Sweet Petunia

I had to make a hard, well, it wasn't hard...a sad call on Petunia today and here I sit trying to decide what I want to say about one of the very best sheep ever.  

I thought I knew what picture I wanted for this post, but as I scrolled through all the old blog posts looking for it, it became one of the nicest trips down memory lane and I could have easily pulled out 20 favorite pictures.

Her "Mug Shot"

She'd been here so long that I'd almost forgotten some of her stories.  I'd forgotten how she stepped up as lead ewe after Elizabeth had died.  I'd  forgotten how she was one of the main chicken sheep who helped the old hen get to her favorite high perch each night.  

Her official baby picture back in 2008.  She came from Nistock's along with Woolliam that year.

I remembered how much she enjoyed wearing the flowers for the 2012 Tour de Fleece.  I knew that she would be happy to wear the bell because of how she acted with the flowers.  I don't think she thought she was special, but she understood special and humbly accepted it...like any great leader.

I'd forgotten about this sweet picture with 20. Almost every picture on the blog is captioned either "Pretty Petunia" or "Sweet Petunia".  

Checking in with me during a lunchtime nap last month.    

So many good pictures and great stories.  There will never be another like her. If you'd like to take a stroll, you can follow this link or any of the labels on the right side of the blog.  

Sweet, pretty Petunia

2008-August 10, 2022

A Is For Abby

For anyone not following social media, we lost Abby on Friday.  She'd gone in for a check up, was still a little off, we decided to do one more round of antibiotics and she had a reaction to the shot and they couldn't save her.  The drug was RESFLOR.  Please spread the word - DO  NOT EVER USE ON LAMBS.  

I have taken this incredibly hard.  And I'm going to leave it at that.  

I had not yet done her week three recap and had been looking forward to working on that Friday afternoon.  I didn't think I could do that now and added that to the list of things I was angry that Abby and I were cheated out of.  

I never told her adoption story.  I never told the story about us almost going to Chicago.  Her peeing in my Cheerios one morning.  I never took a funny video of her eating vanilla wafers.  I'd never even taken an official photograph of her.  She was never going to get a mug shot.  Be on the Christmas card.  Get her first hair cut.  Grow up. 

Reg talked me into going ahead with the recap "memory".  Abby had earned that and her life should be celebrated.  I figured if I could get through that I could make her a mug shot, too.  My brain is still too fizzy though and all I could think of for her "rap sheet" was her name.  It's taken me all afternoon to write these few paragraphs.

I Really DID Live Through The Wool Festival

So it looks like I broke the internet.  I FINALLY put together a blog post yesterday and right as I was close to publishing it, a major Verizon tower went down and the entire area was without intertubes until early this morning.  Oops... :-o

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Friday?!?  I really not sure where the week went. Heck, I'm not even sure where the summer went! The Kentucky Wool Festival went really well.  We could not have had better weather, the crowd was the second largest in 34 years (somewhere around 50,000 over the three days :-o), saw lots of old friends, made some new ones, sales were good, nothing got pinched and I think everyone had a great time :-).

As always, I had tons of good help.  Miss B and Miss L helped get the booth components ready ahead of time.  Auntie Reg and Stella worked in the "sweat shop" getting everything packaged and labeled. Saint Tim did his usual herculean job getting all my printing ready and the four legged family, for the most part, stayed out of trouble.

Tim covered farm duties, a Unit driving neighbor came over to doctor on T-Bone's leg (horrible dew poison this year :-o), Miss B and Always Amazing Aaron answered questions throughout the day and helped get new spinners started with their drop spindles and Auntie Reg did a great job basically tripping people coming into the tent and sending them in to buy stuff ;-).  

I am Not Good at "selling myself".  Oh, if you come in the booth and ask me a question, I talk until your eyes glaze over.  Having to go up to you and say "Hey, look at all this cool stuff I (and our sheep) made to try and support my bad sheep habit!"... I don't know why I can't do that.  And it's important.  This is what pays for the hay, straw, grain, shearing, vet bills...  Luckily I have a great team.  I appreciate everyone way more than they can even imagine!

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I figured too many days had passed to do a booth tour, but I've had several requests from friends who couldn't be there, so here goes.  I missed a few things taking pictures.  I had so many bags of roving that we pretty much had to tie the booth together to keep it from exploding, but you'd never know by these pictures.  The funny thing is two of us were taking pictures and we both missed that and a couple other things.  

I loved having the raw wool out front.  It was pretty, attention getting, folks were looking for wool at the "wool festival" (it's primarily a huge craft fair with tons of great food and live music) and didn't smell up the booth.  I personally love the smell of raw wool, but as the temps climbed on Friday, it would have been a bit much for non sheep people perhaps ;-).

The usual card display.  What am I going to do with a 13th card next year?  

Volumes 1 and 2 of the Mug Shot Mugs.  

I actually made some felted sheep!

And wool wreaths, which Miss B did a fabulous job embellishing with all sorts of flowers she gathered their garden and fields again this year :-).

I made quite a few medium size wreaths, too, and even figured out an ornament size wreath...that neither B or I took a single picture of...and there were 24 of them in the booth!  How on earth we missed them and all the roving...

Punkin's Patch swag.  I think this design is really cute, but non blog readers didn't "get" it.  That's okay.  I'd rather they were "ours" alone anyway.  If you don't know who Punkin or Miss Ewenice or B. Willard is...

You know what I just realized?  There are no pictures of the 2017 Equinox Farm and Lamb Camp calendars!  Now I'm wondering if I'm missing files on my camera card.  This just makes no sense...

Edited to add:  And while I was waiting and waiting and waiting for the internet to come back yesterday I realized that there were also 24 Maisie Orneries and 24 Ornerie kits that neither Miss B or I took any pictures of.  That's a lot of stuff in a small area to miss getting in a picture somehow!

Anyway, back to the tour...

I had a super cute vintage Ashford Traveller for sale, but it was too crowded to set it out where someone could really try it.  It belongs to a friend's mother who is down-sizing and she has a regular and jumbo flyer, extra bobbins, a copy of Paula Simmons Spinning and Weaving With Wool and it is tuned up and ready to go back to work in case anyone is interested.  

We  sold 20 spindle kits!  As I ordered another 100 wooden wheels last month to make them, I realized that I've made over 200 spindles over the last 10 years.  That's kind of crazy in a sort of exciting way. If even only 10% of those folks stayed with it (like Miss B did :-) that's 20 new spinners! Definitely not a dying craft.

These are the prettiest wool balls I've ever made.  I almost hated to sell them, but what on earth would I do with 150 wool balls?!?  Inside joke - that's my most common question "What do you do with a wool ball?"  I just consider them neat decorations, but most were buying them for dryer balls. Anyway, they were made from the tiny throw away fleeces from Levi's cousins who got shorn this fall.  Perfect! 

Once again, my favorite part of the booth was the digital picture frame.  One thing I forgot to do was update the photo file, so we re-watched the same 2000 (!) pictures I used last year.  No matter.  I was happy to see the oldies.  If you don't already have a digital frame, go get one.  Just priceless to be able to watch and watch and watch.

Punkin's Patch.  All from one little lamb years ago.  You know, sometimes the whole thing just seems unreal. As the sun set and the night lights came on and the really good bands started playing while the dinner crowd grew and I was finally able to stand still and catch my breath and look around, I couldn't help but wonder a bit.  How did all this happen?

If you'd have asked me 25 (or so ;-) years ago what I'd be doing with my life, raising sheep and being a fiber artist teaching people how to spin yarn would never have crossed my mind.  Never. I don't really know what I would have said, but I can promise you it would not have been that.  What a privilege.  

I appreciate everything way more than anyone can even imagine!

Yarn Along - The 2016 Kentucky Sheep And Fiber Festival

20 had to wear his rain gear on Saturday, but was able to ditch the rain coat on Sunday and just wear his mud boots.  With the sides zipped down on our booth we were out of the weather and warm and dry, but welcomed the sun on Sunday just the same.

I'm not exactly sure why I picked Petunia for the festival this year.  She's getting some years on her and I worry about stress on all my sheep, but especially the very young or the not so young.  Well, thank goodness for Petunia!

Hershey (hugger extraordinaire), Spud (sweet as they come) and Woody (I'm sure everyone is going to give me a cookie) were apparently having flashbacks to last year's deluge of rain (or something) and decided they wanted No Part of hugging sheep Saturday.

Petunia finally gave a big sigh and stepped up to the front of the pen.  "I'll handle this, boys."  She talked to everyone, especially little kids and even baa'ed back at a little boy who baa'ed at her.  It was very clear that she understood there was a job to be done...and did it.

When Elizabeth got too old to stay with the main flock several years ago, everyone wondered who'd take over as the lead ewe.  I was surprised when Petunia stepped up.  There were definitely bigger/stronger personalities in the group, but a calm, clear thinker is always the best choice.  Long live the queen!

The booth.  For some reason it never goes together the same way twice.  This year's set up was especially disorganized, but it came together in the end.  As always, a huge thanks to everyone who works so hard to make everything look so good.

New Lamb Camp cards.

A new design.  I'll post some better pictures later this week.  

A couple of Reg's project bags.  Better pictures coming as there are neat details to share.

The new design on a handy tote.

And a new Mug Shot Mug.

I won Reserve Champion with my Renny yarn :-D.  Can't wait to start knitting!

"I was good on Sunday.  I swear."

Yes, you were, Woody.  Everyone had a much happier second day and I appreciate your hard work teaching folks about sheep and different wools and how to best eat cookies and crackers ;-).

There was more to enjoy in the livestock tent.  Bullwinkle might not have been the cutest lamb there :-o  Or was he?  There'll be a Cutest Lamb contest (with prizes :-D) tomorrow!

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While I've handled a lot of yarn lately, I haven't knit anything in forever.  Now that lambing season and intensive bottle lamb season and wool festival season is winding down, I'm chomping at the bit to get started on a couple new projects.  So much fun stuff to do and so little time...

Bullwinkle and I listened to a good book while we were preparing for the festival - the new release from Fredrik Backmann, Britt-Marie Was Here.  I wish he could write a new book every week!

Joining in with Ginny and looking forward to being back next week with some actual knitting to share!

Guess Who WON'T Be Going To The Fiber Festival

Punkin's Patch is once again sponsoring the Hug a Sheep Booth at the Kentucky Sheep and Fiber Festival this weekend.  Spud, Hershey, Andy, Petunia, Woody and Murphy have agreed to be on the hugging list and we'll pick three or four to take over (probably depending on who we can trick into the trailer ;-) in the morning.  Of course Bullwinkle will be there, too.

In discussing who would go this year, Maisie's name came up and everyone fell over laughing.  The little darling...  We could bring her, but she'd have to be transported Hannibal Lector style to keep from turning it into a Get Punched In The Kneecap (And Probably Bit And Maybe Kicked As Well) By A Sheep Booth.  Sweet Hershey is a much better choice!

I think the booth looks nice.  I created several new items this spring that I'm pretty excited about including a new Mug Shot Mug, a special My Favorite Sheep tote bag with matching note cards and note pads and new Lamb Camp cards.  There will be several really nice fleeces, a small amount of roving, lots of Lamb Camp yarn, Punkin's Patch t-shirts...

The forecast is - big surprise for spring weather in Kentucky - not great for tonight and part of tomorrow (which is why we aren't bringing the sheep until tomorrow morning), but Sunday is supposed to be nice and it's already slacking up to the south of us, so maybe tomorrow won't be a wash out either.

Regardless, almost everything is under cover so the sheep shopping, sheep shearing, sheep spinning, sheep hugging... should be lots of fun.  There are even tents down the hill at the Bluegrass Classic Stockdog Trial with a handy shuttle going back and forth.  Speaking of sheep spinning, there are several workshops with openings if you are interested in learning something new!

Please come out and see us and hug a few of your favorite (wet ;-) sheep!

It Was The Best Of Times, It Was The Worst Of Times...

Another Kentucky Wool Festival is in the books.

One of the big highlights of my weekend was Miss B's go big or go home flower arranging.  I'd sent her a text Friday morning and asked if she could bring me a few sprigs of fall flowers when she came up.  She showed up with armfuls (yes, plural :-) of fall asters and goldenrod.  We arranged them throughout the booth and they were fabulous!

Some of the usual stuff...

We put up both quarter round shelves in the "office" corner and that worked like a charm.  Must. Remember. For. Spring Festival.

And something new...

Lamb Camp yarn!

I haven't said much about it because I wasn't sure it was going to be ready in time, but Ohio Valley Natural Fibers did a great job hustling it through and it's really pretty.  I'm very excited about it :-).

In a nut shell, Miss B and I set aside about 75 pounds of wool from the spring shearing at Final Frontier Farm (where Liddy, Blossom, Lila and Keebler came from) and had OVNF spin it into a beautiful two ply worsted weight yarn.

kbdoolin knit a fabulous hat and mittens from it for display and another friend helped me dye some strands different colors to show how happy it was to be bright and colorful as well (if that's your sort of thing ;-).  Both gave the yarn a big thumbs up. Sadly, halfway through the festival some creep(s) stole the hat.  

And my Jester fingerless mitts.
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:-/

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I've been doing this show for twelve years now, I think.  I've never had anything taken.  I wasn't the only one this year.  A hard lesson to learn.  Well, we all already knew the lesson, but I think we like to think the best of people.  At least it wasn't something completely irreplaceable and the love that went into raising, spinning and knitting both items can never be stolen.  And we're going to move on!

I wore the Isle of Purbeck shawl in the evenings.  Perfect!

Took the Renny basket for fun and some "cred".

The 2016 farm calendars were a popular item.

As were the 2016 Lamb Camp calendars and cards.

I sold out of curls the first day.

And even sold some Bird Nesters.  I've been surprised that these haven't sold better.  I love my bag design and seems like everyone loves birds and bird nests and baby birds...  

The mugs sold well.  I had all the mug shots hanging up around the booth and it was nice to be able to put Liddy, Blossom and Lila next to the inside yarn display.  

20 did his usual bang up job advertising for National Hug a Sheep Day (coming up at the end of the month!).  He was hugged and hugged and hugged (and had his nose picked more than a few times :-o) and I wondered if he was really having as much fun as he looked.  Then a family came over and politely asked if they could take some pictures with him and told me they did this every year.  Nuff said.

It's a ton of work to pull this all together.  I'm not just responsible for our farm's booth, but I also organize the entire Wool Tent for the festival.  Sometimes I wonder if it's worth it.  Sometimes I think it's not.  But then when I'm sitting next to 20 or standing in my booth talking to people who come every year to see me and show me what they've been working on, tell me news, good and bad, from their year, talk about the news, good and bad, from my year, offer to watch the booth so I can run to the bathroom or get something to eat, hear Gary doing his spiel about shearing sheep or Alan teaching how border collies work or sharing a cup of hot soup with my friends in the tent, I'm proud of my team here at the farm and at the festival and I take a deep breath...and start thinking about next year.

A huge thank you to everyone!!!

There are more festival pictures on the Wool Tent blogspot and Facebook page.

Who's My Big Brother?

Why it's Baaxter Black! :-D

LannieK was the Random.org winner for her guess.  She'd guessed Woody (a good guess) and also asked how Woody and d'boys were doing.  They're all a little jealous of Liddy (or maybe it's just Baby B who's jealous ;-), but I think they understand she's their little sister and especially Spud loves to stand at the gate talking to her.  

They are also getting excited about the Kentucky Sheep and Fiber Festival this coming weekend! They'll be there working hard (they hope) in the festival's Hug a Sheep booth to benefit the local FFA and 4-H groups.  The hugging booth will be "open" from 1:00 to 3:00 both Saturday and Sunday and the rest of the time they'll be free to mug you for a FEW cookies and crackers.

I'm getting excited about the festival, too.  I have several fleeces I think are competition worthy and a skein of yarn to enter.  All the 2015 fleeces are skirted and look great.  The t-shirts (!) are supposed to be delivered today and I'm very nervously waiting for them.  Saint Tim's working on the new set of Lamb Camp cards and Auntie Reg and I are working on some hand painted spinning aprons.  

Liddy has been helping with sleeping through (which really is a help!) everything, especially the skirting.  I even had to hold her for her Mug Shot.  That's supposed to be the Maisie sweater I'm wearing and a white turtle neck...although now that Auntie Reg has pointed it out to me, my neck does look really long.  Long and thin!  Yeah, that's what it is ;-D  

Come see us!