Shearing Day

We sheared on Saturday. I used a new shearer this year and he did a fabulous job. He was fast (70 + Jacobs shorn before noon) and the fleeces and the sheep look great.

I am grateful for all the help I had. Linda gathered up and bagged wool all day. Other friends weighed wool, answered questions from visitors, etc.

My son, Chris, made sure that the shearer didn’t run out of sheep.

We also sheared Colleen’s CVM-cross sheep (while she took care of my shop) and…

Diane’s goats. I have to admit they are stunning in full fleece.

These are Chris’ goats and don’t need to be shorn, but they never miss a chance to sneak some a meal.

I didn’t skirt nearly as many fleeces as I thought I would. We just barely kept up with the fleeces that people wanted to purchase. I missed my friend, Joan, who usually spends all day at the skirting table.  I think it might be worth switching shearing back to Sunday so she can be here!

Here is one fleece spread out.  People asked about how to tell a good fleece, which is better than another, etc. I honestly answered that I don’t have any sheep whose fleece I don’t like.

The sunny day certainly helped make shearing day pleasant and I’m sure the sheep appreciated the warm sun.

Take a look at this shorn lamb. There was some discussion earlier this year about tri-colored Jacob sheep (if such a thing exists). I didn’t know this lamb had those gray spots until she was shorn! I’ve never had another like this.

Here is another pretty lamb.

This is Violet, loading into her van. That’s a cooperative sheep! Violet lived here until about a month ago. She is a wonderful friendly ewe and I’m so glad that she has a great home now with two other Meridian sheep at Aimee’s place.

Rusty’s brother, Jake, came to visit at the end of the day. The dogs were not too happy about posing for a brotherly photo.

But they were going to make sure these lambs stayed put.

There are more shearing photos that can be accessed on Picassa by going to my website and clicking on the photo in the shearing article.

Scarves and a pony

I’m trying to get my shop ready for Shearing Day on Saturday. I’ll be spending my time in the barn, but my friend will staff the shop and I need everything organized, labeled, etc. Here are new scarves.

This one is rayon chenille with a supplementary warp using a ribbon called Luna.

Same basic warp, but a different supplementary warp.

Here is another “left-overs” warp. The blues.

Another left-overs warp. This one is deep purple, but I can’t get that color on my screen. Maybe it will show up purple on your computer.

I carded some sample batts using the Ashford drum carder and the new Wild Carder. Lots of fun! I wish I had time to do more of this.

The top two batts are using fiber that I dyed for a Color Wheel class. Those will be fun to spin. The white batt is from Jacob wool–it is thick and soft. I have a new packer brush on the drum carder and it really lets you pack in the wool.

Last, but not least, is a pony from the Wool Pet pony kit. I love the look on his face. I am also needle felting a donkey, but she is not finished yet.

Buffalo cotton

I took a field trip today with a group of friends. We went to see Sally Fox’s cotton fields in  the Capay Valley, northwest of here.  Sally is well known in the fiber world for her work in developing natural-colored, long-staple, organically-grown cotton.

This is a field of Sally’s Buffalo cotton.

Sally told us that, although many farms welcome bees in to their crops, she isn’t as happy to have them, at least in the numbers that she has been seeing. Cotton is generally self-pollinating and that is important if you are trying to raise seed of pure varieties. In recent years there have been so many bees that they have been causing cross-pollination. Iif she grows more than one variety of cotton she can’t count on the seed crop being pure. This year she is growing only the buffalo cotton, a long staple cotton of a beautiful brown color.

Here is a boll before it opens.

Sally is wearing a long sleeve shirt made from her Buffalo cotton fiber.

This is cotton chenille made from another of Sally’s varieties. I think this one was called Palo Verde, but I don’t remember for sure. The chenille on the left is the natural color and after boiling (and addition of ammonia)  it turned dark green. I knew that Sally’s natural colored cottons deepen with washing, but this color change is amazing.

I came home with a couple of cones. I’ll be planning some scarves I think.

Which hemisphere is this?

I had to think hard today to figure out which season it is. Here is an almond tree losing it’s leaves like it is supposed to in the fall.

But look at the redbud:

Those are flower buds opening. Redbuds lose their leaves in the fall and flower in the spring. I guess the rain followed by the warm weather has tricked the redbud.

More flowers in the yard:

So what else do I do besides take photos all day? We worked on major clean-up today in preparation for Shearing Day on Saturday. I kept weaving scarves. I put up address signs–until the hay truck driver couldn’t find our place I didn’t realize that the numbers were gone from the mailbox.

See my spiffy new numbers?

Something that I didn’t do but may have to tomorrow is wash the dog. When i was changing the pasture fence Rusty entertained himself by rolling in donkey manure. He had a great time, but he is pretty smelly right now.

Also on the list for tomorrow…see the desk below? What is missing?

My monitor went from working one night to black the next morning. Right now I have my son’s monitor plugged in but I guess I have to go shopping. Not my most fun thing…now if it was shopping for yarn that would be another story.

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.