Spinning Dreams and Weaving Yarns

Geo Rural

2012-02-13T16:18:00.002-06:00

As we head toward sustainability on our five acres in the Ozarks, I have to grapple with the questions of how many animals our land can support, and how many we need to live the way I want to. One of the reasons we moved to the Ozarks is because it is legal to sell goat's milk here, direct from the farm to the customer. I love my dairy goats. Milking is my morning and evening meditation. But, I really only need two milkers to supply our family's needs

Geo is a great mommy and she has the nicest udder to milk.

My favorite doe is Yampa. She is half Oberhasli and half Lamancha. She looks like a big Ober. Born in 2003, she had twins every year until we moved to Arkansas. Then, she wouldn't settle. She milked for four years and finally bred last year to Footsie, our yearling half-Lamancha, half-Saanen buck. The results were Geo and her brother, who found a new home as an infant.

Harley is two days old. She's sure that she is big enough
now to climb up the roof like Auntie Ginger.

This winter, with hay being hard to find and time seeming to be an ever tightening resource, I decided to sell most of my dairy goat flock. I kept three does, Yampa and two yearlings, her daughter Geo and little Ginny. This Thursday Geo had two big, strong girls. We went through obvious G-names - Honey, Heidi, Heather.. and none of them fit. My son Juna suggested Hydro, to go with Geo. I've always appended "Metro" onto Geo's name, so Hydro just didn't work for me.

Saturday afternoon, while we were fixing fence I was watching the little blonde baby, two whole days old, trying to follow her Auntie Ginny up over the roof. The little one could get up on the foundation log of the hoop house, but she can't quite reach the tarp, yet.

Harrah's quite the wee showgirl. She thinks Pequena llama
is a good, long-legged role model.

And the little red baby is so, Red. What's H for red?

These two little girls are so independent, they are little enough that they go right through the fence, so they are as likely to be in the sheep pen or following the llama as they are to be hanging out with their mama.

Geo Metro, Honda? Nope. Suddenly, it hit, the blonde is Harley!

But red, who was visiting with the long-legged llama. What a show-off. She's a show girl, Harrah!

Naming is not usually this much of a struggle. Maybe it's a good thing we won't have a lot of to name this year.

52 Things to do with an old shirt - #2 Make a produce sleeve

2012-02-11T06:45:00.002-06:00

This project is a great one to do in the evenings. It takes tshirt or turtleneck type shirt sleeves, a pair of scissors and a little piece of yarn. There is no sewing at all!

Lay the shirt you are repurposing out flat and
make sure this is one that you don't want to wear any more.

For those of you who are in the process of planning your market garden, this project goes right along with it. Make a bunch of these for your customers while you are dreaming over seed catalogs this winter. Or just make a bunch for yourself and your friends to use in your own shopping.

These are easy, fun and quick to make. You can use long or short sleeves, you'll just get a different sized bag. Wash them just like you wash your tshirts.

Cut off the sleeve, following the shape of the arm hole.

If you have any questions on this project, leave a comment or send me an email.

You'll make cuts where I've marked here. I don't mark my
shirts, but, if it help you get the hang of what we're doing
here, go right ahead. It's also a way to get kids to help.

Make the top two horizontal cut first. Make sure you leave
plenty of fabric above and to the sides of these cuts. They
are your handle and lock. They will get more stress
than the rest of the bag.

Fold the sleeve over about 2 inches from the wrist end and
make your vertical cuts through both sides of the sleeve.
Make them about 1 inch apart, as shown here.

When you've made your cuts all the way up the sleeve,
stopping about 2 inches from the first horizontal handle
cut, take a piece of string and tie it around the wrist end
of the sleeve, knotting it tight.

Turn the sleeve right side out. Go shopping!

After I fill each produce sleeve, I put the big upper loop
through the other horizontal cut, to sort of lock the bag closed.
You can hang your produce in these bags, or just use them
to transport. Cut smaller holes in some bags and larger in others.

This "52 Things to do with an old shirt" may end up being a two year project!

Constructive Communication

2012-02-07T07:16:00.000-06:00

Wow, I've spent the last few days in a brainstorming session and I've learned much about myself. I don't think that was on the non-agenda...

1. Even though I think I am good at "going with the flow," watching and discovering and being open to what happens - I also love being productive, developing action plans and not wasting time. I wanted this meeting to be open to new ideas, not just a rehashing and rubber-stamping of concepts already developed. That would be a real waste of time. And I know (brain) the free flow of this session has been good, look at what I am learning about myself! But I am really struggling with not trying to come up with constructive actions from the session, which isn't even over yet.

2. Writing is a many edged sword. I've seen with ads and press releases that I've written that have been very effective in bringing people to events, but had people expecting something very different than what we were doing. I've written ads that inspire people to call the Folk Center in total confusion about what we are doing. Both got action, but were not constructive. I've also written and communicated in ways that got absolutely no action. I need to be much more careful to write clearly and simply, with a vision of what I want people to do when they read the item.

3. I sometimes write something to attempt to provoke people to think. Usually it is a statement, that while at it's core is true, it is the opposite of what I believe - and what I think the audience for my writing believes. I attempt to use this technique to get people to think about why these things are important. But if I then look at what I've written from an outsider's view, or from the viewpoint of someone in 20 years trying to build on what we were doing, they could get the total wrong impression. Wow. Just like I go through the writings of people I respect and admire and try to follow their vision, someone might go through my writings and ... be completely confused?

4. I need to remember that I do write good stuff sometimes, and get better at the good stuff.

Off to brainstorm...

Groundhog day - time and again

2012-02-02T21:13:00.002-06:00

Happy Groundhog Day.

That Bill Murray movie is one of my all-time favorite movies. I've probably watched it more than any other movie, except maybe Princess Bride.

The theme of blending past and present is one of my favorite concepts. As a renaissance re-enactor and vendor, people frequently asked questions like, "Don't you wish you'd been born back then?"
My answer was always some gentle version of "Heck no!"

I love the old ways. I am passionate about my sheep. I find peace in spinning their wool, dyeing yarn and weaving beautiful things.

I love studying wild edible greens and nibbling on chickweed or discovering that lamb's quarter is sweet even in August. I can't even describe the satisfaction of growing dye herbs and dipping a bright colored skein up out of the magical steaming dye pot after I shepherded the creation of everything that went into making that yarn.

And then I love sitting down with my laptop in my comfy chair and writing my experiences here!
I appreciate being able to research growing plants or sheep ills on the internet. I never had much use for computers until the internet became publicly accessible. Then, suddenly, I had a whole research library at my finger tips. I don't know if the internet, hot running water, or refrigeration would rank as my favorite parts of modern life. They are all right up there, along with the ease of travel. I've read many diaries from around the time of the American Civil War; accounts of the Crusades; and read historical fiction written in the late 1800's. Human beings have always traveled, but now it is so easy to go long distances.

Speaking of reading, "Time and Again" by Jack Finney is one of my very most favorite books. I've read it almost as many times as the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy. I love books about the romantic concept of time travel. I just read Stephen King's "11-22-63 A Novel". It was a most excellent story about what might happen if you go back and change one of the big watershed moments in history. The Outlander series of books by Diana Gabaldon is one of my guilty pleasures. A Scottish time travel romance, it crosses modern and revolutionary American time lines in a way that keeps me reading, and finishing, these books.

That's a long way around saying there is certainly an element of fantasy and wonder in the blending of past and present. It requires a belief in the constancy of some things and a suspension of disbelief on the part of people participating with you. But that doesn't mean it's not real. I am really a shepherd. I've had sheep and goats since 1979 and other livestock before that. I was really up three times last night with the new bottle baby lamb and I really am weaving a thick, soft rug out of Mouse's fleece.

I just need to figure out how to communicate this blended reality to other people, both in my work and in my personal life.

The whole premise of the Ozark Folk Center is perpetuating the music, crafts and herblore of the Ozarks. We learn from the past and pass it on to the future. We live, make and do these things in order to keep them alive. We share them with anybody who takes the time and trouble to travel through these hills to visit.

We are real and we do these things from the past here and now, in the modern world. So how do I answer when someone gets in my face in the park and asks, "What are you supposed to be?"

I'm not "supposed" to be anything. I am me and that's pretty fantastic. And all the other folks in the park are their own wonderful selves, too. And I just need to figure out how to communicate that so visitors, and potential visitors understand it.

That's my goal for this month of February. If you have any suggestions, leave a comment, or give me a holler.

Happy groundhog day!

Nilly's newest present

2012-01-31T21:49:00.000-06:00

Nilly had this beautiful little ewe lamb at about 5:15 tonight.

She's a beautiful little girl with long, long legs.

The end of August, Nilly-bit talked Dapper Dan into jumping the fence. After that incident, we built a stronger fence between Dan-man and the main flock, but we knew Nilly was expecting.

This evening, as I was pulling in the driveway after work, Lena called me to say that Nilly had her baby. I took towels up to the barn after I'd changed into wellies.

Lena dried off the little girl who is all legs and a pretty face. The lamb was up and toddling in less than 15 minutes. She was nursing right away.

Some of you know Nilly. She's been part of our flock since she was born in 2003 and one of the most special sheep we've ever had.

I'm thinking maybe we'll name the lamb Hannah.

Weekend highlights

2012-01-29T14:34:00.004-06:00

This weekend was a sunny warm end to January. I had Arkansas Craft Guild board meeting most of yesterday. We planned events for this 50th anniversary year and worked out details for the March 10th annual meeting.

Emma, half sheared

In the morning before the meeting, Lena and I sheared Emma-sheep. She had a huge girl lamb on Thursday and the lamb was having trouble nursing due to her mum's fleece. We named the lamb Hippo. I don't think I've ever seen a newborn jacob that big.

Lisa says the new mohair throw is divine.

Last night I finished a mohair throw out of Fantasia's fleece. Lisa has graded it "divine" and she is certain that it is hers. We'll see.

The new mohair fleeces are coming along well. The wethers Glitch and Gizmo are still steely gray. I had planned to sell them after this spring's shearing, but we'll wait and see how the fleeces look.

This morning we sheared Frannie and Amyrillis. I think in that flock Elizabeth will lamb first. She's already sheared and then the other two, but it was just better to get the shearing done while the weather is good. I think Nilly will be the next ewe to lamb, and Geo-goat is not too far out, maybe another month. Spring is certainly on the way, but we haven't had winter yet. Not that I'm complaining, mind you.

Shawn's out in the shop making me a pretty pecan size P crochet hook so that I can finish my next 52-things-to-do-with-an-old-shirt project. I'm shopping online for a used front load washer to finish felting my rugs. So many projects to finish and things to do. Life is good here.

Glitch does his pelican pose.

Peach baked cheesecake cups and more lambs

2012-01-26T07:08:00.000-06:00

In the first news of the morning, Emma, one of the wild sheep, is lambing. She's had one so far and may just have a single. I re-bedded their shelter and left them alone. I'll try to catch the baby and iodine it's navel and check it over when it gets to be daylight.

Yesterday, I went to Mountain Home to promote the OFC Cooking Classes on the 726 Show, a hometown talk show about the area. I created and baked up a batch of Peach baked cheesecake cups, that we are going to be making in the February Sweet Treats with whole grains and fruit class. They were good! The cast ate one on air and the crew loved theirs behind the camera.

Oats, butter, honey and muffin pan

Peach Baked Cheesecake Cups

2 cups War Eagle Oats
1/4 cup butter
1 T honey

Melt the butter. Stir butter and honey in with oats. Pack in bottoms and sides of cups in a 12-cup non-stick muffin pan.

Filling Ingredients

1- 15oz. can of peaches packed in fruit juice, store bought works just fine.
2 eggs, farm-fresh preferred (of course!)
8 oz. of neufchatel or fresh creamy goat cheese

Blend the eggs, cheese and peaches 'til smooth.

Blend these ingredients in a blender until smooth. Leave the juice in with the peaches, but do take the shells off the eggs!

Pour the cheese mix over the oats in the muffin pan.

Bake at 350 for 40 minutes. Test with a knife to make sure it comes out clean.

Cool on a rack for 10 minutes or more. Sprinkle with cinnamon.

Serve with slices of fresh peach or a diced peach preserve and a few curls of dark chocolate for accent.

Let cool for at least 10 minutes.

Top with sliced fresh peach

Remember to sprinkle with cinnamon

I created these in part because New York baked cheesecake is one of my all-time favoritest foods. .And peaches... and oats.

Try this recipe and enjoy! Let me know if you have any comments

Treat or trap - the purpose of a catch pen

2012-01-22T17:16:00.000-06:00

The new flock in the catch pen around their grain feeder.
This small space enables us to handle the sheep with
a minimum of stress on both sheep and shepherd.

At 12-years-old, Thyme is rarely fooled by any trap.

We record weekly body and eye scores, as well as any
work we did with the flocks in this simple manner.
This book has the flock records back to 2009.

Catch pens - Treat and Trap

I am a shepherd. I am many things, but if I had to use one word to describe myself, it would be that one “shepherd”. I have raised sheep and goats for more than 30 years and have loved critters all my life.

As a shepherd, it is my job to care for my flocks and give them what they need to have comfortable, productive lives. Sometimes, I have to do things with my sheep that they don’t particularly like. They don’t much like the process of being sheared, but they love the result. It feels so good to them to get rid of that itchy winter wool. And, if I did not shear them, they would die in the summer heat. Sheep do not shed. Of course, I get that wonderful wool to spin and dye and felt and crochet and weave with, but the sheep could care less about that. It isn’t part of their world.

After so many years of living closely with my sheep and goats, I have developed a language for their reactions. Sheep are very curious, as opposed to goats, who are more self-centered.
Sheep love watching humans and the things they do, though as long as the humans stay out of the sheep space, the sheep are perfectly happy to just observe the silly humans we go about our farming and garden chores. Sort of like humans watching television.

However, when we enter the sheep’s space, they observe carefully and classify our behaviour in one of two ways (sheep are simple, they can only count to three). It’s either “Treat” or “Trap”. If our behaviour says Treat, their heads go down and they come over to us looking for the treats. However, if our behaviour says Trap, their tails go up, their heads get high and they trot away as fast as their legs will carry them. Ideally, we’d always be able to enter their space with treats, but that’s not always the most efficient or effective way to manage the flock.

We have a hands-on, organic way of managing our flock, which involves checking each individual sheep or goat on a weekly basis. Since we live by a human schedule of work, projects, deadlines and more work, we do this every Sunday morning and we do it as smoothly and quickly as possible. That means we Trap the sheep in a catch pen. You’d think after all these years, they’d relax about it, but, it is still a trap situation.

Sweet treats - a recipe creation journey

2012-01-20T06:55:00.003-06:00

I'm in the process of creating the recipes for my Sweet Treats cooking class at the Ozark Folk Center on February 4. I love teaching these cooking classes, and eating my way through creating the recipes is part of the fun.

My mom's a good cook. No matter where we were in the world, she kept us fed, good food, day in and day out. But the creative side of my cooking comes from my dad. As a kid, Sunday breakfasts and some dinners were exotic, one-of-a-kind flavor treats. With a bit of this - and a dash of that - he cooks up fantastic pancakes, delicious broiled salmon or colorfully wonderful vegi dishes. To this day, he cooks like this, without recipes. If you ask him right after a wonderful meal, you might get the gist of what is in it. I write some down to try to recreate them, but it will usually take several tries to get close to the same dish. There's a level of artistry in this form of cooking that doesn't translate into recipes.

I cook like that, though maybe not as successfully. Luckily, Shawn is not a picky eater. And I like to write down what I'm throwing in as I do it, so maybe I can make the good dishes again.

When I create a cooking class, I set the parameters for the recipes. This one in February is sweet treats with whole grains and fresh fruit. No sugar...

About a year-and-a-half ago, I made the personal choice to not eat processed sugar or concentrated sugar. I also don't eat "sugar-free food". There is lots of natural sugar in my beloved goat's milk. I eat lots of fruit. I love carrots, corn and peas. Dates are a divine sugar-high. But I am a whole lot healthier staying away from the multiple forms of processed sugar. Probably in part because it makes me and my family cook most of our food from scratch. Did you know it's almost impossible to find a canned chili, store-bought bread or frozen dinner that doesn't contain sugar. Watch your salt and spices, too!

Ok, enough ranting. I love apples and oats and walnuts. So, last night I made these. They are good, but could be a bit better. There's a bitter edge on the back of the taste. Maybe the nutmeg, maybe too much cinnamon, maybe the baking powder, perhaps pecans would be better. These bars are good, but not quite ready for class yet. I'll keep tweaking the recipe.

If you are a creative cook and would like to recipe test for me - I'd love to have you try your version of this recipe and send me a comment about what you changed, or how it worked for you. If you'd like to submit a recipe for me to use in the Sweet Treats cooking class, leave a comment and I'll get in touch with you. Of course, I'll give you credit in the class hand outs.

Apple Oat Bars

Apple Oat Bars

Preheat oven to 325

Combine in bowl
2 cups War Eagle White Whole Wheat Flour
1 cup rolled oats
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp ginger
1 tsp salt

Stir in
2 eggs
1/4 c softened butter
1 cup apple sauce
2 finely diced apples
1 cup milk
1 cup chopped walnuts

Butter a 9X13 glass baking pan and pour in the batter. Smooth it around the pan.
Bake at 325 for 45 minutes. Cool for at least 10 minutes before cutting.

Now, I'm going to go have another Apple Oat Bar for breakfast... they're maybe better than I was giving them credit for at first.

Meet the Flock - Hyssop and Hildy

2012-01-19T19:05:00.003-06:00

I've had several questions about Calliope's lambs that were born this past Sunday, 1-15-12. They are doing well, thank you.

"I don't want to stay in my crib anymore," says Hyssop

Hyssop

"I like it here in the fiber arts studio," says the lamb.
"It smells sheepy."

The little bottle baby finally developed a suck reflex about 4 a.m. this morning. She's been able to swallow what we put in her mouth, but until now, would not suck on a nipple. Life should get easier for everybody now.

Lena decided to name her Hyssop, in honor of the lamb's grand-dam Corriander. Corri was one of the foundations of our flock. Our dam lines all trace back to her, Marjoram, Pennroyal and Thyme. Now that Hyssop's figured out the eating thing, she wants to eat every hour or so. She likes to run around the house, too and is experimenting with the concept of gravity. With Lena's new puppy, Gibbs, only being 17-weeks-old, we are being careful about allowing him to have access to the lamb, so I am babysitting Hyssop in my office this afternoon while Lena runs errands.

"I think I can scratch my face without falling over."

"I don't know why the big sheep all run here
when the two-leggeds come out," says Hildy

Hildy

My dear friend Julia lives in Colorado, but she still has a profound impact on our sheep flock. She has purchased several of Thyme's fleeces and she named Thy's daughter Basil. In 2008, Julia and her husband visited us here in Arkansas. They saw Dapper Dan as a young ram and she really liked him. She thought she might want him when he was weaned. So, we kept him when we sold off the other lambs in the fall. And we kept him the next year, even though he stayed small. And then, in 2010, we started having beautiful, suprise Dan babies. He has matured into an even-tempered ram who grows a wonderful fleece and puts beautiful babies on the ground each year. I think I'll keep him here in Arkansas, even if Julia does make it back to visit.

Half-yearlings Gobi and Guthrie discuss the small sheep,
while Hildy pretends she's more interested in the salt block.

Julia suggested the name Hildy, in honor of Julia's grandmother, for the lamb that Calliope kept.
We don't know the sire of the twins, as Calliope came to the farm bred. However, the only sheep that were on the farm in Fox were the ones originally from our flock, so we are comfortable that they are purebred Jacob.

These twin girls are doing well and growing strong. A good way to start lambing season for 2012!

52 things to do with an old shirt - #1 Make a tshirt bag

2012-01-17T07:15:00.002-06:00

Some of my favorite old tshirts have rips or paint stains.
But they still have memories, so they take up space in my
dresser drawer. I'll never wear this one again, because of
the green paint, and a thrift shop would just throw it out.

Start making your bag by cutting off the sleeves.

All my life, we've had a "Goodwill" bag, or box, where you put old clothes that were still in wearable shape to donate to whatever thrift store was handy. It's wonderful that we live in a country where clothing is so abundant. But lately, I've been hearing this excess is causing serious harm in other countries, especially in Africa. I've researched it enough that I think it's not just an idle worry. If you google "used clothing Africa" you'll find this story and enough others to make you reconsider what you do with your old clothes.

Now, we still have two good local thrift stores, and I still donate my really nice stuff to them. And I've chosen to really limit my clothing purchases, following the old adage "Use it up or wear it out, make it do, or do without." but I still have lots of clothing that I don't wear anymore.

I'm going to start my own project right here. Once a week I'll post what I've figured out to do with re-purposing my old clothing under "52 things to do with an old shirt."

Leave me a comment here if you have any questions, my computer was not being terribly cooperative about loading photos this morning.

Cut off the shoulders and neckline as far above the
decoration as you can.

Cut the sleeves in a strip about 1-inch wide in a spiral, so
you have one long strip. Tshirt material will pull and coil. so
you don't have to finish the edges, unless you want to.

Turn the shirt inside out and stitch the bottom edge together.
For those of you who don't sew, I suppose these sewing
steps can be done with safety pins or staples.

Roll one top edge down about an inch and stitch to make a
tube. Repeat on the other side.

Cut each sleeve strip into three pieces and braid the strip.
Thread each of the two braided strips through the tubes that
you've sewn at the top of the bag.

Now you have a bag with two handles that opens wide
enough to hold lots of things.

You can hang it up to put your old t-shirts in. That green paint
still bothers me, I think this one will be rag bag in my
laundry room, maybe a reminder to get an old shirt out
of the bag when I go to paint something!

Calliope's lambs and yarn tensioning

2012-01-15T10:50:00.000-06:00

When I looked out the window this morning, Guthrie as very interested in the "wild sheep's" shelter. She was poking her nose in the back. I thought maybe she was stealing hay.

Then I noticed that Calliope Jane wasn't down by the fence with Dan and the flock. But after watching for a while, I saw her head move in their shelter.

After I had my first cup of coffee and while I was putting the marinade on the ribs for this afternoon's bar-b-que, I notice Pequena the llama looking in the shelter. There is nothing in this world that Pequena loves as much as babies. The I saw the sight below.

Lena had headed out already and I hollered, "We've got lambs!"

Calliope is very wild, but we had just sheared her about two weeks ago. I knew she was expecting, but I didn't think she was this close.

Calliope is from Corriander's line. This line almost always has twins. However, many times the first-born of the twins goes wandering off while mom is having the second. Newborn lambs can get into all kinds of trouble. We've raised many of this line as bottle babies because of this tendency. This morning's first born lamb had was stuck in the fence, between the two shelters, right where Guthrie had been so interested. She was very cold and very weak.

We warmed her up a bit and got a little colostrum down her and put her back out with her sister. However, after an hour, it was very obvious that she was getting much weaker.

So, I tucked her in my coat, finished chores and brought her in to Lena. Now Calliope has a nice little ewe lamb and Lena has a new bottle baby. Two hours later, they are both doing well. I think it will be fun to let everybody at this afternoon's barbeque name them.

It's an "H" year if you want to contribute any names.

Yarn tensioning device.
My students ask me about the "right" way
to tension your yarn after spinning,
plying and washing it. The right way
is what ever works. Stretching it between
two bungee cords on the porch
is pretty typical in the summer.
However, this morning it was 19-degrees outside.
I love cast iron!

Meet the flock - Cowslip

2012-01-11T06:57:00.000-06:00

Cowslip

Cowslip was born February 14, 2003, on our Laffing Horse Farm outside of La Junta, Colorado. It was our second herb name year, two years before we went to the alphabet naming scheme.

Her mum is Corriander and her sire was Bergamont, both from the Downaire flock out of Texas.

That year, I wanted to do something special for my Aunt Jeannie, kind of a "thank you" for all the looms and yarn and support she's given me, all my life. So I sent her pictures of the ewe lambs and told her she could have one to keep in our flock. The sheep would be hers. She picked Cowslip because of the heart shaped patch on her shoulder and her matching birthday.

A fleeceyful rug from Cowslip's wool

Cowslip has twins every year. Her heart-shaped spot is
on the other side.

Cowslip grew up to be a gentle, quiet ewe. She grows a long puffy fleece each year. I wove a rug with a heart shaped spot out of Cowslip's first fleece for Jeannie. She keeps it in her bedroom. I spun Cowslip's second fleece for Jeannie to weave with. In 2006, Cowslip's fleece placed 3rd in her class at the National Western Stock Show in Denver, Colorado.

The last several year's I've woven rugs like the one on the left. These rugs have sold across the country and the income helps to feed the flock through the winter.

Every year Cowslip has twins. Babette and Faith were two of her exceptional daughters who went on to other Jacob breeding flocks. Because we have to keep our flock numbers down, we have not kept any of her daughters, yet. This year she is bred to Dapper Dan.

I'm glad Jeannie chose Cowslip for her sheep. She's been a wonderful ewe to have in the flock all these years - and she makes me think of Jeannie with a smile every day when I'm out feeding the sheep.

How to make a sheep grain feeder

2012-01-08T15:00:00.000-06:00

One 12-foot sheet of tin, salvaged from a barn that came
down in the ice storm. Two 12-foot 2X4's from's. the same barn.
Several shorter 2X4 and yearling sheep to watch the construction.

(For a how to build a sheep feeder, read the captions on the photos.)

Lena and I have been wanting to get these feed troughs made for... a long time. Today, we finally just did it.

We also put out fresh salt blocks for every pen, putting them in tipped over water tubs. We used the water tubs that had leaks. Hopefully these will keep the salt blocks from dissolving.

We also weaned Little Brother and put him in with Boomer in the young sheep pen and moved Finesse back in with the main flock.

Twelve self tapping roofing screws, power drill and bit.

Attach the tin to the 2X4's, leaving a little wood at the top,
so that the tin doesn't scrape necks or pull wool.

We checked eyes, body condition score and feet on most all the sheep and goats - and trimmed some feet.

Cut two 2X4's 17-inches long. Pre-drill screw holes, bow up
the tin and attach them at each end of the feeder.

Cut six 13-inch long legs and predrill. Attach them to the
main side 2X4's.

We re-tarped the hay stack, in anticipation of rain tonight and counted hay bales, about 100 left. Since we feed about 2 a day, we need to look for some alternative feed. I've checked a the Co-op about ordering some beet pulp.

We re-tarped the sheep tent with the bigger tarp from the hay stack and made sure the sides were covered.

We took the old tarp from the sheep tent and covered the junk pile.

It's a good thing I wrote all this down, because until I sat and did this, I thought I was having a lazy day today!

Put a cross bar 2X4 about 1" off the ground at each end, to
add stability and help keep grain from getting pushed out
the ends.

Calliope' Jane and Elizabeth discuss the new feeder. Note
the salt lick along the west fence. These tipped over tubs
work to keep the salt from dissolving in the rain, yet allow
the sheep access to the salt block.

What if I am the "They"?

2012-01-06T06:55:00.000-06:00

Purple, orange and gold wool wrap in progress

I'm working on a new color series on all three of my looms. It's based on some space-dyed purple yarn and radiates out from there. Several of the pieces don't even have any of that yarn in them, but they are related in that I spun, dyed, purchased or pulled from my stash with that yarn in mind. Like last winter I worked off four different blue dyes that we used in many ways on yarns and fleeces, this winter, I'm working off this purple wool.

Olive green mohair, harvest gold and rust wool shawl

Purple, blue wool and silver thread tri-wrap and
purple with red wool wrap. I'm also in a light
and lacy phase, to go with the purple.

So, when I took the three finished purple wraps in to show them off to friends, I was surprised to hear several people say, "You're always so good at picking the colors that are in style."

Hmm... really? Me? I get to pick the colors that are in style? WOW!

Ok, so I know what they meant, but I was wondering how, in my isolated life here in the Ozarks, with no tv or malls, that I even have any awareness of the colors that are popular. After some thought, I decided it is a peripheral awareness from reading magazines (other than Sheep, which is printed mostly in black and white.), paying attention to etsy and a general awareness of what visitors to town are wearing. I don't do any deliberate research.

Or maybe I AM the anonymous "They" who gets to pick the popular colors. Somebody has to.

Look out world! I have a sudden craving for green.

Weaving dance through my life

2012-01-05T06:54:00.000-06:00

I started dancing when I was young. I remember a little ballet and performing baton twirling. I remember taking a parks and rec belly dancing class when I was about 12-years-old and already almost six-foot-tall. I continued to study dance forms as a teen. I was totally fascinated with Korean fan dances when we lived in Pusan. I took more parks and rec belly dance in Huntsville, Alabama, where the first choreographed dance we learned was to the song "Don't it make my brown eyes blue" by Crystal Gayle.

I started dancing seriously after my daughter was born. I studied, worked out and danced some more. Our living room had only` a dance barre', a large mirror and a bare floor. My two little kids loved it. In 1987 I auditioned to perform at the Colorado Renaissance Festival as a belly dancer. I developed my dance style along with my character from the early 1500's. Rahamina Maya was the daughter of an English architect sent to the Holy Land to learn how to add their minarettes and towers to the English castles. I performed there and many other places in southeastern Colorado through the 1991 season, developing my costume design and creation business along with the dancing. I wrote articles about dance for Jareeda, Connections and other magazines.

I had a small dance studio in Canon City in the early 1990's where I taught belly dance and yoga, which I had been studying since 1982. Life changes took me to Rocky Ford, Colorado, where I opened a dance studio in 1994 and taught until 1999. The style of dance I taught was based on Egyptian cabaret, mostly solo dance with a focus on isolations, body awareness and veil-work. Then, being a newspaper editor consumed my life. I kept my horses for my physical outlet, but mostly gave up dance, except for a very few festivals.

Fast-forward to Mountain View, Arkansas, 2012. Several people have been asking me to teach belly dance here for a few years. I now have studio space available to teach. I've been doing morning yoga and while my isolations aren't crisp and my body is much older and stiffer, I think this awareness would actually help me as an instructor. But I'm a shepherd and a crafter and a manager...

I guess I'll walk through the door, write up a class syllabus, negotiate with the studio for time and see where this path leads me. I'll let you know if the class happens.

Paralysis of analysis and other cliche's

2012-01-04T08:38:00.005-06:00

My desk, 8 a.m. 1-4-12

In a reversal of my usual habit of making sure my desktop is nice and clean and neat before I leave the office for a few days, I deliberately dumped all my "do later" "for the future" and "to file" piles on my desk before I left for holiday vacation. Now, two weeks later, I'm facing the music.

My first day back to work was yesterday, but the whole day was spent in meetings, staff updates, craft village construction considerations and planning the 2013 calendar of events. So now, I'm looking at the pile (or actually, turned sideways to the pile.) My brain wants to make a plan to deal with this, or work around it. After all, I really need to make a to-do list and return 13 phone calls and find out if my Saturday class made and I have end of the month reports due .... I could justifiably avoid the pile for another day, or 6.

Or, I could "Just Do It" and really dig into the pile and have an energized fresh start this afternoon.

So....

Hugelkulture and vacation's end

2012-01-02T19:14:00.002-06:00

Ice storm down logs from Foxbriar.

The garden area to the east of the house

My friend Summer sends me all kinds of cool sustainable living information. She recently emailed me a link about hugel kultur.

We have mud, we have lots of wood... and I'm planning a new garden in somewhat soggy area to the east of the house. I want to do all raised beds. So, I started this afternoon.

I got the first layer of logs from Foxbriar. Logs are heavy. While most of my reading said to pile the organic matter and logs 7 to 8 foot high, I figured I'd build it as high as I could with what I had. I got the first set of logs piled and started hauling wheel barrows of mud.

Mud, we have lots.

Mud is heavy. I took a break to re-tarp the hay stack. I hauled a little more mud. I finished cleaning my workshop. I hauled a little more mud.
I decided this would be a slow project that I would work on this winter until spring planting time.

Today is the last day of my two weeks of vacation. The last two weeks has been a nice time of visiting with friends and family, weaving, working with our animals, traveling and exploration. I'm ready to get back to work. Hopefully, I'll be able to keep up with this chronicle.

Mud ...

Have a creative, productive 2012

2012-01-01T10:43:00.002-06:00

What an amazing way to start the new year!

I took a rich purple wool and silk wrap off the rigid heddle last night and the most delightful purple wool and silver lace shawl off the triloom this morning. Pics to follow once they are done soaking and drying.

Now I have two empty looms, a new box of sale wool yarn from Paradise Fibers that arrived yesterday and a whole day off to design, warp and begin weaving new projects.

I've been playing with my new prototype handwoven handbag and I like it a lot. I do see some design elements that need improving, but I am excited about my new handbag line for 2012.

My New Year's palette -
Handspun Glitch and Fantasia mohair yarns, single ply merino
warp yarn, Circus wool yarn and my new prototype handwoven
wool handbag,made with handspun wool from our jacob sheep,
lined with silk, and supported by handcarved black walnut
handles that Shawn made from a local ice -storm downed
black walnut tree.

I've got several new skeins of mohair that I spun from Gizmo's, Eve's and Glitch's fleeces to work into these projects and more mohair, wool and alpaca fleeces to spin.

I have cooking classes to prep for - this Saturday's comfort food class made with folks coming from across the country for the class. Next Saturday's Locker Hooking class has 12 students and a wait list, so we'll likely be repeating that one soon. And, I just got word that my "Yoga of Interpretation" and "Sales and Interpretation go hand-in-hand" workshops were both accepted for the NAI Region 6 conference in San Antonio in February.

So, I'm off to ball up skeins of yarn, warp looms and plan classes. What a fantastic way to start the new year!

I wish you lots of energizing, creative fun this year. Happy 2012.

Crystal Bridges

2011-12-31T11:38:00.003-06:00

View over the museum from the drive in loop

I don't think I'll ever complain about our OFC entrance again.

Chrome tree at the entrance.

Looking from the restaurant to the 20th Century art gallery.

We finally made it to Crystal Bridges yesterday. We had tried to get tickets for November, but were glad to get them for Dec. 30, when my folks could go with us. Kathy Fielder and JB joined our group.

At 2:00 p.m. on a Friday afternoon, it was very crowded. Shawn and my dad parked three parking lots away, the parking garage and front two lots were full.

The entrance from the drive around and drop off loop or from the parking garage strikes me as strange. Everybody comes in through the elevator tower to the front lobby. It's not an inviting first look. I'm not sure that is the way they have planned for the future? Much of the museum is still under construction.

What was open is fantastic and it is well worth the visit.

I want to go back in two years, in the spring, when all the elaborate landscaping has a chance to mature. I want to go on a day when it is raining hard. I think that rain will showcase this architecture. Winter sunlight cannot do the soaring shapes and concrete terraces justice.

Cool interpretive displays making art accessible.
These need to be played up more in their advertising.
This cool room was empty.

The galleries were centered inside the "mothership",
a way to protect and display the art, while having the incredible architecture.

Dramatic outdoor sculpture with indoor viewing space.
Connecting the inside and outside.

Reading nooks with Nooks (Ok, Shawn says they
are really i-pads), comfortable couches and lots of art books.

More indoor/outdoor collaboration

And lots of famous, real and incredible art, including this
Andrew Wyeth painting.

Hoop houses for sheep shelters

2011-12-28T08:19:00.000-06:00

You need 4 t-posts;
2 8-ft. 2X4's;
2 16-ft heavy duty cattle panels;
1 9X12 heavy duty tarp
1 4X8 sheet of plywood

We raise Jacob sheep, colored angora goats and commercial cross dairy goats on 5 acres in the rural Ozarks.

We've been raising sheep and goats since 1982. We keep our flocks small, breed for the very best and attempt to improve our land and remain sustainable.

It rains a decent amount here. Our yearly average is in the 50-inch range. In fact, all our weather is mostly middlin'. Four good solid seasons with a good range of all weather possibilities. However, we do have infrequent wind. I'm not sure how the hoop houses would hold up in an area with constant wind.

Pound the t-posts in a rectangle so that the 2X4's fit inside
the posts and the plywood sets on top of the boards
at the back.

So, our flocks need a bit more shelter than the woodlot provides and we do not have a barn. We try to use rotational grazing on our 1/2 acre paddocks with a plan to improve the forage quality. That's a long range plan.

To go along with this, we build shelters that we call hoop houses. They are simple to put up, taking only about 1/2 hour with two of us if we have all the materials ready. They are comfortable shelter for four of our small breed sheep or goats. If we have more than 4 animals in a pen, we build 2 or more hoop houses, side-by-side. Then we can use the V between the two shelters for a hay feeder.

Bend the two cattle panels and lift them to fit between the
two boards.

The cost for each of these hoop houses runs about $100.

2 Cattle Panels @ $25 ea. = $50.00
4 t-posts @ $4.00 ea. = $16.00
2 2X4's @ $4.00 ea. = $8.00
1 Sheet plywood @$12.00=$12.00
1 tarp @ $15.00 = $15.00

Stretch the tarp over the panels. We need air circulation here,
so we leave the gaps at the bottom.
Kitty is our construction foreman.

Tie the tarp to the panels at the grommets with baling twine.
Tie the panels to the t-posts where there is no tarp,
to keep them from blowing away. Dapper Dan and Kitty
check the quality of construction.

We usually leave them in place for a season, about 6 months. We bed them with straw, and feed hay in the shelters, letting the bedding build up to keep the animals dry. You can see the old pad of bedding and manure to the left of the new hoop house we are building. This will grow forage grasses from the hay seeds next spring.

This process works well for our flock management.

Tie the cattle panels together with baling twine.

Sisters, seeds and heritage roses

2011-12-27T06:46:00.000-06:00

I was just finishing trimming up my nutmeg scented geranium and enjoying the delicious, spicy aroma on my hands, when the coffee pot finished perking and I decided I wanted to sit down, write this blog post and drink a cuppa joe. We've been having a wonderful holiday season with family and friends. My parents are visiting from Colorado and we've been talking about family history and travels.

One of my very favorite books is "Sisters, Seeds and Cedars" by Sarah Fountain. The book is made up of the correspondence between two sisters, Cornelia and Clara from 1850 to 1928. Starting in Alabama, where Cornelia stays, the letters share their life through Clara's move to Arkansas. They discuss family visits, births, deaths and the trivia of normal lives. At one point, Clara asks Cornelia to send her a cutting of Grandma's rose, next time Daddy comes up this way. I love old fashioned cottage roses, with strong scent and big rose hips. I imagine that's the type of rose that Clara wanted.

Rose is the 2012 Herb of the Year, designated by the International Herb Association. I want to find the right heritage rose to plant on the fence where we stack hay. That space should keep it safe from the critters while it is getting established. Roses tend to get out of hand in Arkansas, but we have goats to keep it in line if it starts to grow out of bounds.

In a quick google search, there is a lot of info out there on heritage roses. This blog in particular caught my interest. So far, this is the rose I want, a Zephirine Drouhin, a French rose from the late 1800's. But, I have a lot more research to do and several months before I need to order my roses. And I am out of coffee, and I have a gorgeous purple wool and silk wrap on the loom that I want to finish weaving today.

Merry Christmas from the sheep at Laffing Horse Farm

2011-12-25T07:32:00.001-06:00

Boomer greets his girls

Laffing Horse Fiona, one of Boomer's new ladies.

/Boomer puts the moves on Laffing Horse Finesse.

My christmas ram, Boomer, has settled in. It's a bit fast, but he is very healthy and has recovered from his cross-country journey just fine. He came directly from an extremely well kept herd and being the very tail end of breeding season - Boomer has his girls.
He is quite the gentleman, but did go right to work. His flock consists of Fiona, Finesse, Greta, Gypsum and George, who will be his constant companion.
Since we started allowing ourselves to keep special wethers, we assign them flock jobs. Bones and Mouse are the peace-keepers in the main flock, Nibbles is Dan's companion and George now belongs with Boomer.
Its was so sweet last night, and I didn't get a pic of it - my folks are here from Colorado for Christmas. My mom sat out on the back porch to keep me company while I did chores. Boomer and George came up to check her out. She started petting Boomer and pretty soon he laid right down next to her. A rare treat of sheepie company from a pretty special ram. My Christmas sheep Boomer.

Living Nativity

2011-12-23T11:48:00.000-06:00

The small hamlet of Mountain View, Arkansas, which I now call home, never ceases to amaze me.

This tiny town, with a population of about 2,800, is pretty isolated in the Ozark hills.

Mountain View is not on the way to anywhere.

But it is a delightful place to go out of your way to get to.

The Living Nativity in the Pickin' Park in
Mountain View, Arkansas.

And the Angel spoke to Mary.

The shepherds tend their flock of one patient Demi-sheep.

Whiskey and Tango the donkey's watch over Mary and Joseph
and the baby, while Jackie Martin's wee goat plays in the stable.

During the holiday season, there is Caroling in the Caverns, a whole host of Christmas cantatas and performance, the Christmas Feast at the Ozark Folk Center and this year, a wonderful living nativity performance in the Pick'n Park downtown.

I took sheep for the shepherds. Demi enjoyed her performance the first night and Mr. Bones and George shared the billing the second night. They got petted and fussed over and even shared a few sugar cookies.

It's a wonderful life!

Ambassador Boomer

2011-12-23T06:53:00.001-06:00

Almost the whole way home, the driving rain continued. We stopped very few times on the last leg of the trip home. At one point, I think it was in Wynne, Arkansas, we pulled into the Wendy's drive through. Boomer peered out the passenger window of the PT Cruiser at the drive through attendant.
"What's that?" she asked as she looked out to tell Shawn the total for our meal.
Shawn rolled down Boomer's window so the sheep and human could study each other. He explained that Boomer was a rare Jacob Sheep. The rest of the crew gathered around the window.
"Is he for Christmas?" one asked in a tone that implied Christmas dinner.
Shawn laughed and replied, "In a manner of speaking, he's her Christmas present. He's not for dinner, he's our new breeding ram."
"You have more of them!" she exclaimed.
Then someone hustled the crew back to work and we got on our way with our very excellent burgers and fries. It's been years since I've eaten at a Wendy's and I very rarely eat beef. Wendy's food is better than I remember.
When we'd stopped the night before at a Subway, my usual fast-food stomping ground, I took Boomer out to walk him, try to get him to drink and let him eat some grass on the median. A man came out of the store next to the Subway with a huge smile on his face. He explained he had been a shepherd in Guatemala and had grown up raising sheep. He asked if he could pet Boomer and they shared a nice introduction.
Then another man walked across the parking lot and asked, "Can I take a picture of your goat."
From where he was crouched by Boomer's head, the first man replied, "He is a SHEEP!" and then he looked at me. I smiled back. It was so nice to have someone else make that correction for a change.
We all shared a comfortable few minutes of education, photographs and camaraderie before we loaded Boomer back in the car and got on our way.
When we got back to Mountain View it was 5:15. I was supposed to be a the living Nativity in the picking park with sheep at 5:30. I stopped to explain to the show leader that I might be a few minute late. Carl know about our trip to Georgia for our new ram and wanted to visit the famous Boomer. I thought about using Boomer in the nativity, but when I saw his travel weary face in the car as he let Carl pet his head, I knew he needed to be home.
We pulled into the driveway, and with the three humans working in concert, we quickly moved the wild ewes and Dan-man into the small sheep run next to the horse run, grabbed George from the main flock and put him with Boomer in the pen next to the house. Then Lena and I grabbed Demi, our remaining Icelandic ewe and Shawn and I went back to the park. I made it at five-past-six.

Boomer at Wayne and Leesa's

2011-12-22T13:08:00.000-06:00

Lisa feeds Boomer breakfast in the kitchen

Boomer fits right in with the antique sideboard and Nativity.

When we arrived at Wayne and Leesa's last night, they said it was fine to bring Boomer in to their beautiful big log cabin. They built this wonderful working house themselves back in the late 1970's.

I really didn't want to bring a ram into someone else's house, especially an unknown ram into a house full of beautiful antiques. So Boomer spent the night in the car. We left the windows partly down, so he had ventilation and he had a bale of hay and a bucket of water.

This morning it was pouring rain. Not something new for this trip. I think the sound of the rain on the roof of our very comfortable room helped me sleep in until after 6 a.m.

Leesa and I went outside and haltered Boomer to take him for a walk. He doesn't like the halter. He was too busy fussing at the thing on his face to eat or drink. She again said it was fine to bring Boomer in the house. So, we did.

He was good and calm and very careful with his horns.But the halter was still bothering him. After checking things out, I took off his halter and Leesa fed him some grain and got him to at least dip his muzzle in the water. Boomer was a very well behaved, prim and proper house sheep.

Leesa's dad makes birdhouses and she has done
this really cute Christmas display of them on the
mantle of their massive fireplace

We had a wonderful breakfast and enjoyed talking brooms and craft shows with fellow crafts people before heading out in the rain. It is such a blessing to have such wonderful friends.

Now we're on the road to home. Stay tuned for more "Travels with Boomer".

Shawn and Wayne discuss broom design as we try to wait
for a break in the rain.

Boomer - or - What did you do on Christmas vacation?

2011-12-21T16:08:00.001-06:00

My wonderful man, Shawn, who will drive me
all the way to Georgia for a sheep.

What Shawn's been driving through for most of the last day.

The Canoe Lake Farm Jacob flock. Boomer's folks.

I can't say it enough. I am so blessed. Blessed to live in the wonderful paradise of Mountain View, Arkansas. Blessed to work for Arkansas State Parks at the Ozark Folk Center. Blessed to have wonderful friends and a fantastic family. And, blessed to share my life with a dear man who, among other things, gets me what ever I want for Christmas.

My wants have ranged from a chain saw, to sheep fence, to Baltic amber, to a new ram for our Jacob Sheep flock. Which is why poor Shawn has been driving through pouring rain for much of the last day, so we could pick up Canoe Lake Sonic Boom, "Boomer", just outside of Atlanta, Georgia..

Canoe Lake Farm is beautiful and the sheep they raise are wonderful Jacobs.Owners Scott and Cathy Brown have been great to work with. Scott had all the papers ready when we arrived and Boomer put up in the barn. Boomer was nice and dry, a real plus as it's been raining hard all day.

Boomer is young and nervous, but he let me halter him. He likes to eat treats out of your hand, which will do him well in our flock of treat-beggers. We scooped him into the car and headed back to Atlanta. It's heading on to 5:00 p.m. Georgia time and Boomer's settling as we drive. I've given him a few handsful of grain and Shawn and I are munching whole grain cheese-its. We have Johnny Cash on Pandora.

Rush-hour traffic in Atlanta is 14 lanes wide of stop and go. (There's a whole 'nother blog post there about lifestyle choices.) I do love to visit cities.

Our wonderful broom making friends, Leesa and Wayne Thompson have offered us their hospitality again tonight and it looks like we'll stop.there.about 9:00.

Boomer is still not sure that sheep are meant to ride in cars.

Traveling down memory lane in Alabama

2011-12-21T13:40:00.000-06:00

I graduated from JO Johnson High School in May of 1979. My folks gave me a horse trailer for a graduation present. As soon as I graduated, I loaded up my worldly goods and moved to Colorado. And I haven't been back to Alabama until today.

J O Johnson High School

It was an interesting trip back in time. The glimpse of the rockets at the Air and Space museum brought tears to my eyes and a thrilled gasp from Shawn, who was driving. Huntsville is a whole lot bigger than I remembered, or maybe it's grown a bit in the last 32 years. It's also a whole lot more agrarian than I ever realized. I was fascinated with how memory works when I remembered street names and found my way from my old high school to our old house. We only lived there two years, so I wasn't sure if I'd be able to find any thing or recognize it. I did.

I remember sitting on the concrete under the white pillars in front of the school with Lisa Hilburn after she'd drank so much carrot juice the palms of her hands were turning orange. I remember running on the track to the left of the school in the early mornings. I remember high centering somebody's vw bug on the dividers in the parking lot. I remember getting to go up on the roof to see a fly-by of the new space shuttle piggy-backed on a 747.

Our old house on Wayne Court.

I remember walking to school in the mornings and the smell or the little farm along the walk way...

Which got me thinking about memory paths and life choices. That's a lot longer thought train than one blog post!

However, I realized that the relative of Miss Melody's who I portray as a living history character, based on her diary, Miss Martha Mills, moved from Lancaster County Georgia to Stone County Arkansas in 1859. This is the path we are taking. To see this land, quickly through a car window, and imagine a group of young families making this journey by wagon and on foot... it adds to the depth and realism with which I can share Miss Martha's memories.

Now I really should help Shawn navigate. He'd been driving through a pouring rain for several hours. We are about 29 miles from Canoe Lake Farm and our new herdsire.

The times we live in

2011-12-20T19:32:00.001-06:00

It's about 7:30 at night. We are cruising down the highway somewhere in Mississippi or north Alabama, listening to indie rock on Pandora radio, following directions from our GPS, enjoying the sultry night air on this winter solstice eve and each other's company. I'm writing this blog post and feeling totally amazed at this wonderful life we lead.

More modern sheep tales

2011-12-19T22:47:00.000-06:00

This story starts somewhere back in the beginnings of this blog - or maybe way before that. When we started with Jacob Sheep, we gathered flock members from two flocks out of Colorado, Broken O and Rising Sun. We also purchased a flock out of Texas. We selected sheep that were healthy, had good wool and were true to Jacob type. Natural selection helped keep our herd's mothering ability, ease of breeding and lambing and parasite resistance.

We had good luck showing fleeces at Estes Park, Taos, Soldier Hollow and Farmington. In 2006 we took Grand Champion Natural Colored Farm Flock, Reserve Grand Champion Ewe and many other ribbons at the National Western Stock Show in Denver. We picked, bred and raised great sheep.

When we moved to Arkansas, we sold most of our sheep. We kept 32, and discovered that was too many for our new land. So we sold many of our top ewes.

But we still kept a good ram, Beetle juice and several good ewes, including our first Jacob ewe, Thyme. In the course of things, Thyme had Basil and Basil had Dapper Dan, our current herdsire. Dan is the sweetest ram we've ever had. I have pics of goat kids riding on his back. He is also beautiful, shears a gorgeous fleece every year and puts very nice babies on the ground. Even after this summer's sell down, we have his daughters Finesse, Fiona, Gobi, Guthrie, Gypsum as well as his mother, grandmother and sister Clementine in the flock. We need a new ram.

In October, I started looking. I wanted a registered 4-horned ram. There were several nice ones available. I wanted East Coast bloodlines, as our flock was western based. I was trying to figure out how to get transport for Unzicker Ike, when I found he was returning to his flock of origin. During the Sheep to Shawl competition at OFC I started corresponding with Cathy Brown at Canoe Lake Farm in Georgia. She had a nice ram lamb that fit what I was wanting. His name is Canoe Lake Sonic Boom or "Boomer". I took his picture to the Sheep to Shawl and everybody agreed he was nice.

Boomer went on to show at SAFF . He came in mid-way in his class. Pretty good for a little guy who was about a month younger than the rest of his class.

My sales at shows and in the gallery were good this fall. Many of my fleecewoven rugs have new homes and I've sold more handspun shawls this year than ever before.

Shawn set a goal for the Christmas Showcase show in Little Rock. If we reached that goal, he said, he'd buy me my new ram for Christmas. We reached it, and tomorrow morning we are leaving for Atlanta. I'll post pics and keep you updated here.

Tomorrow night we are staying with our wonderful friends Wayne and Leesa Thompson in Leighton, Alabama. Shawn will get to see some of the north Alabama hills that I grew up in. Fun travels, fun memories - all for the love of sheep.

Sheep returns

2011-12-16T20:16:00.001-06:00

In the summer of 2007, after we had moved the sheep to Arkansas, we realized we did not have enough grass on Foxbriar to feed them all. A lady in Fox was looking for some sheep for her daughter to show in the county fair. We sold her a small starter flock that included our reserve champion 2006 National Western Stock Show ewe, Alice.
Yesterday, she called me. Her daughter had gone off to college. She only had a few descendants of the original flock left and she did not want to keep sheep anymore. Did we want them?
Well, their dams and sire were some of our best sheep...

This girl looks like she's a Corriander daughter.

I can certainly tell this one is Alice's daughter.

So, these five ewes are now in the quarantine pen next to the house with Dan-man.

Gift Show

2011-12-12T07:53:00.000-06:00

I just decided I want to get my camera to take an in progress photo of the baby blue rectangular shawl I'm working on for a special order when the old kitty, Halfie, settled down on my lap. She was born in 1994, right after we moved into the house in Rocky Ford, Colorado. She is now a little tottery and has a hard time jumping up into a lap. So, I guess the picture will wait for either another day, or somebody else in the house to walk by and hand me my camera from out in the kitchen.

Lena came by and handed me my camera.
This mohair shawl is a different style than I usually weave.
It's good to stretch boundaries every once in a while.

I've finished laundry loads for this week. One good thing about traveling frequently is that you can take everything out of the suitcase, wash it, and put it back in... I think that's the way it's going to be for the next few months.

Carolyn Higgins, the Ozark Folk Center Homespun Gift Shop manager, and I are headed to the Arkansas State Parks Gift Show at Degray Lake State Park this morning. I do enjoy trips down there and always find new things to photograph. We have many ideas and concepts to go over with our marketing manager and will enjoy getting to network with other gift shop people. We are also shopping for Made in Arkansas products. It is our goal to have everything in our shop made in Arkansas. Carolyn has done a great job with the consignment program, which goes a long way toward our made in Arkansas goal.

Update and a few quick stories

2011-12-09T07:11:00.000-06:00

Blogs aren't for updates, that's what Facebook is for, but life's been such a whirlwind, I haven't been keeping up with either one.
Thus far, this winter has been - winter. We had our first iced-over water troughs on Dec. 1. This year's lambs are always fun to watch with that new experience.
Guthrie and Little brother were intrigued. They like to play with anything new. They would nuzzle the ice and then bounce back, shaking their heads. Then they'd put their muzzles together as if discussing this new phenomenon.
Greta just shook her head and walked off. She seems to take all changes as a personal insult.
Gobi hung back, she waited for her brother and Guthrie to figure it out.
Gypsum didn't care, she always assumes that the people will make the world right for her princess-self.
Then we had the first snow of the year this Tuesday, Dec. 6. It wasn't deep, but it is still hanging around. It's been pretty cold the last few days.

Our lives have been a whirlwind of farm chores, Ozark Folk Center events, Arkansas Craft Guild volunteering, Christmas Showcase preparing, weaving, carving, booth building, web site design, broom tying, fiber dyeing, advertising proofing, mohair carding, crocheting, spinning... It's a fantastic, fascinating, ever entertaining mix... but I think we're all ready for a bit of a winter nap.

Tagging it

2011-11-25T04:18:00.001-06:00

Every spare moment of my life right now is spent at the loom, weaving my way to Christmas Showcase in Little Rock. Not only do I feel very honored to be in this prestigious show, but Shawn and I are going to be right inside the front entrance, so our booth has to be full.

He and Lena have been tying brooms like crazy, after having a very good October, so that half of the booth will be full with colorful, creative brooms. I'm a wee bit competitive, so I want my half of the booth to be as fully and beautifully stocked with rugs, shawls, hats, scarves, felt balls, spirit bells and maybe, if I can get to them, a few handwoven handbags.

This rug of Dapper Dan's fleece has the picture of him below
on the tag. It also has the Scrappie dog seal of approval.

This is about the time before every show that I always remember, these things not only have to be designed, created, made and finished; they have to be tagged, bagged and presented in a pleasing manner.

Shawn is working on the biggest part of that equation, building a wood framed, fabric lined 10x15 foot booth that will make a great display space. And I've located and purchased several hat displays and I'll use my rug ladder and old spirit bell display. But I still have to tag everything!

For my commercial yarn shawls, I've started recycling greeting cards that I've received. I cut the front off and fold it into a triangle. Then I hole punch the corner and write a bit about the shawl, its name, the fiber content of the shawl and care instructions inside the tag. I put the price on the back.

LHF Dapper Dan, our Jacob Sheep herdsire.

For my handspun shawls and fleece rugs, I am developing a new tag. We've had several types of tags in the past. I used to have a slick, colorful tag with a picture of our Grand Champion ram Broken O Caruso on the front with Fleecyful Wool Rugs at the top and care instructions on the back. For the last several years I've used a home-printed on parchment type paper tag that has a line drawing that Shawn did of our homebred Jacob Sheep ram LHF Dogwood. Inside I hand write information about the sheep or goat that grew the fleece in the item, care instructions and a bit about my rug making process. They are nice tags and I may use quite a few of them for this show.

But I keep having people ask for pictures of the sheep and goats that grew the fleece in the item they are buying, so I've started making tags with a picture of the animal on front, printed information about them inside and care instructions on the bottom. I really like these tags, but right now it is taking me almost an hour to create each tag, and that's for the critters I already have pics of. As time goes on, I plan to do one for each piece I make, as I finish it, but there will only be a few on some of the new rugs at Christmas Showcase.

And now, back to weaving.

Java hunting

2011-10-31T05:26:00.001-06:00

I truly believe in eating local and knowing your food producer.
Living in Arkansas and having our own small farm, that's pretty easy for us to do, for the most part.
But I do love my coffee! And the real stuff doesn't grow here.
I don't want any ground root substitutes or tea, gimmee my Java!
So, in May, I started a search for good, healthy coffee. Just coffee, no more artificial flavors or additives, just plain good coffee. Shawn tries hard to find me whatever I want, so he went out and bought a small bag of every available coffee in Mountain View. At one point, our freezer was mostly full of coffee. Did I mention that we drink a lot of coffee?
There were lots of ok coffees. There were a few good coffees. There was one coffee that was memorable only for its slogan, "Exclusively brewed for everyone." I think their slogan writers need a dictionary.

I found one pretty good organic coffee that was available at Walmart. It did concern me that the coffee was labeled "Product of Canada." Last I looked, they can't grow coffee up there, either.

I started reading and researching coffee on the web. It didn't take me long at all to decide that I wanted only organic coffees. We farm organically, we buy organic produce and yet it had never occurred to me that they use lots of pesticides and herbicides in growing coffee beans. Yikes, and I've been drinking this stuff for 40 some odd years. And where do you think all the pesticides and herbicides that get banned in the US go?

Then, walmart quit carrying my organic coffee.

I started searching on the web. I have trouble sleeping much past four in the morning. That is mostly my weaving time, some of my yoga, cheesemaking and cleaning time, but it's also my computer time.

Did you know you can spend a lot of money on coffee? Cost has to be one of my criteria. Though I wanted organic, I have a pretty limited budget.

What about Fair Trade? While I agree with their premise, and I will buy it when there are other reason's for purchasing the product, until Fair Trade applies to small farms and artisan's in the US, I'm not a big follower. I live with too many people who do not have health care, adequate heating, indoor plumbing and other "comforts" of life because they live the producer path here in the US. Take care of home first, then, if you have extra resources, you can go save the world.

Back to Java.

After reading for many mornings, coffee is quite the passion with people, there's a lot of info out there, I ordered a sampler pack from Dean's Beans and 5 pounds of their Moka Java, which sounded like a coffee I would enjoy. I do like it - it's pretty good.

And so far, we've tried the Uprisings and French Roast. Also good coffees. The French Roast leaves a great flavor in your mouth, not something you can say of too many coffees.

this morning, I made a pot of Ring of Fire. That is awesome coffee! It inspired this whole blog post. The only problem I have with it, is I now have Johnny Cash on my head radio, but that's not really a problem, is it?

She knew

2011-10-30T13:56:00.003-06:00

She watched with a knowing smile as I gently folded the shawl and put it in the garment box.

"It's hard for you to let go of them when you made them, isn't it?"

She was right.

Evie's Ribbon Shawl, sold 10/30/11

The shawl was beautiful on her. It looked like I'd made it for her. As I say with so many of my hand spun shawls, this one was one of my very favorite shawls. It was Eve's lacy grey mohair, some of it over-dyed with rose, mauve and burgundy, more of it natural, woven with a soft rose ribbon. The fringes were medium length with the ribbon and mohair intertwining. It is a lovely shawl.

And she loved it, it is perfect for her. But still, it is hard to let it go.

As I've grown as both as a fiber artist and a shepherd, I've learned to price things not only where they need to be to sell, but also where they need to be to comfort my heart. My head knows I can't keep all the things that my hands weave, and it knows that we need income to feed all the critters who grow the fibers I love to work with, but my heart yearns after the ones I let go.

She knew, and that made it even more special.
I did make that shawl just for her, and I'm glad she bought it today.

Real farmstead cheesemaking

2011-10-09T14:58:00.001-06:00

I've milking goats since 1979 and I've had my own flock since 1982. When you have milk critters, you often have those times when you open the fridge and find it full of milk. That is when you make cheese. You can do some planning and scheduling, but the full milk fridge will often crop up at a time when you really have a zillion other things to do.

As a farmer, I cannot tolerate wasting food. Right now, I don't raise bottle calves, I only have half a dozen milk customers (it's legal to sell goat's milk directly from the farm here in Arkansas, a big part of why we moved here) and I don't raise pigs, so , when the fridge is full, I make cheese.

A spatter screen makes a great cheese pot lid
in a busy farm household.

There are quick and easy cheeses that freeze well for winter when the does are dry. There are cheeses to make specifically for a potluck or a recipe I want to try and then there are times when I just want to make something a little more. Today, I wanted to make mozzarella.

It's not a terribly hard cheese. but you do have to pay a bit of attention to it to get it to work out. I alway s make my cheese in a double boiler arrangement of big canning pot and big stainless steel bucket. This has many purposes, it keeps the milk from scorching and makes it easier to change temperatures gently.

Smart phones have a timer app so that you can work at other projects
and set an alert for when you have to check the cheese next.

Set up your pots and warm your milk to no more than 80-degrees. Mix up either thermophilic cheese culture or good quality yogurt with about 1/2 cup of cold milk and add it to the pot of warm milk. Stir gently with an up and down motion. Cover and let incubate for 30 minutes (or so). If you carry a smart phone, like so many of us do now-a-days, down load a timer app. Each time you are supposed to do something with the cheese in 15, 20, 30 minutes, etc. you can set your phone and then go get your other work done, like fixing the front fence that the sheep decided was optional.

Fixing fence is a higher priority than a pot of cheese on the stove.

Back at the cheese, mix 1 teaspoon full of liquid rennet with 1/2 cold milk. In another cup, mix 2 tsp citric acid with 1/2 cold water. Stir the rennet into the milk and then the citirc acid. the milk may flake a bit, but don't worry about it. Let it set 15 minute and check to see if the curd is set. If not let rest another 15 minutes. Now is a good time to work on the weaving in your shop, or go plant blueberries. That was what was on the to-do list for today.

Planting the blueberry hedge is the thing
that was on the schedule for today. It's been so dry
I'm having to use a pickax to dig in the
normally soft dirt on the east side of the house.

I got two types of locally grown blueberry plants for a hedge on the east side of the house. When I sold two of my very favorite angora goats, who had decided that they really didn't want to stay in the fence, I felt like I needed something to assuage the pain from the hard decision. I'm sure Evie and Bramble have a great new home, and I now have a baby blue berry hedge.

My blueberry guy said to plant them in peat moss and mulch them with pine needles, so it made senxe to me to plant them under the pine tree. I hope it works. I did spend most of the day, around cheese making and fence mending, regular chores and laundry, planting blueberries.

Oh yeah, back to the cheese.

When the curd breaks over your finger, or has sunk in a lump to the bottom of the kettle, cut it into one inch squares. Stir gently and begin to raise the heat very slowly, no more than 1 degree/minute to 113 degrees. Stir often to keep the curd from matting in an up and down motion. this process works well with weaving in the studio near the kitchen.

Heat the milk to 113 degrees. A digital thermometer is wonderful!

When it gets up to temp, remove the kettle from the fire and let set for a bit. (Go plant another blueberry or two.) Stir well before you leave.

Learn to use tools. Just because you can pour a 3-gallon steaming
cheese pot, doesn't mean that it's a good idea.

Wash your hands when you return. Set up a large colander over another food grade bucket with a tea towel or other butter muslin type cloth. Ladle the curds into the cloth. The whey will drain off of the curds. Save this to make bread or soup. If you want to add some salt now, it is good to stir it into the curds before you tie them up to drain.

Hang the cheese to drain. We've always put a
rack of some sort over the sink for this reason.
My kids grew up thinking that everybody had
a sign that said "Beware the Cheese" on their kitchen sink.

Tie the corners of the cloth together and hang the cheese to drain. Now is a good time to go plant the rest of the blueberry plants.Before you head out though, make sure you drink a big glass of water.

The fibery side

2011-09-23T05:59:00.001-06:00

The internet was down at the house yesterday morning, but I did write a blog post on word pad. I'll upload it later today.
I had a nice visit with the interpretation class at Arkansas Tech University in Russellville yesterday. They are a fun, creative bunch of kids. I look forward to seeing some of them as seasonal interpreters in our parks next summer.

I like to wake up and weave in the mornings. I weave standing up at my triloom in the quiet of the day, as the sky starts to lighten. I listen to the animals waking up and the birds beginning their songs. Sometimes I plan my day and work out issues, sometimes I don't think at all, I just weave.

The fall colors shawl currently on my "morning loom" my
quiet weaving triloom.

I like to weave on my Newcomb when I get home from work. This big loom makes a lot of noise as I pull the beater in to pack the fleece. It is a good workout after a day at work.

The Dapper Dan rug currently on my Newcomb, the big,
loud, strong rug loom that I weave on in the afternoon.

Then, after chores in the evening, I love to sit and spin yarn on my wheel or crochet hats in my easy chair. The fiber artist segments of my day dovetail productively, peacefully and naturally with all the rest of my life.

Pogo focus

2011-09-21T06:08:00.000-06:00

The weather is foggy soft and beautiful this morning. The crows are cawling on the hill and the garden spider on the porch is moving slow.
My brain is all over the place this morning, not an effective way to get anything accomplished.
I've thought about composing a cowboy poem for the poetry contest this weekend about riding Liya on one of our epic cattle gathers. I can feel her bouncing, mincing steps, see the steam coming from her flaring nostrils and see her tail flagging high.
I have a rug I sold on etsy that needs to be marked, packed and shipped.
I still need to finish dishes.
I am teaching an interp workshop at Arkansas Tech in Russelleville tomorrow and I need to polish off that program about crafting to make sure it will catch college students attention.
I was going to write this blog post about the chiengora yarn I just finished spinning last night that I am going o wash, set and block tonight.
I haven't done my yoga yet and it is time to do chores, shower and get to work!

Studio Tour

2011-09-20T06:12:00.002-06:00

I read somewhere once that if you can just keep doing something for 21 days, it will become a habit. Now it is possible that I have too many habits to fit another one in, like right now, I have 5 minutes before I need to go milk the goats - and that habit has been with me for 32 years. And I really can't sleep unless I unwind in the evening by doing something fibery, the last two evenings it has been custom spinning some nice fluffy dog hair. But, I really want my writing to become a habit.

So, day one.

Erie has been hollering for 24 hours. I bred her to Footsie yesterday morning and I hope it took. She is the world's most obnoxious goat when she is in heat.
I'm headed out to milk and do chores in just a minute. The air is soft and cool this morning. We had a couple inches of rain night before last, so everything is still delightfully damp.

The east wall of my studio with shawls and my new rug rack.

The west wall of my studio, with fleeces, our farm banner, a new handspun mohair
crocheted Tillie shawl and a fall colors shawl on the loom

I spent most of the tour warping the Newcomb and talking to people about the history
of this wonderful loom, my personal history with it and the larger history.
It is now warped and has a Dapper Dan rug started on it.

Studio Tour was fun this year. More visitors than last year, many of them from the Mountain Home and Northwest Arkansas areas.

The "Not Quite Blonde" shawl has a new home, as do three of my Fleecyful rugs.

And now it's off to do chores.

on being human

2011-08-14T11:19:00.000-06:00

I'm glad I'm a human and not a sheep, because unlike sheep, I understand the importance of finishing your book before you eat breakfast.

We turned the sheep out in a new pen this morning to eat down the weeds.
I love Arkansas, 6 weeks of very high temps and little rain and look at that glorious GREEN!

Never say never

2011-07-14T20:48:00.002-06:00

Boo's lambs - Gobi and her brother

After 32 years of shepherding sheep and goats there is a familiar structure to the year and a rhythm to the seasons. Goats are seasonal polyestrous - meaning their breeding season is September through December, maybe January. They have a 5 month gestation period.

We usually put the rams/bucks in with the flocks in October, so we have mostly March babies. If we are setting aside separate breeding or housing pens, we leave the boys in there and away from the main flock through January. But, our boys are protective of their girls and babies, so we put them back in the main flock in February. For 32 years, we've done it this way and never had baby born after the first of May.

Until yesterday.

Obviously, Mother Nature doesn't put much stock in the phrase "But we've always done it this way!"

The message in the Quilt

2011-07-11T06:23:00.001-06:00

I love Barbara Carlson's art quilts. I love displaying them in creative ways in the Arkansas Craft Guild Gallery. I love looking at them when she sends photos for classes she's proposing to teach. But until today, I just hadn't found the one for me.

Today, we were at an estate sale in Clinton and sitting on the kitchen counter was one of Barbara's quilts. It's not one that I would have bought for myself, but I'd wanted one for so long - I scooped it up and put it in my basket.

Shawn looked at the quilt with a strange expression, but he did recognize it as one of Barbara's and didn't say anything when I put it in my basket.

On the way home, in the hot car that has no air conditioning in the 105 degree heat, with Shawn's new Johnny Cash cd's playing loud and the windows open, I contemplated my new quilt.

Eggceptional by Barbara Carlson

She is a slightly worried lady, whose face is a salad of fruits and vegis. She has a carrot for a nose and cute little glass vessels for earrings. She's dressed for town, but she's a country cottage type gal wearing her purple tie dye, and her hat is fluffy pink feathers with a yellow chicken with blue swirls sitting on a nest of pink speckled eggs.

I thought about as we breezed along the mid-afternoon July Arkansas highways. She was meant for me, there was a message here from on high. I am eggceptional, but that is not the point.

My brain is always full of ideas. It has no problem hatching out new ones. This is a blessing, really. I love the constant flow of pink speckled idea eggs that my happy yellow brain produces. But, what I need to remember is that you can only hold so many eggs in one brain-basket. If you get too many, they fall out and break all over the floor. That can be a big mess.

And each egg/idea needs to be incubated, sat on, nurtured, turned over, kept warm and cared for to successfully hatch. You can only sit on so many idea/eggs at one time and expect to have any success.

And since you are what you eat, I need to eat my fruits and vegis to be strong to support my nest of ideas.

Or maybe I just need to spend some time in the air conditioning.

Side note: Does anyone remember the Chartreuse chicken story I used to tell when I was a storyteller? I only do vaguely, I'll have to look that one up.

.

Summer Tanagers and early seasons

2011-07-01T05:39:00.000-06:00

Tanager at the Ozark Folk Center

Footloose and Sultan square off

This summer we've seen lots of Tanagers at the Ozark Folk Center. It's a great place for watching birds. Of course, I love the colorful Indigo Buntings, Goldfinches, and Cardinals but we have so many species.
I've loved the Tanagers since I did a report on them in... probably middle school. I've never been a birdwatcher, I've always enjoyed their songs and flashes of color, but I've found myself paying more attention to them this summer.

Another attention getting thing yesterday - the bucks decided they could not stand to share a fenceline. Usually dairy and angora goat breeding season starts in September, with a few thoughts of it in August. I've never seen the boys even think about that in the heat of summer. But these two have been facing-off through the fence since yesterday morning. I took Footsie away for a while and put him out on the transom to graze. They both took that as a break to drink and catch their breath, but went right back to it when he went back to his girls. Time to build the buck pens. Not something I wanted to do in the heat of summer. It's not catastrophic climate change, this is more on the annoying level. Twenty-nine years of raising goats, they shouldn't change their schedule now!

Rain and web surfing

2011-06-28T06:17:00.001-06:00

Rain!

Sweet blessed rain!

Just yesterday we were worrying about how dry it was and whether or not we needed to start pulling goats off the yard.

This morning rolled in with the thing we moved to Arkansas for - sweet, blessed rain.

It's now a beautiful cool morning and I'm going to ask Lena to do chores, because it's pouring.

She's good at doing things like that - yesterday she picked the first of the blackberries on Foxbriar (solstice = blackberries!) just for me, because she does not like them. But I shared a bowlful with Shawn.

Lena picking the first blackberries
of the season on Foxbriar.

And, obviously, I don't spend enough time online. I just discovered blogher.com this morning, while I was checking email and avoiding writing a press release I need to get finished or posting the soap on the etsy store like I'd promised. I'll keep the tab open and read it tonight after I get my work and work and chores done.

Something new to explore.

Pet pets

2011-06-27T16:47:00.000-06:00

Llama nanny Pequena with Gizmo, Glitch and Gamma

It's not unusual for animals to have pets. Sometimes it's human coerced, like race horses with their pet goats. We had a race horse, Tisa, who had pet chickens.

Other times, they just buddy up on their own.Shawn's horse Nugget had a pet type relationship with a goldfish who lived in her water trough. We used to put the goldfish in the big tank to help keep the algae down. These fish lived several years. Nugget's fish would come play with her when she was drinking. Over the years she started hanging her tongue out in the water trough and the fish would nibble on it. By the time the fish passed away, it would splash and play with Nugget. She spent days with her head hanging over the trough when the fish died.

Gemini riding Dapper Dan

Sometimes, you're not sure who would be classed as the pet. Right now, our baby goat kids are working hard at being llamas. They wander around under Pequena's feet while grazing and climb on her back when she's laying down. The mama goats seem to really like this arrangement, then none of them has to babysit. They have a nanny.

The dairy goat kids had a game this spring that we called "ride the ram." Unfortunately, it didn't seem to be fun anymore after we sheared Dan.

However, the latest pet relationship is raising eyebrows and causing concern. Fria, Lena's 29-year-old Arabian mare (mother of Tisa and 11 other fantastic horses) found a new pet up in the woods above her pasture. She is very attached to this creature. She nuzzles it and it stays with her except during the heat of the day when it goes back into the forest. Now there are lots of critters that a horse could make a pet out of and people would ooh and ahh and think it was cute, however, a razorback hog is not one of them!

Pig, a wild razor back hog with Fria

Unfortunately, the pig has started chasing sheep and is fouling all the water troughs, so I think we'll have to help another horse through the grieving process of loosing a pet.

Real Music

2011-06-26T08:53:00.000-06:00

The last two days several of us from the Ozark Folk Center have been at the Red, White and Blue festival in Mountain Home, Arkansas.
Last night, as our musicians were playing (Roger Fountain on fiddle, Carl Adkins on guitar and vocals and Carolyn Carter on guitar and vocals) a young lady came up and asked earnestly if they knew "Boil them cabbage down". They replied with equal seriousness that they were indeed familiar with the old classic. Roger asked her if she could play it.

Making real music in Mountain Home

She allowed that she had studied it in her fiddle lessons. And right there, Roger offered her his fiddle to play it for them. She took the fiddle and held the bow correctly, but had a bit of stage fright with all the people suddenly watching her. Roger praised her stance and said he had another fiddle with him and perhaps they could play it together.
They played together and soon Carl and Carolyn were backing them up on the guitars. It was a sweet afternoon.
This is truly keeping music alive.

How long did it take to make that shawl?

2011-06-20T06:13:00.002-06:00

Possibly the most common question I get at shows is "How long did it take to make that __________?"

Close up of the Thy/Fes shawl in the fringing process. I tied
the fringes in a simple lacey pattern.

Some of my items I keep detailed records on, others I just guess. I rarely figure in the time spent caring for the animals who grew the fleeces in our intensive, small acreage set-up.

I am just starting to figure it up for the shawl I am finishing this morning. I tied the last fringes on it last night and hand washed it one more time to wet finish it. Currently it is soaking in a creme rinse bath, to accentuate how soft and drapey it is.

This shawl started forming in my mind last winter, when I wanted blue yarns. I had Lena dye several different batches of wool and mohair with the 4 different blue colors of Jacquard dye I bought. I spun blue mohair with natural wool, natural mohair with blue wool, blue, blue and more blue. I still like it.

I was finishing spinning Fes' mohair about the time I started spinning Thy's blue wool. They came out a similar weight and drape, so I plied them together. The yarn came out so beautiful I instantly put it into the "I get to weave with that" pile.

Thyme, our oldest ewe, with her daughter Basil behind her.
Ty-ty is 12-years-old this year.
She has one tooth remaining, so she gets soft food.
Her fleece is still soft, shiny and a joy to spin.

As soon as I finished the winter black and red shawl on my loom at the house, I started this one. It wove faster than any other shawl I've worked on this year. This yarn wanted to be a shawl. In less than a month, I was tying on the fringes.

I knew exactly the look I wanted with the fringes. Fringing with handspun yarn can be a challenge. Unless I want the yarn to fray, you have to knot every end. There are 465 fringes on this shawl. That means 930 ends to knot. Plus tying each fringe on. Then I knotted them down in a pattern. It took me almost a month to tie the 2,325 knots in the fringe on this shawl.

Most of you know that I do most of my work for a few hours in the evening each day, or a few hours in the early morning and occasionally at night when I can't sleep. So those months are not constant labor.

Fes, left, now lives with a flock up on Dodd mountain.
He still thinks very highly of himself.

To try to break it down -
Critter time
This is one year of Thy's life growing this fleece.
It is 6 months of Fes' fleece.
Lena and I spend one hour every morning and one hour each night on chores for the 29 sheep, 10 dairy goats, 11 angora goats, one horse and one llama that are currently in our flocks. That's 730 hours per year just feeding time. That comes out to 14 hours per critter.

It takes us about an hour to shear, trim toes and check over each animal at shearing time.

It took about an hour to wash the fleece.

It took Lena about an hour working time to dye the wool.

It took me 12 hours to spin the singles of Fes' mohair, but I did do several hats out of it, too.
It took me about 7 hours to spin Thye's wool.

It took another 8 hours to ply the two together.

Dyed Thyme wool plied with natural color Fes kid mohair yarn.
Washed, dyed, spun, plied, washed again and ready to weave.

Washing the finished skeins took an hour.

Weaving time on this shawl was super fast. Time at the loom was only 11 hours.

Fringing time, all told, 12 hours.

Last nights hand wash and setting up the soak bath 1/2 hour. This morning's yet to come rinsing and blocking to dry 1/2 hour.

When finished and hung up on the rack to sell, this shawl will have 69 hours of my and Lena's time invested in its creation.

In addition to hours, our feed bill for the year is $5,060. That's $97.31 per animal. We shear the sheep once a year and the angoras twice, so the mohair only costs $48.65/fleece.

What price do you think I should write on the tag of this beautiful, unique shawl?

Tillie Shawl

2011-06-16T20:24:00.000-06:00

Tillie yarn

Tillie

Sunrise view from the milk barn

Add caption

I just finished spinning, winding, plying, skeining, washing and drying four more skeins of Tillie yarn. I had spun up four earlier this year, and couldn't wait for the rest to start crocheting some thing with it. I was enjoying this fleece so much, I wanted to work the yarn by hand, not out on a loom. So I crocheted about half of a shawl in a simple pattern that highlights the yarn and is creating a snuggly wrap.
I thought about dyeing it, but the plain white yarn is so pretty and sparkle shiny that I'm going to leave it natural white.

On the loom

2011-06-15T05:35:00.000-06:00

Opera shawl on the loom

This shawl is currently on the rigid heddle. This is natural grey mohair and nylon blend. It will be a very nice, drapey, fuzzy shawl. I'm thinking of it as an opera shawl, about 18" wide and 6 foot long, with fringes on the ends.
As of 6-13-11, this shawl is in the half-woven,"I've already designed the next project and need to get this one off the loom" stage.

The "right" way to do it

2011-06-14T09:08:00.003-06:00

At one point in the '90s, I was sitting and crocheting in my booth at the Colorado Renaissance Festival. A woman stepped up to me and said, "You're doing it wrong. Let me show you how."

At that point in my life, I had been crocheting for well over twenty years. I was making my living with my crocheted and sewn costume design business and had wholesale accounts for my crocheted Spirit Bells with Deva Lifewear and Wild Oats, among others. I somewhat brusquely responded that it was ok, I did not need her to show me the "right" way to crochet. I still wish I had been more diplomatic.

This past week, a spinner came down to my presentation of Spinning Tales at the Ozark Folk Center. I enjoy having fellow fiber artists at this informal noon program and we often have informative discussions. But, it seemed this women was upset with me because I don't finish my yarn "right." In retrospect, I wish I had visited with her more and had a conversation about different ways of finishing. Maybe we both would have learned something.

Now I have developed a level of mastery in the spinning, weaving, felting and crochet processes I use. I've been doing them for many years and on a constant, production basis. But I don't think that my way is the "right" way to do any of this - it is just my way.

When I teach, I used to let students follow their intuition and explore different ways of doing a craft. I still offer them creative freedom, but I have learned that we have a limited time together in class and the studetns are paying me to learn my way of spinning, weaving or cooking. I have become secure enough with my processes that when I have students come to me to learn, I show them how I do it, and will correct them when they are not doing it my way. This gives them a foundation. They can get started and going on a craft with a process that I know works. After they've practiced for a while, and if they continue in the craft, they will develop their own style.

And a new "right" way to do the craft will be born.

Changing soapboxes

2011-06-13T05:27:00.002-06:00

Buy local.
We hear it all the time. I agree with it. The transportation cost on those bananas is way more than the cost of the fruit. The pesticides used on vegetables grown south of the border were banned in the US decades ago. Buying local keeps dollars in local communities.
"Take care of yourself, your family and your home first," I say, then if you have the resources, go save the world.
I believe in and practice the 3/50 project with purchases at Yoder's, Wilsons and the Arkansas Craft Gallery, as well as our local farmer's market and from local crafts people and family farms.
And, I keep most of my online shopping in the US.

But, recently through the etsy, artfire and online artisan community, I've been connecting with individuals who are not in the US, but who are real people, making really beautiful things. This morning I was reading a wonderful blog written by a woman in Israel who is raising her seven children and still finds time to knit incredible socks, shawls and other things. I had my morning laugh reading about her three year old discovering velocity enhancement by pouring cooking oil on the kitchen floor and skating on it in her footie pjs. I found a woman in Ireland who raises sheep and makes felted flowers that look real. We've shared stories about our life with woolies. Our lives are so very similar, on opposite sides of the ocean.

Real people, with real lives, making a real living.

So, this morning, I switched soap boxes. Back when I was an award-winning writer (Rocky Mountain Farmer's Union, among others), I alway said, "Know your producer." Get to know the people who grow your food, knit your socks, make your dishes, fix your car. Having that personal connection with the people who create the things that nourish you goes a long way to improving not only your quality of life, but the life of the producer and by extension the world. And now, through the miracle of the internet, I can know producers around the globe.

So, for blueberries - buy local.
But for felted flowers, knit socks, or other handmade items branch out and make connections with creators in other countries. Share stories and - get to know your producer.

Linkchasing to bright hope

2011-06-12T06:33:00.000-06:00

I don't think of myself as an old curmudgeon. In fact, I think of myself as a young kid who is finally getting enough life experience that I might have an opinion worth expressing. However, over the last several years I have been part of conversations lamenting the direction of the human race and the "fact" that kids today don't know how to make things with their hands or even how to cook. What's the world going to come to if the people of the future can't even feed themselves or construct clothing or shelter?

This morning I was finishing an etsy conversation with a young woman who was interested in carrying my rugs in her store. I just don't have the time right now to spin and weave enough to stock any more than the few shows and local stores that I already do. But I checked out her metrode store and was very impressed by the style and artistry.

Then I started following links. Wow!

I read my way through a number of fantastic blogs describing young women who are making their living designing and creating beautiful clothing, pottery, furniture, backpacks and more. This led me to think about the local young people I know who are very talented. Bonnie Mergl is a young artist who creates beauty all around her and she built her own house, from scratch. Leo Kempf designs utterly fantastic furniture - and chicken houses.

On July 9 I'm joining a bunch of young artisans at the first ever Indie Art and Music Festival in Little Rock. I've looked through the links of vendors and bands. They are all young and mostly urban. They are excited about making things and music, by hand, in their own way.

And I am excited to get to go work with them. It gives me bright hope for the future.

Genesis

2011-06-10T05:52:00.000-06:00

When I was in middle school at the Colorado Springs School, I made a mountain dulcimer. His name was Herman and I carried Herman from there to Korea, the Philippines, Hawaii. I played him regularly as I finished high school in Alabama and then took him back with me to college in Colorado. We climbed Rocky Mountains together and howled bluegrass songs at the moon in the Smokies. Halfway through my sophomore year, Herman cracked. I didn't touch a dulcimer again.

Until 2006.

When we came to Mountain View, Arkansas, music was everywhere and I started thinking dulcimer. Shawn bought me one for my birthday that year. It was a nice sounding little instrument. But I never played it. A year or two later, my son, Arjuna, painted it for me for my birthday. It has hung on the wall of my office ever since as a very nice work of art.

Then, three weeks ago, I came back into my office and Steve Folkers, the OFC cooper was playing my dulcimer. It sounded nice.
And Linda Odom talked Gail Lewis into teaching a Friday morning dulcimer class. Gail laughed at my "hippie dulcimer" when I got to class, but she was pleased about how nice and sweet this unique little instrument sounds.

Now I've been playing that sweet sounding little dulcimer for two weeks and yesterday she got her name.

Genesis

Wrapping up the G year

2011-06-09T05:48:00.000-06:00

I'm sitting on the porch watching the angora goat flock graze in the early morning light. The babies aren't coming out to graze yet, they are still staying back in the shelter of the trees. Tilly and Pequena had babysitting duty, but then Eve went back in to relieve them so they could get some breakfast before it gets hot.

We didn't breed very many of any this year, with only 5 acres we have to manage the flocks pretty strictly. Sultan is our new angora buck. We have Gamma, Gadget, Gizmo and Glitch from him. The little boys will be wethered here in a few weeks and then we'll keep them through at least their first two shearings. I love my kid mohair.
In the dairy goat flock, Footsie has proven to be a good buck and we have 5 nice daughters from him. He's paid his way for another year. This year we gave away all the little bucks as soon as they were well started. I like the way it worked and plan to do that next year. So the dairy goat G's are Ganymede, Gemini, Ginger, Gabriella and Geo. They were born in February and other than their propensity to run on roofs, they think that they are all grown up.

In the sheep world, we only had two surprises. Nilly had Gift and Flora had Gloria. But I still think Dan may get a double walled pen this breeding season. We have so many of his daughters that I don't want bred back. Dan also gave us Greta, George, Gypsum, Skittles and three little boys. If we change our mind and decide to keep Skittles she may need a G name.

In all, it's been a Good year and we're done with g-name babies.

Settling in to summer

2011-06-08T05:42:00.000-06:00

Since I haven't been updating much, I read back through the last few blog posts. Yes, I'm fine. Work, mostly, has presented challenges this spring, but I think it is for the good, in the long run.

Some of the Havencroft angora flock at breakfast

Looking at the sales list, we still have sheep for sale, but the only goat left for sale is Frappucino, a yearling wether oatmeal colored angora. I don't keep wethers as a rule and he's being replaced by his newborn brothers - Gadget, Gizmo and Glitch. Glitch was supposed to be born Gigi, but there was a glitch. They have a "big" sister named Gamma, who is a badger face black. She's a full 6-days older than the boys and she lords it over them. The boys were all born in a 24 hour time span, two of them on my birthday! They are identical triplet black bucks, out of three different mommies.
The weather has gone from cold and wet, almost 29 inches of rain in May to HOT and dry. It's been in the high 90's and up without a cloud in the sky all June. Between the muck of May and the scorching heat of June, we don't have a garden this year. It feels weird and makes for challenging conversation when you can't talk about the garden, but we'll just buy from farmer's market.
The sheep are screaming for their breakfast, so I'd better go feed. Hope all is well in your world.

Baby sheep "oh sh..." moments

2011-04-19T19:08:00.000-06:00

Baby goats think gravity is a theory that they work hard to disapprove. You'll find them running up walls, over barns and in trees. Life is a goat toy.

Baby sheep on the other hand love to run and dance, but they stay pretty much land-bound. Their mommy's don't approve of them playing with the goat kids from the wrong side of the fence and they do try to do what their mommies say, most of the time. But the gravity-defying tricks of the goat kids catch their attention. Yesterday morning I watched Gypsum, Chalcedony's month-old ewe lamb, try over and over again to run up the west wall of the sheep tent. She kept falling back into a little sheepy pile. She kept it up for a good twenty minutes before wandering off to find a friend to just visit with.

Tonight, little Gift, Nilly's ewe lamb, was running in her pen where she lives with only older sheep. Suddenly, she was on the roof of their shelter. She bawled and hollered and ran down to nurse for a few minutes. That was very scary. Then about ten minutes later, she was back up on the roof, looking over the edge and obviously saying, "Nanny-boo-boo! Look what I can do!" to the baby sheep in the other pen.

I'm having one of those "oh sh.." moments in my life right now. I hope I can get on top of it. With the help of friends and family, I think I can. And I hope Gift doesn't fall of the other side of the shelter or hurt herself with her new game.

Havencroft Farm Spring 2011 Sales List

2011-03-19T02:52:00.000-06:00

Havencroft Farm Spring 2011 Sales List

17467 Hwy 66, Mountain View, AR 72560

870-269-6808, jenonthefarm@gmail.com

Icelandic, Crossbred and Jacob Sheep - none of our Jacobs are currently registered, though they are descended from JSBA Registered stock.

Dapper Dan (2008 Ram, 2-horn) - $125 - Laffing Horse Betelgeuse X Laffing Horse Basil - Dan is our current herdsire and sire of many beautiful ewes who are staying in the flock. Among them are First, Flora, Fiona, Grace, Greta. His lambs are so well-marked and have such nice fleeces that we have kept some of his sons as fiber wethers - Flash, George and Nibbles. His daughter Filigree is also for sale.

Laffing Horse Cocoa (2007 Ewe, 2-horn) - $125 - Stapleton Farm Homer X Laffing Horse Bobbin - Cocoa is a big chocolate colored ewe who lambs easily and grows a good 8 lb fleece every year. She is currently bred to Dapper Dan for early April lambs.

Laffing Horse Dorie - (2008 Polled Ewe) - $125 - Stapleton Farm Homer X Laffing Horse Cowslip - This spotted ewe grows a thick 8-plus pound fleece. She is a good mother and was bred to Dan for late March lambs.

Laffing Horse Mouse - $75 - (2007 fiber wether, scurred) - Stapleton Farm Homer X Laffing Horse Button, This large dark brown half-jacob, half-corriedale wether has been a family pet all his life. His heavy fleece is medium-fine and spins up nice for outerwear.

Havencroft Filigree - $75 - (2010 Four-horned ewe) - Dapper Dan X Laffing Horse Clementine - Filigree has not been sheared yet, but looks like she will have a nice fairly fine fleece. She has broken all of her horns and one time or another, so they are different sizes.

Chalcedony - $125 - (two-horned white Icelandic) - Currently bred to Dan for April lambs. We bought this ewe in 2007, right after we moved to Arkansas. She was young then, perhaps a two year old. She has a very nice double-coated fleece and needs to be sheared twice a year. She really needs to be in a flock that is on pasture, she gets way too fat on our regimen of grass hay and some grain.

Dorie’s Boy or Cowslips Boy - (2010 2-horned wethers) $75 ea. after shearing. These two jacob wethers have nice fleeces and have been raised without antibiotics.

Dairy Goats

Bottle Baby Buck kids - $10 ea. - commercial grade dairy goats. excellent milk stock, currently one available, more as they are born.

We may have some good does and does kids for sale as the season progresses. Contact me at jenonthefarm@gmail.com if you are looking for milk goats.

Lambing and kidding nights

2011-03-10T03:06:00.000-06:00

Cricket resting by the pond, end of February, 2011

I just got finished settling Cricket and her new twins into the jug pen (a walled and roofed pen about 8x8, warm and cozy for new moms to relax and get to know their new babies and for babies to learn who is their mommy). Pictures will be on the way in a day or two. They just don't come out real well when you take them outside at 2 in the morning.
They have rather loud voices, so the neighbors checked outside at least once and now the sheep flock and the dairy goat flock think that I really ought to feed them a midnight snack, since they are all up anyway. It's nice of the angoras to sleep through it all.
Her babies this year are a splashy colored buck and a creamy white doe. The buck will be ready to head to a new home in a few days as a bottle baby. I think the little girl will be Geode, but I might think better of that by the light of day.
Beanie had her kid last night. A sweet little red doe that we named Ginger.
Our flocks have lambed and kidded mostly in the daylight for years. I don't know what's changed them this year. At least we've been blessed with good strong kids and lambs.
I hear babies crying... back out to check and then hopefully back to bed for a bit.
Got a really busy few days coming up at work and in the Guild.

New shepherding experience

2011-02-25T20:34:00.000-06:00

Ms. Marj in the birthing room at Dr. Long's

I was supposed to be off from work today to work at the Guild Gallery.
but, since I'm now presenting at the NAI conference in Eureka Springs next week, I had to get interviews wrapped up at OFC. So I scheduled them to be done at 9:30, so I could get to the Gallery by 10:00. Luckily David Dahlsted said he could open for me.
At 11:00 I finally headed out of the office.
I ran home to check things before I went to the Gallery. Marj and Basil were very close to lambing and neither had felt well this morning.
I heard Marj hollering when I stepped out of the car. I check her and she seemed comfortable and pushing regularly.
I went to the Gallery, told David I may have to help an old ewe lamb and that I would be back in a hour.
I checked Marj when I got back. Her cervix was not dilated, but she was pushing. I offered her some molasses water, for energy and hydration which she didn't want.
I went in to have lunch and give her some space for her labor to progress. I made coffee. I drank and little and made myself eat some rice with cabbage.
I went back out. Marj was getting weaker.
I paced, I stressed. I called the local large animal vet. He was gone until tomorrow.
I called Dr. Long, the Mountain View small animal vet. Turns out he likes sheep! Just sheep, not goats.
He said if I brought her in, he'd work on her.
So, Lena and I carried large Marj to her PT Cruiser and loaded her up in the back. Lena had wanted the Cruiser because it would hold three sheep. It has, many times.
We got to the vet's office and they told us to wait a few minutes while they cleared out a room. We later found out it had been Dr. Long's office before it became the birthing room!
He checked Marj over in the car and agreed that her cervix was not dilated, but that she was ready to give birth. He palpated the lambs and said he heard heart beats. That was a relief. I had been worried we had lost them and that was why she wasn't dilating.
Four of us carried. led Marj into the room they had arranged with a nice soft mat and cover on the floor. Dr. Long hooked her up to an IV and spent time visiting with her.
He left for a while to let her relax. I just watched her. She had quit pushing.
I really didn't think. or move. I just watched. I counted her breaths and her occasional contraction.
I didn't call anybody or remember any of the important things I had to do today. This was life, right in front of me. And I hoped it wasn't the other side of the coin.
I realized, sitting there that I care far more for my sheep than I usually let myself know. Other people know that, I just don't usually admit it to myself. I consider myself pragmatic.

The vet checked her again and said she still wasn't dilating. He gave her a shot of oxytocin. She did seem stronger. He said her cervix had a lot of scar tissue.

Marj with George and newborn Grace

About half an hour later he came back and checked her. He gently massaged and coaxed the first stressed lamb forth. Curious George was walking almost as soon as he came out. He's a good sized boy, with beautiful markings. Dr. Long left mom and lamb for a while. I watched a bit and then helped George find the faucets. He was fine nursing on his recumbent mommy. She washed him and murmured.

About half-an-hour later Dr. Long pulled a beautiful little ewe lamb forth. She didn't really want to be here. She was little and very weak and breathing was more than she wanted to do. Doc worked on Marj while I rubbed and fluffed the little ewe. She finally started breathing and began holding her head up. Obviously, her brother had been getting most of the groceries.

Shawn and Lena brought a bottle of colostrum for the babies.

As the day wound down at the vet clinic, the children of the techs and vet came in the see the new lambs. We talked about the kids coming out to see some of the sheep at the farm. I invited them out to farm for shearing day on March 31st.

Grace the iSheep

About 5:30 we loaded Marj and the lambs back into the Cruiser. Shawn offered to let them stay in his shop for the night and we set them up with a sleeping back, some hay and a bucket of water. Shawn turned on the space heater.

Little Grace is still weak. She's currently curled up in the arm chair with Shawn. Marj and George are cuddled in the shop.

Shepherd reflexes

2011-02-22T02:55:00.000-06:00

Sound asleep - to - out in the sheep pen, (wearing the classy ensemble of a terry cloth robe and wellies) carrying a flashlight, in less than 30 seconds.
Lambing season officially started at 2 a.m. this morning.

But what was a lamb doing in the alleyway between pens? Mental challenges like this are harder at 2 a.m.
However, because we did have everybody sorted (well, almost everybody - Bramble the angora doe had a crossbred dairy goat buck on Sunday) for breeding, it was easy enough to scoop this wandering little loud-mouthed lamb up and return him to his mum. The voice might have been enough to give him away.

Cowslip had twin rams. They are all fine and back together in their warm, well-bedded shelter. The boys have nursed and mom is washing them up and murmuring mom sounds.

They are of course, beautiful. And as soon as it is daylight, I'll post some pics. And probably write more about why we picked the self-reliant, wonderful Jacob Sheep that we raise.

but for now, I'm going back to bed.

Zero to shearo

2011-02-13T13:39:00.000-06:00

Wednesday, I couldn't make it in to work, even though it is only 4 miles, the roads were too slick. By the end of the snowstorm on Thursday, we had about 10 inches of the white stuff in the driveway and I put on my long johns.

Stray kitty seems to be discussing the shearing process with Basil.

Friday morning, the thermometer said 0 when I was doing chores and I wore my long johns to work. Yesterday, I was so busy with teaching and managing craft classes and then working the valentine event at OFC, I don't have a clue what the weather was, I just know for sure that there was some.
Now, it's Sunday and Lena and I are out shearing the sheep in the lambing pen in tshirts and wellies.

Marj's fleece. One of my fav's to spin.
Many of you know my Marj hat and my Our Farm shawl.

Arkansas can quick change her weather with the best of 'em.

Sheep work

2011-02-06T21:31:00.001-06:00

Jeannie's Cowslip

Today was a busy day on the farm. We vaccinated all the sheep and goats with cd&t and sorted the ewes that were close into the lambing pen next to the house.
The weather is supposed to be icky this week, so we didn't shear them. I want to make sure they are settled before stressing them more, but it is best to shear them before they lamb, for many reasons. The ewes take better care of their lambs if they get cold, too. They can share body heat with their babies if they aren't all bundled up in a long fleece and it's easier for the babies to nurse if they don't have to dig through all the wool. Plus the wool develops a break due to the hormone changes and stress of lambing, so it's best to go ahead and shear it off at that point.
So, hopefully next Sunday, we'll be shearing Cowslip, Basil and Marjoram. Cowslip's fleece is spoken for. She belongs to my aunt Jeannie. Basil is Thyme and Beetleguese's daughter. She has a nice, long, open fleece. And Miz Marj is one of our first ewes. Her soft fleece is fine and relatively short. It is springy and spongy. Those of you who are familiar with my "our farm shawl" or my Marj hat know what her fleece looks like spun up and crocheted or woven.

Miz Marjoram stretching her back

If you are interested in Marj's fleece it will be $12 per lb. I'd be happy to email pics. Just let me know if you think you want it and I'll reserve it for you.

Basil

Basil's fleece is $12/lb and just either comment here, or send me an email to reserve.

They are due right around the 20th, so hopefully the weather will lighten up for a bit and we can get these girls sheared and ready for lambing.

Modern Communication

2011-02-02T11:08:00.000-06:00

Shawn and I sat down across from each other at the breakfast bar that divides our kitchen and living room. He had his laptop open on the bar and his coffee next to him.
I set my cofffee down and opened my laptop.
I looked at him and smiled.
He smiled back.
"Ooh, now we can chat," I said.
And we both almost fell off our stools laughing.

We don't yet use computer chat when we are sitting face to face, but we sure do a lot, even from one room to the next. And we still forget to tell each other important things!

Modern communication.

More fleeces

2011-01-31T20:14:00.000-06:00

Fritillary does not want to pose for a picture

Here's a few more fleeces for your consideration. If you see one that strikes your fancy just leave a comment and I'll reserve it for you.

This evening I'm listing Fritillary's (those of you who follow the etsy store know the story of her first shearing yarn) This will be her second shearing. The first netted six skeins of super soft single ply, that I then plied with dyed wool into a super nice yarn.

I expect her to shear 2-3 pounds of nice kid mohair curls with a 3-4 inch staple. No promises, just educated guessing. She has not been wearing a coat (you try to keep a coat on a fat little butterfly goat!)

Fritillary's fleece, still attached

Her well skirted fleece will be $14/lb.

Nessie

Thyme, with her daughter Nessie behind her.

Finesse, fondly known as Nessie, is a fine, delicate beautiful little Jacob sheep lamb. She is the daughter of our oldest ewe, Thyme. She is a bit inbred and was not a planned baby. Thyme had other plans than ours and had Nessie when she was 11-years-old last spring. Nessie's sire is Dapper Dan, who is out of Basil, Thyme's other daughter in our flock.

Nessie's baby fleece looks locky and will probably weigh in at less than 2 pounds when skirted.

Her fleece will be $12/lb.

Chalcedony, our one icelandic ewe

Chalcedony

Chalcedony is our one purebred icelandic ewe. She is a beautiful sheep. She has the triple layer fleece that is common to all icelandics and she has to be sheared twice a year. This spring I expect her fleece staple to be about 9 inches because I sheared her early in September.

She tends to put on way too much weight and the heat is hard on her.

She will likely shear 6 lbs and I will split this fleece into one pound lots if requested. The under coat is downy and felts easily. The long outer locks are beautiful, but not soft.

Her well skirted fleece is $14/lb

Broom beginnings

2011-01-31T07:23:00.000-06:00

This time of year, when the sap is down in the roots and the bugs are asleep, we go stick gathering for Shawn's broom making. We have to cut the 1,000 plus broom handles he'll need for the whole year in late January or February, when the conditions are right. So we spend any available daylight hours either in our back wood lot or up in the National Forest. Shawn gets a permit that says exactly what he can cut in the forest. It helps to keep the undergrowth down and improves the health of the mid-sized trees when he clears out the saplings for broom handles.

Of course, this gathering is not as easy as it sounds. Our back wood lot is very over grown. This honeysuckle patch will make you swoon with its sweetness in summer and sigh with frustration as you try to navigate it to get into the woods in winter. Honeysuckle creates the highly sought after twisted stick broom handles. So we plow through.

But it's the cat briar, honey locust and wild rose that are the real terrors. Shawn wears leather in the woods and I suit up in a nice slick nylon jacket. Lena likes to wear a tshirt and bears the battle scars.

They cut and I pile the sticks in "easy to find" locations to come back to - we hope.

We know there was another stash back there somewhere!

A weekend's worth of stick gathering, and one cool rock Lena found.

Fleece reservations

2011-01-30T08:12:00.001-06:00

On a side note, I just saw that yesterday's post was the 200th I'd written on this blog. There might just be some kinda book in here someday!

I am starting to take reservations for our 2011 fleeces. Thyme's fleece and one of the kid mohairs are already reserved. We will be shearing the week of March 29th and should have all fleeces skirted and ready to ship by April 15. We will skirt them and pick out the worst vm, but we have not put coats on most of the critters this year, so the fleeces will not be as clean as they have been in the past. We are still fighting cockleburrs and so you might find the occasional one.
I will be happy to email pics for your approval of the fleece after we shear and I will send you a paypal invoice for the fleece cost plus shipping before we ship. If you have any questions, or want to reserve a fleece - email me at jenonthefarm @ gmail . com

Visit us for our Shearing Days event March 29-31 to pick out your own fleeces from the ones that aren't reserved and take them home with you. email for more info.

The price for most 2011 raw fleeces -
Jacob wool - $12.00/lb
Chocolate corriedale cross fleece - $10.00/lb
White icelandic - $12.00/lb
Prime wool fleeces - $14/lb (especially cool colors and textures and only one of each!)

Mohair -
Kid - $14/lb (choice of pewter or silver)
Adult fine - $10/lb
Adult coarse (rugs or...) $8/lb

Also, we will have a few fiber wether sheep, ewes and older angora goat does for sale. After lambing and kidding we will have dairy goat kids and lambs for sale. Let me know if you are interested.

I'll list a few a day, so just keep an eye to see which on you want, or send a request to see a particular fleece.

Dixie's fine mohair -

Dixie

Flash

Flash's wild wool

Cowslip's boy

Dixie is a coming three year old angora doe. Her fleece is a fluffy medium gray and still spinnably fine. The hat I wear all winter is made from Dixie's fleece.

Dixie usually shears about 3 pounds, though this spring's fleece seems a bit light. Her staple is usually 3-4 inches.

Dixie's fleece can be reserved for $10/lb

Flash's Wild Wool -

Flash is Pennyroyal's son and he will be remaining in our flock as a fiber wether. His fleece is currently almost 9-inches long and very locky.

His coloring is pretty uniform white and chocolate.

Flash is a 2010 lamb and this will be his first shearing. I expect about 2 lbs of skirted fleece.

Flash's fleece is available to reserve for $14/lb

Cowslip's boy -

Cowslip has the Corriander line of spongy soft fleeces. This year she had twins by Dapper Dan, who is out of our locky line of fleeces. This boy seems to have a good curly combination of both.

His fleece is dense and he is a good sized lamb. This will be his first shearing and I expect about 2 lbs of skirted wool.

He is for sale as a fiber wether after shearing for $75.00

His fleece is available to reserve for $12/lb.

Creativity in progress

2011-01-29T09:03:00.001-06:00

Blue carded wool, blue mohair yarn balls, blue uncarded wool
blue hand spun 2-ply wool, blue and natural pewter handspun
wool and mohair two-ply yarn.

This has been one of the most successful weeks of my personal professional life. I have accomplished or set in official motion projects that I have been working on for three or more years. I have presented proposals, gotten approvals taught classes and relaxed by spinning beautiful blue yarn.

Last evening, I went with several girl friends to help pack up house for a coworker who is moving to another park. We had fun and accomplished a lot. When I got home I was tired and listened to myself share worries about the upcoming year with Shawn as I carded and spun blue wool.

This morning, I have a few minutes of down-time to think over the week. I decided I really needed to write down and celebrate the amazing week I'd just had, just to keep the accomplishments from getting buried in the fuss and worry of life.

The week started with my getting approval to present a draft of a project that I have been researching, gathering information on, tweaking and finalizing since before I was Craft Director at OFC. Every year I have run the idea and information by my boss and gotten told it just was not complete enough, or that this was not the time. Now, the time was right, the info was there and I could start this wonderful concept on its way through the approval process. I really liked the proposal I wrote up. Shawn, in his much appreciated roll as my production manager, did some great charts and helped me get the numbers real. If this gets approved, it will dramatically change our 2012 season at OFC. If we get preliminary approval, we can start on the budgeting process for it next week.

Then I finally taught my super fun Traditional Winter Foods cooking class. I had a great group of students and we had fun and made delicious food.

The weather turned sunny and astoundingly gorgeous. I am coming to appreciate my office for its windows. Even when I can't be outside, I can still have the inspiration of the natural world.

Wednesday was devoted to catching up on projects and paperwork. The Quilt Retreat is going to be great fun this year, with almost 30 quilters already signed up. Our adult craft class morning on Feb. 12 is filling up and the Bluegrass craft show is so full, I don't know where I'm going to put everybody. I really need to get some top notch publicity out about that one!

Joanne Webb, lifetime member and supporter of the Arkansas
Craft Guild, Stone County and so much more. I will miss
your smile and sweet voice.

Thursday was in inspirational day. I am on the board of the Arkansas Craft Guild. This guild is the longest continuously running craft guild in the US. But, it has been suffering the same economic stresses as the rest of the country. We have made some changes there and are going to have the guild gallery open on Friday and Saturday only through March 5, with all volunteer help. People have been stepping up to the plate and the whole process is enough to make you positive about people!! We are opening the Joanne Webb Coffee Room in the Gallery, in honor of a truly wonderful lifetime member who passed away this week. I will miss her terribly, but now will be able to think about her every week as I visit with friends in the coffee room.

Then, yesterday, in Little Rock, I got to present another proposal that was the culmination of 3-years of work and planning. We are going to have a Glass Shop at the Ozark Folk Center!!! Thanks to the generosity and planning of the Ladies of the Committee of 100 and to Sage Holland, Beau Anderson and the help of OFC Superintendent Grady Spann, we will have a shop that presents the amazing history of glass in the Ozarks and that teaches and demonstrates how to make glass beads and that will be a place to buy those beautiful, sparkley treasures!!! Wow!

Yep, wow, what a week. Now Lena and I are headed out to do our weekly body score and FAMACHA check on the sheep and goats and to move the first batch due to lamb into the pen closest to the house. The weather is still beautiful and I'm going to enjoy the day and leave the worries about the future to the future.
love and hugs to all - Jen

It's baaaacckkk!

2011-01-27T20:39:00.001-06:00

I did get several scarves crocheted. And I spun up some beautiful blue and silver wool and mohair two ply yarn. And the kitty and small dog were very happy, but, now my computer is back!

I should be able to go back to doing daily updates here now, and get back to doing etsy listings in the Common Threads store.

And hopefully my cute little red netbook will let me keep working in cyber world.

The kitty is not happy though. She is currently curled up on one of my legs, while the netbook is on the other and she is certain that if she keeps pushing, the netbook will go away.

How much yarn will this wool make?

2011-01-15T08:00:00.001-06:00

You have mastered your drop spindle and now you are looking at that beautiful wool roving. All those gorgeous colors and textures! But how can you figure out how much fiber you need?

Many people ask us the question - how much yarn will this knot of roving make?

That question is hard to answer, it depends on how much roving is in the knot, the fiber, how well it is prepared and how evenly you spin. But it is possible to approximate how many yards you can spin from one ounce of roving.

You can use this guide as a basic outline.

WPI means Wraps Per Inch. Wind your yarn around a regular wooden ruler and see how many wraps there are in each inch. I wrap several inches and take an average.

If you spin:

Worsted Weight Yarn {12 WPI} You will get: 56 to 75 yds/ounce

Bulky Yarn {10 WPI} 38 to 50 yds/ounce

Sport Weight Yarn {14 WPI} 75 to 113 yds/ounce

Fingering Weight Yarn {16 WPI} 119 to 150 yds/ounce

Lace Weight Yarn {18 or more WPI} 163 + yds/ounce

Very Bulky Yarn {8 or less WPI} 25 to 31 yds/ounce

If you are interested in reserving a 2011 fleece, visiting our farm for Shearing Days on March 29-31, 2011 or have other fibery questions, just send me an email or comment here.

Guide created: 12/26/06 (updated 12/05/10)

Learn to weave on a triangle loom

2011-01-14T08:00:00.001-06:00

Weaving on a triangle loom or triloom is fun, creative, easy and quick. You can start weaving as soon as you sit down with the loom, there is no elaborate planning and measuring process. Triloom weaving is also a very efficient way to use yarn, so you can use the more expensive designer, or hand-spun yarns. Triangle looms are great for weaving plaid patterns and elegant lace patterns. The process is simple to learn, so triangle weaving is enjoyable for adults and children of any age.

Using a triloom, you can weave a wide variety of yarns and patterns which can be used for shawls, purses, blankets or what ever you can imagine. Smaller trilooms can be carried with you in your purse or briefcase so that you can work on projects on the bus or during breaks. You can then piece together the small triangles into squares, rectangles, circular geometric shapes or bigger triangles, allowing you to form the fabric for jackets, shawls, blankets, hand bags or what ever your imagination prompts.

Triloom weaving uses one continuous strand of yarn. There is no separate warp and weft. To make a pattern, you tie the new thread onto the old one and continue weaving. This saves an infinite amount of time, since you don’t have to measure out your warp and then thread the loom. It also saves a lot of yarn, since there is no loom waste. Triweaving takes the drudgery out of the weaving process and leaves the fun!

Begin: To begin weaving on a triloom, start with a smaller loom, a 12-inch loom is ideal. Shawn makes beautiful ones. You can reach him through his Laffing Horse Crafts web site. A triloom with a wider spacing is good, so that you can understand the yarn flow without getting stuck. Look for a loom with a 1/2 to 1/3 inch nail spacing on the top row.

You also need a weaving hook. For a 12-inch triloom, a nine-inch crochet hook, known as an afghan hook is a great weaving hook. You can also use a latch hook, similar to the ones that you use for making latch hook rugs. Some of the trilooms come with their own weaving hook. The ones we make do come with their own hook.

Start with two contrasting yarns. A bulky wool hand spun is a great yarn for your first project. You need less than 50 yards, total, to make a small handbag on your triloom. You can also use bulky commercial yarns to start out. There is an incredible variety of yarn available. Search etsy or visit my Common Threads store for just a few examples.

To start weaving with your triloom, sit at a table, with your loom in front of you. Later, you can triweave with your loom on your lap, but for this first time, it is easier to have the table to set the loom on. Have your yarns, hook and scissors within arms reach.

Set the loom on the table so that the long side of the triangle is farthest away from you and the point is nearest your belly. Pick up your first color of yarn and tie a slip knot in the end.

Hook the loop of the slip knot over the nail at the top left of the triloom. Run your yarn below the nails along the top of the triloom. Loop the yarn under the nail on the far right side of the top arm, then over, around and back down to the first nail on the right arm of the triangle.

Loop it under that nail, and then back across the length of the loom to the left arm of the triangle. Loop under the first nail on the left arm of the triangle and then take your yarn up to the second nail on the left side of the long arm of the triangle. Go over that nail.

Keep your work loose, it will tighten up as you weave.

Now comes the tricky part, and this is where you start weaving. Woven fabric holds together because the threads are intermeshed by going over and under each other. As you weave on your triloom, you need to make sure that if one pass of thread was over the cross thread, the next needs to be under it.



So take your yarn, and from the second nail on the left hand side of the top arm of the triangle, go under the first long strand of yarn and over the second one. Then hook your yarn under the third nail on the left arm of the triangle. Keeping your loop of yarn below the previous strands, pull it across the loom and hook it under the third nail on the right arm of the triangle.



Now, look - the weaving that you did on the left side, is also carried through to the right side! This is the secret that makes triloom weaving go so fast. The first time my husband saw that and understood it, he said “That’s cheating!”

The starting process can be confusing, but don’t worry, you’ll get it. After doing it a time or two, you won’t even have to think about it. Read the description and then look at the pictures. If you have any questions, feel free to send me an email. I am always happy to answer questions.

Hook the yarn over the third nail on the right side of the top arm and using your weaving hook, go under the third cross yarn, over the second and under the first, pull your yarn down through the cross yarns and hook it over the fourth nail on the right arm of the loom. You can use the back of your weaving hook to push the yarn straight. Now you continue the back and forth and up and down weaving until your loom is almost full. Keep your work loose!

When you get the the center of the triangle, it will be hard to work the hook in, even if you left the tension of your yarn fairly loose as you were weaving.



As you round the last nail on the top arm, pull your loop down and around the center bottom nail. Pull the yarn out an extra two or three inches. Then snip the yarn and pull the tail back out the top.

You did it! You just wove your first piece on a triangle loom! To take your weaving off the loom, you just gently pop it off the nails. Because you wove, over and under each strand, your piece of fabric is complete and does not need any finishing to keep it together. There are fancy ways you can finish the edges, or you can use them to join two triangles together. I’ll explain how to do that after you weave your next triangle.

You just did your first piece without changing colors. Now, start a second piece, and weave down to the sixth nail. As you come around the top arm nail on the left side, take your yarn and just lay it over your weaving down to the nail on the left side arm. Measure about 3 more inches and then cut your yarn. Tie on the second color. Now, take your hook and continue weaving as usual. The knot where you joined the colors should be on the outside of the nail on the left arm. When you decide to change colors again, keep the knots on the bottom edges. This way you can hide them in the fringes or in the joining.

Finish your second triangle and take it off the loom. Take time to admire your work!

To join the two triangles, lay them down, matching each other, with your beginning threads at opposite sides. Take your weaving hook and pull the beginning thread of one triangle through the beginning loop of the other triangle. Then, crossing from on triangle to the other, hook the next loop through and then the next loop. Think of binding off when you are knitting, or making pot holder edges on a pot holder loom. When you get to the opposite side, pull the end thread out through the loop.

Congratulations, you have a square!

If you make 5 triangles, join them into 2 squares and then stitch three sides of those squares together and join the fifth triangle at the top, you have a beautiful little, unique handbag. Or make triangles for the rest of the summer on your morning commute and by Christmas, you’ll have enough to join together to make scarves or afghans for everyone on your gift-giving list!

Guide created: 06/27/06 (updated 11/11/10)

Warp your rigid heddle the easy way

2011-01-13T10:54:00.001-06:00

Warping a loom is one of the most tedious parts of weaving, but with a rigid heddle loom, it isn't complicated. Using a warping peg and warping directly to the loom, you can have most projects ready to weave in an hour.

Start with a simple project and use inexpensive thread or yarn. Then you don't need to calculate how much yarn you need. For those of you who like to figure, I will include some length calculations, if you don't want to count it, just gather a bunch of yarn :-)

Using a 72 inch scarf as an example, you would need 96 inches of warp yarn, times a 10 inch width, woven on a 10 dent reed - means you need 9600 inches of yarn for your warp - or 267 yards. If you want half white and half another color, then you'll need 134 yards of each color. Not bad, when you put it in yards. You will need an approximately equivalent amount for the weft, the cross yarns you weave in.

In addition to the yarn, you need a rigid heddle loom, these are often available online. Just search rigid heddle loom to find looms usually listed from $9.95 to $500. The loom should have a heddle, braces, 2 brakes, front and back beams, a warp beam and a fabric beam. If you have any questions whether or not a loom is complete, feel free to ask me via a comment here or an email.

In addition to the loom and yarn, you need

scissors,
a tiny crochet hook or heddle hook,
a table or stand to put the loom on,
clamps of some sort to hold the loom on the table and
a stable peg that you can have a set distance from the loom.

My dining room chairs have spindles on the top. I weight those down with a bunch of books and use them, because they are handy. Some looms come with a warping peg or a stair bannister works. You just need something upright that you can drop a loop of yarn over and that will hold the yarn for as long as it takes you to warp the loom. This time factor generally leaves husbands and children out of the equation!

Find the center of your rigid heddle. This is usually marked on used looms. If it isn't marked, you'll need to find it by counting the slots. Tie a thread through the slot and around the top of the heddle to mark the center, or mark it with a pen. Now, measure 5 inches from the center to each side. Mark these slots with threads. This will give you the 10 inch width for your scarf.

Start with the back of your loom at the edge of the table. The front of the loom faces the peg/chair on the other side of the table.

Clamp the loom to the table and set your peg 96 inches away from the back beam of the loom.
Set your first ball of yarn on a chair below the loom, or on the floor.
Tie the end of the yarn to the warp (back) beam of the loom.
Using your heddle hook pull a loop of your yarn through the slot marked as 5 inches from the center. You can go either to the right or left, which ever is more comfortable for you.
Take that loop of yarn across the front beam of the loom. Don't do anything with this beam yet
Pull the loop all the way to the peg and drop it around the warping peg.
Go back to the warp beam and pull a loop of thread from the cone, around the back beam and through the next heddle slot.

Continue across the heddle, pulling a loop of thread up from the cone on the chair, threading it through the next slot and drawing the loop down to the warping peg. The loops will go over the warp beam and then under the warp beam.

When you have threaded all the slots from your beginning thread to your ending marker for a total of 10 inches, cut the thread several inches past the back warp beam. Tie the end of the thread to the beam.

Now, carefully slide the warp threads off of the peg. Begin winding the warp onto the back beam by turning the beam or knobs attached to it. When the threads start winding onto the beam, you will need to put paper, newspaper, cardboard or some other paper on the beam, under the threads. This is to separate the layers and keep the tension equal.

When you have the warp wound on the back beam and there is about 8 to 12 inches left in front of the heddle, STOP. Set the brake and turn the loom around. For the next step, you need scissors and it is easier to finish warping while you are seated.

Take a good look at the loom in front of you. There are two threads going through each slot. Next to each slot is a heddle with a hole in it. For the weaving to work, half the threads have to go through those holes.

Pick up your warp threads, take your scissors and cut the ends of the loops. With your heddle hook or small crochet hook take one thread of each pair and pull it through the hole. This is much easier to do than it is to explain. Feel free to print these instructions and try to work through this process. If you have any questions, send me a message.

When you have one thread through each slot and hole in your ten inch weaving width, you are ready to tie on. Pick up the first 4 threads in one hand and the next four in the other hand. Pull the threads over the cloth beam, around, under and then up over and tie them together. Just use a single, over hand knot, so that you can tighten the threads in the next step. Again, this is easy do, just hard to explain.

When you have all the threads tied on with a single knot, check the tension on them and tighten them where needed. As you tighten, knot the threads again, making a double knot in each bundle. Begin winding the cloth beam forward, This will tighten the warp further. Check for any missed slots, or holes or crossed threads. This is your last chance to correct warping mistakes.

Raise and lower the heddle. Check your warp threads again to make sure the tension on all of them is even.

Take some sheet fabric, tee shirt material or even paper towels. Raise your heddle and set the material in. Pull your heddle forward to beat the fabric tight. This is spacer fabric, you will pull it out when you cut your scarf off the loom. It evens out your warp and will spread the gaps from the tie on. Lower your heddle and weave and then beat the next pass through.

This raising and lowering is how you create your weaving. You raise the heddle and put your weft through from one side. Then you lower the heddle and run your weft back through from the other side. You beat your fabric tight with the heddle between each pass. Weave in 3 or 4 rows of spacer. Look how the space fabric is woven through the warp threads.

Now, wind your weft yarn onto your shuttle. I like to wind mine on in a butterfly pattern. Then it comes off easier when you are weaving. Wind on as much as you are comfortable handling. Remember, you will need to slide it through the gap between the slot threads and the hole threads. This gap is called a "shed"

Run your shuttle through your through the shed, leaving the end of the yarn hanging out several inches. Beat the weft yarn in, then change your heddle position. Tuck the end of the weft yarn in and run the shuttle back through. Keep your edges loose and leave your weft thread in an angle. Beat it down. This raise heddle, run the shuttle through, beat, lower heddle, run shuttle through, beat, is the basic pattern for your weaving. There are many good books out there that explain this process in detail and have wonderful patterns for weaving.

Congratulations - you've warped your loom! Happy weaving!

Guide created: 08/22/06 (updated 12/19/10)

The rest of the meal

2011-01-11T07:40:00.000-06:00

Computer issues are so crippling in our modern world. Shawn was up until 3 am this morning with tech support, (thank you, so much!) trying to fix my dear little netbook. So far, it seems to be working.

We had a bit of snow and the roads are a bit icy here in town. Not so bad here, but I hear the rest of the state is pretty snowed under. I don't know if my class will be able to make it to the Folk Center today, and I have left messages for all of them offering to postpone the class 'til next week, but haven't heard back. So here are the rest of the recipes, tested in our farm kitchen this weekend.

Corn meal mush

I cup corn meal (your choice of color)
1 cup cold water
1 tsp salt (optional)
3 cups hot water

Put the hot water and salt on to boil in a 2 quart pan with a heavy bottom. In a bowl, thoroughly blend the cold water and corn meal. Pour the cornmeal in over the water and stir with a wire whisk. When the hot water starts boiling whisk the blended cornmeal into the hot water. Continue to stir until it comes back to a boil. When boiling, remove from heat. Let stand 10 minutes. Eat with your favorite topping - cheese, sorghum, honey, salsa - can be eaten for any meal, as a main course or side dish.
Pack the leftovers into a well greased bread pan, refrigerate. The next day, turn the mush loaf out onto a bread board, slice and fry in bacon grease for a real treat.

Ham and Beans
We get the best ever ham hocks from the Mountain View Meats on Hwy 66.

2 1/2 cups dried beans
6 cups water
2 ham hocks
2 tsp butter
4 cups water

Rinse beans well, pick out stones. In large, heavy bottomed sauce pan combine beans and 6 cups water. Bring to boil and simmer for 10 minute. Remove from heat, cover and let stand 1 hour. Drain and rinse beans and return to pan.
Add remaining 4 cups water, ham hocks and butter to beans. Bring to boil and reduce heat. cover and continue to simmer for up to 2 hours, stirring occasionally until beans are tender. Add more water when needed.
Remove hocks from beans cool slightle and slice off meat. Return meat to beans, stir and serve.

Corn bread

1 cup flour
1 cup corn meal
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 egg
1/2 cup butter
2 tsp honey
1 1/4 cup buttermilk

In a large bowl, combine the dry ingredients and blend well.
Put a large skillet into the preheating oven at 375 degrees with the butter.
In a small bowl, whisk together the egg, buttermilk and honey.
When the butter has melted, pull the skillet out of the oven and swirl around to coat thoroughly. Then pour the remaining butter into the liquid mixture. Blend well and then pour into the dry mixture, stirring as you pour.
When completely blended pour into skillet and bake about 25 minute or until cornbread is pulling away from edges of the pan.
Cool slightly, cut and serve warm with ham and beans.

Meat stew
16 - 48 ounces meat (in our house this is goat or lamb, traditionally it would be venison. It can, of course be made with beef or pork or bear or coon or...)
Tblspn Lard or butter
2 Tblspn Flour
Potatoes
Carrots
Onions
Sweet potatoes
Dried green beans or any other vegetables in the root cellar.
4-6 cups water

Chop the meat into one inch cubes and put in large skillet or heavy bottom cast iron kettle with fat to brown. Stir occasionally while browning.
Chop all vegetables into one inch cubes. Peel the things you like peeled.
When meat is browned, stir in flour, sprinkling it over the top and blending well.
Add onions and carrots. Cover and let simmer for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Stir in water.
Add rest of vegetables, stirring often. Cover and let simmer 30 minutes or more until vegis are tender. Add salt, pepper and other spices to taste. This will vary depending on what meat, vegis and spices are available.

Spoon into bowls and enjoy with corn bread, biscuits or fresh baked bread.

These are basic settler foods here in the Ozarks. It's interesting that they are pretty basic foods in our modern farm kitchen in the Ozarks, too.

Spinning Frappucino's first kid mohair fleece

2011-01-09T14:18:00.000-06:00

Frappucino and his mum, Bramble

Carding Frappucino's kid mohair curls

Silky kid mohair in the cards

A batt of Frappucino carded kid mohair

Carded Frappucino kid mohair ready to spin

Mohair Spinning Philosophy and Basket Blends

2011-01-09T14:12:00.000-06:00

Two skeins of Basket Blend Yarn

I love to spin mohair. The silky softness pleases both my hands and my eyes. It is a very sensual fiber.
And I love my little fluffy, floppy-eared goats who grow mohair. My colored angora goats seem to combine the best characteristics of the dairy goats that I've loved most of my life and the sheeps that keep me entertained while growing useful wool. And they grow that divine fiber -mohair.

I spin my mohair raw, from the lock, unwashed and often, uncarded. The prime parts of the fleece, off the side, I just spin directly from the pillowcase, where they've been stored since shearing. Sometimes the fleeces are stored for a day before I start spinning, other times it's four months, but I do spin almost all of my 10 mohair fleeces in the 6 months between shearing. Did I mention that I love to spin mohair.

Spinning mohair raw gives me a yarn that varies in thickness and has little tufts and nubs and tails. This makes a wonderful, textured fabric when I weave with my handspun. It also creates fun, one-of-a-kind hats and scarves and shawls and wraps and blanket when I crochet with it.

After I spin each skein, I wash it in the sink. I rinse each skein in warm water and then wash them with soap. I then rinse them several times, usually once with vinegar water and sometimes I add creme rinse to the last rinse bath, depending on whether or not I plan to dye the skeins. The ones I am going to dye, I don't use creme rinse, because it affect how well the dye takes up.

I demo spinning frequently. During the summer, I do spinning demos several times a week. I carry my current fleece in a big grapevine basket, woven by Grapevine Betty who lives up on Highway 9 outside of Mountain View. I spin up all the best parts of one fleece before I get out the pillow case that has the next fleece. Or, sometimes I get bored spinning one fleece, so I'll go grab another with much of the original fleece still in the basket. After a few months, there is an interesting mix of mohair curls in my grapevine basket.

At some point, either because I don't have enough prime parts of a fleece left in the basket or because I want to empty it out, I start carding all the bits left in the basket together and spinning them. These are my "Basket Blends Yarns". They are 100% mohair all grown here on our farm. Our flock is mostly grey, in different shades. A few of them have white spots and Tillie is all white. Bramble and Frappucino are oatmeal colored with a steely highlight. So the undyed Basket Blends are grey/white/silver. While they have some kid mohair in them, they also have older does hair, however it is still soft to the touch mohair.

Ozark pudding and other winter treats

2011-01-09T09:37:00.000-06:00

This area of the Ozark Mountains has not been settled for very long. Peoples have known about the bounty of the area - Indian tribes hunted it, Frenchmen trapped it, Spaniards explored it, but the rough ground, challenging access and fickle weather kept people from settling here until some intrepid British Ilse folk and German farmers began planting themselves here in the 1800's.

Getting in and out for food was possible, but challenging. Some menfolk would spend the entire year building a raft, trapping, collecting and harvesting. They'd take the rivers down to the Mississippi and on down to New Orleans, trading all the way down the river. Then they'd walk home, with what they'd bartered for and what they could carry. So, realistically - the settlers ate what they could hunt, trap, gather and raise. This was not a hardship, though it was a lot of work. This area of the Ozarks is rich in game. The valleys grow good crops. The streams and lakes are full of fish. The trees produce nuts galore and the bushes are laden with berries. Bees swarm in hollow trees and make honey from the sweet flowers. In the summer, there is lots of food. People who settled in the Ozarks were skilled at harvesting and storing it, or they didn't survive.

These recipes are adapted from old recipes I've heard from friends whose families settled here before the Civil War. I've changed them a bit to suit what is avialable to a modern cook, though I've tried to remain true to the idea of the time, like using stone ground corn meal and whole wheat flour.

The discussion of white corn meal versus yellow corn meal has occupied a goodly portion of my study for the last four years. People passionate about their corn meal. Some of the local ladies insist that white corn meal is "Yankee corn meal" and their mama's would never have used it. However, two settler families in the area, the Gillihan's and the Cross's both have always used white corn for meal and say that yellow corn is for feeding to livestock. Because I have a goodly supply of organic locally grown stone ground white corn meal from War Eagle Mill, that is what I have used in these recipes.

Also, I only use butter. I don't think that magarine is food. Lard is an acceptable cooking fat and preferable in many recipes. Both would have been available to early settlers.

Also, I don't eat processed sugar. I do occasionally eat a wee bit of honey and I love fruit for sweet treats. The early settlers would have done some trading for sugar cakes, but they would have mostly sweetened with dried fruits, homemade sorghum molasses and honey gathered from wild hives.

I am going to teach these six recipes in my Traditional Winter Fare Cooking Class on Tuesday, Jan. 11, 2011. It may take me a few days to get them all listed in here. The recipes are Corn Meal Mush, Corn Bread, Beans with Ham Hocks, Meat and Vegi Stew, Ozark Pudding and Cornmeal Skillet Cake.

Dessert first :-)

Ozark Pudding

Ozark Pudding (this is one of our family's favorites)

1 egg
1/3 cup honey
2 heaping Tablespoons Whole Wheat Flour
1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 peeled and chopped apple
1/2 cup chopped hickory nuts (pecans are a modern substitute)

Preheat oven to 350. Butter a 10-inch pie plate or skillet.
Beat the egg and honey together. Add flour, baking powder and salt. Mix thoroughly. Fold in the apples and nuts and pour into the pie pan. Bake for 30 minutes, keeping the fire at a steady temp. Serve warm with cream drizzled over the top for added decadence.

Cornmeal Skillet Cake
This recipe takes more time than Ozark Pudding, but it is worth the effort.

Cornmeal Skillet Cake

1 cup flour (I use War Eagle Mill White Whole Wheat)
1 cup white corn meal
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
8 Tablespoons butter
4 apples, peeled and cored and chopped
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup chopped hickory nuts
1/2 cup dried berries
1 cup milk
2 eggs

Preheat oven to 350. Mix together flour, cornmeal, baking powder and salt.
On stove top, melt butter in skillet. Add the apples and simmer until soft. Add the honey, berries and nuts and stir well. Remove from heat.
Beat the eggs and add the milk. Pour into the dried ingredients and blend well. Pour the liquid off the apple mixture into the batter and blend well.
Spread the apple mix evenly over the bottom of the skillet and then spoon the batter over the top. Smooth it out to cover the fruit.
Bake for 30 min, or until a knife comes out clean.
You can serve from the skillet, or invert on a cake platter for a more stunning presentation.

Shearing week

2011-01-08T08:22:00.000-06:00

The sheep and dairy goats in the back, waiting for their breakfast.

We are currently planning a Shearing week at our farm in the Arkansas Ozarks March 29-31, in conjuction with Sheep Camp at the Ozark Folk Center. Send me a message if you want more information about classes, demos, work-study opportunities or reserving fleeces.

Catching up

2011-01-07T15:45:00.001-06:00

The trip to Colorado was great, but I have so much catching up to do!
Shawn found us a new-used fridge and in the process of changing them, we had to take down our favorite cartoon. It's now up on the new fridge. Thanks again Julia!

We fence our critters,
but have Wifi for the computers!

I got my first of the month reports mostly finished at work (I still have one due on Monday) and so I took today off. I am cooking and prepping for the class I am teaching on Tuesday - Winter Foods. Currently I have a pot of beans with delicious ham hocks from our local butcher on the stove. I'll start a batch of corn bread in the skillet when I get done writing this. I made both yellow and white cornmeal mush for breakfast this morning and tomorrow I'll do a winter meat stew with kale from the garden. I'll do an Ozark pudding and an apple cornmeal cake tomorrow. As soon as I write down and test all my recipes, I'll share them here! It's a wee bit of a challenge to work on cooking classes, since I quit eating sugar last August, but I work around it with fruits and a wee touch of honey when I need to.

I've been spinning in the evenings this week and just washed the 5 skeins I did. I'm spinning Frappucino's kid mohair fleece right now - it is divine! Not as pretty a color as his sister's, but just a soft and fine and strong.

I've done one skein plied with space dyed soft rose, yellow and tan yarn. I did two skeins that are 100% Frap and then I did two skeins of my "basket mix" which is the rest of the mohair left in my basket after I finish spinning individual fleeces. This basket mix has Bramble's, Abra's, Fes' and Eve's fleeces in it. It's no where near as fine as kid mohair, but it is still wonderful yarn.

Settling in at home

2011-01-06T07:23:00.000-06:00

It's good to be home! I've been tired and catching up with everything at home and at work after traveling 3,000 miles in 9 days.
It was good to see family and friends, but it is so good to be home. Lena took care of everything great and even had the house nice and clean when we got home.
Nilly is doing better. She had a course of banamine (livestock aspirin) and vitamin B shots and now seems to be a bit slow and sore, but doing ok.

Tomorrow I'm taking the day off work to stay at home and prep for my Jan. 11 Comfort Foods class. I'll work on the recipes and put them here for anyone who wants them. Right now I'm thinking corn meal mush from both white and yellow corn; beans with ham hocks; corn bread and Ozark pudding. If you can think of anything I should add, let me know.

Weather or not

2010-12-31T08:32:00.000-06:00

We've had great weather on our trip, until yesterday. Now icy roads and below 0 temps have us huddled in a hotel. We are going to go get chains for the PT Cruiser and try to get out to my parents house this morning. Weather permitting, we'll head to Texas tomorrow morning.

Creativity recognized on 16th Street Mall in Denver

Pianos on the mall - and they were in tune!

Music on the Mall

Green Shawl

2010-12-30T08:54:00.002-06:00

Bramble and her 2010 kids, Frappucino and Fritillary

This shawl started with our angora goat doe Bramble's spring 2010 fleece. We gave her her spring hair cut on a beautiful day in early April. The trees on the hill behind our house were just leafing out.

Look at all those colors, I thought, "and they call every one of them "Green." That was the genesis of this shawl."

I spun Bramble's fleece raw, right from the bag. After I had spun and plied all six skeins, I washed them in the kitchen sink and hung the yarns to dry on our front porch in the gentle spring breezes.

I asked Lena to dye them all with blues and yellows. She worked her handpainting magic with the Jacquard dyes and the result was exactly what I had hoped for - Spring greens!

I started weaving the shawl on my 7-foot triloom. I did it plain weave, without counting any patterns. I wanted the texture of the mohair and the beauty of the color to stand out. I hoped to have the shawl done for the Off the Beaten Path Studio Tour the third weekend in September, but it didn't make it.

October 21 was the Sheep to Shawl competition at the Ozark Folk Center. I was determined to have my green mohair shawl done for that day. I was not competing, but I knew that many people who would appreciate the beauty of this piece would be there.

On the loom hand knotting the fringe

It took me until almost 1:00 a.m. to finish tying the last fringe on this gorgeous green shawl, but I finished it. Many, many people admired it that day and they have everywhere I've shown it since then. Many people have said that this one is too beautiful to sell, they tell me I have to keep it.

Such a snuggly warm bit of spring

Yesterday, while I was laughing, feeling young, playing tourist and taking a picture of a flute player on the 16th street mall in Denver, someone stole this shawl.
We talked to the motor cycle cops, the information guys and people in stores around. They were nice, but amused at our naivete'. One asked us where we were from.

I spent the night with my heart feeling broken, I loved this shawl and had decided to keep it for myself. Suddenly I was grieving all the loses of the last four years. Poor Shawn, he did his best to console me.

One of the things that hurt the most was that now this beautiful piece, that I had put easily a hundred hours into, was separated from this story of its making. How important are the stories... to me, they are the joy of things.

I hope my spring green shawl keeps someone warm in Denver this cold winter and perhaps it will bring joy to someone's life.

Awesome museum

2010-12-27T18:11:00.001-06:00

Pedal power scroll saw from 1915

Motorized Schwinn bicycle

We went to a wonderful little private museum in Craig, Colo. this afternoon. I was very impressed with the collection and the quality of the displays at the Wyman Museum.

We went out to the museum this afternoon and were initially disappointed to find a closed sign on the door. But, Shawn pushed the door and found it open. We apologized to the owner, who was inside. He said it was no problem and he offered to take us on a guided tour. He is so passionate about his museum, we had a wonderful visit.

The chain saw collection is amazing, the hearse and body baskets were a wonderful education and the sheepherders wagon and both hand cranked and electric shearing equipment from the early 1900's fascinated me.

The license plate collection started with Colorado plates from 1927, the first year they registered cars in this state. That year, the courthouse issued you a number and you went home and made your own license plate. There was an Illinois license plate from the WWII years made from soybeans. All metal was headed to the war effort.

We really enjoyed our visit. Thanks Mr. Wyman!

Travel plans

2010-12-27T11:29:00.001-06:00

Snow off the back porch at Shawn's folks

We're in the High Country of Colorado at Shawn's folks place in Craig. The snow is deep, but the roads were plowed and mostly dry getting up here. It snowed a wee bit more last night, but it's just beautiful.

So far, our trip has been smooth and enjoyable. We left home about 6:15 a.m. on the 23rd and got to Jeannie's in Wichita Falls, TX at supper time. We only got confused about the route once, in Sherman, TX, when I got turned around after we had to drive away from the main highway to get gas. Gas has been running about $2.71 across the country.

The wind farm at Lamar added some interest to the view.

Finally, at sunset, a bump on the horizon - Pikes Peak!

Christmas dinner 2010 at my folks.

We left Texas at about 5:15 in the morning on Christmas Eve and drove what seemed like forever across unchanging plains. Finally, as the sun was setting, we could see at little bump of Pikes Peak on the horizon. We had dinner at my folks and a wonderful Christmas Day with my family. Laughter and sharing filled the big house.

Snow on Rabbit Ears pass, but the roads are dry.

Yesterday my dad cooked a delicious breakfast (I would love the recipe for that tofu/sundried tomato/red pepper/avocado stir fry!) and we headed up into the hills. Funny, the Colorado passes aren't very scary anymore after driving for four years in the Ozarks :-). We did find deep snow on Rabbit Ears, but the roads were dry.

We had a great dinner in Craig with Shawn's folks and now are having a relaxing morning looking at the snow blanketing the high plains. I swept last night's snow off the front steps up the their house and laughed at the jack rabbit and cotton tail tracks all over the front porch.

Our plans for the upcoming days are to relax and visit with Sherrie and Johnny today. Then tomorrow, sometime in the morning, we'll head back to the eastern slope, maybe stopping to consider some of the galleries in Steamboat for Shawn's brooms and maybe my shawls.

We'll planning on being at Robin and Summer's tomorrow night and we've been invited to dinner tomorrow night at Joe's house.

I'm hoping to meet Julia for lunch and whoever else wants to join us on the 16th street Mall in Denver on the 29th. We'll go to Tattered in Cherry Creek in the afternoon and then are planning on dinner with Robin and Summer. I need to call them all to confirm this part of the plan :-).

Then we'll be back at my folks on the 30th and hopefully get to spend the day with Anthony and Lydia and Matthew and then meet up with Kayla for dinner.

We'll head back home on the first and I have to be back to the office, bright and refreshed at 8:00 a.m. on the 3rd.

How's that for a vacation update, plan and itinerary all in one blog post.

Love and hugs to everybody, Jen

More technology

2010-12-25T16:18:00.002-06:00

So were sitting here on Christmas Day playing with toys. Not new toys, but everybody is sharing their net books, laptops, iPhones, androids, and iPads.
So I'm typing this on my brothers iPad...
Interesting...

Stuffed Pumpkin

2010-12-21T07:37:00.000-06:00

While I'm waiting to see if the sky will clear enough so I can see the amazing winter solstice total eclipse of the full moon at midnight, I thought I share a recipe with you.

I love stuffed pumpkin. I prefer them stuffed with rice - but after that, all bets are off. I've stuffed pumpkins with rice and pine nuts or rice and shitake mushrooms. Rice and chopped greens is a little weird, and I don't think I'll ever try the rice and broccoli stuffed pumpkin again.

Last night however, I think I made one of the best stuffed pumpkins ever.

I started with a cute little pie pumpkin, one of the last out of the garden. I cooked up a big batch of Arkansas long-grain brown rice. Did you know that Arkansas is the largest producer of rice in the US. Another good reason for living here. I can still enjoy rice and buy local!

I browned about a pound of ground lamb in a large cast iron frying pan. Our butcher makes his hand-sized packages which work great for our family of 3 big eaters. I stirred in and lightly cooked one coarse chopped onion and one large apple - the last from our next door neighbor's tree. I minced 4 large cloves of garlic and added them to the pan. Then I poured in about 1/2 cup of apple cider and two teaspoons of Garam Masala spice (I buy that from Mountain Rose Herbs). I stirred it all well and turned off the fire under the pan.

Then I cut the top out of the pumpkin and scooped out the seeds. They went into the bowl that goes out to the goats. Pumpkin seeds are an excellent natural wormer. Then I powdered the whole inside of the pumkin, including the top with about a tablespoon of the Masala spice.

I stuffed the little pumpkin with the rice mixture, packing it down well, and put it into a 9x13 pan with about 1/2 cup of apple cider and 1/2 cup of water in the pan. I baked it at 350 for 1/2 hour, then I put the rest of the stuffing into the pan around the pumpkin and put it back in the oven for about another 45 minutes while I went out and milked and did evening chores.

I loved it and am taking left-overs for lunch. Lena and Shawn were less enthusiastic, that's why I have left-overs.

The sky is still cloudy. Even though the cloud cover was heavy, the night was still bright and the pink glow of the eclipse made an interesting effect on the clouds.

Happy Solstice everyone!

Lamb and Rice Stuffed Pumpkin

1 small pie pumpkin
1 lb ground lamb
4 cups cooked long grain brown rice
1 large onion
1 large apple
4 cloves garlic
2 tsp Garam Masala spice
1/2 c apple cider
1 Tbs Garam Masala spice
1/2 c apple cider
1/2 c water

Clean seeds out of pumpkin and powder inside with 1 Tbs Masala.
Brown lamb, onion, apple, garlic, 2 tsp Masala and 1/2 c apple cider.
Stuff pumpkin with mix, pour remaining cider and water into 9x13 pan, set stuffed pumpkin in middle. Bake at 350 for 1/2 hour. Surround pumpkin with remaining stuffing and continue to bake at 350 for another 45 minutes. Cut pumpkin into quarters and serve with stuffing scooped over top.

Craving places

2010-12-19T08:18:00.000-06:00

We in the final planning stages for our trip back to Colorado. The car is checked out and tires ordered (they go on tomorrow), the propane tank is filled, we have plenty of hay and I think the farm is set for Lena to take care of everything for two weeks.
Now, it's on to planning the itinerary. With so many people to see, friends and family to visit, it's going to be a whirlwind trip that cuts diagonally across the state from Lamar in the southeast corner to Craig in the northwest. We are trying to work with friends holiday plans, so we can see them for bit when they aren't at work or with other family. In the midst of all that planning, I realized that I had a craving for one place in Colorado.
Now, I spent 24 years of my life in that state. I've camped all over it, worked across much of it, been a journalist, a farmer, a storyteller, and a postal carrier there. And we are really making this whole trip to see people, especially the ones that haven't been able to come out and visit us in Arkansas. But there is one Place I have a craving for.
Have a craving for a place is like having a craving for a food. It's not something you need in your daily life, just something you want a taste of occasionally. Maybe it has a trace mineral your body needs in small amounts or a flavor that soothes a part of your brain.
I have a craving for the Sixteenth Street Mall in Denver. I want to wander the streets and listen to the clop-clop of the cart horses feet and the live music of the buskers, maybe dropping a few dollars into the hats of the ones I enjoy. I want to go to the tobacco shop with Shawn, and get a cuppa coffee at the Starbucks where I got one of my favorite cd's Alanis Morrissette's Jagged Little Pill acoustic. I want to window shop until we are frosty cold and then go back to the car and spend the rest of the afternoon at the Tattered, soaking up book energy.
Hopefully we'll be able to add that little bit of spice to the full meal of what looks like its going to be a wonderful trip.

Socks!

2010-12-18T07:25:00.001-06:00

I love fun socks.

Lena knit me these wonderful fun socks.

I think it started when my aunt Jeannie gave me a back of cute socks. Some of them had flowers on them, my favorite set was cute blue with snow flakes and yesterday I wore bright yellow ones with primary polka dots.

Fun socks bring a smile to your face. Cute socks are a secret way to be girlie. You can show them off or tuck them into boots or under your slacks and business shoes.

For my birthday, Lena knit me a wonderful Mardi gras sock. She just gave me its mate for Christmas. They remind me of Soulmate Socks. The same color, but unique. It shows how your knitting/crocheting/any handwork changes in even a very short time as your body adapts to different things in life.

I love my socks! Thanks Lena.

New store

2010-12-16T07:11:00.000-06:00

I had a great visit with Steve Folkers yesterday. Steve is the Cooper at the Ozark Folk Center and he is also an original member of the Arkansas Craft Guild and a founding member of the Off The Beaten Path Studio Tour. His buckets, bowls and spoons are works of art lovingly shaped from trees using only hand tools. He is an amazing artist.

We were discussing the dilemma that most artists in tourist-based towns like ours face - where do you market your product in the off season. Steve does sell in a gallery in Little Rock and one in LA, as well as in Mountain View during the season, but he thinking that he maybe needs to get some broader exposure. I've been weighing the pros and cons of the local stores and Guild Gallery. After talking with Steve and looking at my analysis that is not strongly weighted in any direction - I went back to my Etsy store.

Check out Common Threads on Etsy and let me know if you have any suggestions for making it better.

I've had a few items listed on Etsy in the past, but have never sold anything there. The site seems to have come a long way in the last year or so and many crafts people say it is working for them. So, over the next few weeks I'll be listing shawls, rugs, scarves, hats, purses, Lena's knitting needles and yarns. I'll let you know how it's going