full fall fleece

Good day all,
It may just cool down here in Missouri this week. Hurray!
It has been a seige, and I know there are lots of breeders out there with worse heat and flooding this month. Fall will be a good thing.
Have you handled your lambs lately? That is, if you have any left to hold. I was pulling a few for pick-up and was surprised at their wool growth and pretty curls. No, I didn't say crimp....did I? I actually like my crimp in ringlets. Some lambs have a "stand-up" crimpy fleece.....some have crimpy fleece that falls into rignlets....especially after a rain. Since it hasn't done much of that here, I have been hosing down my show stock. I can't believe how unpleasant a dusty fleece can feel. Thank goodness, water is OK for show sheep. Pretend it just rained here.
Really, I looked at the weather this morning and we have a 20 % chance of rain today....With an 80% chance of rain, we can still miss it. Something about valleys and air movement over them.
I wanted to mention how nice it was to hear our Alaskan shepherdess got some shetland ribbons and had the best of show goat too at the state fair. Way to go! You can find a note about her efforts to promote shetlands on her Alaskan blog ...the link is on the side of my blog.
I promise I will get back to talking about my young life in the third grade soon. Do you remember third grade? Was it a pleasant experience? Does your entire school life blurr into snatches of recess?
Well, off the point.
What I did want to say, was after you notice the older types of fleece on your lambs and maybe on your yearlings....if you have any sitting around....does it start you thinking about changes to your breeding groups? It did mine. I found two yearling rams out there who were relegated to eating grass and growing horns. I really liked their fleeces tho. So now I am thinking about girls who have fleeces that are similar. Wow, wouldn't it be fun to get a bunch of lambs with really nice fleeces too? OK, maybe that was your intent all along, but here, my focus is on spots. So breeding a bunch of greys just for their fleeces is something different.
Hope it rains lightly for you and your sheep.
And good morning to my traveling son. hope you have a great day today.
Love, mom