WHITE CHRISTMAS 2011

This is JD. One of our few purchases this year. A polled smirslet ram lamb from Winter Sky lines. He bred Mandalay and Crisp this fall. This is Vanity Fair. A Grasshopper daughter out of Wintertime Chiffon. She placed second in a large ewe lamb class at Jefferson and second Best Fleece On Hoof just behind Mandalay. She is bred to Khan.
This is Crisp. Out of V Creek Princess Buttercup and sired by Wintertime Black Forrest. She stayed home as she doesn't like to lead. She is bred to JD.
Another acquisition--Kate(named in honor of Kate Sharp)is a Tennyson granddaughter and Forrest great-granddaughter. She may be bred to JD.
Kashi is a triplet full sister to Khan and has a beautiful black fleece. We are hoping she is bred to Khan.
Wintertime Ruby--dam of Fudge, Red Velvet, Barqs and Garnet to name a few--is bred to Grasshopper this time around. She may be for sale this upcoming year.
Stephen Rouse was nice enough to allow me to trade my colored Cormo yearling ram for Mustand Sally--a Saliocional/Blues daughter. Sally didn't like to come in from Stephen's pastures, but she seems to like our set-up and has settled in well. She is bred to Khan for spring lambs.
Twix is a Barqs' daughter from this year and our only gulmoget on the farm. She was in with Khan unti his departure in November.
Marrakech with her daughter Mandalay in the background. Best Dam and Daughter at Jefferson, 2nd Mature ewe and RGCH and Best Fleece On Hoof. Mandalay is bred to JD and Marrakech was bred back to Khan.
Whistlestop 0427(aka Izzy) is Ruby's dam. She also produced Blues and Jazz and Itasca and a lovely grey katmoget ram lamb we now own named Sting. She is hopefully bred to Grand Luxe for April lambs. She may be for sale this summer.
Last but not least is Grasshopper. First yearling rams at Jefferson and bred to three ewes this time around.
And then there are Meghan's goats. She is now milking the mature does and I am definitely spoiled.
Our few remaining ducks(predation was high this summer and fall)produce eggs and keep the garden somewhat slug-free.

WISHING YOU ALL A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS AND GLORIOUS NEW YEAR! A HUGE THANKS TO ALL OUR PATRONS AT THE MARKET AND SHEEP/GOAT CUSTOMERS THIS YEAR. YOU HELPED US CONTINUE ON THE FARM AND WE APPRECIATE IT EVER SO MUCH.

SIMPLY THE WORST

Wintertime Anime is a twin ewe lamb sired by Wintertime Waterbug and out of Wintertime Alanis. Both her parents had lovely micron tests as lambs, but she does have a paternal granddam whose fleece shifted so much from first to second shearing she was culled. It would appear this trait appeared once again in this particular lamb. Since she is very square and solid and has a nice personality we are exposing her to our best fleeced ram lamb to see what will happen.

Just to show that photos don't mean much...this looks like a dynamite fleece for a lamb...high luster, great lock structure, beautiful crimp and density. However, if you had your hands on this animal you would find she is very average. That is why we always make it a point to send fleece samples to prospective buyers and base our prices on the actual value of the animal to us. We will be posting our actual pairings once breeding season is over. If there is a particular cross or color or bloodline you are interested in please let us know, so we can put you on our waiting list. We always strive to match the right animal to each and every breeder we sell to.

ALMOST THE WORST LAMB OF 2011

No smoke or mirrors or reams of adjectives to describe this ewe lamb we are retaining and test breeding this fall. Her name is Winter Sky Kashi. She is a triplet daughter of Wintertime Black Forrest and out of Winter Sky Khaya. We will be testing her fleece in February as we do every year with our flock. Stay tuned.

WINTERTIME ANTHRACITE--SOLD

E-mail upwintersky@yahoo.com for fleece samples, etc.

2011 Breeding Rams

Winter Sky Khan--Wintertime Black Forrest X Winter Sky Khaya yearling moorit krunet polled ram. Fleece below.

Wintertime Grasshopper--Sheltrgpines Bug X V Creek Princess Buttercup twin spotted fawn katmoget polled ram--1st Yearling Ram Jefferson 2011.

Grasshopper's fleece--sheared the end of May. Wintertime Boer Goat--Wintertime Barqs X Wintertime Ladybug--Caped flecket single ram lamb.

B.G.'s fleece.

SHOW SEASON

Meghan shows infrequently due to the distance we are away from major cities, but there is one fairly local model horse show(Yes, Virginia, people do show plastic ponies which are much easier to transport.)which she attends every September. This year the judge really liked her models including her customized resin on the left which placed first in workmanship and his color class and then went on to two GCH's.

And this is Meghan with her first place yearling ram Wintertime Grasshopper. Photo courtesy of Corinne Rasso. He'll be staying at the farm for now, as she kind of has a soft spot for him and he was used only minimally last fall.

WSWF RESULTS

Don't have photos but am hoping some of the people with cameras who took pictures will be posting them soon.

Large lamb classes and somewhat larger than normal group and yearling and mature sheep classes.

The fleece show was well attended with many more entries than in years' past. Tori won with a white fleece in the fine white class and we won 1st, 2nd and 4th in the colored finewool class with the three fleeces we entered. Meghan's black "Ladybug" fleece won GCH Shetland fleece.

Then on into the showring with our five less-than-well-trained sheep in hand(or strong clutches when they decided to bolt)....Grasshopper won in his yearling ram class. Anthracite made it through one cut in a class of 30 lambs but didn't make it into the ribbons. Grasshopper wasn't considered for GCH or RGCH. A Black Forrest son won GCH (Firthoffifth Avyt)and an Undertheson ram lamb won RGCH.

For mature ewes Sheltrgpines Salicional won with my Marrakech placing second behind her. White yearling ewes from Undertheson and S'More won in the yearling class of about ten ewes. In a class of 37 ewe lambs Andy Fulks' moorit ewe lamb placed first with Meghan's Grasshopper daughter "Vanity Fair" placing second. GCH ewe was Salicional with Marrakech placing RGCH.

A pair of ewe lambs owned by Lori Stephenson won in the pairs class. For dam and daughter Marrakech and her ewe lamb Mandalay were given the rosette. Best flock was won by Kelly Bartels with Salicional, Cadillac and I believe her moorit ewe lamb Alabama? Best fleece on hoof was won by my black ewe lamb Mandalay with Vanity Fair taking second.

Supreme champion of the show was Sheltrgpines Salicional.

I liked the way the judges worked the ring. They would pull forward animals they wanted to continue to consider for placing until they got down to the final five. It was easy to follow and there was no dreaded "last" place. And it helped people figure out somewhat just what was considered correct type, etc. to watch as they winnowed the field down.

We learned a lot, sweated a lot, and I'll probably have a sore back tomorrow morning for the drive home.

Time for soaking in the tub and then bed.

WISCONSIN SHEEP & WOOL FESTIVAL 2011

I literally dragged Meghan kicking and screaming(not really)along with me on this trip after our neighbor agreed to keep milking her does for her so they won't dry off whilst we are away. It is hard for Megs to leave all her critters in others' hands, but she did just that and we were off for three nights and four days of "vacation".

Our first stop was Lori Sommarang's farm to check our her sale lambs. When we arrived she was with Rich Johnson and a couple other people I didn't recognize. After I realized one of them was female and had a healthy Scottish accent I asked if she might be Kate. Yes, indeed. And the other fellow with the healthy head of grey hair and a very dry wit was Alan Hill. We had a nice, if brief, visit with them as they needed to be fed and we needed to get our sheep checked into pens and meet up with someone to deliver the final shipment of Stephen's Cormos.

Our sheep have lovely pens and there is a nice breeze this weekend which is helping keep away the typical high heat of Jefferson in early September. Grasshopper is eating himself into false-pregnancy. During the evaluations yesterday afternoon Alan commented we must feed him a lot of "cake". Not so. Just hay and poor pasture, but Kelly provided us with nicer hay with alfalfa in it, so he was pretty full. No hay last night as the show is this afternoon and we'd like him to look a little less full of himself.

We are finding a nice variety of Shetlands at the show and lots of convivial and cordial meeting and greeting. Getting to know people I've only seen posting online which is always good. We brought a silent auction ewe lamb for MSSBA and are hoping Grasshopper finds a home where he'll be put to more ewes. He passed his evaluation with flying colors despite his large beer gut and will be in the yearling ram class today. There is a very nice group of polled rams in attendance, so who knows? Perhaps one of them will come through with a GCH. How lovely would that be? (See how quickly that British way of speech creeps in!).

We should have brought a camera but I am sure there will be someone in attendance who will be posting photos online after they've recouped from lack of sleep. We were doing well in that department before a football team took up residence in our hotel last night. Between the slamming doors and heavy footfalls we were up half the night. On to the fiber show...have the last two Cormo X fleeces in open and three Shetland fleeces in the Shetland show.

Toodles.

THE GARDENS(Photo heavy)

We have a deep mulch system for our gardens which were the subsoil from the house excavation. Not much to work with at first but over the years with lots of sheep bedding piled on in the fall to rot down over winter we have built up some truly rich, black soil. I haven't tilled for more than 15 years. These are just a few of the flowers I've planted throughout the garden.

And then there are the fruit trees and berry bushes. This is a Haralson apple tree back by our sheep barn that is almost thirty years old.

These are highbush blueberries. I've got a long row of them on the path to the back barn and graze them frequently as I walk back to feed or fill buckets. I planted them because the wild blueberries can have off years and I love blueberries.

My favorite rasperries are the black ones. This is a variety I purchased from a nursery in Canada many years ago and I haven't found its parallel in any other variety. Cannot recall the name but I believe it is Lodan or Logan black.

This is my shade garden with coreopsis, chocolate mint, & volunteer asparagus.

Bronze fennel and volunteer sunflowers.

Volunteer calendula, purple sage and parsley. I have numerous plants that are now coming up here and there including ragged jack kale, purple orach, parsley, chard in a variety of colors, nasturtiums, calendula, fennel, dill, etc.

My favorite daisies.

The end.

WINTERTIME ANIME

Our little twin Ag spotted ewe lamb sired by Wintertime Waterbug and out of Wintertime Alanis is growing into a lovely ewe with soft, lustrous fiber. We look forward to potentially crossing her with "Boer Goat"(our moorit/white flecket Barqs/Ladybug son) this fall.

WINTER SKY KHAN

Polled modified moorit krunet yearling ram sired by Wintertime Black Forrest and out of Winter Sky Khaya. His first fleece tested 21.4 AFD/3.9 SD/18.4 CV and 6.8 CEM. He sired two very nice NCWGA lambs out of Winter Sky Kir Royale(polled katmoget ram and krunet moorit gulmoget ewe lamb)and one amazingly fleeced black ewe lamb out of Winter Sky Marrakech. He'll be used heavily this fall before heading on to another polled breeding program. We are retaining his two full sisters that were born this spring--a moorit smirslet and a black. His dam is for sale to a polled breeding program.