I Got Lucky

Today is my 17th blog anniversary.  I remember writing that first blog post.  I didn't say much, but I remember double and triple checking that it sounded okay and my spelling and grammar was correct.  I still agonize over that and still read my posts aloud and try to catch as many mistakes as I can.  

We'd had a big snow that morning and I had a tiny Sony point and shoot camera that we used to take random pictures of things on and off the farm.  I had no real interest in photography.  I just occasionally took pictures and definitely always did when it snowed.

This picture of PPPP and Peabody was taken that morning and the black background was just the side of the barn before the shed and the shed's shed were added.  I'm quite sure I didn't plan for it to look like a starry night sky.  I just got lucky.

I don't remember when I finally realized that I enjoyed taking pictures and had a little bit of aptitude for it.  I don't remember when I got my first "real" camera.  Oh, wait, it was August of 2007, so I must have gotten it for my birthday, just a few months into my blogging :-).

I actually enjoy when artists write to ask permission to paint my pictures.  I know they could just go ahead and "steal" them (and I've caught a few on that over the years), but I love to hear from them and find out which picture they like and hopefully see what they create.  Which reminds me, there is Yet Another Christmas Post coming!

I think Bonnie Mohr might have been the first artist who contacted me about using one of my photographs.  She'd picked the "starry night" picture.  The very first picture I posted on my very first blog post.  Well, actually it was the second picture on the page ;-).  I loved what she painted!

She offered to sell us the painting and I would have loved to have bought it, but it was out of our price range.  I'd checked back a few times over the years to see if she'd ever offered a print of it, but finally gave up.  I do have a box of Christmas cards with the painting though.  I stumbled across them at the North American.  That was a great story :-).

When I realized that today was my blog anniversary, I thought back to that picture and all the pictures I've taken over the years and how many have been used by artists all over the world (!) and am truly flattered.  Out of curiosity I decided to search her website again, but couldn't find the painting anywhere.  I started searching to see if it showed up anywhere else and luckily found it offered as a print from another merchant!

I feel like so much of my life has been lucky.  I also realize that the harder you work, the luckier you tend to be though.  I am so grateful that I've worked hard enough over the years to have a blog that I can scroll back through 17 years of pictures and stories.  And yes, there are plenty of things that sure didn't feel very lucky, but so many treasures along the way.

And luckily I'm headed out the door to go take some more pictures.  My year old blogger self would never have believed that :-).

 

Yarn Along - A Barnyard Scarf

One of my favorite things to do is to sit down and spin yarn from our flock.  I have a big plan for the Tour de Fleece this year involving spinning enough yarn for a sweater, but mostly I only get allow myself an hour or so here and there and then I end up with baskets full of small amounts of yarn...that just sit there.  

I do enjoy the baskets of yarn.  There's something joyful about all the different colors, textures, weights and especially all the individual sheep tucked in there, but I've been trying to think of something special to make that would utilize those small skeins.

I decided to try weaving a multi-yarn scarf.  I used my handspun bits and bobs for the warp (the up and down threads) and some Nistock Farms Golden Fleece Cotswold singles for the weft (the side to side threads).  

Since the warp threads were all different thicknesses, I used a reed that would accommodate the thickest yarns.  Actually, I started with a 6 dent reed (6 ends per inch) but didn't like it and, you know, ripped it out ;-).  The 8 dent reed worked reasonably well, but a 10 would have been better.

I wanted to showcase the individual handspun yarns rather than the solid color weft, so I worked for a warp faced weave (more warp showing than weft).  I know who most of the yarns are.  The white Cotswold is Keebler, the warm brown is Petunia, the thinner white is Peabody, the too thick for the 10 dent reed gray is Rebecca Boone, the medium weight gray is probably Jester...

And it's too hot to even ask 20 to model it, so I hung it on the barn ladder.  Next to the fire extinguisher :-o.  

Some day it will cool down enough to wear.

Regarding books...I have lost the energy to listen to "grown up" books and after Thoroughly Enjoying the Terry Prachett young adult books last year, decided to delve into the Newbery Medal Winners list this year.  I may just stay there.  I've listened to The Girl Who Drank the Moon, The One and Only Ivan, Moon Over Manifest, Walk Two Moons and Bridge to Terabithia.  I've also listened to Some Kind of Courage and The Last Bus to Wisdom: A Novel.

I highly recommend them all :-).

2014 Tour De Fleece Wrap Up

The challenge I set for myself, besides spin every day of the Tour de France/Fleece was to spin up all sorts of loose bits of roving I had squirreled away here, there and everywhere.  In the end I was successful with my daily spinning goal and ended up with 32 oz and 1800 yards of yarn.  And it sure was fun to hang out with a variety of some of my favorite sheep.

These two browns - the red brown and pale brown in the center are both from Petunia.  The dark was her lamb fleece and the light from last year.

I especially enjoyed spinning this skein of Peabody, spun long draw.  

Here are three different white sheep.  Peabody in the middle, a Perendale/Cheviot cross on the right and I can't remember who that is on the left.  Three different whites.  Isn't that interesting?

Jester, always a fun spin, and Beanie Baby, also very nice.

And some tiny samples of some lace weight from Miss Ewenice.  The large skein was my first attempt - too thick.  The second and third skeins are in the ball park.  Sampling is important ;-).

Some other sheep I spun were Henrietta, Popcorn PeePee Pants, Elizabeth, Joshua, some mixed Jacob, a Tunis sample, Shetland sample, California Red cross, hmmm who else...  Goal for next year - better record keeping!  Or maybe I shouldn't wait that long ;-).

If you participated with the Tour de Fleece and completed your challenge but weren't signed in on Ravelry, drop me an email and let me know you would like to be included in the prize drawings :-).

Now to figure out what I want to make with all that yarn!

The 2014 Tour de Fleece

It's time for the Tour de Fleece!  Some information from the TdF page on Ravelry...

This year, the Tour de Fleece starts on Saturday July 5 and runs until Sunday July 27th, 2014.
Guidelines (NOT RULES):

• Spin every day the Tour rides, if possible. Saturday July 5 through Sunday July 27th. Days of rest: Tuesday, July 15th and Monday July 21st. (Just like the actual tour.)
• Spin something challenging on the challenge day (usually the toughest high mountain stage: this year, it’s Stage 14, on Saturday, July 19th, when they climb over 3,000m at grades from 4-6%).
• Wear yellow on Sunday July 27th to announce victory. Why not wear yellow on any day you feel particularly successful? (Yellow is the color of the race leader in the Tour - but here we are all ‘race leaders’) Other colors if desired: Green (sprinter - think FAST), Polka-dot (climber - as in uphill), and white (rookie).

 

The Captain for this year's Team My Favorite Sheep is Mia :-).  Our group is very laid back, very encouraging and not competitive.  Please feel free to join in even if all you'd like to do is cheer the spinners on.  Everyone welcome!

My  2014 "bicycle" basket - some treasures in a stash of old roving bundles. I also am hoping to spin some Miss Ewenice, but the way my days are going right now...  Sigh.

I think there are 20 mixed ounces of Peabody, Jester, Beanie Baby, Popcorn PeePee Pants and Henrietta.  I was happy to find the Peabody and PPPP because most of their wool has been sold over the years.  Mine, mine all mine :-).

It's important to have your porch cats at the ready.

Including Claire Bear.  What?  If CB is joining the team, it's looking like it's going to be an odd race for sure!

Note the tipped over bucket, potting soil, fern tears strewn about...  I woke this morning to sheep bells.  Outside the bedroom window.  There should not be sheep bells outside the bedroom window.  GRAHAM LAMB!!!

Add install flower protecting gate to Wool House porch to the TdF list.  While keeping the barn gate shut seems like a more logical solution, it's apparently not in my skill set >:-o. 

Yarn Along

The woven throw turned out exactly how I'd envisioned.  It's light weight and soft, pretty indoors (and out ;-) and cozy warm. 

I'm was very happy with my yarn - nearly 2000 yards of a soft woolen yarn spun from roving (not rolags, so probably technically not truly woolen spun) using a supported/modified long draw to give it a little extra loft.  Not so soft and light though as to be fragile.  I didn't suffer a single broken warp thread.

The weaving went off without a hitch and it was nice to hang out with my big loom for a few days.  I did run short of yarn and had 20 spin up some more.  He pegged it right down to the inch and as I finished up the last hem stitch, I had 4" of yarn left - just enough to weave in.  Can't beat that.  I guess that's why you need a sheep helping with your wool projects ;-).

I wanted to post this for Ginny's Yarn Along today, but as long yesterday drew to a close I realized I hadn't taken any pictures.  The only decent light left was all the way across the front field next to Stella's driveway.  I grabbed everything and started hoofing it.  The wind was sharp, but the sun was still warm(ish) and I enjoyed the walk. 

Yes, there's a tag :-). 

These come from Leafcutter Designs, a new favorite website.

There are still a few bits of hay chaff left in the yarn.  I think I'm going to leave them.  They aren't scratchy and the person this was made for threw all that hay to her sheep herself...  I think it's part of the blanket's story.

I'm just finishing up reading Knitting Yarns - Writers On Knitting compiled by Ann Hood.  It's excellent, especially Barbara Kingsolver's story.  Just perfect.  However, since this is a woven item, I pulled out This Is How I Go When I Go Like This, a neat weaving collection by Linda Ligon.  Somehow I ended up with two copies of this book and I'd love to share one.  Any weavers or aspiring weavers interested?  Leave a comment and I'll have 20 draw a winner in a few days.

I want to thank everyone for their kind comments about Peabody.  I'm trying to figure out how to say something I'm thinking - about how every sheep that's come on this farm for the last ten years, Peabody was already here.  The longest other than Jester and Elizabeth, the remaining sheep from my very first group, Peabody's been here.  Before any of the others.  I can't figure out what I'm trying to say.  The barn was weird last night.

I posted that pretty picture of him yesterday, but that's not what Peabody's looked like.  For a long time.  He was old and frail and feeble and I was a little angry about that picture for some stupid reason.  That also I can't figure out why and what I'm trying to say.  That wasn't Peabody to me and I sort of couldn't remember that Peabody.  And then someone left a comment about that being "a beautiful portrait to remember him by" and I finally got it.  That is was okay to go back and remember that Peabody.  We've all been there. 

So, here's one of my favorite recent pictures of Peabody.  And it wasn't that long ago that he was still okay.

Peabody

January 2003 - December 10, 2013

It doesn't really get any easier even if they're old and have had a good life.

Sunday Stills - Sunrises Or Sunsets

The other night I was mowing the back field up near Stella's house as the sun set. Looking down from "the hill" across our farm and our neighbor's farms I thought, well, I've got Sunday Stills wrapped up for this week.  The sun set as a brilliant orange red and the "valley" was golden.  So pretty.

I watched the skies (and the Weather Channel ;-) throughout the week and it looked like Saturday evening would be perfect.  We had a long day working though, including laying over 45 square feet of brick walkway/patio areas, and I was beat...and with a good hour of clean up and evening chores still to go.

I love how the sun sets through the side door of the sheep shed.  The sheep are in the side field right now too and that's a pretty spot as well and close at hand.  Sun setting on a sheep's back is just a different kind of sunset.  I'll make it up the hill another day.

I'm not sure if you can see all the bugs floating about.  The birds sure do.  One of my favorite parts of the day is watching and listening to the birds finish up and settle in for the night. 

Keebler

Beanie Baby and Popcorn PeePee Pants in the foreground.

Elizabeth, watching the sunset from inside.  She eats her dinner (she's very old and gets to come out in the barn aisle and eat) and then tootles off to bed.  Peabody and Jester (two other oldies who eat with her) sometimes stay in...and sometimes head back out.  You never know about the boys, but you can set your clock by Elizabeth ;-).

For more Sunday Stills...

A Couple Of Cute Stories

It was actually supposed to be Three Cute Stories, but by the time I walked from the barn to the house, I've forgotten one, so here's two.

Late yesterday afternoon I walked up to Stella's to see her last batch of honey - 48+ jars!  She and I sat and talked for awhile and as the sun went down I said I needed to get back down the hill and do my evening chores.  As we walked out onto her back porch, still talking, Peabody heard me from all the way down at our barn and started yelling at me.  I was late with his supper.  I hollered back.

"Pea-body!"

"Baaaaaaaa-a-a-a-a!"

"Pea-body!"

"Baaaa-a-a-a-a-aaaaaa!"

And Stella and I laughed ourselves silly.  It was amazing he still had the strength to yell that loud in his famished state ;-).  Poor silly Peabody.

This afternoon a friend came out to ride with me.  As we led Hickory and Gato out to the arena I had to explain why all the white buckets I use for riding markers were set out all over....not on purpose.  Well, not on my purpose.  

I'd picked up all the buckets when I mowed last and stacked them next to the extra jump standards just inside the arena gate.  A few days later I found several of them out in the arena.  Not a tooth mark on them, so I assumed the wind had tossed them.  I picked them up once again and the next day...back out in the arena.  No wind, but again, not a tooth mark on them.  

Usually if Hank hauls off something plastic there are plenty o' tooth marks ;-).  He likes "treasures" and if they are small, like a McDonald's coffee cup, he buries them in his Treasure Area aka the creek bank.  If they are big, he makes them small enough to bury.  The bucket situation was quite curious, but by that point, I felt like it had to be Hank.

Tonight, as I was finishing up evening barn chores, I caught him.  One by one moving each bucket back out into the corner of the arena.  I'm not sure what he's thinking as he unstacks each bucket and carries it where he wants it, but he definitely has a purpose.  And when he got them all set out, he walked away.  Things that make you go hmmm.....

Sunny Sunday Sheeps

Henrietta, Elizabeth and Peabody

Betsy...keeping a watchful eye on Comby the jerk.  Still, after over a year, all the cats hate Betsy.  Minutes after I took this picture Comby attacked.  Again.  In Front Of Me.  No shame.  So we've started letting Betsy hang out in the house with us.  Until she does something very unladylike...and then we wonder if maybe that's why all the other cats hate her ;-).  Could be a long winter.

A good dog.

That's Annabelly in the foreground.  I spun some of her white to finish up the Jester sweater.  Hopefully this week.  I'm getting close.

Boudreaux...Boudreaux, Boudreaux, Boudreaux...

And a Sunday Stills - Take A Closer Look picture.  I tried to get it posted on SUNDAY...but, well, it's looking like a "day late" trend.  Sadly not a new one.  Sigh.

I Probably Don't Want To Go Here, But...

You gotta love a blog post that starts like that, eh?

So, the last post was a lovely picture of some early morning sunbeams filtering through the trees in the front field. I mentioned that I thought it would have been nice if those ungrateful sheep had gone up there to graze as I'd asked them to (for a nice photo op) rather than foraging through the creek bed (full of weeds and burrs). Christine leaves this comment:

"I'll bet they are afraid they might get sucked up to a space ship, so they avoid all sunbeams. Makes perfect sense."

Which is only one of the many reasons why we all love Christine :-).

But is it?

Or does she know something we don't know?

Or is it just me??

Am I the only one clueless to the whole sheep being abducted by aliens issue???

I've seen references to that in a couple places and I think it has something to do with a video game maybe? But here's an oddity (or is it?) we found on eBay several years ago.



I can't remember the exact translation, but it has something to do with praying to a certain saint for protection against the sheep being abducted by aliens.

In 1981!

Saint Tim purchased it as a novelty and we hung it with (insert nervous laughter) pride near our front door.



I wonder if that's the only reason Peabody is still here???

Oddly, when we got Peabody from a friend about 9 or 10 years ago, she mentioned that her husband thought the Border Cheviots looked like aliens (!).

It's foggy...but I think...the pieces...are all starting to fit together...

Seriously, does anyone know the actual reason(s) for the sheep/spaceship connection?

Anyone?

Tap tap tap.

Is this thing on?

Where did everyone go???