Fall Farm Day

Today was a perfect day for the Farm Club (see link on the right).   Sunny, but not hot, no wind.  Five people came to spend the day on the farm. We worked in the morning and played in the afternoon. I had sorted out the spring lambs from the adult ewes. We separated the rams--they're done for the year. We treated all the ewe lambs, replaced ear tags (remove baby lamb tags and replace with larger, easier-to-read tags), and took photos of the few lambs that I have not yet registered. We also vaccinated the 2-month old lambs. It was great having help with all of this.

We sent Rusty out to get the second group of sheep:

After we finished with sheep chores we moved on to a few others.

Jill and Jackie sorted out this electro-net fence that had been tangled.

Kathy swept the barn.

Then it was time for lunch and relaxing. I appreciated the help with farm chores and enjoyed the company. I look forward to Farm Day in the spring.

The fox and the hare

No, this isn't a fairy tale.  It's more needle felting! My friend, Claire (see Kerfuffle blog to the right for entertaining reading), and her friend, JoAnn, came by this morning. The first things that caught their eyes were all the felt kits. I wanted to finish another hummingbird so they each picked out a kit and we went to work. Here are the results:

Claire created the red fox (still needs eyes)  and JoAnn felted the bunny.

I felted this hummingbird and finished the bluebird I had felted previously.

Here is the complete ecosystem. Hmmm. I guess that's a vulture size hummingbird in the fox's world!

Following the visit and felting party I held WWW--the weekly Weaving Workshop. My friends surprised me with a birthday party! They brought cupcakes and drinks and a singing balloon. I am grateful to have good friends! I have a cute photo of Chris dancing to the balloon music, but I won't post it without permission!

Chenille scarves

I have been working on scarves for a few weeks.  I'm designing scarves for Cotton Clouds kits as well as weaving for holiday sales.

This is a scarf woven from all the cones in a recent chenille delivery. I used each color twice with 6-thread stripes.

This scarf was designed after someone in my Weekly Weaving Workshop class asked how to weave a scarf with pure colors in two stripes. The next scarf is on the same warp, but you can see the dark weft crossing the light weft.

I had a hard time taking photos of this scarf. I need to try again. This warp has black yarn alternating with odds and ends of green and variegated yarns. See the table below. If there is 3 yards left of a color I have kept it knowing that it would be enough for a scarf warp. So the scarf in the photo uses the greens. I have a few more scarf warps to create from the cones below.

1, 2, 3...504

504=Number of bales of alfalfa to move into the barn last weekend. At 30.55 tons that's about 120 lbs/bale. I finally got my hay. I looked at hay and committed to a truckload 2 months ago. But even though I tried, I couldn't seem to get delivery during the summer, when we would have had time to move it into the barn over a period of weeks. I got a call Friday night that said the hay would be here Saturday morning.

I had planned to go hiking with my son, Chris, near Redding, but I called and asked if he would change plans. I am grateful to Chris  (and my husband, Dan) for spending Saturday afternoon moving hay. And I am most grateful that they were both cheerful about it. What a nice feeling when no one is grumpy and complaining.

This photo doesn't do the hay stack justice. There are 6 stacks on the right that need to be put in the barn. The squeeze dropped one stack on the left and there is another stack not in the photo.

This is from inside the barn looking out.

Notice the hay in the stall with the door. That stall is completely filled and then we fill the adjacent stall (with no front wall) and the one across the aisle. We also end up with 2 pallets-width in the aisle of the barn and more hay at the other end.

After the first 6 stacks had been put in the barn then we could get into the barn with the tractor,  so Dan picked up a lot of the stack that had been spilled. Looks easier, at least for Dan.

Dan has "teacher hands" now and even through gloves they took a beating. Chris' hands are a little tougher since he's been fire fighting all summer.

Sunset.

My first needle felting

I have two friends who do needle felting, but until recently I hadn't tried. Do a I really need another project to finish? When I shared a booth with Shannon (see link for Kenleigh Acres at right) at OFFF I was intrigued by some kits that she was selling. I am now carrying these in my shop because I think they are so cute.  Here is my first attempt at 3-D needle felting:

I was amazed at how easy this is--not that it is easy to master completely, but the whole process is easy to learn. And it's amazing how you can "sculpt" the wool to shape it and add detail. I think I'm hooked.

So while I sat at the Farmers Market this morning for 4 hours I made two friends for my first bunny:

If you don't look too closely you won't realize that the next two bunnies might have turned into sheep before they got the long ears.

I have these kits on my website now, although I don't have the write-ups complete. But you can see the variety of kits there are. What is cool is that once you have learned to do one of them you realize that you can really make anything you want to!

Pretty faces

I was taking photos to try and get a good one for an ad.

Gem

Janelle

Moon

Zelda

Dazzle

Prancer

Zip

Babe

Fanny

These Meridian ewes are all with Kenleigh's Savor. He's just a little guy but has been doing the job.

Last, but not least, Amaryllis.

Can you see the scarves?

I just got this order of rayon chenille. I can't wait to start weaving these! The first warp will be one in which I use all of these together! Just wait and see.

Starring in a music video & what to do when it rains.

I am not the music video star, but some of my sheep are. A young woman, Shannon, who lives in town contacted me when she was looking for a location to film a nativity scene for a music video she wants to produce.  It sounded kind of fun so I said she could use my place.  The filming date was last Sunday .  Shannon's friends and family members were the actors and actresses and I was livestock wrangler.

My ram pen was the perfect set--nothing in the shot that looked modern. None of these kids had any livestock experience, but they all did great.

Violet is the starring ewe and she played her part well, standing patiently while Shannon filmed close-ups. The goat kids were a little more difficult--eating the bedding in the manger, the robes, etc. We substituted one goat kid for another part way through.

One of Shannon's friends has a three-month old baby who was used in most of the shots, but this is the baby stunt double.

After filming in the barn, the shepherds went out to the pasture to get footage with the sheep and the donkey.

The weekend weather was great, but on Tuesday that changed. We had 5.25" of rain on Tuesday with high winds. That was the date scheduled for a meeting of a group of weaving friends known as Yolo Weavers. We had already planned to meet at my place and make paper. It turns out that paper-making was just the thing to take our minds off the nasty weather.

This is a pile of paper scraps.

This is that pile of paper in a blender.

Here is the resulting paper. The yarn in the first photo creates the texture in this paper.

This is another of my creations. Notice the glitzy fiber in it!

And here are the two girls (middle), daughters of a spinning friend, who taught us to make paper.

Two busy weekends

I spent the last two days in Placerville teaching Weave a V-Shawl to the Hangtown Fiber Guild. Here are the results:

Ladies,  please turn around.

These are the warps for shawls not quite finished:

Quite a variety of shawls!

Last weekend was Lambtown in Dixon, CA. The fiber building was so busy that I barely got outside to snap a few photos. The sheep-to-shawl contest was one of the most popular events. Teams come with looms already warped and they need to prepare and spin the yarn and weave the shawls during the contest. This year the fiber for the weft was Jacob wool from my flock. It got great reviews from the spinners.  Here is the winning shawl woven by the Silverado Guild from Napa:

And a close-up:

The Del Oro Guild got second place:

I didn't get photos of the other shawls, but I did get one of Hangtown Guild's portrayal of their theme of  "Au Naturel":

There is a new use for all that roving that you don't have time to spin! Hangtown always does it with a sense of humor!

One last photo taken at Lambtown:

Do I want to swap out my sheep for a flock of these  cuties? Hmmm...what is a group of chincillas called? Covey--no, that's quail. Warren--isn't that where rabbits live? Crowd? How about Cloud?

OFFF

It's been a week now since I went to the Oregon Flock & Fiber Festival with two friends, Chris and Diane. I didn't take as many photos as I thought I had--or at least they didn't turn out that great, but here are a few. When Shannon of Kenleigh Fiber Studio asked if I wanted to share her booth I liked the idea, but I really didn't want to drive the whole way myself. I wanted to drive straight through and I didn't know if my back would let me do that. Diane and Chris were game, so we had a great road trip.

We left shortly after 6 a.m. on Friday. First stop:

Coffee for Diane.

We took turns driving. It's my turn in the back seat. You can't see the speedometer in this shot, but Chris and Diane made pretty good time!

As it turns out, Shannon and I probably could have each filled a booth. We did a pretty good job of cramming everything into one booth. Shannon raises jacob sheep also and does fabulous needle felting. Her sister makes goat milk soap and lotion which we also had in the booth.

These are a couple of Shannon's felt bags which sold out. The Festival was packed with people and there were 150 vendors!

Diane did her part to support the vendors!

It was a great weekend and I wouldn't mind doing it again. Read more about the event on Shannon's blog--click on Kenleigh Acres  on the right.

Next event: St. Helena Farmer's Market in the morning and then Lambtown!

Sky

I took this photo  earlier this week after we'd had a little rain. It was only 1/4" but everything felt so fresh and clean.

I think I'm ready for summer to be over--at least the hot weather. But we're going to have at least another few days of  triple digits.

Open House

The Open House was Saturday and the threatening rain had me worried. The clouds and wind actually were a huge relief from the heat we've been having and there were only a few drops of rain. Here are some photos:

Cute kids and cute lamb. Note Rusty's involvement.

And here are cute cookies provided by my friend Jackie. Can you tell they are Jacob sheep (without horns)?

This is what my shop looks like now.

State Fair is over for the year

I sure like the blogs that have lots of photos. I hope you do, because I don't have time to write much. First up--Everyone is invited to my Grand Re-Opening this Saturday, September 12, from 10-3. I hope people will bring wheels and knitting and spend a few hours relaxing under the trees.

I have a lot of fair photos to sort through. Here are a few. Dylan Duncan (Genesis Farms) helped me with the sheep show. I'm grateful to him. My husband was sick and couldn't come to the fair--he didn't want to show anyway, but would have been the photographer. Instead, Dylan's mom, Diana, helped out with the camera.

This is Dylan and me showing Rubicon and Moonshine in the yearling ram class. Rubicon was second to the St. Croix ram which ultimately won Grand Champion of the Primitive & American Breeds Divison. Four breeds were represented--St. Croix, Jacob, Tunis, and Shetland.

Dylan's dad, Darryl, stepped in to help show in the Flock class.

There are no blue ribbons in here. The Tunis sheep are included in this division and they got all the first and seconds in the classes they entered. I got most of the 3rds after the Tunis and the second places in the group classes.

But the real contest for me was in the display area. The Fair offers a substantial prize for the Marketing Display. Here's part of my exhibit.

A friend, Joan, helped out tremendously by spinning all day on Sunday and Monday. We had huge crowds most of the day and I sure got tired of talking. I demonstrated weaving while Joan spun.

Here are the final awards. I'm third AGAIN in the overall Marketing award. However I did get the Herdsman award for 9 head or under. I also got Best Display Directed at the General Public (or something like that) and Most Creative. Those are the maroon ribbons.

A friend came by with her knitted felted purse. That is her flock and the sheepdog coming in on the left is my dog's mom.

More fair photos will follow, but not now.

The newest lambs and the newest weavers

It's hard to take photos when sheep are in pens. This is Mary who lambed last week at the CA State Fair Nursery. She has triplet ewes. Madeline is next to her and lambed a couple of days ago, also with triplet ewes! They are quite the crowd-pleasers.

The sheep show is this weekend.  I'm there with 8 sheep (not counting the sheep in the Nursery) and a big display. Today I took one of my portable rigid heddle looms to work on. Some of the girls who were there with their family's sheep flocks were hanging around and watching me weave. After I finished a scarf I told them that they could all try it. I finally decided to just let them weave one. Three girls traded off and finished a scarf. We warped the loom again for another and tomorrow I'm going to take another loom and a basket full of yarn. I'll let them keep weaving as long as they want to. Another great crowd pleaser!

These are 2nd to 5th graders. I got them started and they're doing great!

They're tying the fringe here.

These girls sure make it look easy. Maybe they can sell looms for me.!

More Color

Saturday was Fiber Frolic at Meridian Jacobs. Colleen Simon (friend down the road) put this on and each teach two classes. Participants get to pick from two classes in the morning and two in the afternoon and lunch is provided. In the morning Colleen taught minature sock knitting--it is the same as regular sock knitting, but many fewer stitches. While she was inside I was outside with the dyeing group. Good thing that this class was in the morning because the high temperature that day was 107!

Look at the fiber and yarn that we dyed!

We all went inside for the afternoon. I taught a Novelty Yarn class while Colleen taught Needlefelting.  These are the butterflies that students made:

On the weaving front--I finally finished a batch of baby blankets. Here is what they look like when they come off the loom:

Not too impressive, huh? That's 18 blankets. Here are some that are finished and ready for sale:

I have sold 6 of the 18 blankets already so I'd better get busy with another warp!

The State Fair is going to get in the way of that though! That is coming up this weekend and I am still working on my display.

What's for Breakfast?

I moved the sheep to a new section of pasture this morning.

They immediately buried their heads. This is like a salad bar for the sheep--something for everyone. In the photo below you can see clover, trefoil (yellow flower), Dallis grass (broad-leaf grass), yellow foxtail (that grass with the foxtail-looking head), bermudagrass, dock, and other plants.

Some of these plants make summer grazing tough. The bermuda and yellow foxtail are late summer grasses and take over the pasture, crowding more desirable plants.  The sheep choose to eat the plants they like and leave the less desirable ones.That's why, to graze properly, you put more livestock on a small area and move them frequently. When the sheep are in a small area they eat even  the less palatable plants while eating the ones they really like. Then you move them to the next area. This also helps with control of internal parasites.

Dallis grass has been a problem too. It is a perennial grass that originated in South America and can be a good pasture grass if grazed properly. If I can't keep it grazed low it gets so tall and coarse that the sheep won't touch it. Then it takes over and nothing else can grow. If you go back to older posts in the blog you'll see where last year at this time I was doing everything I could think of to get the sheep to eat the thick stand of dallis grass. In the spring we finally burned it.

So what did I see in the salad bar pasture this morning?

Amaryllis went right for the yellow foxtail! Nobody else eats that.

Here is another undesirable plant. This grass is medusahead. It is an annual grass that grows in dry areas and has these nasty seed heads. Sheep don't want to eat it even when it is still green. The medusahead started growing in this side of the pasture when I couldn't get irrigation water to this area. The last few times I irrigated I have been more successful at getting water here so that's why it's green underneath. I hope that if I'm successful at irrigating this area next year the medusahead won't be able to take over.

But look who is eating it!

So what are the sheep eating?

This is Della with her mouth full of dallis grass. (That's the dallis grass seed head in the foreground.)

Ebony is eating trefoil and dock.

Linda is eating dallis grass.

The goat, Chloe, is eating trefoil and...

Jasmine is eating dallis grass.

One way to join me in a "pasture-walk" and photo shoot is to join the Farm Club and spend some time here. It's on my website--see the link on the right.

Colorful Evening

Spinners Night Out (SNO) was tonight. Some people spun, but others played with my rope machine. Look at what we did:

This colorful doll was made from lots of leftovers and she gained some "hair" after our ropemaking.

State Fair Nursery

I delivered Mary (4-horn) and Madeline (2-horn) to the State Fair Nursery this morning. They are both due on September 2 with twins and triplets. They will entertain thousands of visitors that go through the Nursery run by the UC Davis vet school. The sheep for the show don't go in until Labor Day weekend.

Weaving odds & ends

I won't say that I'm catching up with my things-to-weave list, but I'm plugging away at it. I have sold about half of the baby blankets on the PURPLE warp.

but have enough left to put some on the website and maybe resurrect my etsy listings too. I have a new baby blanket warp on the loom ready to thread. Not everyone wants a purple blanket for a baby gift and that's all I have right now!

Here's a full-size blanket that I finally finished for a customer using her yarn.

This is a blanket for another customer who sent me her Jacob wool.

And here's a funky bag. I'm experimenting with felting up some odds and ends of wool fabric to create bags. I think they'll get better as I perfect it.

I have taught a couple of weaving classes in the last few weeks as well. Here are the participants and their scarves:

It's sure nice now that I have room in my shop to have 5 people weaving at once!

More fun

We went back for the second day of sheepdog trials and Rusty won first in the Started division!