Shelby in the news

By the way, Robin wrote this post, not Rusty. I'm trying to get wordpress straightened out. Farm Club member and friend, Shelby, nonchalantly  told me the other day that she was going to be featured in the Wall Street Journal! We'll have to wait for the story to come out to find out what they write, but the photographer who spent the day with Shelby did some of his photo shoot here. I think the fiber and sheep world was new to  Jason Henry .

Paulette is always a good ambassador.

.The sheep were fairly cooperative.

I wish I could have spend the day with Jason, gleaning more photography tips. I look forward to seeing his photos.

Dreaming, wobbly, what's on my head?

No one is in the house and the computer is free. MY TURN. I know that Robin set up this blog for me, but she said that she'd need to help me with it... Things are fuzzy. Spinning. I'm up. Chasing rabbits through alfalfa fields...walking around in the kitchen...can't see to the side...daisies...

I remember getting in the car with Robin. We went to the sheep vet's place...

Little pink sheep floating through the sky...drool is running out of the thing on my head...biting the old tire swing and flying, flying, flying up in the air...pawing at the plastic thing on my head.

I like the vet when she comes out because it means we're doing something with sheep. I don't like going to her place. She had funny things sticking in her ears and she touched my side with the end of it. I had to walk past a scary horse to stand on a wobbly platform. "55" they said.

...1 UPS truck, 2 UPS trucks, 3 UPS trucks, 4 UPS trucks, Fed Ex, 5 UPS trucks...I keep running into things...chasing herons and eagles out of the canal...Pawing the plastic thing.

The vet shaved hair off my side and stuck me with needles. Then Robin carried me into the house and the cat came over to bother me. Now this plastic thing bothers me.

...running around sheep, away, come by, away, come by...I remember I helped Robin catch the big ram named Hudson. I think I did it very well and she could get a halter on him to give him medicine. He stays away from me like he is supposed to.

OK. I hear Robin talking to me but I can't see her unless I turn my head and then I bump into something. I give up.

New sheep in the flock

When I went to the Jacob Sheep Breeders AGM I took 9 sheep with me. I came home with 10. That was not the original plan. However, five of those sheep are new to the flock. I don't have all the right paperwork yet so I don't remember what Karen named this little girl, but she is from the bide a wee farm in Oregon.This is bide a wee Jewell. Karen and I were going to trade lambs and when I couldn't decide between the two lambs, they said that they would trade for both. They have beautiful fleeces and I can't wait for shearing day! Another new face is this pretty ewe lamb from Mud Ranch in California. I am waiting for her paperwork too and I don't remember what Joan named her.

This is a preview of the Mud Ranch lamb's fleece.

This pretty lamb is one of my flock. I feel kind of guilty for not trading or selling her, but not guilty enough that I can't be glad to have her in the flock. This is the little ewe who almost won Best Fleece in the sheep show. (Is it OK to spend the rest of your life saying I "almost won"? I'm proud of that because she was second to the Kenleigh Acres ram who has consistently won everything he has been entered in (and deserves it).This is my little ewe's fleece. I guess I need to name her now since she is staying here. Her dad is Tioga and her mom is Zip (out of Zelda, whose mom is Zena). How about Zippy? I don't know if that has quite the image that I want for her.

The three new girls plus Z--- joining the rest of the flock.

I brought home some boys too, but i think they deserve a post of their own.

JSBA AGM in OR

What is that title--alphabet soup? No, it's the Jacob Sheep Breeders Association Annual General Meeting in Oregon. That's where I am right now. The AGM is hosted this year by my friends, Shannon and Tony Phifer of Kenleigh Acres Farm. I drove here yesterday with 9 sheep and a truck full of fleeces, dye equipment (for a workshop), etc. Most of the activities are at Shannon's neighbor's place. There is a wonderful barn with plenty of room for all the sheep and people.

Jacob breeders came from as far away as Pennsylvania and Missouri.

Before the official start of activities Karen Lobb of bide a wee Farm gave some pointers to people who had brought fleeces to enter in the wool show.

It could be said that Karen really gets into her job. What do you think? Maybe it was this touch that helped present the winning fleece of the show, exhibited by Joan of Mud Ranch Jacobs.

This is Doug Montgomery evaluating fleeces in the wool show.

Being a Tourist in VT

Katie and I crammed a lot into two days and didn't have to drive more than about an hour away. We spent all day yesterday at the Shelburne Museum. There is too much to see in one day and, in fact, your ticket buys you two consecutive days.  I think it would be hard to absorb any more if you really spend time reading all the signs and looking at everything.

This is just one room of Shaker tools. Behind Katie there are more tools, wood stoves, and a lot of things that I can't identify.

Here is the Jacquard loom in the weaving shed.

How about a two-handed spinning wheel? There are two bobbins and the docent told us that one person used this wheel to spin two bobbins at a time.

This is a portion of a reed from a loom--made with real reeds.

There is an entire house displaying weather vanes, whirly-gigs, and ships' mast-heads.

The Museum grounds are full of incredible buildings. This horseshoe-shaped barn houses dozens of sleighs and buggies on two levels. Other buildings house a 1":1' scale circus train, blacksmith shop, printing presses, dental office, general store, apothecary, toys, dolls, quilts, wooden decoys. Can you imagine entire displays of glass canes, trivets, crystal glasses, hatboxes, embroidery samplers? The list goes on. At the end of the day when we found there was only about 35 minutes until closing we breezed through the Fashion exhibit and had to skip a couple of other buildings.

 We came home exhausted and finished the evening by making triple chocolate ice cream in Katie's new Kitchen Aid ice cream maker and watching the DVD of Cavalia that I had given Katie for Christmas after having seen the show.

It rained last night and that was good, for I guess two weeks without rain in VT in the summer is considered almost a drought. Today we drove south and went to three more tourist attractions.

Living in California, I don't know much about "sugaring" so this was an interesting exhibit. Especially fun was the tasting room. There is quite a difference between the mild and the stronger flavored maple syrup, but all are good.

We drove past and through picturesque  covered bridges on our way to the next stop.

The Vermont Marble Museum is fascinating. It is housed in what was once a huge mill/warehouse and has rooms full of exhibits and marble. Lots of marble. There is a poignant exhibit describing the construction of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. The marble for the monument came from Colorado but was designed and finished in Vermont. There are marble portraits of all the U.S. Presidents up through Bush #1. Take a look below.

 This is a huge room full of slabs of all kinds of marble. I had no idea there was this much variety.

Our day wasn't finished. We had passed a sign that said "Castle 3 miles". Why not?

The Wilson Castle was built in the mid-1800's for almost $1.5 million!

It is a spectacular building with an interesting history, but I think I liked the outside veranda best. Doesn't the tile floor look woven?

More VT  tourism reports tomorrow!

Visiting Vermont

Why Vermont? That's where my daughter lives right now. I travelled all day Thursday (4 planes and 14 hours) to get here and spent today hanging around the farm. Katie had to work for a few hours this morning so her landlord, Carl, showed me around the place. The road runs through the property.  The barn and arena are on one side and the houses are on the other. The property goes to the river that is at the base of the hill in the background. The forest on the hills on both sides of the property is National Forest.

This is the house where Katie and Kurtis live. The entrance on the right is a common entrance way. Katie and Kurtis live in the house on the left side and Carl and Leslie live in the back, and have an office on the right, but it is all attached somehow. Everyone shares chores and I don't think Katie could have found a nicer living situation.

I took this photo of the bed I'm using because that is the blanket that I made for Katie after Christmas. I used a lot of my mom's handspun yarn to weave it. I was unhappy with the size and the "ruffly" edges after fulling, but it works great on this bed and is quite soft.

Libby will follow Katie anywhere. I think Libby might even remember me.

Tomorrow we're off to the Shelburne Museum.

Celebrating 25 years

This is our 25th anniversary. (Chris said "that's longer than I've been alive!...oh, yea.) We decided to spend the day doing something beside working here. We headed west to see the Pt. Reyes Lighthouse at the Pt. Reyes National Seashore. It turns out that the lighthouse is closed on Tuesdays, but it was a beautiful day at the coast anyway. The only thing we missed was walking down (and up) the 300 stairs to the lighthouse.

The signs say that this is the "windiest point on the American Pacific coast" with winds regularly at 40 mph and reaching 100 mph. It is also often foggy in the summer. We lucked out. This was one of the nicest days that I've ever had on the coast.

That's the Farallon Islands in the distance, about 20 miles from Pt. Reyes.

There are harbor seals on those rocks.

After visiting the lighthouse (well, the cliffs above the lighthouse), we drove back through the hills to one of the beach access trails and saw pretty landscape and wildlife on the way.

...and not so wild-life. Within the National Seashore there are several working dairies with signs that say the ranches were established in the 1850-s to 1870's. We were thinking that it would have been a long way to haul milk to San Francisco unless there was boat transport across the bay.

There are 10 miles of beach in this stretch.

I took a lot of photos of waves--maybe not National Geographic quality, but the color is pretty nice.

To another 25 years!

CA State Fair Wrap-up

I have just spent an hour trying to upload photos to Flickr so that it would be easy to share a lot of photos. Every time I do it then I get a message that says I'm deleting the album. Grrrr. So I'll post a few here now and maybe more later.

Shelby, Mary, and Dona helped on show day. Shelby helped clean up and show sheep, Mary held down the fort at the display/sheep area, and Dona took photos.

Dan is showing Meridian Granite and I have Sweetgrass Clint in the Yearling Ram Class.

Here is what the rest of the class was like. Shetlands, Jacobs, and St. Croix (hair sheep). The Shetland at the front of the line in this photo won the class and, ultimately, Champion Ram of the Primitive Breeds Show. Granite was second in this class and Clint was 5th.

My entries in the ram lamb class.

Vickie and Hot Lips in the Yearling Ewe class.

Leaving Shelby with three sheep while Dan and I got two more for the Flock class.

That's Granite on the right, two yearling ewes, and two ewe lambs. We didn't shine in these classes, mostly placing in the middle. That's a little disappointing, but we always tell people new to showing that it doesn't really matter what the judge says. Many judges aren't that familiar with Jacob sheep and it seems pretty hard to judge this kind of class anyway. On the other hand, if you win, you certainly tell all!

This is a view of the sheep pens...

...and the display area.

Notice the ribbons here. This is what I work hard to get. I have been trying for 4 years to win the Open Sheep Marketing Award. I got 2nd this year again (although placed over last year's winner), but was awarded Best Program, Best Educational Presentation (Sheep Herdsman), and 2nd in Best Educational Presentation over the whole 3 weeks of the fair (including all the species shown). So I'm pleased with this and there is always next year to get to #1. Farm Club, are you ready?

State Fair - Day 1 for sheep

We left only 1/2 hour behind schedule this morning to get the sheep and the exhibit to the CA State Fair.  I figured that was not bad after about 4 1/2 hours of sleep! I went to the fair with much more of a plan than I usually have so I thought that set up would be easy. No! My 8' x 2.5 sign needed better support than I had planned. Space was a bit different so I had more to fill . I left out some of the elements that I had planned to use because it was starting to look cluttered.

Thank goodness I have such wonderful friends who will help. Too bad that I don't have photos of them but we were too busy to stop for photos. Thanks to Jackie, Chris, Mary, Dona, and Rick!!! And thanks to Tina and Alison for the design help!

Here is a young fair-goer drawing in the spots and horns on a sheep drawing we provided.

Faulkner goes to the doctor

Faulkner, my new Blue-Faced Leicester ram, had a large swelling (about the size of a grapefruit and with no visible injury) behind his rib cage. I noticed it on the weekend and my veterinarian looked at him on Monday. The vet thought that she could feel an opening in the muscle tissue and recommended that I take him to the UC Davis VMTH to surgically repair it. Sure enough, there was a 2" opening that required a much larger opening by the time it was done.

So what could cause this hernia? My vet and I had a talk about what she calls "veterinary practice builders", one of which could be this:

Hudson and Faulkner have not been fighting, but it is my vet's opinion that just a quick toss of this head could cause damage to someone else.  Most of my other 4-horn rams have had curved top horns so I wonder if injuries are more common when a ram has a set of spears on his head.

More ram photos

I am still trying for those ram photos.

This is Granite.

Clint is still on the run.

The ram lambs that were born at the end of March are finally getting old enough to evaluate them with a little more confidence. I think it's too hard to tell much about them before 3 months old. Now I can see the width of the horns on the two horn rams. This guy seems to have a nice wide horn spread. I'd prefer that he didn't have white feet.

Here is another with a wide horn spread. If you don't start with a wide horn spread at this age, very often the horns grow too tight near the jaw as the ram gets to be a year or two.

This lamb is turning out very nice and I may keep him. He is the last lamb born this year, the son of Clint and one of last year's ewe lambs. He is a four-horn ram with good horn spacing, nice wool and some leg markings.

Spinning on the Farm

I spent yesterday at Spinning on the Farm, an event hosted by the Sonoma County Fiber Trails. Beautiful location, great weather, fun people. It's hard to know what to take to an event like this. It's only one day and it takes a lot of time to take apart my whole shop, box it all up, load it, set up the booth, take it all down, load the trailer again, put it all back in the shop. Is it worth taking it all? I find that there is usually no one big seller and I usually sell a little of everything so that's what I take.

Isn't that a beautiful backdrop for a booth? I brought dyed Merino roving, silk/merino fiber and scarf kits, latchhook pillow kits, notecards, and books...

...WoolPets felt kits, Thomas Joseph notecards and buttons, and spinning tools...

...wool socks...

...yarn...and much more.

Spinners get their gear  to and from the parking lot by tractor hay-ride.

What group of spinners gets together without thinking of food? As always, the potluck was delicious.

Spinners spend the day spinning, knitting, eating, visiting, and shopping in this beautiful setting above the Russian River.

Silk Challenge-Part 2

When I have new fibers or yarns and am trying to figure out how to use them my first step is to sample. Sometimes this is a full-sized sample. For instance I go ahead and weave a blanket or a scarf, etc and learn as I go how the yarns work together and decide if I like it or if I should change something next time. The silk challenge poses a different problem for me. I don't have any idea of how these yarns will work and I don't really have an end project in mind although a scarf is one idea. By the way, the responses to the last blog were good ideas

• color and weave effect
• accent colors on woven sheep as in  some very cool sheep paintings that Dona sent
• fabric for the "squares jacket" that Diane brought to WWW

So my first step was to wind a narrow warp and experiment with weft. I started with the heavier red silk yarn at 6 epi.  I used the sari silk yarn, silk rags and bamboo yarn in various combinations of fiber and weave structure. Interesting but nothing jumps out at me.

My next sample was to use the sari silk yarn for warp. I was hesitant about this because it is so "hairy" I thought that it might not work well as the warp. At 6 epi it worked fine in this narrow sample and I like the results better than the first warp. I will have to evaluate all these different sections as to drape, durability, etc and decide where to go with this project.

These are the samples. One thing that I don't necessarily like about using the silk strips is that the colors become blocky--weaving 3-4 inches of each color. If I wove a wider piece that wouldn't be as much of an issue but it will be in a narrow scarf.

In this sample I alternated colored strips so that one color blends into the next. I also beat more tightly. This wouldn't be very good for a scarf but would be a great jacket or mat.

I like this part. I alternated the strips with the sari silk in a twill. This is beat more loosely so there is better drape, but it could be considered sleazy if the fabric was to be used for something that needed firmness.

Another use for my new MacBook

When you turn on the Photo Booth your computer becomes a mirror. That's good because I usually forget to comb my hair.

Learning curve

I have a new computer! Yippee! I've been thinking about this for a year. I debated desktop vs. laptop. Laptop won. I debated PC vs Mac. At first I decided that I had to stay with the PC but Mac eventually won out. I'm having a good time with it, but I don't have any of my "work" on it yet. No Quickbooks. No Office. I have been playing with photos, but still don't know how to resize them to put them here. If I figure it out before this post is done there will be a photo. If not, I'll wait until I visit my DIL who is going to help me or I go to the class at the Apple store.

Farm Club Comes Through Again

I sent an e-mail Friday  to the Farm Club  in which I said I was going to vaccinate lambs today and did anyone want to help? Dona and Tina were already planning on being here for a spinning class in the morning so they said that they would stay. Jacki, Shelby, and Allison came too.  Wow! What great response with only 24 hours' notice. I bought a new tool. For years I have been vaccinating with single dose syringes. That means that you have to reload the syringe each time you give an injection.

I just never thought about doing it differently, but I was at Higby's Country Feed Store (my favorite store) and saw this syringe. There is a bit of a learning curve (remember to tighten needle, make sure you depress the handle part all the way, don't drop because the barrel is glass--OOPS!), but what a huge difference it will make after I replace the glass part that broke about a third of the way into the job.

I appreciate all the Farm Club members (who are now friends) who show up for projects like this. Shelby manned the camera, as well as caught lambs and played with the loose chicken.

Alison, Jackie, Tina, and Dona all helped catch and mark lambs and...

fill syringes (after the unfortunate incident with the new one).

Shelby took the following portraits.

After vaccinating I let all the sheep out but then needed to catch one more lamb.

So Rusty had a chance to get involved also.

Thanks to all of you for helping. Wait until you hear about the next unscheduled Farm Day. I think it's coming up soon.

Custom weaving projects

Here's a look at what I am doing in the weaving studio.

These are the yarns for a wedding shawl for a friend's daughter. This will be a random mixed warp in a lacy light weight shawl.

My son's girlfriend chose these colors for her chenille scarf.

Llama rug that I finally got off the loom awhile ago. I think that most people don't usually wash rugs, but it still has a llama smell so I plan to wash it. I've been waiting for a hot day so it will dry outside.

This is the roll of 3 full-sized blankets woven in double width broken twill. I have cut them off the loom and now need to crochet edges on all of them.

My Spring Vacation--Part 1

My husband is a teacher so we can plan a vacation during his spring break and before my son goes off to work on the USFS hotshot fire crew.  Chris held down the fort here  (with 12 lambs born) while we were gone. Meet the Sheep was Saturday and I didn't have time to prepare for this trip until Sunday.  We packed Sunday morning and headed south. The only plan we had was to get to Hoover Dam for a tour on Monday.

Driving on I-15 east of Tehachapi. We got to Las Vegas at midnight and spent the night there. The next morning we drove to Hoover Dam.

This is a view of the new bridge just below the dam. All the cross-country traffic used to have to follow a winding, tourist-packed road that crossed the dam. That must have been a nightmare for truck-drivers and anyone else that just wanted to get to where they were going.

Here is the dam from the bridge. We took a tour inside the dam. Hopefully some of my videos will come out well, but I haven't even downloaded them to the computer yet.

After sleeping in the Explorer that night (note to self--get an air mattress. The 20 year old foam pad doesn't work anymore) we spent the day at the Grand Canyon. My photography  left something to be desired, but it was just not possible for me to capture the Grand part of the Grand Canyon.  We chose the Kaibab trail and hiked about 3.5 miles into the canyon.

Another few miles would have taken us to the bottom but had not planned an overnight trip and didn't think it would be smart to try it in a day.

If we had the help of mules we could have done it, although even the mules are making overnight stops in the bottom.

See that zig-zaggy trail going up the wall. That's the last leg of the hike back up.

Leaving the canyon late in the day and looking west toward the setting sun.

Stay tuned for Part 2.

Lambs!

Here are the first lambs (except for the unexpected twins last month from a ewe that was bred when I got her).

Posting these photos makes me think of the contrast in my lambing set-up and that of other sheep farmers. My ewes have it pretty easy. When the weather is wet and cold and windy they are able to be in the barn.  My heart goes out to those farmers and their flocks who have to battle the elements. Yesterday I spent time in the driving rain cleaning out the ditches and diverting water away from the barn, but nothing was really that serious. When we had a dairy I always hated winter weather because it was just not possible to get all of the cows out of the mud and rain.  I'm hoping for  milder spring weather soon!

Lift kit for a computer

If you're a teen-age boy or anyone I guess who likes big trucks and car stuff then you'll know what it means to lift a truck (as opposed to the way Superman does it). After a couple of weeks of tax preparation at my computer my back was bothering me. Having had two back surgeries because of sciatica I am very nervous when I have any issues with my back or hip. It's the sitting that causes problems. A lot of times I'd rather be standing.  I said something about needing one of those fancy desks that rise when you push a button. Here's my husband's solution.

Hey, it works! I'm standing right now and I have a bar stool chair if I do want to sit.

Yesterday I went to a class sponsored by the Small Business Development Center. I am going to another tonight on Web Marketing. They offer a variety of classes and also have counseling services for business issues. I found out that there is even someone who will help me get Quickbooks cleaned up! I am so glad to have found this resource. I only hope that they aren't wiped out by the state's financial mess.