Feederbrook Farm

     Our field trip group went up to Feederbrook Farm to learn about keeping sheep and making yarn.  The sheep had already been sheared, but several had just had babies!  The kids got to feed some of the lambs.  There was one ewe there who was pregnant with triplets!  The kids also got to practice cropping a sheep's tail with a carrot!  It is so crazy that it really does just fall off after a while after they put the cropping band on it.  For some reason I just thought it would take more than that.  We also found out that sheep have no upper teeth.  I never knew!

    The owner showed up a whole fleece that had been recently sheared off a sheep.  She said it took her 20 hours to card a whole fleece by hand once!

     She also showed the kids different kinds of roving and what sheep or other animal the fiber had come from.  She had sheep, goat, buffalo, angora rabbit, and even milk fiber.

     All the kids got a chance to card some wool, both with the hand carders and with a carding machine.

They also got to practice spinning.  They didn't get to actually spin wool, but they got to practice trying to keep the wheel spinning in one direction at a constant speed.  It isn't as easy as it looks!

     Finally the girls and I got to go on a trail ride that I had purchased for them as an Epiphany present!  The weather here has been so cold for so long this was the first weekend we could do it.  The girls are getting pretty comfortable in the saddle.  And Lyla is doing pretty good controlling her own reigns.  I still feel more comfortable when her horse is in between someone else's, but for her size and age I think she's doing good.

    Celee got up the courage at the end of the ride to ask the owner if they needed any barn help that kids could do.  And she got a yes!  She is so excited!  The owner told her she can come on Saturday mornings and help cleaning and grooming and whenever there is an extra horse on a ride she can go along.  The girls had so much fun taking care of the farm animals last summer, I am glad that at least Celee will get to do a little more work like that this summer.  Me - I'm fine with taking care of our own chickens this year.