The name of my blog is “Life on the Farm and at the Loom, but I haven’t written many weaving posts lately. Here are a few of the more recent pieces.

Chenille scarves. About a year and a half ago I challenged myself to use up all the odds and ends of chenille that I had accumulated. Here is a blog post with the photo of the original pile of chenille. I ended up with warps for 44 scarves. I wove several last year but then started focusing on the show I had last fall. Last month I started weaving these scarves again.

I put a warp on the 46″ Schacht loom a few months ago but then had to stop weaving while I waited for tendonitis in my shoulder to get better. The yarn is Imperial Yarn Company’s Columbia and there was enough warp for three blankets. I just took these off the loom but need to do fringes and wash them.

The AVL has warp for three queen size blankets that are a commission.

. Here is the front of the loom. I had to stop working on this when a cable broke today.

A friend asked me to dye a jacket that she found at a thrift store. She wanted dark brown. It’s hard to see but one of those threads did turn the dark brown that it was supposed to but the rest of the yarns dyed a brick red. Fortunately she likes that color too.

 These  are 35-yard mini-skeins of Titus, a new yarn that I carry. I wanted to create a project that used all the yarns in this sample pack..

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…and this is what I came up with. I used this as an idea to develop a class in Color on the Loom.

I’ll show photos of all these blankets when they are finished. The transformation is always amazing.

Yesterday the dogs and I drove to my son and DIL’s house to go on a hike. We drove up Ice House Road into part of the El Dorado National Forest that burned from last year’s massive King Fire, parked the truck, and started walking down one of the dirt roads. We found stunning beauty and tragic devastation at the same time. Eventually we made our way down to the South Fork of the American River, finding a new spot that M & K are putting on their personal favorite-place maps.

I have lots of landscape and flower photos. For dog fun you can check out Rusty’s blog–after I am finished and he can get on the computer.We stopped along the road in a beautiful park like landscape with lots of wildflowers… …but when you look up you realize that all the trees are dead. I ID’d some of the flowers. Yellow Star Tulip, Calochortus monophyllus.

 This one I don’t know and if I take time to try and find them all I’ll never get outside.

 Pretty face, Triteleia ixioides.

Some kind of iris.

This looks like Sugarbush (Rhus species) when I looked it up but that is in S.CA so I don’t know which species this one is.

Monkey flower.

We saw all those flowers on the way to the river.Sam and Kirin are strong swimmers and spent their time going after the toy that Matt kept throwing for them.Notice where my dogs are. Rusty spent most of his time looking at sparkles in the rocks, Ginny went in the water but was intimidated by the big dogs and the deep water and Maggie lives in her own world (did you see her on the right?)Walking back to the truck.These trees are dead but this gives a glimpse of what the forest might have been like if periodic fires had been allowed to burn during the last century. When fire burns light brush and debris off the forest floor it opens the forest up to light and allows other vegetation to grow, at the same time preventing the fires from burning into the tops of the trees. Wouldn’t this be a beautiful site if this had been a much less damaging fire and the vegetation cycle was just starting all over without having killed the trees? The King Fire that burned 97,000 acres was human set. It was not an accident. It was set on purpose. My son and DIL work for the US Forest Service and were directly involved with the suppression of this fire that burned only a few miles from their home.It had tragic consequences for people who lost their homes and was a devastating blow to the El Dorado National Forest. There were peripheral impacts as well to thousands of people who have nothing to do with actually working as fire fighters or who live in the forest. Think of it as a ripple effect. We were on one of those ripples. My other son took the summer off from his regular job on the El Dorado Hotshot crew so that he could compete in the Tahoe Ironman. He had trained to be at the top of his game. The event was cancelled just moments before it was to begin due to the horrible smoke in the Tahoe Basin. Here is the story I wrote then. This is one tiny example of how something impacts lives far removed from the actual horrific event. Imagine the number of weddings, vacations, jobs, etc that were impacted over the course of this fire activity.  And all of those things pale in comparison to the direct consequences of the fire–the environmental impact, loss of property, etc.

Whew! I didn’t intend to go there with this post. Let’s move on. The oaks surprised me. The fire didn’t kill them.   I’m curious to know if they will remain when (if?) this area is logged. 

The next photos are the scene we drove through to get to where it looks much prettier.These areas are being logged to remove the dead trees while there is still value in the lumber. This is an interesting article about the post-fire logging and rehab.  

This is a demonic looking machine. At the end of this long arm there are claw-like grippers and a chain saw.  A sad landscape.

R

As I wrote the date today I realized that it is my mom’s birthday. She died in 2008. Here are some photos as I’d like to remember her instead of the the shell of a person taken by Alzheimer’s.Mom (long before I was born) and her brother, Walt, who was the youngest of the four siblings and died just last month.Another from “the old days”. Mom was a WAC during WW2.My brother and I were born in San Francisco and lived there until 1965.

We moved to Sonoma County, CA near Cotati in 1965 and Mom had the place until sometime in the late 70’s.Raising us as a divorced “older” mother (having kids at age 38 & 40) Mom faced personal challenges. It was an additional challenge to move from San Francisco to “the country”. We lived on 2-1/2 acres in what I remember as a fabulous old house (the termites and drafts and well problems didn’t bother us kids) and mom encouraged–enabled–us to learn a love of the outdoors and animals. She had no experience with livestock but through 4-H I raised dairy heifers and eventually a milk cow. My brother raised sheep……and when he left for college Mom, who had always knit and learned to spin around that time, had her own small flock of sheep.Mom on the front steps of our house with Murka, named after a dog in a book called Thanks to Noah by George Papashvily. (It’s amazing how things come back to you. Seeing this photo made me remember that book. I just googled it, guessing at a spelling for that last name, found it on Amazon, and bought it!)  This photo is probably from the late 60’s.During those years in Cotati, Mom turned her pottery hobby into a business (sound familiar?) and supported us by selling pottery and teaching.Although she made mostly functional high-fire pieces (plates, mugs, teapots, etc) she liked to make some more artistic raku pieces. I remember her pulling the fiery hot pots from the kiln, plunging them into a metal bucket full of straw, and quickly covering with a lid. Mom and her friend, Ursula, collaborated on some fountains. This is at our back door.  I was just thinking that this photo is kind of like me with my Farm Club and spinner friends. Yikes! Mom is younger in most of these photos than I am now. By the way, I found this on the wall at the Barinaga Sheep Dairy in Marin County a few years ago and I am sure that it is one of Ursula’s pieces.  This isn’t much of a photo but it is probably typical (and reminds me of my desk now except for the typewriter). Two cats on the desk. Clutter. That’s mom’s foray into stained glass in the window.This is mom with her five grandchildren taken probably about 1997 or so. That’s my three on the left and my brother’s kids on the right.

I’m glad I have these photos to fall back on when I think of mom’s last years.

It’s been almost a month since Kirby was here but I found some more photos that I took of her on the last day of her visit. They are so cute that I want to share. Here she is helping me pack up yarn for the mail.  First has to pass a taste test. It looks as though she likes yarn. That’s a good sign! She seems to like the box just as much. First step. Yarn in box. Second step. Fold flaps over. I think I took over from here. Kirby with Aunt Meryl. With Grandpa.With Uncle Chris after a long day.

Here’s why I was distracted the last few days. She’s 8-1/2 months old.

Meet the Sheep was a fantastic success. The weather was perfect and dozens of people came out to enjoy the farm, the lambs, and the bunnies. Yes, bunnies!

These photos of people enjoying the day were all taken by Dona.

This is Julie Kuroki who raises show quality French Angora rabbits and Angora goats. I can give you her contact info if you want it.

The bunnies are always a huge hit with the kids. There is more in Rusty’s blog about the bunnies.

Alison led a workshop in Sheep Portraits.