Shear ye! Shear ye!

 Yes friends, its that time of year. Infact, its a little late to be doing this. Finally setting out to shear the sheep. This was the first time I ever did it and it was fun. I tried both electric shears and hand shears and found I prefered the hand shears.

 I watched lots of videos on youtube that made it look easy...but it wasn't so much. Not terrible, but i certainly was not as fast. But there ya go: Sparkles whole fleece all cut off by me with the help of my family in holding her down. I finally got into the rhythm and up to speed the last part of the fleece.

 Then there was John. Most sheep pass out when sat on their butts...him? not so much. Like Wilda, hes not inclined to be docile. It took Shawn a few minutes of wrestling to even get the sheep on the ground finally resorting to out and out tackling and rolling him over.

This time is was my sisters chance to cut. Gratious me, did I have a hard time not intervening.....she was very careful not to cut them and went slow. really. slow. painfully slow. all the while John was gathering up his strength for the next escape attempt. He needed more speed in his shearing.

 Part of the time he was in a leglock between Shawns legs, and other times 3 of us held him down while someone sheared. Once or twice I had to throw my body over him to hold him down. His horns made it difficult to tuck his head in close enough for him to go in his sheepy trance.

 Not the most perfect fleece as he tried to escape and tore it, buts its mostly in one piece.

That there is the naked sheep. Compare to the picture above with his fleece. He is a mighty skinny boy now.

Fabricating a Bright Cut Pendant

Hello there! Been a while, eh? I've been very busy at my bench. One of my recent projects was this fabricated opal pendant. I started with 12 gauge silver sheet soldered to a back plate (20 gauge) and half bezel. I had to make sure my silver was thicker than the stones I was trying to set. Once I was done soldering I cut it out and got this:

 No holes for stones, though. Next I placed the stones and drilled starter holes for them. I'm testing the piece out to see if i've got thing spaced well.

Next I open up the holes with a flame bur then a setting bur to create a seat. Most my seats are a tad small so I use a knife graver to open it up enough to fit a stone.

 After getting everyone to fit I take my graver tip press it into the metal then tilt the tip up: I do not cut, I simply wedge metal over the stones. This is the beginning of the bead process.

 Next I cut a little V behind each bead to "release it." They are ugly at this point, but once I polish and shaped them with a beading tool we have pretty little beads

 Once all beads are finished I am now bead set. I then take my flat graver and cut behind the beads to clean things up, remove stray marks, and create nice angled surfaces to reflect extra light. This is bright cutting and together it is called "bright set." There are many variations of bright set but the main idea is the setting surface has been angled so that it reflects more light creating a "brighter" look.

The opal setting was quite tight already, but just to be extra safe since it was just a half bezel I epoxied AND  set metal over the stone. I pretty happy with the finished product, though the bright setting could be a little cleaner. Also: don't bright set periot. Just. Don't.

Busy Lady!

Hello! Posting a quick note to let you know what I've been up to.

Finished lambing, 4 healthy babies growing fast and strong. And one lamb sprouted a second set of horns!

I finished my class on bead setting, got some great work coming up from that.

Right now my focus is on the Creative Metal Arts Guild's spring show at the Portland convention center. Lots and lots of work left for then...and only a few days to do it. eeek! keep you posted once this whirlwind slows down some.

Banding

Hello all! been busy these last few weeks. All the sheep are friends again, yay! Sparkles tried to usurp Wilda's place, but didn't quite manage as her Sparkle's mom, Ariel, still follows Wilda. So Sparkles begrudingly listens to Wilda again, and everyone is happy.

 You remember those long tails the lambs were all born with, right? Well, thats a by-product of domestication that doesn't usually happen in nature (sorta like curly tails on dogs). It becomes problematic in the summer because sheep may get poop on their tails and flys will lay eggs in it, not a problem until the maggots come out and start eating the sheeps tails. That is pretty horrible from what i hear, so we have to remove the extra long tails. Animals rights activists are trying to get tail docking banned, but it is necessary. One of out lambs was already getting poop on her tail, and I can't wipe her butt everytime she poops! We opted for banding: using an industrial strength rubberband to cut off circulation and eventually have the tail fall off. My mother, a doctor, noted that its the same method doctors use on kids who are born with extra fingers.

The first day

Week and a half later: almost gone!

 The one problem with banding (okay, besides the first half-hour where the lambs are in pain as the circulation is cut off, but after the first half hour they were playing again) is it increases chance of tetinus. I have never given shots before so it was a learning experience. Since I was the one to band and give the lambs their shots, they don't quite trust me, but no one is sick, no one died, so we're good.

 All in all the lambs are growing incredibly fast and healthy. Ross-anna finally has her horns coming out--looks like she will have the pretty slender horns her mom has. The two ram-lambs horns are growing so quickly! Hopefully theirs are as nice as dad's. Still waiting for Cleopatra's to show through: I'm hoping the dot on the side indicates she will have 4..though it seems doubtful :( Still I am very happy with my first crop of lambs.

Dad is still hitting on the llama

Milk is still flowing

 Beautiful little babies.

Cleopatra and Khoresh

Bademjan

Cleopatra

Last of the Lambs

So, we had some drama on the farm. Wilda split from everyone else to a safe spot, so Shawn left her out for the night. Unfortunatly she decided to hide in an unsafe spot in the middle of the night: right at the portal to the coyote highway. So we lost the ewe. :( We tried to stick the sheep together again, but Sparkles and Wilda kept fighting, splitting open Sparkle's lip. Shawn finally picked up Wilda and carried her to the orchard to keep her separate from Sparkles. While we were gone for just a minute Sparkles started attacking Wilda's lamb. At some point they will have to get together and fight it out with each other, but the lambs are in the crossfire, so we will wait until they are a little older. It was absolutely horrible, though, Wilda was totally distraught. Next time we'll have a better set-up and everyone will be happier.

In the meantime we were waiting and waiting for out last ewe to have her lambs, but it wasn't happening so we figure another cycle. Shawn woke up one snowy morning to find two new lambs, an ewe and a ram! The ewe is pretty striking with her odd eye patches, so I am naming her Cleopatra.

Babies!

Ram Lamb still learning to walk

Pretty Cleopatra

Learning to be like Mom and nibble on this green stuff

 As for the other two: Ross-anna is enjoying playmates and growing at an incredible speed. Nearly a month old already! I saw her trying to chew some new shoots on the blackberry bushes.

 Wilda's poor son is without playmates because he is locked in the orchard with mom :( Mom figured out how to unlock the orchard gate, so she decided to come visit the rest of the sheep. Silly girl.

So other than the social rift we have a pretty good crop of lambs. Too bad Wilda didn't get put away that one night...but we learned our lesson and still have her ram. As I said to Shawn (who wants to carry on her genetics and really wanted the ewe), we can make alot more Wildas with a ram than a ewe. I am already plotting next years genetics. And by next year, we will have our own place with better facilities.

Herd Dynamics

 Wilda, you remember: the friendly one, has been full of rushing motherly hormones as of late. Tuesday she was away from the group bowlegged and wide-eyed, her udders full and ready to feed. The next day she was relentless in her attempts to steal Sparkle's baby, apperently chasing them across the field and crawling on her knees. Shawn had to wrestle with her and got her locked away in the pen. All was thought to be good until he saw she had gotten the lamb in the pen with her! WTF?! Finally at 2 in the afternoon she gave birth to two lambs.  Again, they were considerate waiting until Shawn had a day off work to give birth.

 

 

 

Hello!

 

A boy and a girl! Strangely, though, Wilda then broke away from the rest of the sheep and decided to take her lambs over to the "trailer parking lot." Somehow she got the newborns up on a trailer bed and spent the night parked over there. That wasn't a problem because it as a safe place for her to sleep: elevated off the ground, blocked by a dense thicket on two sides. It was the other sheep, however, that were difficult to round up for bed. See, normally they follow Wilda who is more than happy to chase the grain can. The other sheep are more skiddish, and they like to sleep by the fence the coyotes run up and down, and we arn't risking loosing the lamb to coyotes! So my darling dear and I herded the sheep in the dark around the field. We almost got them in the area we wanted when the llama spooked and made them run every which direction while matronly Wilda looked on.


We got the lamb and her mom in the orchard for the night which is safe.

This morning when I wen't to greet Wilda and her new ones everyone else can by to say hi.

Zzzzzzz.....

As for Ross-anna?

She had gotten BIG in two weeks! Almost time for her to enjoy playmates! Expecting our final sheep to birth today or tommorrow.

Wilda is being skiddish around the other sheep, probably expecting them to steal her babies like she tried to steal theirs. Hopefully she will be back with the other sheep soon, they at least are trying to be near her. But right now she is much calmer and has a stoic motherly look on her face not flinching when the babies pull on her teats. The boy has good markings and already big horn nubbins. I think he will make a good sire, so I'm inclined to keep him intact. We will see, though.

Insparation

I do enjoy looking at other peoples work and ever so often something catches my eye and I go, "oh I wanna do that!" Well, thats copying, so not allowed. However, the other day I was looking at one of my favorite etsy artists work and this popped out

Rose Quartz earrings by Dana Evans

I loved the shape and simplicity. Plus, it reminded me of one of my favorite animals: squid. So I went on to create a pair of squid earrings inspired by these.

Sorry, not the best photographs. Anyway, the little tenticles wiggle. So there ya go. Also, be sure to check out Dana Evans' work (link under the photo). Lots of great pieces.