Castonguay TNT Farm
Big News: Now officially an LLC Business!
Meet our newest additions:
Ewe "Galaxy" (a Finn/Romney/Dorset) has birthed her first lambs: twins "Apollo" and "Dream"
Apollo is the boy and lighter one on the left and Dream is the girl and darker one on the right.
They are Finn/Romney/Dorset-Southdown mixed.
These two littles weighed in at around 7 pounds at birth. They were so small compared to our Katahdin/Southdown lambs that have always been closer to 11-13 pounds.
Fiber Art
I opened an Etsy shop to show off/sell my needle felting creations across the country!
Dyeing with Natural Dyes
I'm just getting started with natural dyes and found I got some beautiful colors with onion peels, which I then used on some recent projects like the cheetah shown above. To get that particular yellow, I did add alum as a mordant on the third run through.
The second batch, color is a bit more yellow.
Nala was the 2nd ewe to birth this year. She is now about 7 years old and on her 4th year being a mom. This is her first single birth, and she had a little girl "Minnie". She has had prolapse in the past, and so we have been cautious with her. But Minnie came out backward and huge: at 16 pounds, she was quite stuck, and it took a lot of pulling to get her out. Nala had some weakness and couldn't stand for a few days, her prolapse returned. She has since fully recovered. Little (or rather "big") Minnie had some neuropathy from the birth trauma, but with a visit to the vet to get checked out, a little anti-inflammatory and some physical therapy that we did at the farm, she was perfectly healthy before a week's time. She was nursing on her mother lying down despite her own difficulties and although we thought we might have a bottle lamb situation, she has flourished.
Full Spring Ahead
This Spring in Maine has been a whiplash of doing some farm work outside and more snow storms.
At least we can have fun with it!
A few more needle felted pieces.
I sold the brown bear set as my first sale out of my Mama and Me Bear Collection!
(the rest of the bears are shown above)
My next collection is going to be called "Feltimals" and are simplified safari animals to be used as key chains. They will be available together or Etsy soon.
The Difficult Birth
Minnie getting checked out at the vet.
Minnie with her weak leg from the neuropathy.
Natalie and her single "Walnut" a little ram.
First lamb of the season, born in January, so early.
Lamb
We have selected some of our female lambs to stay on the farm to be mothers starting when they are on their second year of life. Especially since we have transitioned to a new Ram on the farm. We used to have Lambert the Southdown and now we are placing our trust in Felix the Finn Ram. He is a cutie. The other lambs go to "market" which means they either fill our freezer, or that of someone who purchases them. It may seem like a whole lamb is too much, but they are much smaller than a beef cow or a pig. This is an example of a smaller whole lamb from our 2024 flock.
