Subject: News from Fantasy Farm

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 29 May 1995 13:50:12 GMT

Well, Fantasy Farm has survived another round of lambing.  This is
probably the best part of the year on the farm: Spring is bursting
out and the dogwoods are in bloom and everything is beautiful, and
we have a happy pasture-full of moms and lambs.

SHEARING

This year we were determined to have shearing go off mostly
as-planned.  The flock is large enough and the shearer is difficult
enough to schedule that we can't afford to be quite as casual about
it as we have been.  The shearer figured he could do the whole
flock in two days, and what would work out best for him would be to
do it on two consecutive days (Friday and Saturday).  This is a
mixed blessing.  On the one hand, it'll get the whole hassle done
and over with; on the other hand, it means that we have to be able
to store and handle the _whole_ flock in the barn at the same time.
[the reason for the latter is that the sheep have to be kept
indoors for a few days before shearing to make sure they're dry
[and also to protect against rainstorms and such].  I don't have a
clue how really-big farms (like with 5000 ewes) manage it].

It is interesting seeing how our use of the barn evolves over the
years.  The barn is 40x60 with 5 12x12 stalls, three along one
side, two along the other, leaving a sort-of L-shaped open space at
one end of the barn.  We had originally thought that the stalls
were the important part and that the big open space was going to be
good for little more than hay storage or some such.

The fact is that the open space is the really useful part and the
stalls are at best a mixed bag (since they always seem to be either
too large or too small for whatever we want to do).  We are getting
quite good at using hog panels [3'x16' wire fencing panels], calf
panels [4'x16'] and "Sydell panels" (Sydell manufactures the modular
fencing systems we use, 4' and 6' long sections you can pin
together, along with other bits and pieces).  With this stuff, we
can set up any sort of handling system we need --- we can improvise
gates, a 'sweep' [a movable section of fence that you can use to
make a pen smaller to as to push the sheep toward the other end so
they're more tightly packed together and easier to grab], multiple
pens...  basically whatever we need we can cobble together.

In this case, we set up two separate 'corrals' in the open area,
putting the moms-to-be in one and the yearling-ewe-lambs in the
other.  Each has a sweep and two gates, one on either side of the
sweep.  The idea is that you sweep the sweep to push the
not-yet-shorn sheep up close to one gate, pull one out, shear her,
then run her in through the other gate, so the sweep also serves as
a divider between the shorn and unshorn sheep.  We just stuck the
rams in the stalls.

What is amazing is that it actually all went as planned, and the
planning proved to be fairly reasonable.  We had gates where we
needed them, the handling setup actually worked, things mostly just
hummed along.

MICRON TESTING

This year we did something new --- probably something we should
have been doing all along.  Our primary focus is on breeding for
excellent-fleece, and so it only makes sense that we should
actually get the fleece tested so that we can see how we're doing.
We took a fleece sample [about a 2"x2" patch from the side] from
*every* sheep (in future years, we'll only have to take samples
>from  the yearlings).  That complicated the shearing procedure a
bit, but it wasn't too bad.  We ended up with this BIG pile of
labeled baggies with a clump of fleece in each.

There is only one lab in the US that does micron testing.
so we sent off the pile of baggies to them.  About a month later
Lynn gets a strange call: it is the guy that runs the lab.  He
wants to know what sort of sheep we have and what we've been doing.
It seems that our flock has among the very best fleece he has seen
>from  any producer anywhere in the country.  It is very fine and
very uniform and altogether world-class fleece.  What is perplexing
is *why* our fleeces are so good.  Aside from the obvious
explanation, which is that this is just another manifestation of
the general good karma that suffuses Fantasy Farm, it is a bit
strange.  We have good genetics and healthy sheep, and for sure the
fleece is wonderful, but still the genetics shouldn't have been
_that_ good.  We'll have to retest some of the sheep next year and
double-check.  In any event, it does confirm that we can't be doing
too much wrong...

LAMBING

As always, as soon as shearing is done the next big job is to clean
out the barn and get it set up for lambing.  This year Lynn had a
somewhat different idea for how to organize things.  What we would
do with the moms-to-be is basically the same as last year: have
them out in the pasture all day and bring them into the barn at night.
And the baby-monitor-in-the-barn trick continues to work aces, so
Lynn can stay in the relative comfort of the factory (where she
sets up a mini-bedroom in the dye kitchen) and still keep close watch
on her girls.

What's different is how we dealt with the moms after they lambed.
We can fit five jugs into each of the stalls.  The jugs are 4'x4'
pens where we keep the moms and newborn lambs for a few days to
make sure that mom and lambs figure out who each other are.  It
also gives us a good chance to keep an eye on both mom and lambs to
make sure nothing untoward is happening.  After a few days, we dock
the tails on the lambs and give them ear tags, then we take down
the jugs but keep them in the stall, using the stall as a mixing
pen (which at that point will have have five moms and seven or
eight lambs milling about in it).  After a few days in the mixing
pens (again,checking that moms and lambs are doing OK and also
making sure that moms and lambs can still find one another when you
inject a little bit of chaos and confusion into the mix) they're
sent out to the pasture and that's where they stay.  We have a new
field (about 10-12 acres-worth) behind the barn that we got fenced
and waterer'ed this Spring.  So we used the field in front of the
barn for the moms to be, they'd get to spend about a week in the
barn after they lamb, and then they're off to the field behind the
barn.  Altogether it worked out wonderfully well.

Another important factor is that our ewes were in perfect condition
and really healthy and fit.  It is a bit tricky getting the ewes
properly fed coming up to lambing.  The growing lambs take a lot of
energy but they also take up a lot of interior space and so don't
leave an awful lot for their mom's stomach system.  So just when a
mom most needs extra nutrition, she has a hard time eating enough
to get it.  You can (and do, of course) feed the moms high-energy
supplements (read: "grain"), but more important is getting the moms
really fit and "just right plump" *before* the big stress comes; it
really doesn't work out well to let your ewes stay too-thin and try
to patch it up late by feeding them a *LOT*.  This especially a
problem with merinos because their fleeces are so dense that it is
hard to get any clue what kind of condition the sheep are in.

Shearing has always been a bit traumatic for us in that regard: the
sheep go in looking magnificent.  A merino in full fleece is a
wonderful **round** chub-ball of wool; frosty and melody manage to
get nearly spherical.  But then you shear them and discover that
you've had virtually skeletons walking around under all that fleece
and suddenly your flock looks like a bunch of scrawny goats.  Well,
this year was different.  Lynn took pains throughout the winter to
see that the sheep, the moms to be in particular, were well-enough
fed and it was amazing at shearing-time: for the first time, the
sheep looked *good* after they were shorn.  Lynn had managed to hit
it right-on and the ewes were in *perfect* condition.  The ewes
continued to be fit right through lambing [and are still nicely
conditioned as we're readying to start weaning the lambs] and the
result was a surprisingly easy time of it --- healthy moms and fat
and sassy lambs.

LAMBING MISCELLANY

But of course there were a few bumps and twists.  One big worry was
Bunny, our little bottle lamb who was about to become a mom.  Would
she do OK lambing?  Would she know how to take care of her lamb?
Would she still like us?  Lynn was prepared to be a nervous wreck
when Bunny was ready to lamb.  So Bunny just went and had her lamb
all by herself and spared us the anxiety (and her the interference
and hassle!) of having us kibitz.  She is real proud of little
Button, and rightfully so 'cause she's a little cutey.  The only
misstep occurred when we docked and tagged Button --- as with the
other moms and lambs, we took the lambs out of the jugs, docked and
tagged them, and then put mom and lamb right into the mixing area
(taking down the jug).  Well, Bunny was frantic when we "stole" her
little Button, and when we put Bunny and Button into their mixing
pen, Bunny didn't match back up with Button but just kept
frantically running around in circles baa'ing.  So we put them both
back into a jug overnight and then into the mixing pen _together_,
and all was well.

Those of you who are truly long-suffering followers of these tales
will recall that each year Shennie has twins and rejects one.  The
first was the very Bunny about which we speak, the second was
little Sugar.  Well, this year we decided that we were NOT going to
let Shennie sucker us into raising a bottle lamb.  And yes, she had
twins again.  So after the first was born, had been cleaned and had
nursed, Lynn snatched the lamb and we were delighted to see that
Shennie cleaned off and let the second one nurse.  Victory was at
hand, we thought!  We put the first lamb back with Shennie and it
all fell apart.  Shennie got REAL confused and didn't exactly know
what to make of the two lambs around her --- she couldn't figure
out which one was the one she wanted to keep and which one was the
one she was going to reject, so she ended up not letting EITHER one
nurse.  Well, we were determined this year, so we took Shennie and
her twins to a lambing jug and fixed up a head gate for her.  It
held her head in such a position that she could eat, but kept her
>from  quite seeing what was going on in lamb-land and so gave both
lambs a chance to nurse.  We kept her in the head gate for a week,
and at the end of that we were delighted to see that it had worked.
She had accepted both lambs, and now all is well and she's the
happy mom of twins.

We lost one ewe.  Joy had trouble last year --- she had stillborn
twins that we had to have a vet in to extract from her.  This year,
again, she had trouble, but didn't make it this time.  Apparently
the trauma last year somehow scarred up the cervix or some such and
she was apparently in pretty bad shape internally.  Sniff.

Also, two ewes didn't get bred: two of our 'rookies', Jonquil and
Penny.  So our final total was 24 ewes exposed, 21 lambed.  17 ram
lambs, 15 ewe lambs, total 32 lambs.

LYNN'S FIBER DEBUT

In late October there was a spinning retreat not far from here.
Lynn went mostly to attend, but also brought a bit of "Fantasy Farm
Fiber".  We had a little bit of fleece (about 200lbs) that had been
processed while Wilbur was here getting the machines set up and
adjusted, and so although the machines were still not working, Lynn
did have something to show so she brought some of it along with her
to the retreat.

Well, it started a feeding frenzy.  The folks there *loved* the stuff.
She got two new retailers right off the bat --- other vendors at the
retreat who insisted on selling Lynn's stuff.  And after Lynn got home
she would get phone calls --- one calling for 50 pounds, another calling
for all Lynn had.  Lynn went down to the factory and scrounged every
scrap of processed fiber she could find and was *completely* sold out.
It was also with some excitement that we saw an ad in Spin-Off magazine
>from  one of the retailers advertising Lynn's top!!  Business prospects
look awfully encouraging.

GETTING THE FACTORY GOING

Throughout the winter Lynn was getting calls from her retailers and from
other folk who had gotten their hands on the stuff pleading for more,
but we were _flat_ out.  It was obvious that we were going to *have*
to get the card working again.  Fortunately, we had a card expert
(if you remember back to the early factory reports, Bob used to
work at Davis & Furber (who made the card) and he was the one who
insisted that we move the thing 16 inches so that it was centered
and parallel in its area in the factory).  We called Bob and he
came up and surveyed the state of things.  He was able to get most
of the card fixed up, but there was still one broken piece.  Wilbur
had been trying to fix or replace that part since the previous
Spring and the jury-rigged version that we had been using had
broken several times (we were trying to make do with a similar part
>from  a cotton card and it just wouldn't do the job).

Things came to a halt again as we looked around for the missing
part.  Our leads in South Carolina couldn't find anything.  After a
LONG delay and much screwing around, Lynn happened to be thumbing
through a catalog of mill-equipment suppliers and happened to
notice that there was a place in Massachusetts that specialized in
parts for old mill equipment.  So she calls them up and asks if
they can help her find a No 8 comb box for a 1936 Davis & Furber
48" card.  The instant reply: do you want it with or without the
pulley?  Both elation and chagrin: the elation, of course, because
the key part was UPS'ing its way to us; the chagrin because if we
had called these folks sooner rather than later we'd have been up
and running a year ago.

Bob came back and put the card back together again (actually, it
took two trips to get all the missing bits and pieces located and
in place).  And so we made it: at last *all* of the machinery is
working and we can look forward to getting this business of our
_moving_.  About which more later, but...

LYNN'S _REAL_ DEBUT

The spinning retreat was a pretty small-potatoes affair, and so it
was surprising that it generated the amount of attention and
word-of-mouth publicity that it did.  But a bigger deal was coming
up: the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival, the biggest event of its
kind this side of the Mississippi.  Always the first full weekend
in May, and each year a bigger and bigger event.

The machines were clearly not going to be working in time, so there
was no chance that there would be any Fantasy Farm Fibers on
display this year (but just wait 'till next year!!).  But word of
mouth is an odd thing: a producer in Alabama called us asking if
Lynn could comb some of their fleece.  Lynn explained the situation
and they said that'd be no problem: they had a card so they could
scour and card their fleece and just ship it to us ready for the
final combing and pinning.

Well, a wonderful synergy: the folks from the Little Barn were
going to have a magical transformation performed on their fleece,
while Lynn was going to get SOME use out of her machines in time
for Maryland.

The top came out great and Lynn went up to Maryland and delivered
it all on Friday evening.  The results were astounding: by Saturday
mid-day folks were rushing up to Lynn congratulating her and
thanking her.  Some of the staff from Spin Off magazine actually
ran up to her and hugged her.  The top was a great success and
apparently the talk of the show (at least among the handspinners).
The enthusiasm and appreciation was gratifying [if not embarrassing!].

Interestingly, the word spread not just among the handspinners but
among the *producers*.  It appears that in addition to Fantasy Farm
Fibers, the Fantasy Farm Combing Service also has the earmarks of
being a roaring success.  Producers kept coming up to Lynn trying to
find out how/when/cost/etc to get *their* fleece combed.

And we're still not in production --- all that is out there in the
market, really, are pre-production samples.  And while the most
visible stuff, the top that was at Maryland, is a joy (top is
wonderful, lovely stuff -- a handspinner's dream to work with), we
have a suspicion that this is going to be a case of "you ain't seen
nothin' yet".  Our fleece, the stuff we have over two tons (!) of
scoured and ready-to-process sitting in the loft of the factory, is
(as noted earlier, to our delight) among the best in the world and
it makes top that handles like butter.  It is a bit scary to think
about what's going to happen when our primo stuff gets out into
the marketplace.

But we're going to find out fairly soon.  The next really-big show
will be this fall: SOAR, the spin-off annual retreat, is probably
the biggest handspinners' event of the year.  Lynn already has
reserved a commercial booth there and will be planning to show up
with about a thousand pounds of "the good stuff".  If these early
market samples are any indication, it is going to be a fun week for
Lynn... (not to mention profitable).  But the road from here to there
still has a few potholes...

GOING INTO PRODUCTION

So now that all the machines are working, Lynn is starting to
settle into the routine of a mill worker.  While Bob was here we
did a bunch of carding and had about 200 pounds or so of stock
to process.  The next step is to pin-draft the stock (twice
actually) and the pin drafter promptly broke.  Something is wrong
with its control circuitry and so it won't "start", and it'll only
run as long as you stand there holding the button.  I took a look
at the relay circuitry and it all looked OK and seemed to be
working.  I cleaned the contacts on the relays and the thing
started working again, but after a few hours of operation it
stopped working again.  Dunno what the problem is, but as I write
this I'm still on queue to dive into the thing and figure out
what's wrong.

And then there is the comber.  After *it* ran a few hours, a roller
popped out (sending its bearings flying).  Lynn poked around and
found the bearings and got the roller back in, but another hour or
so later and a nearby roller *broke* --- its shaft just snapped.
We've gotten that fixed, but it is obvious that something is wrong
in the adjustment of that part of the comber, because none of those
rollers really feels like it fits quite right.

So the coin has flipped over: now the card works fine but both of
the other machines have problems.  Sigh.  The pin drafter ought not
to be too big a problem.  The relay logic in the control circuitry
is pretty simple and so not much can go wrong.  The comber is more
problematic, since what we think it really needs is to have someone
who *knows* how the comber is supposed to work and be set up and
adjusted come out and check the thing out.  So now we begin a quest
to find a comber-fixer.

Maybe _one_ of these days we'll actually get this show on the road.

  /Bernie\
-- 
Bernie Cosell                               [email-masked]
Fantasy Farm Fibers, Pearisburg, VA         (703) 921-2358
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