Busy! Busy! Busy!

I have been really busy for the last 5 weeks that I have not had much time to post any thing here! We have been trying ti clean the sheep pens and get them for winter and I had a down lamb dew to worms and been nursing her back to health. I am glad to report that she is doing much better and now we have a problem with her fleece slipping off her dew the her being so sick when we brought her to the barn. So I am kind of worried to let her out with all her other little lamb friends and she will get chilled and have a relapse or something!! We have had a horrible time with the weather around our part of the country do to snow and rain it has made a real mess of the sheep pens and they were stand in the terrible muck that would not dry. So I came home from work one day and started shoveling all this smelly muck out and hauling it by wheelbarrow full to the mud hole where we dump all the little marble all our animals make. Only this was not in marble form anymore do to the rain and snow. What a mess!!! When Juan came home from work he saw what I was doing and he took over. It took us about 2 and half weeks to finish the job because of the weather. I also had about 6 months of farm book work to catch up on as well and been trying to spin and work at the gas station do the cleaning and cooking here at home and check emails for the websites and help a friend buy some Holstein bull calves as well trying to help another friend out with her mother who is recovering from surgery. Oh I also forgot to tell you that I also have been helping my Dad try to get his trailer house in order for when we get all the utilities hooked up so he can go and live in his home which is on the farm about 100 feet from the main house. So you see I have been a little busy to say the least. And on top of this I am thinking of trying some needle felting in my spare time. I found out this week that Hobby Lobby carry the needles and today we are going to Kearney to pick them up. I know I don't have a lot of followers and I am not sure why I take the time to put this out there in cyberspace except for the fact that my Mom can go on my blog and see what is going on here at the farm. I wish I can get more people to to look at my websites and start to place orders and more of a following on this blog. But I am sad to say I don't know how to do this if some one has any ideas I will be willing to listen to them. Please post here on the blog or you can email me at our website just click the button that my sister made for me on this blog.

NEW STORE

I have a new store on http://www.YanezFarms.artfire.com. This is a direct link to my store and what I have for sale there right now. It is a work in progress and I am still working on adding more stuff to it in time be patient with me. It seem I sometimes get too many pokers in the fire and I have a hard time trying to keep up with everything. But I do try! If there is anything that you are looking for drop me a line and I will try to get it for you.

Change of subject: This Friday we are going to the Nebraska Sheep and Goat Producers convention in Wahoo and I am really looking forward to it to meet other sheep producers and see what kind of knew information that is out there for us sheep ranchers. I will let you know how it goes!

New Toy

Well I finally got my electric spinning wheel this week it a dream to spin on. I am still working on getting use to it but it is so much easier on my ankle. You see I broke my ankle this summer and I still have trouble with it now and again. And last month I tried to used my ashford and it was rather difficult to use cause my ankle does not have the movement it use to have so I could not spin and that really upset me! So my hubby said i could get this wheel I found on Ravelry, its a Roberta and it is used but it looks new!.I got it for a really good price! I go tit for half the price of a new one. I am so excited to start spinning again and use my new wheel.

Next week my husband and I will be going to the Nebraska Sheep and Goat Producers Convention in Wahoo. I am looking forward to this so I can get our name out there an let people know that we can clean their wool for them and they won't have to send it out of state to be cleaned. So today I am working on cleaning Lady Bug's wool and also making up some sort of flyer's to pass out. I hope this works out and gets us some leads on cleaning some wool! Please say a prayer for us that it works. Well I better get going I have a busy day ahead of me!

Lambing Season

Well I am starting to get ready for this winters lambing season . I spoke with a neighbor about getting their wood shavings. I am also going to start stocking up on diapers. Yes you read right diapers I use them on the little lambs that I have to take in and bottle feed. I know it sounds crazy but it really works. and I get this bond with the lamb and it makes it easier for handling when they are older, they are not afraid of you and you can work with them. The diapers save on your floor and you are not having to clean up all these little marbles all the time. I tried it this last winter when we were having temps below zero degrees in the early morning hours when I would have to go out and bottle feed them in the barn. So while my husband was away one time this last winter I had a lamb that her mother who didn't have enough milk to care for 2 lambs so I took Mazie in and tried the diaper thing and it worked! So I thought why not do it on all of the bottle lambs! I tell you it sure saved on my floors.I have proof of it in my Picasa photo gallery at the bottom of this blog take a look and see what you think? I am really proud of my bottle babies and they are all doing really great, they are with all the other sheep in my herd. I put them out with them when I see that they are holding thier own and start to gain weight.

Been Awhile

Its been awhile since I have had any time to write anything here the sale of our lambs went better than we had hoped. I have been busy cleaning wool so I can start spinning like crazy this fall. My husband has been gone just about every week. So come the weekend we spend catch-up on the chores that he has not been able to do in the week. On top of that I came down with the creeping crud that just does not want to leave. Also the make things even worse our pick-up broke down and will cost a very disgusting amount of money to fix it so off to the go ole' banker to talk money. which is not my favorite thing to do!!! Oh well it is taken care of for now, we got the money to fix it. You know that old saying when it rains it pores well I think we have had that this month. I certainly hope next month is going to be better than this one for the money aspect anyways. We also have been having problems with coyotes coming into the pasture at night and spooking the animals. So it has been a little tense here when it get dark. That is basically the whole enchilada here!

To The Sale Barn

We are taking all our spring ram lambs to the sale barn tomorrow. To start getting ready for the Fall and Winter feeding. I hope we do well! Last month they did all right. I hope the price per pound is up and not down. This time of the year it usually is up and we do pretty fair. We have learned from past experiences not to transport them more than 60 miles away to sell them. Because what profit you do make gets eaten up in the cost of fuel, the buyers don't know you and are shy to buy from you. So we now go to a sale barn close to home where the people know us and want our lambs. We are keeping all the spring ewes for breeding and to increase our herd. I still have this years sheared wool for sale and have some pictures of it on our website. We also have some beautifully colored Llama fiber as well as our Alpaca fiber for sale too. I did not get pic's of all the Llama fiber but I can tell you some of the colors. Here is the list of colors

Llama Fiber Colors:
white with tan and brown fleece
white with a rose fleece
tans with a rose fleece
gray with white and brown fleece
white with brown fleece
dark brown fleece
black fleece
black with brown tips fleece
black with gray fleece

These are all unclean fleeces with some VM (vegetable matter) in them. I am selling it unclean or I can clean it for you. The unclean price is a $1.00 per pound or if I clean it is $6.00 per pound. These all are very pretty fleeces and have a nice staple length to them all. I did spin some, it is the dark gray that I have pictured on our website. It really spins up beautifully by itself or you can combine it with other fibers, which would be nice too!

Bithday Thanks

Yes, yesterday was my b-day and I want to thank my sister for the really great post she put on her blog. I really liked it a lot and think it is super! I had a wonderful day it started at 4:30 in the morning when my husband woke me up and wished me Happy Birthday. I did have to go to work that day but it was okay. when I got to work my co-worker Jackie and our boss Irene blew up balloons and taped them all around my register and wrote on one Happy Birthday and faced it out so the customers could see it. So all the local people saw it and wished me Happy Birthday and some that were just passing threw wished me a good day as well. It was a lot of fun yesterday. When I got home my Dad had bought stuff for my special dinner and my husband and son got me flowers from all of them in the house it was really cool. So I want to say Thanks to all that stop by here and wished me Happy Birthday it really was a great day for me! I had lots of fun and will remember it always.