Lambing is done, with 12 lambs total.  The smallest ewe, Bitty Bits, had the tiniest ram lamb.  This little boy was a throwback to Bits' Lincoln ancestry, with a very Lincoln face and blocky body - but oh, so tiny!!  And the last ewe to lamb, Mooch (can you guess why she got that name?) had a set of ram twins: one is Leicester-y white, the other the chunky throwback red!  They were almost as big as Bits' lamb when they were born!  The 3 of them are penned with their moms, and have a grand time running lamb races.

Tuesday was the arrival of the new chicks, an assortment of breeds!  My current favorite, Cuckoo Marans, and Americanas, Golden Lace Wyandottes, Blue Laced Red Wyandottes, Columbian Wyandottes, and Speckled Sussex!  They'll add a lot of plumage color to the barnyard, as well as the assortment of egg colors.  And since some are straight run, the roosters will go into the freezer.

And I realized this past week that the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival is a little over a month away.  Time to really get cracking with the dyeing and some carding that needs to be done so it will all be ready. 

Somewhere in there over the next month, I need to get the garden ready and cold tolerant plants planted and overall get organized - someday!  And work on fencing, too - a never ending task....

Time certainly DOES fly here - and the lambs are slowly arriving.  We're up to 8 lambs on the ground, with another one that died.  And it is a year of ewe lambs so far, and all but one of those black!  One has the hairier coat that is a throwback to a ram I used to get a red color, with wool that is coarser and in waves.  Her brother is white with a typical Border Leicester coat, little purl-y curls and a bit of luster.  The lambs delight in laying on their mom's backs - or even the back of another mom - and it's causing some pulled wool from the ewe's backs.....I'm looking forward to the arrival of the chicks on March 25 - love those little peeps!

Been working in the studio getting wool sorted.  Some will go for yarn and some for insoles and some dyed and put through my Duncan carder, maybe with mohair or silk.  I'll be visiting the Fiber Factory in western NY next week to drop off fiber for more insoles and talk with Wendy about getting some sheets of felt made for a new idea I have for jackets or vests - we'll see how that plays out!  And I've been knitting up swatch/guage samples for the last run of gray yarn that was done at Zeilingers - more ideas trying to find their way out of my head!  And I'm using this same gray yarn in winding a warp, interspersed with dyed alpaca, for scarves.... just too many ideas!

And I am finally learning to play my beautiful lacewood dulcimer that arrived in December - if only my hand and fingers would cooperate!