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CA State Fair Wrap-up

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I have just spent an hour trying to upload photos to Flickr so that it would be easy to share a lot of photos. Every time I do it then I get a message that says I’m deleting the album. Grrrr. So I’ll post a few here now and maybe more later.

Shelby, Mary, and Dona helped on show day. Shelby helped clean up and show sheep, Mary held down the fort at the display/sheep area, and Dona took photos.

Dan is showing Meridian Granite and I have Sweetgrass Clint in the Yearling Ram Class.

Here is what the rest of the class was like. Shetlands, Jacobs, and St. Croix (hair sheep). The Shetland at the front of the line in this photo won the class and, ultimately, Champion Ram of the Primitive Breeds Show. Granite was second in this class and Clint was 5th.

My entries in the ram lamb class.

Vickie and Hot Lips in the Yearling Ewe class.

Leaving Shelby with three sheep while Dan and I got two more for the Flock class.

That’s Granite on the right, two yearling ewes, and two ewe lambs. We didn’t shine in these classes, mostly placing in the middle. That’s a little disappointing, but we always tell people new to showing that it doesn’t really matter what the judge says. Many judges aren’t that familiar with Jacob sheep and it seems pretty hard to judge this kind of class anyway. On the other hand, if you win, you certainly tell all!

This is a view of the sheep pens…

…and the display area.

Notice the ribbons here. This is what I work hard to get. I have been trying for 4 years to win the Open Sheep Marketing Award. I got 2nd this year again (although placed over last year’s winner), but was awarded Best Program, Best Educational Presentation (Sheep Herdsman), and 2nd in Best Educational Presentation over the whole 3 weeks of the fair (including all the species shown). So I’m pleased with this and there is always next year to get to #1. Farm Club, are you ready?

State Fair – Day 1 for sheep

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We left only 1/2 hour behind schedule this morning to get the sheep and the exhibit to the CA State Fair.  I figured that was not bad after about 4 1/2 hours of sleep!

I went to the fair with much more of a plan than I usually have so I thought that set up would be easy. No! My 8′ x 2.5 sign needed better support than I had planned. Space was a bit different so I had more to fill . I left out some of the elements that I had planned to use because it was starting to look cluttered.

Thank goodness I have such wonderful friends who will help. Too bad that I don’t have photos of them but we were too busy to stop for photos. Thanks to Jackie, Chris, Mary, Dona, and Rick!!! And thanks to Tina and Alison for the design help!

 

Here is a young fair-goer drawing in the spots and horns on a sheep drawing we provided.

Faulkner goes to the doctor

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Faulkner, my new Blue-Faced Leicester ram, had a large swelling (about the size of a grapefruit and with no visible injury) behind his rib cage. I noticed it on the weekend and my veterinarian looked at him on Monday. The vet thought that she could feel an opening in the muscle tissue and recommended that I take him to the UC Davis VMTH to surgically repair it. Sure enough, there was a 2″ opening that required a much larger opening by the time it was done.

So what could cause this hernia? My vet and I had a talk about what she calls “veterinary practice builders”, one of which could be this:

Hudson and Faulkner have not been fighting, but it is my vet’s opinion that just a quick toss of this head could cause damage to someone else.  Most of my other 4-horn rams have had curved top horns so I wonder if injuries are more common when a ram has a set of spears on his head.

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.

Spinning on the Farm

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I spent yesterday at Spinning on the Farm, an event hosted by the Sonoma County Fiber Trails. Beautiful location, great weather, fun people. It’s hard to know what to take to an event like this. It’s only one day and it takes a lot of time to take apart my whole shop, box it all up, load it, set up the booth, take it all down, load the trailer again, put it all back in the shop. Is it worth taking it all? I find that there is usually no one big seller and I usually sell a little of everything so that’s what I take.

 

Isn’t that a beautiful backdrop for a booth? I brought dyed Merino roving, silk/merino fiber and scarf kits, latchhook pillow kits, notecards, and books…

…WoolPets felt kits, Thomas Joseph notecards and buttons, and spinning tools…

…wool socks…

…yarn…and much more.

Spinners get their gear  to and from the parking lot by tractor hay-ride.

What group of spinners gets together without thinking of food? As always, the potluck was delicious.

Spinners spend the day spinning, knitting, eating, visiting, and shopping in this beautiful setting above the Russian River.

 

Silk Challenge-Part 2

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When I have new fibers or yarns and am trying to figure out how to use them my first step is to sample. Sometimes this is a full-sized sample. For instance I go ahead and weave a blanket or a scarf, etc and learn as I go how the yarns work together and decide if I like it or if I should change something next time.

The silk challenge poses a different problem for me. I don’t have any idea of how these yarns will work and I don’t really have an end project in mind although a scarf is one idea. By the way, the responses to the last blog were good ideas

  • color and weave effect
  • accent colors on woven sheep as in  some very cool sheep paintings that Dona sent
  • fabric for the “squares jacket” that Diane brought to WWW
So my first step was to wind a narrow warp and experiment with weft. I started with the heavier red silk yarn at 6 epi.  I used the sari silk yarn, silk rags and bamboo yarn in various combinations of fiber and weave structure. Interesting but nothing jumps out at me.
My next sample was to use the sari silk yarn for warp. I was hesitant about this because it is so “hairy” I thought that it might not work well as the warp. At 6 epi it worked fine in this narrow sample and I like the results better than the first warp. I will have to evaluate all these different sections as to drape, durability, etc and decide where to go with this project.
These are the samples. One thing that I don’t necessarily like about using the silk strips is that the colors become blocky–weaving 3-4 inches of each color. If I wove a wider piece that wouldn’t be as much of an issue but it will be in a narrow scarf.
In this sample I alternated colored strips so that one color blends into the next. I also beat more tightly. This wouldn’t be very good for a scarf but would be a great jacket or mat.
I like this part. I alternated the strips with the sari silk in a twill. This is beat more loosely so there is better drape, but it could be considered sleazy if the fabric was to be used for something that needed firmness.

Learning curve

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I have a new computer! Yippee! I’ve been thinking about this for a year. I debated desktop vs. laptop. Laptop won. I debated PC vs Mac. At first I decided that I had to stay with the PC but Mac eventually won out. I’m having a good time with it, but I don’t have any of my “work” on it yet. No Quickbooks. No Office. I have been playing with photos, but still don’t know how to resize them to put them here. If I figure it out before this post is done there will be a photo. If not, I’ll wait until I visit my DIL who is going to help me or I go to the class at the Apple store.

Farm Club Comes Through Again

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I sent an e-mail Friday  to the Farm Club  in which I said I was going to vaccinate lambs today and did anyone want to help? Dona and Tina were already planning on being here for a spinning class in the morning so they said that they would stay. Jacki, Shelby, and Allison came too.  Wow! What great response with only 24 hours’ notice.

I bought a new tool. For years I have been vaccinating with single dose syringes. That means that you have to reload the syringe each time you give an injection.

I just never thought about doing it differently, but I was at Higby’s Country Feed Store (my favorite store) and saw this syringe. There is a bit of a learning curve (remember to tighten needle, make sure you depress the handle part all the way, don’t drop because the barrel is glass–OOPS!), but what a huge difference it will make after I replace the glass part that broke about a third of the way into the job.

I appreciate all the Farm Club members (who are now friends) who show up for projects like this. Shelby manned the camera, as well as caught lambs and played with the loose chicken.

Alison, Jackie, Tina, and Dona all helped catch and mark lambs and…

fill syringes (after the unfortunate incident with the new one).

Shelby took the following portraits.

After vaccinating I let all the sheep out but then needed to catch one more lamb.

So Rusty had a chance to get involved also.

Thanks to all of you for helping. Wait until you hear about the next unscheduled Farm Day. I think it’s coming up soon.

Custom weaving projects

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Here’s a look at what I am doing in the weaving studio.

These are the yarns for a wedding shawl for a friend’s daughter. This will be a random mixed warp in a lacy light weight shawl.

My son’s girlfriend chose these colors for her chenille scarf.

Llama rug that I finally got off the loom awhile ago. I think that most people don’t usually wash rugs, but it still has a llama smell so I plan to wash it. I’ve been waiting for a hot day so it will dry outside.

This is the roll of 3 full-sized blankets woven in double width broken twill. I have cut them off the loom and now need to crochet edges on all of them.