Farm Friends Friday - Mia

Little Mia has always been little. Very petite. A "primitive" Jacob. She's not an aggressive eater, prefers to eat vanilla wafers over nutritional ewe nuggets, get easily distracted when she's supposed to be eating by the thought I might have vanilla wafers in my pocket...

At a year old now, with green grass abounding, she should be starting to look like the rest of the sheep around here. Ewes not fat, ewes just fluffy. Or just fat.

I let her and old Elizabeth (the only other sheep on this farm that needs any extra food) slip into the barn every morning for extras. Elizabeth eats and then hollers at me (her standard MO) to go back out with her friends.

Mia? Mia's an explorer.



"Go around to the back door, Mia."



"Hey, so this is the cat box everyone was so grumpy about the other day."

Actually, she'd not know if the barn cats were grumpy about anything BECAUSE THE BARN CATS DON'T LIVE IN THE BARN!



"And blankets on chairs???"



"And flowers, straight for the taking."

"MIA!!!"



And then she marched right in the kitchen like she grew up here. She didn't. And the kitchen is so lonely that I almost let her stay.



"Hey, they gots flowers in here too!"



And all I really wanted was a picture of one of the lilac Jacobs posing in front of the lilac bush.

"Get that out of your mouth!!!"

To meet some more Farm Friends...

Funny Farm Friends - You Might Like This Item On Ebay

This could have been an April Fools prank, but the two smart ***es that decided to pimp their husbands the other day weren't clever enough to catch it. Here's how it all transpired...

TCSL: Here you go...



D: OMG! Did you read through the terms and conditions of this sale? Basically, they know nothing, guarantee nothing and good luck to you. It would be (kinda) fun to own something like this (with SOMEONE else--not saying who I would call first). It has to be a nightmare...start to finish. Can you just imagine what Tim and Mike would say, if we were to announce that you and I had gone in together and bought this monster? Almost would be worth it!

TCSL: I say we do it. Tell them. Not actually get it. Well, I'd love to get it, but the 5 ton part is worrisome...

D: That was my thought...and since they warned that the elevator might not be working.....it's probably broken at this moment and has been since 1945.

TCSL to Saint Tim: Dianne and I are thinking about going in together on this. That's a great deal on a really nice old machine - great reputation. We would put it over at their place - enclose that right side of the barn when you first walk in. Any thoughts?

Saint Tim: Uh, Aprils Fools is on April 1st......"You will have two full consecutive 8 hour weekend days for removal."

"you must be prepared and plan to have strong help with you in case elevator is down and parts need to be carried down stairs."

I get it, this a chain email all fiber people are sending to their husbands; sort of a "things could be worse, I could be buying a 5000lb drum carder from Virginia that has to be totally disassembled before removing and oh, by the way it's stored on the third floor of a building that apparently has had habitual elevator problems."

Hey, we're just here to help. Feel free to use the "chain email" whenever you want a new spinning wheel, loom, couple of sheep... ;-)

For more Fun Farms Friends...

Farm Friends Friday - Fiber Finds

Several years ago I dropped off a bunch of wool to be processed at Ohio Valley Natural Fibers. At the time it seemed like a lot of wool. Little did I know that in just a few years, six or eight fleeces would be nothing.

Everything came back in great order. As always. Well, except one box. Miss Ewenice. I opened it up and found a light gray fleece; definitely not her creamy white. The texture seemed reasonable, but the color was off. Way off.



I've heard stories about mills losing fleeces and sending out "replacements" in hopes no one would notice. I finally decided that must have been what happened here. It wasn't a bad box of roving, but as I didn't know who it really was, I couldn't get very excited about it.

I labeled it rug roving and set it aside. Might as well get some use from it. I moved it into the wool house and pushed it to the back corner.

During the mass loft clean out (watch a couple of those hoarding shows and they will scare you straight!) I again came across this sad box of fiber. I opened it. Still gray. It nagged at me though because I've never had any reason to question any other fleece I've ever sent up there.

I wondered if maybe I hadn't gotten it clean enough. Maybe the anti-static spray they used darkened it? I decided to spin a little, wash it and see what happened.



Guess what! It IS Miss Ewenice :-D. And it's lovely.



Of course it is. You are definitely crazy, lady.



One other "find". A stray strand of really poorly spun yet vaguely familiar white yarn. Do you know what this is? My very first spinning.

My friend Julie helped me spin this using her wheel one afternoon. The roving? Punkin. While I knew I didn't want to waste much of that, I also felt that Punkin would want to be the one to teach me to spin my first yarn. At the time I remember feeling really sad watching him literally slip through my fingers.

Sometimes that feels like a long time ago. Sometimes it feels like yesterday.

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We'll Show You A Crappy Time

Flowerweaver and Farmer Rick came to visit for a few days. I'm not sure what it says about you or your company when the most enjoyable activity you can come up with is taking them out to see a big pile of, well, crap.



This is Claiborne Farm's composting facility. Yes, the Claiborne Farm of Secretariat (among many others) fame.



I'm not sure how many horses are stabled a Claiborne, but it's a considerable number. Which makes for considerable waste. While not something many of us think about, all that has to go somewhere. The best place is obviously back to the soil.



Farmer Rick is really into his composting out in Texas. Here Tom Leith, coordinator for the Licking River Valley Resource Conservation and Development Progam, is explaining this large scale operation in Bourbon County, Kentucky.



This is the machine used to turn the windrows inside out periodically. I should have been paying better attention to the whens and hows instead of trying to take artistic shots of, well, crap, but here's a link to a manure composting site that looks pretty good.



What starts as big, tall rows of dirty stall bedding eventually breaks down into a small percentage of its initial size and becomes prime fertilizer. Here's a batch getting close to being ready to spread back onto the fields.



As far as the eye can see.

We enjoyed visiting with two of our favorite farm friends. To meet some more Farm Friends on a Friday...

Farm Friends Friday - A Sample For My Very First Farm Friend

Now that all the Punkin yarn has been spun and I've stewed and stewed on what to make with it, I've settled on a weaving project. A small throw. I toyed with adding in some gray Jacob stripes to pad my yardage a bit - sort of tying in the old with the new - but realized Punkin didn't really like any of the new sheep when they moved in (because he obviously wasn't a sheep... ;-) and therefore probably wouldn't like to share me with them even in a blanket.

Just as in knitting, you should sample in weaving as well. Especially when it's an irreplaceable yarn. I didn't have any Punkin yarn to spare, so I dug through my stash and found something very similar - some beautiful Shetland I'd spun from a roving sample from Michelle at Boulderneigh. My main concern was how I'd like a white on white pattern. This would be perfect.



My favorite pattern book is the classic A Handweaver's Pattern Book by Marguerite Davison, commonly refered to as "the Davison book". I picked this pattern - one I'm always drawn to when I'm turning pages.



Because I think it's fun, I did a short draw down - marking the pattern as it would weave off using graph paper. This later came in handy as I started weaving because as the pattern changed, I ended up with a unusual float (one warp yarn traveling over several weft yarns) that I thought could not be right, but sure enough when I checked the draw down, it was correct.



The best part of weaving is watching the pattern start to develop.



Here is the finished sample, just off the loom. I wove this on my Baby Mac, but the Punkin throw will be woven on the big Macomber loom, which sadly has not been used one time since moving to the wool house. What?!?



If you look back at the just off the loom shot, you can probably tell that the fabric is sort of stiff, not something you'd want to drape around your shoulders. That's because even more than a knitted piece isn't truly finished until it's been properly blocked, woven fabric isn't finished until it's been fulled.

In this case, I took my tiny sample and soaked it in a pitcher of hot, soapy water. After it soaked for awhile I added a lid and shook the container to agitate, sort of like a washing machine. I stopped every 30 seconds to check my progress - you can always add 30 more seconds, but you can't take them away if you go too far. I ended up shaking a total of 2 minutes.

I was worried if it shrank down and fuzzed up too much that the pattern would lose it's soft definition, so I stopped maybe just a little short. Maybe not. I've got the sample sitting on the kitchen counter and I play with study it almost every time I walk past.



I love the subtle pattern. Sometimes you can barely see it, from other angles, dead obvious.



I also used two different fringe options. I think I like the messy loose fringe best. What would you choose?

For more Farm Friends Friday stories...

Farm Friends Friday - Twilight

Evening is my favorite time of day. Everything quiets down, the wind lays, the sheep all come into the barn lot, mill about nibbling on hay and finding just the right spot to lie down, the chickens check back in from work release...



Last night as I walked up to the barn.



Looked a bit like a horse board game all evenly spaced out like that.



These were all taken at the same time. It didn't get progressively darker. Well, it did, but not in the span of five minutes. You know what I mean.



I was playing with the shutter speed to see how best to balance the horses in the field without washing out the brightness of the moon. The top pictures are what it really looked like.



I got some better moon shots, but I love the leaf in view on this one.

Feels like fall.

Which is my favorite time of the year.

Do you crazy summer loving folks like the middle of the day best?

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Farm Friends Friday - Feeding Frenzy

I decided my plan would be to feature a special farm friend each week for Farm Friends Friday. Sometimes a sheep, sometimes a dog, maybe a horse, a hard working cat (on a week I need to skip ;-)...

Today was supposed to be Ewen McTeagle's day. I'd picked him not because he's so cute or because he's so big and easy to hug or because he's the one sheep that probably loves me more than any other sheep out there or because I love him as much or more than any other sheep out there, but because he's the most helpful sheep we have. The best laid plans.

There's really no way to take pictures of just one sheep. Ewen's not big on having his picture taken in the first place. Keebler gets his feelings hurt if he's not the star of the universe. Petunia and Joshua just assume they are going to be in every picture. Renny is in every pictures because there's just no stopping her...

This week's Farm Friends Friday will feature the (every day) feeding frenzy.



The calm before the storm. Every morning I find Hank waiting patiently and the young sheep cleaning up scraps from the night before.



I use either a sled or this handy garden cart to carry the hay. When it's super cold and I don't want to have to take my gloves off to open my pocket knife, I stick a big kitchen knife in the bale.



And then I get mugged.



But just before, I grab the knife, because if there's one thing Graham Lamb does. not. need. it's a weapon. Of any sort. He will bypass food for tools. Any sheep who will bypass food for anything, especially a knife, power drill or ladder, is a sheep to fear.



So here's where Ewen comes in. You can put just about anything on his big, velcro-y back and "it'll ride". Safely out of harm's (and Graham's) way.

Do you see tiny Renny in there? I guess she has such a large personality that I never think of her as small until I see her in with the rest of the sheep. Unstoppable.



When I get done setting out separate piles of hay for everyone, I go find big Ewen, gather up my knife and hay strings, tell him thank you and give him a big hug. And he acts like he hates it and that I'm embarrassing him in front of all his friends ;-).



Keebs. The obligatory picture. He is pretty cute.



Hank knows enough to stay out of the way while this is all going on and uses feeding time to make his big lap around the yard. When everything settles down, he comes back to the gate, I let him back in, grab my coffee cup, take a deep breath and stand there for awhile and watch everyone eat.

For more farm friends...

Farm Friend Friday

Amy from Verde Farm is starting Farm Friend Friday. I can't remember how I stumbled on her blog - most likely as a link from another fun farm blog - but it's one of my favorites. Her Farm Friend Friday will be a neat way to link up with even more fun farm folks and, as tends to happen on farms, the farm family grows :-).

I'm still running on about half power, but of course everyone's favorite farm friend Renny has everything covered for me. The newest member of our flock, she has completely immersed herself in her new farm family - like a little green spark plug.



Just remember Renny. You're a fiber sheep now. Be careful to not get too much of that hay in your hair.



"Huh?"

If you'd like to make some more fun farm friends...