The lovely Oreo

frosty mornings.

It's safe to say that Summer is over.  Frost is here and the woodstove is up and running most of the time. This was a tough season in general.  All we've got to show at this end of the growing season is a whole bunch of popcorn, 6 quarts of tomato juice, and a handful of snake gourds.

This photo was taken the weekend before we put the sheep in with their rams.  Blue Ewe Kendall, has taken over as lead ewe.  Alice is firmly in second place, these days.

And, as always the lovely Oreo. Mary-Kate and Ashley in the background, all grown up and looking for a man.

The last ram....

Been missing in action... Here's to trying to get back into the swing of things. This Jacob ram was born later in the summer than the rest of the lambs. His mother is Sheri and his Father is Malachi from Painted Rock Farm. As of now all sheep breeding groups have been put together. If this ram is any indication of what's to come from Malachi as a flock sire, I can't wait to see what else he can throw.

There is Alice's ram on the left.

for sale: sheri

Registered: 4hornfarm Sheri.  This 2 horn lilac jacob ewe always throws twins, and has a lot of lilac in her background. She's been a good mother for us, and was one of the first ewes we purchased, We're just ready to move her along the line.

She's got a great muzzle patch and really nicely colored legs.  More info and photos available upon request.

For Sale: Alice's lilac son.

Lilac/White striped 4 horn.  Good looking horns so far.  Nice fleece.  Out of cold valley, and 4 horn farm blood lines. more photos and info available upon request.

If you click on the label "meat#3" you can see older posts of this ram.

For Sale: Maisie's Ram

Black and White 4 horn jacob Ram born this spring. Nice horn spacing so far. and Nicely marked face.  More info and photos available upon request.

For Sale: Eva

4 horn black and white Jacob ewe born this year, from Wisconsin (cold valley) and Indiana (4 horn farms) bloodlines.  More info and photos available upon request.

another sunny sunday...

Just a bunch of lambs jumping around.

lambs on the pasture.

here's Malia enjoying her bottle, just a few minutes before all the sheep are let out to graze on fresh green grass. You can also see in this photo that we have most of the jacobs sheared.

There's Malia again out on the pasture. I must admit it's easier to deal with her like this, than when she runs in the house-straight to the kitchen looking for a bottle.

and a couple more shots of the lambs on the pasture, playing while their mothers eat.

grazing.

Finally, we're ready to let the sheep out to graze for a couple of hours each evening.  They seem pleased with the arrangement.  Probably in a couple weeks they'll be out there all the time.  And eventually they'll go back across the road, after the grass has had a chance to bounce back from last year.

The brown patch in the middle of the photo is the garden plot.

milk thief

Sorry the photo is blurry, I grabbed my camera in a hurry to get a shot of this jacob lamb stealing milk from the Teeswater twins.  This is sort of sad, because this ewe only has one good teat, and her twin rams really need as much milk as they can.  Maybe when this ewe is sheared, she'll be able to monitor what's going on back there, and head butt any thieves out of the way.

We postponed shearing, as the trip to Lucasville trade days took up all of Sat. and working on patching fences seemed more important...

Also STILL no piglets. 

Alice's son.

here's a few photos of Alice's son.  A lilac 4 horn Jacob ram with mostly blue eyes.  His fleece seems to be growing in pretty well also.

He is missing an eye patch on his left side, but does have a fine line of black around his eye.  It's too soon to tell, but it looks like he is going to have striped horns.

maren and marilyn

Maren (top) and Marilyn (above)have both been sheared.  Looks to me like they are definately pregnant.  These ewes were both born last year, So we didn't know for sure if they would breed.  Any guess how far along they are.?  I think Maren is much closer to lambing than Marilyn.  I'm really looking forward to seeing what kind of lambs these ewes throw.  Both have exceptional fleece.

two ram lambs

Here's an updated photo of Kendall's boy.

And a photo of Alice's  lilac son.  He's got a slightly slipped eye patch on his left side. but otherwise I think he's a pretty ram. Both of these boys will be/are available for sale-as we don't need another jacob ram that is related to most of the jacob ewes.

a couple of the boys.

Here's Maisie's son, nothing new to report.  I think he's got 4 horns coming in.

Here's the first teeswater ram lamb.  He's still almost 2 times bigger than all the other lambs this year.  You can see how much larger than Malia he is in this photo, they were born less than a week apart.  Both rams in this post will be for sale, either as breeders, wool animals, or for anyone's freezer.  Let us know if anyone might be interested.

All about springerle

Oreo's Ewe Lamb Springerle has blue eyes!  It's too soon to tell about her horns, but I'm guessing there will only be two of them.  As far as desirable traits go for the Jacob breed, this girl should have a little more color on her legs, and on her nose... But we don't care, she's staying here anyway. Pardon me while I go on and on, with a few more photos of her.  btw look how big leah is in the background nursing on her mother, laura on the other hand is starting to nibble hay.

nice eyelashes huh?

a motion shot

And I just liked the way this one turned out.

painted rock animals.

These two ewes came from a trip we took to Painted Rock in W.Virginia.  The top two photos are of Maren, She never shuts up.  The loudest Ewe in the flock of jacobs, it's a good thing she has such a pretty face.  The bottom photo is of Marilyn.  She's kind of funny looking, the way her horns turn forward, but something about her just stuck out about her that made her seem like something we wanted.  I was intially attracted to her legs, I guess.  We were making the trip to pick up a ram anyway, so what's another ewe.  Both of these girls were born last year, so there is a very good possibility that neither of them is bred.  Both of these ewes has EXCEPTIONALLY nice wool.

Echo and Eva

I mentioned having sheared Echo.  Here she is with her little girl Eva.  The lambs are growing fast and really starting to explore the barnyard.  Last night a gang of 4 jacob lambs ran almost all the way down to the creek, but were scared off by a donkey.  There's 14 in the background. The only jacob ewe born last year.  She is Kendall's daughter and has a really nice fleece, like her mother.

lambs yesterday...

There haven't been any new lambs.  But I was able to take a couple photos of the babies out in the drylot playing around. 

Here's Eva (echo's baby) and Laura.  laura was a twin, but in this photo you can see just how much bigger the longwools are than the Jacobs. The jacobs seem to have a lot more personality than the longwools.  At the end of the day, though, a lamb is a lamb, and there is going to a lot of bouncing and racing around the barnyard.

You can see Alice's son up there in the right corner, Looking like his front end hasn't quite told the back end where it's headed. Eva in the front, and the first ram out of the Teeswaters for this year.

Here's a group shot.  Laura and Leah, the Teeswater lambs in the front.  Michelle (freshly sheared) on the right.  The two back left are mule sheep born last year out of a lincoln longwool crossed to our BFL ram, Blarney.  These girls- Dave, and Ashley were born about the same time as Michelle.  It's up in the air whether or not these girls were bred. They don't look pregnant, but once we get them sheared, it may become a little more clear.

OREO HAD A EWE!

Patchwork Oreo had her baby.  We went down to Georgia to buy Oreo after falling in love her entire family online.  This lamb has been the most anticipated of the season.  I'm so glad she's had a ewe lamb. There will be more photos to follow as she gets cleaned up and moving better, but these are for you, for now... (Linda)

p.s. her name is Springerle

last but not least. a quick photo of the newest additions to the nursery today.

Ram-5. Ewes-5