You roo?

Sunday morning I noticed a tuft of wool hanging from Blackberry's neck. I pulled it off and tossed it in the trash, not thinking much about it. Sunday night I noticed a bigger tuft of wool hanging from his neck. This time I pulled it off, and retrieved the previous tuft from the trash. Might as well play with the lovely stuff; it's the finest fleece on Boulderneigh! Monday morning there was more, and he seemed quite content to let me collect it; he especially liked my pulling off the short stuff on his cheeks and chin and around his cute little ears. I also noticed a little tuft hanging from his brisket. It is looking like Blackberry is going to roo!This was my "harvest" from the three chore times next to my size 9 shoe for comparison. There is noticeable dander (click to biggify; you'll see the lovely crimp, too); I washed a sample in very hot water to see if it was just grease but it didn't dissolve.

Anyway, I'm surprised at this development, since Inky doesn't loosen up her fleece at all, and I am not aware that Blackberry's sire Franjean did, either. I didn't learn about rooing until after I got my first Shetlands, and wished then that I had known enough to select sheep for that trait. Being able to harvest the fleece by hand and have a softer end product with no second cuts or nicks on my sheep really appealed to me. And now, serendipitously, it looks like I may have raised a sheep in my flock with this trait! Of course, it remains to be seen if he roos completely, or just in patches; all at once, or over weeks or months. If he does roo cleanly within a short period of time, I will be even more thrilled with this young half-poll ram and what he brings to the breeding shed!

That's it for now at . . .

Sweaty Sunday summary

Yesterday was simply gorgeous, so we did what we do with decent weather on the first day of the week - work outside! We got all the fruit trees but the Italian prune pruned, as well as the flowering plum in the island, and trees along the driveway that scrape on the horse trailer and camper. After hauling hundreds of pounds of branches (and the Christmas tree) to the burn pile and doing our best to get it going, we gave up; it was too wet to sustain a fire. Rick planted another Asian pear tree, and I cleaned the dead plants out of the garden. Rick and Brian built the back (north) wall on the Ram-ada Inn and fixed the divider (no more pallets!); I cleaned out the henhouse and gave the ladies clean sheets. It was a very productive day! I really wanted to take advantage of the weather and ride Russell down the road, but couldn't justify taking off. I did manage to snap these photos of dramatic clouds, though. I just love clouds; plain blue sky isn't nearly as interesting as a blue sky with clouds!
That's it for now from . . .

Sweeter than brown sugar

(She looks like white sugar, but she's really brown sugar underneath.)


This is why I have Shetlands; the fabulous fleece on their backs is just icing on the cake.

Without a long arm and some point-and-shoot luck, THIS is the only shot I would have gotten this morning!

That's it for now from . . .