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.

Granddaughter Visit – Raptors

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The day after I got back from Kansas (see Convergence posts) granddaughter, Kirby, flew in from Texas. We had a two week visit planned that would end with the State Fair and then her tenth birthday.

One of the days Kirby was here, the local library hosted a raptor presentation by the UC Davis Raptor Center. We followed that with a trip to the Raptor Center to see the raptors that are permanent residents there due to injuries or other reasons that prevent them from being released.

We first watched as the handlers worked with two turkey vultures in their enclosure. They are learning to enter dog crates so that they can be taken off site when necessary.

This handler had come to the library presentation but was back at the center to show off a 4-year old bald eagle.

At age 5 his head feathers will be completely white, as in the chart below.

The handlers explained the situation with each bird. Most were brought to the raptor center with injuries. Sometimes injuries are treated successfully, and the bird can be released, but not all of the birds would be able to live on their own in the wild. They are exhibited for educational purposes at the Raptor Center and at presentations like the one we saw at the library.

Some birds are also used for research purposes. This is Jack, a redtail hawk that is a resident. Jack had just completed a flight study, being filmed while flying and wearing sensors, before coming to the library.

This barn owl was injured at a very young age when the palm tree in which she lived was cut and she broke her wing. She is a permanent resident.

Kirby comparing her wingspan with these raptors.

We were lucky to have so many volunteers on-site to talk about the birds and let us see them up close.

Convergence 2024 in Kansas – Day 5

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I left off with the second post for Day 4. I am so far beyond Convergence now that it’s hard to go back and finish but I like these best if they are in order. One more day and it’s a short one.

A fried asked if I had seen the troll yet. I thought she meant one at the Botanica Wichita but it turns out that there is another in town. You can find out about it in Atlas Obscura, something that I didn’t know about until now. The troll seems hidden but is in plain sight if you know where to look. It also pops up on Google maps when you enlarge that area.

The troll is a 7 foot tall structure chained under a grate of a storm drain. It is easy to miss if you’re just walking over the grate.

I angled my iPhone in a position where I could get a better image.

It is truly grotesque…

…down to the details of the fingers.

Another view of the Exploration Place on the Arkansas River.

I had signed up for two sessions on Sunday.

The first was another by Robin Spady. This is a technique that I have never tried and it intrigues me. She includes a booklet of most of the info she shares in class, and I look forward to finding time to try this technique.

I took a class in the afternoon about designing your own color and weave drafts.

The keynote speech was presented Sunday evening by Nikyle Begay who gave an emotional talk about the Navajo (Diné) experience with sheep from the early days of government intervention to the present.

The view from my room. I flew home early Monday morning.

Besides being greeted by Dan and Ginny and the sheep, look what I found on my one zucchini plant. (See mug for scale.)

Convergence 2024 in Kansas – Day 4 (more)

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The last post left me looking for the entrance to Botanica Wichita.

I found it.

Just inside the entrance I saw Lego images. I may have taken more photos of Lego art than of plants. Lego bricks were (and are?) a big part of a couple of my kids’ lives.

These images were impressive enough, but wait until you see the statues outside.

Each Lego artwork is accompanied by a sign that tells a little about the image from the perspective of an artist and of a scientist. The signs include the number of Lego bricks and the time it took to build the piece. The artist is Sean Kenny from New York who has been creating Lego art for 20 years. To see the incredible array of his work check out his website (but come back here). This Nature POP! show is one of his traveling exhibits.

There were also beautiful flowers at Botanica Wichita!

I don’t know if you can read this sign the way I have it formatted here. It tells that this sculpture uses 73,500 bricks and took 279 hours to build.

There was a collection of rabbits and off to the right out of the photo there was a fox.

One of many begonias. I didn’t just look at Lego art.

I walked through the bee garden and found this enclosure at one end. It was difficult to get a photo of this but you can see some recently emerged butterflies at the bottom and on the right side. These are all chrysalis’ along the rods, many with labels.

I walked through a bird sculpture garden.

This dragonfly is near the exit.

Black-eyed Susan.

This little excursion gave me a 7-mile walk. After I returned to the hotel I spent time in the vendor hall and visiting with friends.

One more day…

Convergence 2024 in Kansas – Day 4

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Look here for Day 3 of Convergence. I had not scheduled anything at Convergence for Saturday and looked forward to a day to choose to do anything or nothing. I decided to go to Botanica Wichita, a collection of botanical gardens on 18 acres, not too far from the hotel.

I started with the same route along the river I’d walked the first three days. I got side-tracked by flags along the way. The Wichita Flag Pavilion starts with a plaque about the first “flag”, probably a staff with eagle feathers carried by the Native Americans as a way for tribe members to follow their leader.

There are plaques for each of these later flags starting with the flag that flew over Christopher Columbus’ Santa Maria. There are photos of those plaques at this link.

The Flag Pavilion is at the edge of the Wichita Veterans Memorial Park where there are 21 memorials. I wandered through and found the Vietnam Memorial. I am just young enough that none of my friends were drafted, but I was in high school during the last years of the Vietnam war. I think that the Vietnam era is responsible for the culture in which I grew up. It was notable that the word “war” is not on any of these memorials.

From Britannica.com: “Congress authorized troop deployment in Vietnam, but, because it did not issue a declaration of war on North Vietnam or the Viet Cong, the Vietnam War is, technically speaking, not considered a war in the United States.” Maybe that is why there was such an impact on us. We sent our young men half way across the world to experience atrocities and die for what reason? We were not at risk, and this “conflict” had no bearing on our safety at home…but I digress.

After I left the Veteran’s Memorial Park I continued along the river path following the map in my phone until I saw the marker for the Wichita Gardens,

This marker was deceiving. It is at the edge of the gardens but as I walked along the path that bordered the gardens I found gates closed. The trail looked as though it was going farther away from the garden. I think eventually I would have found a street that brought me to the main entrance, but since I was on foot I wasn’t sure how far afield I should go. I stopped and called the number listed for Botanica. Amazingly, a person answered the phone. She told me I had walked too far, and I went back the way I had come, turning at the Art Museum and worked my way through a neighborhood to get to the main entrance.

To be continued…

Convergence 2024 in Kansas – Day 3

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This is Day 2, when I taught the Clasped Warp class. I signed up for some sessions on Friday and Sunday.

I went out early on Friday morning to walk along the Arkansas River. There are paths on both sides.

This is the Exploration Place. From a quilt on this side to a helicopter inside on the opposite wall it looks as though there is something for everyone here. The bridge that you see is a pedestrian bridge that crosses the Arkansas and Little Arkansas Rivers at the confluence.

This is another view of the statue you see in the distance in the first photo. It is known as the “Keeper of the Plains” and was donated to Wichita in 1974 by the Kiowa-Comanche artist, Blackbear Bosin.

There is a small pavilion behind the statue and where the rivers meet.There are several displays about Plains Indian culture and beliefs.

Back at the hotel, I took a morning class from Robyn Spady about cool things you can do weaving with four shafts.

In the afternoon I had a short session about ice dyeing with indigo. I did a lot of that last summer but never had all these colors. Since I’ve been home I tried to get purple and failed. I’ll try again.

After this session I wondered through the fiber arts exhibits and the vendor hall. I have a lot of photos but will include only a few here. As usual, I am frustrated that I will never have time to weave all the things I already have in my head and now there are more!

Great boots!

Beautiful wedge weave rug.

The following pieces are just a few that were in the previous day’s fashion show.

The Noh coat. This refers to a style of coat that I remember reading about a few years ago. It would be interesting to weave fabric for this. I’ll add it to my list.

Woven in tencel.

Cotton top with the gradients of color different for warp and weft.

Remaking a jeans jacket.

I spent some time in the vendor hall. Lunatic Fringe took the Kansas location to heart with the yellow brick table drape and the legs hanging from their banner. They also wore witch’s hats the first couple of days.

In the evening I walked with a friend back to the Keeper of the Plains where fire is lit for 15 minutes every evening at sunset.

Blogging Experiment

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Now that I’m back to blogging before I get any more behind, the interface seems different and I’m not sure that my post will go in the right place. I don’t want to spend a lot of time doing this if it’s not going to work so this will be a brief interlude.

This is the indigo before I left for Convergence. It has been so hot and dry here that I wasn’t sure how it would look when I got back. There was no time to use it but I thought I’d experiment with freezing some. After all when I use it for the fresh leaf method I’m using ice water.

I froze a few containers of indigo leaves in water.

I have done some indigo dying since I got back but it’s been in a rush to have it ready for the fair this week. No time to experiment with this.

Now we’ll see how this experiment of my blog post went. It’s supposed to be at meridianjacobs.blog, but I can’t tell that it will post there.

Convergence 2024 in Kansas – Day 2

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While I’m writing this it’s actually my 4th day in Kansas but I feel good that I’m not leaving all of these blog posts until I get home. It’s going to be hectic then. So here is the post for the first day when I explored the surroundings. On Thursday I taught a workshop on Clasped Warp using a rigid heddle loom. This is the description of that class on my website. I plan to change that a bit now that my article about clasped warp on a multi-shaft loom is published in Handwoven.

Handwoven scarves draped over a table as examples of the clapsed warp project.

These are the scarves I brought with me as examples of the final project. With clasped warp the loom is direct warped with two different colors at a time. One yarn is attached to the peg and one to the loom. They join or clasp in the middle and you can create many different designs.

Three photos of clasped warp scarf warps being designed on the loom.

These are three going on the looms. I did not get photos of all. It difficult to get decent photos of this process.

Warp yarns in yellow, red, and gray threaded through the heddle of a rigid heddle loom.

Here is one more.

Room with several tables and weavers at their looms.

A view from the back of the classroom. Fortunately we had plenty of space for everyone to spread out. There were 9 people in the class (and a service dog!)

A handwoven scarf just off the loom is spread on a table.

This is the first scarf off a loom. It was the only piece finished during class. There was no rush for most of the others because they were all taking their looms with them. Two people needed to finish the project that night and warp the looms for the next day’s class, but the weaving goes fairly quickly on this project.

People in a weaving class holding their looms with projects in progress.

At the end of the day. This was a great class! I hope to see future projects from all these participants.

The fashion show was Thursday evening. It was a professionally presented show and I was lucky enough to have a front row seat, thanks to friends at Lunatic Fringe Yarns!

Convergence 2024 in Kansas – Day 1

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When I Google “convergence” I find “an annual convention for fans of Science Fiction and Fantasy”, “a global network for blended finance”, and more, If you’re a weaver you probably know of Convergence as a gathering held every other year by the Handweavers Guild of America. This year it’s in Wichita, Kansas. It was a year ago that I applied to teach here and two of my proposed classes were accepted. I ended up teaching only one because too few people signed up for the other.

I flew to Wichita on Wednesday.

The conference is at the Hyatt Regency and the adjoining Convention Center. I spent the afternoon setting up my classroom for the next day’s workshop. Then I explored the nearby area.

Screenshot

I took a screenshot of the app I have on the phone to record workouts–although I don’t call this a workout. It’s a walk. There are paved paths along each side of the Arkansas River with plenty to see on both sides.

This unusual building is the Exploration Place. In the distance you can see a pedestrian bridge and the 44-foot tall Keeper of the Plains statue that rises on a rock promontory. It is at the confluence of the Arkansas and the Little Arkansas Rivers, as seen on the map above.

This monument is just off the path and is one of many in the adjoining Veterans Memorial Park

Exploration Place seen from the north.

Keeper of the Plains. The statue was erected in 1974 and was raised on a 30-foot promontory in 2006 so that it could be seen from farther away. In the adjoining plaza there are displays that describe the local tribes that used to inhabit the area. There is also a ring of fire pits that are lit nightly for 15 minutes.

As I walked back on the other side of the river I had another view of the Exploration Place. Right now the website advertises two nights of Superhero Sleepover (“Bam, Pow, Snooze”). This looks like a great place to visit with kids…probably adults too. I took this photo partly for my own kids who I think would be interested in or amused by the helicopter, the giant open mouth and the green object on the left. You probably can’t tell in the photo here but I could see from where I stood that it says Fart Chair. The building is large and I’m sure holds a full day’s worth of interesting activities.

This is a view of the Hyatt from the bridge where I crossed back over the river. Home for the next four days.

Black Sheep Gathering 2024

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I’m already on my next adventure, but need to catch up with the last one. After the quick trip to Idaho I decided against going to Black Sheep Gathering in Oregon the following weekend. I had not planned to take sheep this year and had not entered wool, fiber arts, etc. But half way through the week I changed my mind. Without entering any shows I didn’t have to be gone as many days, so I left Friday morning. I will admit that two hours into the drive I thought about turning around and coming home because I had so much to do at home before the next event (where I am now). However I had told a friend in Oregon that I’d visit along the way, so I kept going.

Here is where I stayed the three nights I was there. As I set up my tent I realized that I think I’ve had this tent and my sleeping bag since my college days or shortly after.

I took very few photos in the barn, but here is one–a Valais Blacknose. There was a new Jacob breeder there and I helped her show. Because she was the only person with Jacob sheep she had to show in the All Other Breeds class, as I did last year. Maybe I’ll enter again next year and we’ll have a Jacob show.

I took a few photos in the exhibit and vendor hall. These are the main award winners in the Fiber Arts Show.

I spent a lot of time with a few vendors and tried to make time to see the rest.

I met this vendor last year at this event. She lives in Sacramento and I encouraged her to sell at Lambtown last fall. Her booth was next to mine. Even though I specialize in locally grown wool, including my own, I was intrigued by her yarns, many of which are not natural fibers and are certainly not local. But they sure are fun! The larger skeins are all lengths of yarns that are tied together. I had bought a few of these crazy mixed fiber skeins and brought the scarf I had just finished to show how I had used the yarns. I plan to create a class using this idea.

I spent time with one other vendor, business name of Shuttle Creek. Annie is a weaver and was working on a loom in her booth, She sells her mostly cotton garments at local shows I think. I just looked at the website and there are some gorgeous items there but blog and Facebook activity seem to stop in 2021 and I was thinking that she said she doesn’t do much online. Anyway, after talking to her a long time she pulled this piece off a hangar and put on me. I bought it and that’s what wore all day at the weaving event where I’m teaching (next post). I need a button that “no, I didn’t weave it”.

I spent part of the day at the vendor hall, helped the other Jacob breeder show sheep, visited with friends (most of whom are from California), and watched Spinners’ Lead. I packed up fairly early on Sunday and started home.

I’ve seen the sign for the covered bridge every time I’ve driven to Oregon but I’ve never stopped. It’s not far from the highway and an interesting site. There is a museum nearby but it wasn’t open on Sunday morning. The bridge was built in 1920 and the sign talks about the history of the area when white settlers came there in the 1840’s and 50’s.

I always at this site in California.

This means I’m almost home. (Sort of.)

Harvest

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I thought I wrote about my mulberry harvest but I can’t find that post so I’ll include it here. I was going to tell the story about harvesting mulberries and dropping the bowl after touching the electric fence and then trying again only to have a sheep tip the bowl over. I’m sure I wrote this post–maybe its the one that as I as writing I ran out of room in my 15 year old free WordPress account and had to figure out what to do. Here’s that story.

The mulberry tree.

I have learned that mulberries ripen over time and you can continue to harvest for quite awhile. The berries fall off very easily when ripe, but that also means that a lot fall simply because it’s windy. Also, this tree is very tall. If I wanted to be serious about the harvest I’d need to put down a clean sheet or tarp and then try hitting the branches with a long tool of some kind. This is not in a convenient spot for that since the branches hang over either side of a fence and the irrigation ditch is under part of it. And don’t forget the electric fence.

I did end up with a couple of pies after two different harvest times.

The idea for this post started because of thinking ahead to the blackberry harvest. I know that the blackberries are usually ripe during State Fair. It looks like we’re right on track for that because they aren’t ready yet. State Fair is at the end of the month.

Look at the harvest that we’ll have–although I can’t reach a lot of those. There happens to be an irrigation ditch in front of this too. It’s dry most of the time, but it still makes it more difficult to reach the top half of these. We’ll be gone for up to a week after the fair so my farm sitters may benefit most from this harvest.

Here’s an unusual harvest. I list puncture vine seedpods on the website for use in craft projects.

There was an order today so I had to go find some more outside the pasture fence.

Dye plant harvest is beginning. I don’t have time to do any trying right now so I’m weighing the fresh flowers and drying them. This is Cosmos. Some of this is for sale here on the website. That is from last fall, but the dried flowers dye just as well as the fresh ones.

Dahlia flowers are also ready to harvest. They will continue to bloom if I can keep up with watering during this heat wave.