Summer at Bergen farm this year was a busy, productive and enjoyable season.  The boys did lots of animal work as well as fishing, camping, riding and generally having a good time.  We built things and moved things and stained and painted things, getting ready for a possible move to full time residence next year.  The weather started out cold and wet but July and August were very pleasant, not too much rain and not nearly as many bugs as usual.  Unfortunately, the cold , late, wet spring did not do the fruit trees any good and our fruit harvest will be sadly diminished.

Fibre Works Alpacas:  Moonshine did very well at Alpacafest, earning a third in his class against very tough competition.   He was sheared immediately after,  which gave him some heat relief.  The flies were terrible though.  He has a great fleece with great crimp, fineness and hand.   His conformation is very straight and correct and he has a proud presence and bearing.  He is for sale, for more details, check Alpacas For Sale.  Shelly has had another great looking boy, named Diamante because of his remarkable lustre and crimpy fine fleece.  We have bred Shelly back to NGG Lionel and hope for a girl this time around.  The membership drive for the CanCam Fibre Co-op was launched this summer.  This is a very exciting step forward for the industry and we have great hopes for its success.

Fibre Works Shetlands:  We moved all of the ewes and lambs to Bergen for summer pasture at the end of June.  The combined flock totaled forty sheep.  We vaccinated with an eight way in early June and wormed before moving the sheep to Bergen.  We followed up with a vaccine booster in early July.   On the advice of a good sheep vet, we vaccinated a bit earlier than last year (at six weeks of age or a bit older) and gave the booster four weeks later.   We acquired a new black ewe lamb from Heidi Clarke at Willow Island Shetlands.   Her name is Diva and we are very pleased with her.  All of the lambs were halter trained again this year.  Quite a bit of effort but the boys really enjoy that part and the result is sheep that are generally calm around people.  We still have some ram lambs for sale:  Shetlands for Sale

Fibre, Yarn and the Fibre Works Gallery:  We have some new yarns and some new fleeces to put on the shelves but haven't had the time yet.  Soon, soon...!

Bergen Norwegian Buhunds:   Treva and Tjalfi had a wonderful summer at the farm.   Long walks and mouse patrol were their favorite activities.  We did not do too much sheep work as there always seemed to be something else that was urgent that needed attending too.   We did get barn cats this year and introducing the dogs to the cats will take some time.

Farm Stuff:  The fencing and shed building was ongoing.  We put up a creep feed shelter for the lambs as we found that creep feeding prior to and during weaning helped them out quite a bit.  But with the rain we get at Bergen in the summer, a roof over the creep feed was a definite necessity.   We found that a number of our sheep pens were on the large size.  The flock had more than ample grazing all summer and some of the ewes got to the plump stage.   So more cross fencing seems indicated.