Watching...

...for fall?  For rain?  For cooler temps?  For the upcoming Kentucky Wool Festival?  For a new puzzle :-).

This has been the hottest September I can ever remember.  We are still in the 90s and my "if I can just make it until Thursday..." has been changed this morning to "if I can just make it until Friday."  If this trend of pushing back the end of this brutal heat stretch continues, it's just going to become "I hope I make it..."

To make matters worse, other than a freak rain storm yesterday morning, we have had no rain.  Everything is brown and crispy and when the wind does blow, it's a hot wind that does nothing to help anyone.  Speaking of the freak rain, it rained 2" at the house, but only 3/8" at the Wool House, just yards away.  The rain was that spotty.  

Hank is doing pretty well.  His foot has healed up beautifully, but he's back obsessively licking both of his elbows now and right after I took this picture I had to stick the cone of shame back on him :-/.  They are actually blow up pillows now and if it wasn't so blasted hot, it probably wouldn't be that uncomfortable to wear, but still.

I'm in the final crunch week of getting ready for the wool festival.  My Ohio Valley Natural Fibers run scheduled for last week was cancelled, but they are hoping they can run my roving this Tuesday.  I have my fingers crossed, but am still stressing about a contingency plan if they can't get their machine back up and running.  

I've got a good amount of wool pumpkins made, lots of wool balls, quite a few mini wreaths and I'm finishing up some big wreaths.  I'll also have all the usual Punkin's Patch "swag" in tow and hopefully some felted sheep as well.  The calendars won't be ready until after the festival, but we have plenty of the "...and to all a good night" Christmas cards packed up and also mixed sets of all 15 years.

Tring Farm has eight pretty raw fleeces to sell and for some reason Andy and Tavia's fleeces (two of my favorites) didn't sell back in the spring, so I'll have them there as well.  Everything else is washed and ready to process,  so it will all work out somehow.  

The booth will be full and fun and pretty and if the forecast holds, it should be a great weekend.  We might even be able to wear some wool in the evenings...which seems odd to say after so many weeks/months of not breaking out of the 70s at night.  

I'll believe it when I see it.  I'm watching!

On The Road

Far Out

One thing (of many) I've enjoyed about having Rocky and Jared here is watching how far they travel in search of fresh grass.  We have plenty acres open for grazing, but the majority of the sheep graze just within a stone's throw from the barn.

A big part of that may be because in the early days Hank didn't like them going too far away from the 'safe zone' and for years would call them in when he thought they'd gone far enough.  There's probably another part of it that has to do with being fat and lazy ;-).

Rocky and Jared (aka Big J) could care less if Hank tells them to stay close.  There's good grass out there and they are the men to go eat it all.  That's Jared farthest away in the picture above.

Rocky is usually close by, but I've never seen him go as far as Jared, who I've seen all the way at the back corner.  A few other sheep have taken to following them out there - Cheeto and her boys, Andy, sometimes the Ts.

View this post on Instagram

Wait! What’s coming?

A post shared by Sara Dunham (@thecrazysheeplady) on Sep 1, 2019 at 7:44pm PDT

There was a fun series of pictures on Instagram one evening with Kate and Tilly herding the boys back home.  They were out there all by themselves while Cheeto was in Easy Breezy being weaned.  You've got to stay with the adults a little bit, boys!

Stone's throw... ;-)

We've had some pretty mornings, but fall is still eluding us.  There are two days next week that are forecast for 98 degrees :-o.  At the end of September...

How about a couple of new puzzles :-).  Enjoy!

Hopalong Hank

As I posted some Instagram pictures of Hank getting back to work yesterday, I realized that I hadn't shared his summer of woe story over here or even shared the results after his surgery.  So, in 25 words or less...

View this post on Instagram

Poor Hank has had a terrible summer. He’s really struggled through the heat, a couple old dog issues, an elbow wound I was beginning to think we’d never get healed up...and today had to have a toe amputated. He’s been a trooper through it all. Glad he’s back home this afternoon and thankful for good ongoing veterinary care. Let’s all send up some hopes that he heals up well and quickly...and can maybe catch a break now. #livestockguardiandog #goodolddog

A post shared by Sara Dunham (@thecrazysheeplady) on Sep 9, 2019 at 11:56am PDT

Hank had to have a toe on his back foot amputated because there was obviously something wrong with it, but we didn't know if it was a bone infection that antibiotics weren't reaching or possibly a tumor.  Turned out it was a tumor.  Luckily it was benign and Dr. Bridge was able to remove it entirely, so hopefully that's that!

He's healing up pretty well and should get his stitches out either today or tomorrow, but in the meantime they wanted him on stall rest for several days and he needs to keep his bandaged foot dry.  He's been in lock down in the barn for over a week.  Apparently that was Long Enough in his book.  

Two nights ago he walked out into the barn lot with his sheep and would not come back in.  I decided to leave him out knowing his foot wouldn't get wet until early morning when the dew settled and then I could re-do the bandage and he should be okay and at least he'd be happy.  

It was nice to see him out making his early morning rounds yesterday :-).

Other than being bored out of his head, I think the other reason he was adamant about getting back out was he knew something was "intruding" on his farm.  As I was doing morning chores, a big fox came trotting through the front field on the barn side of the wet weather creek.  

Hank woofed a warning and I looked up and saw it and then he and I went out to escort him along his way.  The fox was completely unconcerned until Hank ran down the hill and across the creek and chased it under the fence into the middle paddock and on back to the ponds.

The security guard is back on duty!

Mood

When it's too hot to play ball...or more like too hot for anyone to play with you ;-).

Work In Progress

Sadly not new pictures of my only knitting WIP...which is a basically just a work with no progress :-/.

Just a pretty fleece and a bunch of drop spindles on the porch.  Yep, it's that time of year.  Time to be getting ready for the fall fiber festivals.  I have two coming up - the Millersburg Chautauqua Days festival this weekend and the big Kentucky Wool Festival the first weekend of October...which isn't far away...but it sure feels like it today.  96 degrees this afternoon. 

'Nuff said.

Happy thoughts, happy thoughts...this is Hershey.  Remember when Hershey was...Hershey colored?  2013 :-o.  How did this happen?  

He's a beautiful silver now.  This is only 1/3 of his fleece.  It was too big to wash all together.

It sure looks pretty and cool and relaxing on the porch this afternoon...  Luckily now that "August" is finally here (after two months of July apparently) the evenings cool off pretty nicely.  The Wool House Crafters meeting tonight shouldn't be too awful.  Auntie Reg made chocolate cake so that will make it all better...until tomorrow...when it's 96...again.  No break until at least next week. 

'Nuff said.

Butterfly Birthday

The first porch butterfly hatched this morning.  I knew he (watch for the two black dots on the lower wings) was close to hatching so I hurried with the barn chores and came back to the house to watch.  While I was killing time I decided to wash the dishes...and missed the first 30 or so seconds.  Housework...

While the weather is just as ugly as it could possibly be (way too hot and humid for a September morning!), it's perfect for a newly hatched butterfly and his wings were dry and he was ready to release in just a couple of hours.  

I carried him out to the zinnias and carefully turned the hamper over so the top was open, gently set it on the bench, grabbed my camera...and zip, he was gone!  This was the only "release" picture I got.

He immediately got to drinking...probably because he was dehydrated because it's 9 million degrees...well, 90 degrees...

He had lots of company.  I thought this delicate butterfly (moth?) was very pretty.

And a swallowtail!  I usually don't see many of those, but I'm hoping after all the caterpillars I found this summer there will be a big influx in the next week or so.  I need to look up their hatch schedule.

Better than tv!

The 2019 August Snow Report

It sounds like the Farmer's Almanac is predicting a colder and snowier winter than normal this year.  It will be fun or interesting (depending on which camp you are in regarding winter ;-) to compare their forecast with our August fog forecast.  

We really didn't have a lot of big fog this year.  There were several that I counted that were probably a bit questionable, but I figured flurries were better than nothing and maybe those light fog days were forecasting light snow.  The pictures below, taken August 24th, were pretty standard for the month.

Interestingly, as happened last year, on the very last day of August I woke to a big fog.  And on September 1st as well.  Maybe that means the snow will be late again this year...just in time for the Iknitarod.

Enjoy!