Happy Anniversaries

Twenty-two years ago today we closed on this farm...and each other.  Technically it was the 23rd, but I liked the idea of the fall equinox (possibly my favorite day of the year :-), so our anniversaries are a floating holiday, depending on the year.

This has been a horribly long, hot, dry summer so I'm especially celebrating that we got some much needed rain and cooler temperatures today, just in time for the fall equinox.  The farm is celebrating, too.  

I actually enjoyed walking out to our oldest pear tree this afternoon to gather some fruit to try to make a pear tart. I tried to set up a photoshoot with the freshly baked tart resting under the tree, but the rain pushed us back to the porch.  That's an okay trade.  I brought the tree to the porch :-).

Twenty-two years ago my mother looked at that pear tree and said it was very old and she didn't think it would last much longer.  That old tree outsmarted the spring freeze that took all the rest of the pears and apples here and at the local orchards and it was loaded with pears this year.

This is a very dear little farm.  Thank you.  For everything.

Zen And The Art Of Spinning Wheel Maintenance

The first thing I tell someone who's having trouble with their spinning wheel or weaving loom is that while these tools are definitely specialized, they are at heart, basic tools, and when they aren't functioning well, probably just need something adjusted or simply fixed...

...and then I spend Two Weeks of the Tour de Fleece fighting with my own wheel, not having the most fun, whining about the trouble I'm having, stressing that I need to start saving for a new wheel...

Luckily our small, but mighty Ravelry group is full of experienced and helpful spinners...who still had to suggest to me twice that maybe my drive band was just slipping, and sure enough, five minutes later I am back to spinning with a well working wheel.  

Do as I say, not as I do.  

Sigh...

This is an odd picture, but I was working with blazing too hot, too bright sun and this spot in the shade worked perfectly for a yarn shot.  Neither the wheel or Bea are in prison.  They are both just trying to stay cool.  The fence is for Pinot...who is enjoying the AC in the wash room.

Love this light silver and it's so soft, lightly spun and fluffy - Sara yarn - and I think I might just go ahead and spin the rest of what I have left of his roving and make a souvenir from one of the sweetest sheep ever.

This is what a touch of Cotswold will do for your yarn.  Drape a shawl would die for :-).

This picture just struck me funny.  Do you see two eyes, a silver wig and my poor downtrodden wheel sticking her tongue out at me?

I probably need to go sit in the AC with Pinot ;-).

Milkweed, Not Just For Butterflies

If you ever get the chance to stand in a patch of blooming milkweed, do it!  When it's really blooming, I can smell it from all the way across the yard as I walk up the driveway.

Here's a new puzzle for you if you are looking for a cool "inside job".

Green Morning

It's amazing how fast the grass starts to green back up.

We finally got some rain.  I am grateful...but you could probably also hear a bit of ungrateful in my tone :-/.  Frequently, when it waits until the heat of the day to rain, we get storms.  We got some rain, but it destroyed my plant shade area and flattened most of my sunflowers.  

Well, the first storm did...and then I spent about an hour yesterday morning standing as many back up as I could and while it wasn't pretty, most would still feed the bees and the birds...until the second storm blew through last evening.

I haven't been out for a close look.  I'm just so disappointed.  This was the best sunflower patch I've even grown. I'm not sure I can bring myself to go out and try to fix everything again.  I can probably tuck everything back into the dirt and keep them alive for a bit longer, but...sigh...

The second worst thing I regret is that I didn't take the time to take some good pictures.  I've had so many gold finches out there on them and I was excited for a gold finch photo for the calendar and I didn't make the time.  Thought I'd have plenty of time.  There's a lesson there for sure.

My neighbor has a stash of seeds, so I'm going to hustle and put some in pots to try and grow a few more that might make it to maturity before we get a freeze.  At this point I'd guess since I'll need it to hold off and give me some more time, fall will come early this year.  It would be a win either way. But I'd really rather have my sunflowers back.

A cell phone shot from an evening last week.  

Both pictures are new puzzles.

Respite

This has been the hottest summer I can ever remember.  Usually I can count on one hand the number of days over 90.  I've lost track of how many we've had this year...so far.  Today was a blessing.  Low 80s, a nice breeze, low humidity (because we are so, so dry unfortunately).

After lunch I grabbed my favorite chair and settled in with some of my best friends.  

Bea was by my side.  Jared and Short Round were napping to my right and Baaxter and Tabitha were napping behind me.  

For The Record

I know the purple martins are close to leaving.  They leave way earlier than they should you'd think and it's the most depressing day of summer...in a sea of depressing days...because it's summer. 

We've had a lot of martins this year.  Adding the second house last year (?) really gave them some extra room and I'm going to add four gourds to the new house for next year.  I've seen farms with multiple houses and I know why they do it.  I am tempted to add a third house as well.   

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Enjoy some happy chatter :-)

So Where Are We

I'm sitting on the Wool House porch drinking coffee and watching Pinot mess about being a happy rabbit.  It's been cool this morning and last and he loves that.  I'll be so glad when summer is over.  This has already felt like a long one and it's just the beginning of July.

I've mentioned the Tour de Fleece, Pinot, the woven rug.  The month end compilations have at least included pictures of the gardens, sunrises, sunsets, sheep, horses, cats.  I made a little knitted Maisie, but while I've wanted to start my walnut dyed sweater, I haven't let myself cast on.

It's a good thing Maisie's so cute ;-).

I get beat down by the "can't do something fun until you get your chores done" mentality.  First, I live on a farm.  The chores are never done.  Not only are the chores never done, but I keep adding to the chores by planting too many flowers, getting a rabbit friend, wanting to teach Frankie something new...  I love my flowers and Pinot and I'm proud of what Frankie and I are getting done this summer.  Some rain would be helpful.

Second, if you want to maintain a fiber business to help support your sheep, maybe actually doing something with the fiber needs to be a "chore" if that's how your kooky brain works.  Just because a chore is fun doesn't mean it's not important.  I'm assuming ten years from now I won't remember the blood, sweat, tears and bruises, but I will enjoy looking back at the blog pictures and stories while wearing warm sweaters made from my best friends fleeces.  

I'm going to be 56 this summer.  If I haven't figured life out by now, maybe it's not going to happen.  Or maybe I'm just now getting old enough to start figuring it out.  Maybe I'm just a slow learner...

So, some things to look forward to:

The next post will be about all the building we've done lately.  Mostly for Pinot and some flowers.  Oh, I also put a board back up in Frankie's stall, so I guess I covered all my "distractions" ;-).  Don't let me forget to share the out house as well.  

I've started skirting my spring fleeces...finally...and promptly ran into a nest of very aggressive bees living in guess who's fleece. 

I covered them back up and was trying to find a place to safely stash them (even mean bees are important pollinators and they were just trying to protect their family), but our resident barn skunk cleaned them out last night.  I should have seen that coming.  Slow learner...

Yep, it was Maisie.  You can't make this stuff up...

The Bluegrass Yarn and Fiber Crawl is coming up and I'm going to participate this year.  I'll do a separate post with my open dates and information about what we are going to offer along with some new farm and fiber products.

I finished my first bobbin of Ellie last night and I'm going to carry on spinning her for the Tour de Fleece.  She's a sweet spin and I'm really excited about her yarn.

How's your summer going?

Gold Morning!

Stunner of a sunrise shot yesterday.  The haze is all from the stupid high humidity, but I'm trying to forget that and just embrace the beauty.  Hopefully it makes for a fun new puzzle :-).

Enjoy!

June

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There is a big chunk of June that really requires several blog posts to get everyone back up to speed...including myself :-o.      

  

Bat Tales

That blurred dot in the sky is a bat ;-).

The only thing more fun than watching bats swoop out of the barn as night falls is watching them swoop back in as the dark fades in the morning.  Both appear to me to be at full speed.  Swoosh swoosh swoosh and then (whoosh!) under the quilt square.

Morning is finally starting to arrive noticeably later these last few days.  I'm cautiously optimistic that I've almost made it through summer.  Yesterday I was able to watch the bats for almost ten minutes after I did my early morning barn check.

At the very end there was only one bat still out and it stayed out grabbing some extra insects for several minutes. Suddenly another bat flew in from the northwest.  They met in the air and swirled around each other for a few seconds, not making contact, and then one bat flew into the barn and the other headed out across the fields to the southeast.

My feeling is the bat I had been watching flew into our barn and the other bat was just passing through, but the bat I had been watching very well could have been an intruder who had just gotten run off. It didn't seem like an aggressive interaction however.

Regardless, there must be another bat colony nearby. Maybe they have branched off of our bats and the two were friends or relatives just checking in, sharing some news.  I'll poke around in the run in sheds and see if I can find any signs.

The Cool Moms

While the main flock continues to bake in the barn summer after summer when they could be hanging out under a cool shady tree...I just can't figure it out...Krista and Short Round take the lambs to the cool(ish) shaded "rabbit sanctuary" every afternoon.  

I walked (staggering in the wilting heat) out there to take some pictures of them this afternoon and realized I have over two weeks of pictures on my camera that I've never even looked at, much less shared.  The lambs are getting so big.  

They are finally doing pretty well.  They and their mom have had a bit of a tough go.  Glad things are looking better as the heat next week is going to be awful for everyone.  More pictures and stories to come.  In the meantime, here's a new puzzle.

Mind Over Matter

"[Heat] is an issue of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter." Mark Twain

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I can think of at least 12 other things I would rather do on a super hot steamy summer night 😵. #frankiesrockstar #nvlancelot #gaterunners

A post shared by Sara Dunham (@thecrazysheeplady) on Jul 18, 2020 at 6:36pm PDT

So Hot

Heat is much harder on sheep than cold. Yet another reason I know I'm a sheep.  We are all miserable...but hanging in there.

Woody

Maisie

Spud

I made the mistake of sharing the following video with Saint Tim and a couple friends.  Now whenever I complain about the heat they all say (very melodramatically) "Oh, it's so hot.  So, so hot."  I'm glad I still think it's funny.  Mostly ;-).

Enjoy :-D

"Y'all Come!"

Summer is always trying. This summer seems to be trying extra hard.  

The latest trouble, skipping over several things, was a stray dog coming on the farm Saturday.  He made a run at the horses in the morning.  I chased him away.  He appeared back in the evening and came in on the sheep.  We tried to catch him that time, but he got spooked by some fireworks and bolted away.

Without a good guardian like Hank, we are going to have to take extra measures to try to keep our sheep safe until a time when we can find a new dog.  And finding a new dog may be nearly impossible because of a situation with the new house built right on our front field fence line.  I set up a camp.

The first thing we did was lock the sheep up in the secure paddocks near the barn.  A dog or coyote could still get in if they really worked at it, but hopefully it would be too much trouble or at least slow them down enough to give me a chance to intervene.  We put the tent on a clean(ish) patch of level gravel.

Big Moose was immediately involved so we moved the tent back  to straddle the short fence and took two jug panels and built a wall around the front half.

He is so silly.  I just love this sheep :-).

From there it deteriorated, because you can either laugh or cry, and Biscuit is ready to welcome everyone to the Equinox Farm Vacation B&B.  The sunsets over the barn roof are stunning!

You can have an up close and probably personal encounter with Maisie.  What a face, eh?  (Click to biggify)

You can watch the full moon rise and travel over the farm.  Definitely a highlight!

A slightly better picture, but not much.  The moon was so big and so bright.  A cell phone just can't capture it.  I never needed a flashlight and as it reached it's peak height over my tent, maybe 2:00, it was so bright that every time I woke up and looked across the barn lot, I could see everyone and everything.  So much better than fireworks.  

I thought of Hank off and on throughout the night.  He and I would often sit together on the hill and watch the farm on bright nights.  It was one of my very favorite things, even in the winter.  The last picture I took of him was him resting next to me under a bright full moon.  I wish I'd thought to camp out with him all night, even just once.

The next morning I woke to the sound of Petunia's bell and turned over to see the sheep grazing in the arena.  They'd quietly tiptoed past me and let me sleep in.

Good morning! (new puzzle :-)

I watched for the dog on Sunday and did not see him again.  That evening a neighbor found a promising post in the missing pets group on FB.  I contacted the owner to make sure it was indeed the same dog, now safely at home and back in his electric fenced yard.  It had been scared by fireworks.  Fingers crossed we never see him again.

Other than the gorgeous full moon and the fun of sleeping in the sheep yard (which was actually fun even with the bugs and hot weather), the best story from all of this was what Rocky and Jared did to try to protect their flock.  I told it on an IG video post last night.  You should be able to follow along.

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A story of how Rocky and Jared protected the flock last night and some more details about the stray dog and the camp out.

A post shared by Sara Dunham (@thecrazysheeplady) on Jul 5, 2020 at 4:57pm PDT

The Fourth Picture

The first picture was good, but the fourth picture was better ;-).  Less distracting sunburst and better composition.

    

Evening light is my favorite.  Evening in general is my favorite.  Everything seems to take a deep breath and slowly exhale.  Some days it's the nice end to a good day.  Some days it's just a we made it to the end.  One of the few good parts of summer is the soft evening light after a long, too bright day.  

The trick to these pictures is waiting until the sunlight is perfect.  Or happening to notice the sun is perfect and grabbing your camera and running out.  It doesn't stay perfect for long.  The Golden Hour doesn't last quite an hour I've found.

Once the sunlight is perfect, you still need to work a bit.  It helps to filter the bright light through some trees.  Move around and watch how your camera reacts.  If it's too blown out, change your angle just a little.  Too dark?  Again, move around, put the sun behind a bigger tree...

If you want to get more technical, read up on metering so you'll better understand how your camera is thinking.  I also set my white balance to cloudy.  White balance and exposure compensation are two very basic camera tools everyone should learn to use.  Read your manual or look online.

The always photogenic Count Chocula.

This is too sunset-y, but I like the composition.  Daniel, Liddy, Kaala.

Muuufin :-)

This is Baaxter with the sun shining from the side...

...and now shining from behind.  I like the little bit more definition of the first picture, but the soft light of the second picture.  The background of the second picture is more interesting as well.

And this was my favorite picture of the evening.  Kaala with the light balanced just right behind the filtering trees.  It's also a new puzzle :-).

All Together Now

Awwwww :-)

This is the first time I've seen Hank and Salt actually hanging out together.  The cooler weather has done everyone a world of good.  I feel almost human again and I think Hank feels almost...human as well.  I'm so glad to see him happier.

Thank you for all the good tips and things to check and think about with him.  Because I hadn't actually seen him limping or stiff, I hadn't considered arthritis pain causing him to lick his elbows.  Good point!  

We tried treating that first, but it hasn't seemed to make a difference.  Our next step will be an anti-anxiety medication, but I'm thinking/hoping we won't need to try that.  He's settled way down since the upper 90s broke at the end of last week.  That was making me pretty anxious as well :-(.

Have I mentioned how much Hank and I hate summer?  Oh...okay...sorry ;-).

We Made It

It's finally fall!

If it's too cold and dreary for you to go play outside, there's a new puzzle for you ;-).

Far Out

One thing (of many) I've enjoyed about having Rocky and Jared here is watching how far they travel in search of fresh grass.  We have plenty acres open for grazing, but the majority of the sheep graze just within a stone's throw from the barn.

A big part of that may be because in the early days Hank didn't like them going too far away from the 'safe zone' and for years would call them in when he thought they'd gone far enough.  There's probably another part of it that has to do with being fat and lazy ;-).

Rocky and Jared (aka Big J) could care less if Hank tells them to stay close.  There's good grass out there and they are the men to go eat it all.  That's Jared farthest away in the picture above.

Rocky is usually close by, but I've never seen him go as far as Jared, who I've seen all the way at the back corner.  A few other sheep have taken to following them out there - Cheeto and her boys, Andy, sometimes the Ts.

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Wait! What’s coming?

A post shared by Sara Dunham (@thecrazysheeplady) on Sep 1, 2019 at 7:44pm PDT

There was a fun series of pictures on Instagram one evening with Kate and Tilly herding the boys back home.  They were out there all by themselves while Cheeto was in Easy Breezy being weaned.  You've got to stay with the adults a little bit, boys!

Stone's throw... ;-)

We've had some pretty mornings, but fall is still eluding us.  There are two days next week that are forecast for 98 degrees :-o.  At the end of September...

How about a couple of new puzzles :-).  Enjoy!