More Needle Felting

I spent the long weekend doing more experiments with needle-felting. Like the previous ones, these are all made in natural colored wool from my own flock.

Acorn and Oak Leaf Necklace (needle felted wool with wooden beads and hemp cord):


Sweet Hearts Necklace (needle felted wool with wooden beads and hemp cord):


Triple Moon Necklace (needle felted wool with metal beads and leather cord):


Silver Balls Necklace (needle felted wool with metal beads and leather cord):


Book Lover's Bolo Necklace (two little needle-felted wool books---one open, one closed---with wooden beads and a leather thong):


Needle felted wool rose:


Needle felted wool fortune cookies (You can put wishes or affirmations inside!):

I'm posting these here first, but later today, most of them will also go up for sale on my Etsy site.

Needle Felted Necklaces

Today I tried my hand at needle felted wool beads for the first time, using natural-colored Icelandic wool from my own flock.

Aren't these fun?


This one has a pendant of hand-polished sheep bone, two needle felted beads, and smaller wooden accent beads.

A New Home for Senter Stage

Congratulations to Heather Bolding of Noble Farms in Clinton, IN. She is the new owner of our beautiful Oldenburg stallion, Senter Stage.

As most of you know, I am going out of the horse business, and have spent the past couple of years selling off all of my horses. Senter was the last one to go, so our farm is now horse-free.

Senter left here yesterday to go to his new home. I know he's going to be happy there, and will be able to continue his training and be much more active on the show circuit.

He will also be standing at stud to outside mares again this season, so if you want to breed your mare to get one of Senter's wonderful foals, be sure to contact Heather for more information.

Goodbye Senter! We wish you a lifetime of success at your new home!

Snow Sheep

It started snowing here last night at about 4:00 pm. Twenty-one hours later, and it's still coming down. The snow is about knee deep now, with is a huge amount for Virginia.

One of our sheep shelters collapsed from the snow, but fortunately, it was the one in the paddock the sheep aren't in right now, so we can wait to fix it at a more convenient time.

Since it doesn't snow here very often, I rarely get the opportunity to take pictures of my sheep in the snow. So, even though it was still dark and snowy out, I took some today.

Small, medium, or large? Wotan, Ukraine, and Nicholai follow me through the snow.


Ken helps carry hay through the snow to the ram paddock.


Nicholai, always photogenic.


Nothing bothers Ultra.


Pretty Tsarina.


Where do Icelandic sheep come from? They hatch from snow drifts, of course!


Snowy flock.

Venus of Willendorf and the Sacred Cow

Now that the farm's outside chores have quieted down a bit, I've finally had a chance to start working on some of my long-postponed indoor projects.

Over the weekend, I washed a couple of fleeces and did some needle felting. First up: my version of the famous prehistoric Venus of Willendorf sculpture. She is for sale in my Etsy shop:


Next, I made my needle-felted version of one of the sacred Brahman cows of India. I've always thought Brahman cows were beautiful. This one is also for sale in my Etsy shop:

Ingleside Farm Calendars, Cards, and Gifts

Here's another of my new products from the farm!

I have gotten so many compliments on my farm photos, I finally decided to offer some of my favorites for sale as calendars, cards, mugs, and other photo gifts at CafePress.

Since this is a timely season of the year to be thinking of buying a new calendar, I've posted photos of my calendars below, but check out the my CafePress shop to see what else is available. They have a HUGE array of products, including cards and ornaments. They'd make great Christmas gifts.

I have many designs already available--sheep photos, horse photos, glorious sunsets, and other farm scenes. Plus I'm adding new items to my shop all the time.

For starters, here are the calendars:

Peacock Shawl

I finally opened a shop on Etsy and have just posted my first item for sale: My glorious, one-of-a-kind, hand-spun, hand-woven Peacock Shawl.

I had really intended to make this shawl for myself. I can't even count how many hours of work I put in: Tweaking the design, spinning the wool, plying the yarn, washing the yarn to set the twist, hanging the yarn to dry, winding it into balls, then weaving the two halves of the shawl, stitching them together, and adding all the fringe. After that I lightly fulled the shawl, let it dry, and brushed it all over on both sides with a little slicker brush to give the surface a soft, velvety texture.

But in all honesty, spending all my time on the farm as I do, I'll never end up wearing a shawl this pretty. So, for the sake of our finances, I'm offering it up for sale.

There'll be more additions to my Etsy shop soon, so stay tuned!

Sheep's Milk Soap

I've been working very hard over the past few months developing new products for our farm. One that I'm very excited about is our new Sheep's Milk Soap.


Last spring, our beautiful ewe Tansy lost her lamb at birth. Since she had no lamb to feed, I decided I'd try milking her myself.

I had read about how nice sheep's milk soap was and planned to use Tansy's milk to try to teach myself how to make some. But then I discovered there was a wonderful small crafter, Amanda of Primitive Earth Soaps, who was already making natural soaps in my area. I contacted her, and she agreed to do the job for me.

First she did a small test batch, mainly so we could evaluate the scent I had chosen. After a few minor tweaks, she then made a big batch, which just arrived a few days ago.

If you've never tried sheep's milk soap, you should give ours a try. Each big, long-lasting bar weighs about 4 oz. and contains only the most natural of ingredients: olive oil, sheep's milk, water, lye, and essential oils.

No coloring has been added. The scent is a luscious blend of pure essential oils, including amber, myrrh, cinnamon, and oak moss. Each bar is packaged in a simple, eco-friendly wrapping of fabric and labeled with a small card listing the ingredients.

These make terrific gifts. You can order online from my website.

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Trimming a Ram's Horn

When we first got our ram Taj, he had a magnificently wide hornset.


But as he grew, his right horn developed a curl that brought it closer to his face than his left one.


As the horn kept growing, eventually it began to grow into the side of his face, interfering with his vision and endangering his eye. If left to grow unchecked, the horn would have eventually cut into his face and blinded him. If infection and fly-strike followed, it could easily have led to his death.


Often, when a ram develops a flaw like this, the shepherd will simply cull him, to prevent him from passing that trait on to more of his lambs. But Taj is such a magnificent animal in all other ways---his meat conformation and fleece quality are fantastic!---so we decided it was worth it to try to save him by cutting off the problem horn.

It was an intimidating task, so we put it off for as long as we could. But finally, we couldn't wait any longer.

We tied Taj securely to a sturdy fence post. I draped a dish towel over his face to protect his eye and ear, and leaned hard against his body to keep him still while Ken used a wire saw to sever the problem section of horn.

It was hard work, both trying to keep the ram still and pulling the wire saw rapidly to prevent it from binding up in the cut. The wire saw gets VERY hot, VERY quickly. This is good because it helps cauterize any small capillaries you may hit if (as was the case here) you are forced to cut the horn high enough that you end up cutting into the live, "quick" part.

But you have to be extremely careful not to let the wire saw touch you (or the sheep), because it burns. Even though I'd been warned of this ahead of time, I got burned when Taj shook his head and the wire saw jumped out of the groove. It only touched me for a split second, but it laid a clear, painful welt along the sensitive skin between my fingers. Ouch!!

We kept going, though, and soon the offending horn dropped free.


There was a little blood, but not very much.


I treated the wound with Blood Stop powder, and fly repellent to prevent fly strike. The bleeding stopped almost at once.

You can see in the photo below how the horn had been starting to cut a groove into Taj's face. Fortunately, it had only progressed as far as wearing all the hair away where it touched. It had not yet lacerated the skin or touched the eyeball.

It would have soon done so, if the horn had not been removed, though!


Taj did not enjoy this process, but he is very happy to be able to see out of both eyes again! He will be so much happier without the constant discomfort of that horn pressing into his face.