What a busy few months at Home Farm.  

No sooner had we finished lambing then we seemed to be straight into shearing.  What a stressful time, trying to pick the perfect weather window - warm dry weather is essential - and trying to fit in with the shearers' other plans.
I personally stand over the shearers to make sure the sheep are handled properly and that the wool goes into the right bags before sorting.  It's fantastic to see the newly shorn sheep skipping out into the field delighted to be free of their heavy fleeces.  It is exhausting work but my hands finish the day lovely and soft, coated with lanolin from handling and packing the fleeces.

Jason takes all the bags of fleece and stores it by breed and colour into one of our spare stables.  Every sunny day from then until August is spent sorting, picking and weighing the fleece to meet the advanced orders that we have received and the many orders that come in at this time of year.  It is incredibly satisfying to receive the feedback from our many happy customers who receive my washed and unwashed fleece.  

We keep a careful eye on the lambs to make sure they are gaining weight and on the mums to make sure they aren't losing condition.  Its amazing how lambing can impact on the quality of the fleece.  

Through May and June our attention turns to hay and haylage making, and we are really lucky to have Mik and Steven who help us every year with making our haylage.  I have even got them into using the pink bale wrap, which supports a great charity (Breast Cancer) though gets me a few frowns from the local Councillor.  

We also do a number of shows (see events page on our website) and its great fun to meet new customers and catch up with previous customers and hear (and even see) about some of their projects.  

The shows gave us a chance to exhibit our new 4 ply and aran yarn - freshly back from Laxtons.  The 4 ply is a real 'labour of love' as it has taken me years of carefully storing the fleece and building up my flock of Black Wensleydales.  The new yarn feels incredible and has been very popular.  

August is coming to an end and we have decided to 'Blue tongue' vaccinate this year.  It seems incredible to me that the Belgian, German and Spanish Governments will pay for their animals to be vaccinated but we have to rely on the DEFRA website that hasn't been updated since February and pay ourselves!  Its very expensive but gives me peace of mind knowing that I have done my best to protect this wonderful flock of rare breed sheep.

 

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL OUR FRIENDS AND CUSTOMERS!!

 

Late September we put our rams to work and in December had our scanning results.   It seems that we are expecting many lambs ...   30+ singles, 60+ twins, 30+ triplets AND 3 sets of Quads!  Any volunteer bottle feeders would be most welcome.

Knit Now Magazine

I was very lucky to meet the Editor of Knit Now Magazine at Ally Pally.  Kate loved our wool and designed a fantastic Rainbow Wrap for us.  Imagine my excitement when my copy of Knit Now came in the post this morning.  This is the first time that I have seen the wrap on the model and (I know I'm biased) but it looks fantastic.  
There is also '5 minutes with .. ' ME!  Sorry to appear so mad about this, its just that I work on a farm and I've never been in a magazine before.  
So a massive thank you to Kate and the team at Knit Now.  http://www.knitnowmag.co.uk/