamb is going to the same farm as Little Britches. 

Ainsley and Collette are our oldest ewes now and I love them both dearly.  My heart will break the day Ainsley ever passes....she's showing her age quite a bit these days.  I still love her funny little patches over her back and hips and her fleece is as fine as ever, though its now mostly grey rather than coffee bean brown. I may not breed her this fall, though she stayed fit through this rough winter and then had the twins.  But I notice she doesn't jump to her feet as fast as she used to (don't I understand that!) and she stays in the barn more.

One last picture, this one is Ivy, Ainsley's two year old daughter.  She's almost a carbon copy of Ainsley, though she silvered out much quicker ~

She had a handsome ram lamb herself this year, though only a single.  That's okay, he was such a big lamb. 

On Into June ~

 I realized its been a bit over a month since I wrote last, but like most of you its because of the busy-ness of the season, so I know you understand.  Everyday I think of things I'd like to write - happenings around the farm and in the flock.  Tales of walks in the woods.  How the hay and pastures and lambs are growing....how the fleece sales were fantastic this year (and did I mention we sold out quickly and completely?!?  No more Serenity Farms Corriedale or Corriedale/Bond raw wool till 2015 and even then the waiting list grows steadily!  Am I proud of that and happy?  You BET I am!)  I've got stories of knitting and spinning and Bible study that I'd love to share.  We've dealt with mind-numbing losses and incredible joys in our family, and then there's just the day to day life on the farm that I'd love to record here for myself and to share with the world (or at least our loyal readers)!

LOL, but the days go by so fast and I get tired early on...no time to sit at the computer and no desire to do so when the spring weather is calling.  Its raining hard here this morning, so I thought I'd take a minute to at least post a few pictures of lambs.  So not many words, they're all still here in my heart, but some lovely lambs to steal your heart or make you smile and hopefully keep checking back to our blog, even when there aren't many new posts....let's start with these two, do you remember Leah and Logan, the first lambs of the season?  Look how they've grown!  Always together, too.  Leah is staying in the flock, Logan will be for sale if he continues to grow so well....

Above "Little Britches", a Corriedale ewe, will probably be for sale

Image's spotted ewe, "Lily"  will probably not be for sale ;)

Neither will "Lynn" (be for sale I mean)


The next two pictures are of Jinger's moorit ram lamb.  He's going to be castrated and may very well stay here as a fleece wether.  He looks rather correct in these pictures, but he's actually very light boned and also has scurs (small horn buds)  He's a single lamb, too.  But it looks like his fleece is going to be pretty amazing, so we'll see if he gets wethered and stays around.  The moorit Corriedale/Bond cross fleeces sold well for us this year.

Now here's another moorit ram lamb, this time one of Jessie's twins.  His moorit sister (that's her lying behind Hannah's white ewe lamb in the third picture) is staying in the flock, but he'll probably remain intact and be available as a breeding ram.  I like him - he's beefy and substantial.  Nice dark red color with flashy white markings, too.  These aren't the best pictures, but these two just don't stay still for very long!

Finally, I'll end with this picture of a newly prepared field, fit and seeded for hay, with oats as the "cover crop".  This mornings rain will help all of that come along, I hope!  Now tell me, what do you have to share?

New Crop Lambs!

Skirting fleeces has come to a stop ~ lambing has started!  Excitement and anticipation because three new rams were used last year.  "Hannah 223" (a granddaughter of old Hannah VerLee) started us out on Friday afternoon with a text book perfect lambing and gave us this set of beautiful twins, a ram and a ewe, sired by our moorit Corriedale/Bond ram "Killian".  I was taking pictures of our lambing barn set up to share and she obliged by going into labor, LOL! 

That post will have to wait for another day, but I was excited to share this one of the twins with you.  It's an "L" name year for us and in honor of my new knitting friend Leigh, let me introduce "Leigh" the lamb and her twin brother "Logan"!  She's quite photogenic isn't she? Stay tuned for more (we have a large black single ram and another set of twins, wildly colored ewes)  I think there are about ten more ewes to go, and I think you will also see one named for another new knitting friend "Lori"...check back to see ;)  Oh, and one named for "Lona"...the list goes on!

Shear 2014

The day has finally come and gone, the one I look forward to the most each year ~ shearing day for the sheep!  

I'd say Francie needs a haircut, wouldn't you?

I've said it before and I'll say it again that the wool is my favorite part, I love it so much more than the stress of lambing ;)  Not that shearing doesn't have its own stresses and I worry constantly about my "product" - will it be good enough, will it sell, will I have to much or not enough?  And the truth is, the wool crop reveals as much about the shepherd (me) and the care given to the sheep as their lamb crop does!  Poor feed or lack of it, crowded conditions, parasites, poor health, bad genetics - all of these things contribute to the quality of wool a sheep produces.  With the long winter we'd had and other circumstances that kept me from spending any time with the sheep apart from being sure they were fed and watered....I was anxious to see what we had!

The appointment is made with our friend and long time sheep shearer Dave.  The night before, we shut the sheep in the barn to be sure they are dry for the early morning appointment.  Also, they won't be so stressed about being moved around the barn if we take our time, bribe them with grain or sheep cookies and get them settled.  They look pretty relaxed, don't they, even with the chickens checking for breakfast early (I'm peeking over at them from the hay mow) ~

Good morning Girls!

They're moved from here to a pen at the back of the barn, underneath, where there is cement floor.  Its also well insulated, being the part of the basement barn that's "underground"  We'll remove the rest of the coats and get them ready for their turn in the barber chair!  In the picture below you see a small group penned here and the rest are waiting in a larger pen behind the wooden doors.  I'm not sure if you can make out that there's another door just to the left of the photo ahead of the panel, and that's where we'll move the sheep once they've been shorn.  Because it was still pretty cold on this day, we've bedded that pen deep with fresh straw and there's a big feeder in there full of fresh hay and fresh water, too.  They're pretty happy there!

Waiting....

Am I next?  I can't see!

(In the picture above, that is youngster Iris in the front, behind her the white ewe Honey and the older grey girl behind here is Ainsley)  White sheep are shorn first and then the rest.  The older girls accept what's coming, the yearlings usually fight like crazy!  I'm lucky to always have great help who know the sheep and we're comfortable with Dave and always happy with the work he does.  Lots of laughing and joking goes on!  Below, Dave's shearing while my daughter Nakia waits to take the sheep ~ just noticed the cinch hanging from a peg on the right of the photo!

I'm pretty that's Francie's silver grey fleece in the picture above.  It was a good morning's work, followed by a hearty lunch and more "tall tales" around the table!  There's still plenty of work ahead of me, just look!

Bags of wool, loosely tied, plenty of "air holes", waiting to be skirted

So far, fleeces look great!

And remember shaggy Francie in the first photo?  How does she look now?

Clean Francie, and she's in great shape!

I hope you enjoyed this look at Shearing Day at Serenity Farms!  I'm excited about the quality of the fleeces, but most of all I'm proud of the fact that the sheep (and I) came through this rough winter in fine shape.  Not a SINGLE SHEEP is thin or in poor condition, not even 13-year old Violet!  This even though we don't grain at all - just lots of good quality, home raised hay and plenty of free choice salt and mineral and always fresh water no matter how hard it was to get to them this year.  Half of the flock was snowed out and away from the main barn all season and I struggled to get hay to them every single day of this snowy, cold winter.  But I did it, with strength from the Lord and help from my kids.  The ewes all look to be bred, too, though it looks like things will be a bit more spread out and you know, I'm okay with that.

If you have any questions about our flock or our care of them, please don't hesitate to email any time.  In coming days, I should have more fleece photos and hopefully soon the lambs will start to make appearances!

From A Sheep To A Sock, Next Part

(First I want to reply to the comments left for the last post and say thank you for leaving them!  To my friend Susan, on a day like I've had today I think I could easily be persuaded to trade in the farm!  And Emily, so nice to hear from you and yes, I would be happy to share how I prepare a fleece from start to finish at home for sock spinning - maybe that could be a "July Series"?  Jody, your spinning is so lovely I think you could surely teach me a thing or two!!! How fine did you spin Elizabeth's 3-ply?  As much as I love a long wavy fleece (like Francie's) for socks, a tightly crimped fleece makes a wonderful sock yarn, too, just different ;)  And Joanne you would love this roving - its much darker than the photo shows but it has so much shine (don't you think Susan?)  And the pillow is one of a vintage set I got at the Maple Valley Farm Shop a month or so ago!)

The next step for me in spinning for sock yarn is to find a comfy spot to do my sample spin.  If you're lucky enough to have a back porch that looks out across the garden, farm and sheep pasture for inspiration that's truly a joy!  A helpful farm cat companion is another plus.  So I finish the supper dishes, pour a cup of coffee and settle down on the porch.

I have three spinning wheels, but I still go back so often to my old standby Louet S17.  My Mom, who is gone now, painted the sheep on it for me and I love it.  I can spin from lace to bulky with little effort.  In this case, you might notice the grey wool already on the bobbin.  That's because I find it helpful for spinning a finer single on the Louet if the bobbin is partially full.  I'm only going to be spinning a one ounce sample so have plenty of room here.  Remember the pictures of the two samples from the last post, one ounce each?  I'll spin one to make a 2-ply sample and one to do a 3-ply.  My default spin seems to be a light sportweight.

In this photo, I've pulled a little of the single back from the bobbin and let it twist back on itself to give me an idea of how my 2-ply will look.  Notice the helpful companion cat is not impressed, nor has she moved much from the last shot!  I might mention here that for this small amount, I'll spin the full ounce onto the bobbin, let it sit at least overnight then I'll wind it off into a center pull ball and ply it from that.  I like the results I get from plying from a center pull ball.  I'm not sure if its mechanically correct or not, but that works for me (in small amounts)  Larger amounts tangle to much, so I would use two bobbins and ply together onto a third.

Tomorrow I'll show you pictures of the finished 2-ply yarn and the sample swatch I knit.  And if I can find the notes I was so careful to make I'll be able to tell you how many yards I got from each sample - ugh - where did those notes go?!?

 

How To Go From A Sheep To A Sock...

A "How-To" post of sorts ;)

I love to make socks, I know I've shared that here before (though recently mittens have been my main focus).  To my way of thinking, there's no sock like a real wool sock and so it  starts for me with a sheep and a fleece.  In this case a lovely little black ewe named Isobel who has a very long staple length and a slightly more open crimp to her fleece than most of our Corriedales, long but very silky - just the kind I like for making hard wearing sock yarn!  She comes from the old Verlee line of Corriedale sheep in our flock and I love their wool.  Both Isobel and her sister (who's called "Sister", hehe) had such long fleeces that we sheared them at seven months old.

A head shot of Isobel above and another from this spring

So I have this lamb fleece, black - well, really more of a dark black cherry-cola color - that I'm planning to keep for myself and make my favorite blend for spinning sock yarn of 70% Corriedale wool and 30% alpaca.  I teach a class on spinning for sock yarn and I love showing and sharing how well this blend works for socks, but of course in the end its a matter of personal preference for both the spinner and the sock-wearer!  When I need alpaca fiber, I always go for the best and that comes from the farm of my friend and neighbor Maple at North Star Alpacas.  But this time, a call from a long-distance fiber friend changed the intent for Isobel's fleece!

My friend Susan emailed asking if I had a black or very dark fleece.  She knew it was a long shot because it wasn't shearing time, but it just so happened that we'd shorn those two ewe lambs and I had Isobel's fleece along with another kept back for myself from spring shearing (that was Hilda's fleece, but that's another fiber story - LOL!)  Susan had some alpaca from a farm local to her and she wanted to create a blend for spinning socks.  So even though these were fleeces I'd intended to keep, there's always more for me growing down in the barn and off the samples went to New England for sampling.

Fast forward a short time, a few emails and finally a phone call with a proposal - would I be interested in going together with my (Isobel's) wool and Susan's alpaca and sharing the resulting roving?  Sure I would!!!  So that is how our Friendship Roving came to be and a plan was hatched to do a long-distance spin-a-long and knit-a-long for a new pair of socks.  The alpaca came to Michigan and joined the Corriedale wool for a trip to Zeilingers Mill to be washed and processed.  (A note here ~ quite often when making socks I wash and comb the fleece myself, that really makes a nice fiber to spin.  But for larger quantities like we were doing here, I took advantage of the spring special at Z's and let them do it all!)

I meant for this to be just one long post about sheep to socks, but as usual I'm getting a bit long-winded and also I've been just to busy to sit by the computer for very long, so I'm going to break this up a bit for you...above you see two one-ounce balls of the roving ready for me to do a test-spin and sample for my socks.  I know it looks brown but that's just my camera, its really very dark ;)  In my next post, I'll share a bit more of my method/process for sock spinning.  I hope you'll come back for more!

MAY DAY! MAY DAY!!!

 Well, its not exactly the first of May "May-Day" but this is a day in May ((grin)).  I see from the blog here that it's been a month since I posted last and Collette's little ewe lamb (at left) might be asking "where have you been?"  And the answer would be that in that month's time we've sheared all but six in the flock and finished lambing just two days ago!  Also in that time we said good-bye to a dear and treasured sheep, a friend from the beginning and a very sad day in this shepherd's life.

Sleep well, sweet Charlotte!  Just a few days after Charlotte's passing, her best buddy in the flock (and the other half of my original two sheep purchase from Mar-Rita Farms) Violet gave birth to a set of twins, a ewe and a ram (see their photo at the end of this post).  I was wishing the ewe would have been the white one but she is natural colored.  Still - in memory of Charlotte - the little ewe is named Katie-Charlotte.

I've taken a few more lamb pictures and I'll try to get a some posted over the next day or two.  I'm trying to skirt fleeces and share them, too.  In the meantime, enjoy this lovely spring in Michigan weather!  And give an extra hug or pat to those special animals in your life from me and Charlotte, will you?