Like a walk through the country side living on a small farm is full of daily surprises, sometimes wonderful and amazing, and other times puzzling and sad. I hope you will walk with me as I live out my dream of living on this tiny farm. You will come to know the dogs, cats, Shetland sheep and chickens that make up this farm and what goes into keeping them happy and healthy. Come and join the journey with me.

Tuesday, May 01, 2007

Luna





Luna was born a smashing little moorit/white flecket. A very striking little girl. However the tell-tale signs of Ag greying were there in the 'sugar-lips' and silvering around her eyes. I knew she was a musket and would gradually fade to a taupy white.

The transition has been beautiful to watch as each season brought a different color, before the 'final fade' set in.

Luna is a sweet little (and I do mean little--she is one of my tiniest ewes) ewe and has overcome her shyness to bravely wave her forefoot at me and accept crackers from my hand.

I thought it would be interesting for those fellow shepherd's who are interested in such things to see the progression. The first two photos were at a few hours old and a couple of weeks.















Willow and Luna, at about two months.


Luna in all her spun silver and gold glory--about 5 months.

Luna just before shearing--almost a yearling.

Next shows Luna (check out that cute whiskery face!) after the removel of her lamb's fleece and a picture of the fleece itself after being skirted. This fleece is extremely soft. I'm very happy with it.

These last two photos show (not very well I'm afraid) a sampling of three different colors of fleeces from the yearlings. On the left is Luna's musket, in the middle is Selena's Moorit (?--this fleece has steely grey cast in it--there is not color break, but just an overall grey--the pictures do not show well--any ideas??), and on the right is Gina's lovely darker Moorit fleece sample. Hopefully these pictures will line up well, but since there are so many, we shall see! Comments and ideas appreciated!

1 comment:

Michelle said...

Fun pictures! Selena's color reminds me of Valentine's, although Val is more silver than steely grey now. I've decided that I eventually want to replace my Ag grey girls with ewes that retain more color. The fleece judge at SE thought Rechel's fleece was "not very clean" until I pointed out that she is light grey, not white; the judge then recanted. But if the judge initially thought that then buyers probably will, too. Not good for selling fleeces!