Byeburn Farm
Dedicated to the conservation of Jacob Sheep
Registered Award Winning breeding stock (2-horn and 4-horn)
Supplier of Fine Fleece and Rovings
September 2010 - Our little star, Aggie
JSBA AGM and Garden State Sheep & Wool Festival update
Our crew did us proud at both the Garden State Sheep & Wool Festival and the JSBA AGM show!
Our ewe lamb, Aggie, really shone for us, taking Reserve Champion ewe in the JSBA show and both Champion ewe and Best Fleece in the Festival's Jacob class. She was pipped to the post for Best in Show in the Festival class by our very own Billy, one of our yearling rams!
February 2010 - Alfie Update
February is turning out to be a heavenly month for Alfie, in fact for all the dogs: so much snow to play in! Yesterday was particularly entertaining, as the nor'easter dropped 14" of snow on us. Needless to say, it didn't slow young Alfie down, despite him being barely 14" tall himself. Snowdrifts apparently are equally to be piled through as jumped over. Sadly we didn't have a camera handy when he plunged his entire head under the snow in search of (as best we can tell) a walnut.
Alfie continues to be happily fearless and remarkably coordinated. Whatever the big dogs are doing, Alfie wants to be in the middle of it and the big dogs play rough! This generally results in every inch of Alfie being covered in snow.
He can go for hours without sleeping, which a 13 week old puppy isn't supposed to do, but I suppose there are just too many stimuli around: the cat to stalk, big dog activities to watch, kitchen debris to taste, shoelaces to chew...
But every now and then, even Alfie's batteries run low and he'll collapse into a deep, if short-lived slumber. I love watching dogs sleep: they're such a picture of peace. But my favourite thing is when they curl up together for a nap.
Take a look in the Gallery for a few more Alfie photos.
Alfie joined our family just last week: our second border collie. He will eventually take over many of Bo's sheep herding tasks and hopefully also take Stuart into competitive sheepdog trials, but for now, he's just enjoying being a particularly cute puppy! 
We bought Alfie from Maria Amodei at North Face Farm. He was one of 3 boys in a litter of 8 and by far the biggest: two people have already asked us if he's a Bernese Mountain Dog! Having seen his propensity to eat anything - preferably, but not necessarily nutritious - we're starting to see why.
Maria told us that, for a big guy, Alfie is unusually coordinated and we're seeing that all the time. On his second day with us, he decided he could climb up the 9 open metal steps to our back door on his own and sure enough, he did. None of your stumbling, dragging kind of a start either: he took a run at them and just kept going! Interestingly, he hasn't really attempted the stairs inside our house yet, but that's probably a good thing!
Alfie's litter name was Jimi and Maria aptly nicknamed him "Jovial Jim" because he's so happy and just enjoys life. Nothing seems to phase him: big dogs, narrow plank bridges, frozen-over streams, the noise of our kitchen being demolished (yes, we know: remodeling the kitchen the week after getting a new puppy isn't an ideal recipe for peace and calm, but it should be character-building!)
More on Alfie soon...
March 2009 - Meet Bo!
Bo joined our family a couple of weeks ago and he’s settling in really well. We’d been looking for a Border Collie for several months, to help with our growing flock, and we found a great mutual fit with Bo. He needed a family without children, where he could further develop his growing love for sheep herding and we needed a dog who would get on well with our other dogs and could show us the ropes when it comes to herding. 
We adopted Bo through Glen Highland Farm, a wonderful organization, which does an amazing job finding the right homes to meet Border Collies’ unique needs. You can see Bo’s story on their website, including how Warren & Maria Mick fostered Bo for around 8 months, while Warren trained him on sheep.
When we went to meet Bo, Warren showed Stuart what he could do, then had Stuart give it a try. Stuart’s voice couldn’t be more different to Warren’s in terms of tone, volume and intonation, not to mention the English vs American accent. Needless to say, poor Bo was oblivious to the fact that Stuart was (in Stuart’s mind at least) giving out the very same command Bo was used to hearing from Warren. We all have a lot to learn!
So Warren kindly made us an MP3 recording of his verbal and whistle commands. As soon as he heard Warren’s voice, Bo pricked up his ears and got ready to go to work. When he heard Warren’s rolling “lie down” command, Bo lay down; as “Come By” floated out of the computer speakers, he circled round the office chair, went to the window and gazed out over the sheep field. Even after Stuart switched to ear buds and turned the volume down, Bo could still tell it was Warren’s voice and wanted to get out and herd. Amazing! Anyway, we’ve now transferred the recording to the car, so Stuart can do his homework without confusing Bo.
It is fascinating to watch Bo just being a Border Collie. We went into this with ours eyes well and truly open, yet no matter how much you know about Border Collies in theory, I don’t think it can quite prepare you for spending time with them in real life. Bo is not a highly-strung, hyper collie, in fact he’s extremely mellow. But he has that awe-inspiring Border Collie focus, which is almost trance-like. If you throw a ball or frisbie for him, he’ll fetch it, bring it part-way back, then lie down and stare at it until you pick it up to throw again. Yesterday, as Bo lay there, Stuart rolled a football (aka soccerball) towards him. It bounced over the frisbie, bounced off Bo’s side and rolled away. Bo’s focus on the frisbie didn’t falter for a second: he didn’t even blink! I wonder how much more I’d achieve in life, if I had Bo’s focus!
2 weeks in and Bo is already well attuned to our alien speech patterns, responding instantly to his name, even when he’s stalking the cat (a favourite pass-time!) or looking for poop to roll in (yes, that’s a whole other story. Suffice to say, nobody is perfect!). He’s integrated extremely well with the other dogs and our routine and he’s happy to accept any stray cuddles that come his way. We love him to bits and are really excited about the new adventure we’re embarking on with him. We’ll post more news soon!
Justine & Stuart
29 December 2008
Are you, like us, wondering where 2008 went? Now seems like a good time to reflect a little, just to make sure it doesn’t disappear, forgotten, as we move into 2009. All in all, we’ve had a great year on the farm. We had 11 new lambs, all of them gorgeous (of course) but Torrence definitely shone through this year, producing Mellow - our handsome 4 horn ram - and Smiler – the prettiest little ewe lamb and Stuart’s particular favourite, as he had to help out at her birth, when Torrence took a little too long to figure out that both slippery bundles were hers!
We also expanded the flock to include 2 Shetlands – Rosie and Nobbie. We bought them from a lovely couple who also happened to be selling a claw foot bath tub and an antique sofa, so we borrowed a friend’s trailer and picked them all up at the same time. Our friends had recently hosted a “romans and barbarians” party and the trailer was still sporting its roman chariot costume of red, winged panels and gold medallions. Rosie and Nobbie were not too impressed with the journey - perhaps because they were crated in the truck rather than lording it in the chariot! - and vocalised their protests quite loudly as we processed through a series of quiet villages. I think we made quite an interesting spectacle for several Sunday morning churchgoers!
Introducing them to the llamas was a real surprise. I know llamas are known flock protectors – that’s one of their jobs on our farm - I’d just never seen them in action before and, frankly, I was a little skeptical that these llamas had it in them. So when all 4 of them started making their alarm calls, I started to pay attention. Larry (our only male) and Cookie (the biggest of the 4) approached; Rosey tried her best to ignore them until Cookie crossed some invisible line, Rosie & Nobbie scrambled and Cookie and Larry gave chase, looking a little like crazed pantomime horses. Calm was restored after a brief time-out and a couple of hours of careful observation, during which the llamas finally realized that the newcomers weren’t so different to the rest of the crew and let them be.
We had several fleecy firsts this year. We entered our first fleece in a show. I didn’t have much of a clue what I was doing to be honest, or what the judges would be looking for, so I was a little nervous, but we took 4th place out of 14 in our class and were only 4 points behind the first place winner, so I was delighted. More importantly, I learned a tremendous amount from listening to the judge, as she talked through each fleece she assessed.
I completed my first finished article from wool from our sheep, which I’d carded, spun and knit myself. It’s just a little beanie hat, but I’m very proud of it! I also had 20lb of fleece processed into rovings and batts by Zeilinger’s in Michigan. They did an amazing job – better than anything I could have hoped for! Even the batts, which were made up of all the pieces I didn’t think were spin-worthy are beautiful. I was most impressed with the grey. I’d separated out as much white and black as I could and then threw the remaining mixed black and white bits into a bag. It came back beautifully blended into a wonderful, soft, charcoal grey.
Well, those are the highlights for 2008. For 2009, we’re looking forward to more lambs and are planning to make our first appearance at a show: bringing Mellow to the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival in May. Anyone have any tips on how not to end up face first in the show ring?
Justine & Stuart
