Pasture season has begun for grazing and haying. The first few days of June we took the flock to one field during the day and brought them back in the evening to their winter barn. Sunday when they came back to the barn, we’d no sooner gotten there when Tybee lay down to chew his cud, then Ashley and Wetherby and before 5 minutes had passed they were all down chewing away. It was so serene and peaceful and then I knew our sheep have very little stress to just lie down so quickly with me present. Comfortable! And Jasper, the second picture….out like a light!

To Laurel, just want to say hi…so glad you are enjoying the fleece of my labors…my shepherds talk to me everyday about this and that…they wipe the hay from my neck, adjust my coat, change it when it gets tight, scratch my chin and backbone as needed. Life is good! I just keep hearing “Wetherby, if you grow good fleece you can continue to live the life you have grown accustomed to.” Sending love to you, xx Wetherby.

To see Laurel’s entry about Wetherby click www.say-this-about-that.blogspot.com

This weekend is the Massachusetts fair in Cummington and I went yesterday with Diane Golding of www.dropspindle.info as shoppers, not vendors! What a treat to just browse and touch lots of luscious fibers and see incredible hand crafts. We saw lots of vendor friends and customers still shopping yet another festival. I meant to take lots of pictures to post but kept forgetting as I was too busy enjoying the day! Here are a few pictures: One of the sons of the Still River Mill www.stillrivermill.com working on a knitting sample; some of the booths; spinning blindfolded! It was a lovely day weatherwise, glad I went!

What a difference a year can make. One of our hay suppliers called yesterday to let us know we could pick up 1st cut hay from the field this afternoon. May 25th, pre-Memorial Day, just right! Last year our 1st cut wasn’t ready until July 1st! We had so much rain in the spring that no one could hay. Today’s hay was a mighty fine, sweet smelling yield. We have had a string of sunny days and today was a scorching 92 degrees at high noon making great conditions for drying the cut hay. We went down to the field at 4:30 and brought home 80 bales, another 40 tomorrow which will be a nice jump on the winter supply; about 20% of what we need by September. We got back to the barn, fired up the hay elevator, through the first few bales on and the belt started slipping; with a couple of minor adjustments we were off and running! There is something VERY comforting about filling the barn with hay on hot summer days knowing a barn full of feed is precious come late fall and winter.

Yesterday I spent the day in Jamaica, VT with lots of other fiber- related vendors such as Green Mountain Spinnery www.spinnery.com Golding Fiber Tools www.dropspindle.info Grafton Fibers www.graftonfibers.com White Mountain Farm, Maybelle Farm, Lovejoy Handwovens who wove in beautiful rhythm all through the day and Six Loose Ladies, just to name few! It was a very rainy day, but Margaret Silva of Margie’s Muse in Jamaica www.margiesmuse.com really put her heart and soul into the event. There were vendors and food spread out around town, I was in the town hall and we were fortunate to have heat and all the musical events for the day due to the rain! First we listened to The Rusty Pickup Band who sang bluegrass and western style tunes and Then the Bondville Boys, a great local blueglass band playing tunes from bluegrass to the blues! It was a fun day with a decent turnout despite the weather. Margaret of Green Mt Spinnery, shown with a big smile, won the Hand-spun skein contest, way to go Margaret! Lucky me won a raffle prize of a Golding spindle, the most beautiful drop spindles available today(my humble opinion!). Forgive the blurry pics, something wasn’t set right on my camera but you get the idea!