Inverness

The Fibershed Wool Symposium was last weekend in Pt. Reyes Station. This is one of my favorite events of the year but this year it was more special because I spent the night in nearby Inverness with other Fibershed friends and we had our second Northern CA Fibershed Coop Board meeting on Sunday. Following the meeting four of us went on an impromptu hike on Inverness Ridge.             This local church was booked for any of the Fibershed group who wanted to spend the night after the long day at the Symposium.

                 It is a great place to stay for anyone traveling in that area.                        This was originally a house that was purchased from the Frick family in 1950 and turned into a church. There is a fascinating multi-level maze of rooms and halls and stairways. This view looks down from the third floor on what was originally the family's living room.

                  I love this dining area, partly because the table is of the same era (at least from looking at some of it's features) as the table that my mom bought and we still use, although this one is in much better shape than ours.

                  I stayed in this bedroom with five other women. There are several bedrooms with different numbers of beds. I think the place can accommodate 36 people.           When I got up on Sunday morning I decided to take a walk before our meeting and headed up a road I found behind the church.                  This is my kind of Sunday morning.

             The road I found led me back down to the main road and Tomales Bay.

It was after our meeting ended at about 1 that four of us set of for a hiking trail.

                                                     It is great when you find open space accessible to the public.

      Rebecca pointed out huckleberries which were still on the bushes, although the normal harvest season was over. I wouldn't have known and would have avoided these unknown berries.

  Stephanie (wearing her handknit Jacob sweater) ate her share as did the rest of us.

            This is a much wetter area than where I usually find myself and there were still signs of the previous night's rain.        Another testament to the dampness were the large slugs that we saw.             The view overlooking Tomales Bay. What a beautiful day we had!               As we were coming back down from the ridge that has a view of the ocean, another hiker   coming up the hill saw our silhouettes and offered to take our photo. This is the view that she saw.

What a great end to an inspiring weekend!

Ginny Herding Sheep

Ginny went to a Sheepherding lesson last week and wanted me to explain these pictures to you.              Sheepdog Debbie sent her out to gather up the sheep.         Debbie's sheep are pretty dog-broke because they are used to being moved by dogs.               So for a Border Collie like Ginny (or me) it's not very hard to get them to move.                There were a couple who didn't want to play the game though.

            Ginny moved the sheep toward the gate...          ...and held them there while Sheepdog Debbie sorted a few out into the other field.            This is a pet sheep who is one of the ones who was standing near Debbie.

         Ginny looks pretty good here.

                  I think that I should go back to Sheepdog Debbie's place and get to work with her sheep. They don't have those nasty horns like ours do.

Loom With A View

I wrote two blog posts about setting up this show but then I moved on to other things. Now I'm getting to the show itself. I'm not thrilled with the photos I have taken at the Artery, but I am thrilled about the show and want to share it.                As I said in one of the previous posts this theme started with the idea of using the old windows that were around here. As you enter the gallery you see the title and the Artist's Statement. If you want to read that click here.

             This is the wall to the right...          ...and these are some of the sheep.

                                                          More sheep.

   Continuing around the gallery there is this collection of photos. I used two of these six-pane windows to display photos and give a feel for the farm. These are not for sale because they are too rotten (people have asked) but some of the photos have been matted or framed and are for sale.

            This is the Solano Colors wall and the yarns are the 2017 locally grown yarns that are on my website. Don't they take natural color beautifully? There are three examples of the natural dyestuffs--black walnuts, weeping willow leaves, and dried coreopsis flowers.

                                                                 If you look at the previous photo again you'll see that the shawls and the yarn are hanging on what looks like bamboo. I decided to use the Arundo (an invasive species that grows on our north border and had big hollow stalks like bamboo) for hanging the pieces in the show. It was in keeping with the rest of the props (stuff found on the farm), I have an infinite supply of it, I could cut it to any size, and it is free. The perfect solution! Originally I had planned to use the Arundo for weaving, but I just didn't get to it. On the morning I was to set up the show I got up early with a lot on my mind. I got out the loom that I had already warped for this and I wove this piece. It inspires me to do more because I think it is very cool.

                                                        Moving on around the room this is the next grouping. Those scarves were woven on a space-dyed warp that I dyed a few years ago and found in a box on the shelf. Do you see something hanging to the left?

                                                                  I wanted to do something interesting with the weeping willow branches after stripping the leaves for the dye pots. I tried weaving with them but I think I like this mobile best.

              The Sunflower wall is around the corner. These are rayon chenille scarves in the colors of the sunflower field that was Across the Road last summer. I didn't just stick with the yellows and oranges of the flowers but included all the colors of the fields.                                                      Here is a closer view of the flower scarves.

                                                                  In addition to the window pane photo collage, I included this piece that is not for sale. I wove this years ago when we lived and worked on our family dairy.

                                                            This close-up includes my daughter carrying milk buckets, my sheep, and our pony.             Here is another farm photo collection.

            These ponchos and ruanas use the same yarns as the Solano Colors wall, but mostly in natural sheep colors. There are also a couple of handspun Jacob pieces here.

               Close up of a ruana.

             The display in the center of the room is really panels out of my sheep trailer. I used them to hang my blankets and some scarves.

           Here is an overall view of the room...

                     ...and this is the table in the doorway when you come in.  The notebook is for visitors' comments.  I'd love to see your comments as well.

Loom With A View - More Set Up

I just wrote a blog post using Dona's photos of  "The Creative Process"  at the Artery setting up my show. Here are my photos. It was sometime in 2016 (maybe the spring?) that I found out I could have the gallery space for a show in November, 2017. That is perfect timing for any show because of the holiday buying season and even more perfect when your focus is wool. I thought for a long time about what I wanted to do. I knew that it should be different from the show in 2014, "Close to Home--Yarn with a Story". There are sixteen posts about that show, starting with this one.

      Friends (Lisa and Dona?) said "you should use those old windows that are in back". They were thinking that I could weave using the windows as weaving frames. They like that sort of thing. I like it too, but I haven't actually done much of it. My weaving is more functional than decorative--like blankets, shawls, and scarves. I admire things to hang on the wall, but my house has hardly any wall space, and in my world things that hang on the wall just get covered with dust and cobwebs. Still, one point of doing a show is to move outside what is your same-old-stuff.

I had to choose a name for the show. Loom With a View came to mind, and the theme was set.

So eventually (this photo was from May, 2017) I dug out the windows. There were probably a couple dozen in various degrees of repair disrepair. These in the photo were the best. I took that photo after I hosed off the windows, trying to not chip off any more of the glazing and paint than was already gone. I remember sending a text of the photo to my friends and asking "Do you mean these windows? The ones with the dry rot and termites?" "Yes!", they said. I spent the next several months trying to figure out how in the heck I'd use these in a show in an Art Gallery.  (There will be more in future posts about this.)

Wednesday, October 25, 2017. That date was stuck in my head. I had to be Ready. My friends showed up when the gallery opened at 9:30 and we unloaded the truck. All those white cubes were in the gallery from the previous show. The first decision to be made was which cubes to leave for my show. The Artery Display Committee needs to know how many they can use for the other store displays, but the person doing the gallery show gets first choice.

                  I wasn't really sure but narrowed it down to Not Very Many, keeping some of the larger ones.

Organizing by color.

            Half way through the day I needed to get my signs printed for the entry. My friends were going to go get lunch and I asked them to bring back a slice of pizza. They know me well. It  was touching that they brought back my favorite beverage, but saved for special stress-invoking occasions like being at the fair all day.

                                             Lunch break.

               As Dona and Mary left at 5-ish I think they wondered if I'd spend the night there.

I didn't but I did come back on the next day and the next.

        Keeping track of all the pieces in the show by my inventory number and the show number (not the same), entering pieces into the Artery computer, applying barcodes to the tags, applying bar codes to the sales list at the desk, applying sticky numbers to the wall for each piece. I could have used a chocolate milk. I finished up at about 1:30 on Friday.

            This is the display in the front window.

Here is my "Artist's Statement". I don't know if you can read it in the photo. I'll get it on my website at some point.

More photos to come now that the show is installed.

Loom With A View - The Creative Process

I have worked for over a year to prepare for my show at the Artery that is up from now through November 27. Well, maybe I didn't work for a year. I thought about it for a year. I started working on ideas, but went into full production mode only a couple of months ago and then panic mode at the start of October. Once the weaving was finished the show set-up took 2-1/2 days of work with friends helping too. This series of photos were all taken by a good friend, Dona, who has been there from the beginning giving me ideas at the start and there at the bitter end to help with set up. This is her view of the set-up day's Creative Process.

Neither of us took a photo of the completely empty space. These were taken as we unloaded the truck and emptied boxes. The theme for the show "Loom with a View" has started with old windows that were behind the garage. There will be more about that in another post. As I worried about obsessed over how to arrange this show I thought of and dismissed a variety of props from around the farm. It wasn't until the last week that I made some final decisions. The gate with the hangars on it is something another friend didn't want. The tin panels are those that we use for the State Fair display. There are other panels that came out of my sheep trailer, and there are the old window frames, with and without glass.

Without my friends there helping it would have taken twice as long. Alison, Mary, Kathleen and Dona were there all day on Wednesday, Kathleen came back to help on Thursday and I finished up with a one-person-because-its-all-in-my-head labeling and details on Friday.

Things start to go on walls and panels.

Decisions are made.

       Putting up the Solano Colors wall.

     Working on the Sunflower Wall.

I hope you'll check back for the next blog posts to see the evolution of the show and I really hope that you will go to the Artery to see it in person. I am very pleased with how it turned out.

Thanks Dona, for all these photos and for the support.

Donkey Photos

So many blog posts to write now that maybe I'll have time...The show is up at the Artery, Hug a Sheep Day was yesterday, lots of natural dyeing, lots of weaving, trip to Tahoe. But I'll start with Amaryllis because I'm going to the Donkey Welfare Symposium next weekend and they have a photo contest. They asked for "cute" donkey photos and I think they will make up categories for prizes as they go along. Here are some contenders.

"She's at it again."

"Let's pretend we don't notice."

I love this photo but the announcement said 8 x 10 and this is square. I don't know if it matters.

I like this one. I will crop it to remove that sliver of tree on the right.

This is the most recent. I wish that I had a little more of her head in it but it's cute.

What do you think?

Lambtown 2017--Showing Sheep

I wrote a post about teaching and vendoring (a new word?) at Lambtown. Dona send me several photos of our sheep and Farm Club members that I can also share.

Buster had his own pen. The ewes are Cindy and Vanna.

Mary having a conversation with Buster.

Mary and Lisa in the barn.

Sumi, also in the barn. A lot of the Farm Club members were also on the Spinzilla team and were working to increase their yardage spun.

Lisa rode the train back and forth from the barn to the vendor hall.

The sheep show was Sunday afternoon. Yearling rams were up first.

Buster was the only one in his class.

He didn't want to cooperate.

Do I really want to be dancing with a ram.

I think not.

He was better behaved on a halter...

...and especially when tied to the fence after his turn.

This is the rest of the sheep waiting their turns.

Vicki helped with the ram lambs.

We showed against Shetlands in the Primitive Breeds Division.

Doris helped with the yearling ewes.

Everyone was a winner. Thanks!

Lambtown 2017

Lambtown was last weekend. A lot has happened since then--I've been on a little get-away to Lake Tahoe while at the same time there are still terrible fires raging to the west of us. But this post is to share some photos from Lambtown. This is one reason that I looked forward so much to my Lake Tahoe trip. The Lambtown weekend was non-stop and those of you who go to shows as vendors know that it's not just the event, but the time leading up to it and the time trying to get organized afterwards. One vendor described it to someone by saying, "Imagine packing up everything from your living room, loading it into a trailer, setting it up in a new location, two days later taking it all down and loading the trailer, then unloading and setting up your living room again."

The morning of the vendor set-up day I taught a class, "Getting Fancy with the Rigid Heddle Loom".

This is the booth, taken by Dona the next day. The wall to the left showcases the yarn that I've been dyeing for the last couple of months along with some of the finished pieces.

This is some of that yarn. I'm still amazed that the peachy looking yarn is the second batch through the coreopsis pot that produced that rust colored yarn next to it.

I don't have many photos of anything else at Lambtown because I was so busy either in the booth or teaching or at the end of Sunday, in the barn showing sheep.

On the second morning I taught a class called Warping Your Loom at Warp Speed. I didn't want to teach longer than an hour Saturday morning because the point of having a vendor booth is to be there and sell things. In the class showed how I can wind a 5-yard chenille warp, get it on the loom and ready to weave in a short time. At home I can do it in 50 minutes. In this case it was about an hour and a quarter and I hadn't tied it on to the front bar. But I had been talking and teaching through that time. I think that wasn't bad. The one thing that I forgot to bring (after remembering at 11:30 the night before that I should have packed the warping frame) were the ties to secure the warp chain. I used up what extra thread was around and then someone pointed out that I had baling twine hanging out of my pocket. That worked.

I had also brought a few things to enter in the fiber arts show. That is one of the ponchos that will be in the Artery show.

Sunday morning I brought a sign for Buster's pen.

Then I taught a three-hour class on learning to use the rigid heddle room and learning to work with rags (fabric strips) at the same time. 

It's fun to see how the fabric looks when it is cut and woven.

Don't you love how this fabric works up in a woven piece?

I'll do another post about the sheep show.

Breeding Season Starts

October 1 - breeding season starts. Count 148 days more or less and there will be lambs. I know where I'll be February 26. Farm Club came to help sort sheep.

There were four breeding groups to sort--ewes that would go to three Jacob rams and Peyton, the BFL. There is also a non-breeding group. I juggled which ewe lambs to not breed--I want to have some to show next spring (maybe take to MSWF to sell?) and to show at State Fair. I debated which ewes to put with Peyton. Obviously those won't produce purebred Jacob lambs, but the crossbred lambs grow fast and are valuable for market lambs. 

We got the rams out and trimmed their feet.

We got the marking harnesses ready. I use the same color in all of the harnesses. The breeding groups are all in separate places so I'm not trying to sort which ram bred which ewes. If they were all together I'd have fighting rams and still wouldn't know the sires because there would be multiple breedings. I will change the color in about two weeks. Then I'll know that all the blue marks are from the first two weeks of breeding and if the ewes are marked with the next color they were bred in the next two weeks.

This is ewe lamb, Hollyhock. The dirty face and dirty wool is a result of the tall dallisgrass that is now sticky. As a result the sheep are covered with dirt and with dallisgrass seeds.

I this opportunity to take close-up photos of the ewe lambs that I need to register.

Here is the main event. Rams working working overtime with their mouths open and tongues out. Uh, Peyton, that's a wether.

The ewes that are in heat will hang around the ram. Sheena and Shelby were the two who were interested in Catalyst. If Catalyst showed interest in one the other started beating him up.

This gives new meaning to Fall Colors.

More Farm Views

I have dozens of blog posts in my head and I'm determined to catch up with them.

Look back at the post before this one to see the dallisgrass in the paddock where I put the sheep a couple of days ago. There comes a point after they have grazed it for five days or so when I want to move them. The plants I prefer (clover, trefoil) have been eaten to the round and I know that they will never finish off this grass. Besides, while they are in one paddock the dallisgrass in the next is just growing more. After I move them, then we mow. This is what the paddock looks like after mowing. I'd really like to rake up all that leftover grass and get it off the field, but the only way that happens is if I go out and do it by hand.

This is Trista, also known as the Velcro Sheep.

Do you see why? When she was a lamb she actually got herself stuck in the blackberries. Is this a the sheep way to always have a snack with you?

Cattle egrets in the eucalyptus tree.

Take off.

Amaryllis looking slim(mer).

As I go through this batch of photos, here is another dallisgrass one. This is in the horse pasture (so called because when we had horses that is where they grazed--no horses now).

Yes, there are sheep there.

This is at the end of Dixon Avenue on our way to town. I am amused that someone added a tail. I'll be at this festival in Dixon next weekend. I'm teaching three weaving classes, will have a vendor booth, and will have sheep there for the show.

Last random photo for this post. That's Chris with his unexpectedly large pumpkin!

Keeping Busy on the Farm

I'm keeping busy.

Most of the photos are from yesterday but this was a few days ago. I like this view.

Morning chores. Do you see the grass on this ewe's back? The dallisgrass is tall right now and it's sticky. (From the web: Once dallisgrass seed heads ripen they can be infected with an ergot fungus. Infected seed heads are black and sticky.") It is so strong that it trips me up when I walk and get my feet stuck under it. The sheep are coming in with it draped around their necks. They are dirty because all the dust sticks to the dirt. We'll need rain to get them clean again.

The sheep were going into this paddock on the right. I pulled the net fence out of the dallisgrass and put it back in so that it tipped the other way so hopefully they don't get their horns in the fence.

There is a 3-wire electric fence here that you can barely see. I stomped down the dallisgrass on the side of the paddock they'll be in so that the fenceline is more visible. The only way this fence works when the grass is so tall is that the flock is used to the configuration of the paddocks.

The ewes don't even want to venture in when it's that tall. They walked in and then came back to this part in the lane where they could graze normally.

The rams spend most of their time right now at this fence looking for the ewes. At night there are always a few ewes hanging around here. Tomorrow is the day, boys.

A good contrast of lilac and black and white coloring. Also typical 2-horn and 4-horn contrast. That's Catalyst on the left and Buster on the right.

This photo is from a few days ago. These are yarns I used as the warp for two shawls that I just finished weaving. There will be photos of them after they are washed. These are dyed with weeping willow and hollyhock. 

More recent dyed yarn.  Weeping willow on the left and coreopsis on the right. The three shades are successive runs through the same dyebath. All that color from 8 ounces of flowers!

I set up this pot outside. Eucalyptus getting ready to add yarn.

I am moving onto plans for a sunflower series of chenille scarves for my upcoming show. I finally got to the warp dyeing part.

There will be more photos as I progress with these.

Warp chains--two scarves each.

While I was dyeing yesterday we got a hay delivery. Eighty more bales to go in the barn.

Color inspiration next to my dye table. Redbud leaf. It is incredible what you can see when you look closely.

Ginny in her usual behavior. He's not going to throw it, Ginny.

Fibershed Fashion Show

Saturday was the day of the long-awaited Climate Beneficial Fashion Gala presented by Fibershed. The first year there was a Fashion Show was in 2011. What a long way Fibershed has come since then. There was a second celebration in 2013 but I don't find a blog post about that one. The third fashion show in 2015, Grow Your Jeans, featured jeans grown and sewn in California accessorized with "grassfed" tops. I look forward to these celebrations. I only wish that my photos were better. Intense mid-day sun didn't help and once the event started I was too busy at my booth to take more photos.

This year's fashion show celebrated the production of the cloth grown by sheep on the Bare Ranch in northern California and sold by Lani's Lana.

I was there as a vendor and the first thing to do was to unload the truck and set up my booth.

Other than all the weaving I have been doing (to be seen later) my newest products are wool wreaths. After setting up I took a little time to wander around and see other vendors.

The event was held at Big Mesa Farm in Bolinas. They are an organic farm and also rent 4 "glamping" spaces on hipcamp.com .

While I was wandering around the rest of the venue was being arranged.

Seating for dinner. The tent on the right is where the models changed and the garments were displayed and sold in a silent auction.

Chefs worked in this outdoor kitchen.

Food was set out.

Tables and chairs were arranged in front of the stage.

Models listened to instructions and practiced.

This is where the public entered the venue.

Huston Textile Company in Rancho Cordova wove the cloth that was grown by Lani's sheep.

That's Carol peeking out from behind her leather and felt hats and bags.

Sheepskins.

Wool sponges.

Cotton goods.

There was a natural dyeing demonstration going on.

As the main event started Rebecca welcomed everyone and spoke about the Fibershed concepts.

Lani spoke about her part in this project.

It was getting late (low light) and I was standing in the back, so I did not get good photos of the show itself. This is an enlargement of part of an iPhone photo that shows the shawl that I wove for the show. That shawl features Anderson Ranch yarn dyed with coreopsis and dahlia.

The colors range from rust to gold, the wool is soft, and the piece has fabulous drape. It was sold in the silent auction but I have one that is similar that will be in my show at the Artery in November.

The next Fibershed event is the Wool Symposium in November. That is one of my favorite events each year. If you want to go get your tickets early as this event sells out.

Yellow and Red

Here are some recent Across the Road photos. If I can't have my own 100's of acres then at least I get to pretend by living right across the road from bigger farmland.

Sunflower in the making.

I have some weaving plans to incorporate these colors but haven't had time to get to it.

The tomatoes were harvested last week.

These are canning tomatoes.

This was the aftermath. There were plants at the ends of some rows and at the edges of the field that were toppled over but not harvested.

I gleaned 22 pounds on one walk and picked up black walnuts for dyeing as well.

Tomatoes in one pot and weeping willow leaves in the other.

Road Trip to SD - Day 7 - Golden Spike & Rockets

My Road Trip blog posts keep getting longer and longer. I can't decide which photos to leave out (and believe me, I've left out plenty) so I think each post has had more photos than the last. I know from feedback that at least some of you like the Road Trip posts so maybe you won't give up on this one. This trip has got to end some time because I have lots more blog posts in my head (and my camera) from stuff around here. So rather than break this one into two posts it will just keep on going until it's done. We left off with Day 6 at dark trying to figure out where to stay. We had the map book spread out in the Subway where we had sandwiches for dinner. It was too far to any of the national forest land we were seeing north of Salt Lake City and it was dark by this time. That makes it more difficult to find a spot that is not a designated campground.  I had seen, while perusing the map, the Golden Spike National Historic Site that we thought we'd check out in the morning but still we needed to sleep somewhere. Dan suggested a place off the frontage road where we'd seen climbers on our trip out.

This is what the place looked like in daylight the next morning. Except for the train track next to us and the highway next to that we weren't disturbed. Can you read the sign that I saw the next morning? "Death's Rock."

We took Highway 84 to get around Salt Lake City and north of Brigham City turned west to go to the Golden Spike site.

Before you enter the area near the Visitor's Center there are plenty of places to stop and read the interpretive signs. This was at the first site, looking back east.

I knew generally about the building of the railroad in the 1800's but I never knew or had forgotten the details. By the time of the Civil War there were railroads linking states in the east. It was in 1862 that Congress authorized the Central Pacific Railroad in the west and the Union Pacific Railroad in the east to construct railroads that would meet somewhere in the middle.

The details make a fascinating story, and if you're driving through Utah, this site is definitely worth your time. Before the meeting place of the railroads was finally chosen both companies continued to build grade ahead of where the track was laid. (The graders worked 5 to 20 miles ahead of the tracklaying gang.) The railroad companies were paid per mile depending on the difficulty of the terrain and they were given sections of land. So there was incentive to keep on going. The railroad grades overlapped by 250 miles before Promontory Summit was chosen as the meeting place. This photo shows the site of what is known as the Big Fill.

Here is an enlargement of part of that. This was a ravine to be crossed and the grade could be no steeper than 116 feet per mile. Let your eye follow the slope of the rocks--that marks the ravine. The line of dirt above that is the Big Fill. The Central Pacific built that grade by blasting rock and building up that area. The Union Pacific's solution was to build a trestle and you can see what's left of the rocky abutment on the left and just below the Fill. There are photos of the huge trestle that was built to span the ravine (but used only four times because it wasn't secure enough).

Here Dan is walking on the Central Pacific Grade and you can see the Union Pacific Grade to the left. When you walk on this trail you can use your cell phone at marked stations and hear the information about the points of interest along the way. I find it fascinating that these two crews would have been working this close to each other. And it is so hard to fathom the work involved. Shovels and picks, mule-drawn wagons. Other than using some dynamite, everything else was done by hand. I read that in the Sierra's sometimes they only progressed 8" in a day.

We got to the headquarters just after it opened and went to the Visitor's Center.

There was a display with watches. This is an example of one of those things that never would have occurred to me to wonder about. When did we start worrying about Time?  This is from a sign in one of the displays: "With the completion of the transcontinental railway, marking and maintaining precision time became more important than ever before. Prior to standard railway time, each city and town had it's own time, often connected to "sun time" which was based on the sun's movement across the sky. As rail lines crossed various local standard times, scheduling became increasingly complicated. Timetables and timekeepers, therefore, were essential parts of railroad operations."

This is a view along the track (a replica now) at Promontory Summit...

...and here is where the Golden Spike was symbolically tapped and the final iron spike was driven to complete the railroad. There can be many facets to every story and this is no exception. The material at the Visitors Center (as well as all the others that I've visited) speaks to the ramifications of our (humankind in general, and the White Man in the relatively recent history of the U.S.) relentless desire to control and often exploit our surroundings and each other. The achievement of this feat led to the decimation of the bison herds, destruction of the American Indians' way of life, and "progress". The West was opened up.

On that final day two locomotives met at Promontory Summit. The wood-powered Jupiter came from the West...

...and the coal-powered  No. 119 came from the East.

These engines are fully-functional replicas of the originals made in 1979.

They weren't in operation when we were there because the track was being repaired, but    usually they are taken out during the summer...therefore they need wood and coal to operate them.

We spent some time in the No. 119 talking to the man who operates the engines.

We drove part of the Union Pacific grade, now a road,  when leaving the site.

We made a couple of stops along the way. I didn't take many flower photos on this trip. When you're practicing 70 mph drive-by photography flowers usually aren't the subjects of choice. I did love seeing the wild sunflowers that were everywhere.

Time to head home. The map app showed 10-1/4 hours. Go!

Wait! There was one more stop. From where we first got out to look at the railroad grades you could see what looked like industrial complexes covering the hills to the east. When we got back to the main road and turned north we saw that all the property to the east was part of the Orbital ATK complex. Their website says: "As a global leader in aerospace and defense technologies, Orbital ATK designs, builds and delivers space, defense and aviation-related systems ... Our main products include launch vehicles and related propulsion systems, satellites and associated components..."

There was a Rocket Display outside the headquarters. Each piece was labeled with specs and details of use.

This is the reusable solid rocket motor from the Space Shuttle.

A sign that amused me is the one in red lettering that says "Please do not climb into the nozzle." I guess that wouldn't have occurred to me. The blue sign is shown below.

This one pointed out the railroad grades that we just visited (red for Union Pacific and blue for Central Pacific), site of the Big Fill, Promontory Summit, and the route of the pioneers, all of which were visible from here.

Now it was really time to start for home. These are alfalfa fields in Utah...

...and huge barns to store all that hay.

We had noticed these structures under construction when coming the other direction. I looked this up later and and found that they are overpasses for deer to try and reduce the high number of deer/auto collisions in  this area. They'll be filled in with dirt and vegetation and fences will be put along the freeway to funnel the deer to that area.

Usually when we drive on these trips I don't do much reading or other activity even though I'm not the driver.

I enjoy watching the scenery. That is what a road trip is about. But driving home from Utah on I-80 isn't new anymore. And it's not as fun when you are driving straight through without stops.

I still appreciate this landscape, but I ended this trip reading through much of the travel on this day and I read parts of the book to Dan. I read Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion by Elizabeth Cline. From the cover: “Overdressed does for T-shirts and leggings what Fast Food Nation did for burgers and fries.”—Katha Pollit. I've been immersed in these ideas for a long time with my Fibershed involvement but it was relatively new to Dan. Now he sees the ads in the paper in a whole new light. I could go on about that topic but I won't. I recommend that you read this book.

Heading west into the sunset. It was getting dark. No more reading.

A blurry photo as we entered California.

Here is a map of the trips we have taken over the last five years when we started our Road Trips. This year's trip is in yellow. Now that Dan is retired maybe we'll be able to do more than one a year. One of us isn't retired though and has a lot of animals to take care of.

Road Trip to SD - Day 6 - Following the Pioneer Trail

At the end of  Day 5 we had stopped at the Horsethief Lake Campground in the Black Hills National Forest, still in South Dakota.

We had looked at the map and planned the direction to start for home, wanting to roads that we hadn't traveled before as much as possible.

We headed toward Wyoming...

...and saw this along the road.

I had been collecting postcards to send to my 3-year-old granddaughter but hadn't mailed many yet so today I was going to search out post offices in the small towns along the way.

A gorgeous building across the street from the post office in Newcastle. From there we took Highway 450  west through the Thunder Basin National Grassland toward Wright.

We were driving through the country where huge herds of cattle had been driven as far north as Canada, grazing along the way, and then shipped by railroad to eastern markets. Belle Fourche, where we had been a couple of days before was one of the important shipping points. (Lonesome Dove fans, note the sign on the post.)

According to the sign 2500 head of cattle strung were strung out for a mile, traveling 10 to 15 miles per day. They could gain weight over the 300 to 500 mile trip.

Alternatively picture the thousands of bison that once roamed here while the Native American's called this home. Same place. Different eras.

Before we got to Wright near the western edge of the Thunder Basin National Grassland we saw the first glimpse of a major industry in Wyoming...and the sky was more gray.

According to Wikipedia, the Black Thunder Coal Mine is the world's largest coal producer.

This is an immense operation.

I couldn't get photos to show the scale of what we were seeing. You can see a tip of the excavator down in the pit. Wikipedia says "Black Thunder’s dragline excavator is the biggest in the world and produces enough coal to load up to 20-25 trains per day."

The excavator fills this truck with one pass of it's giant scoop. This is a huge truck--the driver is sitting in that little cab above the wheel.

Take a look at the photo below to see the true size of this structure.

More of Wyoming prairie. This is between Wright and Edgerton.

Someone has decorated their oil/gas well.

I have included this photo because of the two dinosaurs and it reminded me of a photo op that I missed earlier in the trip. The dinosaur seems to be the mascot for Sinclair gas stations. We passed a gas station somewhere along the way  where they had a dinosaur the size of these and it was tied to a fence post with a rope around its neck. I still think it's one of the funniest things I saw on this trip. It would have looked natural to have a horse tied up right next to it.

We drove through Casper and took Hwy. 220 towards Rawlins.

We watched lightning in the distance. Do you know how hard it is to take lightening photos?

We were still following the trail of the pioneers...

...and we stopped as they did when we reached the Independence Rock, which is now a State Historic Site.

In one of the earlier posts (Day 2) we had stopped at South Pass. Then we were heading east, backwards from the direction the explorers and pioneers travelled. They would have been at Independence Rock first, looking west towards South Pass, 100 miles to the west.

Independence Rock was the first major landmark after leaving the North Platter River to follow the Sweetwater River to South Pass.

There is a trail around the rock for modern day visitors. You can see where early travelers left initials and names scratched into the rock.

This is the remnants of the trail heading on southwest.

We were back on our trail towards Rawlins.

We crossed the Continental Divide.

I used to think that you crossed the Continental Divide once and then were on the other side. I found out that there is an exception in Wyoming (and when I looked at a map of the Continental Divide, also in Mexico). Wikipedia again: The Great Divide Basin is an area of land in Wyoming's Red Desert where none of the water falling as rain to the ground drains into any ocean, directly or indirectly." I highlighted this on the map so that I could see it more clearly. South Pass is near that northern route of the Divide.

We found the Post Office in Rawlins (this was across the street)...

...and then crossed the Continental Divide again...

...and again.

Near Green River on I-80. From here on we were backtracking where we'd already driven.

It was dark when we got to Evanston, just on the edge of the Wyoming-Utah border. Looking at the map book and trying to find somewhere to spend the night I had found one more point of interest for the next day. We still hadn't figured out a good place to camp so we stopped here for gas and Subway sandwiches and took the maps inside for closer scrutiny.

To be continued...

Road Trip to SD - Day 5 - Mt. Rushmore

After driving through the Badlands we decided to continue on the scenic roads rather than go to the highway. Some of them were a bit of a guess since all we had was a road map of the state.

Not far out of the National Park we stopped to watch a herd of bison. This is not much of a photo but it give you an idea of the number in the herd.

Then we headed west on a gravel road that went through another part of the Buffalo Gap National Grassland. Most of the National Grasslands are located in or around the Great Plains and they are managed in the same way as National Forests. Until I looked up this information I didn't know that there is a National Grassland in California. In fact it is near the Klamath National Forest where I worked when I was in college--but it was designated as such until after that.

As I had seen on a map in one of the Visitors Centers, the public lands are interspersed with private lands. We saw miles of one of my favorite crops.

Leaving the grassland we drove into the forest again. The engineering of the road to Mt. Rushmore is a marvel in itself. From Custer State Park you drive 17 miles on Iron Mountain Road to Mt. Rushmore. There are three pigtail bridges and three tunnels that were engineered to frame Mt. Rushmore.

This very poor photo shows what I mean by framing the mountain. Each of the tunnels is aligned to present the view of the mountain.

I was surprised when we arrived to be directed to the roof of a parking garage built into the mountain. It makes sense--they have to do something with all the cars that come here.

I knew what to expect of the mountain itself because I've seen pictures. But I didn't know about the infrastructure built around this National Memorial.

There is an amphitheater facing the mountain. From there you can walk on the Presidential Trail around the base of the mountain (or the rubble left from carving the sculptures) and then to the Sculptor's Studio, where there is a plaster model and tools used by Gutzon Borglum, the sculptor of Mt. Rushmore. 

This was an amazing feat in the 1930's. It took 400 laborers to do this work. 

Look at the detail on Lincoln's face. The noses are about 20 feet long and the eyes are about 11 feet wide. Can you imagine what it would be like to be hanging in a basket here drilling holes for dynamite?

Time for us to move on. It looked as though there were several campsites in the nearby forest and I didn't want to have a repeat of the night before. We stopped at the first one that we saw and found a good spot. We had time that evening to relax and read.

I finished a book called A Shepherd's Life by James Rebanks.

The author grew up on the family sheep farm in the Lake District of England.  At the beginning of the book he describes how he felt as a boy when it was assumed by "outsiders" that he would (or should) want to do something better with his life, but all he ever wanted to do was to continue with the sheep farm. Also he was resentful with the interest that others (non-residents/city people) showed for the landscape but in a way that he didn't understand--they didn't respect the farms and the farming life but looked at the landscape as something with a "higher" purpose. I'm not explaining this very well, but as I was reading this book in the evenings on this trip I found similarities in his description of the visitors to their farm land and the fells above and to us in taking this trip and the others we've taken. We are grateful that there are National Parks and other public lands so that we can explore these landscapes that we'd never have a chance to see in depth otherwise. In this landscape we were the visitors, admiring the stunning views, the wildlife, and the agriculture. But we don't live the life there, don't have to deal with weather challenges, prairie dog invasions, etc. As an adult Rebanks learned to see the other side and understood the appreciation the "city people" had for the land, albeit without the understanding of the integral part that centuries of farming had played in those landscapes. He found a way in his career (second to shepherding) to promote the importance of farming and shepherding on this land while allowing tourism to benefit the communities as well.

I couldn't help but find parallels in this book to the experiences that we were having during this week vacation.

Road Trip to SD - Day 5 - Badlands in the Morning

I wasn't very complete in my description of Jewel Cave from Day 4 of this trip. I usually get out the brochure and re-read the info that is there. Those formations in some of the photos are called Dogtooth Spar, 6-sided calcite crystals formed completely underwater, and Draperies, formed as water trickles down, leaving deposits of calcite crystals. The brochure says that while the cave was forming it was completely submerged in groundwater that was rich in dissolved calcium carbonate. As conditions changed the calcium carbonate precipitated and formed calcite crystals off various depths and shapes on exposed surfaces.

Here is one more photo from Jewel Cave. There is another cave nearby--Wind Cave National Park but we just didn't have time for everything.

I left off the last post with heading to a Rest Stop in the dark. That was not our best night but at least we slept. However we had chosen this plan after passing up the trailhead parking that said "No Overnight Camping". We didn't want to be federal criminals. I will admit here that we are now criminals in the State of South Dakota. The rest stop had a sign posted about a SD rule that you can't stay more than three hours at a rest stop and there was video surveillance for our safety. I keep expecting to get a summons in the mail.  The photo above is what we woke up to. That weather system was in the west, where we were headed to see the Badlands.

We first had to drive east to find a place to turn around. We commented that South Dakota has big raindrops.

Now heading west.

Eventually we drove through the storm, or it passed us over as it was heading east.  This was the first time that I've been "on the ground" in the Midwest and I found this side of South Dakota as beautiful as the Black Hills in western South Dakota, although very different.

Change of pace. A bit of commercialism near the entrance to the National Park.

Now there was someone at the entrance station (it had been closed the night before) but there were no maps. It seems they had run out with all the motorcycle traffic. (We were able to get one at the Visitor Center.)

The first view of the Badlands, although we had a glimpse from the other side just before dark the night before.

The previous night we had driven through the Buffalo Gap National Grasslands on that road south of the Badlands NP, through the eastern end of the Park and north to the highway. If we had more time we could have gone to the National Grasslands Visitor Center further west on Highway 90 in the town of Wall and the  Minuteman Missile National Historic Site just north of the Park. (Note to self: take another trip to SD and buy the Map Book first.) We planned to explore the trails here at the west end of the Park and then drive through the Park, starting our drive home.

We stopped at an overlook. You can't tell from this photo but the wind was blowing and it was cold. And what was weird is that this fog was rolling in. That sounds like something I would say standing over the San Francisco Bay. Fog rolling in here in the Badlands? In August?

Maybe its not "rolling in". But it sure settled fast.

The distance view was gone within ten minutes. In fact these photos were taken ten minutes after the first one right after the National Park sign.

We drove on. The formations were stunning but the surroundings did seem cold and gloomy.

At the next stop we saw bighorn sheep! Yes! This was the clearest photo I had of them as the mist seemed to get thicker. "Sheep in Fog". The sheep stayed around, in fact bedding down right there while we hiked on a short trail on the other side of the road.

Then we went to the Visitors Center to get warm, pick up a brochure and map, and see the exhibits.

Did you know that my background is in Range and Wildlands Science? That's what the UCD degree was called after it changed from Range Management before I graduated. I admit that I can't identify most grasses anymore and certainly not these of the Great Plains, but I am interested. The grass is an extremely important part of an ecosystem, whether its these prairies or our irrigated pasture back home. This is a great exhibit.

Remember the Dust Bowl? Well, most of us don't remember it, but we know about it. This explains why, when you plow up the prairie you have set up the system for disaster. The Park brochure explains that "the Badlands prairie contains nearly 60 species of grass, the foundation for a complex community of plants and animals. The prairie once sprawled across one-third of North America." Today there are only patchwork remnants of this prairie that "occurs in areas that are too dry to support trees but too wet to be deserts".

We drove on to the Fossil Exhibit Trail. This area went from being a under a shallow sea, to a jungle after the land lifted up, and then covered with sediment and volcanic ash that turned to soft rock. Eventually erosion exposed all the colorful layers and the fossils they hold, so the SD Badlands in known world-wide for it's fossil record.

From information found on this website: "Although by definition badlands contain very little vegetation, some plants, particularly prairie grasses, are found in South Dakota's badlands regions.  Sod tables, remnants of the prairie that have resisted erosion, provide platforms for vegetation."

You can see the layer of soil that held by the roots of the vegetation but that isn't enough to prevent the sides of the sod table to continue to erode. In fact, the Badlands are retreating to the north in general as natural erosion occurs. Notice the holes at the top of this sod table. We thought that maybe birds used these holes.

Then we saw that these are rodent tunnels that have opened as the erosion occurs. You can see that in this photo.

Beautiful landscape. What would an early explorer have thought, having just ridden over miles of grassland?

Here is a different landscape.  I might not have known for sure what this was except for having visited Devils Tower NM two days before. (By the way, there is a pronghorn in the photo but I'm talking about the mounds and the lack of grass.)

Here is the culprit. I can see how prairie dogs are considered a nuisance. The road took us past  acres and acres of this devastated landscape. As usual there are two (or more) sides to a story. I have to get on with other things right now and won't try to research this one. Here is one article that gives various perspectives.

The day wasn't over. We had another stop before camping for the night. That will be in the next post.

Road Trip to SD - Day 4 - Belle Fourche and Jewel Cave NM

We started Day 4 of our adventure after a restful night in the Black Hills National Forest in Wyoming. (Here is the campsite in Day 3.) I was up before Dan and walked off with my camera. Wildlife!

So what if it's just chipmunks! They were close enough for me to get decent photos.

And they were fun to watch as they ran in one side of the cattle guard rail and out the other.

This is a view of some of the forest outside the campground.

We got on the road and looked at where to go. Now I'll tell you why I had originally chosen South Dakota as our destination for this year's trip. Months ago I was reading a sheep magazine and saw a reference to a Sheep History exhibit in South Dakota. I looked it up and it was in an Ag Heritage Museum in Brooking, SD. There was a lot to see along the way so I suggested that as our turn-around point. However, Brooking is on the far eastern side of SD. After the first two days of driving and looking at all the things we wanted to see where we were now and our limited time I pulled the plug on driving clear across the state to see that one place. It seemed kind of silly to add another two days of driving to the trip just for a few hours in a museum (or to not add two days and be driving for that long a stretch).

So, back to the map. There was plenty to see in western SD: Mt. Rushmore NM, Jewel Cave NM, Wind Cave NP, Buffalo Gap National Grassland, Badlands NP. Dan still wanted to avoid Sturgis with all the crazy motorcycle stuff. So we looked for a road around it. I saw on the map "Geographical Center of the United State". Really? I looked at the U.S. map. That didn't look right. I googled it.

If you include Alaska and Hawaii, yes, there is a place, not too far over the border of SD, that is the Geographical Center of the U.S.

It turns out that the real center is in a privately owned pasture 20 miles north of the town of Belle Fourche.

The town decided that there should be a more memorable and accessible monument for something as cool as being the Georaphical Center of the U.S. ...

...so this was created in 2008. It is at the Belle Fourche Visitor Center and Museum.

The museum turned out to be very interesting (and maybe a smaller scale of the one that we were going to miss in Brooking) and we spent some time there. There were exhibits about the cattle drives from Mexico to Canada, the importance of the railroad station in Belle Fourche (4500 train carloads of cattle per month in 1895), the Old West in  movies and TV, early settlers, rodeo history, wartime, and old-time bad guys. There was also an exhibit about the importance of the sheep industry in South Dakota.

This is a sheepherder wagon that is outside the museum. There were a lot of photos of the sheep history of the area.

South Dakota is currently fifth in the U.S. for sheep production...

...and the sheep industry is an important part of South Dakota's agricultural economy.

This isn't a very big museum but there was a lot to see in the small spaces. In the area that showed something about life in "the old days" there was this device used to do something to women's hair. An early perm?

it's kind of hard to see this bicycle but I thought it was interesting in that the handlebars, seat, and wheel rims are made of wood.

After a few hours we decided that we'd better get on the road again. This is a view before we left town.

What do you think of this one? It was kind of scary to have this view on the highway   but that truck was going the same direction that were are because it was being towed behind another.

South Dakota was not what I expected.

We had camped in the Black Hills National Forest in Wyoming but it continues in South Dakota.

We were headed now to Jewel Cave National Monument and took a road designated a "scenic drive" and it was. Beautiful country. This is an area known as Spearfish Canyon.

This National Monument as well as many of the others we planned to visit are all within this area of the Black Hills National Forest.

I continued to find the scenery breathtaking. Too bad the drive-by photos can't really show that.

We signed up for a cave tour but had some time in the Vistor's Center first. Jewel Cave was discovered by two prospectors in 1900. Only a mile of it had been documented when it was made a National Monument in 1908. Now it is known to be the third longest cave in the world with over 180 miles of passages that have been mapped and more that have not. The cave extends beneath about four square miles of land but there is only one known entrance. The areas in yellow are closest to the surface and the redder the color, the deeper the passage. The deepest point is 749 feet below ground.

Thirty of us gathered with our Ranger and rode an elevator down to a double set of doors that created an airlock when entering the cave. I am not a big fan of dank, underground place, preferring wide open spaces and sun. Nevertheless, this was a cool (no pun intended although it was sweatshirt weather below ground) tour.

It was OK to take photos. I can't tell you what any of these formations are because (although once, for a very brief period, I thought I might be a geologist) I don't ever remember rocks and geologic time.

I can admire them however.

There were lights placed strategically along the mile-long tour route and lots of walkways and stairs.

At one point the Ranger turned off all lights and that is very eerie. I think of Tom Sawyer and Becky in the cave and running out of candles. Yes, I prefer wide-open spaces and sunlight. (By the way, no photos of lights-out in the cave.)

This one reminds me of an ocean scene.

Here is an example of the one of the walkways. The tour was about an hour. After that I bought my patch at the gift store and we spent a little more time in the Visitor Center.

We read about the ecosystems we were traveling through. I have lived most of my life in California, have traveled in many of the western states, including the desert southwest (where I lived for a couple of years) but have never been in the prairie. This sign and others explained a bit about the difference between the Short Grass Prairie and the Tallgrass Prairie, where we'd be traveling next. The Black Hills are in between.

Bison grazing.

We planned to visit Badlands National Park the next day. We knew that it might be tough to find a camping spot on a weekend without a reservation in the National Park but we thought that we'd be able to find a place to pull over and sleep somewhere in the National Grassland that surrounds the Park. We had been told by a couple of people that (as we know is true in the National Forest) if it's public land you can stay there. This sign indicated that we were in Buffalo Gap National Grasslands...

...complete with buffalo.

My big mistake was not getting the map book for South Dakota before we left. I realized too late that we didn't have it and thought that we might be able to find one on our trip. Since neither of us like to spend time driving through cities even if its to a bookstore, we never got one, and instead had to rely on a road map of the state. That was totally inadequate for the way we are used to traveling. We couldn't tell where there was private land and public land and we had no idea where the little dirt roads went. Later I saw a map that would have been even better than the map book for our purposes. There is a map available of the Grassland that shows land ownership. No wonder we couldn't figure it out--it's all a big checkerboard of private and public land. We'll know for next time.

So we drove through the Grassland as it was becoming dusk. We couldn't identify anywhere that looked like we could stay. It is after all, grass, and all fenced. We're used to driving through the forest or even the desert and being able to drive off on a dirt road away from the main road and camp. Eventually it got dark and we continued driving into the Badlands NP. As we thought the campground was full. We continued on, entering  the Grassland again. We pulled off on one possible road that was clearly marked as a trailhead on public land. But law-abiding citizens that we are, we left when we saw the sign that said "No Overnight Camping". I was feeling less law-abiding than Dan, but I was not the driver. We tried another road that was still part of the Grassland and passed another place, Minuteman Missile National Historic Site, that would be interesting to visit in daylight hours. This gravel road was on our map and continued for a few miles. However, every time we turned on what looked like a possible side road, there was a gate, or an obviously cultivated field. We finally went back to the highway and drove east.

You might be wondering, why don't they just get a motel room? The first answer is that there were none around. However, eventually we got to the highway, and, yes there would be motel rooms. But, this was a camping trip and we had comfy sleeping bags and I had a sheepskin to sleep on and we could sleep in our truck. All we needed was a place to park. We saw a rest area on the map so we went there.

To Be Continued.

Road Trip to SD - Day 3 - Devils Tower

After a morning spent touring Mountain Meadow Wool we headed east toward Devils Tower National Monument.

This is part of a coal facility near the town of Gillette, home to 12 coal mines which provide 1/10 of the jobs in the area. Up to 100 trains loaded with coal leave the town every day. We noticed that the sky over much of our trip was not as blue as we expected and that is evident in my photos. I am used to the Sacramento Valley haze in the summer, a result of dust, smoke from wildfires, and probably smog, but I didn't expect this in Wyoming. I wonder if these hazy skies are from all the coal mines.

Artwork seem when driving through one of the towns.

I wouldn't call this artwork, but someone has a sense of humor. Am I the only one that sees these logs as weird animals?

As expected there were lots of cattle. This is north of the town of Moorcroft, where we turned off  of I-90 to head north to Devils Tower.

First view of Devils Tower. The Tower rises 867 feet from the base and 1267 feet above the Belle Fourche River. The diameter at the base is 1000 feet and the area on top is 1-1/2 acre.

There is a trail all the way around the Tower and it looks different on each "side".

This is looking at its southeast face. Do you see the column that is much shorter and tipped a bit just inside the part that is in shadow and that looks like it is just above the tree in the photo? Then do you see the column that rises up about twice as high as the shorter broken one?

This is a close-up of that taller column. There is a climber! Look above the next column over (about an inch on my screen). That gives you some perspective about the size of this huge rock.

This is a detail of the outer third of the Tower from that first photo (where, due to camera perspective, it looks more tipped than it really is).

Tisis a closer view of the middle of the photo above. Those things that look like sticks? Those are the outer edge of a ladder that was used to get up the first 350 feet in the 1890's. The ladder is anchored in the crack between the columns. Can you imagine? The lower part has since been removed and some of the upper restored by the Park Service in the 1970s.

This is another view that includes the area of those close-ups just to give some perspective.

The trail around the Tower is paved the whole way to accommodate the thousands of visitors  that come each year. Hot in the sun, it was very pleasant under the canopy of trees.

Speaking of trees, these are pretty substantial trees at the base of the cliffs. Another measure of perspective.

Look at those trees in this view.

There were beautiful colors and patterns in the rock.

We were at the Tower for about two hours or so. Before leaving the National Monument we had to stop at the prairie dog town.

These are certainly well-fed prairie dogs.

But I didn't realize the damage that they do to the landscape. There are prairie dog mounds throughout this photo. I have some very severe photos to share later on in these blogs.

We drove north and then east from the Monument...

...and found a campground in the Bear Lodge Mountains, part of the Black Hills National Forest. Again, we needn't have worried about the campground being over-run by motorcycles from Sturgis. Maybe the riders are not big campers. There was only one other person in this campground.

This is a rare scene--not Dan reading a newspaper--but that we actually had time to relax and enjoy the evening in camp. Point #1: we got there early enough that there was still evening left before we needed to eat or get to sleep. Point #2: There were NO mosquitoes, it wan't cold, and there was no rain. So Dan read his newspaper and I read The Shepherd's Life by James Rebanks. I found that some of the author's points resonated with me on this trip. More about that later. 

An after-dinner fire. This reminds me of the disembodied head of Oz.

Road Trip to SD - Day 3 - Wool Mill

We camped at the Lost Cabin campground in the Bighorn Mountains. We needn't have been concerned about being crowded out by hoards of motorcycle riders. There were only one or two other campers. It was hard, living and working outside in the Central Valley, to imagine needing wool gloves, hats, etc. I'm glad that I had brought those and that before we left I had grabbed my heavy chore coat off the hook where it had been since the spring. The night was cold camping at 9400 feet elevation. (I know, that's all relative, and some of you laugh at what I think is cold. But nevertheless I was cold.) It was almost dusk by the time we finished eating and cleaned up dishes and I was ready to get in a sleeping bag. I was warm enough, but spent a lot of time reading in the middle of the night when I couldn't sleep.

We meant to get an early start, but it was already well into the morning when I woke up. Hey, it's vacation time! And there is a time zone difference too. Dan made his coffee and we got on the road to Buffalo.

This was our destination.

Mountain Meadow Wool is the company that spun this year's yarn and I was excited to meet the people there and see the mill.

Here is the entrance.

It opens into a showroom and sales area.

There are well-made videos showing of local sheep ranches where the wool is sourced and the mill in production.

Ben took us into the mill. He showed us this wall where bales and bags are piled waiting to be processed. This wool will be used for Mountain Meadow's own line of yarn. It was interesting that the wool stacked here is this year's production for the Mountain Meadow lines of yarn whereas for the "big" companies that might amount to only one days' production.

The scouring line starts here.

First, is the skirting table, very similar to mine with the PVC cross-pieces. One person checks all the wool as it comes through. He will pull out fiber that looks too short, too full of VM, or contaminated with paint marking.

This was nice fiber, but Ben said that the paint wouldn't wash out so it is discarded. The fiber pulled out here goes into the baler that is behind the skirting table (photo above this one). I don't remember where Ben said that this goes, but there is a market for it when they get a large amount.

The wool goes up this belt...

...and through the bale opener before it goes through the scouring line, which Ben and his team have spent years developing to work for a mill of this size.

Nearby there were several large plastic barrels (30-50 gallons?) connected by pipes and tubing that is Ben's work-in-progress to biologically manage the solids that become waste products of the scouring process. This includes lanolin and a lot of dirt. He is still working to perfect the system that includes lanolin-consuming bacteria (if I remember correctly). This jar is full of some of the waste products.

The carder is right in the middle of this room but I didn't get any photos of it. After carding the wool goes through the pin drafter--5 times!

This comb in the pin drafter helps remove short pieces and debris to create a smoother product.

Spinning is next.

It takes about 6 hours to spin up the fiber in each box unless they are spinning very fine yarn. Then it can take 2-1/2 days! No wonder it costs more to have fine yarn spun.

Combing is an additional process...

...which creates a product called "top", that has no short pieces or cross fibers in it.

There can be a lot of waste after combing but Mountain Meadow Wool uses that waste to create dryer balls. My dryer balls are here.

Yarn is then wound on cones and/or skeined.

Mountain Meadow Wool also has a dye kitchen for the yarn that they market.

Ben took us into a room with finished goods, experimental products, R&D. Mountain Meadow Wool offers some pieces for sale and also the option to have some items made with a producers own wool. I admired the blankets being woven.

People have sent fibers to see how the mill can handle them. The fiber above is a coarse plant fiber. I can't remember what it is--something like agave, or at least it reminded me of that plant family.

This one I remember. Someone sent Ben bear fiber to spin.

I appreciate Ben taking time out of his day, and at the end of a week when they have been short-handed, to show us around. It helped me to discuss with him fiber prep  and fiber quality. Quality control of the yarn begins at the producer's skirting table. I love the yarn they are producing at this mill and it's nice to know the family.

Where to next? It was about 1:00. We at lunch at a local sandwich place and looked at our maps. It wasn't far to Devil's Tower National Monument--only about two pages away in the map book. Onward!