Spring Has Sprung

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Well, that (springtime in Kentucky) escalated quickly!  Like it always does.  

Most people look forward to spring.  I'm more a of fall person, looking forward to the quiet of winter.  I haven't finished my Iknitarod vest yet, but I'm still working on it.  I stopped to knit a small sweater for a chilly new sheep friend (not at bottle lamb...sorry) who I'll introduce maybe tomorrow.  I have garden news to share.  An exciting new fiber tool.  Plans for the summer.

Just not enough hours in the day, even though the days are getting longer.

Sigh...

 

Old Ladies

Short Round has really had a hard time this winter.  Well, she was okay until the real winter weather hit and then, even though things sure felt like they were headed north, they were actually headed south.  I kept hoping if she could make it out to spring grass that maybe she'd get her legs back under her.   

When I saw her totter out the other night I knew I'd made the right call.  Everyone stays here as long as they're happy.  And seeing her happy sure made me happy. Taking care of pensioners is not easy.

"Neither is getting old, but I'm doing okay."

It's had to believe that Betsy is going to be 17 this summer.  She's still tottering about as well and I always like to see her out on the spring grass as well.

"What am I doing in a post about old ladies?"

Maisie still got a few licks in on some folks in for the I-64 Spring Fiber Fling last Saturday.  She's hoping to get a few more opportunities tomorrow.  She will be greeting visitors between 11:00 and 4:00.  I'd bring some cookies...just saying ;-).

I love twilight photos.  Here's a new puzzle.  Enjoy!

Wednesdays Are For Painting

I painted this several "Wednesdays" ago, but forgot to share it.  And when I was taking a picture of it I forgot to take one that showed exactly what it is.  It's a drop spindle.

This picture really doesn't show them that well either...and looking at it now I see that I'd forgotten to completely tighten down the hooks after they dried.  This picture was from the November Kentucky Shepherd's Market.  I am nailing this marketing thing!

I just love these colorful spindles.  I especially love to spin with them.  As the spindles twirl they look like kaleidoscopes.  The spindles on the bottom picture are just generic sheep.  The spindle in the first picture is a custom order with Pinto, Short Round, Tabitha and Maggie.  

It's hard to beat spinning with your friends...and actually spinning your friends.  The roving the spindle is nestled down into is some of Tabitha's.  I'm glad it has good home :-).

Bullseye

"I'm Bullseye and I'm the new kid here.  Except I'm not a kid anymore.  I am officially a big boy and this is my barn.  I keep an eye on everything up here.  It's a Big Job."

"I watch everything including the sheep and the chickens, but mostly I watch for the lady who feeds me.  I really like food and I've learned that I really like pets and cuddles too.  The food lady says that's a Big Job too!"

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This is where things started.  I heard a cat crying at the back door one snowy bitterly cold morning early in February.  I opened the door and found a half grown kitten...and Archie.  I'm not sure if it was just a coincidence they were out there together or if Archie told him to follow him home and get some breakfast.

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We tried for several days to trap him, but while he was young he already had some street smarts and I realized it was going to take some time.  If we'd have known for sure he was a boy, I wouldn't have been so panicked, but for a good while I was pretty sure he was a she and fixing to be a teen mom :-(.

I set the heated box up on the porch and he sat in there for a little while, but I think Possum ran him off.  Possum can be very not nice to other cats and he was no exception.  He'd find a warm-ish spot and the next day he'd have moved on to a different spot.  I was not sure what I was going to do about that, especially if there were kittens coming.

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One night I got him trapped in the greenhouse and hoped I could get a better look at him, but the greenhouse is frail and he figured out how to break out one of the back panels.  A day or so after that he moved up to the barn and started sneaking in for offered food up there.

I set up the big dog crate, started feeding him at the front, then the middle and then the back and then shut the door and we were off to the vet where we learned he was just a potbellied wormy boy and not a way too young girl getting ready to have kittens.  Whew!

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I kept him in the cage for several days and got to where I could pet him some and I thought he was good and settled and wouldn't split at first chance and then finally opened the door. I told him he was now an Equinox Farm cat and that it was a pretty good place to be a cat...except for Possum ;-).  

That was Saturday and he's taken over the barn and even seems to be winning over Possum...or at least flying under her radar.  He's super friendly with me and just needs some experience with strangers and I think he's going to be one of the nicest kitties we've ever had :-).

Things To Know

If you are headed out on the I-64 Spring Fiber Fling Trail this weekend, here are some things to know if you are coming here.

Yes, the Wool House is my studio, but it's also a fiber shop, class room, gathering spot, place of respite.  Please come on in!  

Everyone is welcome here.  This is a safe space.  

If you want to just stop by and get your passport stamped, that's perfectly fine.  

If you only want to meet the sheep, that's fine too.  I'd  probably bring some toll "money" - vanilla wafers or saltine crackers ;-).

If you'd like to spend an hour or two sitting on the porch with your spinning wheel or current project, watching the sheep and horses and listening to the birds (or the rain fall on the metal roof), that's also fine...and encouraged.  Bring a picnic lunch!

If you are stumped by your current project or spinning wheel or spindle and feel comfortable asking for help, I'll do my best to get you back on track.  Note that I am more hack than genius, but sometimes it's better to be lucky than good :-).

And obviously, if you are looking for some unique local yarns or spinning fibers, learn to spin kits, wool sheep ornaments, farm inspired folk art cards,...  please fill your free My Favorite Sheep bag to the top :-).

Yep, if you stop by during the I-64 Spring Fiber Fling, you'll get a free tote bag (while supplies last).

And if you've enjoyed your visit, but just don't need anymore yarn (whatever), but would like to tip the sheep, you can always Buy Them A [Bale Of Hay]

* * * * *

The forecast is not great, but it's Kentucky in the spring...  The Wool House will be open from 11:00 to 4:00 on Saturday and 1:00 to 4:00 on Sunday and again next weekend.  Other hours can probably be arranged.  Just email to make an appointment.

Thursdays Are For Spinning

I did follow my plan and was able to fit in some spinning today.  Notice I did not share a Wednesdays Are For Painting post...but there's always next week.  This week has been crazy.

While it would seem delightful to spin in the barn with the sheep, Maisie is not always a delight around  tools and I have a video to prove it.  My ultimate goal was to spend time hanging out with our new cat who had just gotten home from getting his vaccinations and big boy surgery.  He'll get his own post, maybe tomorrow.  It's a cute story.

I was spinning Muffin and the fancy background is just our messy gravel barn aisle.  I need to remember this along with the nice diffused light.  Do they still do those family photos with the drop down backgrounds at department stores or am I really dating myself?

I'm still borrowing the electric drum carder from my friend, but I have one of my own on order and I'm super excited about that.  More about that to come as well. 

 

I had some freshly washed Muffin fleece and she's always a favorite of mine so I decided that would be my Thursday spin.  And then, because I can't think of Muffin without Biscuit, I "shopped" in the Wool House loft and grabbed a bit of him to blend in as well.

After one pass through - first Muffin and then Biscuit layered over the top.  I then split the batt and drafted it out and ran it through two more times to more evenly blend the two colors.

Muffin in the back and the blend in the front.  More about this to come as well.  I have plenty of blog fodder.  I just need winter to come back for a bit so I can get caught up...and go back to complaining about winter ;-).

I'm working on how I want to store the batts I make and I'd love to stay away from plastic.  I have a huge roll of kraft paper so I'm trying out some options.  I love the little vintage black and white lambs.  One should never get too old to play with toys ;-).

 

Post Card From The Trail

Quick Iknitarod check in.  It's late and I'm tired which is never a good combo for blogging, but the last few days have been crazy busy.  More about all that later.

I'm still mushing along and I'm so happy to have a new dog team to follow as I knit and that's made the race fun again.  Justin Olnes of Rerun Kennel is racing a team made up of 75% rescued dogs.  This is a great story and if you're interested, check him out.

On the Iknitarod Trail, I've finished the back of the vest (minus the bind off at the bottom) and am ready to pick up the stitches at the top edge to start down the front.  I was hoping to get that started tonight, but I had other duties and now I'm tired and headed for "one of my 8s" (mandatory eight hour rests ;-).

Mushing on!

The I-64 Spring Fiber Fling

I don't travel much.  It's hard to leave a farm full of animals that count on Things Being Done Like They Always Are.  Having the barn cameras now may help at least my peace of mind if I decide to go somewhere, but taking care of animals, especially lots of older animals can be a challenge.

Some nights Maisie likes to eat her hay on the steps.  Some nights she wants to eat from a bucket.  Some nights she'd like a pile of hay placed in front of her in bed.  Sometimes a young sheep gets mud stuck between their toes that dries into a hard stabby rock and you have to pick it out and at the same time grab the thorny rose branch that they got stuck in their wool...Big Moose!

That being said, I do like when people come to see me.  We don't have the fanciest place and I'm never going to fix you a gourmet farm to table meal, but the farm is peaceful and fun and the sheep, horses, cats, Bea and Pinot are good characters and if you are here around lunchtime, I'd be happy to make you a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

I also have lots of wool in all stages of "production" - raw fleeces, washed fleeces, roving, batts, handspun yarn, small batch mill spun  farm yarns, learn to spin kits, felting supplies, quilt batting, punch needle ideas, ideas in general...so many ideas...

I also have some fiber processing equipment, a couple of spinning wheels, a loaner weaving loom and a whole bag full of knitting and crochet needles.  Want to give something a try?  Come on out.  And while I'm not an expert, I'm happy to teach you what I've learned along the way.  

We've dabbled with participating in more agritourism ventures, but are just far enough off the main road that it would take a little more effort and experience than I really have time for right now.  Did I follow my "schedule" and spin yesterday?  Nope.  I spent my time wrangling with a feral kitten/cat that you can meet on my Instagram feed because I haven't had time to share all that over here because I'm trying to write a blog post about the I-64 Spring Fiber Fling because someone else has done the agritourism prep work for me and I'm pretty excited to be given the opportunity to participate.  (inhale...exhale)

20 and his friends are pretty excited about this "yarn crawl" as well.

I'm going to send you to the I-64 Fiber Fling website for all the details on how to join, who you can visit, what each store or farm is offering, prizes you can win...  I'll also do another post over here next Thursday or Friday telling what I have planned for our stop.  It's going to be fun!

In the meantime, I'm headed out to make a quick barn check and then to the house to make my peanut butter sandwich.  The feral cat escaped from the greenhouse so I don't have that to contend with today...unfortunately.  Maybe I'll get some Iknitarod knitting done this afternoon.  I am working my way down the trail, just not as quickly as I'd hoped.

Whew!

Schedules

Years ago, when I was thinking about starting my small sheep business, a good friend told me that the best part of working for yourself is that you get to pick your own hours.  You can pick whichever 18 hours of everyday you want to work.  She wasn't wrong.  I've also heard that if you love your job, you'll never work a day in your life.  That's not wrong either.

One thing I haven't enjoyed along the way is getting to the end of the day...or week...or year...and realizing that I didn't do all the things I wanted to do.  This is a recurring theme and I know it's not just for me so that's all I'm going to say about that.  There are probably thousands of books about that and I should probably just find make the time to read them.

I do think having a schedule helps me.  I enjoy Tuesday nights because I "have" to join the Wool House Crafters zoom meeting.  Some weeks I get more done than others, but I like having that set schedule...and the company is good :-).  We meet for two hours and that's a good amount of time.  It's amazing what you can get done in two hours if you just put your butt in the chair.

I'd love to dedicate every afternoon to "chair work", but I've tried that and I never manage to pull it off.  Two hours isn't much time, but it's like spinning with a drop spindle.  If you spin 5 minutes here, 10 minute there, 5 minutes another time, 20 minutes after dinner...at the end of the week you've probably spun more yarn than I have with my spinning wheel.

I use "probably" in that last sentence like I've actually done any spinning lately.  Well, I did spend a little time at the end of the Kentucky Shepherd's Market last month spinning with some friends and it was really fun.  Spinning IS really fun.

The same thing happened back at the first of the year when I was playing around with the little electric drum carder I am borrowing from a friend.  Pulling those pretty batts off was really fun.  It was nice...and a little weird...to have to be reminded why I started all this in the first place.  Wool is fun.  Take the time to enjoy it.  MAKE the time to enjoy it.

So I know I can't show up from 1:00 to 4:00 every day.  Seems silly, but we both know that if that was going to happen, it would have already happened.  I don't work for myself as well as I work for other people.  

I'm not even sure I can show up every day.  I mean I show up for work every day, but not the butt in chair work.  Obviously the animal care comes first.  And if I have to be available on the farm, it's hard not to let the art side of life fall off.  It's been a crazy start to the year.  Hopefully things are settling down...just in time for spring :-o.

Here's the plan:

Monday - Catch up day.  Set things up to make the rest of the week successful.

Tuesday - Wool House Crafters.  Already on the schedule and anything goes.  

Wednesday - Art Class.  Butt in chair and pencil, pen, brush in hand. 

Thursday - Spinning...or any fun wool work.

Friday - Make up day.  Get the things done you didn't get done on Wednesday and Thursday (being realistic here).

Weekends are wild cards.  Just try to be mindful of what you'd really like to do with your "one wild and precious life".

Okay, this post went way off the rails.  My original plan was to tell you about the new I-64 Spring Fiber Fling yarn crawl we are participating in this month, but I'll have to try for that again tomorrow.  That means I need to find a new picture to share today because anyone who's made it to the end of this epistle deserves a pretty or at least funny picture.  

Hang tight while I search the archives....because I need to add photography into the schedule above.  Okay, I've added the picture of me and Frankie having a meeting about our spring schedule the other morning.  We're probably doomed ;-).

February

I almost forgot to do my beloved Month End compilation.  What a brain...

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February was crazy...but not too shabby.

 

At The Start

After last year's musher and dog issues I was no longer looking forward to the next two weeks as my favorite two weeks of the year...but I had a new project ready to start so I've decided to give it one more go.  I miss the old mushers and the more historical feel the race used to have, but maybe the kids will do them proud.  For the 2025 Iknitarod...

Yes, this is the same Lamb Camp Bottle Lamb yarn from last year and the same general project (vest) that I did not finish last year, but I've switched to a different pattern.  This is the Lulu Slipover from Petite Knits, the same designer as the Jared sweater.  We cast on this afternoon!

The ravatar is still basically the same, but I've lost my red hat (!) so I changed that out to a new hat made from the same Lamb Camp yarn...for good luck.  My Iknitarider (I almost forgot to pick someone :-o) is a nameless (!) little gray faced lambie wearing a Jacob sweater that I knit maybe as a pattern for a sweater I knit for a friend.  

I think I might call the lamb Punkin because as I was dusting off my ravatar from last year and looking at all the sheep, I couldn't for the life of me think who was standing next to me. Most of the sheep are pretty obvious, at least to me, but I was completely stumped by...Punkin :-o.

Maybe I'll find my brain when I dust off my Red Lantern and my sled!

Here's Your Sign

 I couldn't resist.

"I like it!"

Sheep Magic

I asked Santa for an Apple Watch for Christmas.  I'm not a watch wearer and I'm a little creeped out by wearing something electronic (is that the right word?) strapped to my skin all day, but I was worried about falling on the ice while doing the night check or out of the barn loft or off Frankie...and decided there was probably a bigger risk of that than whatever might happen by wearing what is basically a miniature cell phone.

I figured I'd only really use it for the "I've fallen, please send help" feature.  I need one more screen to look at and worry about like...well, like everyone else does...  Still, I went through the normal easy Apple set up and when it walked me through choosing my "watch face" I set it up to rotate through pictures taken with my iPhone.

I have no idea how it picks the pictures, but I am totally in love with this feature.  All day, any time I look at my watch, a different beautiful picture shows up from my camera roll.  Not goofy pictures of what I cooked for dinner or stupid screen shots, but sunrises, sunsets, sheep, horses, dogs, flowers, cats, rabbits...

A couple of days ago I looked down to see a big black sheep and a tiny white lamb out in the side field.  I had to stop and think for a minute, well  maybe two seconds ;-).  It was B. Willard and Early!  And it was so, so nice to see them.

The pictures change every time you raise your wrist up or tap the screen, so when it's something extra special, I'll stop what I'm doing and enjoy a fine, but fleeting memory.  The picture above showed up yesterday.  I'll never have to stop and think for a second who this is.  My heart, right there on my wrist.  

Except...that wasn't the first time I saw that picture yesterday.  I'd originally seen it just after lunch.  And again when I got in the car to run an errand.  And again when I stopped to make a cup of tea.  And again at 3:20...when I took this picture to remember that sometimes Big J shows up and stays with me for awhile.

This is not the first time this has happened.  I can remember at least two other times a picture of Big J has hung around like that.  Maybe other pictures are doing this too and I'm just not noticing them as much or maybe there's a logical reason those pictures do that.  Maybe it's something sort of disturbing like it can tell my heart rate goes up when I see that picture or can tell that I'm staring at it longer than the others.  

I've decided to not overthink it and just chalk it up to magic...and enjoy standing in the driveway once again.

On The Coldest Days I Wear Willard

Dressing for the cold is a strange balance of warmth and comfort.  For example, the green jacket I usually wear is not my warmest coat, but it's my most comfortable.  It's warm enough if I put a wool sweater underneath and it's lightweight and slick on the inside and I can move and work in it without it weighing me down and feeling stiff.

None of my sweaters are heavy and uncomfortable and most are quite warm, but for some reason my Willard sweater is the one I always grab on the coldest mornings.  It's also the one I picked on the morning after the chicken disaster.  The temperature wasn't that cold, but I was mentally freezing.  I always called B. Willard "The Sheep of Impeccable Character" and he truly was.  Willard took good care.

His sweater is cozy by design (a simple Elizabeth Zimmerman percentage sweater pattern) made with thick yarn and a tall neck, but also because the yarn was spun so that even though the yarn is thick, it is light and airy.  Both the yarn and the sweater trap and hold warm air like a warm Willard hug.

I actually started this post a couple of weeks ago, but knew it was going to be hard to look back through all the old blog posts to find the picture below of us "dressed alike", but as Bea and I sat in the truck the other day, trying to get our nerve up to get out, I snapped this picture and knew it was more important to say "On the coldest days I wear Willard" than to leave it forever in the drafts.

Wear your irreplaceable handspun hand knits.  There's magic in them...and good company.  I've been wearing this sweater every winter since...

...2011 (!).  The sweater is holding up better than I am.  :-o

Here's a new freezing cold puzzle for you.  Hope you have a Willard sweater or a wool blanket or maybe a warm cat on your lap :-).

An Epiphany

  I never thought I'd say these words, but I am ready for winter to be over.  

At least the morning snow mess is covering up the January/February mud mess.  When I walked up to the barn last night, that mud water puddle was twice the size and twice as deep. Fun times.

One thing trudging to and from the barn in freezing mud and blowing snow and rain and temperatures so cold your fingers actually hurt reveals is how much you love (or don't love) your job and your animals.

I am still grateful to "have to" trudge out there all day and half the night.  I am still happier to have to do that than not have my friends up there waiting for me.  And as I was in the horse stalls cleaning out flooded hay and shavings with icy gravel mixed in the other night I thought of a couple of my friends, now gone, who'd give anything to be out there doing what I was doing.

I'm still ready for a break in the weather, but the gift this winter (besides the sleigh rides, which seem like forever ago) is finding out just how much I love my animal family.

If Pinot's fence hadn't blown over this would be a really pretty picture.  It's still pretty, but it probably makes a better puzzle and you can enjoy that without having to bundle up :-).