I flew to Colorado to attend the annual meeting of the Jacob Sheep breeders Association. The gathering started on Friday afternoon so I planned the day to include a side-trip to Boulder to visit the Schacht Spindle Company. I carry Schacht equipment in the shop so I thought it would be fun to have a tour of the business.

Here is the first look into the factory/workshop area. Looks confusing, doesn’t it? There is a lot to see, but I’ll just pick out a few photos to share.

There are several big, fancy, and I’m sure very expensive machines like this one.

When you look closely you see that the machine is drilling and changing the block of wood on the left into the one on the right. This is one side of the Flip loom.

Each piece is sanded using a variety of machines–ones that do flat surfaces, ones like this one with stiff bristle rollers that sand inside all the crevices and holes.

Each piece is dipped in Danish oil. I love the smell when I open a box of Schacht products–I now associate that oil smell with new toys!

Work is done under the watchful eye of Elvis. (There is a sentimental story behind this.)

This is the room where the spinning wheels are put together. You know me with names…I can’t remember this person’s name but he puts together all the Schacht-Reeves wheels.

I am in my motel room. My computer just told me that I am on reserve power and it’s going to go to sleep in a minute if I don’t plug it in. I can’t find the power cord and I hope it’s in the car. I have to quite now. More later. I hope I have time to upload this.

Today I hosted a field trip for 24 six and seven-year-olds and their accompanying adults. Thanks to the Farm Club for helping me out yet again. Kathy, Dona, Mary, and Maggie (Mary’s daughter) all helped with the kids. We split into two groups for petting animals, learning the differences between hay and straw, sorting “sheep” in the chute (with shoe-laces, without shoe laces), etc.  I don’t have many photos because we were busy with the kids but I caught a few.

I always ask the kids if they think I have crayons in the barn. They say “no” and then I show them my crayons. 

Kathy demonstrated how we use crayons.

The demo turned into the farm version of face-painting.

After the groups got back together, Rusty showed how he works sheep. 

Then the kids watched us demonstrate carding, spinning, and dyeing. We read a story, gave them all a postcard with Rusty’s photo and they got back on their bus. Us adults retreated to the shop for de-briefing and visiting with the A/C going. Thanks Farm Club!

We just came back from my first visit to Hawaii. We went to visit with my father-in-law who moved there with his wife last year. They don’t plan to come back here, so if we’re going to see them we need to get to Hawaii–not a bad place to “have” to go, but it’s not that easy to make the trip when you have animals to take care of.  Here are some photos of our visit.

This is the little 10 (or 12?) seat plane that took us from Maui to the Big Island. We were skeptical, especially when we saw one of the pilots for another commuter plane who looked like he was about 12, but it actually gave us great views of the islands and the coastline.

Isn’t that water beautiful?

We were met by our relatives, leis in hand.

The first evening in Hawaii we got to the beach just as the sun was setting.

This photo was taken at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. This is an incredible place to visit but you need a couple of days to be able to hike the trails and see it all. We drove down to where the road was blocked by a lava flow 10+ years ago. This is right on the coast and it would sure be something to watch the lava flow into the ocean.

That’s all lava as far as you can see.

There are beautiful textures…

…all around…

…and color when you look more closely.

The landscape is immense.

We especially liked the message on this cap. Can you read it? (See next photo)

We did some touristy things:

One day was spent in Kona shopping and eating. One thing it’s hard to get used to is that many of the buildings don’t have walls. As long as you can get under a roof you will be out of the rain, but it’s never cold enough to need the walls. I wonder what the CA Health Department would do if they saw birds walking around on the tables in a restaurant.

We spent one morning zip-lining through the trees. That is Dan and, yes, I did it too. I’ll have to get photos from Dan’s camera. The scariest part was the drive to and from the zip-line course.

It took 6-wheel-drive to get up there and we were still slipping and sliding on the road.

Food is an important part of any vacation and we tried a few of my in-laws favorite places. This is a meatloaf sandwich on homemade sourdough bread.

There wasn’t much beach time but we were there for a couple of hours before it started to rain.

Next time I’d definitely like to explore more beaches.

We feasted at a lu’au…

…and as the sun went down…

…we were entertained by the show. Since our goal was mainly to visit with family we spent a lot of time at the house–which is not on the beach or in the rainforest, but at Waikoloa, in the dry area of the Big Island.

I loved the bananas–a different taste from the ones at Safeway.

I was amused by the geckos…

…although it still seems strange to see them roaming around inside the house.

We were gone for 8 days and needed a day to recover when we got home. It’s fun to visit but good to be back home to sheep and yarn and chores…and, of course, Rusty. I was going to write a blog post about what it took for us to be gone this long, but I think I’ll ask Rusty to write that one. He has been waiting to use the computer because I had it with me. Check out Rusty’s blog a little later.

One of our “founding” members, Tina, is moving to Portland soon. Dona offered to have a farewell party at her house in Wilton. What a wonderful way to spend our Saturday. Food, fiber projects, animals, and most of all, good friends.

Tina, Chris, and Jackie watching Dona’s goats.

Shelby and two of Dona’s Boer goats.

Cracker treats for the lambs.

Some of us whip out our cameras at every opportunity but Alison always has a sketch book at hand. (And her sketches are wonderful.) By the way, that is Faulkner’s daughter on the right.

Last minute food prep as Shelby gets a lesson in whipping cream.

What a feast!

Kathy and Shelby present Shelby’s lemon tart with freshly whipped cream.

This is all of us who were able to make it to Dona’s sharing a wonderful afternoon.

Tina, if we don’t see you before then we’ll meet up with you at Black Sheep Gathering in 2013.

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It’s been in the high 80’s the last couple of days.

I think it’s time to put away the winter clothing.

I taught a drum carder class today. Here are some results.

Dona added neon green to white Jacob.

Ania blended blue and gray.

Paula went wild with color mixes.

These are some of Ania’s blends drafted into roving.