I don’t know if you have ever heard of this concept, but there have been schemes for years now to control certain invasive species by consuming them. If they do not have any natural predators in our environment, we shall become the predator and thereby help keep them in check. Baked asian carp, for instance, or garlic mustard pesto, autumn olive jelly, beer-battered sea lamprey, feral pig anything… these are just some Ohio examples.
I have my own scheme here that does not involve trying to get my family to eat unfamiliar foods. I bring them to the barn. In particular, our area is in a constant battle with amur honeysuckle shrubs and japanese honeysuckle vines. The shrubs leaf out before any of our spring ephemerals and shade them out. The vines choke anything they climb on. Multiflora rose and garlic mustard are somewhat less pernicious on our property, but still warrant the same treatment.
The cow does not really get excited about these plants- she REALLY likes grass- but the others think they are just fabulous.
I have to be careful with any multiflora rose around the sheep because there are so many tiny thorns that it will never come out of the wool, but I walk Eunice past it regularly and am always amazed by how willing she is to put things in her mouth that I don’t even want to touch with my hands. I have successfully experimented with wild jellies before, and omlettes with wild greens are a spring staple, but garlic mustard still smells a bit pungent to me. Eunice loves that, too, so I haven’t had to try.
I wonder if anyone has ever ACTUALLY tried the sea lampreys. Ugh.
Adam graduates on May 20th! There are no tickets necessary and anyone who wants to go to Commencement ceremonies at UD Arena is welcome. If you are coming and want to sit together, just let me know and we’ll try to save enough seats.
And… he has finally agreed to let us celebrate him!! We will have the place open to friends and family all afternoon. Join us for food, futbol, and fire.
The dogs got a package yesterday, consisting of a new doggie door screen and three extra large Nylabones. The dog toys available in your average box store simply do not supply the chewing needs of our household. The world belongs to dogs like Smalls. 🙂
Blade came inside when he heard the delivery and Joy stayed outside to supervise. (Fergus was -obviously- oblivious, but he barked once from where he was sleeping, anyway, just in case.)
I opened the box of toys and put it on the floor to observe.
It took a bit of convincing for Blade to accept that they were meant for dogs and he could have them. Once he figured that out, he wanted ALL OF THEM. Mine! Luckily, when Joy came in, she -6-year-old todler that she is- was more interested in the box. They were careful around each other and the toys all evening.
There was already an argument this morning, however. Add that to the to-do list for today: supervise sharing. My children are both legal adults, but that does not seem to matter. I am still supervising toddler sharing, moving the new toys around so there is never more than one on any of the three dog beds.
I feel like Joy would have liked it better if we had adopted a small puppy instead of a mostly-grown one. She would have shaped its behaviour to where it did not ever challenge her own. This may be good for them both.
A week ago, I was walking past this tree, and it looked back at me.
A well-camouflaged mourning dove had made a nest on a branch right at eye level. I have been enjoying watching it watch me as I go by.
The nest is a loose collection of fine twigs, brought by the male and arranged by the female. Mourning doves typically lay a clutch of two bright white eggs. I only saw the nest unattended once and snuck in to take a picture.
According to my Audubon Encyclopedia, the male incubates the eggs during the day and the female at night. I can’t say I ever saw the shift change. Nor was I able to distinguish between the birds. A mated pair might raise 2-5 clutches over the course of the nesting season, depending upon climate (they are common in all 48 contiguous states). I won’t get to update you with picture of chicks, unfortunately. The nest was occupied on Thursday morning, and empty Thursday afternoon. I do not know what happened; it could have been any myriad number of things. Raising young always puts one in a vulnerable position.
Goodness! I did not think it had been that long since I wrote here! As the days grow longer, they also grow fuller, and time passes in a different way than it does in the winter.
Since last visiting with you here, we have planted trees and cut up fallen ones- in a 12:2 ratio mind you- kept up with garden and greenhouse, sheared sheep, and wiped muddy dog paws SO MANY TIMES. Now it is Holy Week, and somehow the added activities have actually broken up and slowed down the pace just a bit.
The (to me) most interesting thing I can think of to tell you about this morning is what I have discovered about my Shetland fleeces. This is the first time all three have their full adult coats in and there have been changes from their lambs’ wool. Shetlands are a ‘primitive’ breed, meaning that they have not been ‘improved’ like Merinos who have been bred to produce a huge, uniformly fine fleece. Merinos even have wrinkly skin that makes them tougher to shear without nicking but means more square inches of skin per animal and therefore more fleece. No thank you. I have enough difficulty shearing smooth-skinned animals!
I have seen a great deal of individual variation in the Cheviots I started with, and there is the same kind of individual variation in the Shetlands. Some are finer or coarser over the whole body than others. Keith’s fleece may look exactly like Gabe’s from the outside, but his wool is different next to the skin, especially at the back end where it is very thick and coarse and difficult to get through. It is almost as though he grows a felted bottom.
The interesting thing about my Shetlands is the variation within the individual. Most sheep have coarser wool at their rears and finer wool at their fronts. Shetlands take this a step further. In fact, they are double-coated. We are used to this in dogs. Joy has a fluffy undercoat that she sheds out all over the house this time of year, and a coarser guard coat (or weathering coat) that remains through the year, shedding more like our hair- just a little at a time and growing back in at the same rate. It seems that my sheep have this, too, though it is less obvious.
I assumed the spots on Elgin’s sides that were paler and longer than the rest of his fleece had become this way through rubbing and sun-bleaching, but they were actually a guard coat. I sat and fooled around with his fleece while I recovered from the …h o u r s… it took to shear the jumpy little rodeo clown by myself, and found that I could pull foot-long curly hairs out of his locks.
all one length
Many Shetlands retain the ‘primitive’ ability to shed their fleeces. They can be plucked, or ‘rooed’ instead of sheared. Gabe and Keith exhibit this in patches each year, though Elgin does not seem to. (Gabe did not appreciate when I tried to roo his haunch, so I did not take advantage.) It is only the soft undercoat of wool that sheds. The weathering coat of guard hairs does not. Once I knew to look for it, I could find these same long fibers in the fleeces I took off of Gabe and Keith as well. They are not as noticeable as Elgin’s because they are not quite as long and are the same color as the wool.
Coarse and long as these fibers may be, they are still soft, and this is the beauty of Shetland fleece. The finest, most delicate fibers can be used for delicate fabrics and the coarser fibers for the harder wearing fabrics, but they are always soft.
Sorting and grading adds another step to the extensive process of going from sheep to shawl, but I am looking forward to what I can learn and produce from this year’s shearing armed with my new information. I started shearing Methera with the intention of doing some sorting this year anyway, and what I have learned about the others has only confirmed the intention. That said, I have a backlog of fleece dating from 2019 to work through. I think I will start with just sorting and grading this year’s.
EICIE 