It rained all day today, but here is what the sky was like a few evenings ago.
Sunset
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Author Archives: Robin
A Fiber Weekend
I spent the weekend at the Sacramento Weavers and Spinners Open House. When I wasn’t helping in the Sales Area I demonstrated carding with my Ashford drum carder. I chose a fleece from the November shearing and washed it in two batches. I also wanted to experiment with my new Power Scour to find out how much I needed to get the wool clean. The first 2 pounds of greasy wool weighed about 1 1/2 pounds when cleaned. I don’t think I got all of the lanolin out so I’ll probably increase the amount of Scour for the next batch. Even if there was still a bit of lanolin in the fiber it carded beautifully. I took this batch to the Open House on Saturday and here is what it looks like after carding.
That will provide a lot of spinning time. I was sure impressed with the drum carder. It breezed through that fiber.
These are a couple of skeins spun by a friend of mine using fleeces she bought from me. Aren’t they lovely? The wool in the lower skein is blended with carded sari silk which adds beautiful flecks of color.
This is a close-up of one of the pieces I had at the show. It is a tencel scarf woven in undulating twill.
There are some very talented weavers in SWSG. Here are a couple of stunning pieces woven by members.
The warp for this screen is silk covered wire and it is woven with rice paper “yarn” if I remember correctly. (I thought that I’d remember from yesterday to today without taking a close up photo of the tag.)
Green Grass
Now that it’s warm the grass is growing and the pasture has finally dried out enough to put the sheep out. However, there was a break in the electric fence and I couldn’t turn the sheep out until I fixed it. I finally got to that today.
“Can’t you hurry up and let us out?”
The rams are left behind in their bachelor quarters.
Farm Club Goes to the City
The Meridian Jacobs Farm Club usually spends their days at the farm playing with sheep and fiber, but last fall we started thinking about a field trip when FC member, Kathy, told us about the Home of the Native Daughters of the Golden West. (Apologies to recent FC members because the reservations were made long ago. We’ll definitely do this again.)
This was the weekend and what a weekend it was! The weather was gorgeous (apologies to everyone who does not live in CA.) I picked up Shelby and Jackie in Suisun and then we all drove to Napa to pick up Kathy. What a bummer that Tina had to stay home with the flu.
How much stuff do 4 people need for a 24 hour trip? (We wouldn’t want to run out of projects or books.)
We drove from Napa to 101 and then turned south. We took the last exit before the Golden Gate Bridge and drove through the Marin Headlands, part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. First stop was to get out and look over the cliffs to see sea lions below. Can you believe that view?
The next stop was the Marine Mammal Center. There were only a few sea lions there right now but we were told that the place would be full in the next month or so because it’s almost birthing season for sea lions. (Is that calving?) The goal here is to heal the animals brought here and then send them back out to sea. Do you think Kathy wants to trade her goats for one of these?
Shelby wants to take home this full size elephant seal.
After a brief side trip to a yarn shop in Sausolito so that Kathy wouldn’t be the only one without a knitting project we drove into San Francisco and arrived at the Home on Baker Street. This home was designed by Julia Morgan, who also designed Hearst Castle, and built in 1928.
These are other nearby homes, referred to as “painted ladies”.
This is the entrance hall to the NDGW Home. I can’t remember the name of the lady on the wall, but she is the resident ghost of the home. It’s hard to describe this home. It was built and is now maintained “for aid and comfort of NDGW members”. There are 27 (?) bedrooms, a huge kitchen, dining room, meeting room, atrium, magnificent parlor, pioneer archives, museum and it’s all available for members to use for a nominal fee. Wow! A place of sanctuary in the big city. The NDGW raises money for a variety of worthy causes besides maintaining the home–scholarships, children’s medical care, preservation of the CA missions, maintaining a pioneer roster, etc. Members must be born in California. I’m a 4th generation Californian and I’m going to sign up!
The rooms are all decorated differently with beautiful old furniture. It didn’t take Jackie long to get out the knitting.
We walked a block to a great Mexican restaurant and spent the rest of the evening knitting in the parlor wearing our pajamas.
There is a huge fully outfitted kitchen at the Home, but we didn’t think ahead enough to bring groceries. However, there was a great pie and ice cream shop just up the street. We brought this lemon buttermilk pie home for our breakfast.
Before leaving on Sunday morning we nabbed a passerby who took this photo.
And in case the pie wasn’t enough for breakfast we made one more stop before getting back to Napa.
Back to the farm. This is Kathy’s place and her goats, Willow and Lily.
Great friends, great weather, great weekend. But’s its always nice to get home.
Sunset at Asilomar
I spent Wednesday and Thursday at Asilomar in Pacific Grove, CA attending the Eco-Farm Conference. Good topics, great food, and look at the view from the room!
Farm Club helps out again!
Lambs are due in about a month. That means that the ewes ready for their annual vaccinations. They get Covexin which protects against a variety of diseases caused by Clostridium bacteria including tetenus. They also get MUSE, which supplies selenium and Vitamin E. By vaccinating at this time in gestation the ewe’s milk will provide a high level of antibody protection to their lambs.
What’s a farmer to do? Call in the Farm Club! We have 3 regular Farm Days a year, but Farm Club members enjoy coming out more often and I am sure grateful for the help and the comraderie.
Shelby and Tina teamed up to vaccinate sheep. Shelby, person, is holding Shelby, sheep.
Dona held sheep while I vaccinated.
Mary and Kathy kept syringes loaded and ready to go.
Tina spent some time at the manure pile. It’s too wet to get the tractor out to the pile so re-stacking the pile needs to be done by hand (or pitchfork). It’s a good workout!
We spent the afternoon enjoying the sunny day. Notice the milk mustaches on these two. The lambs, that is!
The meaning of WWW
To my friends it means Weekly Weaving Workshop. It is usually the Wednesday Weaving Workshop, but is sometimes on Friday. I have had a request for an evening group. Is that EWWW? Maybe not.
Modeling three circle shawls. The one in the middle is the prototype that Diane brought a year ago. We analyzed the fabric construction and the design of the piece, after which Chris and I both wove shawls. Check out the back of these shawls:
Yesterday’s WWW was truly Wonderful–soaking up the January sun and talking about our favorite pastime!
Maybe I’ll change the name to WX4= Wonderful Wacky Weaving Women.
American Sheep Industry Convention
I spent the last two days at the ASI Convention in Reno. I caught a ride with a couple of friends who also raise sheep. (See Flying Mule Blog in my links). I didn’t take too many photos and I can’t believe that I didn’t take a photo of the best part of the trip. That was the Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning sessions presented by Ranch Management Consultants. Dave Pratt is a gifted speaker (who happens to be my brother) and teaches a business school for ranchers. His classes and 6-day school are very intense, but so valuable. Every time I hear him speak I “get it” a little better.
I had my new video camera with me and found my self wandering in the nearly empty casino filming, but I didn’t take anything worth showing to anyone else. I did take a few still photos.
These are some magnificent Merino and Merino x Rambouillet rams, the only sheep in sight at the convention. The ranch also displayed some fine Merino fleeces. I wish that I could harvest a 20 lb fleece!
Yeah! New Toys!
I met up with my friend, Irene from Cotton Clouds, to take in TNNA. This is the trade show for yarn shops, designers, etc. WOW!
This is my first trip to TNNA so I wasn’t really sure what to expect. I didn’t plan on buying anything, but I found a few goodies for the shop. Here is a preview of some of them.
Whimsical artwork by Thomas Joseph.
The very cool SideKick, the newest wheel from Schacht Spindle Co. (will be shipped in May).
Ashford’s newest loom, the Katie. This is a great 8-harness loom that comes with a carry-bag. Everything in front is removed or lifts up so you can get right up to the heddles to thread it.
The Unpattern–creating your own pattern based on your favorite sweater.
Unicorn Fibre Scour and Fibre Wash. wpnderful products for getting fleeces and garments clean.
These products and more will be on the website soon and in the shop within the next couple of weeks.
Warm-up for Lambing
I got back from 3 days at TNNA (trade-show which needs a blog post by itself) and an hour later there were lambs! This wasn’t a complete surprise because, although lambing isn’t due to start for another 6 weeks, one ewe definitely stood out from the flock as “more pregnant”. Phyllis is a lilac ewe that had been sold a few years ago. She returned to me this fall, but no one said anything about being bred. I guess that was due to a mishap at her previous home. Even though I knew that these lambs would not be 100% Jacob, I’m so used to seeing spots, these were an initial surprise.
The lambs’ fleeces are quite different. The one in the foreground has that wavy, coarser look and the other is curly. Notice too that the one in the back is lighter. I don’t know how much of that is due to the camera (I think it flashed when I took this photo) and how much is real. I thought that he didn’t look true black, but in this photo he is definitely lighter. He might make a great fleece wether. (I think the sire may have been a Merino–have to ask about that again.)
