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.

Generations

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I have been spending a lot of time learning how to work efficiently in i-photo. I still have about 30 G of photos to move from the PC to the MacBook. I won’t bore you with dozens and hundreds of photos of my really cute kids as they were growing up, but here are two photos I like.


This is my Mom at about the age that I am now (notice no gray hair) with Marie, the Merino and other friends. That goose is Honky if I remember correctly.


Here is the whole family 20 years ago. The kids are now 30, 22, and 20. The rest of us are just older. Dogs = Brandy, Flash (adopted Border Collie) and Dog.

OK. One cute picture.

 

Three Looms Warped

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I have new projects on all three looms. That’s exciting!

This is a warp for 2 shawls. It is a mixed warp of cotton threads, a shiny slubby rayon thread, and Luna ribbon. I have already completed blue and purple shawls in my series of shawls for the Artery.

I know it’s 100+ degrees out but I’m getting a head start on the projects for the winter and I couldn’t wait to try out my new yarn. This is the newest Jacob yarn (1 ply black and 1 ply light gray)–not even labeled or on the website yet–and the project is a v-shawl.

I have been low on baby blankets for quite a while and while this warp may not help when someone needs a “boy blanket” it should give me several for girls–it’s 24 yards. Someone called today looked for a “neutral” blanket and I wonder if I weave with a blue thread if it could go for either. Here’s a small world experience. Yesterday I got an e-mail from a young woman New York who had been sent one of my baby blankets when she was a baby and her mother has been a regular customer ever since. The daughter now has a friend who is pregnant and wants to give one of the baby blankets. The call today was from the person who sent that first blanket  to his niece in New York and now wants to send a blanket to Germany.)

More ram photos

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I am still trying for those ram photos.

This is Granite.


Clint is still on the run.


The ram lambs that were born at the end of March are finally getting old enough to evaluate them with a little more confidence. I think it’s too hard to tell much about them before 3 months old. Now I can see the width of the horns on the two horn rams. This guy seems to have a nice wide horn spread. I’d prefer that he didn’t have white feet.


Here is another with a wide horn spread. If you don’t start with a wide horn spread at this age, very often the horns grow too tight near the jaw as the ram gets to be a year or two.


This lamb is turning out very nice and I may keep him. He is the last lamb born this year, the son of Clint and one of last year’s ewe lambs. He is a four-horn ram with good horn spacing, nice wool and some leg markings.

Sheep portraits

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I’m trying to get some sheep portraits for a project that I’m doing.

This is Fran, a 3 year old ewe.


The rams aren’t so cooperative. They either stay in a tight group …


…or go running by.


These are my 2 new rams–not a very good photo but you can see the difference in size   between Faulkner (BFL) and Hudson (Jacob).


This is Faulkner’s fleece.

 

Fibershed photos

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I drove to Petaluma yesterday to deliver yarn, fiber, and buttons for a photo session with my favorite photographer, Paige Green. She is photographing items for use on the Fibershed Market place website to be announced shortly. I was amazed at the difference that reflector made for the photos. I want one of those. It was a pleasant afternoon with some of the other people involved in the Fibershed.

I thought the dog was a nice touch.

Black Sheep Gathering Part 3

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We had such a good time at Black Sheep Gathering this year.

 

I never thought that I’d have fun “camping” in a parking lot but when it’s with the right people at the right event it’s a great time!

 

I’m used to seeing the Jacob horns, but I sure noticed when I saw this Angora goat’s horns.

Sunday evening I left for Bend to pick up a Blue Face Leicester (BFL) ram.

Here is the reception I had at Tumble Creek Farm.

 

 

 

 

Robina’s BFL ewes come when called.

 

We set up a pen outside so that my sheep could get out of the truck overnight. This morning we loaded Faulkner in the front of the truck bed with the Jacobs behind.

As much fun as I had this weekend I’m always glad to get back to California.

 

 

 

Black Sheep Gathering-Day 2

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Here are a few scenes from  today’s events.

 

All the champion ewes and rams return to the show ring for selection of Supreme Champion. Theron and I represented the Jacob breed.

The winner was Terry Mendenhal’s beaufiful Merino ram, the third white sheep from the left in this photo.

The Spinner’s Lead competition was held in the evening after a huge  potluck dinner. We were last of 18 entries and had the biggest applause of all (thanks, all you CA friends). Chris, Jackie and I all wove v-shawls from Jacob fiber and had a good story to explain all the details. It’s too late for me to explain more, so here is another photo.

We are having a great time! More tomorrow.

Black Sheep Gathering – Day 1

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Farm Club members, Kathy, Dona, Tina, and Jackie are ready to leave with me and the sheep for Black Sheep Gathering in Eugene, Oregon. Friend, Chris was already in Oregon waiting for us.

Synchronizing phones.

UhOh!

The Shasta County Deputy calling in the suspicious livestock. It turns out that I am the legal owner. What if I hadn’t had the health certificate? The only reason I had paperwork was because I was on my way to an out-of-state show.

Hot Lips thought it was no-big-deal.

Gas stop in Oregon. That’s Jackie’s van behind the truck.

Unloading the van. We had all the gear for 5 of us, dozens of fleeces, spinning wheels, etc packed in the van and the back seat of my truck.

Shaul’s Manufacturing is one of our favorite vendors.

Although I come to BSG primarily for recreation, the purported purpose is showing sheep. I did not bring a yearling ram to the show because I don’t have room to transport one and take all the other sheep in the back of the pick-up. I brought 2 ram lambs to show and, being born in March, they don’t show as well as they might if they were a month or so older. The Jacob breeders are all pretty good friends and we were all happy to find out who won Champion Jacob Ram:

This is Theron with his ram lamb.

Part of the ewe lamb class. Jackie showed her lamb, Nellie (who was a bottle baby from me), Tina showed Venus, and I showed Ventura. We placed 3rd and 5th in this class. I have heard that Nellie will be writing her own version of the show later on (and may have quite a different perspective) and will publish that on Jackie’s blog (Wooly Adventures).

Here is the high point for me. Meridian Hot Lips won Champion Jacob Ewe. She will show again against all the other winners for Supreme Champion Ewe.

 

A Typical Day…

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…or why I don’t get everything done that I have planned for a day.

First up is morning chores and spend some time admiring Hudson, my new ram from Mud Ranch Jacobs. Joan brought him yesterday and took home a couple of ewe lambs. Hudson warrants a blog post all by himself, but he’ll have to wait for that. Hudson is a lilac ram and by breeding him to my lilac and lilac-carrier ewes I’ll have lilac lambs next spring. (Lilac is a Jacob color different than the more common black and white.)

 

 

One of the risers in my pasture water line pulled out a couple of days ago and I had to wait for the water to subside to be able to fix it. I left the hole open awhile to make sure that there are no more leaks.

 

 

Here is the result of a repaired pipe line–drinking water in the pasture so the sheep don’t have to come into the barn for water.

I will have irrigation water tomorrow so I needed to set up tarps in the ditch. The water is provided by the Solano Irrigation District, not my well. The tarps allow the water to back up and fill the ditch and then flow out into the pasture. 

The green forage is the result of irrigating. Even with all the rain we had recently it wasn’t enough to keep the desirable pasture plants growing. Notice the brown part on the left. My 24-hour irrigation hasn’t been enough to get water to the all the pasture and that brown area is part that wasn’t irrigated when I had water on last month. I have asked for 36 hours for this irrigation and hopefully I can get water to the rest of the pasture. Otherwise I have lost about a fifth of my forage for the summer.

This small green area is a section in the eastern paddock that my son burned earlier in the spring. He didn’t think that the burn was successful because the medusahead was green and didn’t catch fire readily. However, the burning killed it allowing other plants to grow. I want to burn the rest of it but I’m a bit worried about burning now–even if the burning would be permitted now. Maybe next year.

 

Throw in a littel bird watching in the morning.

 

 

Spend some time petting Stephanie…

 

after trimming her feet which she considers to be an insult.

 

More bird-watching.

 

Scrounged and cut wood to fit inside the feeders so that hay won’t fall onto the backs of the sheep.

Jackie and Chris came out about 1 to help with halter breaking. (By the way, thanks to all the help, the lambs are showing remarkable improvement after only 3 days.) I thought a couple of them had rather droopy ears.

I pulled these out of one ear and found one other lamb with foxtails bothering her, although not lodged like these were. It makes me wonder how many I’m missing.

That’s about half the day, but a long enough post.