Anyone Want to Win Some Yarn?

I have a cold, and it's late, so no long blog post tonight, no pretty pictures. But I would like to refer you to another blog - Yarn On The House. Ve has a really nice blog over there and she features indie dyers and knit designers. And the really nice thing about her blog is that she gives stuff away. All you have to do is comment on her blog (and maybe follow her blog - not sure about that, but I follow her). And this time around, the yarn she is giving away is ours! Hearthside Fibers "BaaBoo" yarn (our bamboo blend fingering weight yarn). Three skeins, one to each of three winners. Two in "Purple Haze" and one in "Annie's Snowy Mountain". Please pop over there and have a look. And maybe you'll be lucky enough to win a skein of our yarn!

What Happened to February???

Here it is, the middle of March, and I haven't posted since January! What in the world happened to February? I know I was here - I watched the Olympics. And I did knit during the Olympics, although I never really got myself signed up for any of the Knitting Olympic events that were going on. I signed up for Ravelympics, but after popping over to their website, was a bit confused and never made it back to figure out how to really participate. But I did finish this scarf, which I had put aside before the holidays to work on holiday knitting -

I thought it fit right in with the Olympics, as it was knit up in the colors that were on all the bibs that the athletes wore and adorned the banners along the sidelines of the events. I'm not sure what they called their colors, but mine are Toe Jamz "Lavender & Sage" and Dream in Color Smooshy "Some Summer Sky". Pattern, "Chevron Scarf" from the book "Last Minute Knitted Gifts" by Joelle Hoverson. I made my scarf much shorter than the pattern, as I just wanted to hang it over my neck, not loop it all around - an advantage of being short, less yarn used on a scarf! And I have enough of both yarns left that I could do socks to match.

Although the Olympics are no longer a timely subject, I just wanted to say that I thought Vancouver did a lovely job - I would very much like to visit someday, so their tourism board was successful in this household. And I noticed that Canadians all seem to know the words to their national anthem. And they sing it out proudly. Why don't we do that in this country? I suspect that most of us don't really know the words to our national anthem - my excuse is the wide range of notes and my really lousy singing voice. It's quite embarrassing to try to hit those high notes of "the rockets' red glare" when no one else in your part of the stadium is doing more than, maybe, moving their lips. If you need to refresh your memory, or if you want to read the history of our national anthem, see here.

In other news: Well, there really isn't much "other news". February was a quiet month. My excuse for being lazy - resting up for shearing in March and lambing starting in April. We shear next week - lots of rain lately, but fortunately most of the sheep are smart enough to go into their barns/shelters when it is pouring. I was out yesterday feeling of fleeces and they were fairly dry. We now have forecast several dry sunny days before the shearer arrives. If that changes, I will be locking them into their shelters.

Here are some pics of the Shetland girls still in full fleece - can't wait to get those fleeces on the skirting table!

Gaia is the grey ewe with the dark stripe down her back - her fleece is always lovely.

The big news yesterday - I am now officially a "Loopy Groupie"! I not only scored a skein of the Sanguine Gryphon's Bugga Sock yarn (that was what I ordered, it's the dark yarn on the right - the rest is Loopy loot), but I received my Loopy Groupie welcome pack, full of lots of nice gifts. Thank you, Sheri!

Well, Nicholas has a cold and he has just informed me, that in spite of the fact that doing chores would allow him to drive the riding lawn mower around the property, he does not feel up to doing them. So I guess I better have another cup of coffee and maybe a long john and get my own self out there to feed the sheep. At least the hoses are again connected and I don't have to haul endless buckets of water out to them.

Random Monday

Yes, I am still here - if there is anyone left who is still reading my blog, I apologize for my lack of posts lately. I have taken pictures and have had many things to post about over the last few days, weeks, months, but just haven't gotten around to it.

We did go to the Wisconsin Sheep and Wool Festival again - exhibiting Shetlands, Polypays and Coopworths in the Hall of Breeds. We talked to lots of people, sold some sheep (thank you to Kathryn Hammond, Lori Behnke, the Randy Taylor family and the Fulks), caught up with old friends, made some new friends, saw many different breeds of sheep and made a few purchases in the vendor barns - on the left, from River's Edge Weaving Studio, Bluefaced Leicester roving, and on the right, Calypso yarn from Creatively Dyed. I also got my annual t-shirt and some really cute sheep napkins from Ewesful Gifts.

In talking to the many people at the Festival, we found out that the Grand Champion Shetland Ram was the son of one of our rams! You can see him on his farm's blog, www.wheelywooly.blogspot.com.

In other news, it finally rained last night, after 22 days without rain. The pastures were all brown and stubbly and we are nowhere near the date when we should start feeding hay. But maybe the pastures will green up a bit now and the hay fields can put on a little new growth before the snow flies. I don't know how people live in dry climates - it has been driving me nuts, watching everything green shrivel up before my eyes. But before this drought hit, we had pastures that looked like this:


This is the ewe flock after we turned them out into new pasture awhile ago. Our plan was to flush them on this, but with the lack of rain, this field is now mostly brown. In their attempt at greener pastures, a few of the sheep have braved the electric fence and gone through to the hay field adjacent. The other morning, one of the ewes was on the wrong side of the fence, so I set up some temporary fencing to block her from my parents' backyard, closed off the catch pen so it was empty, propped open the gate back into the pasture and herded her back in. Throughout all this time, the rest of the flock was very interested in what I was doing and being quite vocal about it. As I was closing the gate behind me, having successfully reunited her with her flock, I saw one of our adult Shetland rams come flying across the lane. He went through the electric fence (I don't think he ever saw it!) and began courting the Big Whites! I then had to round up most of the ewe flock into the catch pen, grab Eddie (the ram) and drag him back to his pen (now on the opposite side of the barn, so he can't see the girls!) I don't know if he bred anyone, but he had about 15 minutes while I was grabbing the bucket of corn and the halter. If he did breed anyone, I hope it was one of the few Rambouillets we have left, as I have been curious about the fleece from that cross!

One thing I meant to put in the blog earlier this summer, were the before and after pictures of our barn deck. The barn has been there for a few years - this is the end that faces the house and our back yard:

Larry decided, sometime during lambing this spring, that he would build a deck there. It came out very nicely and is a nice shady spot to sit in the afternoon, when the sun is on the other side of the barn.

The trellis planter had both sweet peas and morning glories, but the morning glories won out. Next year, though, I have to remember to plant a darker color, as the white with faint blue stripes blends into the barn too much:

Well, Blogger has been giving me headaches this morning, so I think I will wrap this up. My parting shot today is of a nest I found out in the Shetland pasture a few weeks ago. If you look closely, you will see that much of it is wool - you know how most nests are really quite heavy for their size, packed densely often with mud? This nest is as light as a feather :) - being about half wool! I'm sure those baby birds were quite toasty in their wool house!

And Now a Fibery Post

First, for those of you who might be wondering, the ewe with the prolapse seems to be doing fine. I kept her in the barn in her own pen for about a week, removing the retainer after about 5 days. Another big dose of LA-200 and I sent her back out with the rest of her flock. And, although the weather has been very hot and humid, she seems OK.

Now, on to other, more fibery news. I knit a 12 inch square that I mailed off to another Ravelry member to be added to a blanket that he is putting together for one of the Paul Newman camps for kids. I forgot to take a picture of it, but it was a nice waffle weave done in Caron Simply Soft in a nice dark jade color. Very soft, but I'm afraid I'm a wool snob. It is just so much nicer to knit with wool.

I have also been working on a lace scarf - my first real lace project. I did do a dishcloth with a lace pattern and have done a few swatches, but this feels like my first lace. It is a great "first lace" project. The design comes from the book Luxury Yarn One Skein Wonders - the Nancy Pygora-Merino Lace Scarf - a Myrna Stahman design, no wonder it is so pretty (I just read the fine print to see the designer's name) - well, the design is pretty, I'm not trying to brag about my first lace! It knits up very quickly - although since I don't spend huge blocks of time on it, it will take me awhile. But I'm not getting bogged down in endless rows and when I do work on it for a bit, the length actually seems to change - the nice thing about scarves, I guess. But for those of you who hate to purl, all wrong side rows are purled. But I don't mind purling, it's just the switching back and forth, like when knitting ribbing, that I'm not fond of.

I am using a Fleece Artist yarn - their basic merino sock yarn in a colorway I can't remember the name of, but it is various shades of brown, with a few reddish highlights in spots. Obviously not blocked, so it looks kind of rumply - and I always seem to be trying to take pictures in the dark - some of the other blogs I read - well, you take such pretty pictures, in natural light, draping your knitting decoratively over a bush or a fence or some such. I grab a white mattress pad to stick under it, to highlight the holes! Anyway, here it is in all it's rumpled, artificially lighted glory . . . . .

And I got the rest of my birthday present from my folks today. A nice package from The Loopy Ewe, one of my favorite online yarn shops. (I must say, they have VERY fast service - I ordered some knitting accessories from two other online stores at the same time that I ordered the yarn from The Loopy Ewe - this past Thursday, yes two days ago - and I got the yarn today. The other two vendors - well, I'm still waiting on them!) I give you Creatively Dyed's Calypso yarn in the Coconut colorway and Dream in Color Smooshy in Some Summer Sky. The Calypso colors seem to be showing up quite well - mostly natural shades - beiges, browns with some dark purples, dark greens and bits of rosy colors. The Smooshy is showing up as mostly blue, but there is quite a bit of purple highlighting. Both yarns are superwash merino - see, I'm a wool snob - of course, seeing as we have about 200 sheep on the farm at the moment, maybe rightfully so!

The Calypso will probably become a garter stitch stole, the Smooshy is going into the stash for the time being.

Well, the weather forecast shows slightly lower temperatures for the next few days, so maybe I can start getting a few things done again. These last few days we have spent a lot of time in front of the fan and the TV. And speaking of the TV, a "new to me" Doctor Who is on in half an hour and I intend to be firmly situated on the couch by then. Not to be insensitive, but the news that David Tennant was being replaced as the Doctor was more shocking to me than the news of the death of Michael Jackson. I guess we all have our priorities!

Better Late Than Never?!?!

I know, I know - it has been almost a MONTH since my last post. If any of you are still actually reading this, thank you for your patience! I do actually have some sort of an excuse. The week after the festival, I decided to take it easy - relax a bit after the weekend, get used to the new junior high schedule - good excuses for being totally lazy. The following Monday, I went over to the hospital for some routine tests, came home and was having a cup of coffee with Larry, when I started feeling ill. After about four hours of really not feeling good, we decided to go off to the emergency room (two visits to the same hospital in one day is WAY too many for me). I knew from experience what it was before we got there - a kidney stone - but this way I got the official word from the ER doc - only one - and they gave me some nice pain killers. But, by the time we got home, it was 11:00 pm or so. The next couple of days I laid about in agony. And to top it all off, by the time I had recovered from that, I got the cold that Larry and Nicholas had been suffering from, so I basically lost a week. Then Mom and Dad had family visiting from out west, so time was spent socializing with them - well, hopefully the stone has passed (I don't have any physical evidence of that), my cold is gone and the family has returned to Washington. Now I can concentrate on farm stuff again and maybe blog more often (but don't hold your breath between posts!). So, here we go ---

Well, even though Wisconsin Sheep and Wool Festival was about a month ago, I still have these nice pictures to share with you (and no new pictures), so that's what you're going to get. First off, the basket of roving and yarn that we included in our farm display, which you all saw on the last post. This is some of the roving we offer for sale, in addition to some of the yarn I spun from various fleeces.

Next, the basket that we donated to the silent auction, a "Coopworth Sock Kit", which contained two ounces of medium brown Coopworth roving, two ounces of dark brown Coopworth roving and some knitting needles. Thank you to all of you who bid on this. I was afraid no one would want it and I would have to have my mom bid on it, just to avoid being embarrassed if it was still sitting there after the auction was over!

Next, a picture of my purchases for the weekend. I wanted much more, but tried to limit my spending. I got my annual apparel - this year one of the green t-shirts (the other choice was brown and I just do not look all that good in brown). Also, a sheep calender for 2009, a garden flag (I have been looking for a garden flag with a sheep on it for years - I've got one with a rooster - now I have a sheep!), some extra bobbins for my Babe Production wheel and some gorgeous sock yarn - Toe Jamz - I don't think they have a web site. The t-shirt, flag and calender are from Ewesful Gifts - I'm a regular customer.

A closer shot of the sock yarn - I got two skeins of the Packer colors - glad I bought those on Friday - when I went past their booth later in the weekend, they were sold out! The blue/green mix will become socks for me, most likely. The Packer socks will be gifts.

Well, it was a fun, fun weekend - as always. Only 11 months to wait now until next year. Again, it will be the weekend after Labor Day, so mark your calenders!

I will leave you with a final shot of the last monarch butterfly that I hatched on the kitchen counter. This pic was also taken a while ago, but I took it with the idea of posting it on the blog, so here you go - - -

The last one for this year, as fall is upon us. They are talking about patchy frost this weekend. Time to start thinking about which herbs to harvest and dry and which to try to bring into the house and make houseplants of them. I think the pot of mint I may put into the barn over the winter - it is a perennial and hardy, but since it is in a pot, the barn may offer it a bit more protection. The basil I will dry, as I just used up the last of last year's dried basil in the spaghetti sauce last night. Soon the lambs will go to market and the fall breeding groups will be put together. Yep, fall on the farm!

Gardens and Yarn Stores

The herbs are going nuts in the garden - basil, cinnamon basil, two varieties of thyme, the cilantro is going to seed and we will soon have coriander.

The tomato patch looks like a jungle and the various squash and pumpkins are threatening to take over the tomato's territory.

I attribute the record growth to the beautiful raised beds that Larry built this spring and the abundant rabbit manure that he added to the bags of topsoil!

For yarn related content, I purchased the yarn below at Knit and Caboodle in St Charles, MO, when we were spending a long weekend in St Louis. The dark blue variegated is Trekking's Hand Art and the white with the blue spots is Claudia Hand Painted Yarn in the colorway Tea Cup. A very nice yarn store in the middle of the historic shopping district of St Charles - a beautiful shopping street full of brick buildings and lush gardens. We, unfortunately, did not get to spend much time there, as we were meeting family back in St Louis. But I fed my yarn fix for the weekend.

Back here in Wisconsin, I have just watched the Brewers lose to the Braves and the mosquitoes have not moved to the neighbors. But, on the up side, the 90 degree weather they were predicting a few days ago has not materialized, although it is a bit humid. I'm torn between wanting an early frost this fall to rid us of the mosquitoes and a late frost, so the hundreds of tomatoes that appear to be growing on our plants can be harvested. I can only eat so many green tomatoes!