Nobody's perfect

It started with changing 'clothes' one night. Bernadette's bum was busting out the back of her too-small suit, so I caught her and swapped it out for a bigger one, admiring her chocolate fleece in the process. I also noticed that her toes were long – and that others were sporting too-small suits and too-long toes. It was obviously time to do some fall sheep maintenance!

Trimming toes and changing coats (as needed) on each of my eight girls over the next week gave me the chance to compare their great, good and not so good qualities. Believe it or not, I don't have one perfect sheep. 😉 But all of them do have fleeces I'm proud to be able (based on micron test results) to market and sell as

ALL of my girls have close relatives in the ewe flock. There's Sarai and her twin daughters Brigitte and Bardot, who were sired by Blake; Vienna and her daughter Bree, who was also sired by Blake; and then there are Nightcap's three daughters Blaise, Bernadette, and Bette, of which the latter two are also Vienna's and Blake's granddaughters and Bette is Bree's daughter! (Got that? Good; there'll be a quiz later. Ha!) I'll show them to you in those three groups, in the order named, with comments.

The katmoget pattern creates an optical illusion of a long tail; it's not.

WhitePine Sarai, a 'grey' katmoget (not Ag), is my oldest ewe at eight. She has a beautiful head and conformation and a fine, crimpy fleece that can usually be rooed. Okay, I lied; Sarai is pretty much a perfect Shetland. I would love another 1/2" to 1" of staple length, but really, that's just being greedy.

Boulderneigh Brigitte's tail is embarrassingly woolly; I would not sell her as breeding stock because of it. But she has a fantastic fleece with length and fineness as well as good conformation.

Right mid-side

Left mid-side

Hip

Boulderneigh Bardot, Brigitte's grey twin, has the perfect tiny tail – buried in an unfortunate amount of britch. She's got great conformation covered with a lot of beautiful, crimpy fleece, but it's the least fine of my ewe flock.

OK Acres Vienna is my second oldest ewe. She's a big-bodied, easy-keeping, very fine-fleeced moorit with fierce mothering instinct – she's the one who took Jackson and suffered a gashed face for it, and she'd do it again in a heartbeat. Her head is rather plain and her fleece is rather short, but she hasn't passed on either of those traits.

Mid-side

Topline

Britch

Boulderneigh Bree produces a luscious fleece and I love her size, conformation, personality, and head. Her tail is woollier than is ideal, but not as heavy as Brigitte's.

Boulderneigh Blaise is special; her gulmoget pattern, white head markings, tiny ears and tail, square stance, and presence have long drawn my eye. To be perfect her fleece would be finer and her back would be longer (more capacity for lambs).

Bernadette has a tiny, typey tail and a superb moorit fleece. She doesn't stand as square on her hind legs as I'd like; she's a bit 'hocky.'

Boulderneigh Bette has the best fleece in my flock. Not only does she have the lowest AFD at 24µ, her other qualities make it feel even finer ('spin fineness'). Her tail has gotten woollier (there is a haired tip in there) as she has matured, but the rest of her physical traits are very nice.

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I'm body-sore tonight; I spent most of my free time today working in the arena. I was going to make applesauce, but your comments about RoundUp encouraged me and steeled my resolve to do whatever I can to prevent its use where Lance and I play. I wish I could persuade my DH to stop using the vile stuff and it would be great if he'd wield a hoe to help me, but that's not going to happen. I appreciate him for many reasons, but we are polar opposites on some things that mean a lot to me and this is one of them. 😔 (See title.) Thankfully (although it can be very irritating at times) he is slow to act, so that buys me some time to do it my way. I decided to rake up what I'd hoed before; the weeds didn't turn roots-up like they did in the garden and I was afraid they'd just re-root. In fact, the roots form a matt that holds a lot of sand; I just broke that matt up into smaller pieces when I hoed. So I picked up manure forkfuls, shook out what sand I could, and loaded the cart. Talk about HEAVY; I only used my 'helper' once because it made the load almost impossible to move!

It occurred to me that the matt was so cohesive that I might be able to just lift it up rather than hoe it; sure enough, it worked!

Removing the weeds this way not only avoids toxic chemicals and saves me the cost of a gym membership (ha), it removes much of the organic matter that would decrease the drainage and increase the dust potential over time. Not that I'm going to convince Rick; I'll just have to keep working at it every chance I get and pray I beat the man with the evil sprayer.

My outdoor companion

That's it for now from . . .