As the the old year dwindles away, I see that I did meet some of my goals for 2008. I did read and understand a sheep book, several in fact. I did begin a scoring system to help me choose which ewes to retain and which to cull. I did make a lot of progress on renovating flower beds around the house, but still have a lot of work remaining. I did lose (and re-gain) 15 lbs. The rams cleared their own pen of brush. We did finish fencing our perimeter, but still need to subdivide the largest pasture, as well as add 2 sheds to 2 of the smaller pasture. I did halter-train one lamb, who was so tame he followed us around without a halter.

My goals for 2009, in no particular order:

1. Lose 50 lbs, and keep at least part of it off!

2. Refine 4 newly planted flower beds and replant 3 old ones.

3. Get fleece analyses for entire flock, and cull accordingly.

4. Rehome 6-8 ewes and 2 rams.

5. Finish piecing 1 quilt top and piece 2 more promised as gifts, then send them out to be custom machine quilted.

6. Finish hand-quilting queen-sized quilt.

7. Finish trimming Christmas tree skirt.

8. Start new quilts featuring appliqued sheep!!!! (hmmm...bet that one gets done!)

9. Improve my flock parasite control by continuing to select for worm-resistant sheep, improving my pasture management and researching non-pharmaceutical antihelminthics such as garlic, tanniferous forage and copper oxide wire particles.

10. Skirt and sell or have processed into yarn/roving all of 2008's remaining fleece as well as 2009's upcoming fleece.

11. Make and send 2 gifts not completed in time for Christmas.

12. Start at least one part-time job to broaden my experience and take advantage of opportunities in this region.

13. Redecorate kitchen (hence the need for #12!)

14. Love and cherish husband, most important of all.

15. learn to upload photos to blog!

Have a Happy New Year!

Around here, my husband and I have a term for pet animals that are just too adorable, "Worthless Varmints".

The term originates from my undergrad days, when my coworkers asked what I would do with my eventual disposable income and I replied that I would probably run a home for worthless varmints. When asked to explain the term, I described a worthless varmint as something too small to work, and too cute to eat. We then looked throught the classified ads for an example-a miniature spotted mule. Minature=cute and too small to do much work, spots=cute, mule=unable to reproduce and probably disinclined to work. 

Our shetlands are such excellent pasture cleaners that I can't claim they don't work, but some of them are definitely too cute to eat. The goats may well be WVs, as are half the chickens. We haven't seen the barn kittens catching mice, but the feedroom is rodent-free for the first time since we have lived here. The rabbits and dog are definitely WVs, and I love every single one of them.

I am new to Shetland breeding, this being my third breeding season.  I mentally lump my sheep into three groups: breeding sheep, pet sheep, and freezer sheep. Breeding sheep improve my flock and help me advance toward my flock goals. Pet sheep meet my standards in temperament and health, but have failed to meet fleece or conformation criteria. Freezer sheep are the unfortunate (but tasty!) individuals who are neither breeding nor pet quality. I understand that anyone with progressive goals in livestock breeding must be prepared to invest several years in breeding and culling towards those goals. I accept that I will have a lot of "freezer sheep" before I have many "breeding sheep" to offer the ovine world. So, despite my pessimism regarding the economy, I bred 23 ewes this year.

UTS Taggerty, (AFD 29.0 microns, SD 5.6) got four of my modified moorit/ spotted girls. I hope this pen produces spotted modified lambs. I am also interested in seeing what sort of tails he throws, as his is a little heavy, and one of his ewes has a long tail, while the other 3 have nice small flukes.

UTS Cormo got two double-coated and an intermediate fleeced yearling. He has incredibly fine, soft, dense white fleece and a tiny fluke tail. I hope this pen produces intermediate fleeces, and I hope to learn that Cormo will shorten tails with one of these ewes. I also hope to learn whether he carries spots. I know Cormo carries "brown" and since he has blue-black speckles on his nose, black stripes in his horns and a black spot on his right ear, I am reasonably certain he has a black gene lurking under his "all white" gene. Since finding the black spot on his ear, I am not sure whether it represents a "breakthrough" of the color under an "Awt" gene, or he is just one enormous "white spot". I guess if he throws a solid white lamb, I'll know. Any spotted shetland breeders comments are welcome.

SH Zorro got four ewes I hope will produce non-iseting, non-sunbleaching deep blacks and moorits. Gwen sunbleaches a little, and has some age-graying, but no iset fibers. Christine has a few iset fibers, Burgundy has more, and Bourlesq,(my favorite fleece in the flock!) is as silky-soft as Zorro, but with more staple length and a little more sunbleaching.

SG Chess got two lambs and a yearling, I am hoping he throws his glorious silky, lustrous mioget fleece. One girl might carry a Mm, one has a spotted mioget mother and one white ewe lamb is a mystery, I'd love to discover what is hiding beneath her white gene! Anyway, hoping for modified spotted babies from him. I have wethered him due to his horns being too close to his head, but his fleece was too wonderful to deny him the chance to reproduce, and he was too nice to turn into white paper packages.

L Rosario got my "big" girls. I have some ewes I really like, except that they exceed my ideal size. I hope that with Rosario, they "split the difference" and give me small to medium spotted ewe lambs.

TS Clyde got my spot-carrying grey kat ewe lamb, a black gul yearling and a grey gul/kat ewe lamb. Hoping for brown guls and gul/kats here, maybe even one with spots! Clyde also might improve tails, as one of his girls has a long tail and two have heavy tails.

So in addition to spots, modified colors, guls and gulkats, I am hoping to bring my ewe flock toward a more uniform size and improve tails and fleeces in 2009.

I have been asked to explain how we named this farm and blog. The name is largely explained by my irreverent sense of humor.

One day, my husband and I were driving down the road…actually he was driving and I was ranting and raving discoursing eloquently on a long since forgotten topic when I noticed my husband glancing skeptically in my direction. I hastened to reassure him, “Don’t worry, honey, I’m just one of the flavors of crazy!”

“Yeah, “ he replied, “the neopolitan one.”

I thought that was so very funny, I completely forgot whatever I had been talking about. When we were unable to get the same registration name for our sheep flock and goat herd, I decided to call our farm Neopolitan Acres. Now, whenever I am a bit over the top, my darling husband tells me I am “neopolitan with sprinkles”.

I think that is a perfect name for our little farm. The chocolate stripe-my favorite flavor-is our Shetland sheep, the backbone of our farm. The vanilla stripe-our little dairy goats whom I hope to milk in due time. The strawberry stripe-hopefully will be a small group of Satin Angora rabbits. The sprinkles are representative of our scattering of pets: our two dozen chickens; our barn cats-Callie, Bob, Hershey, Bugsy and Freddy; our Australian shepherd Crikey and our two pet rabbits, Sassy and Thumper. I think I am indeed "Neopolitan, with sprinkles."