It’s that time of year in the United States—lambing season. As a city girl who comes from a long line of farmers, I’ve always delighted in tales my father and grandfather would tell about raising pigs and sheep and cows, about sowing the seeds and harvesting the crops, and about what life was like on their farm in the middle of the Great Plains.
As a spinner and knitter, I’ve been interested in learning as much as I can about where our fiber comes from, especially the beloved Merino I like to spin and the endearing alpacas a friend raises. I was first introduced to shepherdess Laurel Stone of Apple Creek Merinos through her Instagram page, which displays adorable pictures of her lovable lambs, her playful pups, and her gorgeous fleeces and knitted garments.
Laurel started raising sheep because she’s an enthusiastic knitter who decided she wanted to raise her own fiber animals, and she has become passionate about cultivating exquisite Merino fleeces. She keeps her lambs for breeding or sells them to other fiber flocks for breeding, showing, or just being fiber pets. According to Laurel, Merino wethers make fabulous fiber pets because they are super friendly and easygoing and can put all of their energy into growing wool. I caught up with Laurel and found out what farm life is like during this busy time of year.
Little Scarlet appears to be curious!
Farm & Fiber Knits: When does lambing season fall at Apple Creek?
Apple Creek Merinos: I try to split my lambing into two main groups, basically December and February. However, it rarely goes exactly to plan, and since I used some younger ram lambs for many of my ewes this year they didn’t all take the first time, so I ended up with lambing spread out more than is really ideal. I ended up with three main groups between mid-December and early March, with a few extras spread in between. I’m very tired!
FFK: How many ewes lambed, and how many lambs did you get?
ACM: I had 23 ewes give me a total of 38 lambs. I had almost all twins in my earlier lambing and almost all singles in my later lambing, which was strange. But 38 lambs is plenty!
Get a closer look! Click the video or any image in the gallery below to open it in full-screen mode.
Clockwise from top left: Airlie snuggles with her lamb; Nova keeps a watchful eye; Sasha enjoys getting her nails done (video); and this year’s lambing yielded triplets!
FFK: Do the most common colors and patterns of the lamb groups change in your flock over time?
ACM: This is a tough one to answer, as I have been selecting for recessive color traits that include spots, moorit, and dilution. So to some degree, yes, as I have gotten lambs that display these characteristics the colors in my flock have changed. But I also keep lambs that are really outstanding in other ways too, so while I have more moorit in my flock than anything else, I have lots of solid colors and black-and-white sheep, too.
FFK: Did you have any surprises this year like unusual colors, quads, or special lineages?
ACM: I did get my “holy grail” colored lamb this year: a ewe with bold body spots and dilute moorit color—that’s a set of three recessive color traits all stacked—so her arrival was pretty exciting!
It’s that time of year in the United States—lambing season. As a city girl who comes from a long line of farmers, I’ve always delighted in tales my father and grandfather would tell about raising pigs and sheep and cows, about sowing the seeds and harvesting the crops, and about what life was like on their farm in the middle of the Great Plains.
As a spinner and knitter, I’ve been interested in learning as much as I can about where our fiber comes from, especially the beloved Merino I like to spin and the endearing alpacas a friend raises. I was first introduced to shepherdess Laurel Stone of Apple Creek Merinos through her Instagram page, which displays adorable pictures of her lovable lambs, her playful pups, and her gorgeous fleeces and knitted garments.
Laurel started raising sheep because she’s an enthusiastic knitter who decided she wanted to raise her own fiber animals, and she has become passionate about cultivating exquisite Merino fleeces. She keeps her lambs for breeding or sells them to other fiber flocks for breeding, showing, or just being fiber pets. According to Laurel, Merino wethers make fabulous fiber pets because they are super friendly and easygoing and can put all of their energy into growing wool. I caught up with Laurel and found out what farm life is like during this busy time of year.
Little Scarlet appears to be curious!
Farm & Fiber Knits: When does lambing season fall at Apple Creek?
Apple Creek Merinos: I try to split my lambing into two main groups, basically December and February. However, it rarely goes exactly to plan, and since I used some younger ram lambs for many of my ewes this year they didn’t all take the first time, so I ended up with lambing spread out more than is really ideal. I ended up with three main groups between mid-December and early March, with a few extras spread in between. I’m very tired!
FFK: How many ewes lambed, and how many lambs did you get?
ACM: I had 23 ewes give me a total of 38 lambs. I had almost all twins in my earlier lambing and almost all singles in my later lambing, which was strange. But 38 lambs is plenty!
Get a closer look! Click the video or any image in the gallery below to open it in full-screen mode.
Clockwise from top left: Airlie snuggles with her lamb; Nova keeps a watchful eye; Sasha enjoys getting her nails done (video); and this year’s lambing yielded triplets!
FFK: Do the most common colors and patterns of the lamb groups change in your flock over time?
ACM: This is a tough one to answer, as I have been selecting for recessive color traits that include spots, moorit, and dilution. So to some degree, yes, as I have gotten lambs that display these characteristics the colors in my flock have changed. But I also keep lambs that are really outstanding in other ways too, so while I have more moorit in my flock than anything else, I have lots of solid colors and black-and-white sheep, too.
FFK: Did you have any surprises this year like unusual colors, quads, or special lineages?
ACM: I did get my “holy grail” colored lamb this year: a ewe with bold body spots and dilute moorit color—that’s a set of three recessive color traits all stacked—so her arrival was pretty exciting!
[PAYWALL]
Laurel calls this one her “holy grail,” displaying three recessive color traits.
There are always surprises during lambing season, and when you are breeding animals there are always new things to learn each year (though often not in a good way). Lambs have a very narrow window of survivability, and this year one was born about five days premature. He was very weak and unstable in the first few hours of being born, but I am pretty committed to doing everything possible for my lambs. As a last-ditch measure to try to get him going, I decided to try an intraperitoneal dextrose injection, learned from watching online videos right there in the barn. That was terrifying! He did manage to survive despite—or hopefully because of—my intervention until I could get him up to Oregon State University’s veterinary teaching hospital, where they were able to provide oxygen and other supportive measures to help him out. I’m happy to report that Pickle is thriving and should grow up completely healthy and normal, albeit extremely spoiled!
Get a closer look! Click the video or any image in the gallery below to open it in full-screen mode.
Pickle the house lamb helps with chores (shown in the video), while the others play “King of the Hill” or pile on for snuggles.
FFK: Can you tell us about a special lamb or mama?
ACM: My ewe named Kiwi has proven to be the most impactful member of my flock (see the photo at the beginning of the article), and it’s truly thanks to her that I have been so successful and that my sheep look and behave the way they do. I bought Kiwi as a lamb from Terry Mendenhall, the true Queen of Merino breeders here in the U.S. Terry liked her but felt she was too small to stay in her breeding program. Kiwi was my first moorit sheep and the first ewe to give me lambs via artificial insemination. She really outdid herself by delivering a set of quads! She was still quite young and small for this lambing, and carrying four babies nearly killed her, especially since I was very new to breeding and did not have a great nutritional plan for late gestation ewes. Very thankfully, all four lambs thrived and Kiwi recovered quickly, and over the course of her breeding career she has given me a total of 13 lambs, seven of whom are still in my flock.
Kiwi is now enjoying her well-earned retirement! Her lambs all have the densest, longest, biggest fleeces despite tending to be the smaller sheep. All of them also have her very kind, quiet, easygoing temperament. I have several of her granddaughters now, and as of my last lambing group I have a great-granddaughter! Followers of my flock will recognize the name Banana, my best buddy who was a house lamb back in 2020 and has remained a hilarious and impish character and is my self-appointed “farm ambassador.” Kiwi is his mom.
Apple Creek's ambassador, Banana, gets dressed up for Earth Day!
FFK: Tell me a little about how the lambs interact with your pets!
ACM: I have two dogs: Sasha, a Karakachan livestock guardian dog, and Ella, a rescue kelpie. Both dogs love the sheep. Sasha in particular simply adores the lambs and is so gentle and careful with them; she will do everything she can to get the lambs to play with her! Ella is less focused on the lambs but still likes being around the sheep. Some lambs love playing with cats, so depending on how fearless the cat is, things can get pretty silly. I have witnessed several very hilarious exchanges where the hunter becomes the prey and back and forth.
Sasha is surrounded by a few of her friends.
FFK: What else would you like our readers to know about your sheep and your farm?
ACM: My farm is located in Veneta, Oregon. My property is the original homestead for this area, so it came with a lot of history and has been farmed for about 100 years, but it fell into disrepair and was a big rehabilitation project when I took it over in 2015. The first family here planted a small orchard, so I have some very old apple and pear trees with lots of character. There’s also a gigantic Gary oak tree that I think is incredibly special. The farm is a great spot, and it’s been wonderful bringing it back to life after decades of neglect.
In general, Merino sheep get sheared once per year for handspinning fleeces, so I have one “crop” of fleeces annually; I work off of a reservation system, which I think helps to match the correct fleece to each fiber artist. I prepare these fleeces very carefully, removing all of the dirtier wool from the edges around what the coat covers (“skirtings”) and vegetable matter before sending them off.
Get a closer look! Click any image in the gallery below to open it in full-screen mode.
Laurel is shown wearing the Field Sweater that she knitted from a pattern by Camilla Vad (top left); Laurel used wool from her ram ACM Shaun that was spun by a mini mill that she then dyed using farm-grown marigold and indigo. Laurel and her friend Sandy exhibit their champion fleece and sheep at the North American International Livestock Exposition (NAILE) in 2023 (bottom row). Apple Creek produces fleeces with long staple and beautiful, varied colors, as demonstrated in the fleeces shown here.
I keep my skirtings and first scour and then pick out all the VM before sending it to a mill to be made into farm yarn and roving. I cannot express how tedious and time-consuming it is to prep all my skirtings for mill processing! It is my least favorite job, but the final result (a dragon-hoard of yarn I can use at my whim) is too good to not push through the boring part each year. Being able to offer some yarn for sale is really important, too, since many people are not interested in processing raw fleeces but still want to use my wool.
I try to offer as many different products as possible from my flock: fleeces, roving, yarn, knitted goods, and fiber lambs. I also make and sell sheep coats. I have done a lot of fabric testing and iterating on my design to make the best coats I possibly can, since the better the coats are, the cleaner the fleeces will be when they come off the sheep. Lesser amounts of cleaner skirtings means my tedious job is vastly improved.
*Editor’s note: Laurel and Apple Creek Merinos entered competitions at the Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival for the first time in 2024 and were awarded Grand Champion fleece and Champion ewe!
Find Apple Creek Merinos on the web at applecreekmerinos.com or on social media:
Instagram: @applecreekmerinos
Facebook: Apple Creek Merinos
TikTok: @applecreekmerinos
Yarn is available through the Apple Creek Merinos online shop.
Debbie Blair is the associate editor of Spin Off magazine. A lifelong crafter and avid reader, she finds her happy place reading and relaxing next to a mountain stream.
