So I spent the best part of an hour waiting from some visitors who didn’t appear.

My view.

No shows are inevitable and to be fair apparently they emailed earlier in the morning and I missed it.

So, after the long wait and running out of phone battery, I drove off in a huff and went to see the herd by myself.  They were hiding in the dip of the stream using it for shelter.  It is very windy today.  I dished out carrots and a passing car stopped.  Some very nice visitors watched us, so I invited them into the field.  Win some, lose some – that’s how I see it.

Next up, I went over to spend the day with my “crafty” friend, Karen who had offered to help me “sort out” Lambie’s fleece.  Time for the big guns – the drum carder.

We were creating batts of wool from Lambie’s clean but grotty fleece.  I picked out the hairy bits and Karen “opened up the locks” (get me and my new found lingo) first before feeding it into the drum carder.  Then, once full, she unwound it using the most beautiful porcupine quill. I was entranced.

Et voilà – a carded wool batt of Lambie’s (clean) white bits.

Next it was the turn of the hand carders.  Karen showed me how to load them up.

And then what to do – much toing and froing.

Of course when she did it, it all looked so easy. I got into a huge muddle.

Karen’s finished hand carded result was a beautiful rolag.

Karen made it look all very easy.  I had a shot and made a complete Horlicks of it!

So back to the drum carder to make a mixed colour batt.

Lambie at his most beautiful.

And this was the misery that was waiting for me at home. Lambie is still very upset so spent the day with Daisy.  I told her while I was away that she was on babysitting duty!

The Boyzenberries are all finally sheared.  They were done last night by our very efficient and kind shearer. I had starved them most of the day too.

First up was Lambie.

Then ‘Ster and then ‘Bert (sorry, no pic).

When I put Lambie back with the others, they instantly attacked him so I let him back out to stand by me and watch the rest of the shearing.  He hates aggro and got very upset.

Once ‘Ster was sheared, things calmed down slightly.  For a while they don’t recognise each other. It always happens.

The arguing continued but I had to keep them in for the night because it was horrible and raining.  I left them bickering with some hay, alfalfa block, water and went back into the house to worry all night, waking up with a stonking migraine.

The sheeple rushed out of their stable first thing enjoying their freedom.

Today they are quieter and less boisterous but at least the arguing has stopped.

This afternoon I went into my shed with Lambie joining me.

Once the wool had been taken off, one observation is that everyone is extremely fat so snacks are off the table now, no more daily breakfast and carrots are the only way ahead.

We move into Lambie’s (revolting) pink phase.  Once his wool starts growing, he will assume his natural good looks and faint smell of wee.

So that chore is over.  I must admit I hate it but shearing has to be done and everyone is much happier with the result.

This is Monster in all his Monstery glory.  He is a huge character.  How did we ever live without him?

He loves sharpening his claws on anything but is good in the house about this (others have not been).  We put out a strategically placed scratching post which he has lovingly destroyed.

OH decorated it with toys and occasionally I sprinkle some catnip, which blows his mind.

There is also a faint whiff of polecat about Monster.

I dread to think how that encounter went, mostly for the polecat!

Precious BeAnne (Her Maj, aka Beatle) is doing well. She potters about in her old age doing her own thing but keeping an ever-watchful eye on me in case I have an independant thought.  We all have our daily routines and she organises her family (us) just how she wants life to be.  I believe we are very well trained.

It has taken a while, but BeAnne has finally stopped killing hens – she got through her fair share of them led by Loki (RIP), but now I think we are past that and will draw a veil over this behaviour.  Monster has never been bothered. I wonder if he was a farm cat in his previous life in Scotland.  He seems so at home here.

Meanwhile, Lilja continues to leave the older mares, coming up to take at look at whatever is going on.

Every day she looks more and more like her father, Taktur frá Velli II. 

Peas in a pod and the same temperament too.

I am really enjoying watching her grow up.

I think it is because Lilja is beside the house, so I see her all the time while Dreki, her brother is mooching about being a teenager with the other boys.  He is far more aloof than his sister.  I will go out tomorrow (if it ever stops raining) and take some photos of him to compare.  They are both 2 years old now.

Hetja is beginning to change shape……. ooooh!

My poor woolly sheeple are ready to be sheared.  It is not that hot – summer is determined to evade us – but still they are struggling in the non-existent heat and have decided that they hate all this wool.

I came outside and found ‘Ster lying down, unmoving.  Oh, the worry. I thought he was dead.

I shouted to him and nothing.  Then he just managed to open his eyes.

And straight back to sleep.  After Puzzah’s unexplained demise, I worry possibly all the time.

Anyway, eventually ‘Ster stood up, stretched and said all was well. Phew!

‘Bert has a thick wool coat along with his classy rasta dreads.

He has the appalling affliction of horns that will kill him.  They grow straight into his temples.  A terrible design flaw and his horns will be cut right back.

‘Bert, too, hates all his wool and struggles under its compact weight.

There is the odd “hentilagit” too.

Last, Lambie who is not as miserable. But smelly. He is very very smelly.

He sits in a pile around the place with the accompanying whiff of strong pee.  He doesn’t seem to mind.  I do.  The doors are always open.

So I have booked the shearer to come next week – hopefully Monday evening, all being well and then I will have some more beautiful fleece to work with.

Now to convince the Boyzenberries to come into the stable in the evening. I need to stock up on ginger biscuits.  My sheep always know when I want them and have a nasty habit of vanishing immediately!

“Part the 2 tomorrow, when Karen demonstrated more carding with a drum carder and English combs (it was a scary instrument of torture to me).” (with a day off for good behaviour!)

After a lovely lunch (homemade soup and bread – delicious), Karen got out her drum carder which looked like a fine instrument of torture.

There was already some wool “she had prepared earlier”.

Karen showed me how to feed the wool into the carder.

It was fascinating.

Karen was making a carded wool batt out of Shetland wool.

It was the English wool combs’ turn next.

Pretty fearsome.  Scary stuff.  You could damage with that.

I was shown how to load the combs with locks. The butt end on the tines with the curly bits forwards.

And then you comb and comb in one direction (passes), turn the comb round and then the other.

You have to pass it through a diz before you take it off the tines (get me with the lingo) and the result is a “combed top”.  Wow.

Anywho, my brain is frying now.  Great to watch, possibly something I am not going to do (just combing through washed bits of Lambie works for me) but good to know and a real education.