Blue Ribbon!

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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

Do you think they are spoiled? Maybe?

Alice:


Jerry:

Past meets present

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.