Christmas Came Early Along With My New Addiction! Shetlands Have Arrived!



Lacey is on the left, Lensey is on the right.
Aren't they beautiful?!



Monday morning my two Shetland sheep arrived from their previous home near St. Louis at Wild Flower Farm (www.wild-flower-farm.com/shetland-sheep/ ). These lovely ladies are more petite than I remember (we saw them back in March) but definitely as pretty and fluffy! They are twins, so I am hoping that when we breed them next year we'll get sets of twins. Their names are Lacey and Lensey. 

There are a whole host of different colors AND patterns for the Shetland sheep. And although they are twins, Lacey has a lot of shaela (pronounced "Shay-la") in her coat, which is a beautiful dark grey color and looks as though the hair has a coating of frost on it or as though steel wool is growing out of the color. Lensey has, thus far, Shetland Black. You can see more colors here at this site: http://www.shetlandsheepinfo.com/FLEECE/colours.htm . Their dark faces with their pretty light amber eyes make them look that much more striking.

I can tell you that they do not take ANY gruff from the dogs--they literally walked Grizzie (our 13 month old Anatolian Shepherd) backward and he's twice their size (and nearly as fluffy)! They put their pretty heads down and stare with their eyes and the big guy turned around and ran! He is used to his other sheep, Penelope and Petunia, who follow him like puppies and snuggle up to him in a pile of hay or their shelter. Lacey and Lensey are proper ladies and they do NOT lay down with the dogs. Haha! They have, however, gently touched noses with our new Anatolian, Fiona (8 months old). The meeting was brief but thankfully uneventful.

Why Shetlands? Outside of their fiber being soft, easy to work with, and coming in so many beautifully natural colors to spin and weave and knit and crochet...they are flat out the cutest critters! I've always wanted to learn to spin and weave and now I have the start of my own source of wonderful fiber for that very purpose!

I've already warned my husband that I'll have to have a few more. He just grinned at me and said "yeah, I know." Don't ya love it when Christmas comes a little early?! Merry Christmas everyone!