Author: kim - redropefarm

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Many Thanks!!

A big heartfelt “Thank You” goes out to Heather from Bee Vintage Redux for choosing me to receive a Liebster Award for my blog!  Never heard of a Liebster Award?  Neither had I until yesterday! 

The goal of the Liebster Award is to recognize crafty blogs with less than 300 followers and share them with others.  Upon accepting this award you agree to:  1) Blog about the Liebster award & reveal your 3 blog picks;  2) Let the recipients know that you chose them; 3) Copy & paste the blog award on your blog.

The blogs I want to award with the Liebster are (in no particular order, of course):

Jenny at Sheepy Hollow Farm, who is such a creative woman and even inspired me to make my own fresh cheese!  Jenny posts lots of how-to’s for fiber and herbal crafts, as well as, gardening and cooking.  Her Shetland sheep also produce lovely wool!

Leann at Forbidden Woolery has such a talent for hand dyeing wool.  I met her at the Garden State (NJ) Sheep Breeder’s Association Sheep & Fiber Festival last September and bought some hand-dyed wool (in Professor Plum colorway).  I love that she names her colorways by what inspired them!

Sara at Sara’s Texture Crafts.  I don’t actually know Sara, but she always has such beautiful fiber and great tools in her Etsy shop!  I just have to check out what’s new in her shop when I browse Etsy.

Please take some time and visit these wonderful women’s blogs and shops!  Oh, and by the way, visit Heather’s blog and check out all her beautiful recycled vintage jewelry.

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A Week Already!

Well, Sandwich and Burger have been with us for about a week now and we’ve had no problems with eating or taking bottles!  I used a weight tape to measure them tonight… Jersey calves are typically around 50 lbs at birth and their current weights are: Sandwich – 88 lbs; Burger – 97 lbs.  It’s hard to believe that 9 days ago I carried Sandwich halfway to the barn because he was still unsteady on his feet.  I could lift Burger out of the van, but even then, he was too heavy for me.

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A New Adventure

Monday morning, around 6:15am, the phone rang… the dairy farm we had contacted about Jersey bull calves had 2 waiting for us.  

I had built a large wooden box for the back of our mini-van so that we can transport a couple animals without hitching up the trailer… actually Aunt Celie’s trailer.  Anyway, we loaded the box in the mini-van and after dropping Noah off at school, Hannah and I went to Gap, PA to pick them up.   I think the family we purchased the calves from might still be talking about us putting calves in the back of a mini-van! 

One of the calves was 1 day old (born on 2/13) and the other was 10 days old (born on 2/4).  This week was a great time to get them because Dave is taking classes in Philly so I’m not working this week.  The older calf needs to be bottle fed twice a day and the younger calf will get 3 bottles a day till he’s a week old.  I wanted to call them Thing 1 and Thing 2, but Noah decided they should be named Burger and Sandwich. 

Burger

Sandwich

We castrated them by banding them Tuesday night before giving them their bottles.  It’s definitely more involved than banding tails to dock them.  We don’t castrate ram lambs so I didn’t realize how tricky it is to get both testicles on the right side of the band!  The calves didn’t even flinch when I got the band on and they’re doing fine today. 

Stay tuned for more calf stories!

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My Sweet Children

Noah and Hannah have both missed their beloved pet in the past week.  Noah tells us how much he misses Sam and does well with some comforting.  He sometimes asks if we can get another “inside” pet.  He drew a wonderful picture of Sam on the chalkboard he and Hannah got for Christmas.

Noah's drawing of Sam

Hannah talks about what she’s thinking a lot more than Noah does.  She’s been confused, asking lots of questions about where Sam is.  One day, when I was cleaning out Sam’s cage, Hannah asked me where Sam went.  I told her that he was very old and died, and is with God now.  This is the conversation that followed:

H:  But I want him to come home.

Me:  He can’t come home again.

H: Did he run away?  Was he bad?

Me: No, honey, he was just old and it was time for him to go see God.

H:  But I love him!  I want him to come home!

Me:  I love him too, but God will take care of him.

H:  Doesn’t Sam love us?

Me:  Yes, sweetie.  He didn’t want to go away.

Hannah’s questions continued for about 5 or 10 minutes.  I was just amazed that my little “almost” 3 year old girl was thinking all of this.  She now tells us often that Sam is with Jesus. 

I love that my children are so sweet and so unique!

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Sam

Dave and I got Sam, our parakeet, at the end of 2001…shortly after we were engaged.  He died this evening, just before dinnertime.  It seems strange to be sad about losing such a small animal, but he was part of our lives for 9 years. 

Sam lived at Dave’s condo before we were married…then it became our condo.  He stayed with Grand Mom Day while we were on our honeymoon and she made sure to tell us about how he’d announce every night that he was ready for his cage to be covered so he could sleep! 

He went with us to East Bethany, NY (a 6 hour car ride) to visit Dave’s friend Ken.  That was when we first met Aurie, now Ken’s wife.  Sam would sing along to the noise the car made as we drove on the concrete parts of the roads.

Sam moved with us to Douglassville in 2004.  He welcomed Noah and Hannah home in 2005 and 2008.  Although he never quite let them hold him, he was always curious about them.  He’d sit with them on their carriers or swings when they were infants and surprise them at mealtimes or while they were playing as they got bigger.

Sam was always allowed to fly around the house.  We only ever had his flight feathers clipped once, when we first brought him home.  He was very spoiled and prefered water from the tap over his bowl.  He’d often sit on the kitchen faucet and wait for us to let him get a drink.  Whenever he heard us running the water in the bathroom sink, he’d fly in there for a drink, too. 

He liked a sip of orange juice at breakfast and sometimes stole a drink of milk from cereal bowls.  One time when we still lived in Philly he tried walking across Dave’s plate of waffles.  He didn’t like having his feet cleaned after that!

Sam never once bit anyone.  Not even when we clipped his nails, or more recently, when we had to trim his beak or clean his “bottom”. 

He was an awesome little bird and he will be missed.

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An Experiment in Cool Weather Solar Dying

Today is supposed to be the last warm day in a while.  The forecast says mostly sunny and 73 degrees – a perfect day to solar dye some wool. 

I mixed up my dye bath and set it out on the deck as usual.  Because the air temperature is not too warm, I put a dark-colored blanket around the glass bowl to insulate it and warm it; and I placed aluminum foil around the back of the bowl.

Later I used some old windows I bought a couple years ago to make a little solar dying “greenhouse”.  It protected the bowl from the wind and helped it heat up better.

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Garden State Sheep & Wool Festival

The Garden State Sheep and Wool Festival was held on September 11th & 12th this year.  I drove over on Saturday for the morning to enter 2 fleeces and 2 skeins for the competitions.  I had a great time – the weather was beautiful and I got to meet up with some friends and talk with them.

I entered my yarn in the Novice division of the skein competition since I’ve been spinning less than 1 year.  My woolen Shetland yarn got 2nd place, while my worsted Merino yarn placed 4th!  I’m very happy and excited about that.

I'm holding my grey Shetland yarn on the left and my white Merino yarn on the right.

I also entered 2 fleeces in the wool show.  They didn’t place, but they both got a score of 81 (out of 100).  And they both scored a 10 for my skirting… that was encouraging!

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Noah Starts Kindergarten

I’ve been neglecting my blog lately and will be trying to catch up now.  Noah started school a couple weeks ago and things are going well.  He was nervous about some things but he’s getting used to the new building and the new routine.  His school does “Kinder-Camp” about a week or so before school starts, and it really helps get all the kids ready for the 1st day of school when the older kids are there, too.  Noah goes to Kindergarten for 1/2 day and midway through the year he’ll switch to full day.

I took a couple pictures of Noah on his 1st day of school and Hannah had to be in the pictures, too.  She also had to have a Spiderman backpack!  We gave her Noah’s backpack from pre-school.

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Isaac Finds a Home

Noah and Hannah with Isaac

Our newest sheep arrived today.  Isaac is a 2 – year old Blue Faced Leicester (BFL) ram and was owned by a friend in my spinning group.  She and her husband are moving and had to find homes for their animals so we decided to take Isaac.

He’s had an interesting life so far.  Apparently his birth wasn’t planned… his mother and father were siblings.  Soon after he was born he developed an eye infection that had to be treated daily with ointment for about a month.  He’s very gentle and has never produced any lambs even though he’s been housed with ewes his whole life.  I wonder if that’s a result of the accidental inbreeding.  Anyway, he will have a visit with our vet in September since we aren’t interested in breeding him (and he obviously isn’t interested in breeding either).

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Surprise!!

Saturday was very busy here…lots of mowing, weeding and moving sheep.  We bought a New Holland tractor a couple weeks ago for mowing the fields since the lawn tractor that we had been using caught on fire while I was mowing.  (Moral of that story – everyone should have at least 1 fire extinguisher and know how to use it!)

Anyway, Dave went up to the top field (the riding arena) to let the goats and Karloff out so he could mow it.  The next thing I knew he was back by the barn yelling “Kim, you have to see this.”  That usually doesn’t refer to something good.  Along with Karloff and the goats in the field were our 3-month old chicks in their chicken tractor, but when I got to the gate I saw chickens running all around and 2 really big chickens in the tractor.

The goats and Karloff like to rub on the chicken tractor and the wire on one side had given way.  Of course the goats couldn’t resist a buffet of chicken feed.  Karloff was the only good one and was sleeping in the sheep/goat shelter (it’s on the left in the background).

We lifted up the back of the chicken tractor to let Rudy and Buster out, fixed the wire and caught all the chickens.  Then Dave could finally mow the field!