Shearing a sheep to make yarn

On average an adult sheep can produce around 7.3lbs of wool per year. We shear our sheep generally in the fall, although some get sheared in the spring during our farm shows.
 

1. Once the wool has been sheared off, you need to do a few things before you can knit a sweater.

2. First you want to wash the wool to remove any dirt and debris.

3. Next you want to brush the wool using two brushes. This is called carding, which gets all the fibers in the same direction.

4. Next you can use either a drop spinner or a spinning wheel to bring everything together.

5. Now your ready to start knitting, have fun.

How-to: Make Butter

If you have ever watched one of our farm shows or been a part of camp activities you may have had the opportunity to learn how to make butter at home. For those of you who haven’t, it’s super easy and fun to do.

What you’ll need:
Heavy whipping cream
A glass jar with a lid

 

****Go out and Milk a cow and let the milk sit and separate so you have cream.. 😂 or you can buy heavy cream at the store ****

 

1. Fill jar about halfway with cream
2. Put the lid on the jar and tighten
3. Shake shake shake, get everyone in the house involved
4. Once the cream has separated (which was almost 5 minutes for me at home) you’ll want to dump out the liquid buttermilk or save it for pancakes.
5. Add a bit of salt to taste and there you go. Fresh butter !

How-to: Hatching an egg

Here at the farm, our chickens produce around 3-4 dozen eggs everyday!
Now if we let those chickens sit on their eggs they would hatch into 100s of little chicks. Instead, we use something called an incubator, this helps us regulate how many chicks we have.
It takes 21 days from the time they are laid until a baby chicken hatches out.

How-to: Felted Soap

With so many sheep on the farm, people often ask what we do with all the wool. Well here is an easy craft that you can do with wool. If you don’t have access to freshly shorn roving you can buy it on Amazon (comes in a lot of fun colors too).

 

What you’ll need:
Wool roving
A bar of soap
A bowl of hot water
Two hands

 

1. Lay your soap between two pieces of wool, wrap it up like a present. You’ll see I used two different colors of natural wool, But you can dye it too if you want fun colors.

 

2. Slowly start dribbling the water over the soap, saturating the whole bar.

 

3. Start rubbing and squeezing the bar between your hands like you were washing your hands.

 

4. Keep rubbing the soap, while periodically dunking it back in the hot water... keep going for about 15-20 min, You’ll notice that the wool will start getting tighter around the soap.

 

5. Once you’ve got it so the wool doesn’t come off, you can rinse it under fresh water and pat it dry and there you go! Wool soap for hand washing or in the shower!

How-to: Bird Seed Wreaths

 This is a fun and super easy way to make a bird feeder that can hang from a tree.
I used a bundt pan so I could use it all at once, but you can also use small cookie cutters so all the kids get to make one. Just remember to poke a hole before it sets so you have a place to hang it from.

 

What you’ll need:
- 2 1/2 cups bird seed
- 2 Tablespoons corn syrup
- 2 packets of unflavored gelatin
- 1 cup water

 

1. Add 1/2 c cold water and both packets of gelatin to a bowl and mix.

 

2. Add 1/2 cup hot boiling water to the bowl and mix until all the gelatin has dissolved.

 

3. Add corn syrup and mix.

 

4. Add birdseed and mix. It will be a bit watery, I put the bowl in the fridge for about 10 min to get it to firm up before I put the mixture

into the mold.

 

5. Place seed mix into whatever mold you choose. Pack it down tight.

 

6. Place molds in the fridge overnight so the gelatin sets

 

7. Pop out the molds, tie a string around your wreath and hang it outside for the birds to enjoy 🐦