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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.