Beets are yummy!

When I attended the Michigan Fiber Festival last month, one of the Icelandic Sheep breeders recommended giving sheep beet pulp as a healthy treat . Well, it just so happens, I have beets in my garden the size of cantelopes, so I certainly have enough to share! Here is a picture of the half I didn't feed to them next to an apple just for perspective.


I ran chunks of the beet and some old grocery store carrots that were in the frig thru the grater in my food processor and made a big bowl of shredded beets/carrots. I took it out to the sheep and put it in the trough I use for grain. There were 4 or 5 of them that absolutely LOVED it! Bianca, the white sheep in the middle of this picture, was the most enthusiastic about their yummy treat. Her chin was all red when she finally came up for air.
Here you can see in the background the girls who didn't find the beets as appetizing.

The girls didn't quite finish it all ... there was a lot of it!! So I took the left overs to the lambs and they weren't as enthusiastic, but they did manage to finish what was left over the course of the day.
Beets are good for people too! And if you've only ever had a canned beet and think, "YUK!" then I encourage you to purchase a bunch of fresh beets in the produce department. Trim the tops, boil for 10 -15 minutes and enjoy. They are very sweet and butter tasting. I promise you will think differently about beets. I also like to top a toss salad with some raw grated beets.

From The World's Healthiest Foods here are some of the benefits of beets:

These colorful root vegetables contain powerful nutrient compounds that help protect against heart disease, birth defects and certain cancers, especially colon cancer.

The pigment that gives beets their rich, purple-crimson color-betacyanin-is also a powerful cancer-fighting agent. Beets' potential effectiveness against colon cancer, in particular, has been demonstrated in several studies.

Helps reduce total cholesterol and triglycerides and increase HDL.

Beets' Betaine Helps Lessen Inflammation

People whose diets supplied the highest average intake of choline (found in egg yolk and soybeans), and its metabolite betaine (found naturally in vegetables such as beets and spinach), have levels of inflammatory markers at least 20% lower than subjects with the lowest average intakes, report Greek researchers in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (Detopoulou P, Panagiotakos DB, et al.)

A trip to the Michigan Fiber Festival

Last Friday we decided to take a last minute trip to Michigan. I wanted to attend the Michigan Fiber Festival and it is conveniently located in Allegan just a few minutes from Preston’s cousin’s house. This is a huge festival and I hadn’t attended it since I bought my sheep, so I was going with a new perspective. I also was going as a shopper and not a vendor, so I was able to browse at my leisure.

I knew that one of the fiber processors I use, The Wooly Knob, would be there, so I took 3 bags – 18 pounds total – of my wool with me for them to take back and process. The parents of one of the owners have a spinning mill where they will spin my roving into yarn for me. So I am having that done for the first time. To my surprise, he said they could have the yarn back to me when I see them at The Wool Gathering in September. I will have a booth there, so it will be great to have that for sale!

So after the wool drop, I meandered my way over to the animal barns. I spotted some beautiful Icelandics right away. Their farm was located nearby, so I may visit them next time I am up there. I saw some other Icelandics owned by another farm and I wasn’t as impressed. I guess I am developing a trained eye for quality.

There were other breeds of sheep, but none that stole my heart. So I went over to the other barn where the goats were… mostly Angora goats which were actually what I first intended to purchase when I started my flock, but something changed my mind at the time. I am still in love with these little creatures … they are just adorable.

Check out the horns on this buck (male goat)!!! Both does and bucks have horns, but these were amazing!

They come in different colors ... I think this one is considered black .. maybe gray.
This is a white one ... I think it was a kid (a baby). Oh! I walked up to one pen and there were two very small baby goats in with their mom. I was very surprised that an owner would bring a mom with babies so young ... much too stressful. Turns out she didn't know the doe was pregnant and the babies were born the night before! Surprise!!

This one is considered Red in color. This is the color I bought and mixed it with some white lamb's wool.

I met this young girl holding this goat on a leash. It was the most adorable of them all. So I think it's time I purchased a couple of them. I'll see what I can find when I go to The Wool Gathering next month!

I purchased a pound of mohair (Angora goat fleece) while I was there with the intention of combining it with some of my wool to make a wool-mohair blended roving. It will make it much softer.

On to the booths … I have been wanting to learn to felt, so I purchased a hat form and a needle felter to do needle felting. You basically lay the roving over the form in thin amounts in different directions and poke it with the 10-needle needle felter until the fibers intertwine and make felt. You keep adding layers until it is as thick as you want it.

I also met a lady who did something called nuno felting. It is a very, wispy thin layer of felting into a piece of fabric … something drape-y and loosely woven, silk for example. She had a stunning scarf that she had made unlike anything I’d ever seen. So I decided I needed to learn how to do that too. I found a book that taught all different types of “wet felting” … felting by using water and rubbing to make the wool felt. I experimented yesterday with a small piece of fabric to learn the process. I think it came out correctly; I just didn’t use an appropriate fabric. It wrinkled in the last step of the process, but I have other remnant pieces of fabric to play.

My last purchase was a Coopworth sheep fleece. I had never heard of them … they are a cross between a Romney ewe and a Border Leister ram. The fleece was beautiful and so clean (she puts coats on them) … so I had to have one.

It was a wonderful day and I’m so glad we decided to make the trip. I always learn a lot from my fellow shepherds and fiber crafters.

Sheep, Sleep, Beans, Sleep, Sheep, Sleep, Beans ...

It all caught up with me today and I actually took a nap ... I might do that twice a year. It has been an intense week. The days blurred together but one day this week, I picked 16 pounds of beans from the "big garden" out back and canned 14 quarts. Colton helped me with the snapping while I managed the other logistics of washing jars and beans. Colton filled the jars and into the canner they went. It took about 6 hours from the plant to the last popping lid. We are up to 33 quarts of beans.

Then yesterday, both boys helped me pick beans from the garden near the house. We picked about 30 pounds of beans! I just couldn't imagine canning all of them, so we did a quick rinse in the deep sink and put them in a large cooler for Preston to take to work and offer to everyone there. I haven't seen him yet this evening, so I don't know yet how many he is bringing home. I wonder if sheep like beans?

I made two sheep deliveries this week. Dudley, an adult wether, and Hannah's little black wethered ram lamb were loaded up Wednesday morning in the rain with the help of Ben. We were able to get the lamb in a large dog crate, but Dudley got to run "free range" in the bed of the truck.

I drove by myself to Beaver, OH ... about 80 miles southeast of here into the beautiful mountains of Ohio. The last 45 minutes was a continuous series of 30 mph S-curves. Even I was car sick when I got there and wondered if sheep got motion sickness. I arrived at Lynn's driveway and panicked when I saw that their dirt driveway with a 45 degree incline was completely washed out by the rain. I quickly called and told her I wasn't going to be able to get up the driveway in the truck. So she drove down in her car that has a hatchback. I will use Lynn's description of the trip as her husband gunned the car up the driveway:

Dudley "who is now sitting in my lap pooping away as I hang onto his horns for dear life as we bumpity bump and get air hauling ass up the grand canyon that is my driveway."

Now I was really car sick! We then had to walk (read drag) 175 pound-built-like-a-brick-house Dudley about 150 feet to the entrance of their fence down a rain-slicked hill and he wanted nothing to do with wherever it was we were taking him. Finally, success. We catch out breath and back down the "grand canyon" we go.

We slide the dog crate (good decision) into the car and Lynn sits back there to keep the crate from going airborn. Ditto on the trip back up. I decided to take the lamb out of the crate and walk him down the hill ... probably not the best choice in hind sight. The smaller the sheep, the more they can swing their body in violent opposition to what you are trying to accomplish. It had to be funny to watch, I'm sure. But I bet that crate would have just slid nicely down the hill.

Well at the sight of lush greenery, both sheep walked into their new home like it was nothing to get them there. They have a beautiful shaded hillside they now call home. One more bumpity bump down the hill, catch my breath, and wind my way out of the mountains in the pouring rain.

Well, that was so much fun, I decide to email Halle to see if she's ready for her sheep on short notice ... I figure since the truck is a mess, why not get it all done at once. Halle lives near Cleveland and bought several sheep from me last year. She arrived in a UHaul utility van that couldn't have had more than 10,000 miles on it. We loaded the sheep in the van and she headed home. I can only imagine what the next renters of the van thought!!

This time, she asked if I could meet her half way. So Ben helped me load up two of the ewe lambs, one of Delia's twins and Bianca's ewe. They had the run of the truck bed. We met at the McDonald's off I-71 at exit 151. When I read the comments: This Mc Donald's is in the middle of a corn field! I thought this would be perfect if they get loose! Fortunately, everything went smoothly, but I had to wonder what people were thinking as they went through the drive-thru! "Yikes, is that what's in my burger?!?" You could be so lucky!

Back home, after picking the 30 pounds of beans, I cleaned out the bed of the truck ... always fun! Ben and I dug a post hole with the auger on the tractor and assembled an H-brace for one of the final runs of fence out back. When Preston came home, we also put in another H-brace along the property line so we could create an opening for a small gate between us and our neighbors. We've had to either jump over barbed wire or drive nearly a mile! from their house to ours. Now it will be just a quick jaunt across the pasture.

Today everything hurts ... my wrist from one of Dudley's quick moves, my head from the 2x4 framed lid to the hay feeder that fell on my head, my knee from wrestling sheep I can only imagine, the poison ivy all over my arm, neck and sides, even my ears from a build up of fluid according to the doctor. Therefore you can appreciate my need for a nap today. I washed a fleece and fell asleep reading a book.

A Bird's Eye View

Preston fitted his model airplane with a camera yesterday and he and Colton flew it out over Quiet Thyme Farm. The camera took pictures every few seconds during it's flight.

I thought you'd like to see the actual view of the pastures and buildings as it compares to the drawing I showed in my first post.

You can see dots of sheep in pasture 3 now. The rams are in pasture D.

Preston just mowed pasture 2, that's why it doesn't look so inviting, but it will soon.

You can see more of Preston's aerial photos on our website in the Photo Gallery

Oh, and please note the tree where Frank's skin was found ... right outside the back door :)

We're Moving On Up!

(I'm singing the theme song to The Jeffersons while I type) ...

Preston is the webmaster for our www.QuietThymeFarm.com website. Any website owner knows that the goal is to be on the first page of Google. We've been working on things over the years to make that happen.

As of today, when you google "icelandic sheep," we are on page 4, up from page 14! But even more cool, on the first page, the 4th item down is "Image Results." The 3rd picture is one of my sheep from our website!! How cool is that?!

If you google "icelandic sheep ohio," we have moved to the #1 spot on page 1 ... even beating out isbona.com which is the Icelandic Sheep Breeders Association. We used to be further down the page a ways. Yippee!!