Magick Needles

Fall Pictures

2011-10-15T15:40:00.000-04:00

The colors this year have been amazing. Here are a few pictures I took today.

Phenom

2011-10-15T15:29:00.002-04:00

I took a week off from work.
I helped set up a weaving studio on Sunday.
Monday morning I showed up and made coffee then became one of 12 beginner weaving students at the Tavern Spinners and Weavers Guild studying under Elaine Bradley for the next five days.
She had us warp our looms, weave a sampler, pick something from the sampler and weave a small table runner, play a bit, cut off the warp, wash the project, dry it, press it and admire it. Then she had us warp for a long scarf (a choice of two projects: Crammed and Space Scarf or Random Warp Scarf). We sampled until we found the right color combination with the right yarns, then started weaving. Most of the students finished about 3:30 p.m. on Friday. Three or four of us didn't quite finish but will soon.

Judy M. and Sandi were the driving force who found all the looms, benches, warping boards and other equipment for 12 students, ordered the yarn and got our instructor safely to the classroom each day.

It was mind bending and opened up a world of possibilities for me and I am saving up my pennies for a small Harrisville portable loom now so I have something I can weave on at home besides my rigid heddle loom. I am so excited by what I learned and at least for now, I'm not afraid to try warping from the back anymore. She made it very simple and shared lots of tricks and tips. If you have an opportunity to study weaving with Elaine Bradley from Atlanta, GA; jump at the opportunity! She's great!

Kraut!

2011-07-09T12:07:00.002-04:00

In late May I ordered a 2 gallon stoneware crock with the intention of making sauerkraut. I figured that even if the kraut didn't work, cabbage was cheap and I could use the crock for some decorative purpose.

Well the crock arrived (including wooden "lid") and I sliced up my organic cabbages as thinly as I could and recruited Ken to help me pound it a bit as we layered it into the crock and sprinkled with sea salt. Moisture from the cabbages came out, just as promised. I topped it off with an extra cup of salt water just to be safe. We put the wooden lid in which is supposed to work like a press and push the cabbage down and keep it under the brine. On top of that I put a gallon plastic bag filled with water and put the whole thing on the floor under the air conditioner (the coolest spot we could find). To keep the kittens out of it (and flies) I laid a wooden cutting board over the whole thing.

In about three days, the kraut started to bubble. It bubbled so much, in fact, that it spilled out of the crock! I cleaned up that mess and then put the crock on top of some old paper grocery bags. About every three days for the next two weeks, it would bubble over. The third week there appeared to be no bubbling and I opened the crock and pulled out a little kraut.

Well, I say "I opened the crock"... lesson learned here... the wooden lid expanded in the brine. So much so, it took Ken some good force and ingenuity to get the lid out. But he did manage to remove it.

It was good! Really good. But I wanted it to be really, really done.

Ken refused to taste it raw (his loss), but we sealed it all up again for another week.

Finally, I could not wait anymore and reopened the crock. We filled five sterile quart jars with kraut and I had a little left over for me to eat on a turkey reuben that night. Yummy! I hot water processed (with some reluctance because I know that the canning kills the beneficial bacteria) for 10 minutes. This sealed the jars and we left them out on the counter for a week to make sure the fermentation was, in fact, complete.

Sadly, we also discovered that the wooden "lid" had expanded so much that it cracked my two gallon crock! Damn! So, today I ordered a new one.

The cracked one will do well for one gallon batches of things like dill pickles or other ferments larger than a quart but smaller than a gallon.

We will skip using the wooden "lid".

How not to spend other people's money...

2011-07-02T09:09:00.002-04:00

I have dreams. I have not lost those yet. But I'm very frustrated at my lack of forward progress in securing the land I want where i want it. I may have to make some significant compromises or learn to be more flexible in my thinking, but for now, the farm project is on hold.

In the Spring, my dad told me he would loan me money against my inheritance to purchase land provided I paid interest to him on the money he would have been making from that money. Okay. I did the math and since he was giving me an excellent interest rate, I knew I could do this. Once my current house is paid off, I could then turn that mortgage money back to him to start paying off the principle.

As noted in the previous post, I THOUGHT I had found the property I wanted and we were looking at acquiring 16.92 acres with about 11 acres in open land. It had access to electricity with a minimal of distance from existing lines at the neighbors, so it would not take too much money to have the line extended by the electric company. Since there were houses nearby, I was sure we would also find water not out of reach by well. The wooded area was pretty, but consisted of primarily wooded ravines. Some areas were possible for camping and ritual and so I wasn't too worried about finding a good use for it.

BUT after a very, very long time waiting for the survey, we learned that it was, in fact, 28.9 acres and only 5 acres was open. The prime open area the Realtor showed me was not even owned by the lady who was selling! And the woman who owned that was not interested in selling! I have to wonder how much land woman #1 sold off that did not belong to her as it is her relatives currently living in one acre houses on woman #2s land! How freaky is that! But that is not my worry.

We opted not to bite on the 28+ acres of woodland.

So the Realtor showed me 18 acres that is actually pretty perfect in dimension and layout, but it's 3 miles away. It's also in a rather rotten neighborhood and I'm not convinced my animals would be safe there. He also showed me a dreadfully overgrown 10 acre parcel about 5 miles away, also not in the best area.

I was leaning hard toward the 18 acres and my brain was bumping along how to overcome obstructions like winter snow keeping us locked in at home and unable to care for the animals, neighbors who get drunk and think a sheep might make a good barbecue... those sorts of issues; when I learned that my dad was tired of waiting for me to spend his money and thinking that since the deal on the original piece had died, I was not looking anymore; spent the money on something else. Letting that much money sit in the bank doing nothing is not good business and I respect that. But I need to learn to communicate better with my financier.

I also asked my Realtor to talk to the owner of the land that is immediately adjacent to my dad's property. I told him very specifically not to mention my father's name or relation as this neighbor really, really HATES my dad and will not sell to him. Unfortunately, my Realtor let his father handle the call and he blew it. So that property, while never formally on the table, was just soundly removed to the closet. Perhaps when that owner dies I will get a shot with his son.

So, here I am, still without a place to put my cattle, milk cow and sheep. Thank goodness I did not agree to buy the pretty little Jersey heifer yet.

Mom told me I cannot put sheep in her front yard (she has three acres there), but maybe she would be willing to let me put a cow there soon? I doubt it.

I keep eying my front yard and thinking that I could put in a little run in shed for the cow and just feed hay year round... but, wow, what a lot of work that would be! I'm not there yet.

I think I just REALLY need to find a cow share!

Do I need guinea hens or a new hubby?

2011-06-02T19:38:00.002-04:00

I'm kidding, but apparently the Fey do not care much for Ken.

We heard rumor that the survey folks had put in more flags, so Ken I went out last evening to see what had been done.

Not much.

But to make matters worse, it was very, very hot down in the bottom of the swale, my ground water spring appeared to be dried up and Ken found a giant nest of ticks!

We were picking ticks off of him all evening and he finally found one on his backside in the middle of the night. Poor guy.

But now he doesn't want to go back in the woods at all!

Darn.

Fey Territory

2011-05-31T06:11:00.006-04:00

I finally took the opportunity on Saturday, to go walk in the woods at the property I'm thinking about purchasing.

I need to go back and take some photos but I'm not sure a camera can really capture the essence of this place.

To get into this wood, you must first navigate through a short stretch of briars and begin the descent. The walk is relatively easy, but still steep. Each step is accompanied by the crunch of deep leaf litter underfoot. Your shoes disappear beneath the first layer and I felt as if I was walking on a mattress someone had laid on the floor. It was springy. You could feel the energy of millions of tiny things feasting on the deep layer of leaves creating leaf loam. Making top soil.

I walked past some old trash dumped down the hill by some harried farm wife (or her husband) from the past. Sticking up out of the leaves I saw an old broken crock, a few broken bottles, rusted buckets and I'm sure under this surface layer, there is more. Near the top of the hill, were two large metal rings which I recognized as feeding containers for pigs. I'm fairly certain that the farmers before me kept a hog or two in the woods there. It would have been an easy walk to this site from either of the older houses to toss both trash and scraps. I was walking through a pig pen and midden.

Proceeding further down into the bottom and following along the ridge that ran upward to my left (southern edge of the property), I followed the blue and orange plastic flags tied up by the survey team the day before. Sometimes the brush was thick at eye level, but if I bent down or squatted, and scanned, I could find the next flag 10 or 15 feet off in the distance. The property line appears to angle in a gentle curve down towards the south west. The flags were all perched in a precarious manner over the edge of a water drainage area, a dry creek that probably runs full when the rains are heavy.

When I finally reached the second to the last flag I noticed that just 10 feet beyond the line drawn by the flags was running water. It emerged from under the edge of the leaf litter and ran downward towards the larger river below. This is either ground water runoff or a spring.

When I reached the last flag, I turned and looked northward towards the area where the large open field is supposed to be. I did my best to walk due North, but having no compass with me at the time and having to go around large trees and thick stands of laurel and some trees that had fallen, I got a bit off track. The trek at this point was uphill again.

I made note that the trees, here, deep in the woods were a nice mix of oak, hickory and tulip poplar with some small maples. There were few pines. And these hardwood trees were large. Most were at least 18 inches in diameter. Many were far greater. They reached high and created a dense canopy overhead that let in little light so the undergrowth was relatively sparse with a few huckleberry bushes and ferns here and there in the low parts of the woods and dense hedges of laurel running along the central ridge line.

I was having difficulty making forward progress up the hill because the laurel with its gnarled twigs and tough springy branches would not allow me passage, so I cut across again toward the East and went down into the swale again. Here the walk was easier and I went up hill at a more leisurely angle.

I was once again looking around and admiring the pristine nature of this woodland when I heard a large animal come crashing, thumping down the hill from the East. It was a huge buck. He was horse sized. He still had his antlers and he stopped in the middle of the swale up the hill from me and standing broad side to me, but staring at me, gave out a grunt. It was sort of a grunt and snort actually. I felt strongly that I was about to be attacked. As I'm standing there in these isolated woods, alone without a cellphone or any way to protect myself or call for help, he grunted at me three times, then galloped to a brushy area at the top of the inner ridge I had just come down from. From there, behind the brush pile of downed tree limbs and tangle of mountain laurel, he grunted at me again. Then all grew quiet.

At that point, feeling the danger was past, I looked again at my surroundings. I was standing in the center of what was, no doubt, a perfect fairy ring of ferns. I was an intruder here. I think the buck had come to caution me about my intentions on this land.

As I continued to walk up the swale, again headed north, I came to a small bed of crushed grasses. I had come across the night spot of some deer. It seemed too small to be the nest of the buck who had confronted me.

And there was wildlife in those woods. Birds sang constantly from high up in the trees then would come down and toss about through the leaf litter. Turkey feathers were scattered haphazardly throughout the undergrowth. And there had to be a thousand squirrels. They ran in pairs and triplets up and down the trees and across the woodland floor. The tree trunks being too far apart from each other for the squirrels to make an easy jump of it from tree to tree. There were multiple burrows carved into the steep slopes on either side of the swale. Fox, perhaps? Or maybe ground hogs or some other burrowing animal. The burrows were large with opening under tree roots about 8 to 10 inches across.

I became disoriented more than once coming through the wood. In retrospect, I am sure the Fey contributed to the illusions of confusion and depth perception. I, at one point I thought I saw a row of pine trees at the top of the swale running away perpendicular to the woods to the east but the only row of pines on the property, line the driveway which runs parallel to the swale where I was walking. Fearing I was getting lost, I went back up to the long, narrow strip of flat land at the top, thinking I had to be near the end of it. I was very surprised to see I had only walked about half the length of this strip.

Thinking it might be easier to walk along the edge of the wheat field to reach the end of the woods, I again turned northward. The farmer had plowed and planted so close to the wood-line, however, unless I trampled through his crop, I would not be able to follow the wood line. So I went back into the woods, this time angling towards the north west. After a few minutes I came to the area where the Realtor had brought me in before. The overhead canopy was thinner here and most of the trees were tulip poplar and the undergrowth was denser with more briers and scruffy things. The downward angles here were harsher and seems, almost lumpy.

I imagine at one time in an effort to clear the field just to north, the farmer dumped debris at the top of the swale both preventing erosion of his farm field down the steeper slope and "lumping" up what would otherwise have been a smooth slope to the river.

You could camp here, if you cleared away some of the more unpleasant undergrowth like poison ivy and Virginia Snake Root vines, and it might allow for more of a breeze than the bottom which was surrounded on all sides by steep ridges, like an amphitheater. From this central point of the northern boundary of the wood, I walked west until I reached the corner of the field. Here I discovered the remains of what might have been an access road. It may have been a timber road or perhaps just marked the boundary of the property. But my path was again soon blocked on this ridge line with downed trees and the snarl of laurels.

It was hard to tell without the flags if the property line runs along the top of this ridge, angling out to the west, or if it cuts down through a second ravine or runs the length of the bottom of the ravine. I will have to wait for the survey to be completed to find out. If the property juts out along the ridge line, encompassing the second ravine, it would serve well as a pond should I ever find the funding and get the permitting to install a freshwater pond. If the second ridge is not included in the property line, the pond would have to be much smaller and got at the top of the first swale, with camping below it. Another option might be to approach the adjoining land owner and see if they would also like a freshwater pond which we could share.

This pond would be used for water for my animals (they would not be permitted to drink directly from the pond, but the water would be pumped out for them), stocked with freshwater fish for future fishing, and for emergency fire water for the neighborhood. This endeavor would require assistance from the Army Corp of Engineers and I would hope there would be grant money available to help install it.

But that is perhaps a dream.

In any case, my walk in the woods continued. I finally made my way back to the southwestern last flag by going down the second ravine and then up the backside of the central ridge from which I hoped the buck had fled. From that flag, I walked along back toward where I had left my car at the top. As I climbed the hill a yellow butterfly came and settled on my left shoulder leaving only as I broke out into the bright sunlight.

I was hot and sweating and itchy but very excited about what I had seen and experienced. I know now that it may not matter how many actual acres are in the property or in the woods. If it is smaller, I may be able to secure the land for less money. If more, I will get it for that which was offered and be delighted.

Hey piggy piggy...

2011-05-26T21:57:00.002-04:00

I broke the news tonight to Ken that I hope to farm, not just sheep and hay (he had sort of accepted that), but would like to add chickens and cattle and pigs to the mix. I have not mentioned a milk cow, but he's not stupid and I'm sure he has some idea where all of this is going.

I know my husband and so I broke this news to him while among friends who were most excited by the whole enterprise and believe somehow that they will all now have a free camp ground. I'm not sure this is possible as I'm not planning on installing a bathhouse with toilets and they will have to pay for port o potties and put up with cold water from a hose for washing. Not to mention that all the flat land is open field which will be occupied by animals or hay. The woodland is very sloped and will likely be best used for 1. a pond (stocked, of course) 2. heritage pigs 3. hunting.

When I mentioned the pigs my friends strongly encouraged me to think again about this as they immediately said that pigs smell, are dangerous and if they get loose are gone like the wind and are very destructive. So the pig idea will either be nixed or wait.

Fortunately, one of the friends was a farmer and was able to note that I could electrify the fence with either batteries or solar power (and he said these work very well) and I could get the water out the ground with a wind mill. No electricity needed! Yeah! I'll have to investigate further.

Ken, of course, said he was NOT going to the be one to take care of all these animals. But moments later admitted that the sheep really are not labor intensive and notes that they come right to him with the shake of a grain bucket.

I need to figure the finances on renting a tractor, hiring a tractor driver, or buying one and learning to do it myself. But I may be able to get away with borrowing one when I do need it (perhaps once a year) and bartering something for it's use. I also need to put together a fence team of strong people who can work well together with one expert who knows what he or she is doing.

Losing my mind

2011-05-24T06:56:00.002-04:00

I've talked to my parents (Dad specifically) and I think I've come up with a way to expand my sheep raising efforts. The primary thing keeping things small has been lack of land.

But I think I have found a pretty piece of property of about 16 and a half acres (more or less) with about 12 acres (we think) in open farm land. The price is a little high perhaps. But location, at this point, is everything. The place is across a field or around a corner from my parent's home.

Eventually, when they are either ready to move into a smaller, maintenance free place or (hopefully not soon) pass away, Ken and I will move into their place.

Most people would say the property on which I've put a bid is too cut up for any real use... but if the survey comes back the way I think it will, it might just be perfect for what I want to do simply because it's sort of cut up. The angles are a little weird as it follows some the lines of the landscape, but in the middle of the place are three houses that belong to other people. Most folks would find this detrimental. I'm looking at is protection for my sheep. These will be neighbors who are virtually on-site and if there are any troubles, they will be my eyes and ears.

There is a large area that can either become hayfield with the smaller odd bits becoming sheep pasture, or the small bits strung together can be hay fields with the large area enclosed as a whole then subdivided into small rotational pastures. I need to further assess all areas before I make a decision how it will be used.

There is also a large wooded area which will be available for hunting by friends (and maybe family), and maybe, just maybe an area in which to raise one or two hogs each year for family use.

Now, watch me dream like a crazy woman...

I can see sheep. This one is easy. Chickens... also pretty easy since we've done it before and with proper perimeter fencing might work better. The chickens can be for both meat and eggs. A hog or two in the woods. One or two steer pastured steer for meat. And eventually, a lovely milk cow living on the three acres of cleared land in what is now my parent's front yard (it is currently being farmed for grain/soybean/corn).

In the history of the county, this property has never been surveyed. It has been passed down through many, many generations; cut up between kids and cousins, re-assembled, cut up again, sold off in small bits and now, finally, this is (I think) the last piece of the tract in this area still owed by the original family. Because it has never been surveyed and I learned of it and put an offer on it before it was marketed, the real estate folks have had to hire a survey company to figure out what it's actual dimensions are.

The current owner has been paying taxes to the county for 16.92 acres. And they claim that all but 2 acres are in the open. But looking at satellite images, I'm thinking there is more like 5 acres in woodland. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but the woodland is basically a large swale or series of swales leading down to the river. It's value as farmland is nil. It's value for hunting might be a little higher. If there are a decent number of oak trees in there, it might be good for firewood, hogs and growing mushrooms. (See I can be creative in my thinking). But I don't know what's in there yet as we are waiting on the survey people to put in the stakes so we can see it.

To raise animals I will need to install sturdy perimeter fencing around the areas designated for pastures. I will need to have electricity brought in. A well will have to be dug. The whole farmed area will have to be converted to hay or pasture from tilled farm. There is a small erosion problem in one section which appears to be addressed now by the current farmer letting it go back to scruffy trees. The neighboring land owner, however, has failed to address his erosion problem and that may impact on my land soon and will have to be addressed.

What is interesting is that the neighboring property is the property that is directly across the lane from my parent's house. Perhaps if I can get positive things going on this initial piece, and run the current farmer off by taking back this larger tract for my own use, the neighbor will consider selling or renting that piece to me for additional pasture, which could do nothing but help cut down on the erosion there.

But I'm really dreaming here.

At this point, I'm waiting on the survey... and feeling very grateful for parents who are allowing me to, essentially, take a loan against my inheritance before I'm too old to do anything with it.

Real vs Altered

2011-03-27T07:46:00.002-04:00

At some point in our agricultural history things became more mechanized. Farms when from smaller units serving local people (or people within a days walk or days horse/wagon/buggy ride) to units that serve thousands of people from all over the world. Food that would spoil in transit became a liability. In the newly industrialized world, science came to the rescue and discovered that with pasteurization, many foods (not just milk) could be preserved, transported and sit for months or years on a shelf somewhere before consumption. Pressure canning became the standard for preserving food, leaving dried foods and fermented foods in the dust.

Populations grew bigger and more and more people moved into the cities. Dairies, still needing to stay close to their customers because refrigerated transport of milk had not yet been perfected, moved their animals into smaller lots until finally, almost all dairy cows lived in dry lots and were fed whatever the farmer brought to them.

Now, some folks are beginning to realize there is something missing from the foods we eat and the beverages we drink - nutrition. We are MISSING vital symbiotic living organisms that help us digest our foods properly and we are losing our health as a result.

I recognize it sounds crazy in our scientific worldview, but I do believe raw milk is one of the keys to good health. BUT, it must be healthy milk to begin with coming from healthy cows who eat grass -- not soy, not corn and not some other conglomeration of foodstuffs with vitamins thrown in.

The argument against pasteurization makes sense only if the animals are allowed to eat from healthy fields and other efforts to keep the milk clean and cold are adhered to. Milk from dry lot cows should be pasteurized. Milk from field fed cows does not.

Give me pastured cows and you won't have to pasteurize for me (and you can skip the homogenization step in either case).

Let's get real

2011-03-07T07:02:00.002-05:00

Wow, I had an eye opener this morning. I was skimming over Jake Today this a.m. and came across this.

That led me to this article.

Which led me to this.

As a person at the back end of the baby boom, I'm getting very concerned about my future. I planned some for retirement. When I started work, I thought I would retire at age 55. Now, I'm looking at 65. And unfortunately, my health has not altogether kept up with my dreams. Part of that is my fault. And it is becoming much clearer to me (we call this the contemplative stage in recovery), that I will have to take full responsibility for my own health and welfare when I do retire. That means I need to get back in shape now.

I need to get serious about weight loss (the single biggest contribution to my health problems, I believe). And I need to do it now.

Stays or Corsets?

2011-02-06T09:50:00.002-05:00

I really should refer to the undergarments I'm making as Stays. Corsets did not come around until just before the Civil War and continued into Victorian and Edwardian periods.

I have worked up a muslin of the first set of stays. I got the wrong size apparently and have inserted an additional panel which may or may not remain (I may end up just widening the panels that I have instead). I cut out all the pattern pieces and transferred them onto muslin. These were whipped together with basting stitches on the sewing machine (major cheat). Then I cut it apart when I realized there was no way it was going to fit around me, and inserted strips of muslin fabric which currently have not pattern parts. In a few places, I widened the muslin patterns parts.

If this passes some sort of muster at our study group meeting, I will take it apart and use the muslin pieces to make new pattern pieces (either tissue paper or a paper grocery bag or some newsprint).

I'm a little stumped as to actual fabric from which to make the stays. I have some nice linen and silk fabric which is tightly woven and might work, but it's very thin and I'm skeptical. I also have some mustard colored heavy canvas type stuff out of which I planned to make a pair of dungarees for Ken to complete his costume for blacksmithing. The canvas might be too heavy for the stays. The other ladies should be able to guide me on this.

I am also in the process of weaving on the inkle loom some cotton tape. We will be able to use it for binding, lacing tape and maybe even for channels for the boning. I'm happy with how it is coming out. I also plan to make several yards of similar tape from linen threads.

Corset bits

2011-02-05T13:01:00.002-05:00

Corsets are really interesting items of clothing. It's underwear but they are really complicated underwear. I guess a bra is kind of complicated as well, but the corset creates the framework upon which the rest of your clothing is designed.

They are also supportive. They support the back when doing heavy lifting (carrying water buckets, jugs of wine, shocks of hay, bricks, what have you... They support the breasts so they don't hang down, are stretched out of shape and flop about. They support the gut and keep it from stretching out over time and sagging. I don't think they necessary support muscle development in these areas, but women often aren't developed in these areas anyway. Nowadays, we just sort of sag and flap and roll and let it all hang out. But this can lead to back and neck problems (ask me how I know this). Bras dig deep into your shoulders and can actually deform the bones after a while.

The work that goes into building a corset (note I said building and not sewing) does require some research. It also requires an investment of time and equipment and supplies. I"m hoping the resulting garment is worth every penny and minute I put into it.

For help with all the technical details and actual, hands-on work; a few of us have banded together for a Corset/Bodies/Stays Study Group which meets on the Fourth Sunday of each month in the Yellow Cat Saloon above the Heathsville Tavern Restaurant at the RHHT. We meet from 1 to 3 p.m.

So far, there are three of us, but folks interested in this sort of thing are welcomed to join us at any point. The goal is for each of us to make at least one set of stays, corsets or bodies.

I am working on two versions. The first is from this pattern: 18th Century Strapless Stays by J. P. Ryan. My second is from Elizabethan Costume.

The second is from a different era altogether but with some adaptations, I may be able to make it work (or save it for a Ren Period outfit).

Corsets, Bodies & Stays

2011-02-05T12:44:00.002-05:00

As a member of the Rices Hotel Hughlett Tavern and a member of the Spiinning and Weaving Guild that meets there, I've been wanting to develop a period outfit for some time. I'm an odd bird, no doubt, and enjoy dressing up in costumes.

The challenge with the RHHT outfit is that I've never been entirely clear on what era we were supposed to be interpreting. The Hotel has been around since before the Revolution. It was in the business of being a privately owned public gathering place up until maybe 30 years ago. So it covers a lot of years.

I was told at one point, they were aiming for 1810 (just prior to the Industrial Revolution when Steamboats went up and down the Potomac River to Baltimore on a regular basis. In fact, travel by land was fraught with hazards and took a very long time. Water travel was, by far, the best.

I have not had time to research it myself (yet) but I suspect that most of the folks here who had a couple of cents to rub together, did a good job of dressing fashionably and probably purchased the majority of their fabrics (perhaps even finished clothing) from points North or even Europe.

This was the age of Jane Eyre. Younger women wore stays but they were short and more closely resembled today's full line bra. And yes, they did have boning made from the baleen of the unfortunate whale.

But this era of Romance only spanned about 10 years when women found themselves laced back into corsets which were even more restrictive than the kind worn by women from 1780 to 1810. By the period of the Civil War, they would hardly breath and they suffered from the effects of lacing that was dangerously tight.

The problem with the Romantic period of dress is that these ladies were wearing gauze. I mean literally. Many of them died of complications of not wearing enough clothing in winter!

I like being warm. I like wool.

So, I've decided that because I have grey hair, I can be one of the old fuddy duddy ladies and wear clothing of the previous era and get away with it.

Knitting progress this year and hopes for the future

2010-12-24T05:10:00.004-05:00

I think I actually got more done this year than I thought. Interestingly enough, I did not get done nearly what I thought that I would.

Here is what I did do:

Completed spinning oatmeal yarn and knitted a vest (turns out it is way too big around and also too short, but I might actually be able to fix that.
Completed spinning the green and purple fiber into yarn (all 2 pounds of it) and have completed knitting all but the arms. (Yes, I know that is like knitting a whole front, but I feel like I've made good progress.)
Completed spinning and knitting a small icelandic lamb scarf. It's not good enough to give away as the spinning should have been done all at once and so is very irregular and bizarre. But I need a scarf, so it will be mine.
Completed knitting and felted a pair of slippers. They are slightly lopsided, but very warm and I really like them lots.
Completed two hats for my boys and THEY LIKE THEM!!!! (Nothing like walking a mile in 20 degree weather to make you appreciate wool).
Completed three baby hats for the guild sale.
Spun up lots of odd balls of yarn also donated for guild sales.
Completed Isabel from yarn purchased in Maine
Completed another, slightly larger shawl, from odd balls from my mother's stash (blue and purple sari silk stuff).

Want to complete in the coming year:

A scarf for my dad
Completion of the green and purple cardigan
The correction of the brown vest
Completion of the spinning of the grey lincoln roving.
Completion of the spinning of Alice and Jerry's lamb's fleeces (Alice is almost done)
Completion of the spinning of Noodle's second fleece
A hat for my nephew which includes a bit of black fleece from a school field trip.
Fingerless mitts for my niece
Something woven or knitted from Alice and Jerry yarn
French Press Slippers
An ear flap hat with braids (I don't know why, I just want to do this)
Some kind of head covering for days when I wear a ponytail or bun
Another pair of stranded mittens
A hat for my co-worker who drew this as his holiday gift surprise
Finish the Freya hat
Finish spinning the mohair blend yarn on a drop spindle and knit something lacy with it.
Finish knitting the brandywine shawl that I started from handspun scraps.
Knit another vest (cardigan style and maybe with cables)
Knit a danish tie shawl for wearing around the house when I'm working but cool.

Soaked Apple Pecan Granola

2010-12-19T09:26:00.003-05:00

2 cups of organic thick cut oatmeal
4 cups of warm water (or 2 cups water and 2 cups of organic apple cider or juice warmed)
1/4 cup whey (liquid left over from making yogurt cheese) or 2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 tablespoon coconut oil, melted
1 or 2 organic apple(s) peeled and diced
2 tablespoons of maple syrup
2 tablespoons of Rapiduran Sugar (or 1 tablespoon of molasses)
1/2 teaspoon sea salt

1/2 cup crispy pecans (see recipe in Nurturing Traditions)

Mix together all liquid ingredients. Add salt and Rapiduran Sugar and stir to dissolve. Add oatmeal and diced apple to a large bowl and pour liquids over. Stir to mix well. Cover bowl and allow to rest on counter top overnight.

The next morning, drain the excess liquid (if there is any) and spread the soggy oatmeal mix over a food dryer trays lined with either parchment paper or cheese cloth cut to fit. Dry at 115 degrees for 24 hours. If not completely crispy dry, add 4 to 8 hours drying time.

Remove warm granola from paper or cheese cloth and put into a large, dry bowl. Break up the large chunks. Add pecans (or other nuts or coconut shreds as desired). Store in glass jars.

Eat with organic, raw milk yogurt or raw milk.

Moving towards Earth

2010-12-17T06:30:00.003-05:00

Over the course of the last month or so, I've been moving towards a healthier bread. I'm not there yet but getting closer. I sprouted organic wheat kernels and dried them. I am keeping these babies stored in the freezer. I purchased organic rye flour (and am searching for organic rye berries). I made sourdough starter. I purchased organic smelt flour. I have only a little all purpose white flour left.

I made two loaves of bread yesterday from all my new ingredients and just a bit of the white flour. I ground the wheat in a coffee grinder (not previously used for anything else). I added caraway seed.

I probably could have let the loaves rise a bit longer, but they seemed very moist and I was afraid they were too fragile and did not have enough active gluten to support a high rise. But they crested the pans a little and I put them in the oven for 45 minutes at 350 degrees.

Oh my, this is really good bread. I don't know how to explain the LACK of rancidity. The flavor is wonderful and I cannot wait to get rye berries and sprout them myself for flour.

Ouchy

2010-12-17T06:24:00.003-05:00

I woke up this morning with awful sinus pain. I was transported back a month or so when I woke up every morning in pain. I also could not breath through my nose. Ugh!

Why?

Well, two things could be the culprit. I shut the bedroom window three days ago. It was cold when I went to bed. I wanted to sit up and read for a bit. I thought I would read, then get up and re-crack the window because we both prefer to sleep in a cooler room. But I forgot. And I failed to re-open it for the last couple of days.

But I didn't wake up with sinus problems for the last three days. So what was different?

Then I remembered. Last night I got a small snack attack while watching TV. I should have had a handful of nuts or a piece of fruit or some yogurt... but instead I grabbed three of Ken's cookies (they are good quality cookies, but not homemade).

I will avoid those tonight and see if tomorrow morning is miserable.

Vision improving?

2010-12-15T05:51:00.002-05:00

I'm about a week shy of a month following the Weston A Price food recommendations. I have eliminated soy from my diet altogether. I probably still eat too much grain, but I'm at least soaking and sprouting it.

I have noticed the following:

I can focus and maintain focus.
I have more energy
I sleep better (except for when I have a hot flash)
I am not depressed and am off the anti-depressants and do not miss them at all.
I am optimistic about life
I am using my reading glasses less
I do not have nearly as much gas and no bloating at all
I have regular bowel movements and no hemorrhoids
While I am experiencing a full range of emotions, I do not get freaked out or upset about things that used to upset me and piss me off and left me feeling resentful and angry.
Most of my joint pain is gone (my right thumb still throbs from time to time, but I probably abuse it)
I continue to lose weight (albeit more slowly than at first... now about 1/2 pound a week)
I am not hungry all the time and sometimes don't even notice when it's meal time until someone points it out or I do get hungry a couple of hours later.
I'm eating less at most meals.
I have had no cravings for chocolate, sugar, bread, cookies, donuts, cake or any of the other junk I used to crave daily and often indulged.
I do crave cod liver oil from time to time.

Challenges I'm facing on this new eating adventure:

Finding a source for pasture fed milk has been unsuccessful. I have a source for locally raised raw milk, but it's not organic. I'm not sure if I'm better off with the non-organic but raw or if I would be better off with the Ultra-pasteurized, homogenized stuff from the store even it it is organic. In the spring I will have a source for raw, organic goat milk but will have to make do until then.

As with the milk, finding organic butter is a problem. I can't find cream at all other than the little bit on top of the milk after it sits for a few days.

Ken does not like most of the fermented foods. He will eat the purple cabbage ferment and the beets. I'm hoping as the other foods age a bit, they will mellow and he will be more content to eat them. I like the stuff, myself.

Ohno Update

2010-12-11T06:36:00.003-05:00

I am delighted to say that Ohno (and Alice and Jerry) have finally adjusted to each other.

And Ohno seems to be recovered from a very severe bout of barberpole worms. His eyes are now nice and pink (the under eyelids) and his who demeanor has changed. Now he boings like a sheep, runs, tosses his head in joy and generally makes a nuisance of himself. Most importantly, he is finally putting on some weight.

These guys get a bit of cracked corn mixed with something call Hay Stretcher from the Tractor Supply outfit. They each get about 2 cups of this mix each evening. In the morning they are getting fresh hay. Starting tonight they will also start receiving fresh privit hedge branches and leaves. This is their winter fodder.

The weather has been ridiculously cold for this time of year. Last year was also crazy cold with entirely too much snow for our area. I fear this year will be the same. Fortunately, all three sheep have put on a good thick coat of wool. Ohno's fiber is very, very soft and he does appear to have a rather critical break in it... but next year we will not have that problem as we will treat aggressively for worms early on and throughout the summer.

I'm thinking seriously of investing in diacotamous earth to spread out there. Short of moving the sheep and burning off the pasture mid spring, I'm not sure how else to get rid of the freaking worms. I will keep researching.

Okay, maybe somebody gets it

2010-12-08T05:31:00.002-05:00

I am not happy that they are making money from what is the core of my spiritual beliefs and they are failing badly to admit that there is already an entire religious belief system devoted to this, but it is an interesting article, never the less:

Connecting to Gaia

Spice, K2 and other fake Pot products

2010-12-06T18:06:00.001-05:00

News Release [print-friendly page]
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 24, 2010
Contact: DEA Public Affairs
Number: 202-307-7977

DEA Moves to Emergency Control Synthetic Marijuana
Agency Will Study Whether To Permanently Control Five Substances

NOV 24 -- WASHINGTON, D.C. – The United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is using its emergency scheduling authority to temporarily control five chemicals (JWH-018, JWH-073, JWH-200, CP-47,497, and cannabicyclohexanol) used to make “fake pot” products. Except as authorized by law, this action will make possessing and selling these chemicals or the products that contain them illegal in the U.S. for at least one year while the DEA and the United States Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) further study whether these chemicals and products should be permanently controlled.

A Notice of Intent to Temporarily Control was published in the Federal Register today to alert the public to this action. After no fewer than 30 days, DEA will publish in the Federal Register a Final Rule to Temporarily Control these chemicals for at least 12 months with the possibility of a six-month extension. They will be designated as Schedule I substances, the most restrictive category, which is reserved for unsafe, highly abused substances with no medical usage.

Over the past year, smokable herbal blends marketed as being “legal” and providing a marijuana-like high, have become increasingly popular, particularly among teens and young adults. These products consist of plant material that has been coated with research chemicals that mimic THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, and are sold at a variety of retail outlets, in head shops and over the Internet. These chemicals, however, have not been approved by the FDA for human consumption and there is no oversight of the manufacturing process. Brands such as “Spice,” “K2,” “Blaze,” and “Red X Dawn” are labeled as incense to mask their intended purpose.

Since 2009, DEA has received an increasing number of reports from poison centers, hospitals and law enforcement regarding these products. Fifteen states have already taken action to control one or more of these chemicals. The Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984 amends the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) to allow the DEA Administrator to emergency schedule an abused, harmful, non-medical substance in order to avoid an imminent public health crisis while the formal rule-making procedures described in the CSA are being conducted.

“The American public looks to the DEA to protect its children and communities from those who would exploit them for their own gain,” said DEA Acting Administrator Michele M. Leonhart. “Makers of these harmful products mislead their customers into thinking that ‘fake pot’ is a harmless alternative to illegal drugs, but that is not the case. Today’s action will call further attention to the risks of ingesting unknown compounds and will hopefully take away any incentive to try these products.”

Hurry up Solstice!

2010-12-02T06:31:00.002-05:00

Sigh... I feel like I haven't seen my sheep in months! By the time I get home from work these days it's dark. The sheep have been fed (thank you, Ken) and are settling in for the night. I do not bother them once settled or it disrupts their whole world.

Sheep are smart, by the way. Jerry knows how to tell time and at 4 p.m. starts pacing the fence line and yelling for his evening meal (they get hay extender with either cracked corn or beet shreds). It's also time for the shepherd to check out the animals.

In the morning I put out hay before I leave for work, but they aren't overly interested in hay and prefer to nibble grass. I know they eat the hay when no one is looking (either that or the birds are flying in to steal it during the day when I'm gone) because it's missing within 24 hours. But they pretend to be uninterested when I put it out there.

Soon, they will start getting privit branches which is their favorite food of all times. They will love Ken with all their hearts and believe him to be bringer of all sorts of wonder until Spring when the privit stops coming and they start getting manhandled for their hair.

But I am waiting for Solstice when the days finally start getting longer again. My internal cycle is shuttling me off to bed around 8 or 8:30 at night and when I don't get home until 6 or so, that makes for a short evening in which to get things done.

China Study Discussions

2010-11-30T19:32:00.002-05:00

Since someone asked about this, I thought I should share this link about the flaws being discovered in the China Study. The China Study promotes lots of soy and low fat... but it does include fish, fruit and vegetables which is all good stuff.

Now, I'm of the belief that one should not believe everything one reads. But I also believe that if you do enough research for yourself (including reading other people's research), you can at least attempt to come to an educated decision.

Differing tastes

2010-11-28T08:37:00.002-05:00

My husband is a purist.

He likes his eggs fried, over easy. A little salt, a little pepper and maybe a piece of toast to sop up the yolk.

I made some mint chutney the other day from the Nourishing Traditions cookbook and when it was ready for refrigeration, I tasted a little. It was very, very salty. It was salty enough I thought for a moment that it was inedible. But under the salt was a lovely mint and nut flavor coming through so I kept it.

This morning I decided I wanted an extra boost of protein for my breakfast and scrambled a couple of organic eggs in lard (how daring for me!) and dressed the plate by topping the eggs with a teaspoon of the mint chutney and a tiny dab of butter. I put a small square of raw cheese on the side and cut up an apple to go with it. It was yummy, just yummy.

I made the same thing for Ken when he got up. He was not impressed. He ate it all, but insisted he likes his eggs plain.

Busy morning

2010-11-20T08:15:00.003-05:00

I woke up this a.m. at 5. This is my normal waking time.

I got up and had a cup of coffee with stevia. I'm avoiding the artificial sweeteners as much as I can. I grew stevia about two years ago in the herb garden, harvested the leaves, dried them and was overwhelmed with the sweetness. I kept a jar of whole leaves thinking that I hated to waste them, but did not touch them again. Now, I know to grind the leaves with a mortar and pestle and use just a half a pinch to sweeten coffee and tea.

I looked over the list of things recommended at the workshop we attended at Wise Traditions on Monday. I made a batch of Crispy Pecans already this week by soaking raw pecans in salt water overnight. I put them in the food dryer on Friday morning before I left for work and when I got home I had two cups of wonderful snacking nuts. So, this morning I put on two cups of raw almonds and two cups of raw sunflower seeds on to soak this morning with salted water. Tonight, before I go to bed, I'll put them in the food dryer.

I also started a batch of fermented catsup this morning as I already had the ingredients.

Then I took out two eggs to go room temperature for mayonnaise. While I had the eggs out, I put three in water to bring to a boil for coddled eggs for my breakfast. Then I warmed up some raw milk to try my hand at yoghurt again. Ken picked up some yoghurt starter for me in Kilmarnock yesterday at Higher Health Foods. So while the milk was coming up to 110 degrees, I pulled out the oats and put them on to soak for my oatmeal breakfast over the coming week. I make one big batch and reheat what I need each day.

So, I got the yoghurt going and decided to see about dinner. I found some pork ribs in the freezer. Not organic or even pasture fed, but meat. I put that into the crockpot with an onion, some blackberry vinegar (from some blackberry mead that went a bit too long), sea salt, a glob of my catsup (not fermented yet, but would not fit in the jar set to ferment), and some water. I put the crockpot on the lowest, longest setting and anticipate it coming out in shreds at dinner time.

While I was in the freezer, I also found some organic whole wheat flour and smelt flour. I pulled those out and discovered a gallon bag of frozen blackberries. So I got out about 2 cups of blackberries and plan to make something wonderful with yoghurt cream cheese (from the first store bought batch that I made Tuesday evening).

I also started a batch of sourdough bread from the sour dough starter I made before leaving for the conference last week.

So here it is, 8:30 a.m. and I have eaten my breakfast, cleaned up my kitchen, am drinking my second cup of coffee and waiting for the bread to rise. I go the the Tavern for the Spinners and Weavers Guild today from 10 until 4. When I get home, supper will almost be ready. I will likely stop at the store and pick up some organic salad greens.

I have some sweet potatoes that will be lovely for a side dish. The bread will be ready for the oven and all will be right with the world.

I am off to make my mayonnaise now. Wish me luck.

Finding food for healing

2010-11-19T19:50:00.004-05:00

I am feeling much better.

I was formally introduced to the Weston A Price Foundation last weekend when my friend, Angel, took me (and a couple of others) to the W.A.P.F. Conference in Philadelphia.

I ate like I was starved all weekend. The first night before the conference we all ate out at a really nice place near the conference center. The price tag was a bit insane but the food was very refined, delicious and beautifully presented. Little did I know at that time, we would be eating like Kings and Queens at the groaning board all weekend long.

The theme was "The Politics of Food" and I felt oddly proud to be a Virginian as we were well represented.

The first day I felt like I was cheating. Everything I heard the first day seemed completely counter to everything I'd ever learned or lived. I could hear my mother's voice saying that I would get fat if I ate fat; and here were all these people telling me that I NEED to eat fat in order to be healthy. I had always been taught that the healthiest diet was low fat and might be vegetarian.

When I attended an all-day series of sessions in which the speaker, Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride, reviewed study after study done in Europe that de-bunks the whole low fat, high carb U.S.D.A. food recommendations, my ears really pricked up. She talked about bowel problems and memory problems and circulation problems and autism and learning issues, hyperactivity and attention deficit and epilepsy and a host of other health problems including cancer. She talked about leaky gut syndrome and she made a very solid case against low fat/high carb diets. She also pointed out that in addition to low fat/high carb diets, we are also dying from poisons like plastic, GMO foods and over medicated meat animals.

Two things stood out: The French eat very well and are some of the healthiest and long lived people in the world. The same can be said of primitive peoples. Both of these groups eat high fat, high meat and low carbs. Both groups also eat fruits and vegetables but limit their grain intake. Both groups also eat fermented and pickled foods. Soy is avoided unless well fermented and aged. All refined sugars are avoided. Plastic is avoided or is unheard of.

I already knew that over pasteurizing ourselves lowers our immune systems. We have become so bacteria phobic we can no longer fight off even basic germs and more and more micro-organisms are mutating and becoming immune themselves to anti-bacterial soaps and antibiotics.

I also already knew that there were serious side effects from antibiotics including allergic reactions, rampant yeast infections and other problems including disruption of digestion and elimination. I have never trusted our government's assurances that vaccinations were safe.
I know that almost all pharmaceuticals have side effects and can point to both my parents who suffered from damages caused by long-term use. Plastics I know can leach out of wrappings and into our foods and fill us with toxins.

Dr. Campbell McBride recommended the GAPS Diet to help heal the gut. Most remarkable about this diet was the central position of RAW milk.

In all of my 51 years I have never had the opportunity to drink raw milk. It's delicious!

I was skeptical until the end of the weekend after eating all their foods (prepared in abundance and served buffet style to the 2000+ people in attendance at the conference.) . As the days past, my ever present hunger decreased. By Monday I was surprised when they let us go for lunch. I was not feeling sluggish, grumpy or desperate for food even though I had eaten a very light and early breakfast and we did not go to lunch until 12:30 p.m. Driving home that night I did not get hungry again until nearly 8 p.m. and then I was fully content with a piece of cheese and an organic apple and some vinegar water with a little raw honey.

But let me back up a day or two... I was also introduced to raw cheese, fermented vegetables, raw butter and caster oil! After the second day I noticed that my digestion was smoother with minimal farting, smooth defecation-- unusual when I'm traveling as I have always been a sufferer of hemorrhoids and constipation despite lots of water, high fiber and an otherwise "healthy" diet. My doctor's solution after examining my diet and declaring it perfect, was to give me stool softeners. They helped, but who wants to do that? Now, for two days I had eaten a LOT of cheese and milk and fat. Yes, there were nuts, fruits and veggies as well, but very little fiber in the form of cereals and breads. I expected to be bloated, plugged and miserable. And there was none of that.

I began to look around and realized that most of the conference attendees were of two groups... new to this program and seeking a solution to their health problems or folks who had been following this way of life with raw milk, slow foods and organic sources for nutrient dense meals. Everyone I saw there who had been on this path for any length of time was calm, moved gracefully and was alert, intelligent and their weight was perfect for their height. Their children were well behaved, calm and beautiful.

I came home enthused, excited and ready to help my family move away from the poisons we had been eating and incorporating into our lives real food.

When I returned to work on Tuesday EVERYONE in my office wanted to know what had happened to me. I was calm, I was focused. I could remember things! Let me tell you, this is really remarkable.

I also lost 2 pounds from the previous week.

By Wednesday I could go up the stairs without my knees screaming at me. By Thursday the swelling in my sinuses had reduced around my nose.

By Friday morning I'd lost another pound.

I'm eating real butter, whole raw milk, meat fat, ghee, coconut oil, whole sour cream, whole cream cheese, cod liver oil, sauerkraut, meat, fresh fruit, raw honey, and eggs. All of it is organic. What I am not eating is cereal and only one or so slice of bread a day. I have eliminated soy altogether.

I do not crave sugar at all. I don't want cookies, cake or chocolate. I am satisfied when I eat my food.

Seems utterly crazy... but what if it works? I'm going to find out.

Blue Ribbon!

2010-10-10T07:47:00.003-04:00

I don't know why I'm so excited by this, but I won a blue ribbon at the Virginia State Fair!

I also won a red (second place)!

I won the blue for the "Spinner's Workbasket". For this entry, I spun up enough (plus a little) shetland fleece in heavy lace weight to complete Brandywine. I skeined up the yarn so it was pretty and labeled each skein with weight, yardage and date spun. I purchased the pattern and tucked it into a plastic sleeve protector. Found a nice rustic basket. I saved a few locks from the fleece and tied them together, added a circular knitting needle and finally knitted and tied on a swatch. Anyway everything went into the basket and I had it sitting in my house, ready to go, for about 6 months. Finally, off it went.

Now I want to knit the shawl and perhaps enter the completed project in next year's fair.

I won the red for a skein of sport weight yarn spun from Alice's fiber. It really is a pretty heathery grey and I'm working my way through the rest of her fleece. I was hoping I would have enough for a sweater, but it's looking a little shy of that. Perhaps a vest for a young, skinny person... This is her lamb fleece, so I want it to go to a special project. But I will have to wait and see how much actual yardage I get.

New Face

2010-08-08T09:03:00.005-04:00

Back when I first started spinning, I saw a sweater that had been hand knitted. It was a yoked pullover sweater with an beautiful stranded pattern in the yoke and was made up of three or four natural colors of fleece. It looked sort of like this. I have always coveted that sweater.

Then, one year at Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival, in the contests someone had entered a gorgeous sweater of just that type -- all handspun.

Then I started raising a few sheep. I started out with two, added a third then lost one. But three was the original goal. If I were to fence my ENTIRE yard, I could easily do five, but I really would be divorced and probably broke as well.

Alice and Jerry have two different colors. Alice is pretty evenly white and grey with a few patches that are darker and a few that are almost pure white. Jerry is white and light brown. As a lamb he was a chestnut color but that faded and he has only a few small chestnut spots left. Both have beautiful fleeces.

But I really wanted a dark colored, non-fading Shetland.

And last year I met Katherine Davidson of Potosi Sheep Farm near Lancaster, PA. We talked about sheep. I talked about wanting a non-fading lamb. She told me she might have one and for a very reasonable price since her daughter was in a town near me, she would be willing to even deliver it. So, we struck a verbal deal. She would bring me a little black wether named Ohno as soon as he was weaned.

I think he weaned in June. That was just about the same time the East Coast began cooking under weeks of drought and 100+ degree temperatures. It was not safe to transport a lamb in the back of a pickup in these conditions so we put it off.

Finally, yesterday, there was a break in the weather. It cooled down to a pseudo comfortable 88 and Ohno began is trip to me in a dog crate in the back of a pickup.

He arrived safely and immediately got an ear tag.

Katherine and family were running late at this point and were supposed to be meeting family halfway across the state in the other direction and not realizing how far East my house really was, were now about 2 1/2 hours late. I paid her, we agreed to exchange the rest of the shot record and information by email later, and off they went.

And Ohno got to meet his new sheep family. As I feared, Alice and Jerry were very rude. I know it is sheep behavior to put the new guy in his place and establish who is dominate to whom in a flock, but when Jerry nearly squashed him by jumping on him, I pulled Jerry out and put him back in the larger pasture. When Alice started beating him up too, I pull her out and left Ohno in the adjoining pasture and let them talk to each other through the fence. Both had food, water and shelter, so I wasn't too worried.

Just before dark, I put Alice back in with Ohno so he would not be alone over night. He was a gentleman, kept his distance, gave her space and she did not bother him over much. They did not sleep together, but seemed okay.

So, this a.m. I put Jerry back in. He immediately started abusing Ohno again. And he is much rougher than Alice. And once he got Ohno down, he would not stop, so I grabbed Ohno up, put him in the big pasture and left Alice and Jerry in the little one for now. I will later put Alice in the big pasture and leave Jerry until later this evening. I may need to figure out a way to provide Ohno with a "safe house" some where he can get into for protection that the others cannot. He is half their size right now. But he would have to figure out quickly not to venture to far from home base. I will have to think on this a bit.

Clearly, they will need supervised play time for a while. I just hope eventually, they will all adjust. I also hope the adjustment is sooner, rather than later.

I think I got it!

2010-07-24T14:56:00.000-04:00

Deb and I took at class at Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival in May on Longdraw spinning from Maggie Casey.

I could not get it. I struggled. I just could not seem to get the hang of it.

I'd give it a go every once in a while, but the singles would be too fragile or uneven or just full of lumps. I was sad.

Today, however, while alone at the Tavern, I was spinning the final four ounces of the purple and green fiber from the Barefoot Spinner that I purchased two years ago at the MS&W. I had started with 2 pounds of the stuff. I've been spinning it fairly bulky. I've been working on it for months! I was bored.

Instead of pulling off a piece and spinning from that, I started spinning from the end of the ball itself. Suddenly, it started to flow and I spun the last three ounces completely as long draw. No breaking, no weirdness, just smooth sailing. And it went fast and it was fun.

Now I have to finish plying it and I'm done with the spinning!

The next job is to find the right pattern and knit a sweater!

Since it is 103 degrees today (heat index somewhere around 107), I'm not really trying to start knitting a sweater today. I am working on a baby bonnet, a knitted doll, a hand-spun scarf for my dad, Tom's sock (one is finished), and a lace shawl.

Alice and Jerry appear to be adapting pretty well to the heat. How, I do not know. They move VERY slowly during the day and lay in the shade a lot, but I'm not seeing them pant or even breathe very hard. They have about 2 or 3 inches of insulation on their bodies... but still!

Ken knows about OhNo now. He's not happy that I'm getting yet another sheep, but Ohno is a black lamb with little white rear socks and a white head. He's really cute. If the heat ever lets up, his current owner will deliver him from Pennsylvania.

Trees in the pasture

2010-06-12T07:46:00.002-04:00

Jerry and Alice have managed to kill off all the trash trees in their pasture by girding them. They literally stripped the bark off of all the mimosas inside their enclosed area. All of these died over the winter and Ken and Matthew cut them down last week.

Fortunately, they have left the large plum tree alone (other than to eat every leaf within four feet of the ground. They also, surprisingly, left the little plum tree alone and it's now loaded with plums.

The sheep have also discovered how yummy the fallen fruit is to eat and gobble up every single fallen fruit. So I go out in the evening and pick the just barely ripe ones BEFORE they fall. I made the mistake of hand feeding some bug chewed ones to the sheep yesterday and Jerry thought that meant that all the fruit in my hand was for him.

And he jumped up on me with his 75 pounds backing some sharp edged hooves trying to get to the little plumbs in my hands. He didn't cut me as I had recently trimmed said hooves, but he sure put a nasty bruise on my thigh. Bugger!

He sure didn't get any more fruit from me. I'll tie him up the next time I go fruit picking.

The new game, which is also a way of training him to respect me, is to run at them making crazy animal noises. They run! And wow, they are really fast! They race around the whole pasture and come right back for another play with the "monster". I can almost hear them giggling like little kids as they fly past on a round. We play until they are panting a little. Gives them some exercise and gives me a smile.

They still come at me like fuzzy vaccuum cleaners when I have animal cookies, or other treats and a quick snag of a front leg and I can do whatever I need to so with them. I'm very pleased with how tame they have become.

I've noticed that on Alice's front sides (where we did need to shear), her rise came later than the rest of her (which is why we needed to shear) and there are little clumps about an inch long that are sort of matted out on the ends. I'm pulling these off as I can. She doesn't seem to mind much so long I as I don't ask her to stand still very long. That way I will have a nice "clean" fleece from her next year without a bunch of garbage left overs from last year. She will have a very wavy fleece next year.

Jerry does not appear to have any rise at all other than on his belly and butt. I'm just pulling those off from time to time when a lock is really dragging.

Neglectful and seeking a solution

2010-06-06T06:32:00.002-04:00

I have been terribly neglectful of my blog. I need to get better at adding updates.

I think I get intimidated by the desire to add photos, but I find it difficult and awkward to add them as I have to first go take pictures, then bring the camera to the computer, find and plug in the cable and finally get them to upload which tends to be a hit or miss operation.

I could certainly leave out the pictures, but then it is just an on-line journal.

I confess that Ravelry makes tracking my knitting projects much easier. But it does not do a really great job of spinning and weaving. Weavolution, if I used it, could probably handle the weaving. So that leaves the spinning.

There is also the matter of the sheep. This does seem to be the best spot to track the adventures of shepherding.

I've been busy doing life chores for a change.

I've started tasking myself with small jobs in order to make a dent in the big picture when it comes to the house. For example, while I wait for a cup of coffee in the microwave for two minutes, I unload the dishwasher... or at least as much of it I can get done in 2 minutes. While waiting for the kettle to boil so I can make instant oatmeal in the morning, I may load the dishwasher or chip some ice from the inside of my ancient chest deep freezer. This morning, I cleared off the windowsill in front of one window and washed it, then decided while it was clear, to wash the one window over it.

I also replaced the paper in the bottom of the silverware drawer and wiped down the inside of the drawer while I was at it. Lots of mice droppings in there in the very back. Sort of scary. Glad I cleaned it.

Tomorrow or later this afternoon, I will put away the dishes in the draining board and then wash the windowsill and window that the drainboard blocks. Later this week I might wash out a veggie drawer in the fridge or clean off one rack.

But each day, I am trying to find one or two jobs that need to be done in the kitchen that does not take a lot of time, that I can accomplish. Then I will get Ken or Matthew to do the big stuff -- like scrub the floor or clean the oven.

For me, I think the secret is not to let myself get overwhelmed. It's also about not becoming resentful about how quickly the house becomes dirty and how there is a need over and over again, to clean it.

2010 Shearing done

2010-03-28T13:59:00.003-04:00

For the most part, anyway. We have a bit of trimming to do on Jerry and I want to smooth out Alice's shoulders, but I am now looking at washing two nice fleeces.

Here is Jerry before:

Jerry after:

Yeah, we need to shear about 998 more sheep to get good at this, but I do see progress from shearing I attempted on two other sheep in the last two years. Most importantly, Jerry survived and only got one small knick. I have few second cuts and basically skirted as we went along and didn't put the nasty stuff in the bag at all.

Jerry's staple mid-side is about 8 inches.
Alice's staple mid-side is about 6 inches.

Jerry is heavier with lanolin than Alice's. When we weighed them both today after shearing in preparation for giving them CDT shots in the next couple of weeks, we learned that Alice actually outweighs Jerry. She is plumper.

I don't know what to call this method other than team shearing... old farts shearing might be more like it. In any case, eventually, both men ended up sitting on the ground and holding Jerry fore and aft and Deb and I completed the haircut.

Clearly, it resulted in a very ugly haircut as Alice literally beat the buggers out of Jerry for about 90 minutes. She just kept butting him and knocking him down. I don't know if she really didn't know who he was and was scared or if she finally realized he was actually the smaller sheep and decided to put him in his place.

To Roo or not to roo

2010-02-28T07:19:00.004-05:00

Raising livestock for any reason requires patience. Unfortunately, I've never been a very patient person and waiting for the "harvest" of wool is really getting difficult. They will be a year old next month. It is time for them to give up their first crop.

I have waited, however, for two reasons: 1. I don't want my babies to freeze and this winter has been unusually harsh. I don't think we will actually see temps in the 50s an 60s consistently until April. Then it will need to come off or the sheep will be too hot. 2. I don't have shears and scissors just won't quite do the job.

So, I've been waiting.

I looked out the window yesterday and saw a great hunk of hair hanging down off of Alice. My first thought was that something was wrong and she had been injured in some way and part of her was hanging with the hair. So, I went out to take a closer look.

It seems she has started to roo a little bit. I pulled about 4 ounces off of her. Unfortunately, the stuff that came loose was the matted, clotted, dirty stuff near her arm pits and stomach. It was very interesting to see in those spots where she really was rooing, how the tips of the new coat is just intermingled with the old coat by about a quarter inch. She has about 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch of new growth. And the new stuff under the old stuff where it did pull free, is lovely and white. I will probably never see her as clean again. I was a little afraid of pulling as I thought it would hurt her, but she just stood there quietly and let me yank on her.

Now I did learn that she is happier if I pull steadily and in the direction of the hair. But I still was nervous about hurting her. She let me know when I got to spot that was not loose yet. I did clip a little with a pair of Friskers... and kept the cut at the same level of the new growth just to see if it acted any differently. The cut end on her body does not curl the same as the rooed end. In the lock cut off, I don't really see much difference.

If she was to roo completely, she will look lovely and even all over with just a bit of curl in the new growth. But I'm not convinced that she will. Large swatches (particularly the parts of her fiber I really want) is still hanging on tight.

I honestly thought the fiber I collected off of her was too nasty to fool with as I knew there a lot of other lovely fluff on the rest of her just waiting. And it is the part that is normally skirted out due to tags and dirt. The length varies from 2 inches to 6 and the tips are stained still with the red of the Staunton area soil which is where she was born. I was very pleased to find very little vm in the fiber even though it is from the underside of her and should have been filled with the stuff.

Ken convinced me to wash it anyway and I set it in a colander in front of the heating vent to dry. While it still appeared to be hopelessly matted, when it was nice and dry, I worked with it on the hand cards a little and got some nice, very soft, grey and white rolags. The scratch factor is minimal.

I spun it up on a drop spindle and went with a little thicker weight than I normally do with Shetland. I also spun it as softly as I could. Then I wound it off onto the nostipine, made a 2 pull ball and plyed it back on itself. This very few yards was then knitted on US8 needles into a 3 inch swatch and came out to a very lovely worsted weight, worsted wool which is white flecked with bits of grey.

I'm really thinking sweater.

Jerry's fiber remains a mystery at this point. He's not showing any signs of rooing at all. Figures that Mr Hyperactive would be the one I will have to shear.

I can hardly wait to get my shears. I ordered some new ones yesterday.

Drawing

2010-02-27T10:20:00.008-05:00

I thought to see if I could still put pencil to paper and come up with something artistic.

Now, I believe one should really work from life... but just getting back to this, I felt I needed a way to keep my subjects still... not wanting to do a still life (because I really like faces), I decided to work off of two photos.

The first one you might recognize as Alice:

The second is Ken.

Alice has no comment on her likeness.
Ken thinks the drawing looks nothing like him.

I think I need to practice some, but I'm pretty close.

Cuties

2010-02-21T14:36:00.002-05:00

Do you think they are spoiled? Maybe?

Alice:

Jerry:

Past meets present

2010-02-10T17:59:00.002-05:00

One of my favorite things to do is to treat myself to lunch once a week at a local restaurant. While there, I eavesdrop on conversations going on near me.

Last week I overheard an enlightening conversation.

There was a young lady there who was with her mother and her grandmother. This young woman was stylishly dressed, and delighted to have a day out of school and an opportunity to spend the afternoon with her grandmother and mother.

She was complaining that her teacher was making her research and write a paper about the days when segregation was in effect in Virginia. She said she did not understand what the big deal was and why there had to be a whole month (February) for Black History Month and why everyone was so insistent that she do the work.

"It's not like it was slavery, or anything," she said.

Her mother, who was my age, said nothing. She just smiled and gave her mother the nod. Grandma took the cue and set down her utensils and leaned back in her chair. She gracefully waved her hand to encompass the dining room of the restaurant. "Do you see the people sitting here?"

The teen looked around and arched her eyebrow. "Yeah, so?"

"How many Black people do you see sitting in here?"

The young woman looked around and noted an older Black couple in the corner and then pointed to herself, her mother and her grandma. "There are five."

"Yes," said grandma, "and right up until your mother was a baby, there would have been none. Your Poppa might have been washing dishes in the back, but none of us would have been allowed to eat here."

She went on to add, "And you would not have been able to eat at McDonalds, go to school with most of your friends, and you might not have been able to shop at the Peebles or Wal-Mart."

"Where did you shop?" the girl asked.

"There were stores, whole neighborhoods just for Blacks. There were schools just for Blacks, but most did not get to complete school because they had to drop out and find jobs to help support their parents and grandparents. There were no retirement plans back then, other than your children taking you in and taking care of you."

"What about the doctors?"

"Oh, back then, the doctors would come to you," Grandma said, "but if he was busy with the White folk, you had to wait. We did not go to the hospital very often. All the babies were born at home."

The young lady looked down at her plate, "But that was a long time ago, wasn't it?"

Her grandma chuckled. She had a deep, low laugh. "It does not seem so long ago to me. And things were changing very fast when your mother was coming up. There are many of us who still remember. It's important that you do not forget."

Then the granddaughter asked, "Was it really so bad, being separate?"

"At the time, most of us tried to pretend it didn't make a difference. Then again, it was all we had ever known. It was pretty scary for us to finally stand up and insist that we be treated fairly. For many, there were serious repercussions. Some of us were killed."

The girl grew quiet. "You know there are still people who say mean things and who think we aren't good enough."

Her grandmother reached across the table and patted her hand. "I know honey, and that just means all the work is not finished yet. You just have to keep your head up and show them you are just as smart, and just as beautiful and far more mature than those people. Fortunately, there are more and more people coming around every day. But you need to do your studies and finish school with good grades and go on to college."

The granddaughter smiles a sort of crooked smile and said, "I'll work on it grandma, but you know you got one thing wrong."

Grandma tilted her head and the girl said, "There were no McDonalds back then so nobody could eat there then." The three burst out into laughter and went back to their meal.

It's good to be reminded.

Pretty snow pictures

2010-02-01T18:52:00.002-05:00

Working from Home

2010-02-01T18:43:00.003-05:00

The snow was coming. We all knew it was coming. So before I left work on Friday I packed up my laptop, the power cord, the mouse and pulled out a bunch of files that needed attention.

They all sat snug in my rolling suitcase until this morning when I looked at the outdoor temperature and read 11 degrees. I cleared my desk, logged off of my personal home computer and unloaded the office laptop and cordage. Low and behold I was able to log in without problem and the signal was wonderfully strong and I was able to work steadily and well focused for 8 hours.

My little cell phone rang a few times. I called a few people. I emailed back and forth to my bosses. I logged down my time and worked steadily along. Most of the work was simply data entry... lots of those things that could not be entered at the time they happened because 2 or 3 things were happening at once and it was faster to jot down a note in my notebook and continue on through the various crises. So, today I caught up on about three weeks worth of notes. I felt very good about it.

I took 2 15-minute breaks. I took 45 minutes for lunch and since I started at 7:30 a.m.; I quit at 4:30 p.m. Tomorrow is reporting day during which I will meet face to face with about 1/4 of my caseload.

Another big snow storm is expected next Friday and Saturday. But I will be headed toward the Academy. I guess I will take my laptop with me for that as well... and my knitting and some spinning.

Winter -- Gotta love it!

2010-01-30T12:56:00.003-05:00

The entire Commonwealth of Virginia is under a state of emergency due to the snow storm.

When I got up at 5 a.m. it had not started yet. As of 1 p.m. we are looking at something approaching a blizzard and about 6 inches of fluffy stuff on the ground.

The crazy sheep won't go in their house and are being slowly coated with this stuff. They won't lay down but stand for a long while, then walk a bit, then stand some more.

I went out early this a.m. -- about an hour after dawn -- and gave them alfalfa pellets and whole corn and a little bit of privit branches. I checked their water and talked to them a bit. At the time we had about a 1/2 inch on the ground.

Alice seems confused by all this white stuff landing in her yard again.

Ken went out and cut more privit about 30 minutes ago and tossed it into their house so they would go inside. We hoped they would chow down, then settle down and lay down for awhile. They went RUNNING to him with his armload of green branches and disappeared into the house for about 20 minutes. But then they came out again and ran around doing their crazy sheep dancing and are now back to standing around in the snow.

I just hope they don't get frost bite on their ears or feet.

Ken and the sheep

2010-01-23T12:38:00.003-05:00

I was looking out the window and I spotted Ken playing with Jerry, the wether. Ken made a fist and was leaning over the fence and Jerry would back up a couple of steps, rear up then come bashing down at Ken's hand, butting against it. So, here is my husband teaching the sheep bad habits. I told him if Jerry butts me later, I'm going to come push him down in front of Jerry, so he can see I'm in charge. I'm also going to have to put Jerry down in the dirt again.

I thought I would catch him on the camera but got this instead:

Very Traditional Holiday

2009-12-26T06:45:00.001-05:00

I don't know how long this link will last, but I did enjoy reading this from the Shetland Times.

Yule Traditions

WIP

2009-12-25T07:28:00.002-05:00

Works in Progress otherwise known as Startitis or I'm Bored with This, Let Me Try Something Else For A While.

I think most knitters experience this. Surely, I can't be alone.

You start a project and you are moving along and then you are out and about somewhere and wander into a yarn shop and BAM! There is a skein of yarn in the perfect color or it feels just divine or it's on sale or ... well, you buy the stuff and come home and think, "let me see what this looks like on the needles. I'll just do a little swatch." And the next thing you know, the first project is stuffed into the basket next to your knitting chair and you are off on the new project.

Another way this happens is that someone you love needs a gift. Doesn't matter for what, it could be they are giving birth, having a birthday themselves, they've rescued your dog... doesn't matter, they need a hand-knitted gift. So you put aside this other project along with the first and pick up this third project. Now project #3 has a deadline in most cases, so you may work steadily along until it is completed. And you may actually finish this. But in many cases, while you are gift knitting, you think of other people who also need hand-knitted gifts and cast on for those projects so you can work on them as well.

Now, here it is 8 months from Christmas and you have 5 or 6 WIPs. You might pick up and knit on project 1 or 2, but 4, 5 and 6 are still sitting there. So you alternate between them. It's coming up on winter by now and you know you need a new pair of mittens, so you cast on for those. Okay, now we are up to 8. You finish project 5 because it's small and you put it away so it's safe with other holiday gifts hidden somewhere in the house.

Your birthday comes and your dear husband or mother gives you yarn or new knitting needles or a book of patterns. Well, you have to try out this new gift, yes? So, you are now at 7 or 8 projects. Husband asks why you have a pile of knitting overflowing your work basket. You realize it does look a bit insane and they are acting as dog hair magnets since they don't fit inside the basket so the next day you take one or two of the smaller projects to work so you can knit on your lunch break and perhaps make some progress there. You also buy a bigger work basket to keep the others off the floor. So you have six at home and two at work. You might stuff another small one (like a sock or hat) into your purse so you have a portable project for those times when you are waiting but not at home or work.

Now, the irony of all this is that nothing actually gets finished because while you are making progress on everything (or at least the projects you pick up from time to time), the progress is so incremental as to be one row at a time.

So you try some focused techniques. You put away everything you have started and work on ONE thing until it is finished. The problem is that you brain is now wired to feel distracted and sad with so few projects surrounding you. Something is missing and it's all your yarn and needles and projects and books, little by little, they all come out of the closet again. And in the interim, you may have added some new ones.

The solution? Don't knit gifts. They just interrupt the flow. Keep your stash out of sight (for out of sight is out of mind). Be strong. Just say no when your mind cries out for more and more. Don't drink alcohol as it lowers your resolve.

Yeah, that doesn't work for me either... but it's worth the thought. I have noticed that my knitting has improved because I can see the difference in gauge, lack of dropped stitches and other mistakes as I have S-L-O-W-L-Y progressed on Project #1. The differences are so stark from beginning to near end, in fact, I may have to frog it and start over!

Goals for 2010

2009-12-24T07:31:00.004-05:00

I don't think I did so great on making my goals for 2009. But I did get my sheep and that was a big one. The bonus is that Ken has decided that they really aren't so bad and actually does a super job of taking care of them when I can't. I quit drinking. I learned to knit fair isle (or at least with two colors at a time).

But here are some of my thoughts on where I would like to go in 2010:

Finish spinning the oatmeal fleece and knit up this Shawl.
Move my large (and only loom) out of the fiber room and installed into the Yellow Cat Saloon where it will get more use (from me and other weavers).
Weave a set of kitchen towels (3 each) for myself, my mother and my mother-in-law and Mandy and perhaps a set for Ellen & George at the Tavern.
Begin to learn to weave overshot (perhaps a table runner or a set of four place mats)
Clean up my fiber room once I can move in there and organize what I have so I can find it.
Create some fun spinning batts and offer for sale
Spin off the grey shetland fleece currently living in a basket in the living room.
Make a sweater or vest from this grey fleece.
Spin off the white shetland fleece also living in the living room and use at least some of this in 1. yarn for socks 2. yarn for a shawl 3. dye some of it and make scarves or other nice small projects with it. But get the stuff carded and spun.
Make some silk hankies and dye them. (I dyed some last year but want to learn to make hankies from the little silk cocoon.
Get past this depression.
Loose some weight and learn to resist the urge to eat like a crazy person.
Get fresh fleeces off of Alice and Jerry and use their fibers to make something wonderful for Ken. What will depend upon the condition of the fiber and how much we get that is usable.

Now as for work... my newest co-worker has been a great help to me and it has forced me to really take the time to learn more because I don't want to teach him wrong. He's also very enthusiastic and verbal in his thanks so I feel like I'm contributing. He also makes me feel like a patient and wise person, even though I'm not. He has made me examine my short tempered attitude towards one of my supervisors. Even though I'm only pseudo supervising the new guy, I've come to greatly appreciate our supervisor's approach to things which had previously seemed very anal to me. So my goals for 2010 at work:

Improve my documentation of phone calls, conversations by learning to use functional abbreviations and go directly to the computer rather than jot notes on paper THEN go to the computer.
Negotiate with my big boss for at least one evening a week during which will regularly I work late and adjust the time off later. (LIke work late on Wednesday evening and adjust off by coming in late on Monday morning). The office is quiet in the evening and I get a lot more completed on things that require focused concentration (like report writing).
Get my gang files organized! And attend one more gang related training.
Use more of the EBP stuff and practice (Master?) those motivational interviewing techniques.
Make sure that when folks get locked up or I submit a MVR I remember to put the case in waiver so I don't have to worry about them anymore and my ass is covered for the audit.
Add one day a month to home contacts so I am going out faithfully three days a month regardless.

Snow

2009-12-22T06:21:00.002-05:00

Yep. We got some.

Pictures I do not have because I left my camera at work. Brilliant, eh?

There are a few "dregs" left and I will attempt to take a few shots on my way to work.

The best part was the reaction from Jerry and Alice. This was the first time in their lives they had seen snow (they are technically, still lambs). It was very cold and they were sleeping inside of their house for a change. Fortunately, I had slept in so did not let their alarm clock (the dog) out until it was daylight; so I got to watch their first snowy morning. I could almost narrate their conversation by their "body language"

Jerry stuck his head out first and stopped halfway out the door. "Shit! What the hell is this crap?" as he looks first right then left.

Alice, from inside the house grumbles, "Common Jerry, move! I gotta pee!" She bumps him from behind and he stumbles the rest of the way out of the house onto their covered porch where he stands without letting a hoof touch the strange white stuff. The front half of Alice's body appears in the doorway and stops. "Ooooh, wow. What happened to my grass?"

She moves slowly off the porch and out onto the snow, hooves crunching down through 4 inches or so of the fluff. She looks up and down her yard and then looks up and down again. Jerry hasn't moved out from off the porch.

"Jerry," Alice says, "I think we may have a problem. There's no grass out here."

"What is that stuff?" Jerry asks her. "What does it taste like?"

She puts her face down into the snow, gets a mouth full and nose full and immediately shakes her head to try and dislodge it from her nostrils. The snowball in her mouth gets stuck on the fur around her lips. Suddenly she's shaking her head violently and bobbing her head up and down, then paws at her nose and mouth.

Jerry backs up a step in alarm and his back feet go into the snow and he bolts forward into the snow and bumps into Alice, who has finally freed herself from the snow blocks and gasps for air. "Don't eat it!" She orders. She goes over to get a drink of water from the water bin with the de-icer and takes a long drink of water just under the freezing level. Then she heads back into the house. Somewhere in the midst of the short suffocation from snow, she peed.

Jerry stands outside for a moment longer, walks around the entire house, and finally retreats to the relative warmth and darkness of their house.

They did not come out again until I went out an hour later and brought them pelleted alfalfa mixed with cracked corn and some fresh hay. They ate a little and returned to their house.

It wasn't until the next day that they came to realize the white stuff meant them no harm and we enjoyed watching them running and sliding in the snow at dusk. While they had hay in the hay feeder to eat and more hay in a tin kept under their porch roof to eat, they decided that they prefer a small flake of hay laid in the yard on top of the snow. If they would eat all of it I would not mind feeding them that way all the time, but they pick through it, scatter it about and end up trampling most of it. The hay feeder seems to be the most economical way to feed them hay, they just don't like it because they can't pick through it and must eat what comes out the hole.

Where Have I Been?

2009-12-12T18:21:00.001-05:00

visited 26 states (52%)
Create your own visited map of The United States

My Bad Housekeeping May Have Saved Lives!

2009-12-09T06:12:00.003-05:00

Check out this story:

Germs May Be Good For You

Now they need to hook up with Social Services and find really awful homes in the US and test those kids.

Spinning in progress

2009-12-07T20:31:00.003-05:00

I purchased a wonderful, deep purple and deeply soft roving that contained flecks of green from The Barefoot Spinner at the Maryland Sheep in Wool Festival in May. This picture looks washed out.

This looks much closer to the correct color.

I purchased about 2 pounds of this stuff and got just under half of it spun while we were in Maine. I seriously need to sit down and get serious about spinning again or I will never get through it all before Jerry and Alice are shorn.

This is a closeup of the oatmeal colored Wesleyndale Fleece I purchased. This stuff is just yummy... even if full of vm. The closeup shows the softness. The picture below is the most accurate for color.

Growing up

2009-11-16T19:15:00.003-05:00

I took some new pictures of my sheep this weekend. Looking back at their lamb pictures, it's amazing to me how much they have changed.

Here they are together: Alice on the left and Jerry on the right

.

And here is a preview of what I will be spinning in the spring:

This is Alice's fiber.

And this is Jerry's
.

Aren't they wonderful?

Maine continues

2009-10-29T06:40:00.002-04:00

Sally and I had fun with all the fiber she dyed before leaving for Maine. I don't have pictures of the spinning she was working on, but I can tell you she really has a knack for making wonderful stuff.

Here is what we did the first or second day we were there. You can see how warm and comfortable this house is. But we pulled out bags and bags of dyed roving.

I was greatly inspired by the golden yellows, greens, oranges and spots of bright red in all the trees as we drove up to Maine and wants to try and capture that feel in a yarn.

Here are some of the many colors Sally provided for me to work with.

Here is a completed swatch (while blurry) it is hanging on the branch of a tree that I used for inspiration.

This would be my next goal if we had more time to play.

The fun thing is that even Ken got in on the act and did some work with the drum carder. He also seems to have a knack for color blending.

More Maine Pictures

2009-10-28T20:24:00.005-04:00

Maine - Day 1

2009-10-26T05:55:00.004-04:00

Ken and I just got back from a trip to Maine where we stayed with Sally and Charlie in Rogue Bluffs.

We got a whirlwind tour of the local area during the first few days and here are some pictures from our first fill day there. It was pretty cloudy and I did not do a good job of focusing my camera but here are a few shots from the first day:

Knitting Stress

2009-10-14T05:53:00.002-04:00

Yeah, I know that's a conflict of terms. But I have found there are some things about knitting that really stress me out despite the long periods of calm it provides me.

Deciding on a project. I can spend HOURS trying to figure out what I want to knit next.And those are hours I probably could have and should have been knitting on one of the objects from #2.
Guilt over unfinished objects. Well, I get bored sometimes and the next one is calling me (see #1). But why I have to have 10 or so projects running at the same time, none of which are knitting themselves and so it takes me forever to complete anything (see #4).
Guilt over stash. When I break down and buy when I honestly don't need. It's especially bad when it comes out of the grocery budget.
Gifts not completed. At least not completed in a timely fashion. I think friends and family are getting used to this, but I'm trying not to promise anything until it's completed.
Lace. I love it and hate it at the same time... I think I've frogged far more than I've completed and I know practice makes perfect, but sometimes I have to finish things that are not quite right (or even close to right).
Casting on. Why can't we knit without this step? I don't know why I hate casting on... but I do.
Times when I cannot knit and I'm stressed and want to knit...

It's crazy talk!

Is this menopause or insanity?

2009-10-13T06:19:00.003-04:00

This has not a thing to do with knitting or spinning ... or maybe it does because those are the only two activities that make me the least bit happy these days.

On Friday I actually had a good day. I got out and completed 30 home contacts with my "clients". Of those, there were less than a handful where no one was home. I did not get lost at all and everyone was pleasant and I even got a lunch break. And I made it back to the office about 4:15. This is record breaking stuff here! I felt good!

Then I looked at my email and found an email from my immediate supervisor who was basically scolding me for something I did not know, derided me for being too trusting of the clients, and claimed I had not done something that I did. He also told me I shouldn't have gone out that day and should have stayed in and he wanted a complete report on Tuesday when we returned to work about what I was going to do to fix this problem. Now, there is not a thing I can do about this. My weekend plans are full. I don't get paid overtime. Today (our returning day), I have three regular appointments and a case opening in the morning. And the matter at hand will have already been to court.

Well, long story short I had a bit of a meltdown. I burst into tears. I felt myself getting horribly angry. I decided I really needed to quit my job that I was obviously a complete failure at it and I really hated my position and I certainly hate my supervisor. I fired off an email to him stating that he was not being fair, and I would work on it over the weekend.

Unfortunately, in my hurry to pack everything up and hustle out the door (in tears, mind you), I forgot the powercord to the laptop.

I drove home crying and actually started considering ways to quit my job. I did not sleep well that night. I woke up with a horrible sinus headache (probably from the crying). On Saturday I spent the day feeling like crap but got a few things done around the house. I cleaned a lot of odd junk out of the sheep yard (logs and what not uncovered from their grazing). I planted some more grass seed. I discovered that evening that I did not have the powercord and again felt like crying.

That night I had the notion that folks might be better off all around if I was dead.

Fortunately, I've been here before and I recognize that as a notion that is irrational and driven purely by a chemical imbalance. For now, I can fight that off.

I know it's depression. But I'm taking an anti-depressant (Sertraline, generic for Zolof). I've been taking it for just over a year. And it's been working just fine. Why this sudden onset of worsening symptoms?

Is it the Autumn Blues?
Menopause?
I've recently stopped drinking... could that be the problem?
I also just finished a course of Prednisone for my back -- roid rage?

In any case, the whole thing is really frustrating and I can talk about it rationally and I know one side none of the depression thoughts make sense. I should be able to handle some criticism from my supervisor. But this is really debilitating and frustrating.

Lost one

2009-09-27T16:15:00.002-04:00

Tom died on Wednesday of this week.

I honestly believe we did everything we could do to save him but he just never completely recovered from the respiratory problem he arrived with.

I'm very glad we decided to go ahead and get Alice when we did. She had time to bond with Jerry and so while they were both upset for about 24 hours, they seem to be acting pretty normally now.

They both get wormed again this coming week and we will switch them over to the other side of the "pasture".

I have been spreading pasture grass seed throughout their current pasture area and plan to expand some of that out into the rest of our yard. I think, given an improved yard, I will eventually be able to convince Ken that we can get a few more sheep.

Ken was the most upset by Tom's death, I think. He disposed of his body and was almost angry that he had died. I think it frustrates him when he can't fix things. He mumbled for a few days about not getting any more animals, but then got back to improving their little barn.

He bought some pressure treated plywood and says he is going out tomorrow to work on it. If that project goes well, then it won't be insurmountable to consider putting up another in the front yard where we actually have more open space.

Life sucking pain

2009-09-20T08:01:00.003-04:00

I swear I get the weirdest injuries.

Since Thursday, I've had a return of the screaming pain shooting down my right arm and aching in my right hand. It's exhausting.

I think it comes from having slung a briefcase containing laptop and files over my shoulder and lugging it around from car to courtroom and visa versa and then from office to car and home. This pain is the same I experienced a few years ago after lugging a heavy briefcase of files from the Records Office to the work area at the prison. But, of course, I can prove none of that.

The diagnosis (after a carpal tunnel surgery that fixed nothing) was a slight bulging disk between C6 and C7 and pinching of the nerve that runs out of there down my right arm. The "cure" was 8 weeks of physical therapy which included deep tissue massage (read bruising), and learning to sit and stand in a more upright position.

Over the years, I've gotten sloppy again with my posture. I think I pulled things out of whack again by lugging that heavy ass briefcase last week.

So, for the last two days I've slept without a pillow, taken ibuprofen every four to six hours and lifted NOTHING with my right arm. Today, it is significantly better, but there is still some stinging/pain in my right elbow that comes and goes. It gets better when I tilt my 7 pound head to the left, taking some weight off of that right edge of my spine. I'm hoping another night or two pillowless, alternating between the ibuprofen and Tylenol and extreme care not to aggravate the problem will result in the disk returning to where it belongs and a a return to a relatively pain-free life in which I can hold my head upright during the day.

The ton

2009-09-13T07:59:00.004-04:00

Okay, so I don't have quite a TON of fiber to spin, but I do have more than I think I can spin in a year. Unless, of course, I quit knitting with it, which would free up hours of time for spinning.

My worry is that I'm going to have fleeces from my sheep next Spring to add to the pile, so I need to make real progress on what I have. Thus the move to change chairs.

Here is one shot of washed fiber waiting to be spun. This is occupying a corner of my living room. To me it is beautiful to look at, but hubby differs in that opinion and is stressing over the space. Of course that green bag/hose and bucket sitting on a tote in the far right corner is his stuff that needs to go out in the camping trailer.

In the fiber room itself, I have bags, baskets and boxes of stuff in smaller quantities. Included in that mess is silk, flax, several pounds of commercially dyed roving (I do have two or three pounds of some gorgeous purple and green roving that I bought from The Barefoot Spinner at MSW that I'm waiting impatiently to get to). I also have about one and a half a lincoln fleeces and about four pounds of tarhee in there somewhere as well as some black shetland roving. Not to mention there are pounds and pounds of white merino roving and some dyed merino roving that is destined for blending (maybe with some white shetland).

We won't talk about the yarn right now.

Small changes

2009-09-13T07:42:00.003-04:00

It might just be the change of seasons or it could be seeing the world through sober eyes, but I've suddenly become alarmed at the chaos in my house. So, I am going to start tackling one problem area at a time. Lest I become overwhelmed.

Yesterday I made Ken move furniture. Just two pieces. I exchanged the big blue monster chair for the smaller, more elegant wingback. Two reasons for this: One, you sink down in the blue monster and it was not good for spinning (wrong angle for hips and knees). Two, my back is more comfortable in the more upright wingback.

So, now I have a chair in front of the TV from which I can spin. I wanted to do this because I have a freaking TON of fiber that needs to be spun and leaving all this in the living room is not getting it completed. I spend perhaps 20 hours a week in the family room. I was spending about 2 hours a week in the living room spinning.

Another good reason to switch is that much of my fiber is in need of prep work (combing, carding, flicking, etc.). This tends to be messy work with bits of hay and dirt going everywhere. Far easier for me to sweep it off a tile floor than to haul out the vacuum to suck it up from the carpet.

So here is the before and after shots:

Before

After

I still want to get some nice covered baskets that will stack for the in-progress knitting projects instead of bags. I think that will help the overall clutter problem.

Changes

2009-09-11T20:39:00.003-04:00

My dad was finally diagnosed with Wernicke-Korsacoff Syndrome. Basically it means he has a thiamine deficiency caused by alcohol consumption. It has caused brain damage.

My memory has been getting worse and worse. I think I finally may have figured out why.

As of yesterday, I was sober for a week.

The headaches have been awful. And sometime around day 3 I had some problems with hallucinations in which any straight line I looked at would vibrate. The last couple of days things at work have really been plucking my nerves.

I know if I hang in there, all of these yucky things will pass. But today I was really craving some Kalua. Weird thing to want.

Haven't been knitting much. Just don't have the motivation and I've been going to bed really early. But I hope to get back on track with this soon. I have gifts to finish making!

Meet Alice

2009-09-03T06:24:00.002-04:00

Here is a picture of Alice, our newest sheep.

I think she is beautiful.

See that dark slate grey in her face? That's what color her fiber is under those lovely white tips.

Weather Witch in Training

2009-09-03T06:19:00.002-04:00

Weather Witch in Training

This guy doesn't understand that folks really are doing this already and have been doing it for centuries. But it's still kind of fun to watch him start to get it.

Alice joins the flock

2009-08-30T06:14:00.004-04:00

Ken and I left the house at 7:05 a.m. yesterday and drove out to Fort Defiance and picked up the newest member of our little flock.

She is the twin sister of Tom.

She was not officially named by her Shepherdess, Alice but was generally called "Little Girl" or "the other little girl", as her mother's name is "Lil' Girl" Her fiber is very similar to Tom's in texture, but she is a bit more grey. She does have that classic fluked Shetland tail.

In honor of her original Shepherdess, Ken and I decided to call her Alice.

Fearful of admitting that he sort of likes these animals, Ken has slowly started offering to do more for them. I just smile and accept. Now, he wants to put a real roof and wooden sides on their little shelter, as the tarp is starting to bow a bit and collect water which then gently "rains" inside the house. One thing for summer, it will quite another for cold winter rains. MY solution would have been to remove the tarp that this there, throw a piece of plywood across and then put the tarp back on... but I have a feeling they might get that currogated plastic stuff on top.

The issue of the sides has come about because these silly guys like to play hide and seek and have figured out that if they stick their heads into the flap formed where the tarp is pulled and staked down, they can come out the sides of the house. It's hilarious to watch, but pulls the stakes up and lets the wind and rain into their house which is slowly melting their mineral block and salt block and letting their bedding get wet.

They like the game of hide and seek, so much, however, I think I'm going to hang a piece of this tarp from another section of the greenhouse frame (like a windbreak) so they can run around it and play.

Sheep Shots

2009-08-23T11:32:00.003-04:00

Haven't put pictures up lately. Thought an updated pictures of the babies would be a good thing: Tom has started to show his spots. See his freckles? It looks like the fiber on his shoulders is going to be a light grey while the rest of him is white.

Jerry saying "Hi! Mom! Give me a cookie!" He has definitely gotten friendlier.

Jerry one step back. Hoping his horns are going to be wide enough to clear his head. We might be okay .

Jerry's fiber is going to be yummy to spin. Beautiful array of color here.

I'm out of cookies, so they are off to find other nibbles.

Much... too much

2009-08-18T06:05:00.003-04:00

There has been a lot going on. More than I am comfortable with handling but I guess we all muddle through regardless. So let's see what has happened:

Our house was hit by lightening (again) about the last time I made an entry here. I finally got my own PC back yesterday evening.
My dad had an episode about 3 weeks ago that started out looking like a stroke and ending up as a mystery illness. He spent two weeks at MCV hospital getting sicker from advantageous bacterial infections and spent most of that time in ICU. Finally, on Thursday evening of last week, he was released from the hospital and is now at a local nursing home until he is strong enough to come home.
We had the Hoot-n-Any again. This was the ninth year. Not nearly as hot, a bit buggier, but still tons of fun.
We continue to fight the good fight at work with a steadily growing caseload, a whole new computer program that is suppose to make us paperless (though the thing has a huge learning curve that is enough to make you want to quit your job) and a budget that just keeps shrinking. We are finally fully staffed and that should help once our new officer is trained to the point he can get through 6 or 7 hours without a million questions. But I do remember what it feels like and don't mind helping him.
Ken has one more full day and one half day to work before he retires. He is both excited to be leaving a job from which he has burned out and nervous about how he is going to make ends meet. As we fell into bed last night (his first night off after working three 12 hours shifts through the night over the weekend), I asked him if he would be looking to take on a part-time job at night. He said he would look for a part-time job at some point, but he never wants to work nights again. He said he is really tired of being tired.
Tom, the sheep, cannot seem to shake this upper respiratory problem. We are now on our fourth round of anti-biotics. He really hates these shots and I hate giving them... Once in a while is not bad (like for worming), but this daily grind is really making him hate me I think. Sounds weird, but I'm almost hoping it's an allergy to something and it will clear up this winter. I fear it's something else, however, and he will eventually succumb. What that means is that I will be short a sheep but Ken has already told me to start looking for sheep #3. I figure I might as well go for the full complement of four, in that case.
I have started a routine of walking the sheep in the evenings. And they love it! Especially Jerry who gallops and bounces like a pogo stick all over the yard just as fast as his little legs will take him. He is totally fearless of the dogs, the shed and the road (so I really have to watch him). He wants Tom to run with him, but since Tom doesn't feel well, he keeps trying to get Macha to play. It's funny and I will work on doing a video clip soon.
I am still knitting and spinning and have started a blog for the Guild.

On the wheel:

A wonderful white wool blend (silk and alpaca cria and bfl) to make three ply sock yarn for Deb who will then knit the yarn into two pairs of socks -- one for her hubby and one for mine.
The grey merino that I started working on two Springs ago. Yes, I have about 2 pounds of this left and half a shawl yet to knit.
Brown lamb's wool purchased at MSW for the Guild to use for the binding wool on our collective blanket.
White shetland. I think I need to pick a project and spin for it. The hat noted below, has inspired me with the colors so I might have to divvy up this fleece and dye it different colors then spin it. Hmmmm.
Grey shetland. Another huge basket. This is nice stuff and I've only done some samples, but it would be a wonderful sweater.
The oatmeal fleece. I cannot remember the breed. I talked about it in an earlier post... but this stuff is just awesome and begs to be spun at worsted weight.

On the needles:

The grey merino shawl. This is just under halfway done. It languished for the summer, but I need to get back to it now.
A taffy colored baby sweater. I am about halfway down one sleeve. So I think I'm about 3/4s done. I have already sewn on the buttons just so I could see what they will look like. My button band is a little off kilter but with a baby inside, it should straighten. Love this pattern and will make it again.
A hat. Probably a Yule gift for a step daughter or daughter in law or grand daughter. This is from a pattern in Interweave Knits. It is my first real fair isle project and it's not really using fair isle patterns, but the concept is the similar. Love the colors I picked out. I'm using Louet Gems that I picked up at the Yarn Lounge in Richmond when I went to see Dad at MCV.
The green sweater. Honestly, I feel a day coming when this is going to come off the needles and even though I'm onto the sleeves, I'm going to frog it. I've learned from it, but I'm not happy with it. The yarn could be used for other projects and it needs to knit WAY looser than I knit it.
A pouch for my girlfriend who spun the yarn. She didn't like the yarn (very thick and thin singles) so I took it back from her and am knitting a simple little 3 by 4 pouch for her. I will probably make a cord for it with the lucet. It's going to be cute and very earthy.
A purple (VERY purple) fuzzy scarf in Mohair. Mindless knit but very soft. Yarn was seriously on sale at the Bay Window and I purchased 9 skeins in purple and another 9 in brown. Again, probably a gift or a donation to the Guild.
Purple socks ... still going nowhere.
Grey socks .... still stuck in the sand.
White lace shoulder shawl. I screwed this up somewhere in the last row knit and can't figure it out. Someday I will learn to insert lifelines or just keep working until I'm finished. If I put down a lace project, I inevitably forget where I was and screw it up. Frustrated with this. Won't frog but may tink one day when I'm alone and the house is quiet.
Bathroom rug (this is crocheted and not knitted) but I decided to use up some of the stash from the loom purchase. This rug will last for centuries!

Still without my own computer

2009-07-13T06:48:00.003-04:00

Years ago, I had no computer in my house. Now we have three. As of last week, following a lightening strike, we had none.

Then we got one up and running by cobbling two together.

Then Ken got his back from the shop.

Mine is still out. I suspect it won't be back for a while. So I'm sharing a PC with Matt and John.

The hardest part is remembering all the passwords. I had my computer set up to remember most of them (except my banking account, of course).

And I REALLY miss having outlook as my email editor. This webmail stuff sucks.

Yes, I'm spoiled.

Gnats in my toothbrush and other joys of living with a stubborn man...

2009-06-30T07:08:00.003-04:00

My husband insists he is incapable of peeing in a toilet at night when the lights are off. He also insists that if the bathroom light is off when he goes to bed, he cannot turn it on and have his eyes adjust in time to hit the toilet.

So, his solution is to leave the bathroom light on all night.

The problem with this, other than the electric bill and frequent changing of the bulb, are the bugs that are drawn to the only light in the house from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m.

My personal problem with this are the kamikaze flying insects that kill themselves on the only light bulb in the bathroom and who fall down into and around the sink all night. Every morning, I am greeted with a sink full of dead bugs.

After brushing my teeth only to discover a gnat stuck in my toothbrush, I moved the toothbrush holder from directly beneith the light, but it is a bit inconvenient to go all the way across the bathroom to find it when it's time to brush. I guess I could put a plastic bag over it...

Or, I could get up and turn off the light after he goes to bed....

Progress on sheep training

2009-06-28T06:46:00.009-04:00

Tom will actually come when I call him (most of the time) and always when I shake the tin with the cookies in it. Here he is with his head almost in my lap. You can see the burrs on his cheeks and head. I pick a few every time I go in with them.

I have discovered he loves to have his chest scratched and almost swoons when I hit the right spot. Little by little, I'm getting the burry things out of his fleece.

Jerry remains a bit standoffish but he is coming in closer and closer for a cookie or two and when his guard is down, he has let me scratch him a bit under the jaw once or twice. He has also butted my hand a couple of times. I can see he is quite a character.

Here is Jerry pretending like he doesn't want another cookie.
And Jerry trying to avoid the camera. Don't you love his brown legs?

Here he is hiding behind Tom.

Chicken Dumping

2009-06-28T06:17:00.005-04:00

Apparently, in addition to folks dumping their unwanted cats and dogs on the properties of other folks in the country who seem to have animal friendly homes, we now have a new phenomenon called "chicken dumping."

Both Ken and I were out doing various errands yesterday morning. I came home to find a peeping box on the porch. Inside were six 3 or 4 day old chicks. Most appear to be some sort of brown chicken, another is yellow and appears that it might turn into a white chicken. We don't know how to tell yet if they are male or female.

In any case, I got down Maggie's old dog crate and put in a little straw and gave them water. I took some of the adult chicken scratch, a little laying mash and some couscous and ground it all up in my coffee grinder and made chick food. Their enclosure stared out with cardboard around the edges so they could not escape through the bars, but last night this was changed to duct tape as the cardboard fell off and they did, in fact, try to squeeze through.

What is weird is we can't figure out who would have left 6 tiny chicks on our front porch.

Our older chickens have no interest, whatsoever, in the new babies. We hope they will reach pullet size soon and can be let out to roam like these two. But Ken wants to make sure they roost in the old chicken coop and not on the front porch like these two.

Burry bad

2009-06-26T06:19:00.003-04:00

The boys have been here a week now. When I got home from work yesterday evening I went into the enclosure and called to them. Tom immediately answered with a "Maaaa" and came over to see me.

He wanted his animal crackers. Jerry tagged along and came fairly close, but he is still not sure about this whole human interaction thing. He is starting to realize, however, that Tom is getting more cookies, so he is almost taking the cookie from my fingers but not quite. I think another day or so... we will see.

But both lambs are COVERED in hitch hikers! Those little round and triangular shaped things that jump onto anything fuzzy that goes past.

The other day we had a sheep rodeo and caught both lambs, put them into harnesses and removed a lot of the hitch hikers but many remained and yesterday, I noted that everywhere we combed was once again covered. This is very bad for their fiber future and I'm going to have to figure out what plant is providing these culprits, remove them ALL and then get the boys to stand quietly and let me pick those dag gone things out of their fleeces. Yuck!

More lamb pictures

2009-06-21T06:56:00.006-04:00

Jerry looking a little worried...

Here is Tom (the light one) and Jerry (the brown one) trying to hide from me behind their house and the cooler.

Here is a picture of their "house". The dividing line between enclosures runs down the middle of the greenhouse frame. There are two washpans (now water troughs) because there will be a house and water on each enclosure. Ken still plans to build the second house next week. He was one 2X4 short.

Here is a picture from the back door of my house. You can see there is plenty shade as well as lots of stuff for the lambs to eat.

Tom & Jerry are here!

2009-06-19T14:30:00.004-04:00

Tour de Fleece

2009-06-08T20:20:00.001-04:00

I think I'm going to give this a try this year. I just have to decide what to spin. Two weeks... hmm. I wonder if I could actually process and spin all of my White Shetland Fleece?

Finding the right technique

2009-06-07T10:34:00.010-04:00

I bought a large (actually, huge) white Shetland fleece at the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival. The card inside the bag said it was 6.5 pounds. And it was. This is a picture of about half of it after washing. It lost some weight in the washing and I think about 4 pounds remain. It is unusual to get this large a fleece from a shetland, I think.

It was filthy. But sheep do live outside and shetland does not respond well to being a coated animal as the fleece felts under the coat.

Here is a picture of the fleece on my kitchen floor. The white stuff at the bottom is after washing and drying. The stuff on top is the raw fleece. It still looks a little yellow because I took it indoors without a flash. But you get a good idea of the contrast of before and after scouring.

While I was washing the fleece and putting the clean stuff out on a screen on the front porch to dry, my husband asked me when I was going to wash "that brown thing on the kitchen floor." I told him that this lovely, shiney, soft as a cloud white stuff on the screen WAS the brown thing on the floor. He did not believe me until he watched me start to wash a new clump of it.

Now, this fleece is not pure white (most Shetland is not pure one-color), but it has a few dark grey hairs running through it. This is a close up picture.

Click on it to make it bigger and you will probably be able to see the odd grey hairs running through it. I could pluck them all out, but I've decided to leave them in for the sake of time as they are not coarse.

The part around the neck (where the most vegetable matter is, of course), is also the most grey. It is also the most soft. Go figure. Unfortunately, due to the ton of hay bits in it, I may not be able to save much of it.

But I'm delighted with this fleece. It's dual coated, meaning there are very, very long hairs. Some as long as 13 inches... no kidding, we measured. And the undercoat which is so very soft, rivals some merino I've felt. The staple length of the undercoat averages about 6 inches.

So this is where finding the right technique comes in. At first I ran a few handfuls through my drum carder and test spun it on a drop spindle. It was very neppy and difficult to draft. The staple is simply too long for my drum carder and the fibers were breaking because of the tangling. So I dug out the combs. It worked but I lost a lot of the undercoat to the combs and when I forced the issue and tried to recover the shorter, softer undercoat, I ended up with more vm than I wanted.

I finally sat down with the flicker and a piece of leather for my leg. By holding the tips of the locks, I could flick out the shorter, softer undercoat. I then flipped the lock around the flicked the tips. These I laid in a flat basket all going the same direction. Then I returned to the flicker and pulled out the undercoat and flicked it again. This second and sometimes third flicking, removed the vm and saved the majority of the undercoat. I tossed this wonderfuly white fluff

into another basket and worked until I had both baskets full. The trash went into a bag that I will use for making wet and needle felted items later. The very trashy stuff (too vm caked for use in anything) went out in the yard for the birds.

I'm actually spinning two different yarns from this fleece. The outer coat is being spun worsted and fairly fine. I will probably end up with sock weight yarn. I may save back some of these long locks and see if I can spin it even finer and get some lace weight from it.

The baby fine undercoat is being spun woolen style from the clouds of flicked fibers. Pardon my blurry picture. I did not have my glasses on when I tried to focus.

This is going to end up being dk weight I think but might be a tad bit thicker. It's very lofty and springy and even Ken admits it's very, very soft. I have a co-worker who is expecting a baby, and I want to knit a baby sweater. I need about 400 yards. This might end up in that project.

Lace Shawl completed

2009-05-01T07:54:00.005-04:00

I'm happy enough with it that I wish I could keep it. I tried it out this morning and it's surprisingly warm! I will be making another. As it is, I'm donating it to the Tavern Foundation for their auction on Saturday during Derby Day. With luck it will bring in a few bucks to help with the restoration.

Music to Spin and Knit by

2009-04-19T08:44:00.002-04:00

This talented lady lives near me. I met her and purchased a CD at the Heathsville Farmer's Market on Saturday. You can find more information here.

To learn more about the Heathsville Farmer's Market look here. Or directly from the Tavern.

The Tavern Spinner's & Weaver's Guild met on the front porch of the Carriage House Saturday and while we were away from the main traffic of the Farmer's Market in the morning, we had the benefit of the Annual Wine Tasting event which started at 11 a.m. We met lots of neat people and hope some of them will come to join us in the future.

I brought my Inkle loom for the first time and did get some solid inquiries from from gentlemen with that. We do need to make an effort to enlist more menfolk as men can spin and weave just as well as women.

Noodle & Harriet

2009-04-12T12:35:00.003-04:00

Well, I wrote about just some of what I learned yesterday at Alice's farm. What I didn't talk about much were two of the sheep and several of the delightful people that I met.

I met Alice, the shepardess. I also met her boyfriend, who for a first-time shearer, did a super fine job. I also met Cat, who had come into to help with the shearing, and like me was looking to score some fleece. I also met Alice's mother and father.

Now, some of the sheep that I met... There were a bunch of sheep. I think Alice said she has 30 or so. She also has dogs, chickens, horses and cats. The neighbor had goats and pigs. Alice said she has 8 acres and is getting ready to lease 5 more from one of the other neighbors for additional pastureland.

But individually, I met one or four meat sheep. These gals have no names. Just gets too complicated. I met two or three Finns. I believe they have names, but don't remember them. The bottle lamb, named Flynn, is a Finn. I think that Alice uses the Finns as dual purpose sheep (I could be dead wrong here) but I know that Flynn is not going to the market.

Then there was Iona. She was mother to twins, I think. She is a Shetland and her fleece was reserved. There was Brownie, who had also given birth to twins, but one little one was stepped upon by a larger sheep and did not survive. Her fleece was also reserved. There was a lovely Shetland Ewe in with the Wild Ones whose job was to help them become calm. I cannot remember her name, unfortunately. Then there were the Wild Ones. One of them, as I will tell you later, did earn her name.

The Icelandics I met were Blackie, and she was the mother of the yearling who half fleece I brought home. The yearling was named as she was sheared. Her name is now Harriet. Harriet was a rescue, just as her mother was a year before. Harriet, once shorn, was seen to be in very thin condition with her bone structure very evident. She is very tiny which may be due to poor nutritional care as a lamb. But her fleece is lovely and I'm delighted to have half. The other half went with Cat who is doing a fleece study.

But the wild ones... they were saved from the slaughter and seemed very healthy. Their feet needs a little work but not as much as Harriet's (she of the toenail overgrowth from hell). We only captured and sheared one. Alice and her boyfriend entered the small enclosure where the Wild Ones were being held. If I had not gone to look I would sworn there was a bar fight going on. Thumping and bumping and banging about! It was frightening to hear. I finally went and poked my head around the barn door opening to see sheep literally flying, leaping and crashing against the walls in desperate attempts to escape the horrible humans! But Alice's boyfriend caught one in mid leap and hung on.

I'm guessing this ewe weighed about 45 or 50 pounds. Her fleece was beautiful. Golden on the outside, greys with browns on the inside. Her face was beautiful, almost deer like in it's aspect.

When we attempted to put her into the head holding frame on the shearing stand, she simply laid down and pulled her slender head and neck downward until she slipped out. When the neck chain was tightened to the point she could not pull her head out, she just decided death was the better option and chose to try and hang herself. We quickly realized this animal was not beneith self sacrifice, so we put a halter on her, took her out of the head holder contraption, and with three people holding her and one shearing, we got her out of her fleece.

She reminded me of the protesters during the Vietnam War. If the Man came to get you, they were told, go limp like a noodle and they will have to either leave you there, or carry you out. So, Noodle became her name.

Cat purchased Noodles fleece and I decided to "adopt" her and gave Alice enough money (so Alice says) to pay for her regular maintenance shots, wormings, food, etc. for a year. I will get her Fall fleece. I think Alice is under pricing Noodle's care, but we will see.

Shetland or Icelandic?

2009-04-12T11:01:00.003-04:00

Saturday was a very educational day for me even though I spent about 8 hours in the car.

I dropped Matthew off in Charlottesville, Virginia and then continued westward on Route 64 to Route 81, turned north and hopped off at Verona. From there it was a short distance up to Fort Defiance (there is a military museum there that I may have to drag Ken to visit) and on to visit with Alice, who raises sheep.

Most specifically, she is raising a variety of sheep. Among them was Shetland, Icelandic, Finn, and Suffolk.

And, of course, I forgot to take pictures.

I learned a lot.

Shetland Sheep can be very skittish if not handled and talked to a lot. Alice had in her flock three shetlands that she called "wild" sheep. This is because they apparently were never socialized in any way and the very thought of being near a human (much less handled by one) sent them into flying about the barn and paddock, literally bouncing off the walls.
When sheep catch a cold they get runny noses and like small children, the snot goes everywhere. And thus, they share their germs. Fortunately, once caught, it is relatively easy give them medicine via an injection.
Sheep feet are really interesting. There is a soft pad (like the pad on a dog's foot), around this, on the sides, grows a nail. It's just like a fingernail and if left untrimmed can grow to the point that the animal becomes lame. One of Alice's newest ewes had clearly never had it's toenails clipped and it was literally walking on top the nail that had grown down and around. But clipping, like medicating, is not too big a deal so long as the animal is well restrained.
Every breed of sheep and even sheep within each breed has a unique fleece. This is such a tactile matter, it's hard to describe. But when you get a bunch of them together it's really easy to see and feel the differences.
Bottle babies are very cute but can have a hard time learning to be sheep. They think humans are sheep and tend to want to flock with humans rather than with other sheep. But they are really, really cute.
Shetlands and Icelandics are just the right size for me to handle.
Until I lose a lot more weight, climbing fences is out of the question.
If you keep the blades on the electric shears short, you cut the sheep less. The blades cost about $50 each and will rust if you try to take a short cut and remove the lanolin build-up by dipping it into hot water. Use a wire brush to remove this. Change blades about once every three or four sheep.
Icelandic fleece is really, really nice stuff and I have one half of a hoggett fleece drying in my living room right now. I washed it up this morning. A small sheep will provide about 2 pounds of fiber on a good day. Some years you only get one.
Shetland sheep are very, very smart and learn quickly.
Since the small sheep produced only about 2 pounds of fleece, and you might be able to sell that for $20 a pound, it is very difficult (if not currently impossible) to reach a break-even point financially with them alone. However, by adding meat sheep to the picture, there is hope for the small shepherd.
Cherry tree leaves are poisonous to sheep and must be removed from any pasture where they live. On the same token, they love honeysuckle and brambles and will clear a hedgerow with ease.
Fencing required for sheep must be at least 4 feet tall. Barbed wire should only be at the very bottom and/or the very top as the sheep can hurt themselves on it. Wooden posts every 10 feet with a metal pole in between works well for sheep. Gates CAN be tied on with twine so hinges may not be necessary in all cases.
Sheep will grow well on Johnson grass but they love alfalfa hay. The round bales of basic hay cost about $30 each at least out in Fort Defiance.
There are other people in Virginia raising Shetland Sheep but they keep it very quiet.
Shearing is MUCH easier with a shearing stand. Even if the animal won't stand, just having them off the ground is easier on the back.
Sheep love graham crackers. Some sheep think their cookies are only good if eaten directly from the hand and won't touch a graham cracker that has touched the ground. Silly sheep.
The rise, in Shetland Sheep, is the point where the old fleece has stopped growing and the new one has started. Trying to cut through the rise is nigh on impossible. Cut above or below.
Registering your sheep with NSSA costs money but if you want to sell the offspring to serious sheep people, they really should be registered.
It may be possible to rent pasture from someone who is trying to get the tax break for farming. YOU have to pay for the fensing, the animals and their winter feed, but if you can find someone who will let you use their land, they get the tax break and you don't have to actually pay for it.

Spinning progressions

2009-04-05T07:17:00.007-04:00

Spinning seems like such a simple process. You twist hairs together to make a string and maybe put several of those together to make a cord. In the beginning you're just happy the string holds together and it doesn't really matter if it's lumpy, bumpy, uneven or bizarre looking. If it's knittable, it's good stuff.

You probably start out on a spindle. When you master that, you will soon be shopping for a wheel. In your mind, the spindle just seems too slow. It can take forever to make a decent amount of yarn.

Then you decide that while those early efforts are usable, they aren't quite what you want and are difficult to fit into a pattern because it's tough to get an accurate gauge. Or the thing you really want to knit requires a finer yarn (like socks). So consistency becomes the goal. Large projects, like enough yarn for a sweater, are still off in the distance.

You knit a lot of scarves, mittens and hats. You incorporate small bits with commercially spun yarns with your handspun as highlights and accents. If you weave, you will use the handspun in small projects like bags and placemats.

You might get stuck in a rut for a while always spinning the same weight of yarn and it's always a two ply. So you experiment with spinning a variety of things from lace weight to super bulky. You start playing around with Navajo plying and cording. Colors, lots of colors, obnoxious combinations of colors come in next and then you move onto the "difficult" fibers like flax and silk, super short stuff like cotton and cashmere and you make wild blends of all sorts of things.

Fiber prep will come into play at various stages. Flicking, combing, hand carding, drum carding, spinning from locks are all tried. You learn which prep works best with some fiber and you may push out that envelope and try stuff that just doesn't work. You can risk some of your stash now to failures because it's grown to the point it's bigger than your commercial yarn collection.

All this learning over the past two or three years has gifted you with four or five fleeces in various stages of disaster. People may even give you fleeces that end up as covers on your compost pile because that's where they should have been in the first place. You learn to wash fleece without felting it. You are beginning to learn how to get picky about what your bring home.

Some fiber, like merino, seems to do best flicked. It also requires very hot water and many washes to get it usable. Some, like Lincoln, is a harsher fiber but has a wonderful sheen and is easy to clean and makes great sock yarn. Shetland makes terrific lace yarn (crisp but soft). Other breeds grow soft but short fleeces that are wonderful for blending on handcards that then end up being awesome for projects like warm scarves but are too poofy for hardwearing items like mittens. Leicester wool seems to be pretty multi-purpose depending on how you prep and spin it. Spin it thick and it's similar to lincoln. Spin it fine and it similar to shetland.

Shetland spun and in progress for shawl

I'm sure there are folks with completely different experiences... but the fun part about spinning has been learning that there is no one way of doing things. It also comes full circle.

I'm currently spindling two different projects. One is using my Bosworth featherweight pecan spindle to spin a cormo/bamboo blend to laceweight... very fine laceweight. I'm plying it with silk spun on my Symphony. I'm using the Symphony to ply. The goal is to spin enough to make a lace tablecloth (we're talking something like 1200 yards). I have about 60 yards completed. It may end up being a doily.

The second project is moving me into my blue stage for 2009. I've had some blue roving of unknown origin and breed sitting in my stash for about two years. It is just so intense, I just wasn't prepared to fool with it before. Then I learned about blending colors on handcards (thanks Sally) and bought a little bag of raw downy Southdown from Judy. Anyway, the Southdown washed up into really nice, cushy locks of white which hand carded out just wonderfully... but boring in all white. Then I remembered the blue.

I put a little of the blue with the white and got blue jeans! Faded jeans at that. Cool stuff. My rolags are nearly perfect (believe me this is an accomplishment).

Blue jean scarf in progress

It takes five rolags to make one spindle full. That means I need ten rolags to make one stretch of yarn. One ball of yarn is knitting up to about 6 inches. To make a 60 inch scarf... I will need 100 rolags. The picture is a few weeks old. I have about two feet knitted and another ball waiting to go in. And the singles are being spun on my midi Bosworth and then, when I get a full spindle, I'm winding off onto a bobbin. I spin a second spindle full, wind that onto another bobbin and ply them together on the Sonata. The yarn is deliberately thick and thin, soft and wonderful.

I'm knitting the scarf as I go using my favorite pattern from Crazy Aunt Purl's book. This scarf is for me. No one is going to talk me out of it.

I'm thinking compost

2009-03-28T06:53:00.002-04:00

Okay, this is the summer, I hope to work seriously towards getting back in shape. Just don't tell Ken because he will nag me about it which does nothing but make me quit.

Anyway, I don't plan to join a gym. Too expensive and very time consuming and it requires the purchase of clothing I don't want to spend money on.

So, I'm thinking that my gardens have been in disarray for a very long time (ever since I hurt my knee). If I come home in the evenings and head outdoors and avoid the kitchen, then I will eat less. Nothing wrong with a salad or sandwich for dinner instead of a full meal, right?

I have been saving up coffee grounds all winter with the intention of installing worms in a vermiculture kind of thing (it's actually an old styrofoam cooler now filled with coffee grounds and egg shells. I will layer some vegetable kitchen waste on top and buy a container of worms this weekend. If it works, the little wiggly guys will be very happy and can start eating on the veggies.

The other thing I am going to do is make some compost piles. I found this website for compost which shows the proper ratio for layers depending upon what you have around.

We shred an amazing amount of paper where I work. Right now it goes into the dumpster and I've always felt a little bad about that. So starting Monday, I'm going to commander a bag or two and bring it home.

According to the compost caculator I can make a proper compost pile with the following:

1 unit of coffee grounds
1 unit of chicken poo
5 units of straw
13 units of shredded office paper

The idea is to layer it, turn it every 2 to 5 days, and keep it moist. In three weeks, it is supposed to be useable compost for the garden.

I'm thinking that if I do the building and turning, I will burn a lot of calories and maybe build some muscle in the meantime.

Newest Family Member

2009-03-02T16:03:00.001-05:00

I have so many things going on!

On Saturday afternoon my eldest son, Wes and his new bride, Lindsey, came down for a visit with their little dog, Wicket.

My entire family, save my sister, Karen who is stuck in Colorado, came to dinner Saturday evening. But I'm a smart woman and made special reservations at the Tavern Restaurant in Heathsville, Virginia.

It was a great visit with everyone and I'm delighted that everyone got to meet Lindsey who is a perfect addition to our family. We welcome her with love and open arms and hope very much that we did not frighten her too much.

I will post pictures of the event soon when I can get a picture with Lindsey in it! I took lots of pictures but every single one of her looked like this.

My timing just sucks.

There are other photos that other family members took that will do a better job of presenting the bride and groom and I hope to have those pictures soon.

I must mention what an outstanding job the Tavern did handling my crew. There were 19 of us and of course the head count kept going up all week.... but they were delightful and gracious and (with previous agreements) presented the family with a specially printed menu with three wonderful entres, a huge wine menu and any appetizers and desserts we wanted.

All the plates were presented in an attractive way. The waitress was terrific and we were noisy and loud but because we were on the other side in the lounge area, I don't think we disturbed the other patrons over much.

And while I won't reveal the bill, my husband, my mom and I all thought it was very, very reasonable for the quality of both food and service.

Bravo! to the Tavern Restaurant!

Done & Done

2009-02-22T15:45:00.001-05:00

Here are the final pictures of Matt's room.

More bedroom progress

2009-02-16T12:27:00.003-05:00

First coat on the walls

My hell hole

2009-02-16T10:52:00.003-05:00

Here are the before pictures of our bedroom. This is the next room to be tackled even though we have managed to put it off to the very end.

Horrible, no?

Yes, that is Ken asleep.
This is where the roof leaked. It's been this way for years.

The problem is that when we cut the rotton dry wall out, all the blown in insulation in the attic is going to rain down into the bedroom. Eewww.

Mid way pictures

2009-02-16T10:33:00.003-05:00

I forgot to take before pictures... but here are pics of Matt's bedroom in process. The ceiling has pale blue rather than stark white paint. The dark blue has been cut in on a first coat. I will try to take pictures after the first coat of the rolling is done.

You can see where I had odd drips and a damp brush. The door and window trim will be replaced and painted in semi-gloss the same pale blue as the ceiling. Ken is also going to install baseboard and later, when I can afford it, I will install carpeting. The blue looks slightly brighter in this picture than in real life. It may have to do with the bright morning light coming in the windows.

Shopping Lists

2009-02-15T15:03:00.002-05:00

I plan to attend the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival this spring. It is the weekend BEFORE Beltane in Stanardsville so I have no conflict. AND to make it even more fun, Deb from our guild and her husband have a condo up there nearby and she has invited any of us ladies who want to 'camp out' there to plan on an overnight which suits me just fine. I can pack a sleeping mat (or two) and a sleeping bag and pillows and be just fine.

But I know from my previous trip to the MSWF two years ago that I need to go with a list and cash.

I know I want to buy:

shetland fiber either in the form of a fleece or roving.
silk in top or bricks
silk hankies
a spare drive band for my Sonata
dyes in colors I don't have (maybe some nature dye material like indigo)
A felting needle holder and maybe a hat form (if I can find one I like)
a new Bosworth spindle

I would also like to take a spinning class and visit with some shetland sheep owners to pick their brains a little more about what is required to raise them. Or MAYBE work out a sponsorship deal in which I pay for the care and feeding and get the fleece in exchange.

In any case, I want to find someone to show me how to do the tablet weaving. With luck, there will be a class offered. So far, the website has not been updated with the schedule (though I did not check today).

I'm looking forward to the whole thing. It's just so BIG. And it's so cool to find out there are so many like-minded folks.

The boy room make over

2009-02-15T14:41:00.002-05:00

Matthew decided that he wanted to paint his room after he helped me and a co-worker paint our offices.

He wanted it blue. Dark blue. Navy blue.

Okay, I can take a breath and live with that for a bedroom. But I drew the line at the navy blue ceiling. I told him that while he did not have to stark white on the ceiling, it was still my house and I didn't want a navy blue ceiling in there. So we compromised on a light blue ceiling (the color I probably would have picked for the walls) and his beloved navy blue for the walls. The trim will match the ceiling but in semi-gloss; not flat... once I buy some trip to install.

He has also requested wall-to-wall carpet but that will come later when I can afford it.

The room really was awful. It has never been painted as long as we have lived in the house and Matthew is the third teen to live in there. There were holes in the walls, dings in the walls, writing on the walls and ceiling... dirt... well, we won't talk about the dirt.

So, I bought all the stuff including a decent spackling knife and spackle and sanding blocks and roller handles and pole and roller covers and paint brush and drop cloth and we stared him on the prep work. Took him a week just to clean enough trash out of there to move the furniture.

Then he started patching. Ken showed him one way to do it. Then, when Ken was at work, I showed him the proper way to do it. Everything was sanded. Everything was damp cloth wiped. The floor was vaccuumed to remove most of the dust.

At my office I did all the prep work before he got there, and because we have drop tile ceilings, he didn't have to paint the ceiling and I did the cut-in work. All he had to do there was roll the walls and some touch up cut-ins.

He was pretty shocked to learn how much work went into starting from scratch. But he's doing it. Little by little. He does not like to work alone. Gets bored with noone to talk to, I think... not that he actually talks to me... but I think he needs the encouraging words to keep moving.

But the first coat is on the ceiling now. We will switch to a slighly fluffier roller for the second coat to hide the flaws left from the previous home owner who couldn't finish drywall worth a shit. But I just wasn't up to ripping down all the old tape and doing it over. A little texture will hide a lot of flaws. The dark walls will cut down on reflected light. It should be okay.

I hope we can get a second coat on the ceiling this evening.

Tomorrow we will tackle the walls.

I might get Ken to go out and get the trim and get it installed sometime in the coming week or two. Then we can finish the paint job and he can decorate how he wants.

My travel log

2009-02-01T10:06:00.002-05:00

Matthew talked me into taking him to see his girlfriend in Charlottesville yesterday. Two weeks ago, I told him he could not go up there and spend the weekend because he did not have a functioning phone, money or a place to stay. I had visions of him being picked up by some creepy old man and vanishing off the face of the Earth. So, even though he was officially 18, I put my foot down and told him no. I also told him as a compromise that I would make a long day trip out of it (since I really love visiting C'ville) and provide the transportation.

It was either that or stay home listening to him rant while I tried to clean house.

Who wouldn't rather be in C'ville?

Anyway, before our trip, I typed "Yarn Shops Charlottesville Virginia" into Google and got maps and directions to several places. I picked out three, added a couple of book stores and a couple of healthfood stores.

So, we left home at 8 a.m. and made it to C'ville at the Fashion Square Mall on Route 29 just before 11 a.m. My first stop was the Whole Foods Market across the street from Fashion Square Mall. Oh my! If you've never been to a Whole Foods Market and you love eclectic food that is organic and whole and wonderfully fresh; find one of these. Even a several hour drive is worth the trip. Because I neglected to bring a cooler, I had to limit myself to shelf food and a couple of hard cheeses. I will bring a cooler next time I'm out this way.

Then I went down the road just a little bit to the first yarn shop. It was called It's a Stitch and is a very nice shop. They were giving beginning knitting lessons when I arrived and greatly enjoyed listening in at the banter. I ended up with seven skeins of laceweight silk yarn, a lace pamphlet and the current issue of Interweave Knits. (I really need to subscribe to that again, now that I'm better at knitting.)

Then I met up with the kids for minute so Matthew could do a costume change (his girlfriend, bless her, talked him into dressing up a bit for their date. He had brought along nice clothes in a backpack but had left it in the car).

From there I headed out to Stony Mountain Fibers out to the west side of town up Route 20 from Pantops Mt. It was a beautiful drive and I could not have asked for nicer weather. It was cold, but clear and crisp. Anyway, you drive quite a ways out on Route 20 until you come to Hammocks Gap Road. Now, I live in the country but I had forgotten about the mountain roads in and around Charlottesville. Hammocks Gap is a one-lane dirt track running along the side of a ridge. To your left, up the hill, are a few houses here and there. To the right down a very steep hill are fensed-in pastures. You drive for a while on this dirt track until you come to Stony Point Fibers. The house number is in the 900s and the numbers just off Route 20 start at something like 1300s. But the driveway is wellmarked. It's also very steep!

My poor little Toyota had a bit of an issue climbing the red clay and gravel drive, but I did get up it. It looks like there are two houses there. The one in the back is the shop. But it's a comfortable place with the yard decorated with an antique truck on blocks and several farm vehicles including an antique tractor.

Barbara Gentry is the owner of Stony Mountain Fibers and also has cormo sheep and I spotted them off to the side just before I went into the shop. I made a note in my mind that the red mountain clay had done a job of settling into the fleeces. I wondered what I would find inside.

And what I found was a fiber festival all by itself. I really should have taken pictures! She had one wall full of beautifully solid colored wool fiber. Another wall was full of weaving yarns. She had samples of just about every kind of fiber you could think of including Buffalo Gold, cashmere, cotton and silks (including silk hankies). She also had a big box/bag of pin drafted roving which was a blend of her own sheep wool (cormo) blended with bamboo. This is some amazing stuff. And there is not a speck of red clay stain in it.

Cormo tends to be a little crisp by itself but is still next to skin soft. The bamboo calms that down to levels that make you wonder if you aren't feeling angora. I bought 14 ounces of it. I would have bought a full pound but I filled a large bag and could not bring myself to pack it down. In any case, she told me I could just call her if I needed more and she would ship it out to me. Barbara said she had this wool processed at Zeilingers.

I also purchased from her Storey's Guide to Raising Sheep, two single posts which I will clamp down for doing card weaving, The Gossamer Webs Design Collection: Three Orenburg Shawls to Knit, and 8 ounces of Wensleydale top.

She had spindles, she had spinning wheels both new and used, looms both new and used and lots of other tools and equipment.

If that wasn't enough, there was a young lady about the age of 7 or 8 who was shopping with her mother. At first I thought mom was the spinner and the little girl was just picking out colors of roving that she liked so mom could spin it for her. But no! The young lady was a student at the local Waldorf school and her teacher had taught the kids to spin and allowed them to work on their handwork when they finished their desk work. She bought lots of roving, hand cards, and seemed quite amazed about us adults raving over her skills. They looked at a drum carder, but it was suggested that they wait to see how long the young lady continued spinning. I told her that I had used only drop spindles, hand combs and hand cards for about a year before I got my first spinning wheel and that now I had two wheels, several drop spindles a drum carder and more fiber than I could spin in a year. It does tend to become a lifestyle.

After I left Stony Mountain Fibers I headed back into town and parked in the parking garage next to the Downtown Mall. It was chilly, perhaps in the 40 degree range), so I was glad I had my mitts and sorry I didn't have my hat.

I must say I was absolutely delighted to see all the handknitted hats, mittens and scarves traveling around on people in that mall. C'ville is, if nothing else, a cultured place.

On the mall I found this absolutely mad house of a knitting shop. It is called The Knitting Lady. It's narrow and deep and packed with yarn, needlepoint work and customers. Don't even try to find anything on your own. This is the kind of place where you walk in knowing what you want and walk up the counter and wait your turn. The staff is perky and cheerful and funny and know exactly where everything is (even though it's scattered all over the place and sometimes hidden away in drawers and cupboards. There are wonderful examples of knitted goods like shawls, sweaters, hats, shirts, scarves, etc. You can look around and fall in love with one of their knitted samples and they will hook you right up with everything you need to make it.

I came in with a desire for the making for a new set of slippers as mine are on their last leg (or sole). They have served me well for many years, but are really grungie and pretty disgusting, so I have decided it's time to replace them. They found me a pattern, pointed me to the yarn, told me how much I would need and even found the leather soles in stock and in my size for finishing. The Needle Lady is a great place but not one of those knitting shops like It's A Stitch where you can just plunk yourself down and visit for a spell and knit.

One thing I have to say is that in all the yarn shops I've visited, there are really only a few selling lace weight yarns. I've not found any gossamer yarns at all and yet the internet is full of options for lace weight. I'm wondering if my own perception about lace is confused (I'm hooked so I assume everyone else is as well) or yarn shops just don't find it profitable to stock laceweight because most serious lace knitters prefer one very long skein (1200 + yards) and it just doesn't pay to sell one skein of yarn for $30 or $40 when a sweater worth of yarn in aran or worsted or bulky weight runs up near or above $100.

My trip to C'ville was expensive but well worth it.

Safety Announcement

2009-01-16T11:49:00.002-05:00

It's winter. Unfortunately, that means my friend with the Red Cross is also very busy.

There have been several house fires in our area lately. Sadly, there have also been fatalities in at least two fires.

Propane and space heaters have been the cause in at least two fires.

But the one that has got me going is the fire caused by lint in the dryer vent.

Well, I'm not strong enough to get the dryer pulled out from the wall so I could pull of the vent and clean it out. I've asked my husband on several occasions over the past two years to do this. He always said, "the dryer is working, the vent isn't plugged."

Well, I noticed this morning that there was a bird's nest poking out of the outside flap of the vent and pointed this out to Ken. I mentioned the fire caused by a static electricity spark that took off in the dryer lint trapped in the vent.

This time, he took action and pulled the dryer out and disconnected the hose.

It was FULL! And the bird's nest at the end was large and had a very nice collection of dried grasses in it. All in all, there was enough lint in the tube to fill a two gallon bucket.

Please, check your dryer vents.

Fiber Inventory

2009-01-04T12:32:00.003-05:00

I did a fast and dirty inventory of my spinning fiber today.

I was just curious to know what I really had on hand. I was trying to justify the purchase of more fiber if truth be known. Surely, I didn't have that much that a 4 or 8 ounce purchase of something new and lovely could not be okay.

But then I decided to really look. Big mistake.

I have OVER 20 pounds of fiber! And that does not include the silk or the odd bits I keep handy for felting and sharing with new spinners.

I have two pounds of cotton in various forms for goodness sake. How did that happen? And what shall it become. Every time I pick it up to spin it comes out like thread. Doilies perhaps?

And the alpaca. Well, let's just say it has all wandered in here and parked without so much as a "how do you do and what will you do with me?" I'm thinking blending for all of it save that 1.2 pounds of white cria that MUST become a lace shawl someday. Perhaps it is destined to be a wedding gift or baby gift. Too nice, too nice too do something mundane -- this is special stuff.

The lovely merino roving all in white. Well I have about 4 pounds of it all total. But it will be dyed, or blended, or blended and dyed. It certainly won't stay white. I'm allergic to white. White stains. White makes me look like an albino elephant. No, none of it shall stay white. Two pounds will be blended with the rose colored merino/silk blend (it will just be more merino than silk) and become a VERY pale pink. That's going to be spun worsted weight and if I ever get it done, my mom is going to knit me a sweater from it. But I have to get it done!

Then there is all the odd 4 ounces and 8 ounces of various wools like Bluefaced Leicester and Cormo and Columbia and Jacob. These are all "samples" I picked up here and there to try out the various kinds of wool. I guess these will become hats and scarves and mitts/mittens.

I've got bits of angora in various colors, dabs of cashmere, silks in various forms and colors. Mohair and soysilks and even some spinner's nylon for reinforcing sock yarns.

I'm flicking and spinning and knitting my way through that very short but wonderful grey merino fleece I purchased last Spring. And I'm slowly working my way through the white Lincoln fiber from Curley. But it's tough stuff and I think it will be destined for woven pillow cushion covers or pocket books or something. The oatmeal colored fleece I purchased at the Fall Fiber Festival and split with Bonnie is combing up very nicely but does have lots of vm so will probably be a pretty slow spin... but I think it will spin fine and turn out to be some really nice lace weight stuff.

Then there is the grey lincoln lamb named Larry that I've been blending with grey alpaca and the carbon bamboo; this is the most lovely stuff. But I won't get enough for a sweater. I does want to spin up worsted weight. I'm still thinking it should become a wool vest for my husband even though he says he won't wear it. Perhaps as he ages and gets colder... but who knows.

There are two bags of Louet pencil rovings. One is in the colorway called Marmalade and matches perfectly to three balls of some wonderful soft brown yarn I purchased. With the two together. Well there should be enough for something of substance.

The other 8 oz bag of Louet pencil roving is in a colorway called "violets" and goes very nicely with a 3/4 pound bag of blue roving of dubious heritage. I'm really not sure where it came from but the bag is made of 2 ounces of this and three or four of that. Several different blues and a variety of wools.

So, all in all, I have about four years worth of spinning sitting here waiting for me to get on with it. I guess I should keep my debit card in my wallet for a while.

Lots done but more to do

2008-12-31T20:38:00.003-05:00

I got a lot done on my to do list below... but still have much to do.

I did clean up the loom room, but got distracted by the drum carder and that yummy oatmeal fleece from the Fall Fiber Festival. So I made up a couple of ropes of roving.

Then I made a detour to the local yarn shop last Saturday when I was supposed to be grocery shopping and got Knitting Lace Triangles
by Evelyn Clark. Very cool approach to knitting lace shawls. Anyway, I started a new lace project using the shetland handspun. I am starting with 450 yards. I figure I will have about 200 more yards available if desired when I finish spinning it.

I emptied three bobbins by plying the white lincoln that's been sitting on four bobbins for months.

I did get more of the grey merino flicked and ready to spin. Something to work on this weekend.

The weather is really bizarre for us this year. Beginning of December was very cold and almost seemed to promise snow for the holidays. But then it warmed up so much I had flowers blooming in the garden. This morning when I went to work it was 50 degrees. When I got off at noon it was down to 40 degrees. Now, at 8:45 p.m., it's extremely windy (about 25 mph winds) and the temps have dropped into the 20s.

Oh, I also vaccuumed the carpets, swept the other floors, cleaned up the kitchen and bath, spent Boxing Day at Mandy's and dejunked an end table.

I think I need to hire someone to come in and help me dejunk this house. I have too much stuff that is just odd bits and bobs. Lots of paper I don't need. Books I never look at but might some day... I have stuff. Just too much stuff.

Lace Success!

2008-12-25T09:54:00.005-05:00

I've attempted to knit lace before with rather sad results.

My main problem was following where I was on the charts (or directions) and then figuring out where I was in the actual project in relation to those charts/directions.

But I've had a breakthrough!

I took this pattern and used just the first chart with no repeats (keeping it simple) and used 1/2 of a skein of JaggerSpun Zephyr Wool-Silk 2/18 (which was left over from the shawl that I'm weaving for Carla).

Anyway, I ended up with this:

Yes, I'm happy with the results.

And because Michelle, my step daughter, was kind enough to ooooh over it at Thanksgiving when I was just a few inches into it, she will be gifted with it tomorrow on Boxing Day.

Next I'm going to use my handspun Shetland lace weight yarn and make this.

Looking Forward

2008-12-23T06:49:00.003-05:00

I have to get through today at work then I'm OFF for five days!

So here are my plans (not in order that they need to be completed):

Complete a report for work Done
Complete another report for work Done
Finish threading the loom for Carla's Shawl
Clean up the loom room (needs to be done before threading so I can get to the loom)
Finish lace scarf for step-daughter before Boxing DayDone
Spend Boxing Day at Mandy's
Finish wrapping gifts Done
Go to my mother's Christmas Eve Day and stay through dinner (will bring knitting with me) Done
Spin remainder of shetland wool so I can get enough yarn to make something
Spin more of the merino
Flick more of the merino so I can spin it
Vaccuum the house
Clean my kitchen
Play with Ken's new Wii (yes, I got it for him for Yule... he was pretty excited) Done

I think what I really need is two weeks off...

Matthews Tour

2008-11-29T06:47:00.002-05:00

Instead of spending my money at the local Wal-Mart or traveling further afield to Fredericksburg or Richmond for Black Friday, I took a tour of studios in Matthews County. It was the Made In Matthews Open Studio Tour 2008. I don't think we got to all of them, but those we visited sure were interesting!

And I spent a little money.

Bonnie, Debra and Debra's step-daughter went along for the trip and we had a wonderful day out. The weather was perfect and the company was even better.

I took my camera along but was very bad about taking pictures until we got to Bentwaters Farm. What wonderful animals! And their weaving, knitting and handspun yarn was just to die for!. I bought out all the roving braids she had hanging out. None of it was from her animals, unfortunately, but now that I know where they are and have a way to get in touch... well, perhaps in the Spring we can go back. She told me they have primarily Finn sheep, a handful of Jacobs and one Shetland ram.

I think this is my favorite picture. Debra's step-daughter being nuzzled by the llama.

This one is funny too, because it seemed as I turned away from snapping photos, the llama looked around and could almost be heard to say: "Hey! I'm not done posing yet. Come back!"

My corner of the world

2008-11-11T07:06:00.003-05:00

As my anti-depressant prescription runs out and I panicked about calling the doctor to have it renewed I wondered if my life was just a tad over complicated....

Work has been a bit of a fiasco lately with the introduction of a new database system... ultimately a good thing but with a LONG and complex learning curve... stress with a capitol S.

My desk at work is nothing but piles that I cannot seem to clear. Part of the job, of course, is waiting for other people to do their jobs, so sometimes files remain in the to-do pile waiting for minutia from other people... I don't like to put uncompleted files away because then I completely forget that I need to do something with them or followup on items not completed (like locating missing people...).

But I have always thought that my homelife was relaxed and calm. I could do what I wanted and take my time and not be rushed. Oddly enough, my comfy home life resembles my work life.

Here is a picture of my "Corner of My World." This is my chair. No one else dares to sit here. It's like a throne... but one with thorns (i.e. needles). Look at all the projects that are in process! And some of my projects aren't even in this picture!

So in summary I have the following projects in progress:

Green sweater (still... but the body is nearly done and I'm starting on the bottom ribbing on the next row.
Rug hooking project (probably destined to become a pillow as I don't think I can bear the idea of a dog laying on this)
Scrap rug (an on-going, no rush/no fuss project designed just to use up odd scraps of wool yarn and to keep my feet warm this winter. I will probably make another for under my computer desk and yet another for under Ken's desk)
Mittens for Ken. These are the flip top versions so he can go outside for his deadly cigarette and not whine about killing himself.
Market bag: the second in a series. To be offered for sale at the December 6th Golden Christmas Sale at the Tavern. The Tavern Spinners and Weavers are hosting a booth to raise money for our guild. We hope to donate some money to the Tavern and to the Red Cross.
Crocheted Socks. A learning project. I'm working on the cuff now. Bonnie is teaching us how to do this. I'm hoping its a faster process than knitting socks and that they are equally comfortable.
Grey socks. These are for Thomas. I hope he forgives me for how long this is taking.
Bunny #3. Another item for sale at the Golden Christmas on December 6th.
Hand spun Merino Shawl. This is another one of those on-going projects. This is from the grey merino fleece I purchased in the spring. I'm knitting as soon as I get a ball of yarn spun. Since I've been spinning other stuff, I have gotten distracted and must finish this. If you look under the table you will see a basket and a box. In the box is the scoured wool for this project. In the basket are some flicked locks. What you don't see in another room is a spindle full of grey singles waiting for me to finish flicking a basket full so I can spin the second bobbin and ply it together to make another ball of yarn so I can keep knitting.

Now, as to the state of this chair. Under the cushion are pillows and books because the springs are shot and the whole thing needs to go in for repair. The back of the chair is draped with a table runner that collects cat hair because this is where Misty likes to perch and shed on me making me sneeze and develop scratchy, running eyeballs. My favorite light (an Ott light gifted to me by my dear hubby) overhangs this collection and saves my eyesight. In the basket on the table are all the oddities I might need for any given project including some I haven't started yet. My black wool cape is also draped over the back of the chair because it really needs to go to the dry cleaners and if I put it away I will forget. In front of the basket on the table are many of my knitting needles and a jar with sissors, hooks and other small items like an exacto knife, a pen and needle threaders. There are a couple of sets of reading glasses here and there and catalogs and patterns and magazines for a variety of things scattered about.

Yep, that's the center of my universe.

One of the moons is the computer desk next to my husband's... I've recently cleaned it up so it's only slightly in chaos at the moment. In the next room over is my spinning. And in the room beyond that is the loom.

The kitchen isn't seeing much action these days... oh well....

Fall Pictures

2008-11-09T20:46:00.006-05:00

The colors this year have been amazing. Here are a few pictures I took today.

I want very much to find a way to capture these colors in spun yarn. I wonder if silk would give me the brilliance I'm craving? Hmmmm....

The true meaning of Samhain

2008-10-30T19:02:00.001-04:00

In The Know: Has Halloween Become Overcommercialized?

Finishing up projects

2008-10-25T15:50:00.002-04:00

The Tavern Spinner's & Weaver's Guild is getting off to a good start.

We have been meeting regularly now for several months. And we just completed a series of beginner spinning lessons. Next month we are going to have a lesson on crocheting socks from Bonnie. I'm looking forward to that one because I can crochet much faster than I can knit and I really get bogged down knitting socks.

We are planning a small fund raiser in December at the Golden Christmas Event at the Hughlett Inn Rices Tavern. It will be held on December 6 from 10 a.m. until 1 p.m. Our table will be outside near the Blacksmith Shop.

We are waiting, none too patiently, for word on space at the soon to be "old" high school after the kids move to the new high school. I'm hoping we get the old home ec room but we might have to take a small classroom near the shop until we can get something that suits our needs better.

Anyway, money raised at the Christmas Sale will go to support the Guild. We are also going to try and put together a way to support our local Red Cross and the Tavern. Haven't got all the details on this yet...

But I've made several items I'm going to donate including fingerless mitts, a scarf, several little stuffed bunnies, and a couple of coffee cup cozies. I also have some skeins of hand spun yarn I'm going to put up for sale. If I have time, I will make a few needle felted Santas, some tiny socks for ornaments and put together a few kits for do-it-yourselfers.

Ideas from the Festival

2008-10-08T07:02:00.004-04:00

I took my camera. I really did. I just never took it out of my bag...

In any case the Fall Fiber Festival at Montpelier was just wonderful and I came home with a billion ideas rolling around in my head. Bonnie, one of my guild mates, came with me

I saw some really neat felt items including wall hangings that were basically fiber pictures. I saw some really cute felted purses. There were felted rugs and felted mitts and felted hats as well. I saw only one felted face and it was rather small... but I do have an idea. I'm wondering (and will only find out for sure when I try it) if I could make a felt purse or bag and felt a 3-D face onto it? Or a hat? How about a cup cozy with a felted design?

I know I'm going to make a few sets of felted mug rugs for sale at our Guild Holiday Sale. I will also give one of the "face" ideas a go as well.

In addition to the many felting ideas, I also came home with a skein of pretty plum-colored cotton that I'm going to make into a market bag (got the pattern on line). If it works well and doesn't drive me bonkers, I'll come back and make the link live so others can find it.

So what did I buy? Pictures to come...

Sun colored silk (this stuff is amazing!)
A bag of fleece that I'm going to split with Bonnie.
Some pretty sparkle fiber for blending
A warping board
The Plum cotton yarn
A neat wooden double-pointed needle holder
Some White Sage for my hubby
Other stuff I can't remember

I ate a yummy sausage sandwich and sweet potato fries.

What I did not get this year was roving. Not sure why. I think my brain wants to make believe I'm going to take the fiber I have and make my own. Reality is, that's exactly what I have to do.

I think I need to get real with myself and get off the computer (or limit my time much more) and spend way more time over the next several months working on my projects.

In any case, I MUST clean up my messy house. We have a lots of company coming at the end of the month and you cannot move for the stuff scattered everywhere.

Sure to be a classic hit

2008-10-02T06:18:00.004-04:00

If you knit and you haven't seen this yet, you have to check it out. Watch out, though, if you listen too often, your loved ones might think your interest in "cheatin' songs" is a bit concerning...

Using up the bits

2008-09-26T20:12:00.003-04:00

If you spin, you have lots of tiny little skeins and balls of odd yarn that were samples. If you knit or weave, you have the ends of many skeins of yarn.

This is supposed to be a wicked cold winter. What could be nicer than a wool rug at the base of your favorite knitting chair?

I crocheted this with single crochet stitches... just round and round with two to four extra stitches in the corners. Two instead of four probably would have prevented the "ruffles" but I rather like them.

I would not put this rug in a high traffic area as it's rather slippery (at least on a hard surface floor). But I might paint the back with some of that no skid foam stuff...

Home on the Range

2008-09-14T06:57:00.005-04:00

We decided after a couple of months of almost no eggs being produced, that the chickens were unhappy in their pen. They had, after all, picked it clean of all vegetation and when it was dry it was a dustbowl with sticks and when wet a mudbog with sticks.

On top of that, one of the trees in the corner had keeled over and smashed in the chicken wire across the top of the pen, so it was nearly impossible to get into the pen to clean it up unless you wanted to crawl.

So, I had the boys go in with wire snips and start removing the "roof". Ken and I took out another section. But finally, I realized that they would be just as happy running around in the yard.

We risk an attack by fox and stray dog, but the birds would have a better diet, get some exercise and with full run of the yard, might actually be able to escape predation as their wings are not clipped.

So now every day is a hunt for eggs and we have to herd them back from the road from time to time.

I'm trying to teach Macha how to herd the flock, but so far she just looks at me like I'm crazy even though she walks along with me as I attempt to round them up.

Fortunately, both Macha and Gloria have accepted that the chickens are part of our "pack" and have not attacked any of them. I suspect the rooster helps with this as his spurs are down right wicked and he did fly up in Macha's face once when we first let them out. She has steered clear of him ever since.

We ended up with 6 babies in the shared refreshing of the flock with out neighbor and all of her older birds. So we have something around 20 or so. We are again getting eggs -- about 3 or 4 a day. But I suspect the girls have a secret nest or two that we haven't found yet.

Each night they all go back into the pen to roost, so we can at least make a count from time to time... and while I've not noticed a decrease in the bug population, I have noticed I'm outside a lot more and getting more exercise from hunting eggs and chasing wayward birds.