More Black Giants

Here are a couple of pics of my latest 2 hopeful keepers out of my black Giant project.

Dusty's Solomon so far he is the biggest out of the 2 so I am hoping he will be a nice big buck and be my next herd sire.

 Dusty's Jael a little smaller than her brother but does not fail in type or density.  Both of these go back to black Germans that were imported in 2006.  What I love about working with some of the black Germans is how well they keep color all the way to the skin.  They wont stay coal black like they are now but they will stay a nice darker gray color, my crosses with other other breeds fade a lot more and some have been very pale colored.   Of course the more I breed "true for color" the better the color stays.  Texture on the black Germans is not quite as soft as I like in my Giants, but what they do for color and density more than makes up for that.  I was able to get another black German recently from my friend Joyce that has very nice texture and make 10lbs very early, so I am anxiously waiting to be able to breed her.  God Bless!

New Hat Pattern

This is a new hat pattern I got a couple of weeks ago.  It looks kinda difficult but its all knit and purl stitches and you move the stitch marker to the right and recenter every 4 rows, very simple.  I like knitting hats because they are fast and I dont get bored or loose focus before they are done like I do big projects.
 
This is my yearling ewe Martha.  I am not totally sure what color she is yet but I am thinking Mioget.  Shetland have lots of colors and patterns I am going to have to learn now to.  The little ewe in the back is a black ewe lamb named Chi Chi.  As you can see I did not use sheep jackets this year so I will have lots of picking to do on the fleeces.  I hope to have everyone covered next winter.  God Bless!

Habakkuk

For some reason the name Habakkuk came to mind the first time I saw a pic of my ram.  So from that time on I knew that would be his name.  It's kinda odd though Habakkuk is the name of an Old Testament book and he was a profit, but other than that I know nothing about him and I have not read the book of Habakkuk yet either.  I guess it was just God saying "I am letting you have these sheep and this is what I want you to call him."  So it that is how Habakkuk got his name.

 I never seem to remember to take my camera out with me while doing chores so I missed getting pics of the sheep running around and jumping after their evening meal.  Habakkuk would take a short run then bounce like a pogo stick bend in half in the air and then start all over.  The ewes thought he was a little crazy I think.  While I was out watching them I noticed some wool on the fence.  Turns out it was from Habakkuk and a nice little sample as well.

 I am guessing it is from his neck wool since it is a shorter stable than the wool on his midsection, but as clean as it is it may not be either.  No matter where it is from it is so very soft and makes me not wanna wait another month till shearing time.  I am ready to get that fleece on the wheel!  Shetland have 3 different fleece types and I have all 3 of them here.  Habakkuk is a "longish wavy" fleece.  I have 2 kindly/single coated ewes and 1 double coated ewe.  All have very soft wool but all will be make a different type of yarn.  I cant make up my mind if I wanna sell any of my wool from the sheep this year or if I wanna horde it all to myself.   Hope you enjoyed the pics God Bless!

Bee Hive Hat

I have been knitting hats lately for the Hat Ministry we started up at Church.  We are giving hats to cancer patients, homeless people or other people that may be needing one.  Here is the pattern for the Bee Hive hat I just finished.  I think the yarn I used has too many colors in it to really show the pattern but it looks neat in person, its 70% Alpaca and 30% Angora.  Here is the pic. God Bless!