End of October

It was still mild weather. The Sacramento Valley got rain, but not much here—not enough to show in the rain gauge.

The sheep moving to the gate where I will let them into the next paddock.

A sheep farmer’s version of fall color. Peyton, the BFL ram, was the one with the red marker. I moved his ewes out a few days ago and now they are with Townes. Silverado and Barrett still have some ewes, but I’m getting ready to be finished with breeding season.

This is one of my favorite views of the property.

Patchwork Townes is the ram with the most ewes now at the end of the season. His marker has been switched to green, but I think there is only one ewe marked green.

We held Hug a Sheep Day on Saturday, but it was mostly for Farm Club members with a few other friends who came. We had the most huggable sheep available. That’s Jade and her daughter, Hazel.

At the end of the day I walked across the road and took my customary photo looking south to Mt. Diablo. One of these days I’ll share the series of photos I took from this spot throughout the growing season.

A Three Year Anniversary

When you live in the flat land it is nice to climb up high and get a view of the surroundings. This is a panorama view of our property from the top of an 80-bale haystack.

You also have to get on top of the haystack to throw bales down to feed. Here is another photo looking down—that’s Rusty below. That is the last photo I took on October 14, 2019. I have no idea how I fell off, but my husband found me on the cement below in a coma.

I’m almost embarrassed to show these next photos, because I look so terrible, but those of you who follow this blog know it’s about real life, and I’ve been thinking about this a lot this week. I keep seeing posts on social media about the Sheep and Wool Festival in Rhinebeck, NY that was this weekend, and my friends and I were supposed to be there in 2019. We had airline tickets and a place to stay. Then this happened and they all stayed home.

This is the next picture that shows up on my phone, taken November 13 at the Kaiser Rehab Center in Vallejo. A big piece of skull had been removed from my head, so I had to wear that charming helmet (later replaced with my son’s snowboarding helmet). I also had a fracture of T-7/T-8 so had to wear that wonderful brace.

This was taken November 16 when I finally came home.

This was taken November 29. Trying to get into the holiday spirit? What is significant about this photo is that blanket and the paper with the yarns attached. My good friend, Mary, warped her loom and invited a lot of Farm Club and other friends to come to her house and weave their choice of yarns to create a blanket for me.

I still have this card on my wall with the yarn descriptions and all the friends who participated.

And of course I have the blanket—that is a very special gift.

I found this photo from January 8—it looks as though the brace is gone but my husband said I was still wearing it most of the time. I’m wearing the snowboarding helmet because there was only my skin over the big hole in my head. By the way, that would not be the same haystack but it does show how tall they are. I know other people who have fallen from haystacks—one landed on his feet I guess because he broke both ankles. Another suffered multiple broken bones and some internal injuries and had a long recovery.

This was taken later that month—same pjs, different shoes.

There is a lot that I have forgotten, or never knew, about that whole episode. I do remember that it took a long time before we could finally schedule the surgery (“elective”) to replace the part of the skull that was removed. We had a date for about February 7. We showed up for the surgery and were told that the skull piece was on a plane that had broken down in Atlanta. Who knew that body parts are stored somewhere on the East Coast? Fortunately it arrived the next day and I had the surgery. This is with ice packs on my head.

This gives you an indication of how much of the skull was removed. The stitches are where the skin flap was sewn back together. After the surgery recovery was much faster. It seems that when the skull is in place the pressure in the brain is more normal … Or something like that.

Things for which I am thankful:
This was pre-pandemic. The pandemic officially started a week or two later. Thank goodness all this hospital time and my “elective” surgery was before that.
My husband had retired a year or two before this. He didn’t have to try and juggle a stressful job with the stress of this accident and he was there to do what was needed. (And thank goodness he retired before the era of teaching on Zoom.)
Family and friends. The original prognosis was guarded—would I come home? Would I walk again? Would there be permanent brain injury? Some close friends were great support for my family as they navigated the uncertainty. As it eventually became evident that recovery was possible, friends helped keep the sheep and shop part of life on track—organizing holiday sales, sheep shearing, etc. There is still so much I don’t remember, but when I think about it I know that everything stayed on track and someone besides me took care of all that.

This may be a strange photo to end this post, but I didn’t take one yesterday when we did our annual Foxy’s Fall bike ride. I took this photo on the tandem as we did a brief ride to make sure the brakes and gears all worked. We got this tandem in 1986 when we got married. Yesterday we rode the metric century which is 62 miles through Solano and Yolo Counties. That seems a suitable way to acknowledge the three year anniversary of this life-changing event.

Random Farm Photos from the first part of July

Is it a continuing theme that I never have enough time to write blog post? Sorry if that is getting old. But it’s real. Here’s an attempt so that I can catch up with some of the photos I’ve taken and because I know that some of you do enjoy reading blog posts I write.

The first week of July I taught a Learn to Weave class. This is the students with their finished pieces.

Students learn all the processes to wind warp and weave off this sampler in two days.

In the meantime I’ve had a major custom weaving project hanging over my head. Normally I wind warps from cones, but this one was naturally dyed in skeins with no time to put the yarn on cones. Thank goodness I have a good swift—Schacht Ultra Umbrella Swift which I just put on the website now. The yarn winds from the swift to the AVL Warping Wheel to make 2” sections. More about this in another post when I get around to it.

This is 57 yards wound onto the sectional beam of my AVL production loom

This is after it is all tidied up. I have woven one so far, only 24 to go.

In between working on winding that warp I was trying to wet finish the last 20 blankets I took off the loom. Then they need to be measured and photographed.

These won’t go on the website for awhile because they are destined for a show at The Artery in October.

I have ignored my garden other than trying to keep a few things watered. A few plants are doing well despite my inattention. My Hopi Black Dye sunflowers are over 8 feet tall. I have had to prop up a few of them because they are getting so heavy.

Speaking of watering we are trying to keep the pasture irrigated but the irrigation district has reduced our allotment of water for the season. As we let the interval between irrigations get longer and reduce the time for each irrigation, we end up with less water and the field doesn’t fully irrigate. Those dry parts are what the Central Valley would look like without irrigation.

I have been conducting field trips for a summer camp through Trackers Earth. The kids spend time in the pasture, watching spinning and weaving and with sheep. Jade is always a favorite. She is an amazing sheep to let any number of people crowd around.

I don’t need any comments here about masks. I don’t think any of my blog followers would make those kind of comments, but when I posted a couple of photos on Facebook, I got nasty responses about children wearing masks. We are wearing masks in close spaces in the barn but not outside. I am selfishly concerned about my own health and missing out on some very exciting upcoming events. So that’s real life right now.

The most exciting thing going on is that my daughter and grandkids are visiting. That will deserve more blog posts. Kirby goes out with me every morning for chores. Jade is the favorite sheep and is always there for hugs and pets.

This is Kirby’s lamb, Rose, daughter of Belle, who Kirby showed at the State Fair as a lamb in 2019. Kirby will be at the fair to show Rose.

Random Farm Photos

I take photos thinking of sharing on the blog and then I never have time. Here is an accumulation of some from the last couple of weeks.

Patchwork Amara and Patchwork Bettylou, the two lambs that came from Georgia last summer.

Daffodils are here. I have a friend who has told me she doesn’t like daffodils because they are trying to be too cheery. (You know who you are.) I don’t agree with that, but I must say that every time I see a daffodil I think of that friend.

What time of year is this?

It is a little worrisome to see roses blooming already.

One of the chickens decided to use the bin where I throw baling twine to make a nest.

Another is using an open bale of straw.

Making compost. Dan turns this pile every so often. You can see the steam rising. The pile is warm inside. Soon we’ll need more moisture to keep it going.

Meridian Jasmine.

One of the things that has been keeping me busy is skirting fleeces and photographing them for the website. I have several listed but they aren’t live on the site yet. They will be soon. This is a coated fleece—look how long and clean it is!

Getting Ready to Shear

It feels like the night before Christmas! …All through the barn the sheep are waiting…The barn is organized. The tools are hung (where is that strike-out thing when you need it—I wanted to say stockings but cross it out) . The rams have been moved to the barn. The water is turned off (empty stomachs are better for shearing). ETC.

Dan did this job earlier in the week. The gate we used to have here didn’t fit the space and I had a panel wired up to stick out into the doorway a couple of feet. The reason is that when the gate swings open (towards me when taking this photo) it would stick out into the south doorway to go in and out of the barn. That is not very pracrtical. So Dan designed and made a folding gate.

Here is is in use. Clever, isn’t it?

Yesterday we went to a friend’s place just up the road to pick up her Jacob sheep and bring them here for shearing. There are 16 or 17 ewes and one ram. This is the ram, born in 2021.

The next few photos are some of her ewes. They weren’t crazy about getting their photos taken—or maybe it was about me being in the pen with them.

A couple of pretty ewe lambs.

It will be fun to get hands-on these sheep and see their fleeces. We sheared them last year as well and they were a lot cleaner than mine as far as the vegetable matter goes—probably because they have winter pasture and are not being fed as much hay.

Tonight I brought my rams over to the barn so that I don’t have to deal with them in the morning. This is Rambler. He’s still a yearling—coming up on 2 years old in March.

Rambler’s fleece

Silverado (Ruby Peak Tamarisk x Meridian Spice), born almost a year ago in 2021.

Meridian Axis, a lilac ram also born in 2021. (Meridian Axle x Meridian Vixen)

Hillside Gabby’s Barrett, the ram lamb I got from the Hillside Farm in Michigan last summer. He is maturing nicely.

Barrett’s fleece.

Remember what I said about the Night Before Christmas? I’d better get to bed and read for awhile to turn my mind off so I can sleep. What’s that? Do I hear little hooves on the roof? Did I shut all the gates in the barn?

Last Weekend - Family & Rain - Part 2

When I wrote last night’s blog post I realized that I had too many photos (as usual) and it really should be told in two parts. The plan had been for all of us to go to the Sacramento Ironman and support Chris in this event. It was not to be. The record breaking rainfall caused them to cancel the event at the very last minute. That is a whole other story and this post is about the rain at the farm on Sunday.

I took this photo around noon and by that time we’d had over 3” of rain. When the storm was over I had measured a total of 6.8” here. That’s a lot for 24 hours especially considering that our average annual rainfall is about 24”. This photo wouldn’t be unusual during times of heavy storms over multiple days in a “normal” rainfall year, but we haven’t had a normal year in a long time.

I had moved breeding groups around the day before in anticipation of this. This is a group that would have been in standing water with no shelter. They moved to the donkey pen (no donkey anymore) which had at least a few dry spots.

The barn was flooding from the south and I realized that it had been a long time since I’d had to dig ditches.

This ditch brought water from the south and east sides of the barn into the main irrigation ditch. That ditch was so full it looked as though we were irrigating. I checked the end of the ditch where it flows off the property and dug out a few more spots to help the water flow a little faster.

This group had a dry spot at the corner of the barn because they weren’t going to try and cross Lake Meridian.

Kirby spent part of the day in town with her cousins but was ready for some sheep time when she got back. Katie had bought her new rain gear in anticipation of spending a soggy day at the Ironman. She was able to wear it here.

First we spent some time with the favorite sheep. Snacks for these two.

BettyLou is one of the new lambs who really likes her cookies, but usually from someone she knows. Kirby has enough sheep sense that she was able to entice BettyLou to take the cookie.

Do you remember the hopscotch photo from yesterday’s post? A little rain wasn’t going to stop Kirby from using her hopscotch grid.

Kirby and Katie left early Monday morning to fly back to Texas. The day was dry and sunny. The sky was blue, cleaner than we’d seen it all summer, after all the dust and smoke were washed from the sky.

Thursday Morning Farm Photos

I was talking about the pasture and someone asked me what birdsfoot trefoil looks like.

The sheep love it. From PennStateExtension: “Birdsfoot trefoil is a perennial that adapts well to production on poorly drained, low-pH soils (Table 1). It can reseed itself, is resistant to Phytophthora root rot and numerous alfalfa insects, responds well to fertilization, and does not cause bloat in animals.” What a great plant! We have some in the pasture and I’d like more. This photo was taken in an area that the sheep can’t access.

One of my chickens wandered by while I was admiring the trefoil.

The sheep have been in this section a few days now and have eaten it down quite a bit. There is still a lot of grass left and some clover hidden in the grass clumps. I noticed that last few days that the sheep weren’t out when I expected them to be in the morning. I didn’t know if it was because they had eaten the plants they like (clover and trefoil) and were turning their noses up at the dallisgrass that is getting coarser or if there was another reason. I wanted to see what they were eating and if the mosquitoes were as thick as they had been earlier in the morning.

I took this photo of my leg a few days ago. The mosquitoes were worse this morning when I walked the pasture about 7:30. The sheep didn’t want to go out until about 9:00 and I took my camera out a little later. That’s when I took the most of these photos. By that time the mosquitoes were not nearly as thick, although I’m sure I’d have had bites if I wasn’t completely covered (overalls over my shorts and a long sleeve shirt with the collar up).

The Western Kingbird is happy out here because there are plenty of bugs to eat, mosquitoes included. I see them flitting around while the sheep graze.

I spent some time watching the sheep eat to see what plants they chose.

This ewe is named Dimitri.

This is Beauty, the March daughter of Belle, the sheep I gave my granddaughter to show in 2019 when she was here for the State Fair. Kirby has chosen names with a Disney Princess theme. If it wasn’t for the pandemic Kirby would be here to show Beauty at this year’s State Fair. The fair is cancelled but Kirby will be here and she and I will spend time befriending and halter-breaking Beauty and other lambs.

This is Juniper, another lamb I am keeping. I’m not crazy about the quilting—that’s what you call the unequal lengths of wool fibers in this fleece. But it is likely to even up after her first shearing.

This is not a pasture plant, but a dahlia. Its one of the few things growing in my dye garden right now. After a rough start my dahlias have finally taken off. Some are almost my height and some of the flowers are massive.

This flower is as big as my hand.

This is 8 ounces of flowers that are going in a dyepot tomorrow. Stay tuned.

Random Farm Photos

The Random Photos posts mean that I don’t have anything very exciting to report or a story to tell but I don’t want to be so neglectful of my blog. So here it is.

I have been updating the lamb pages and needed new photos. This is one of the five ewe lambs that is still for sale. Her number indicates that she was the first lamb born in 2021.

This is a lamb I am going to keep. This is almost the last lamb to be born in mid-March.

Tamarisk is the sire of most of the lambs this year. All the rams are putting on too much weight. They get alfalfa because in our area alfalfa is cheaper than any of the grass hays. But maybe I need to switch to something else even though it will cost more.

The goats are always so helpful when I’m doing chores.

This is Ellie and her daughter from last year.

How about some weaving pictures? After all, the blog is titled Life on the Farm and at the Loom. I finished a custom weaving job of 44 throws woven with Northern CA grown and spun yarn. The customer ordered 200 throws, but I said that I could do 40 of them. This is how the weaving looks still on the loom.

I wove these in two batches. This is the second batch of 22. Fortunately I don’t have to do the wet finishing. Someone else is taking on that task.

This is another project I’m working on. I will devote a whole blog post to this idea when I have more finished but the short story is that this blanket represents the 2020 weather pattern in our area. The colors indicate the high temps for the whole year of 2020. The grays and blues are 40s, 50s and 60s. Green is 70s. Yellow, orange, and red are 80s through 100+. There are two rows for each day of the year.

That first blanket has the color changes in the weft. In this blanket the warp indicates the temperature. I hope to market this idea as a kit to weavers and/or weave custom blankets for people based on a special year and place. I sell this yarn at the shop and on-line.

These are samplers that are woven in the Learn to Weave class. I have the first in-person class in a year and a half scheduled for the first week of July. Participants range from brand-new-never-touched-a loom to people who have some experience but could benefit from instruction on warping, reading drafts, etc.

I weaned 7 lambs a couple of weeks ago. I’ve been taking Ginny in there to practice her herding skills. It only took a few days for the lambs to figure out that when the dog is there they need to be near me. A Border Collie’s natural moves are to “gather” the sheep to the handler rather than chase them. But Ginny has the tendency to be to close and I’m working on the “get out” command.

Some of the rams were aggressive toward her at first but now they respect her a bit more.

Ginny is always ready for a dip after working the lambs.

Random Farm Photos

Just sharing what I see here. I have things on my mind now that will result in a future blog post. But these photos have been lined up for awhile.

This photo is from this morning after moving to fresh pasture. These paddocks on the east side are are looking so much better after being able to irrigate and then getting warm weather. We didn’t have nearly the normal winter time growth because there was so little rain. It also helps that Dan has been mowing after grazing to take down the stalky parts that are left.

It’s mostly about sheep here but the goats are photogenic. This is how I usually find the goats in the morning. Ellie and her daughter (mostly white) are together and Amelia’s daughter (brown) has now joined the pair because Amelia is distracted by this year’s kids.

Two of Amelia’s triplets that have decided the feeder is really a goat play structure.

This is what my dahlia garden has looked like for a month. The plants finally started sprouting and then they were attacked. I don’t know what is getting them. I put out rolled up newspaper to see if earwigs were there. I put out a game camera (only for one night though) to see if I could catch ground squirrels in action at night. I have sprinkled diatomacous earth around. I don’t know if that is helping but some of the plants look better. The funny thing is that we have this one bed and there are big tractor tires at each end with more plants growing in them. The ones in the tires aren’t eaten as much—does that mean there is some creature that won’t cross the rubber tire?

Speaking of bugs I was sitting outside talking to my daughter on the phone and I noticed movement on the ground. There were dozens (hundreds?) of these bugs.

I checked iNaturalist and Google and I think they are boxelder bugs. They are under the maple trees and locust trees. Maples are listed under the description for these bugs. I have never noticed them before so maybe its something about this year or its just that I don’t usually just sit under a tree and do nothing else. These are redder than the ones I see in the photos but I think it’s because they are the juveniles. When I looked later I found ones with more brown on the back.

This is a selection from my recent ecoprinting. They are for sale in Davis at the Artery and on-line on my website and the Artery website.

This is the AVL loom before I threaded. That’s 50 yards of wool for a custom weaving project.

Its hard to make out the pattern while I’m weaving because the value of the warp and weft are similar and it’s a very open weave structure. After wet finishing the yarn will bloom, the holes will disappear, and the piece will look more like a blanket.

That is about 15 blankets woven so far. After they come off then I need to cut them apart, trim all those threads, and look for errors to fix. Then I need to do it all over again for another 20 blankets.

Random Farm Photos and Decisions

When you see the title, Random Farm Photos, you know that I’ve either been too busy or too distracted to spend time working with my photos and putting together a cohesive story. Busy and distracted go hand-in-hand. Sometimes the hardest thing to get past is the decision making. Where to start?

I finally finished weaving off a 27 yard warp that was on my big loom. The decisions here are all about where to post the finished pieces. These blankets are woven with locally grown Timm Ranch wool yarn in the warp and weft yarn of various sources. The green is my new favorite non-local yarn that I sell here. The others are leftover yarns that I used to carry—U.S. grown yarn dyed by Sincere Sheep. I can sell these on my website or at the Artery in Davis, or on the Artery’s new shopping website. I finally got the photos taken, but haven’t had time to post them anywhere yet. That’s on the list for next week.

These are more of the blankets from that warp. These can be posted on my website or on the N.CA Fibershed Marketplace website. I listed a few of them on that site tonight, but didn’t finish, and I haven’t decided where to post them all.

This blanket was on that same warp. This is one of my newest ideas and you’ll be seeing more about this as I go further. The colors in this blanket indicate the temperatures throughout the year in my area, progressing from wintertime 40’s and 50’s (gray and blue) all the way to over 100 (red) and back to winter. I’m planning to offer this as a kit for weavers and as a blanket that can be customized for a specific year and/or location.

Next up on the loom is this 50 yard warp. It’s on the warp beam but not threaded yet and there is a deadline. So what am I doing sitting at the computer right now?

More distractions and more decisions. I sorted lambs last week and tried to start making decisions about which I really wanted to keep. That’s hard when you like them all. These are some that may be on my list.

This ewe lamb doesn’t have a great spotting pattern, but she is one of the very few lilac lambs born this year and I want to keep a lilac. (Lilac refers to the color on her face that is not black—her fleece will also be a gray/brown color other than the black and white sheep.)

One of the things that I really needed to do was to finish skirting and sorting fleeces. Lots of decisions there. Which fleeces to put on the website? How much VM (vegetable matter) is too much to go in the barrels for processing at the mill? Do I save back a couple of fleeces for potential Sheep to Shawl contests later in the year?

I’m glad to say that I finally finished with the 2021 fleeces and they are ready for the mill. I had already sold most of the wool I had on the website, but now I have added a few more 1-pound lots of the best parts of the fleeces—those with minimal VM.

I had to make a decision about what to do with this ewe named Alice. It’s a long enough story for a blog post all by itself. I’ll just say that over a week ago I found her by herself and obviously in not very good shape. I am convinced that she had some kind of neurological problem and was blind in one eye. That was in addition to her poor body condition. I brought her to the barn. First decision—vet or necropsy lab or watch until Monday? (It was Sunday and everything would be twice as expensive for maybe not much return.) The rest of the week I kept pondering the pros and cons of all those options. She seemed to be better, but not normal and I wanted help with the decision about the final outcome. So I took her to the VMTH on Friday. There really wasn’t a diagnosis but ideas of what could have been wrong. I came home with medications to be administered twice/day for five days. During this time I had removed the lambs because they are plenty big enough to wean and Alice had no interest in them. After the five days of treatment when I put Alice back with the flock her lambs found her and decided that they were NOT weaned. She welcomed them back and right now you can’t tell that she very had a problem except that she is still skinny—but her behavior seems back to normal.

I’ll end this post with a goat picture. These are two of the triplets and they have decided that this feeder is their personal sleeping platform.

Around the Farm and More Sheep Adventures

We irrigated last week and for a time had our own private wetlands complete with a small flock of Canada geese. Now the pasture is dry but I have heard a lot of honking the last few days. I think this goose was calling his mate.

He eventually flew off…

…but not far. Just into the pasture.

Together.

A Jacob breeder who lives about 2 hours from here wanted to buy the ram, Jasper, and I offered to deliver him. The wether (who happens to be one of the few sheep I am trying to keep coated to keep his fleece free of VM) went along for the ride. It seemed as though it would be less stressful for Jasper to not be completely alone in the trailer. Also we were delivering a ram for Jasper’s buyer to a location that was on our way home.

The horns on this wether are the main reason that he was castrated as a lamb. Most of the rams that don’t meet certain standards will go to the butcher market but this one lucked out and his job is to be a companion to any sheep that needs a buddy.

We drove north and eventually had a clear view of Mt. Shasta. The north wind was incredibly strong that day—so strong that our truck struggled heading due north and pulling the trailer. Time for a new truck?

Jasper ended up in a nice place—a large field and a bunch of ewes. What more would a ram want?

Back home, this is my entertainment every evening.

People have asked why the lambs run and i don’t know. They just do. It’s a Lamb Flashmob. If I’m still in the barn I hear them thundering past.

They run for 15 minutes or so and then they give it up and go find mom or get some hay.

We delivered Jasper on Friday and Axle went to a new home the day before. That left Tamarisk by himself so we put a wether in with him. Today we moved the yearlings, Rambler and Jangle, into the grown up ram pen where there will now be three. We started with a small pen and included a bale of straw as an impediment. There isn’t much space but the idea is that they will figure out who is boss without the major damage that could happen if they were able to back up and charge each other. The wether is still in the ram pen but not forced to be in with the others while they battle it out. Hopefully after a few days they will be BFFs. I assume that Tamarisk, the older ram, will be the boss of the other two.

It's Time for The Lambing Game

This post will be a little different. I haven’t chosen what I think are my best photos but instead it’s a bunch of photos of sheep rear ends. If you are a Farm Club member you will understand. It’s at this time before lambing that I offer the Lambing Game—a way to test your sheep knowledge and observation skills (really, it’s mostly luck). Farm Club members have a list of breeding dates and potential lambing dates. Based on those dates and these photos I ask people to tell me which of the ewes pictured will lamb first. Tie-breaker 1: The exact date. Tie-breaker 2: How many lambs? Tie-breaker 3: What time on your chosen date? There will be a prize—I just don’t know what yet. I chose to post these photos here so that I don’t fill up the FC members’ emails with lots of photos. Besides maybe the rest of you will be interested to find out what happens. Remember that lambing isn’t due to start until 2/26, but as in people, due dates aren’t exact.

I took photos for this game a couple of days ago and before I could get them posted, this ewe, Zinnia lambed—6 days early. So these lambs are 2 days old already. The rest of the photos in this post were taken this morning.

Anise. I’ll also say here that I just wandered around taking photos of sheep that seem to be bagging up. I did not find all the 15 ewes that are due by March 1 and some of these have dates for after that. Hey, it’s just a game!

Fandango

Alice.

Dimitri

Ginger.

Dilly.

Hilda.

Ears.

Jade

Raquel.

So that’s it for this first game of the season. Now you know what I do when I go out looking at sheep…like I’m going to do now for the 11 p.m. check.

What's Keeping Me Busy

This is a post with no theme other than the snippets (is that a word?) of all the stuff I’ve been doing.

I got my second batch of the 2020 Jacob fiber back as yarn. The first batch of 2020 wool was spun at Valley Oak Mill and is listed here. This batch is from Mendocino Wool Mill and is listed here. It always take me a little while to figure out how to best present it for sale. I had some put on cones and some in skeins. The yarn on the cones appears to be so much finer than the skeined yarn but it’s the same yarn—it is just under more tension when wound on a cone. I wondered how much the skeined yarn would bloom when washed. That information is important to know when you are planning a project. Whether you are going to knit, crochet, or weave with the yarn you need to know what will happen to the piece when it is washed.

I washed a white and a black skein to see what would happen. In this case washing just means soaking in hot water and then hanging to dry. This is four skeins of yarn. Can you tell the difference in the yarns on the outside and in the middle? The middle ones have not had any treatment. The outside skeins have been washed and the character is very different.

One way to measure the change is by looking at wraps per inch (wpi) before and after. In this case the black yarn measured 14 wpi before washing and 10 wpi after. If you don’t allow for this post-washing change then you may be surprised at how the finished piece looks and behaves. I will wash all the skeins before labeling them.

Another test before selling the yarn is how it actually works in use. I wove scarves of each batch of yarn to compare them and to determine the best sett (spacing of the yarns on the loom). I tried each at 8 epi (ends per inch) and 10 epi.

I photographed these so that the light was behind and you can kind of see the spaces between the yarns. Those spaces are nothing like when the scarves were still on the loom with the yarn under tension. When you cut the piece off the loom the yarns relax and they further relax and “bloom” when fulled in hot water. This photo shows 2 scarves from each batch of yarn at 2 setts each. All four turned out great and even though the yarns appear different, it’s hard to tell the difference in these finished pieces. I look forward to using these yarns in some much larger projects next.

By the way I put these scarves on three different websites—here on my own, on the Fibershed Marketplace and the Artery webstore, all the while carefully keeping track of which one is where so I don’t take a chance on double-selling them.

Another project I’m working on is recording some videos for the Learn to Weave class using the rigid heddle loom. I am going to teach this on Zoom next week and I want videos for students to refer to when we’re not on Zoom. I warped the rigid heddle loom with all four of those new Jacob colors and wove a short scarf while recording most of it. I haven’t wet finished the scarf yet, or edited the videos. (Thanks for reminding me.)

I also finished another v-shawl. This is another thing on my list of things to do. I want to put together a kit for this shawl and give options for the stripe design. I’ve woven several. I just need to get the instructions put together and figure out the best way to present it. I just added this shawl to the Artery web store along with one of the pinwheel scarves.

I still have a barn full of fleeces. I spent some time yesterday working on those. I only have two full fleeces listed on the website so far, but I have listed several 1-pound batches for people who would like to start with raw wool but not start out with a whole fleece. I am skirting, sorting, and photographing. Raw wool is listed here.

Here is another example. In the meantime I want to get my hands in this and start working with it myself. There are some really gorgeous fleeces here.

I said this was a bunch of random photos. So far it is all about wool and weaving and the things I need to do. So let’s get random. Dan saw me weaving and my weaving slippers reminded him of the Bernie mittens that have been popping up all over the internet.

How about springtime flowers? It’s not spring yet, but the daffodils are here.

So are the almond flowers.

I don’t usually have the patience to scour the wool in locks even though it would save a lot of time at the other end of processing. I pulled out some locks that had more VM (vegetable matter) than I would like. I’m going to see how clean I can get them with flicking after washing. That will go much faster if they are already organized.

How about some goats? These are mothers with last year’s daughters. That’s Ellie and her daughter on the left and Amelia with hers on the right. Amelia is pregnant again.

One last random photo. The redbud is going to bloom soon. Hope springs eternal! And we’re getting our Covid vaccines Monday—have to drive an hour for it but I finally tracked it down.