Mother's Day Was Last Week

It’s Sunday today and last Sunday was Mother’s Day. For years I spent Mother’s Day at hte Dixon May Fair watching kids show animlas or working with my own display, a 6000 square foot tent and an exhibit called Shear Delight.

I’ve been going through old photo albums and scanning selected photos. I’m not going to scan every photo but I’m trying to choose the ones that tell our family story.

This is Matt showing dairy cattle at the Dixon May Fair in 1993.

Chris and Katie kept themselves occupied in those years until they were old enough to show their own animals.

This was on the Oregon coast, also in 1993. They are what makes Mother’s Day a special day for me.

We also showed dairy cattle at the State Fair. I continue that with sheep now, but unfortunately State Fair has been cancelled for this year.

Chris keeping himself occupied while we were paying attention to cows.

So I’m not dealing with the May Fair anymore—what happens on Mother’s Day? The three kids are scattered right now and there is a stay-at-home order across our state. My DIL lives next door so she made a very cute and very tasty sheep cake! I got calls from all three kids. Two days later a surprise came in the mail.

I had been talking to Matt about the blog that I’ve been writing since 2008. I look at my blog as my scrapbook—it is the incentive to organize and edit my photos and I tell a bit of the story that goes along with the important things in my life. I used to have it on Wordpress and when I started the new website I switched the blog to Squarespace. I was wondering what would happen if I gave up the website or if Wordpress and/or Squarespace just didn’t exist anymore. After all I may not keep doing the website forever. Would I be able to go back and review my “scrapbooks” or would they be gone? Matt found a way to preserve my digital scrapbook—it’s this real book.

I was amazed. That’s the first 2-1/2 years in this book. There are lots of memories there—family stuff and sheep and business. And those are the primary factors in my life.

Happy Mother’s Day to me and thanks to all my kids for making me a mom.

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Addendum—later on Sunday—look what my DIL brought over today from Chris.

Its a Lego greeting card!

It even opens up and has very meaninful sentiment inside.

The back.

Across the Road

It’s been a long time since I did a blog post about walking Across the Road. In my old blog on Wordpress that I started almost ten years ago Across the Road featured heavily. And it was also important in Rusty’s blog, also on Wordpress. Rusty hasn’t written a blog post in a long time because, being a dog, he needs my help, and I’ve been preoccupied. Sorry Rusty. And Sorry to Rusty’s avid followers. Maybe I’ll help him write one more post coming up here.

Anyway, Across the Road has always been an important place to the dogs and to me. The enjoyment has changed a bit from the first several years when the road was shaded by large black walnut trees. Those were taken down a few years ago and there have been some ownership changes.. There are more complications lately with other dogs that live across the ditch that is Across the Road. I don’t like being the reason that other dogs start barking because we look like we’re invading their space. We’ve seen coyotes, otters (not recently for me but my DIL saw one this week), turtles, and lots of birds. Over the years the crops have changed from alfalfa to tomatoes to sunflowers and back to alfalfa. I like to feel like I’m a part of the cycle of these crops—I’ve certainly photographed plenty of it.

I want to make sure that I thank the owner of this fabulous property for giving us permission to walk there and act, to some extent, like it’s our own. It sure extends our feel of freedom when without it we would be limited to our ten acres. That said, we try to be good neighbors. When anyone is working over there we stay home and when it’s wet and the road is muddy we stay home.

I’ve been trying to do some walking rehab lately so have some photos from recent walks.

Sometimes I try to sneak away without the dogs knowing because this is not fun. They are on leash until I get to the dirt road. It’s not that far from our driveway and it used to be easier. Ginny will usually walk off the road. Maggie refuses because she knows that’s where she picks up puncture vine in her feet. Rusty is in the bad habit of pulling on the leash. They all need a refresher course on proper leash walking.

Once we get to the dirt road I take the leashes off.

This field has had alfalfa growing in it for a couple of years. I think it’s on a 4-year rotation.

This is what alfalfa looks like when it’s blooming. This plant is along the edge where it wasn’t harvested. They usually harvest before flowers develop because at an earlier stage of growth their is higher nutritional content and it’s not as coarse. Usually there will be 6 or 7 cuttings in the season and they are all timed to maximize yield but not at the expense of quality.

This is the view across the alfalfa back to our place (the red barn).

When we take the longer loop we walk past another farmer’s field. This was in alfalfa last year but I think these are sunflowers.

This ditch goes near the edge of that last field. I think Rusty likes to walk in here because it takes the weight off his joints. But he has a hard time getting out of this ditch now—the sides are dirt, but they are steep.

Ginny likes to chase the ball into the ditch that is behind her. But lately I haven’t been taking a ball—she has lost so many in the big canal.

This is Maggie coming out of that same ditch. The property on the other side is where other people and dogs live so I usually stay on this side of the ditch.

Good old Rusty.

The dirt road that cuts through the alfalfa field.

Alfalfa.

Getting Distracted by Goats

My goal this morning was to take lamb and yearling photos so that I could update the sheep pages on the website. I now have all the ewes in the flock listed here with photos of most of them. Some of the yearlings I was missing were these:

This is Evelyn. She is looking a little scruffy here but she lambed in March at not even a year old. She needs to pick up some condition but her lamb will be weaned soon and that will help. I selected her to keep because she wanted to be tame. Most lambs don’t act friendly but she did. Also, look at all that nice dark wool.

Addy also wanted to be a tame sheep. She was getting a supplemental bottle so that explains why. I loved her markings—she has little splotches of white wool mixed in with the black. She lambed in March with twins—a black one with the little white splotches and that white lamb standing near her.

Hilda is another yearling who lambed. She had twins which is unusual for a yearling. She is now putting some weight back on.

Venice is the last of the yearlings that lambed.

I got most of the sheep photos that I needed this morning but, as the title of this post says, I got distracted.

Ellie’s kid insisted on using mom as a climbing platform.

She wasn’t looking for a comfy spot to relax. She just kept going up and down.

As if one playing goat wasn’t enough distraction there are the triplets.

Breakfast!

Back to Ellie’s kid.

Patient mama.

Kidding Season is Over

When you have only two goats maybe it’s not really a season. The first doe kidded a couple of weeks ago and the second kidded last week. That’s it for baby goats here.

This is Ellie and her kid shortly after birth. This was a twin but unfortunately the first died with membranes over it’s face. I had been going out to the barn and checking since about 8 p.m. and watching the barn camera feed on my iPad in the house. But still I missed the birth. A friend texted about 4:30 that she thought there was activity and sure enough Ellie had pushed out the first kid but I was too late. I stayed out in the barn and waited for the second kid to be born.

Here she is on her feet and trying to nurse.

It was a few days later that I let Ellie and her kid out with the flock and the other goats. The newest kid is that smaller white one.

Her ears are folded back at the ends.

I think she was happy to get out and be able to run around.

She certainly has the flying Nubian ears!

Field Trip Memories

As many of you are probably doing I’m using some of this “stay at home” time to go through Stuff. Some of the Stuff included thank you booklets put together by teachers who brought their students to the farm for field trips last year. Here are some of the thank you drawings followed by actual field trip photos.

I usually start a field trip with a sheep herding demo. This was several years ago. Rusty was only about 6 and now he is 14.

Our favorite field trip sheep, Jade, loves being petted even when it doesn’t involve treats.

Amazingly, she is willing to have a dozen kids around her touching her face and her horns.

I usually try to get the kids to spend some time in the field just looking at what is there (it’s not all grass). I get them to be absolutely silent for a minute (not an easy task) and then talk about what they heard in that time (birds, car on the road, sheep, etc)

Some teachers have the kids bring their notebooks to record what they have experienced.

We usually have a spinning demo…

…and if there is time and not too many kids, we let them do a little weaving.

We love living out here with our animals and we love being able to share this life with others.

I hope that we can get back to offering field trips next spring. This is the first year in many years that the Easter Seals has not been able to bring a busload of physically and/or mentally challenged adults to enjoy a morning on the farm.

Playing Kids and Flying Ears

These Nubian x Bohr kids are almost two weeks old now. I get a real kick out of their ears when they run and play.

The brown one is a doe and the two white ones are bucks.

Play time yesterday evening.

Snack time.

It Looks Like Snow but...

I don’t know if you can see all the white stuff coming down—little white flecks against the red barn.

It piles up like this.

It’s fuzz from that willow tree in the first photo.

Well, maybe it doesn’t look like snow but it always reminds me of that.

A reminder that it is spring.

Bottlebrush flower. This bush is full of bees.

This is Jasper, a yearling ram who lives in the pen under that willow tree.

I took these photos while out in the barn skirting fleeces. I have been sorting out 1 pound lots of the best fleeces to put for sale on the website. I think most are sold now but I’ll get more up there soon. I’ve just been doing a few at a time and I’m heading out there now to work on some more. I see that Jasmine is still there.

Published!

Last summer I answered a call for submissions to the Little Looms publication of what is now Long Thread Media. I proposed an article on the Clasped Warp technique, which is ideally suited to rigid heddle looms. I had woven scarves using that technique already but thought that I could get more creative with it.

Here are some examples of discontinuous warp created by the Clasped Warp technique. These are the first scarves I did using this process. I had plenty of ideas for how to make scarves that were more interesting and plenty of beautiful naturally dyed locally grown wool to use for them.

The hardest thing was that I was supposed to make my project scarf fit the theme of Animal, Vegetable, or Mineral. I thought that the scarves I had already woven with my naturally dyed yarn were perfect for Vegetable, reminding me of the colors of a grassland or savannah, but it turns out that there were already enough project for that theme and they really wanted Animal.

So I thought about my own grassland and went out to take photos of horned sheep in the grassland.

I thought that should work for the Animal theme. I pictured the green and yellow grass and the brown horns. Then I realized the constraints of this technique. Each color starts from one end or the other. That meant the brown stripes (horns) would go all the way to one end and not just appear in the middle.

Oh well. I wound another warp.

And another.

And another. I ended up sending about a dozen scarves so they editors could choose which to use and photograph.

This is the project article.

Here is the front of the magazine. I have a second article in it about designing with the clasped warp technique and there are a lot of other very cool projects in this issue as well. I have the magazine listed on my website.

Kidding Season

We had Lambing Season. Should I count this month as Kidding Season when there are only two goats to kid? Amelia was first. Her udder has been firming up so I wasn’t surprised when I found her last night standing by herself near the barn wall and kind of grunting. I got a lambing (kidding) pen ready for her.

I put her in one pen and put her best friend, Ellie, in the pen next door.

Nubians have these long ears and I find them very expressive. I recorded a video of her ears, but I don’t know how to include it here. I guess I have to go to YouTube with it.

I went in for dinner and planned to keep an eye on Amelia with the barn camera that shows up on my iPad. It wasn’t long before it looked as though something might be happening. By the time I got back to the barn she had had those two kids that are right at her rear end. In almost no time she started to push out a third. It had one leg back but was coming out right on top of those other two. So I just pulled it out and brought it up front for Amelia to start cleaning.

Amelia didn’t want to get up so we brought the kids to her.

It wasn’t long before they were up and ready to nurse. This seemed so different than lambing. I could sit in the straw and watch and move kids around and Amelia didn’t care at all. I didn’t have to bend down as far to see if the babies were nursing. Even with the tamer sheep they are not happy when I try to reposition their lambs.

This morning I moved them to a bigger area—they will still be locked in for a few days, but there is much more room in this pen. By the way Amelia is a Nubian doe. She was bred to a Bohr buck—that’s where the white body/brown head markings come from.

The one that looks like Mom is a doe and the two that look like Dad are bucks.

Look at the curl to those ears. Do you suppose that there wasn’t much space when he was crowded in with his siblings?

Being alive for a day is a lot of work and requires rest.

Lamb Update

I try to get photos of all the lambs for the website because that is how I sell them—not paying on-line, but by people seeing the selection. Here are the ewe lambs and here are the ram lambs. If you look at these links you’ll see that there are a lot of gaps and I need more photos. I tried getting photos a few days ago and I’m going to share some here—most are duplicates of lambs that were already pictured on the website.

Here is a cute ewe lamb #2003.

A very pretty ewe lamb #2060. Someone emailed me about using a photo of this lamb as a screen saver. I’m glad to share but lost track of that email. If you’re reading this email me again.

Ram lamb #2030. I always think it is cute when these ram lambs have tufts of hair at the end of their horns.

This is a yearling ewe, Evelyn, who is friendly. That is why she is here—she wanted to become a pet last year. As a lamb she would approach me and just sort of wait for attention—not to be petted, but to just be nearby.

Ears and her triplets. Ears is a BFL-Jacob cross and the triplets are 75% BFL-25% Jacob.

This is a a nice looking ram- #2076.

Not a sheep! This is Amelia. She is due to kid at the end of the week! I have to start baby watch duty at night.

Another ram with fuzz on the end of his horns.

At the Loom Again

It took me awhile after the accident (blog posts from February 20 and 22 about the injury in October and subsequent recovery) to get back to the loom, partly because of physical limitations and partly because I was trying to remember what I was doing (at least on the one loom that already had a warp on it). There are still some challenges with threading and picking things up that fall under the loom, but now I’m weaving on three looms. Although I think that I have always been empathetic, this whole experience gives me better insight into the physical limitations that some of my students may have. Something that came up recently made me think about writing a blog post to share some of the things that can cause problems when weaving and my fixes for those. I happen to have photos of a lot of these. That led to going back in time to other loom issue photos.

First though, here is what is on my looms now.

I put a 15 yard wool warp, 56” wide, on the AVL loom. This is the Timm Ranch yarn and makes lovely blankets and ponchos and there is a lot on cones here. The weft was the same yarn dyed with coreopsis. I have woven 4 blankets on this warp so far with a couple more to go. This is the loom at the south end of the shop.

The loom in the middle is an 8-shaft Schacht loom. This is a chenille blanket that was promised to my daughter-in-law about a year and a half ago. The accident is my latest excuse, but there wasn’t one (other than being busy) for the first half of that time. I am finally working on it now but it was a challenge to get set up properly.

The next loom has a chenille scarf warp. I have a lot of odds and ends of chenille and that is what is in this warp—I want to use it up and then clear out bags and boxes of cones with just a bit of yarn on them.

When I’m sitting at the last loom this is the view of the shop, all the way across the other two.

I need to explain some of the differences in these looms. I use the AVL for blankets because it is 60” wide and has a fly shuttle. With most looms you separate the layers of threads by stepping on various treadle. Then you throw a shuttle between the layers (through the “shed”). The fly shuttle is handy for wide warps becuase I don’t have to reach all the way to the edge. Instead I hold that black handle which is attached by cords to boxes on either side (see the gray cord?) When I swing the handle then it “throws” the shuttle from the box on one side to the box on the other. There are tricks to that so that it will work properly, but it can be very efficient. I wasn’t sure if I could do that with the shoulder problems I’m having. However I can weave one blanket a day—I haven’t pushed it beyond that.

Here is that chenille blanket warp and that is how the opening (shed) is supposed to look when I’m stepping on the treadle. Then I can throw the shuttle through the shed.

Notice what happens if there is either an error in treadling or the shed is not good. I am seeing “floats”—where the red thread floats over more warp threads than it should, creating errors. Chenille is notoriously tricky to work with. It sticks to itself and even though I have woven dozens (hundreds?) of chenille projects this warp was a challenge. There are a lot of criss-crossed threads in back and threads that are loose and saggy. Those make for a challenging shed. Here is my solution.

It is hard to tell from the photo but that is a mirror propped on a box and facing the side of the loom.

That is the edge of my cell phone at the top taking the photo. The mirror shows me that I have a clean shed and can throw the shuttle. Before I propped up this mirror I couldn’t tell about the shed and was making errors. It is still going to take me awhile to work through all the tangles at the back of the loom but at least I can be sure that each weft yarn will be placed correctly.

Now for more things I have done to fix problems with weaving projects.

I was weaving ruanas andponchos out of the Timm Ranch wool yarn and was supposed to have a gray stripe down the middle of that warp that is on the AVL loom. I got carried away with the white and forgot about the gray in the center. That warp beam is sectional meaning that the warp is put on on 2” sections. If it was warped a different way I wouldn’t have been able to do this but I was able to take the 4 sections of warp and wind that batch onto one of the other looms. That became a scarf warp.

This is what the loom looked like after I removed those four sections…

…and then replaced the white yarn with gray.

Another thing that can happen when you wind sectionally is that you lose track of yardage. OOPS! That one section is much shorter than the others.

I had already woven several blankets off of this warp but went ahead and wove this part knowing that there would be a missing warp section. I figured that I could make pillow out of the fabric. This points up something else. This is a good example of what happens when you use yarn that has had different treatment. Those dyed yarns did not behave the same as the undyed yarn—that’s why this whole piece is not at all smooth. I think I ended up making pillows and dog coats out of this piece.

Here is a warp that looks messy. This is not a sectional warp. I used the warping frame but had to wind 4 or 5 bouts. You can see that these yarns are also not the same as far as their stretchiness.

However I was able to get the warp on the loom and weave it off.

This is after the fabric was cut off the loom and it was time to tie or twist the fringe. This shows that you don’t have to weave all the yarn that is going to be fringe. You just need to weave enough to hold the last threads in and then have a header for the next one. It takes as long to do the fringe treatment as it does to weave the blanket.

This was one more warp problem from a long time ago. It is another sectionally wound warp and I remember that the sections didn’t wind evenly. I ended up pulling all this warp (cotton for baby blankets) back through the heddles and reed and then winding it back on. That was not a fun warp to work with.

So many people think that my weaving life is always perfect. Hopefully this will show you that it is not, but experience gives me the ability to work through most problems.

Brightening up a Gloomy Day with Color

I did not run outside today to take photos. I won’t have coreopsis flowers again until summer.

And then I’ll have all shades of brilliant yellow and fiery red flowers.

It is a lot of work to keep up with this crop. When they are blooming I harvest flowers every three days so that they will keep blooming.

These are dried hollyhock flowers from last year. Actually a friend gave these to me because the gophers destroyed all of my hollyhocks. Or maybe it was rabbits. I know there were gopher tunnels, but the big 2’ thick stalks had huge chunks eaten away at the base.

This is the magical transformation these flowers make to yarn. That’s a coreopsis pot on the right and the dark hollyhocks on the left. Can you believe that they dye the yarn green?

This is some of the yarn I dyed last year.

I just finished dyeing two pots of yarn yesterday so that I could put together more kits for the popular Lineaate hat.

This hat was designed by Elizabeth Doherty and Gail Ravenscroft knit it using my Solano County produced yarn. The current kits use the hollyhock yarn or the coreopsis yarn along with white and a small amount of an accent color along the edge.

I am much more a weaver than a knitter and I wanted to make a kit for a woven project using the exact same amount of yarn. This is what I came up with. Now if I could just find my notes so that I can write that up for all you weavers out there.

By the way, did you know that they yarn is all grown by sheep who live about ten miles from here? For the last few years I have attended the shearing day at the Timm Ranch and selected the fleeces to be spun into this special yarn.

These sheep are a blend of Polypay, Ramboillet, and Targhee and grow a very soft wool.