Mud Ranch's Real Dirt » Uncategorized

Ram-a-lamb-a Ding Dong

mudranch — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 21:47:53 +0000

Here’s some of our nicest ram lambs that I thought needed some showing off –

Mud Ranch’s Nettle (Kenleigh’s Tristan x Mud Ranch’s Sierra) – lilac ram lamb, twin, super wide two horned.

Mud Ranch’s Papaver (Kenleigh’s Lancelot x Mud Ranch’s Lou Ellen) – lilac ram, twin, four horned.

Mud Ranch’s Vitus (Kenleigh’s Tristan x Mud Ranch’s Hazel) – two horned, black and white, lovely fleece potential, great markings, and a nicely put together.

Mud Ranch’s Peppermint (Kenleigh’s Tristan x Mud Ranch’s Lily) – four horned, lilac and white, neat markings, good fleece potential.

Mud Ranch’s Linden (Kenleigh’s Lancelot x Mud Ranch’s Sarah Jane) – four horned, lilac and white, nicely put together, consistent fleece.

Mud Ranch’s Mallow (Kenleigh’s Wrangler x Castle Rock Sprinkles) – Mallow’s brother is staying here as a replacement flock sire for Wrangler. Mallow has a consistent fleece, two horned, black and white.

Mud Ranch’s Currant (Kenleigh’s Tristan x Castle Rock Aphrodite) – Four horned, black and white with lilac carrier potential (twin is a lilac), nicely put together, blue eyes.

Going out to take photos of the growing lambs can be much like a treasure hunt.

New Nuno Felted Scarves

mudranch — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 05:55:37 +0000

Just before Christmas I brought out the dye pot and bought some roving to make nuno felted scarves for the women in the family. Dying the silk chiffon was a blast, I loved mixing the colors and expiramenting with how long to leave the silk in the dye bath to achieve certain colors. I wanted to share a couple photos of how some of them turned out.

Feeling Fleecey

mudranch — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 06:19:47 +0000

The weekend before Easter weekend we had the sheep shorn, 41 ewes done and 4 rams to go (in mid-May.) This past weekend, my friend Shannon at Kenleigh Acres visited us on her way through to deliver some sheep for delivery back East (no, she wasn’t going all the way back east, though with her drive it probably felt like it!) and she helped me go through my fleeces. We made three piles; raw/show fleeces, process fleeces, and compost fleeces. The nice thing was that I had more raw/show fleeces than the other piles and the compost pile was definitely the smallest. That was a good feeling – all in all, some nice fleeces to be had!

Yesterday I was lamenting that I had to get all my fleeces skirted and cleaned so that I could list them for sale or send them off for processing – BUT I didn’t have a skirting table! Since we had an Easter lunch, instead of dinner, we had the whole afternoon to ourselves and Hubby decided to head up to the barn with skirting table plans in his hand (thanks to bide a wee farm!). He knocked it out quickly, and it’s portable, all I have to do is fold it up and take it where I’d like it to go which will be handy for the piles of wool at the house still from last year and the piles of wool in the barn from this year!

So here’s Paisley’s fleece being cleaned – second cuts, and dirty wool being pulled off. The second cuts were allowed to fall through the chicken wire and pile up on the floor leaving a beautiful fleece behind. One down, 40 more to go (give or take a few.) Here’s to hoping I can get it all done within a reasonable amount of time – and boxed and sent to a fiber mill!

So thank you to Hubby, Shannon, and bide a wee farm for the making of my skirting table, and fleeces – may you continue to smell like wood dust and lanoline.

Sun Room Citrus

mudranch — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 23:14:11 +0000

One tree I’ve always wanted to grow, but never could here in the mountains is citrus – Lemon, lime, tangerine, mandarin (maybe orange and grape fruit for the Hubby but I don’t care for them.) Now with the new house we can follow in the steps of the previous folks and grow citrus in pots in the Sun Room.

Of course my mom has embraced this idea and bought my first lime, a “Mexican” which is sometimes called a Key Lime in Hawaii. She also talked my Aunt Denise in to buying us a Mandarin, “Satsuma” (thank you Aunt Denise!) and I bought a “Meyer” Lemon.

I’ve been reading up on what Citrus need / like and think I can actually pull this off. I just need to find a good sale on pretty pots now (glazed in large sizes are expensive!)

My Mandarin already has a lot of fruit on it. That will be fun – some fresh vitamin C in the winter!

Gracing the Sun Room with it’s presence is also another favorite plant of mine – Bougainvillea. We cannot grow this plant in the mountains too as we get too cold and our freezes are much too hard. This beautiful vine grows all over the place in more mild California climates and is prolific in Mexico. I’ve always admired its and bright cheery blooms and hope to train it up a trellis on a wall in the Sun Room.

We’ll see how I do… Now back to reading.

Fun with Llamas – A Ram’s Tale

mudranch — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 23:25:26 +0000

Yesterday my hubby helped me move the rams over to the new house. For one, so they could be closer; two, so I could keep an eye out on them easier; and three, so our renters could bring a horse in and use the old rams pasture. Over here next to the new house there’s a very large pen that used to be fenced for a garden but has been out of use for a while. I cannot remember what crop they used to plant in there but do remember it being dried in the barn near by (before it burnt down in one of our devastating wild land fires.) Anyway, a friend of mine started grazing her llamas in the pen (I told you it was large!) and has been now, for probably over three years. At one point, the pen was expanded to include the out-flow from the large pond above so the water was constant and also included a couple willow bushes, some oak trees and even more grass. This pen in the spring grows amazing grass but right now is mostly “California Golden.”

My friend, Laurel, uses all her llamas as pack llamas… Well, all except Ethan because he refuses to have any sort of dealings with such hard labor. Smart guy. But seen above is her trusty llama, Raisin, who is very reliable and very sweet.

I can’t remember this guy’s name but thought it was “Susan” until I checked the under carriage and found out that more than likely not HIS name. I love his face though, so beautiful with all the colors and swirl. Even Hubby commented that “she’s pretty.”

This is “Journey” and he wants to grow up to be an Ewok. I think he just may pass… As an Ewok/Yoda creature.

And here’s Raisin, with all his hair. So cute and they’re all so inquisitive! They’re such fun to hang out with and they’re so curious about everything. They just loved Annie’s stuffed toys she was carrying around.

Of course, Harry, our dog-like-cat cannot stand to NOT come with us on our walks. He is so cute, look at that smile! And of course the llamas like to follow him all over the place, noses down to the ground. Thankfully they haven’t been a real big threat to him but just curious and he’s smart enough to run when they get too nosey.

The rams, or “Dudes,” as we call them have adapted already pretty well. Hudson wasn’t sure whether to flirt with the llamas or to take them as a threat. He stomped his foot a couple of times when this photo was taken and then promptly took all the Dudes away.

They willingly follow, for the most part as they’re all just this year’s lambs and Hudson is a “big kid” being a year and a half old now. Raider is currently out of the picture as he’s in a breeding group of about 16 ewes across the street in our big pasture.

I am curious to see now how the llamas and sheep adapt together. Will the llamas become protective? Hard to tell as not all llamas are protector quality but it’ll be interesting to watch and see how things develop.

But right now it is still THEM…

vs. US.

I think “nosey” wins out.