I took this photo earlier this week after we’d had a little rain. It was only 1/4″ but everything felt so fresh and clean.
I think I’m ready for summer to be over–at least the hot weather. But we’re going to have at least another few days of triple digits.
The Open House was Saturday and the threatening rain had me worried. The clouds and wind actually were a huge relief from the heat we’ve been having and there were only a few drops of rain. Here are some photos:
Cute kids and cute lamb. Note Rusty’s involvement.
And here are cute cookies provided by my friend Jackie. Can you tell they are Jacob sheep (without horns)?
This is what my shop looks like now.
I sure like the blogs that have lots of photos. I hope you do, because I don’t have time to write much.
First up–Everyone is invited to my Grand Re-Opening this Saturday, September 12, from 10-3. I hope people will bring wheels and knitting and spend a few hours relaxing under the trees.
I have a lot of fair photos to sort through. Here are a few. Dylan Duncan (Genesis Farms) helped me with the sheep show. I’m grateful to him. My husband was sick and couldn’t come to the fair–he didn’t want to show anyway, but would have been the photographer. Instead, Dylan’s mom, Diana, helped out with the camera.
This is Dylan and me showing Rubicon and Moonshine in the yearling ram class. Rubicon was second to the St. Croix ram which ultimately won Grand Champion of the Primitive & American Breeds Divison. Four breeds were represented–St. Croix, Jacob, Tunis, and Shetland.
Dylan’s dad, Darryl, stepped in to help show in the Flock class.
There are no blue ribbons in here. The Tunis sheep are included in this division and they got all the first and seconds in the classes they entered. I got most of the 3rds after the Tunis and the second places in the group classes.
But the real contest for me was in the display area. The Fair offers a substantial prize for the Marketing Display. Here’s part of my exhibit.
A friend, Joan, helped out tremendously by spinning all day on Sunday and Monday. We had huge crowds most of the day and I sure got tired of talking. I demonstrated weaving while Joan spun.
Here are the final awards. I’m third AGAIN in the overall Marketing award. However I did get the Herdsman award for 9 head or under. I also got Best Display Directed at the General Public (or something like that) and Most Creative. Those are the maroon ribbons.
A friend came by with her knitted felted purse. That is her flock and the sheepdog coming in on the left is my dog’s mom.
More fair photos will follow, but not now.
It’s hard to take photos when sheep are in pens. This is Mary who lambed last week at the CA State Fair Nursery. She has triplet ewes. Madeline is next to her and lambed a couple of days ago, also with triplet ewes! They are quite the crowd-pleasers.
The sheep show is this weekend. I’m there with 8 sheep (not counting the sheep in the Nursery) and a big display. Today I took one of my portable rigid heddle looms to work on. Some of the girls who were there with their family’s sheep flocks were hanging around and watching me weave. After I finished a scarf I told them that they could all try it. I finally decided to just let them weave one. Three girls traded off and finished a scarf. We warped the loom again for another and tomorrow I’m going to take another loom and a basket full of yarn. I’ll let them keep weaving as long as they want to. Another great crowd pleaser!
These are 2nd to 5th graders. I got them started and they’re doing great!
They’re tying the fringe here.
These girls sure make it look easy. Maybe they can sell looms for me.!
Saturday was Fiber Frolic at Meridian Jacobs. Colleen Simon (friend down the road) put this on and each teach two classes. Participants get to pick from two classes in the morning and two in the afternoon and lunch is provided.
In the morning Colleen taught minature sock knitting–it is the same as regular sock knitting, but many fewer stitches. While she was inside I was outside with the dyeing group. Good thing that this class was in the morning because the high temperature that day was 107!
Look at the fiber and yarn that we dyed!
We all went inside for the afternoon. I taught a Novelty Yarn class while Colleen taught Needlefelting. These are the butterflies that students made:
On the weaving front–I finally finished a batch of baby blankets. Here is what they look like when they come off the loom:
Not too impressive, huh? That’s 18 blankets. Here are some that are finished and ready for sale:
I have sold 6 of the 18 blankets already so I’d better get busy with another warp!
The State Fair is going to get in the way of that though! That is coming up this weekend and I am still working on my display.
I moved the sheep to a new section of pasture this morning.
They immediately buried their heads. This is like a salad bar for the sheep–something for everyone. In the photo below you can see clover, trefoil (yellow flower), Dallis grass (broad-leaf grass), yellow foxtail (that grass with the foxtail-looking head), bermudagrass, dock, and other plants.
Some of these plants make summer grazing tough. The bermuda and yellow foxtail are late summer grasses and take over the pasture, crowding more desirable plants. The sheep choose to eat the plants they like and leave the less desirable ones.That’s why, to graze properly, you put more livestock on a small area and move them frequently. When the sheep are in a small area they eat even the less palatable plants while eating the ones they really like. Then you move them to the next area. This also helps with control of internal parasites.
Dallis grass has been a problem too. It is a perennial grass that originated in South America and can be a good pasture grass if grazed properly. If I can’t keep it grazed low it gets so tall and coarse that the sheep won’t touch it. Then it takes over and nothing else can grow. If you go back to older posts in the blog you’ll see where last year at this time I was doing everything I could think of to get the sheep to eat the thick stand of dallis grass. In the spring we finally burned it.
So what did I see in the salad bar pasture this morning?
Amaryllis went right for the yellow foxtail! Nobody else eats that.
Here is another undesirable plant. This grass is medusahead. It is an annual grass that grows in dry areas and has these nasty seed heads. Sheep don’t want to eat it even when it is still green. The medusahead started growing in this side of the pasture when I couldn’t get irrigation water to this area. The last few times I irrigated I have been more successful at getting water here so that’s why it’s green underneath. I hope that if I’m successful at irrigating this area next year the medusahead won’t be able to take over.
But look who is eating it!
So what are the sheep eating?
This is Della with her mouth full of dallis grass. (That’s the dallis grass seed head in the foreground.)
Ebony is eating trefoil and dock.
Linda is eating dallis grass.
The goat, Chloe, is eating trefoil and…
Jasmine is eating dallis grass.
One way to join me in a “pasture-walk” and photo shoot is to join the Farm Club and spend some time here. It’s on my website–see the link on the right.
Spinners Night Out (SNO) was tonight. Some people spun, but others played with my rope machine. Look at what we did:
This colorful doll was made from lots of leftovers and she gained some “hair” after our ropemaking.
I delivered Mary (4-horn) and Madeline (2-horn) to the State Fair Nursery this morning. They are both due on September 2 with twins and triplets. They will entertain thousands of visitors that go through the Nursery run by the UC Davis vet school. The sheep for the show don’t go in until Labor Day weekend.
I won’t say that I’m catching up with my things-to-weave list, but I’m plugging away at it. I have sold about half of the baby blankets on the PURPLE warp.
but have enough left to put some on the website and maybe resurrect my etsy listings too. I have a new baby blanket warp on the loom ready to thread. Not everyone wants a purple blanket for a baby gift and that’s all I have right now!
Here’s a full-size blanket that I finally finished for a customer using her yarn.
This is a blanket for another customer who sent me her Jacob wool.
And here’s a funky bag. I’m experimenting with felting up some odds and ends of wool fabric to create bags. I think they’ll get better as I perfect it.
I have taught a couple of weaving classes in the last few weeks as well. Here are the participants and their scarves:
It’s sure nice now that I have room in my shop to have 5 people weaving at once!
We went back for the second day of sheepdog trials and Rusty won first in the Started division!
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