Author Archives: Robin

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About Robin

Owner of Meridian Jacobs, farm and fiber shop. I raise Jacob sheep, teach fiber arts classes, weave handwovens for sale, and manage the store.

Weaving projects unearthed

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I think I have figured out how to link WP and FB but to try it out I should have a real post.

When I reorganized my shop I unearthed boxes and boxes of yarn, etc. Here are some scarves from a warp that I wound and space-dyed quite awhile ago. I like to plan warps and design projects but sometimes there are those days when you don’t want to have to think. What fun to pull out a warp that is ready to put on the loom.

The towels below are from a warp that I remember winding about 19 years ago. How do I know it was that long ago? When my now-19 year old son was a baby and would be awake in the middle of the night sometimes I put him in the backpack and kneading bread or winding warps would put him back to sleep!

Kitty is still here.

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It’s been two weeks and this kitty is still here. Does this mean we’re keeping him?

He’s sure cute.

The main issue is dealing with the dogs. Rusty hasn’t shown any aggression. In fact he wants to play. But he’s awfully big compared to this little kitten and I feel like I have to watch constantly. At night I put the kitty in a crate so that I know that everyone is safe.

Wool samples, wet dogs, and a turkey!

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I posted a photo of my rams yesterday. Here are the wool photos:

This is the fleece of Meridian Tioga.

Here is Kenleigh’s Savor’s wool. Tioga’s wool is crimpy and soft. Savor’s wool is lofty without visible crimp. Both are good fleeces for spinning, but have different character.

Portrait of Savor.

Jackie came back to the fair today to help out with the SplashDog performance and give her dog,  Ringo a lesson. These are photos of Ringo learning the game.

And here are some of the pros:

Obviously NOT a dog.

Another sheep show and new friend?

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Only 3 days after Black Sheep Gathering the crew is together again.  This time it is at the Solano County Fair in Vallejo. Julie (Black Oak Jacobs) and I both have our sheep there right now and today was show day.

Julie and I showed both of my yearling rams. Savor is on the left and Tioga is on the right. They look a lot alike in this view, but they have very different fleece types, both within the Jacob breed standard, but quite different. I should take photos of fleece tomorrow.

After a quick sheep handling lesson, Chris helped me show in all the other classes and Shelby helped with Julie’s sheep.  Thanks to both of them for helping out. Thanks also to Jackie for taking photos.

One of Julie’s sheep had a surprise baby this morning and Shelby took over baby-sitting.

Back home this evening. What are those dogs looking at?

This kitten has been hiding out under my shop for a few days. I started feeding it to entice it out. I don’t want or need a cat, but I couldn’t let it starve under there. He has been very hungry and I caught him tonight while he was eating. I don’t know if he is truly wild because he has sure settled down quickly–not what I’d expect out of wild kitten. But if he isn’t out of a feral cat then I don’t know where he came from.  I’m going to have to keep him in the crate for now because I won’t be home to deal with the dogs. I could barely get Rusty to eat  because he is so obsessed with the kitten.He has done nothing but stare all night. At least Rusty is entertained.

Anyone want a kitten?

Fun with Friends at Black Sheep Gathering

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What a fun weekend! Three friends and I traveled to Eugene, Oregon for Black Sheep Gathering. This is such a cool event. Sheep show, vendors, classes, and fun events all under one roof.

Everything is packed, sheep are in the truck, and we are ready to leave.

I took only lambs for the show, but was pleased to win first place in a large ram lamb class. My ram lamb, Meridian Granite, went on to win Reserve Grand Champion ram. I’ll be showing him at the Solano County Fair on Wednesday.

There is a huge variety of sheep at BSG. This Wensleydale  was quite an attention-getter.

Black Sheep Gathering isn’t just for sheep. Shelby helped another friend, Julie, show her goats and I even got in the show-ring for one class.

Each of us took advantage of the classes that were offered. Chris took a sock knitting class and ended up with an almost-finished baby sock.

We also all brought plenty of projects to fill time.

One of the highlights of the weekend was the Spinners’ Lead. This entry involves wearing (or displaying) something that you have hand felted or handspun and showing off the animal (or a representative) from which the fiber came. Jackie worked non-stop for several weeks to spin enough yarn for this knitted ruana. Then she helped halter break the lambs and, finally, knit and felted a grain bow. I wore the blanket that keeps my side of the bed warm in the winter and a knit cap. At the last minute I decided to accessorize the ensemble and weave wrist warmers (for me and the sheep) and an i-pod pouch. I also made the lamb’s halter out of my wool, using my rope machine. Jackie won the non-owner division and was awarded a bag full of prizes.

Last, but not least, I took a sharpening class on Saturday. I got lucky and the instructor used some of my dull equipment for his demos.

What a great weekend spending a relaxed time with friends. I will have BSG on the calendar for next year.

Halter breaking

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I’m getting ready for Black Sheep Gathering in Oregon followed by the Solano County Fair  the net week. Part of that is halter breaking.

Jackie has been helping. She has finished her Spinners Lead entry but now needs to make sure that one of the lambs will cooperate for the show.

These are two of the knitted, felted bowls that Jaci has made.

Trip to Santa Barbara – Part 2

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I left off the last post with only a couple of the dozens of photos I took of Hebe’s wonderful creations.

Kenna and I took the dogs to the beach in the afternoon. There is an off-leash beach to the delight of dozens of dogs.

This was Rusty’s first time at the beach.  It didn’t take him too long to figure out that he shouldn’t drink the water.

There were a lot of pelicans and it seemed that the fishing was good. I put on my amateur wildlife photographer hat. After I cropped these photos to enlarge the birds I was surprised to see how direct the approach is when they are going after fish.

A group photo of Kenna and her dog, Molly, and Rusty and me.

Next stop for the day was Canzelle Alpacas in Carpinteria, not far from Santa Barbara. Kenna has taught Carol Ann, the owner, to spin  and we’re discussing fiber classes for some of Carol Ann’s customers.

Kenna lives in an area surrounded by the Los Padres National Forest. When you hear about raging southern CA wildfires, some of them are right here. Two years ago thousands of acres burned in the Gap Fire, the edge of which is just up the road from Kenna’s house.

We took a hike through some of the burned area and it is incredible to see the regrowth of vegetation. The CA chaparral can become impenetrable after years with no fire. It is a tragedy when homes are destroyed by fire, but it’s probably not a bad thing for wild areas to burn periodically. It is hard to manage an area for both wild ecosystems and human habitation.

There was fog  on the coast this morning but we were above it.

I drove home in the afternoon and visited another friend (since 6th grade!) along the way.

This is a view out my car window. I’m glad to live somewhere that has such a diversity of landscapes. I never tire of the views.

It would seem that Rusty was worn out from the weekend. However, this is how he always travels. In fact if my ice chest weren’t on the floor that is where he’d be. He doesn’t pant, doesn’t look out the window. He just sleeps.  Not a bad way to travel if the scenery doesn’t fascinate you.

Trip to Santa Barbara – Part 1

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There has been plenty to blog about but not enough hours in the day. I keep meaning to share photos I took in Santa Barbara when I made a quick sheep-delivery trip. People from San Diego  met me to pick up sheep and then I spent the rest of the weekend visiting with my friend, Kenna. We crammed a lot into Sunday of that weekend.

Double checking before I left that I had the important things–my dog and my spinning wheel.

We had breakfast and a walk on the beach with my cousin, William, who lives in Santa Barbara.

Next stop was the Santa Barbara Mission where it was the date of the annual I Madonarri festival, a fund raiser for the mission. This is based on the tradition of Italian street painting. Local businesses pay for spaces in the parking lot and then fill the spaces with chalk art. Look at the incredible detail in this design.

This is not just your regular side-walk chalk.

Aren’t these incredible?

After this Kenna and I went to her friend’s house nearby. Hebe is an incredible person–she is a quilter, weaver, jeweler, felter, painter, and probably more. She was recovering from back surgery but was gracious enough to take her to her basement workshop and show us some of her treasures.

This is a recently completed weaving.

Hebe has completed 10 incredible felted figures and will have a show after she has finished 12. I can’t remember the names of these ladies (and men), but the figures are created with humorous themes in mind. Attention to detail is incredible. You can’t tell in this photo but the tennies are covered with sparkly red sequins.

The felted rocks alone are amazing, let alone the rest of the creation.

The afternoon’s adventures will come later.

I’ll race you to breakfast!

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I’m pleased with the pasture this year, especially considering the number of sheep I have grazing. One 5-acre pasture is subdivided with electric fence (NZ spider fence) into 8 paddocks, each of which can be split in half using electric net fencing. There is one other 2-acre piece that I split in half. Here is the paddock the sheep went into yesterday.

If you go to the “prescribed burning” tag on the right you will see this same paddock (looking from the other direction). See all the dry grass? There was so much tall, rank dallis-grass that there was no green feed growing up through it. We burned it two years ago and with proper grazing I’m able to keep the dallis-grass in check and there is a lot of trefoil and other desirable plants. In the photo above it’s those clumps that are the dallis-grass. The sheep eat it readily if it’s kept in an early vegetative stage.

This is after I opened the net-fence at the end of this paddock and the sheep are going into the new one.

A few lambs who didn’t get all the way around the fence and then started following the ewes back up the fence line on the wrong side. Now Rusty gets to help.

You can easily see the difference between the paddock they were just on and the new one. A paddock is not overgrazed by putting a lot of animals on it; it’s overgrazed by time. Once a pasture is eaten low it needs to rest. If the animals continue to graze it as the new growth occurs, there will be negative impact on the root system and it will take much longer for the plants to recover. So the trick is to eat the paddock evenly and then move the sheep to a new paddock. By concentrating the sheep on a small area they eat all the plants, not just the ones they like best. This also helps with parasite control. right now with the lambs getting so big I’m moving the sheep every day or two. If I go through all the paddocks too quickly I may need to hold the sheep off and feed them in the barn for a little bit. I will probably try to coincide that with my next irrigation when I have to have sheep off the pasture anyway.

Another fence-line photo.

Entries for Solano County Fair were due this week so I needed to figure out who to enter. It was fun to separate out all my yearlings for a look. You get a different feel for the sheep when you get them out of the main group and I hadn’t had a look at the yearlings as a group since they were lambs last year.

This is most of the 19 yearlings in the flock. There are some really nice sheep with with great fleece in this group. I narrowed the field down more and more until I chose my show sheep. (drum roll please….) And the winners are…

…Dazzle and Spring. They both have nice conformation, good size, and consistent fleeces. I have entered these two, the two yearling rams, and 4 lambs. Does anyone want to come help me show? It’s June 22-24, a few days after Black Sheep Gathering.