Sheep Shearing

I sheared our male sheep, Jeebs, on Sunday. Kirsten held him by the horns while I straddled his back making him sit on the ground. I used some of the old fashion shears that look like a huge pair of scissors. It was not easy. This is the first time we ever tried shearing so it took us about 2 hours. When we rolled him over to try to get his belly he fought so hard we couldn't keep him down. So he still has a wooly belly, but oh well, we got the majority of the fleece. I think we could do it quicker next time because by the end of it I felt like I had gotten the hang of it. Here he is looking all pissed off at me. The llama was a bit freaked out by Jeebs without his coat on.

Our Baby Goat!

Our doe goat, Gevirah, gave birth to a little buckling earlier this week. He came out head first, which is good, but his front legs were tucked down, which is bad. This is on top of the fact that Gevirah is rather small for her breed. We were told when we bought her, that she may require some help in birthing. So that's what we did. Luckily this all happened around 6 pm on a sunny spring day and I just happened to check on her. We got our hands in there and helped free his front legs and pulled. Out he came. It's the first time I witnessed a birth in real life, not to mention assisted with it. Our old chicken coop is serving as a nice, dry pen for mother and baby while the chickens are out in their tractor. Now we are getting ready for the ewe to have her baby.

Alpine Cap Changes

For a number of years now I have been making my Alpine caps in two styles, a standard single sided alpine cap and a reversible alpine cap. I never liked the standard alpine cap because inside, the seams look like a mess at the junction of the ear flap and bill. The reversible version eliminated this problem but at the cost of ending up with a hat that is a bit too bulky with it's two layers of fabric. Not to mention that it's a pain in the ass to sew in the second layer to perfectly match the outside layer so when reversed the hat does not look all cocky-eyed and silly. So my new solution is to line the inside with thin weight knit fabrics like merino wool or polyester that won't make the hat too bulky (see photos). This will look much the same as my current reversible alpine caps. The only difference being that I don't intend for people to reverse them. So while all the seams will be neatly hidden by the liner, don't expect the liner to look all perfectly matched up at the seams with the bill. I still have some of the standard alpines on my shop page but this will be changed in the next month.