Weaving weekend

I still like reading magazines such as Inc and Fast Company, they have lots of good information for small businesses. An article they had in common recently was about the concept of distractions, and how we actually tend to distract ourselves. We can't blame it on email or the phone or people poking their head through the office door. We mostly just have a really hard time focusing on any one project long enough to get it done.

I find that a lot, especially on weekends like this one, where I have four distinct "to do" lists.

1. One was for the farm - the angoras need to be sheared, and I don't like the current milk barn layout, so I wanted to move it. 
2. Winter garden - I want to plant spinach, chard and kale and find what is left of the summer garden under the bermuda grass.
3. Common Threads - weave, weave, weave and maybe dye some fiber, spin a little yarn... Since we decided to do Artisan's Market on the Square again this year, I've got to get some more stock made. 
4. Household - Make cheese, pear sauce, decide what to do the the muscadines, check the persimmons, do laundry, sweep, kitchen counters and start finding my winter clothes.

So, as I focus on the current shawl on the loom, one that Lena says I should call Cucumber Melon, though I'm not sure that's a shawl name, I have a pot of pears bubbling on the stove. The mozzarella took one hour of complete focus, but I managed it and it came out great. I got a beautiful white warp on the rigid heddle in the 4 hours before daylight yesterday morning.
Now I have 3/4 of the last day of my weekend. I won't get it all done, though the laundry is caught up for this week. I really want to plant at least the spinach, and I want to go visit a friend. So, I'll go buy some fresh seed and visit a bit.
How can I focus when my life is blessed with such an abundance of wonderful things to do?

This shawl is almost ready to come off the loom.

This Dapper Dan rug is almost done. 

These two Fantasia rugs and a Demi rug are half way through the felting process

This white Herkimer rug will take a week or more to finish

Time wishes, not bucket list

At conference I recently attended had big sheets of paper with questions written  in big letters on the top of the page, and markers for anyone who wanted to write their answer below. 

During breaks everyone wandered about to see what the questions were and write their answers one any they wanted. This generated some great discussions. 

One was "What's one thing on your bucket list?"

I thought and thought. I don't have a bucket list. I am blessed to have a life that is full to overflowing. I have a farm I love; a busy career that keeps me entertained; an art the gentles my soul; and family and friends that love and care for me. 

I grew up around the world as an Army brat and I get to travel a lot for my job. My parents always told me I could do anything I set my mind to and worked toward - and I have. 

I don't have a bucket list, but I do have an "Only if I had more time... list. "

If I had more time (or more energy within the time I have...) -

I would paint my bathroom cerulean blue. And tile its floor, and move the cabinets. 

I would be getting my winter garden ready. 

I would participate in NANOWRIMO. 

I would spend time getting together with and visiting my neighbors. 

I would write more thank you notes. 

I would get raspberries to grow. 

I learn what it is like to have a day without a to-do list. 

This list could get very long - and then it would look like a to-do list. 

So, enough musing, back to the whirlwind of my very full, very wonderful life. 

My Newcomb Weaver's Friend

I weave my Fleecyful Rugs on this Newcomb loom. My Aunt Jeannie found this loom when she lived in Lynn, Massachusetts many years ago. She gave it to me, well, quite some time ago, in the days before the Internet. 

So, I first set it up by trial and error. I've had it set up in several different configurations. I've taken it down moved it and reassembled it many times. Sometimes I mark the parts with masking tape to make it easier to put it back together. 

This week, I had someone message me that they had a friend who had acquired a Newcomb Weavers Friend and was attempting to assemble it. 

I said I'd be glad to take pictures of mine and how I have it set up and share them. 

I'm not saying this is the right way, but it works for me and I've woven several hundred rugs on this loom. 

If you have any questions, please either leave a comment or email me. 

And now I need to get back to weaving. 

 Off the Beaten Path Studio Tour is September 13-15, 2013. 

Thanks to the Lazy Goat String Band

Only in Mountain View...

A couple weeks ago, I was visiting with the members of the Lazy Goat String Band as they packed up after a set. The talk turned to goats. Emily Phillips is the fiddle player for this very talented group. Her mom, Christi, mentioned that they might have a few of their registered Alpine namesake goats for sale. 

Yesterday, I again visited with the group after a great set of music. Samuel Blake has a delightful new gourd banjo. I cut short my admiring the banjo to ask about the goats. (Sorry Samuel!)

Yep, they were still for sale. And I fell instantly in love when I met them. Meet Latte' and her daughter. Christi said I should let Shawn name her Isabell. 

The music of Mountain View brought me back my Alpines. I am so blessed to live here. 

Herkimer's throne

I suspect Herkimer just likes the shearing stand because it is a dry place where he can relax and watch the world.

Just lately though, I've been wondering if it's his way of asking to be sheared? I'd like him the put on another few weeks growth before giving him his hair cut, and it's not very hot this summer. 

We did just shear Ishmael in my wonderful Sheep to Shawl class and I am loving spinning his fine soft kid mohair. My next Sheep to Shawl class is March 19-21, 2014 if you'd like to join us, message me for info. 

Duck soup delights

This is not a post about supper or recipes. It is about the wonderful wet weather we've been having. There is water just laying all over the ground. More of that precious resource falls from the sky every day. I wish we had better ways to store this abundance for times of shortage, but for now, we'll just appreciate it. 

The sheep are enjoying their pasture between storms. We are checking the frequently for parasite issues. 

The figs, tomatoes and other fruits are splitting their skins from the abundance of water. 

The rain is dripping pink off the poke berries. 

Color inspirations

Where do I get my inspiration for my color combinations?

Join me for a rainy morning walk in the garden. 

The world is so gorgeously green this morning. I think Oz is just short for Ozarks and we live in the Emerald City. 

Birdsong and painted skeins

A new batch of painted handspun Jacob sheep wool yarn in the predawn blue light

The bird and insect symphony was so rich in this morning's predawn blue light, as I was hanging newly painted skeins of yarn out to dry. I wished I could share the whole experience with everyone. But even if I had video'd it, the richness of the morning air, the deep blueness of the light and the unique harmonies of the morning chorus would not have come through.

So, just grab a cuppa your favorite morning beverage, (mine is Dean's Beans Mocha Sumatra coffee, cold with goat's milk) take a deep breath and imagine sharing this beautiful blue morning here on Havencroft farm.

Have a delicious day.

Dipping our toes back in the show waters

I love showing livestock. Ever since I fitted and showed my first Brown Swiss dairy heifer Catalpa, as part of a class at Colorado State University, I've loved showing livestock. I love the fitting and preparing. I love seeing all the other breeds and breeders and animals in my chosen breed. I love the excitement of watching everyone get ready. But mostly love being in the class and hearing the judge give the reasons for his placings.It's an adrenaline charged way to learn good, better, best in your chosen animals.

National Western Stock Show in Denver has always been one of my favorite places to show and in 2006 the centennial year of the show, we took Grand Champion Farm Flock in the natural colored sheep division with our Jacob Sheep. That banner hangs on my wall to this day, along with several other grand champion and reserves and some pretty blue firsts.

Then we moved here to the Ozarks and had a lot of other things on our plate. But, next month, the Jacob Sheep Breeders Association is having it's Annual meeting and sheep and fleece judging in Sedalia, Missouri, only 4 hours from our farm and WE"RE GOING!

Hester getting her haircut.

I'm taking three little ewes to show. Two yearlings Hanna and Hester and this year's little Iko. That's two Canoe Lake Sonic Boom daughters and one Havencroft Dapper Dan daughter. They'll have registry inspections there, so I hope to catch up on my registrations, something else that has fallen through the cracks.

I'm donating this Corriander vest to the fundraising auction. We're figuring travel plans and packing lists and ... The show is Labor Day Weekend, just a month a way. Shawn and I are getting to go together. Yippee!

Milk or goats? Milk

Shawn and I have always enjoyed traveling together. Driving and riding in the car is a great way to focus on each other and have in depth discussions about a wide range of topics.

Yesterday, we drove down to Stuttgart to deliver another order of brooms to the Museum of the Grand Prairie. They have a beautiful gift shop and sell a lot of Laffing Horse brooms. It takes us about 4 hours to get there from Mountain View. That was plenty of time for me to prattle on about the discussion I started here in my blog yesterday. I loved my Alpine dairy goats of the past. I love my Lamancha dairy goats of the present.

Henna on the milk stand and Harley wondering what's up.

Do I want to be a goat breeder and produce top quality dairy goats? Or do I want to produce milk from well loved dairy goats. They are not exclusive. I love any goats I have, and crossbred goats can be top quality. But they do involved different decisions.
By the time we got to Pine Bluff to look at the wonderful goats there, I knew that I was looking for milkers to add to my milking string. While the romantic idea of going back to being a goat breeder was a sweet dream, it really doesn't fit into my life right now.

So, I had a nice visit with John Wagner and looked at his gorgeous, healthy goats - and came home without any. That gave us a chance to do some shopping at Tractor Supply and Lowes for supplies on the way home.

I'm still looking to add a milker or two, or a really nice doeling or two to the flock, but I am no longer looking for a buck or looking for purebreds. I just need healthy goats with nice udders who give great tasting milk. I'm still picky.

And I'm really appreciating having a partner in life to spin my wild ideas with so that I can weave a little reality into them. Thanks Shawn.

Dos Manos Alpines, a trip down memory lane

I've had dairy goats since 1979. A couple years ago, my mom found a letter I'd written to my Grandma about my first goats. I learned to milk goats from Finley Nelson in Fort Collins, Colorado. Finley also taught me to drive ponies, enjoy reading aloud to friends and to like Zane Grey westerns. Finley had a fine herd of heavy milking Saanen and Alpine does. He taught me to always buy the best male animal for your flock that you can afford. That's the best way to improve any livestock, from cattle to dairy goats. After all, your male is half your genetics. When Finley dispersed his herd, and I bought a few. I loved the beautiful black and white Sundgau does.

 I met Susan Moore about that same time when I was working on a ranch in Waverly, Colorado. Her La Luna Dairy Goats became the foundation of my Alpine herd. La Luna Innocencia was my favorite doe for many years. We had her until she was 12 and then she went to a friend's herd in Penrose, Colorado. She was hoping to get one more set of kids out of her.

The bucks that shared my life at that point were Fir Ridge RR Vesta's Andre; Tenmile Rommell Knut; Redwood Hills Nobleman; and Reparte', aka Party-goat. Andre became the most agressive buck I've every had. Nobleman was a true gentleman. I eventually culled all of Party-goat's descendants from the flock. They were all fence jumpers. That seems to be a highly heritable trait.

I had my flock on DHIR test. I just recently discovered the American Dairy Goat Association's registration database online and I spent a fun few minutes researching my old herd name, Dos Manos.  Dos Manos, two hands make the work go easier, milking smoother and working on the homestead lighter. Some of my Dos Manos girls milked as well as I remembered. Others, I did not remember at all. The Dos Manos goats from the 1980's are mine. Someone has picked up the name, so all the ones in the 2000's are not.

I was lucky to be a member of a very active Northern Colorado Dairy Goat club and to have Dr Joan Bowen as my veterinarian, small ruminant mentor and friend. I loved showing my Alpines. I have pictures of my son (now almost 30-years-old) in diapers in the show pen with the kids - the four-legged kids. Another family picture that I am fond of shows my two children, bundled up in blue parkas on hay bales, surrounded by goats. Goats were a big part of their life, we have many family goat stories.

Then we moved to southern Colorado for work. As my kids grew older and we got more involved in homeschooling, the show side of my goat world slipped away. I still kept milk goats, but I stopped registering them and showing them. My focus moved to raising children. The goats provided us with good milk to drink, make cheese, raise bottle baby calves and lambs and make soap with.

I kept goats. They became a mixture of breeds with different colors, different ear styles and different personalities. I kept the ones that had good tasting milk, were easy to milk and that didn't create trouble. When Shawn and I joined households, we scrambled our names and came up with Laffing Horse for our farm name. The first dairy goat we bought together was Victoria, a lovely Lamancha doe. We decided Lamancha's were our breed. We went to Northern Colorado to get South Fork King Arthur, a beautiful black Lamancha buck kid. But, my focus was still elsewhere. While I loved, milked and kept my goats, I didn't feel the call of the purebred registry, or of the show ring.

Our Lamanchas continue to be lovely goats. My two current girls, Henna and Harley have cute little Lamancha gopher ears, though they are 1/4 Saanen. I love the Manchi's disposition, milk quality and ease of care, but, we've found that is challenging to sell good milk goats that don't have ears. We've started called the price difference between goats with ears and those without the "ear tax." I've started looking back at other breeds. I'm tired of what the "ear tax" costs.

After selling the herd down last year due to the drought, I thought I might just be able to keep a few milkers for the family, but I'm finding that two milkers is too few for my comfort. So, tomorrow, we are headed to Pine Bluff Arkansas to look at some really top quality Alpine dairy goats. I feel like I've come full circle, back to my goat start. I'll let you know what we find.

Bugs and other scheduling matters

Last night, after locking the chickens up, I turned our new batch of "bugs" loose.
We've been using fly predators from Spalding Labs since moving to here Havencroft Farm. These little tiny bugs arrive in the mail and begin to hatch out inside their bag in the house.

We use both the jar fly traps like the one on the left and sticky traps like the one on the right. The jar type seem to work  best for us. Kitty likes to supervise chores from her comfortable perch atop the sheep shelter. This double hoop shelter has worked really well for us.

When they are really hatching well, we sprinkle them around the shelters and sleeping places of the sheep, goats, horse, llama and by the milk barn. You can look at the web site, if you are interested in the mechanics, but, they keep flies from hatching. We also use fly traps to entice and catch the flies that do hatch. With these controls, we seem to have fewer flies on our concentrated 5 acres than we do at work, where we haven't had any livestock in a year.
I order all the bugs for the year at the rate the company recommends and they arrive in the mail when they are needed. I don't have to think about it.
I wish I had such a system for other regular pest controls on the farm. Like dusting the angora goats. When we use diatomaceous earth to control goat lice on a regular basis, it works. Get off schedule and it doesn't. We also have flea controls for the indoor cats and dogs (which don't work as well as I'd like, anybody have any suggestions?) that have to be on a regular schedule to work. And the little dog's baths for her allergies and the new kitten's vaccinations and... I need a separate date book just for the critters. I used to keep a barn book, with everything that happened on the farm that day, weather, critters, garden and life happenings. I seem to have lost that organization. I still value chronicling, I just seem to have lost the focus.
I think I'll go weave and think about how I can become obsessive about recording life.

Meditations on rebuilding

I like to listen to audio books while I weave. I used to have shelves of them on tape, then on cd. Now they are all on my iphone. I hate headphones, so my family is used to having to listen to bits and pieces of my stories as they go by or in and out of my studio. This morning I just finished listening to Herman Wouk's Winds of War while working on the gray multi-texture shawl on my triloom.

The story ends with the beginnings of the salvage of Pearl Harbor and the bombed out battle ships. As protagonist Pug Henry deals with family issues, he also has to decide what to do with his career, as the battleship he was supposed to arrive in Pearl to command now lies on the bottom of the harbor. The story gives estimates of dry dock and rebuild times on the ships that can be salvaged and estimates of the current force and when new ships will be ready to go to war.

That whole discussion parallels what I hear my family going through in the decisions they are having to make after loosing their home in the Black Forest fire. They have a lot of work to do and decisions to make. They are still in the clean up and salvage phase. Today they are headed back out to the property with a crew to pull out the big metal, so they can sift the ashes. They are trying to list contents and deal with insurance issues on the days they aren't working. There is so little I can do to help from this far away, so for now, I just try to keep in touch, offer to help where I can (like by doing internet searches for antique values) and let them know I love them and am thinking of them.

I'm starting to search for quality Alpine dairy goats with an eye toward rebuilding the milking herd. We'll need a few more milkers when my folks move here to Mountain View. We are hauling hay in the evenings. So far, the crop looks good this year and we will have all the different qualities of hay we need. The garden continues to grow and produce yummy, healthy food. The weather this year has really been perfect, all the seasons coming when they are supposed to and being text book winter, spring and summer. And life goes on.

Black Forest fire

My parents bought this land in Black Forest Colorado in 1974, in part to appease a teenage girl who was bereft at having to leave the Colorado she loved for the unknowns of life in Korea. In part, this land brought me back to Colorado in 1979, giving up a full scholarship to Auburn to go to Colorado State University.

Land in Colorado heals slowly. The trees in this forest will not return in my lifetime.

509 people homes burned, and countless other buildings. But some of the animals survived. There is a little bunny now living under the rubble of the garage doors. My family puts food and water down for him.

The Colorado of the 1970's is hard to find today. I left in 2006. Water is in increasingly, severely limited supply; housing developments and highways blanket the front range from Cheyenne to Pueblo. Traffic sounds have replaced the sound of wind through the tall grass prairie.

Since leaving Colorado, I have come back for family and friends, but I no longer feel any connection to the land. My heart is now in the Ozarks, with our forested plateaus and deep, rugged valleys. I love the Ozark rivers and lakes and people and life.

I'm headed home to the Ozarks today, still worried about my parents and brother and sister-in-law. They are in safe places and sorting through. There is still so much work to be done on the property, hard, physical work. And then, it's going to take a good bit of time to deal with the insurance, and the sifiting and the minutiae of life that has to be put back together now. Please keep them all in your thoughts and prayers. And thanks to everybody who has helped so far.

Words just don't express...

Iris coming back up through the cracked and melted glass that was my parent's bedroom window.

Rubble

What's your favorite possession in the whole world? Do you know where it is?

If you know what it is, but not where it is, I suggest you find it and get a safe deposit box to store it in. It's obviously something that you love, but don't need to touch every day.

If you don't know what it is, take some time to figure it out. Then you can decide whether to put it somewhere safe - or to leave it out or put it out in display, so that if you have 10 minutes to leave your life as you know it, you at least have a chance of grabbing your favorite thing.

Free advice, take it for what it's worth.

It was a brass tea pot. The stucco beam behind was a porch support. Stucco is supposed to be fire-retardant. The insurance adjuster said it took a fire of at least 7,000 degrees to melt the I-beam in the background.

Leaded glass that used to be a bowl and green marble counter tops, now white crumbly chunks. The trees were that far from the house.

Burned pine trees.

My dad and my brother consider a portion of the basement, and what might have been on the floors above the hole. How did things shift as the house came down?

Sifting in hopes of finding... something.

Carrying rubble out of the cleared areas of the basement in hope.

 Fire mitigation was done, see how far apart those trees are. In this firestorm, it didn't help. Structure survival was all luck of the draw. 509 homes lost, and countless garges, barns and other structures. Yes, we are thankful to the firefighters, or far more would have been lost.

A Hummel, a David Winter Cottage and a leaded glass crystal collection after a 7,000 degree plus fire.

Paradigms shift after disaster

So many little impressions flitter through this week after the fire that took my parents and brother and sister-in-law's house, as well as 508 other houses and uncounted outbuildings, barns and garages in the Colorado town of Black Forest.
My folks are holding up well, and so many people have been incredibly generous.
It is a huge, shocking total life change and that is showing in little and big ways.
I grew up in a family that loved to collect things. Beautiful, fascinating things from around the world.

A fascinating collection of meters at my brother Russ' house.

 My brother Russ (the one who still has his house) has several delightful collections displayed around his living room. Interesting things that are curiosities in themselves, but as a collection they draw interest. He inherited the collecting gene and the ability to do cool displays gene. That's a good combination.

My parents house was like that, with fascinating little collections in every corner. They were artfully displayed and kept clean and dusted. (There are some genes I failed to inherit). Now they are all gone. My dad says he doesn't want a lot of stuff to have to deal with anymore. Understandable.

The Quilt Room was the center of their house, and Quilt Guilds and Quilting Bees were the center of their social life. The loss there is too painful to even list. My dad says he's not sure if he wants to do fiber arts any longer.

Yesterday when we went clothes shopping for my folks, my dad bought a pair of sandals. He's never worn sandals before. He says they feel ok.

My mother has done laundry on Monday all her life. Her mother did laundry on Monday. That is the day you wash clothes. Today, I convinced her that it really was possible to do laundry on Sunday. And we did, though there weren't many clothes to wash.

As my dad said today, the memories didn't burn. The collections and pictures and other memory anchors did go up in the fire., but the memories and treasured relationships are still here.

Quiet day of thankfulness

Yesterday was a day of grocery and clothes and shoe shopping for my folks - and finding the important stores in Lakewood, Colorado. My i-phone was a great help in locating routes and the stores that my mom had coupons for. My dad said he'd miss me when I go home, but he'll miss my "silly little box", too. Over the last two years I've really come to appreciate my hand computer/i-phone.

My dad cooking breakfast in the kitchen in Hildy's house. The windows look out on the sun room.

Today is a day to rest and regroup before we go back to the property to sift ashes tomorrow. There are things we still hold out hope of finding...

This house that my friend Julia and her family (their mother Hildly's house) have loaned my folks is a treasure in itself. Surrounded by trees and gardens, it is full of books and comfy chairs. It has big windows and lots of light. It comes equipped with two cats, bird feeders and plants to water. It is a wonderful place for them to begin to recover.

The green house in Hildy''s house

I'm going to try to catch up on a little of the work I brought with me, while my dad tries to put together their list of  doctor's phone numbers, other business information and all the minutia of life that we tend to store in our house and not think about. My folks were just discussing whether or not they had cancelled their milk delivery. How wonderful it had been to live in a place where they still had milk delivered. I said it would be pretty obvious to the milk man if he tried to deliver milk that there wasn't a house there any more. Most conversations end up being bittersweet like that.

Thanks again to everyone.

Looking out the sun room windows in Hildy's house at the bird feeders.

Emotional exhaustion

Long day. Emotionally exhausting. Everybody is ok, but tired.

My mom Judy, brother Russ, dad Dick, me, and brother Scott after dinner last night. Can you believe I am the short one in the family? Can you believe we all smiled for this picture? Conditioning.

We went out to their property again today. Hard to call it anything else at this point. We put a few things in the big shop... a chain saw that might work again and the handle is only a little melted; sheets of copper that used to be planters; the tools we had just picked up. My parents had a beautiful tile mosaic in their entry hall. I went up to the pillars to see if maybe the tiles could be salvaged. Behind the pillars is a huge pit.

Porch pillars. Stucco houses are supposed to be fire resistant.

As I came by the garage space, I saw rivulets of shiny aluminum. I'm sure it used to be their canoe.
We found some saw horses, blackened through, but still standing. Some heavy guttering was near the scoched hulk of the tractor. On our way out, we used these to make a bit of a barricade across the driveway. Black Forest roads re-open to the public tomorrow. Sadly, looters are an issue.

Next we went to the Post Office to try to pick up their mail. I held my mom's place in line, while she found a bench to sit on. For about an hour, I listened to a line of folks who had all lost their homes, lost everything. A women just a bit of me in line talked of how her parents had built their home in Black Forest 64 years ago. She herself raised her daughter in a cabin down the road from their house. Her brothers lived along the road in houses they had built. All the houses are gone. She's not sure what she's going to do. As she and my mother exchanged news of mutual friends, they discussed where they might go from here. My mom mentioned that they were considering moving to Arkansas. Her friend was very intrigued. Perhaps she will come visit us in Mountain View.

It took two hours to get from the Post Office in Colorado Springs to my dear friend Julia's mom's house in Denver. My dad drove through horrendous traffic. The house is wonderful, comfortable and she has it all set up for my folks. After quick hugs and inadequate thank yous, as well as a quick lesson on how to give the resident cats their medicine, collapsed into the living room chairs.

Julia's mom's house. Thank you so much for loaning this wonderful place to my parents while they rest and regroup.

My parents are eating well. They've been having breakfast at the hotel. Today we stopped at R&R Cafe for lunch after picking up shovels and more gloves, air masks, water, a shovel and a rake at the disaster relief center. Some wonderful anonymous person bought our lunch. My dad and I had whole wheat, grilled vegi sandwiches and my mom had a quesadilla. All great food. Tonight we dug through what they had in the bags and cooler. My dad and I made salmon tomato sandwiches. Weird, but good. We are all tired.

Smoke from the Wolf Creek Pass and other fires shroud the mountains and turn the sun bright red.

As my dad was headed to bed, he put his hand on the fireplace mantle in Julia's mom's sun room. "I had one like this," he said, looking so tired. "It was a little wider and a bit longer. Solid black walnut. It was in the basment."

Good night.