As I write today, we are in a severe thunderstorm watch with possible tornados until this evening. A wonderful cold front is moving in, ushering the storms. Thunder is rumbling in the distance and one of our dogs is starting to pace! Other than a handful of warm and humid days, spring has been lovely. The perennial beds are quite lush and colorful and the pastures are green and ready for grazing. While the flock does have an off season pasture to graze, we have held off putting the sheep on summer pastures as early this year to give the grass a chance to really take hold. The sheep don't mind the wait, especially when the spring bugs are about and the humidity is high. They prefer the cool of the barn where they don't have to work too hard for their next meal.

The flock was sheared March 5th in anticipation of lambing dates beginning April 7th. I came down with a cold the next week, didn't think much of it and kept on going but I came to a crashing halt the following week. After a visit to the doctor I found I had pneumonia. Modern medicine including prednisone put me back on top within a week. Thankfully, I was back to normal in time for lambing.

We only bred four ewes as I didn't want too many lambs to place on new farms or risk having to keep them if they didn't sell. Of the four ewes we bred, one didn't take. Hopefully she will next time as she is one handsome CVM ewe. The other three clearly were pregnant at shearing, Memphis, Bea and Della. Memphis kicked off the lambing on April 11th with a single ram lamb. I was disappointed as this will be her last lambing and I wanted one more ewe from her lineage. A slow week went by waiting and watching and watching and waiting. There is nothing more difficult than waiting (at least for me!). Then on the 16th Della lambed three ewe lambs, one CVM and two white Romeldales. Sadly, even with our assist she delivered the third lamb stillborn. As always we get the ewes and lambs up and running with a "clip, dip, strip and sip" (clip the lamb's umbilical cord, dip it in iodine, strip the ewe's teat for milk and make sure the lamb nurses within an hour) then into a jug (small pen) together for a few days to bond. When Jack milked Della to get the milk flowing he couldn't get anything from her right half. Not good. And she didn't want to let the CVM lamb nurse, only the white one. We gave the two lambs tube feedings by milking Della to get the first day's colostrum and got them through the night but called the vet in the AM hoping he might have a better answer than we feared. Despite all the doc's efforts and remedies Della had mastitis in her right half. It was so severe her entire teat was scarred closed. I bought her two years ago and this was the first year I bred her. At that point I knew we had bought the problem and so I am ending her career as a breeding ewe. What a shame because her lines are great. In the weeks that have followed she has raised the two lambs beautifully with the exception of us bottle feeding the CVM ewe. The white ewe nurses her good half and gets enough milk and I am delighted to have a white Romeldale born here with the hopes she will grow to be a good breeding ewe.

The day following Della's lambing, Bea lambed a big ram lamb weighing in at 13.5#. Again, sorry I didn't get a ewe from her lineage of Todd and Dud, but her lamb is a healthy CVM, handsome in all respects. I am selling the two ram lambs to an inn up country in NH where there is a small farm and the guests can enjoy farm life while visiting the inn. Della's two ewe lambs, Lilly and Maggie, will remain here to produce fleece and perhaps lambs one day. It surely is the best time of the year to enjoy with the lambs jumping and frolicking together and watching them take shape. One marker for us is the day they start chewing cud for the first time…it starts at about four weeks of age and tells me their systems are normal and growing. All the lambs are eating grass, hay and have a creep where they get free choice grain and mineral salt. Lilly's weight at birth was 6#s. She was born first and also the smallest. We weighed her regularly the first 6 weeks to be sure her weight matched the milk replacer fed each day. She just weighed in at 35# and is just as robust as the rest of the lambs. Raising a bottle lamb is labor intensive but if done correctly will provide as healthy a lamb as one raised solely by its mother.

On the heels of lambing I had my booth at the CT Sheep, Wool and Fiber Festival April 24th and then on to the NH Sheep and Wool Festival May 8th and 9th. I realized this year, as I set up at NH, that vending is akin to camping. You pack up all the things you'll need and travel to the post and set up your site. At first, the booth/campsite is a bit unfamiliar. But after a few hours, with all things around you that matter and you enjoy, the site takes hold and for that period of time the site/booth is home. Although it is labor intensive, offering my yarns, fibers and dyes to the open market is so rewarding. I am eternally thankful for the customers that return each year.

I had a marvelous opportunity in May to take a two week textile tour led by Earthues to France. The option came up quickly and I couldn't resist. There were seven of us and we traveled from Paris south to Provence where we studied in Lauris for three days with Michel Garcia, natural dye expert, on printing with natural dyes on fabric. We travelled down to Toulouse and from there we studied for two days with Denise Albert of Bleu -de- Lectoure on Woad, an indigenous plant to Europe yielding the most magnificent blues: the European blue, the blue of royalty. We visited the area where alum was discovered in France, visited a medieval fortress, Les Baux de Provence; the Pech-Merle caves in the beautiful Lot region where we saw prehistoric paintings in the caves along with human footprints from the period and bear claw scratches on the cave walls. It was a thrilling story of human origins. We toured Rousillion and the ochre quarries where until the 1940's, ochres for printing and painting where produced. The colors were brilliant oranges, yellows and reds along the cliffs. We toured small villages such as Saint Remy de Provence, Gordes, Saint-Cirq Lapopie, and an olive mill where some of the most divine olive oil is made. The tour was set up to provide lodging in some absolutely stunning chateaus and auberges such as this in Saignon and this in Montagnac/Avignon. It is a fact that the cuisine and wine in France are enough to travel for! It was an award winning tour with a great group of women, all with a passion for natural dyeing and a love for adventure. A trip I will always cherish.

Jack held down operations at home in my absence with Katie's help and I returned late May to a beautiful farm intact with healthy lambs! The past two weeks have been devoted to getting the sheep on to pasture which entails changing, washing and repairing sheep coats, annual vaccinations and de-worming , hoof trimming and castrations plus getting all the fencing up to snuff and secure for the summer. Pasture season kicks off tomorrow and right on schedule.

I will be travelling to Seattle in a few weeks for the annual conference at Earthues and then will return to settle down for the summer months. Focus is on workshops taught by me and Michele Wipplinger. If you have a desire to study natural dyeing I invite you to sign up for one or more of the workshops. Having just studied in France with Denise Albert, dyeing with Woad will be an incredible workshop. The blues are both intense and delicate and the process is completely different from indigo. The Basilan workshop will provide a unique approach to using ochres to design your own mudcloth images on fabrics. Once again the Fiber Series taught by Patty Blomgren with begin in September. Patty is a great instructor who brings her passion for fiber to each and every class. Please preview all the workshops on the farm Events page and do consider joining us!

In December, after we found Luna through a Sheltie rescue in Maine, I realized she really needed a companion of her own. Of course Webster, the cat, filled in very nicely and can give Luna a great wrestling match but we knew he couldn't fill the entire bill. And Sidney is older and not much interested in playing. The rescue contacted us late January about another Sheltie, Kalie, who needed a home. She is a Blue Merle, exactly the same age as Luna (three) and we said yes right away. Kalie arrived with the foster parents on February 28th. At first she was extremely timid and fearful of strangers. But over the past three months with a regular routine, and farms have a regular routine to them, she has warmed up considerably. While Luna is friendly to everyone, afraid of nothing (except a scolding), will eat anything and a bit of a bull in a china shop, Kalie is cautious, very delicate, extremely mindful and not a chowhound. They like each other a great deal and make a great pair around the farm. Sidney tolerates them both!

You can keep in touch with the daily activities through the Blog until I write again in the fall. I hope your gardens flourish and you can find time to relax with whatever your passion is during these lazy days of summer.