Finally!

I drove over to Mim's today on this fantas-
tically beautiful afternoon. I had actually emailed her a couple of days ago when it was still unrelentingly gray. We sat on the front porch and just shot the breeze. This is the view I first experienced in my visit to the valley and the view that convinced me that I needed to live in the valley too.
She has a new shed to replace the one the metal one that blew two parcels away. Juan, her fence guy, and his crew poured a concrete foundation, built the shed and then bolted it to the concrete. I have sheep shed envy. Notice her first twins with their mom in the shade.
I walked with her as she moved sprinklers. The more grass she can grow, the less hay she has to buy. This is the first truly lovely day we've had and I can't think of a better way to spend the afternoon.
I brought up a large box that was left at the gate. It was her electric fence that she's going to use to let her sheep browse through that grass, organic mowing!
I stopped and got out of the car to catch this because I think the pinnacles are so pretty - they're partially in the first photo I took. And the clouds are nice window dressing.

I came home with these beautiful little gems. How lucky am I to have a friend who lives in my valley and sells these farm fresh eggs at $3.00 a dozen?!! Shush - don't tell Mim. The organic eggs cost a heck of a lot more in the grocery store and they're not nearly as fresh.
And look what else I came home with. I lost complete self control when I saw this hogget fleece. It's such an unusual fleece and, well, I don't know what else to say.
Look at this unusual lock - from red-brown tips, to morrit color, to white at the shearing. I've never seen such dramatic color change in one growth and haven't decided how I want to treat the preparation - I'll do it myself but not sure how.
After dinner I was surprised that it was still in the 70s outside so took my book and my dogs and sat on the front porch for a while.

Bad First Impressions

There it is, my 20 bins of fleece. Absent are three large cardboard boxes and another plastic bin. The left five bins are all Merino and the tallest stack is all Alpaca. Almost everything is processed except the Alpaca. I'm spinning the last couple of bumps of a Romney/cross from my brother's flock and was thinking this morning that I need to call Laura and get some advice on using the natural dye extracts I have. I swear two hours hadn't passed before she called to say she'd like to come down in May, could she stay here - eerie! And cool.
I wanted to weave the last towel on this warp with the end-feed shuttle and then decide if I was going to return it -give it another chance. The pirn was dangling. The instructions said that on top of almost never needing tension adjustment, the pirn adjustment was factory set and would be good for years, but over time if I needed to adjust it, here's now. My pirn was hanging out the bottom! Once I gave myself permission to plug my ears to their admonishments, I got the tension and pirn adjustments set and started the last towel.
My biggest struggle the last time I tried this shuttle was having the shovel-
nose scoop the warp threads. Valerie commented that she throws her shuttle sideways to eliminate that. Ingrid emailed me this morning to say that she has the same trouble with her Schacht if she weaves too close to the reed. So taking those those thoughts in toe, and with the newly adjusted shuttle, I embarked on the last towel. Oh my goodness. It's like I've been driving a noisy Volkswagon Bug and suddenly now I'm driving a Lexus. Even Ian noticed the difference in the noise. There's no rattling bobbin as it unwinds before the next toss. It's completely silent and it uses so much less shoulder motion that it's even faster. It slides silently across the shuttle race, change shed and back it goes. A small thing, but I appreciated that there isn't a dangling loop of yarn to catch on things underneath. There's no way I'm sending this thing back!

The next warp is going to use five sets of colors, the good ol' Fibonacci way. I used four sets and it's an eye clunker. You can see it, right? Annoying.

Sheep Shearing

Today was shearing day. Our poor boys need to be shed of these coats, and the weather has been so cool that I'm confident that none of them has molted. It's supposed to be a high of 42 tomorrow with a chance of snow. Good grief.
The thing with Devon is that you know the date, but you never know the time. He called about 2:30 to say he was just leaving Yreka so he would be here later in the day. That's at least a five hour drive and he was shearing Neighbor Nancy after us!
Ollie and Mickey look on anxiously as Robby gets his turn. Devon is also a farrier so was shoeing horses all morning. He and his girlfriend also have a Corriedale sheep ranch. I admire him.
Mickey would watch and watch and then run back to me and have me chuckle his chin. Being last is hard.

And then he'd run back and look to see what Devon was doing. It's the not knowing that made him a nervous wreck. Devon charges $6 a sheep and $40 to come out.
Economically it makes no sense to have these guys, but they have become part of the rhythm of our lives. They're so happy when their coats are off and as Devon says, they're pets.
They're pets who make pretty fluff. I really would like to process the fleeces myself this year. We'll see.

Another Nice Day

It was another nice day today so I got the last two fleeces skirted and will ship them off to Shari next week. She emailed me say that the fleeces I've already sent will be ready in December. This is my second fleece today and it reminds me what a joy it is to skirt an entire blanket. I had thought that when I was skirting the fleece that Kathy LeFevre sent me. It makes a huge difference.

We've been using an alpaca shearer the past two years, and while I love him to pieces, the fleece comes off in pieces. I'm going to call the cooperative extension and see if they know of any sheep shearers in our area.
I've finished all my deadline knitting and now I can knit for little ol' me. I'm bursting with ideas. I decided to evaluate the state of already spun yarns and projects in progress. I bought this fiber when were at Maryland Sheep and Wool, however many years ago that was, and I've lost track of the pattern. It's merino and when I realized the moths had gotten into it, I stuffed it into a bin with copious amounts of lavender. It is now pulled out, rewashed and measured. I have a little over 1,000 yards, enough for a vest.

That was several years ago and the moth damage appears to have been arrested. I thought I took pictures of the other fiber that I recovered and now have on needles. I guess I didn't. But I did finish and am blocking my Walk for the Cure scarf for my stage-4 breast cancer survivor friend. Yeah, I thought I took a picture of it too. What did I take pictures of?



I took pictures of this unexpected friendship. How do we know when Sammie is standing at the French doors and wants to come back inside? We hear Charlie's tiny little mewl which means his dog wants in. He watches for her and he never lets her down. Sammie weights 85 pounds, Charlie weighs 7 pounds. I'm always nervous when they play, afraid the Sammie won't know her strength and do a Frankenstein, but Charlie does have claws. Aren't they the colors of Halloween??!

Taking Care of Business

If you happened to catch my blog earlier this spring, Kathy LeFevre from Sheep Thrills Farm sent me a black fleece out of the blue. Well, it wasn't exactly out of the blue, since she and Ian are friends on Facebook and she got our mailing address from him. Anyway, this fleece belongs to her Sven, whom she said insisted that she send it to me. I bow to her shearer. Is this not the perfect blanket?

And then when I flipped it, will you look at this coat! No wonder Kathy says she sells her fleeces as fast as the shearer drops them to the ground. I'm not sure how Sven escaped sales or how come he kept insisting she send him to me but I know a gift when I see one. Just wow.
There are four fleeces in this box. I had to kneel on the bags and ooch the top down. It's taped and bulging. I see the mailing label is still on it from the fleeces I received. Convenient - since I'm going to take this to the UPS store on my way to the fair on Thursday. All the shipping information is already on the box, and just needs to be reversed.
I was a busy girl today. I came home from book club on Saturday with this box heaped and overflowing with hens and chicks. I wasn't sure if the rabbits would leave them alone, but neighbor Carol was here this morning and said they haven't bothered hers.
I dragged rocks and moved soil to get a beginner rock garden going for them. I tried to edge it in with existing growth so it doesn't look too raw. I had planned to show you my entries that I've finished for the fair, when I realized that both judges read my blog. So much for that!

Fixin'

I'm fixin' to get ready to send fleece off for pro-
cessing. Of serious and nagging business are the dozen (or more) fleeces in the garage which are becoming an increasing storage nuisance. Skirting is a warm weather business and unpleasant at best. I like to have some sun on the fleece as it warms up the lanolin and makes shaking out the nasty bits a little easier.

I've set up my skirting table on the west side of the garage and I'm started with this years shearing of Mickey. When I've skirted all of Mickey's fleeces, I'll box them up and ship them off for processing and start on the next group. I'm fixin'.
It was a day of fixin'. I'm soaking fleece here, fixin' to wash it. Mim told me she'd gotten a tip from Judith MacKenzie - put your fleeces in a cold water soak before you wash them, leaving them in the water for several days, and a week is even better. I guess something happens in the nasty water that helps break down the lanolin? Anyone, anyone? Ferris??
I carded the dark gray fleece that I had washed. These are great things to do on a laundry day since you can get them done in between loads, and it does make laundry seem a lot less thankless. I was fixin' for my spin-in today at a noon fiber play-date in town.
There were a half dozen of us at Allison's today. I spun this while we chatted and I cannot tell you how much good that did my heart. She has this in her home every Tuesday, from 11:00-1:00 and I realize just how important it is to make time for it. I left feeling like I had taken happy drugs. It was good medicine. I finished the day with a long over-due pedicure. I have to take Ian into town in the morning for an ultrasound and x-ray. He's still pretty rocky, but a much more compliant patient than he was a week ago. Thanks for all your comments and concerns on that front.

And of course, one of laundry day tasks is putting fresh linens on the bed. But there seems to be something under the covers. Will laundry day never end?!
It's the chief snooper-
visor! He's checking to see if I made mitered corners and if you can bounce a quarter off the sheets. Yes and no. Oh, and I am going to bed tonight with lime green toenails which still make me giggle.

Heave

This is the pound of hogget Shetland fleece I got from Mim after I washed it. I had wanted to flick the locks and spin them to preserve the range of colors. Notice the white.

You can really see the white on the cut edge here. When David was shearing for us, he said that we had three good fleeces. He noted that Mim had heave already on some of hers. This fleece is from Wilson: he is one of her locker lambs and he has heaved. Heave is what Shetlands do when they're done with their coats and want them off. If an animal has heaved above the shear line, it produces a change in the wool structure and creates a web. I have been unable to break through it with my flick carder.

Mim and I teased locks as we visited last Wednes-
day. We opened and flicked, and I then put those locks on the drum carder. If you click for big, you can see the chunks of white neps in the gray roving - so disappointing. The heave forms a web that I just cannot open, not with optimism, not with carding. It's not a problem for the animal, only for the hand spinner.
I washed another pound of Mim's Shetland today, a hogget fleece. It has no sign of heave. I hope it will keep a tone of red when spun as yarn. I have to say that the heave disappointment has been a satisfactory learning experience - don't want to repeat it anytime soon.

Fiber Exchange

I went over to Mim's this afternoon. We had talked about making a trade - we likes the barter economy. She loves hand knit socks but hates to make them. She hasn't finished the pair she started last September! I love to knit socks and only have three wethers and thus three colors of fleece. So we made a swap.

She got two pairs of socks and I got three pounds of wool: a variegated wheat, red and slate gray (it's the brillo pad, Laura). It was relaxing to chat on the sofa and pick through the fleeces. I love the smell of fleece. I had already started washing Wilson when I realized that it was almost too late for a picture.
A lamb was born shortly before I got there, probably not more than a half hour. The ewe is Tru but her baby ewe is still unnamed. Tru is still cleaning up her wobbly baby girl - all legs!
Mim weighed her at seven pounds, one pound less than Charlie, who BTW, ran from me like a crazy cat for the first hour after I got home. I can only surmise that I smelled scary.
I took this picture, hoping to show the relative size of the lamb to Jo Beth, Mim's Jack Russell Terrorist. This little wobbly girl was already frisky and had us in stitches, pun intended. I felt so fortunate to have stumbled into this special event. We just stood and watched - it's awesome in every sense of the word.
I took some cuttings from Mim's yard and was getting ready to leave, when we decided to take one last look at the lamb. Will you just look at that face. She's such a funny girl. I can't wait to see how her fleece grows in.

The Morning After

This is the roving that Lindsey dyed on Saturday. She came with a photo and wanted to create those same colors. You can see more about it at Sara's blog here. Sue called this color pathway "squadgy" but I think it needs a nicer name.

I was in a hardcore crowd. Lindsey moved onto sampling and when she had enough on three bobbins, she tossed them into a bucket and started plying. When one bobbin ran out, then it was two-ply. You could hear her plying from the barn. I completely missed the squadgey train but I want on board.
Yesterday, I spent the day reading a book, resting up from dye day. This morning I stumbled into the kitchen to see this box on the counter. Ian takes the dogs to pick up the yesterday's mail. He asked me if I knew it was coming and I said no.
It was from Kathy. Ian was ticked because Kathy had messaged him on Facebook for our address. Co-conspirators! I didn't realize how much I had blathered on about needing a black fleece, until I opened the box. Sheep fleece can't get much blacker than this. I've started sampling - waiting for the rest of the locks to dry. It's from her wether Sven who was mauled in the marauding dogs attack. She apologized that one shoulder of the fleece was missing. I am speechless, and that doesn't happen very often.
These are my results from the dye day. I am yet and still stuck in the purple, green and gold mindset. Since they're close and combined are 12 ounces, I'll probably try to spin them into a single result. Next year.

As for the book I read yesterday, I don't often recommend chic lit, but I have come to appreciate Claire Cook, author of Must Love Dogs, now a movie. I didn't see the movie, but I have read all her books, actually to my surprise. Yesterday I read Wildwater Walking Club. The author walked 10,000 steps a day while writing this book, but more importantly, she asked the question - Who are you? and do not spout your resume. Oh, and she's very funny.