OKF Flock

Fiber flock

By in Crossbreds, Lambs, Oak Knoll Farm, OKF Flock, Sheep Diversity No Comments

We’re starting the new year with some very exciting (to me) additions to Oak Knoll Farm: wool sheep! If your knowledge of sheep is pretty general purpose, you’re probably not aware of the remarkable range of wool these critters can grow. But think about the variety of dog hair from poodle curls to husky fluff and you’ll begin to get the gist. Our North Country Cheviots grow a solid middle-of-the-road fleece, softer than people expect but more durable than famous breeds like Merinos, medium in length, unglossy and pure white when it’s clean. This wool takes color very well and can make a lovely sweater yarn. It’s largely overlooked by North Country breeders in the USA, who are more interested in the rapid growth, muscular body type, hardihood, and independent nature of these sheep. I’m keenly interested in producing and knitting yarn made of nothing but North Country wool.

Back in November I attended Deb Robson’s spinning retreat here on the island, and the focus this time was on crossbred fleeces. Sheep of mixed parentage can grow utterly gorgeous wool that blend the qualities of their purebred ancestors in unique and intriguing ways. They can also grow crap wool that’s the worst of everything, but therein lies the allure of trying to hone a particular type of fleece in a whole flock over many generations. You can get gold or garbage or anything in between. One woman who really did succeed at crossbreeding a handspinning flock with distinctive characteristics was Sally Bill on neighboring Lopez Island. The Sally Bill Specials are few in number now, but we got to sample a little of their wool at Deb’s retreat. (I think we all fell a little in love with a ewe called Mumsy.) Deb had more wool from Lopez sheep, too, and the fleece that immediately piqued my interest was a Blue-Faced Leicester x North Country/Coopworth cross. I could feel the North Country in it immediately, but the Coopworth and BFL made it sing a new song. I had to find out where it had come from, and I had to start thinking seriously about running a little crossbred flock of my own to see what I might achieve by way of variation on a North Country theme.

My Lopez contacts confirmed my hunch that the fleece was from Lucky Ewe farm. And it just so happened that friends of ours were already arranging to buy some ewe lambs from Lucky Ewe to cross with their Romney ram. I decided we’d better tag along. So we all dropped our kids at school and hopped the interisland ferry with the trailer in tow. Grown-up field trip! A long meander through the wooded country lanes of Lopez brought us to the field where the ewe lambs were waiting for us. Our friends picked out their five and then we loaded up half a dozen more to form the foundation of the Oak Knoll Fiber Flock.

They’re all from a BFL ram, and their mothers are a mix of Romney, Coopworth, East Friesian, and yes, North Country Cheviot. I’ve been in touch with the shepherd who tended the Lucky Ewe flock in its previous incarnation and he confirmed that he did indeed bring over rams from Oak Knoll Farm. We have two sets of twin sisters amongst our six, and from sheep to sheep there’s a lot of variety in their characteristics. Some look more like Romneys, some like BFLs, some like neither. One has suggestions of North Country in her Roman nose and clean, strong head — not to mention her tendency to watch our every move and dash for freedom if we approach — but her fleece is nearly black. All these girls have long, crimpy locks. It’s a treat to bury your hands in their wool.

I’ve named them after great queens of history. Eleanor is their leader, the only one bold and calm enough to approach us and nibble offerings from the children’s hands. Her sister Cleopatra is dubbed Patch for the white spot on her nose. Victoria is the short white one with North Country ears, and Maud has the noble BFL profile and wild eyes. Theodora is Vicky’s brown sister with splotches of white on one cheek. Zenobia is the dark chocolate girl I can’t wait to shear.

They’re separated from the North Countries while they acclimate to their new home, so I built them a covered hay feeder. It’s small and lightweight so that Adam and I can easily carry it about for mobstocking, but I’m proud to report it withstood yesterday’s gale without damage. The little queens seem to think it’s just right, too.

So here they are, back at the farm where their great-grandfather, perhaps, was born. My plans for them are wide open — half to our friend’s Romney and half to a North Country ram with a good fleece, perhaps? I’d like to add more Coopworth somewhere down the road if I could find a ram nearby. For now we’ll take it slow, get to know them, and eagerly await their first clip in March!

Lambs!

By in Lambs, Oak Knoll Farm, OKF Flock No Comments

All pictures taken by my father. Thanks, Daddy!

Three weeks ago we started gearing up for our first lambing season on the farm. Vet supplies were cross checked, ordered, loaded (by my good-hearted mother while we were out of town) into a big tub and stashed in the feed room. A local shepherd friend came out to crutch the ewes for us, shaving their nethers for easy viewing and clean access to milk for the lambs. He and Megan (above), who used to work with this same flock, reckoned two of them were about a week from delivery, so we piled on extra monitoring and raced up from Portland as soon as Spring Break began for the children, thinking we’d be lucky not to miss the first births.

We checked them day and night for two weeks… and nothing happened. It was a pleasant ritual to tramp down to the barn under a spangled sky, with a full-throated frog chorus from the pond, but there were never any lambs. We peered at their bottoms on Saturday, and although Artemis and Aphrodite were both sporting udders the size of regulation soccer balls, nobody skipped breakfast or showed any intention of going into labor. We glumly concluded we’d better go back for the reopening of school and plan to return on short notice as soon as the girl who feeds them when we’re away reported some action.

It turned out to be a blessing that Manrico the wether had come down with conjunctivitis and an abscess during our stay. We’d pressed friends into service knocking together a pen of wood palettes and old gates lashed to the boys’ open-sided shelter and logged some practice runs for Lark in herding them into our makeshift paddock. (She turned out to be indispensible — nine years of city life doesn’t cancel out a thousand years of breeding, thank goodness.) Talking it over, Adam and I decided we didn’t think it was feasible for anyone without a dog to pen and doctor Manzy, and it didn’t feel right to leave him in need of another day of antibiotic ointment and the abscess incompletely healed. So on Sunday Adam stayed behind with the dog and I drove the kids back to Portland.

We were getting bagels at the local coffee shop on Monday morning when the texts started coming in.

LAMBS!

Two

One was stuck in the trough and is very very weak

And neither can find their mom. Hera is trying but she doesn’t have any milk

One is dying on me.

(This is not what you want to glimpse flashing across your screen as you’re driving down the highway in a minivan with five elementary schoolers.) Luckily, Adam’s quick work with a towel and some Nutri-drench and warm molasses solution was enough to keep the little ewe lamb alive, and Megan swiftly arrived to help both babies get reconnected with their mother and begin to nurse. By the time I’d seen the children off to their classrooms, another ewe was in labor. Ada stopped by my desk to check for news at every opportunity, and just before lunch I was able to report that Artemis had delivered a very large ram lamb and that Athena had turned out to be the mother of the twins.

Adam improvised some sweaters for the babies by cutting off the sleeves of his sweatshirt, as the temperature had dipped back down below forty degrees during the night and the little girl needed help keeping her core body heat up. And after some time Artemis delivered a second lamb, so we’ve got two sets of boy-girl twins!

Actually my mum took this one. Thanks, Mum!

Artemis took to motherhood immediately and washed those babies with a will. Both of hers were soon up and nursing, too.

All this was too good to miss. As soon as school was finished and I’d returned all the children that don’t belong to me and cut deals for drive swaps to clear the rest of the week, I tossed my two back in the car and we hurtled north again through the night. We slept in a motel near the ferry dock and came across this morning under a majestic sunrise. By breakfast time we were cuddling lambs and taking turns to spy on Aphrodite, who’s surely got to knuckle under and produce her lambs soon. Lambwatch 2017 is in full swing! Time to get cracking on some better sweaters.