A Nice Day

...that isn't today :-o.

Yesterday was up in the 70s.  Tonight it's going down to 17.   (!)

Finally Fall

Fall finally arrived and we got one good rain that has helped regrow a little grass, but not what we really need going into late fall and winter.  We definitely could have used some more rain, but we are grateful for what we did get. The hay stash is going to be important again this year.  At least it's cooled off.

I can't type between the pictures for some reason, so you'll have to identify everyone by heart and memory.  

How about a new puzzle.  This is a fun and easy one :-).

Also Rans

Here are a few more pictures I liked from the Solstice shots.  It was really nice "having" to take my camera out to the barn.   Thanks for playing along :-).

Ellie

Murphy

Maisie

Mini Moose and Big Moose.  Big Moose is not so big compared to Mini Moose.

Kaala

Levi, Big Moose and Ellie in the back.

Muffin

Biscuit

Tavia

Krista

Solstice Sheep Of The Day - Murphy

As we drew near the end of the Solstice Sheep this week I started counting who was still out.  Five to go.  Who were they...Liddy, Tavia, Tessa, Burrnie and Murphy.  Then I was down to three and I drew Liddy and then there were just two.  Ooh, wouldn't it be fun if Murphy was the last one?

I fed Bea and the cats and put the kettle on and finally got up my nerve to pull today's tag...Dang it,  Murphy!  Wouldn't that have been a great story if the sheep who is best known for being the first out every dang day of the year turned out to be the very last sheep on the Solstice calendar?  Oh well, it's still a pretty good story.

I've been sharing everyone's favorite treats and at first glance this picture doesn't appear to be a treat picture, but it is.  Besides being the leader of the flock, Murphy's main claim to fame is opening gates.  So much so that there were some many times I toyed with sticking him in a big cardboard box with, or sometimes without, air holes and shipping him back to New York.

Murphy's motivation for opening gates is always food related and his main goal in life these days is to move into Easy Breezy (on the other side of this gate).  Oh, he doesn't want to move into a retirement home.  He just wants to steal their food.  

Murphy is obsessed with any treats, but is especially fond of the chopped alfalfa fed to the Easy Breezy sheep.  

My Favorite Sheep...Of The Week

I thought about just taking a week off from the Sheep of the Week.  I hadn't found the time to go out and get a good portrait and I'm running so behind on the Iknitarod that I really needed to focus on that.  I hated skipping a week though because then it gets easy to skip another week when I can't manage my time and then another week...

The request for this week/last week had been Tabitha.  She is one of the five young(ish) Jacobs we have.  She's the only sort of chummy one in the group so she stands out.  Chummy as in she will come up to you to get a cookie.  The rest like cookies...but you have to toss them from a distance.  Jacobs... ;-)

 

When I was doing the barn check this morning, I found her front and center, almost like she was reminding me I hadn't taken her picture.  It was still pretty dark, but the iPhone does a great job in low light and this is not too bad.  I will try to get a better portrait this week though.

Here is as close to a baby picture as I have of her.  She and her fellow Ts arrived in January of 2017. She would have been maybe eight or nine months old here. I don't have any funny stories about these five crazy Jacobs, but their trip up here from WV was a pretty cute post.   

I had them set up in the horse stalls for quarantine and I enjoyed using Kate to move them out to the yard to graze every day and then back in.  Tilly even helped a little.  Those were fun days.

I love Jacob sheep.  I think they are beautiful and if I could only spin one type of wool for the rest of my life, I'd pick Jacob.  Their fleeces are easy to care for and process.  They yarn spins easily and can do quite a few jobs depending on the individual and whether they are on the softer side or more medium.  The fun you can have blending the colors is the best.

What I don't enjoy as much about Jacobs is their more "primitive" personalities.  Henri was a friendly Jacob and Annabelly was sweet, too.  Tabitha is as close to "friendly" as we have anymore.  Tavia could probably be talked into being more friendly if she didn't have the other three bad influences around.  

That's okay.  We have quite a few less colorful...but more colorful sheep who are more than happy to fill the sheep are so fun roles :-).  Everyone has a place.

Special request for next/this week?

King Of The Dirt Pile

"What are you doing, Biscuit?"

"Nothin'."

"Right.  Okay then.  Carry on."

That would probably make a fun new puzzle. 

Enjoy :-)

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!

Something Special At The End

We...well 20, Pip, Auntie Reg, Miss B and I...had a great weekend at the Kentucky Sheep and Fiber Festival.  Tavia, Tabitha and Kaala...won't be going out in public ever again.  They hated it.  A lot.  And Tabitha made sure everyone heard about how much they hated it.  A lot.  

(After you start the video you can click the [ ] at the bottom right to make it bigger.)

This was the 10th year for the fiber festival. Seems kind of crazy when I think about it.  That just flew by!  Here is a quick tour of the booth for anyone who wasn't able to go and would like to take a peek.  You can even hear Tabitha...because I know everyone would like to hear what she had to say...all weekend long :-o.

We were stopped by a road block on our way out of the park last night.  As the person walked up to my truck to explain why the road was going to be closed for a few minutes, she laughed and said "Oh, I don't need to tell you what's going on."  The Bluegrass Classic Stockdog Trial was over and they were moving 500 sheep into a secure field for the night.  I got out of the truck and walked up to watch.  

Before there was a fiber festival I used to set up my Punkin's Patch booth down at the stockdog trial.  It was my favorite weekend of the year.  I'd be set up close enough to the trial field that I could watch the sheep and dogs all day long.  I'd bring my spinning wheel and my dear old collie Sam.  I made some really good friends down there over the years and it was like the best vacation ever.

I'd stay until the very end of each day because once the last handler finished they'd run all the sheep out into the open field to graze for the night.  That was my favorite.  I love big flocks of sheep and I wonder now if my love of big flocks came from watching all those sheep filter out across that big field each night.  

I didn't have a good camera back then.  Heck, I didn't even know I liked taking pictures in those days.  Maybe that was a good thing.  I might be able to still see things in my mind and heart that I probably couldn't have really captured on film back then.  Now, 16 years later, I pulled out my iPhone and recorded some video as they trotted up the road.

I included a bit of that footage at the end of this compilation.  I did that mostly because it is a treasured memory from my weekend.  A little gift from the universe to a crazy sheep lady who, while she enjoys being a part of the fiber festival, sure wishes there was a way to be two places at once.  

I also included it because there's something of Punkin's Patch significance at the very end.  The man walking past in the red and white striped shirt is Paul Tucker, now one of those good dog trial friends.  But I met Paul long before I knew anything about border collies or sheep or that I even liked sheep.  27 years ago he gave me a little bottle lamb...that I named Punkin.

Peeking In

Several times a day I go peek in on everyone to make sure all is well in the barn.  This is one of my favorite things to do, especially on a sunny, but chilly "winter" day.  As I quietly walked down the barn aisle I noticed Maisie cashed out (one of my most favorite sights) so I quietly walked out, grabbed my camera and snuck back in.

The little darlin'.

Jared, aka Big J, soaking up some sun.

I seldom catch Kaala asleep.  She's always "busy".

Petunia, with Tavia and Clover Belly on the left.

Andy

Rebecca Boone, for the first time looking like she might be happy(ish) moved into Easy Breezy.  I've been trying for several days to get her settled in there.  A Cotswold with an opinion... ;-).

Good afternoon!

Just A Bunch Of Pictures Of Hank

I doubt anyone is going to complain about that :-).  There are also five new Hank puzzles :-D.

Gold Christmas

No white Christmas this year, but the golden sunlight was a pretty good trade.  A couple new puzzles for you :-).

Merry Christmas!

Fall Snow

For anyone keeping score at home, this is actually the second snow.  Neither has been very "big", but if it snows enough that I'm excited about it, I'm counting it as a snow!  Maybe these were mildly foggy mornings back in August ;-).

I was walking around the barn trying to figure out a way to take a cell phone picture that really showed how pretty it was this morning, not having any luck, grumbling to myself, "This is one of the many bad things about not blogging enough - no good camera pictures anymore."

...um...

...hel-lo!  If you took 14 steps to the right, you could go pick up your very lonely camera from the Wool House...

...oh...yeah... (insert eye rolling emoticon)

Burrnie looks like he has a posse!

Spud in the foreground, Jared and Tavia, one of his many "girlfriends", on the left.  Jared is still quite the ladies man even after being 'tutered this summer.

From a slightly different angle.

A new favorite picture (and puzzle :-).  I couldn't have captured the colors this well with my phone, hel-LO!  Sigh... 

I took about 20 pictures of Muffin eating a leaf.  Want to see them?  Oh, Muuufffiin ;-).

"Muffin, Muffin, Muffin.  Who wants to see a billion pictures of Muffin eating a stupid leaf!"

Fine Fall Day

We've had a couple stunner days this week.  Twice I sat down out in the barn and just enjoyed it.  Both days Muffin laid down, curled up next to me.  Treasured memories for sure.

"Spend the afternoon.  You can't take it with you."  Annie Dillard

Rebecca Boone

Tavia

Burrnie

Spud

The little darlin' ;-)

Pretty Petunia