Ice

The older I get the less I want to slip and fall. My body sabotages me enough without doing something that is more likely to break a bone. So on our hike yesterday I was very careful to avoid the icy parts on the trail. But not everyone else seemed to care so much.Sam on ice. Ginny on ice.Kirin on ice. Chris on ice.Meryl and Chris on ice.  Chris on ice--this time on purpose.

 Matt's version of the louge...

  ...followed by the skeleton...

 Here he breaks form before breaking his head.

Bassi Falls

Yesterday it was way too cold and windy at Loon Lake ... ...for us to enjoy snowshoeing for very long so we drove back down......to the trail to Bassi Falls at about 5400' elevation.There wasn't enough snow to snowshoe but there was no wind and the other signs of winter were still there.  At the base of the falls Meryl and Chris showed off their gymnastic skills.Here is a group shot where we're not quite as bundled up as in the previous post. How many people does it take to arrange a dog-only group shot? You can see the result of this in Rusty's blog after he gets his turn at the computer. Once again, Maggie provide entertainment for Ginny because just hiking isn't enough for her.After the trauma of the first stop we made, Ginny had a great time on this hike. We all thought that she would be worn out for the day, but it seems that the long car ride was enough to revive her and she wasn't at all tired last night.

Loon Lake

It's not easy to find a time when we can all get together for a whole day. We had planned on a snowshoeing trip and the prediction of a little cold weather wasn't going to deter us. The problem was that even though we had significant precipitation in December with  Caliornia's continuing drought the snow level was fairly high. To find enough snow for snowshoeing we drove to Loon Lake (6358' elevation). There was enough snow here and it was sunny but the temperature was in the low 20's and the wind was howling. (I know that plenty of people live in this kind of weather, but not me. I'll go for 100 degree days anytime over bone-chilling cold.) We decided to go for it with the snowshoes at least for a short time. Everyone out of the car... ...including Ginny, in the snow for the first time. Matt, Kaleena, Chris, and Meryl started down to the lake with the big dogs. I was behind because I had to remember how to walk with snowshoes without getting my feet tangled up going down the steep slope from the road. It didn't take us long to figure out that with the strong wind it was just too cold for Ginny so Dan took her back to the car.  The rest of us continued down to the lake. Matt was having a hard time keeping track of which was his wife since both Kaleena and Meryl were wearing Kaleena's snow gear.   There were white caps on the lake and lots of ice at the edge.

 That's me on the left, then Kaleena, Matt, Chris, and Meryl.

  Meryl and Chris with Sam and Rusty.It's the wind that is making Rusty's ears stand up.

We didn't spend too much time here. Instead we drove back down to Bassi Falls and went for a hike there--something that all of us could enjoy. Photos of that in the next blog post.

Farm Day

Shearing Day is coming up so next weekend and Farm Club members came Saturday to help get things ready. Dona took a lot of great photos and all of these are hers. There is always barn cleaning.  A break for puppy-time.After finishing with the barn......it was time to preview fleeces. Mary made cards to be put into bags as the sheep are shorn and she recorded which fleeces were reserved by Farm Club members. .Maggie watched from above.

   Everyone was anxious to get hands-on the fleeces.

This is Isadora and her July lamb, Isabelle. Shearing Day is an Open House so if you're in the area you are welcome to come. See this link.

Landscape

These remind me of photos taken flying over Nevada at 30,000 feet.

 But if that's the case then this is scary:

  These are from my last walk Across the Road.

Sheep Grow Up

Farm Club came and helped get the barn ready for shearing next weekend. We also made sure that my sheep list was current and we looked at fleeces. The lamb fleeces are gorgeous and it made me think about how sheep grow up. Here are some examples.Ventura's baby picture...   ...in the fall......as an adult. Rosie as a young lamb......half grown......and grown up with her own lambs.  Onyx as a lamb......and grown up.

 This is Jane with her lamb this year who I have named Jean.Jean during the summer...

 ...and a few weeks ago.

Here is one last one. Jerry (Garcia) is the wether who keeps the BFL ram, Faulkner, company. Jerry is a lucky sheep because he would not have been kept as a ram with his narrow horn set and lots of black fiber (too much to register, but great if you like dark wool).Jerry as a baby......with Faulkner after shearing a few years ago...

  ...and now ready to be shorn next week.

The wool is what it's all about.

 Jerry's fleece from last year.Ventura's fleece.

Maggie the Babysitter

All three dogs come to the barn when I do chores.So that I can keep track of her Ginny is on a chain while I'm cleaning the barn and putting out hay. After chores it is play time.Maggie has only rarely shown an inclination to play and maybe that's because Rusty doesn't either. Once in awhile she will show the "play-bow" move and run off in what I think of as the cartoon-dog run. Ginny, of course, is desperate to play with anyone who shows the least interest. I have figured out that I can bribe Maggie into playing with Ginny--at least for awhile. When she responds to Ginny's play attempts I have given Maggie a treat and said "play with the puppy". It seems to be working because I can prolong playtime that way. The longer the better to wear out that puppy. That doesn't look like play, but it is.  Rusty just watches, wanting nothing to do with them.  Maggie coming back to me for another treat before she goes another round with Ginny.

Ginny Gets Around

Ginny has been here a week and a half. I have been taking her with me on errands so that she'll be used to going in the car and to help get her socialized. Her first trip to the big city was when I delivered woven pieces to The ClayGround in Winters for a holiday sale.  Ginny's selfie when choosing a Christmas tree. Ginny at her first visit to the veterinarian. Socializing at home with some of the spinners.  Christmas shopping in Vacaville. We're watching cars go by. More Christmas shopping. I learned that it's best to go during times of heavy rain because most people stay home (or maybe they are at the malls instead of walking to stores). Even in  town you can get off the cement.Back home at the shop. Rusty is fairly tolerant but not always happy about having Ginny around.View from inside looking out.

Let Sleeping Dogs Lie

I sat at the computer most of the day while it rained. These are iPhone photos taken from my chair of Ginny in between chewing on toys, cuddling, and potty trips outside. That's a tired puppy.Ozzie and Sunny on their perch.

Ginny

PuppyWorld. That's the world I've been in for almost 36 hours now and it feels as intense as motherhood. (Maybe every decade of age adds to that.) Rusty has already blogged about his impressions on Day 1 and Day 2. Here's Day 1 for me in photos.On Wednesday I drove to Mendenhall Wool Ranch, where Rusty was born, to pick up Ginny who is 8-1/2 weeks old (born October 12). There were two litters of red Border Collie puppies born in the same week. This photo shows what it is like to walk around there. Rusty's blog shows photos of Ginny being introduced. This one just has cute puppy photos.I was trying to get photos of Ginny but she was nervous and every time I squatted down for a photo she ran over and sat on my feet.

 Eventually I moved over enough with my foot still in place that I could get some cute shots.

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Notice that she is still sitting next to my foot.

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I tried to get all three dogs in one photo but Maggie and Rusty didn't want to cooperate.

Close to Home--Post #16 The End

Monday I took down the show. Two dedicated  and fabulous friends came to help. They tagged and wrote price labels for all the pieces and sorted sold from unsold. I took out nails, patched holes, got the museum putty that held signs off the walls, and figured out how to condense this whole gallery....into the corner at the end of the room. I didn't finish until the next day.This is some of the blankets all tagged and ready to show again. I was able to keep a lot of pieces there. I hope a lot sell because in January it will be someone else's turn for a show in the gallery and my things will go back out to a smaller space in the main part of the store. Here is what I did. The chenille scarves came back to the display, although baby blankets are still in the other room of the store. One wall. The other wall.Remember this?Now it's full of wonderful comments. I like Breanna from Fair Oaks mindset, don't you?

Thanks to everyone who came, who commented, and who bought, and supported the local sheep industry and your local weaver/farmer!!!!

Water and Fire and Water

One of my friends was leaving at the last Spinners Night Out the Friday evening before Thanksgiving. She came back into the shop to say that she was sprayed in the face by water and asked if there a sprinkler on. I went out to look and found that the pressure tank for the well was spraying water from a rust hole. We turned the water off and the next day Dan welded a patch on the tank. That was enough to get us through the weekend (turning the water off at night because it was still leaking), but was not a permanent fix.  After the welded patch--better than before, but only a temporary fix. I picked up a new tank in Sacramento. It's nice to have a son-in-law who is in the well and pump business and could get me a good price on a tank. He wasn't here for the installation but gave tech support on the phone.  That evening I came home from a meeting and found Dan watching to make sure there were no leaks. On the Friday after Thanksgiving conditions were right that we could burn the brush pile that had been getting bigger all summer and Chris came over to do that while I was busy with other things. It was too big to burn in place so we pushed it behind the barn where it was farther away from structures.  This is the aftermath of that pile. As that one was smoldering Chris set the blackberry pile on fire.  He lit a palm frond on fire to get the pile burning. This one was getting a little scary. We really didn't want that palm tree to catch fire. Good thing Chris is a professional. This was a HOT fire. I wondered if our two garden hoses were enough to keep it in check.  It didn't take long to get to this point. Chris dug a line around it and we let it smolder all night. This is the next morning. The other pile was smoking even two days later and after a light rain. Saturday night I heard a leak in the cellar. (This is a low-ceiling room beneath the house with access from the outside. Before the drought years this basement would flood 3-4 feet in the winter and we had to keep a sump pump running so that the water would not flood the water heater.) It turns out that the old water heater was leaking, probably as a result of the higher pressure that our new pressure tank was providing to the house. I won't show a photo of what this room looked like before I cleaned out all the junk that was along these walls because that is embarrassing. Believe me that it was not pretty considering what kind of critters spend time in basements and the fact that it has flooded periodically. Fortunately this incident was on the weekend and Dan was able to install a new water heater on Sunday. This photo was taken this morning (Wednesday). Notice the water in the basement.That is why we have to keep this pump set up in the winter. It wasn't used the last couple of winters, but we woke up to this: The water level was at 2.0 inches since the evening before. We haven't seen that in a long time.

Close to Home...Post #15 Left-overs

My husband says that we are hoarders. When you're a farmer you know that you'll need that scrap of plywood, leftover fencing, rusty but still useable pipe, or roofing panel with only a few holes sometime, somewhere. So you keep it. What about the weaving studio? If there is warp left on the loom after finishing a project I weave it off and these pieces pile up. The Artery show gave me the incentive to finally use them. These are several photos of Before and After felting. The process of "fulling" deserves it's own post. Fulling transforms weaving fresh off the loom into cohesive cloth by using a controlled amount of agitation in hot soapy water. Felting happens when you take this process further. I used the washing machine and sometimes the dryer to maximize the effect of shrinking wool fabric into something much denser. (Another method is needlefelting, described in this post.) The four fabrics in this photo are the same as in the photo above it but after felting.This is another pair of before and after photos.   The piece on the left is a blanket after fulling and the one on the right is the left-over piece of fabric after felting.Why felt this fabric and not use it as is or with only fulling? Felting creates a very dense stable fabric, good for a variety of projects where you don't need (or want) the fabric to drape. Also, the fibers are so entangled that you can cut this fabric without worrying about it coming apart or fraying. I planned to use some of this fabric for pillows, but worried about staying true to the theme of locally produced fiber. I did use commercially available synthetic pillow forms (at least USA-made) for some of the pillows but for about half of them I made my own pillow forms using Suffolk wool from the Phillips Farm. I tracked down American Made Brand cotton fabric at two local quilt stores and used that for the covers and for the fabric backs of the pillows. Fabric left over from blankets that I wove years ago.Fabric left over from the Barinaga blankets.Fabric I wove using Mom's yarn several years ago.These pillows use fabric spun and woven by my Mom.

Friends gave me another idea to use some of this felted fabric. In fact one friend helped sew some of the pillows and another dipped into her fabric stash and did the sewing in these organizers. There are about 20 organizers and they are all different. It may be hard to tell in these photos but there are fabric pockets of different sizes in each. These two use handspun, woven fabric that Mom had basted into a jacket but never finished. After felting that fabric made 3 or 4 organizers.

 The three photos above all use fabric leftover from Jacob blanket warps.

I still have left over fabric so there will be more of these to come.