Tansy's Golden Fleece

I've been trying and trying to take some photos of Tansy in full fleece before I shear her, because she looks absolutely spectacular this fall.  But so far, none of the pictures I've taken do justice to how she looks in reality.  Every time she walks by me, I just stop and catch my breath and say, "Ooohhh, Tansy!" because she has such a stunning fleece. 

Of course, she has always had a great fleece, but this year it's really something special.  It hangs down to her ankles in these pale, shining, golden waves, and I already know from previous years how soft and rich it's going to be.

Part of me can't wait to shear her, to harvest that magnificent crop of wool she's produced.  And part of me hates to shear her because she looks so perfect right now.

Not Starved Anymore

Some of you may remember my horrible experience last year with the trainer who starved my horses, and the follow-up post when I discovered how many other people had had similar horrible experiences with the same trainer.

This is a somewhat happier follow up.  As you may remember, Glory was a beautiful Warmblood filly (Art Deco daughter) who was born on my farm.  Here's what she looked like when I had her:

After she went to the trainer's farm she was severely starved.  Fortunately, my sister Donna of Siberia Farm was able to take Glory fairly quickly once I discovered what was going on at the trainer's farm.  This is what Glory looked like upon arriving at Donna's farm after being rescued from the trainer:

Now for the happier part of the story:  My sister recently sent me photos of how Glory looks now, after all these months of PROPER feed and care.  I still haven't forgiven the trainer for what she did, but at least this filly has a great life now!

Free Sheep's Milk Soap Giveaway

Here's giveaway #3:

As I mentioned in my earlier post, I've launched a project with Kickstarter.com to raise funds to get the equipment and supplies necessary to start making all of my luscious sheep's milk soap right here on the farm instead of hiring an outside crafter to make it for me. 

 
The Kickstarter projects work on an all-or-nothing funding scale.  Which means I have to meet my $500 funding goal by November 15th, or none of the funding goes through.

If you help fund this project, there are lots of great rewards, including selections of our soaps and even a 2-day sheep farm adventure where you and a friend can join us here on the farm for two days during lambing season in April.


To encourage people to help me spread the word about this project, I'm also offering a giveaway:

If the Kickstarter project meets its funding goal by the November 15th deadline, I will give away a free bar of our luscious handmade sheep's milk soap to FIVE different people. 

To enter, all you have to do is comment on this blog post.

But remember, the giveaway only happens if If the Kickstarter project meets its funding goal.  Help us reach our goal by forwarding this page to your friends and family, Tweeting about this giveaway, posting a link to this page on your own blog or Facebook wall, etc.


One entry per person for each giveaway, but you can enter all three of our current giveaways if you like:


Free Icelandic Fleece Giveaway
Free Handspun Wool Scarf Giveaway
Free Sheep's Milk Soap Giveaway (this page)

Free Handspun Wool Scarf Giveaway

Here's giveaway #2:

When the farm's Facebook page reaches 1,000 fans, I'm also going to give away this handspun, hand knitted scarf.

The scarf is made of pure, undyed Icelandic sheep's wool from this beautiful ewe named Urbana:

The scarf is about 5" wide and 5' long, not counting the fringe.  It is 100% factory-free.  Every step of its creation, from the birth of the sheep to the shearing, washing, carding, and spinning of the wool into yarn, to the knitting of the finished scarf was all done by hand, by me, right here on the farm.

To enter, all you have to do is comment on this blog post! 


But remember, the giveaway happens once our farm's Facebook page reaches 1,000 fans (as of this writing we have just 74 more to go to get there).  Help us reach our goal by forwarding this page to your friends and family, Tweeting about this giveaway, posting a link to this page on your own blog or Facebook wall, etc., and then the giveaway will happen sooner.

If you're the "crafty" sort and would love to make your own scarf (or sweater, or...)  make sure to check out our Free Icelandic Fleece Giveaway too.

One entry per person for each giveaway, but you can enter all three giveaways if you like:


Free Icelandic Fleece Giveaway
Free Handspun Wool Scarf Giveaway (this page)
Free Sheep's Milk Soap Giveaway

Free Icelandic Fleece Giveaway

Okay, so here's giveaway #1.

When the farm's Facebook page reaches 1,000 fans, I'm going to give away this beautiful Icelandic fleece: 

 
It's an entire raw fleece, weighing 3 lbs. 5 oz.  Retail value, $40.  It came from this lovely spotted ewe named Mona, and is a mix of creamy white and chocolate brown wool.

The fleece is suitable for either felting or spinning.  You can separate the two colors for a brown and white project, or blend them together for a more "heathered" shade.  There's enough here to make an entire sweater, or other good-sized project.

To enter, all you have to do is comment on this blog post! 

But remember, the giveaway happens once our farm's Facebook page reaches 1,000 fans (as of this writing we have just 74 more to go to get there).  Help us reach our goal by forwarding this page to your friends and family, Tweeting about this giveaway, posting a link to this page on your own blog or Facebook wall, etc., and then the giveaway will happen sooner.

If you're not the "crafty" sort, don't worry, there's a giveaway for you too.  I'm also giving away a handspun, hand knitted scarf in my next blog post.

One entry per person for each giveaway, but you can enter all three giveaways if you like:

Free Icelandic Fleece Giveaway (this page)
Free Handspun Wool Scarf Giveaway
Free Sheep's Milk Soap Giveaway

So Many New Projects!

Have you seen?  I've been a very, very busy girl lately, with several big projects to help promote the farm.

First, I finally finished doing a total redesign of the farm's web site.  Not only does it have a whole new look, it also has more than twice as much information about (and pretty pictures of) the farm.  The address is still the same:  http://inglesideicelandics.com/.

The redesign took me forever, and I'm very pleased with the results.  I think it gives a much fuller picture of who we are, what we're doing, and where we hope to go from here.

Second, I've launched a project with Kickstarter.com to raise funds to get the equipment and supplies necessary to start making all of my luscious sheep's milk soap right here on the farm instead of hiring an outside crafter to make it for me.  I'm pretty excited about this, especially since the soaps have become our most popular product.  I just shipped my first order of soaps to Japan, where the charming buyer pronounced them "very splendid."  Isn't that sweet?

I've also been working on increasing our fan base on the farm's Facebook page.  I'm so honored that more than 900 people count themselves among our fans already!  I have so much fun interacting with the people there and sharing bits of daily life from the farm .

To celebrate all these projects, and express my appreciation for all the fans and customers who help make it all possible, I've decided to do not one, not two, but THREE big giveaways.

To keep the entries for the giveaways separate, I'm going to give details of them in three separate blog posts, coming right up:

Free Icelandic Fleece Giveaway
Free Handspun Wool Scarf Giveaway
Free Sheep's Milk Soap Giveaway

Full Fleece Photos

This is the prime picture-taking time of year for Icelandic sheep, because they are all dressed up in their full fall fleeces, looking their best.  And they ARE looking their best this fall.  After the past couple of years being a bit "off" because I sheared them too late in the spring (resulting in short-stapled fall fleeces) or because they decided to play in the burdock patch (and thoroughly contaminate their prime fleeces) in the fall, I think this year we're going to have a terrific wool crop.

They're all looking so good, I couldn't resist doing a photo shoot yesterday.

Here's Nicholai, our beloved King of the Flock.  His age is really starting to catch up with him this year, but he's still just as handsome and sweet as he can be.

This is Rhonwen, who produces fleece so soft and silky, she actually gets fan mail!

This is Sapphire, one of my favorite ewes.  Her fleece is a very pure, inky black this year, but she still has her distinctive patch of silvering right over her shoulders.

Tawny's moorit (brown) fleece is silvered to the point that it is almost pink.  It should make for a really pretty--and unique--color of yarn.

 Titania is big and beautiful, with loads of fleece.

Tsarina is usually shy, but yesterday she seemed to enjoy posing for the camera.  And with a face this pretty, why shouldn't she?

Tsarina again.  I like how this shot shows off the three main Icelandic fleece colors right next to each other.

Ukraine looks kind of stern and burly in this picture, but actually he's a big sweetheart.

 We lost our lovely ewe Paisley this summer, but she left us with a legacy of six gorgeous daughters in our flock, all of whom have wonderfully lush, rich fleeces.  The next three girls pictured are her daughters. 

First is Tansy, whose fleece is so thick and rich it usually weighs a full pound more than that of other ewes her size.  Her wool is so long it reaches her ankles, and it shines pale gold in the sunlight

Next is Urbana, a very tame and friendly girl.  I've been working with her lamb fleece in my handspun quilt project, and it is just gorgeous.

Judging from how Whippoorwill's fleece looks this year, I'd say she's trying to rival Tansy in the "abundant gorgeous fleece" category, only hers shines like polished copper instead of gold.

 Utopia has grown so much!  She looks exactly like her mother did at this age.  (Yes, to others they may all just look like "Big Fluffy White Sheep" but I really do look at these animals enough that I can see details like family resemblances!)

Willow definitely inherited much of her fleece color and texture from her dad, Nicholai. 

Here is our always-beautiful Wish.  She's the daughter of Sapphire, the black ewe pictured above.

Love those rich red tones in Wren's fleece!

Shearing time is coming up soon for me.  I do it myself, so I spread it out over most of October, doing just a few sheep per day to avoid killing my back.  It's a big job, both time consuming and tiring.  But the fleeces are all looking so nice this year, I'm actually looking forward to it!

Locker Lambs Available

This is it! For just a few weeks out of the year, we have locker lambs available for sale to Virginia buyers who want fresh, local, humanely raised meat.

Icelandic lamb is lean, mild, and delicious, with none of that “gamey” flavor often found in commercial lamb. The breed’s modest size is perfect for modern families who often don’t have freezer space to store a large amount of meat.

The October 2009 issue of Saveur magazine said, “Free-range, grass-fed Icelandic lamb is exceptionally fine grained and mild tasting; it is prized by chefs….”

In the March 2010 issue of Food & Wine magazine, Robert Wiedmaier, chef-owner of Marcel’s and Brasserie Beck in Washington, DC, is quoted as saying, “Icelandic lamb is the best I’ve ever tasted. It’s a very pure, nonfatty meat.”

We send lambs to slaughter in early-to-mid October. At this time, they are about 4-6 months old and weigh about 40-80 lbs. Each one typically yields 20-40 lbs. of packaged meat, cut to your specifications (chops, roasts, ground lamb, stew meat). 

Due to this summer's severe heat and drought conditions, most of this year's available lambs are on the lower half of those weights, but even so, our prices are very reasonable.

Our price is $70 per lamb, including delivery to our local butcher. The butcher then charges $70 to process each lamb, including cutting, packaging, and freezing.

The butcher is only a 10-minute drive from our farm, so the lambs don’t have to endure the stress of a long, arduous trip.

Our supply of locker lambs is extremely limited. Once they are gone, there will be no more until next year.  If you're interested--or if you have any questions--contact me soon before they're all gone.

Guinea Hog Piglets (1 Month Old)

The piglets are growing SO fast!  I took some time to get some photos of them today, to show how much they've changed.  Look at those cute little faces and fat little bodies!

A few of the male piglets are still available for sale.  We're asking $200 per piglet.  They'll be ready to go in mid-late October.

Compare this one to the photos of them nursing when they were first born.  They're so much bigger now!

 It takes a lot of milk to feed nine hungry piglets, but Cerridwen is doing a great job, especially considering she's a first-time mom.

I also took a little video footage of the piglets:






















And some footage of Jack and Circe playing with a tarp:

Piglets: One Week Old Today!

Happy one-week birthday, little Guinea hog piglets!

They are so fat and glossy, and growing so fast.  We did lose one of the females when mom accidentally sat on her in the bedding.  But the rest---3 girls and 6 boys---are doing great.  They look like a herd of tiny, short-nosed elephants marching around in a jungle made out of bushes.

They're so busy running around, it's hard to keep them still long enough to take any good pictures, but here are a few I captured this week.  Can you think of anything cuter than this?

We had quite a large waiting list of people who had inquired about buying piglets, so most of these babies are already spoken for, and I'm confident the others soon will be.  In a couple of months, they'll get to go off to other farms and when they're old enough, they'll help continue to preserve this very rare and special breed of pig.

I think that our other pair of pigs, Circe and Jack, had their first successful breeding yesterday.  If so, we should be expecting our next batch of piglets right after Christmas.