Fall Round-up

Fall round-up on the islands, the event that for me marks the end of the growing season, and the final chore to get done before hunkering down for winter.  This year a gray, but thankfully warm and calm day makes the task a bit easier.  

Round-up in the fall is quite different from spring round-up.  It is deliciously quiet.  The lambs are bigger, the ewes calmer, so there is less of the frantic baaing, just the occasional 'those people are here again' baa.  And the sea gulls are gone taking with them their constant cacophony of complaining. 

The lambs are almost as big as the ewes now, making for a very full coral.  Our task is to sort out the 'long tails' (the buck lambs) and check all the ewes to make sure they are healthy.  The buck lambs will be taken off the island for market and we will take a head count of the remaining ewes to ensure the proper balance of island pasture to sheep grazing.

Day two of fall round-up is warm, calm, and sunny.  The kind of island day that begs for lingering. Today's task is to retrieve the rams from their summer island and bring them to the mainland until they are needed for breeding. 

It's no small feat to wrestle two large rams into a boat while trying to stay clear of the rocks.  Thankfully the seas were calm.

Mainland bound with a boat load of sheep.  Amazingly these wild sheep are very clam and quite content to go for a boat ride.

The lobsterman are busy this time of year bringing in their traps so sometimes there is a bit of waiting and working around traps to unloaded sheep at the wharf.  

And just in case you were thinking this was an idyllic and glamorous chore, someone does have to swab the deck at the end of the day.

This is always a bitter sweet moment for me.  End of the season and a long winter ahead before lambing comes round again.  But I have a mill full of wool to keep me occupied while I dream of spring.

2015 Handspinning Fleeces for Sale

The 2015 Nash Island handspinning fleeces are ready! 

NEW this year we have six colored fleeces for sale!  After several years of working to improve the breeding stock on one of the smaller islands we are thrilled to finally be able to offer beautiful dark chocolate brown and dark gray fleeces along with our traditional 'fog-washed' pure white handspinning fleeces. 

Our Romney/Coopworth/Island Descendent fleeces average between 4 - 6 pounds each and cost $12.00 per pound. 

If you are interested in purchasing a Nash Island handspinning fleece please e-mail me at jani@starcroftfiber.com or call 207-852-0295. PLEASE NOTE : If you had previously e-mailed me about purchasing a 2015 fleece, please e-mail me again! (Due to a technical problem with my e-mail all my saved e-mails were erased :(

Calm before the (next) storm

The weather has been a bit difficult. Storm following storm following storm. Finally a brief calm morning to run out to the islands and check on the girls. 10 am launch, snow & wind due at 2 pm.

With temps hovering at +5, it's a bit of a wait for the motor to warm up. With the harbor frozen over, a beach launch on the lee side is necessary. 

A quick sweep of the hard packed snow covered island as dark clouds begin to roll in. 

Despite the white on white camouflage, all sheep are accounted for as they march to the shore for elevensies seaweed snack.  

And back to hot cocoa and warm fire as the first flakes of nor'easter # I've lost count descends. Comforted in the knowledge that all is well on the islands and in awe of those hardy island girls. 

Ram Rescue

Early in November we take the rams off their summer island and bring them to the mainland until it's time for them to go out to the ewe islands for breeding in December.  The reason being that when the scent of ewe wafts in their direction, rams being rams, they will sometimes wander out onto the ledges at low tide thinking they can walk over to the ewe's island (impossible). And if the tide should come back in during this attempt...

stranded ram. 

An extremely rare (don't ever remember doing this) rescue mission requires team work and a great deal of strategy planning. 

Capture was easy (embarrassed but grateful rams). However, manuvering large rams over slippery rocks and into a small boat proved somewhat eventful but successful.  (Sorry, no pics, I was holding the boat.)

Pleasant River

I have always lived near a river, stream, brook, pond, ocean.  

This is my new playground. I feel very lucky to have all this just steps from my front door. 

Every evening I drift off to sleep to a waterfall lullaby. 

Lambing Season

Lambing Season  ~   Nash Island 2014

   

A Warm Day and a Little Hope

It's been a long, cold, snowy winter.  March thus far, has not offered much in the way of hope for spring.  Until today.  With calm seas and wind and abundant sunshine promised we headed out to the islands this morning to check on the sheep.  Although sea smoke filled the harbor, guided by compass we found our way to the island, arriving just as the sea smoke lifted.

Our main goal, besides enjoying the first warm day in a long while, is to get a head count.

                        Not an easy task when there are over a hundred sheep who keep moving. 

Despite the fact that they prefer you keep your distance, 

counting sheep on the smaller islands is a little easier.

                 Safety in numbers seems to be one sheep strategy to deal with invaders on your island.

Not looking and hoping they will go away seems to be another.

All sheep were present and accounted for, looking healthy and fat with lamb bellies.  

A warm sunny day of tromping about the islands watching sheep certainly lifts the winter weary soul and offers a little hope of spring.

Ram Out

Rams ready for a boat ride.

One of the things I love most about living in Downeast Maine and working with island sheep is how day-to-day activities are dictated by seasonal cycles and the weather.  The New island Year begins with taking the rams out to the island in December.   A calm seas, no wind, not too frigid day in December can be a rarity. 

This year on a slightly drizzly rainy but mostly calm day Tank (the big boy up front), Rodney (the tall dark & handsome one), and Tank's boys Tunk, Trigg, & Tide headed out to spend the winter on the island entertaining the ladies.

While the boys are out to the island, I'll occupy the long winter months with processing last year's clip and eagerly awaiting my favorite island season of all ~ lambing.

All ashore going ashore!

ON THE MOVE

Spring has arrived early in Maine!  The critters are out & about & on the move after a long winter's hibernation.  While they slumbered away winter's intrepid weather, our hibernation was a busy den bound winter of sorting through 35 years accumulation of flotsam and jetsam and packing it up into boxes.  This spring we are on the move as well.  Headed due east, closer to dear friends, an island, and some sheep.

I'm hoping you will forgive my lack of attention and lend some patience as we pack up lock, stock, and mill and move to our new home.  We'll take a bit of a breather to settle in and enjoy some island lambing time.   And then we'll have those machines up and humming again just in time for this year's new wool clip!

P.S.  our new address is:   9 Farnsworth Road    Columbia, ME  04623

Wee Wild Woolies

 

     5 am.  The fog rolls in from the ocean.  So thick you can hardly see past the shoreline.  It brings a deep quiet, muffling the sound of waves on the shore, the cries of the gulls, and the distant baaing of sheep.  You know they are out there, but they are hard to see.  White on fog.  It's lambing time on the island.  The weather can be a bit nasty in May (especially this year).  It's the cold rainy days when you have to be extra vigilant, tromping over hill and dale all day in the rain, keeping watch.

      Usually lambs are born without incident or fanfare.  While wondering the island you come upon new born lambs tucked behind a knoll or standing on wobbly legs under mom's watchful care.

But sometimes you come upon a frantic pacing ewe and a lamb unable to get up because it's too wet and cold.  Tucking the lamb inside your rain coat you make note of the ewe and where you found the lamb and head back to camp.  A box on the open wood stove oven door serves as a warming hut for cold lambs.  A few hours (sometimes over night) and some warm lamb formula usually brings them around.  Always a miracle.

     With any luck, by mid-afternoon the rain stops and the sun begins to burn through the fog as you head back out in search of the ewe that will claim the bleating lamb in your arms.  Fortunately, the ewes usually tend to stay in the same area where their lamb was born so you don't have to search the entire island.

     But which one of the hundred white ewes on the hillside is the right one?  You slowly move toward the ewes and when you're just close enough you set down the lamb and scurry and hide (the lamb's have a tendency to follow you).  Abandoned on the hillside the lamb will begin to blat a piteous cry.  A short ways off a grass munching ewe will pick up her head and baa in answer.  Calling back and forth they slowly work their way towards each other (cue the violins) until little tail wagging lamb finds ewe.
 

     Another rounding of the island as evening descends and you take a moment to listen to the ocean and watch the antics of gangs of wee wild woolies banded together for a game of 'king of the hummock' or 'catch me if you can' while mom ewes munch grass nearby.

     Tuckered out lambs snuggle beside ewes at the end of day ....

    as the fog rolls back in from the sea.