I’m home from a 9-day vacation. I missed the 112 degree day in Vacaville–spent it in Vermont where it was raining off and on! My husband took care of things here including milking the two goats that are still here.

I flew first from Oakland to Grand Rapids, MI (with stops in Salt Lake City & Detroit) where I stayed a night with my friends, also Jacob sheep breeders, who had moved from Davis, CA a few years ago. They have a beautiful home and barn and live in a beautiful part of Michigan–rolling hills and farms with huge red barns everywhere. After a night at their farm I went to Kalamazoo to stay with my sister-in-law and her family for another night. They gave me a ride to the fairgrounds in Mason, site of JSBA’s AGM (that’s the annual meeting for Jacob Sheep enthusiasts).

It is always interesting to meet people who’s names I recognize from preparing registration certificates and it’s fun to see those whom I’ve met at AGM in other places. Too bad I didn’t get very good photos. The event that I’d been worrying about was the Fun Sheep Show. They kept emphasizing FUN, but I wasn’t thinking it would be so FUN since I was one of the judges. The “old-timer” (in Jacob sheep history), Luke Hardy, was to be  the other judge. It turns out that this old-timer wasn’t old and stooped and wearing overalls like I’d imagined. He is about my age and looks younger! Anyway, the show went well. We were to each place the top 4 sheep in each class and he and I were pretty close in all the classes. Sometimes we had the same top placing, sometimes the top 2 were switched, but we chose the same top 4, or at least 3 of the top 4, in almost all the classes. I wish I had a photo of my first (and maybe last) judging event.

After AGM it was on to see my daughter in Vermont. That was a flight from Lansing to Detroit to New York to Burlington.

This is the only photo I have of me on this trip.

Katie had to work while I was in Vermont so I was on my own for 2 days. I visited the Shelburne Museum–what a fantastic place. You need 2 days to see it properly. I was only half way through when I realized that I had only 2 hours left and I hadn’t even seen the special textile exhibits that I wanted to see.

This is a Jacquard loom in the Weaving Shed that was built specifically to house it.

One of the special textile exhibits is  hooked rugs by Patty Yoder, a contemporary fiber artist who died not long ago. The rugs are stunning. I took photos of all of them. I think the one below is my favorite. Here is a link that shows more of her work:  http://www.gmrhg.org/site/features/features_2005/yoder/yoder_p.html

Below is a carousel horse from an exhibit of the Circus. I love these horses. If I could get my hands on one I’d keep it in the house!

There is so much to see at this museum. I didn’t even try to see many of the buildings. I had 15 minutes left to see the exhibit of Tiffany glass, Nature by Design. That was only time to glance in each room and snap some photos. When Katie is living in VT after she finishes school in TX I’ll be sure to go back.

Katie got off work early one day and we took the tour of Ben and Jerry’s. It has given me ideas of what to do at my place to make it more interesting for visitors. Paint my Explorer and add horns? Copy Ben and Jerry’s idea of the Flavor Graveyard? Hmmm. I don’t think anyone would want to see the graveyard at a farm. I’m going to try and get creative–wait and see!

Isn’t this a fabulous barn? This is not too far off the Interstate near Burlington.

This is the house where Katie is living this summer. It was built in the 1820’s and there are 5 other residents, including the owner who grew up in the house. Here are a few others from the neighborhood.

I flew out of Burlington Thursday morning. This trip took me through Detroit and Phoenix before getting back to Sacramento. It’s good to be home although I miss my daughter. My kids are so much fun when they actually seem to like me being around!

I guess its normal for people in cold climates to have lambs later in the year, but June seems pretty late for me. This is Hillside Sidney with ram and ewe lambs born a couple of days ago. I got Sidney along with 5 other sheep in February and there had been a ram escape at the previous owner’s farm.

Here is one of the things on the list for today. I have lots of buttons waiting to be drilled and sanded. I like to do a lot at once because it’s kind of a dirty job–horn dust  in the hair and all over. I want to have a new batch of buttons for the Spinners Day on the Farm in Healdsburg tomorrow.

This has been quite a week–nothing having to do with my business. My daughter flew in from Vermont last Friday and her boyfriend got here from Texas on Saturday. They both left this morning. My youngest son, Chris, will leave today for his summer job. Yesterday the Empty Nest thing hit me. But here is a glimpse of how we spent our week.

We spent a day in San Francisco–taking the ferry to Alcatraz, watching the sea lions at Pier 39, visiting Coit Tower, and ending with a walk on the Golden Gate Bridge and a visit to the Marin Headlands for a look over the bay.

Isn’t this a perfect plant to have at a prison? Look at those spines. Actually, this was part of a decorative garden. The employee families used to lived on Alcatraz and had normal lives other than the fact that the kids took a ferry to school.

This photo is taken from Marin County, northwest of the Golden Gate. Alcatraz is the island to the left of the north tower and San Francisco is south of the bridge.

Katie celebrated her 21st birthday. I guess this was the first time she has tried to blow out candles with her hair not in a ponytail…or maybe its just the number of candles that was a challenge.

Katie and Aaron painted the barn!!!

We visited son and daughter-in-law in Pollock Pines and drove up to the Forest Service helispot where Matt works so that Aaron (from TX)  could see what real mountains look like.

We also went back to San Francisco to see the show, Wicked. This is the story that explains the history of the Wicked Witch and the Good Witch in the Wizard of Oz, including how the Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Cowardly Lion originated. It is an excellent show–well-done and very funny. It’s a great experience if you ever get the chance to see it.

Here is the culmination of the weekend.  Chris, the #3 kid,  graduated. He leaves for Lake Shasta today so he can start work tomorrow morning on a Forest Service Hotshot crew. He spent all night at Grad Night and I hope we can wake him up in time to get there before dark today!

Tomorrow–back to work for me. I have ignored everything. I have wool to sort and get to the mill, buttons to finish, looms to warp, classes to plan, website to update, etc. My husband now has 2 months off (teacher) and his next task is to enlarge my shop/classroom! We’d better get busy. Maybe that will keep me from realizing that there are no happy little faces in my house anymore.

Graduation is just around the corner, so high school classes are finishing up projects. The Physics classes at Dixon High have a project called Walk on Water. The idea is for teams to figure out a way to get across the pool using “foot-power”. I don’t know all the criteria, but I do know that they couldn’t make a boat, use oars, etc. and they had 2 minutes to cross the pool.  The teams who are able to accomplish the task (and turn in the written work) can use the Physics final as extra credit.

The day started with one of the students playing the National Anthem on his electric guitar. Then the crafts were christened by dumping water on them. I took photos of all 16 entries, but will include only a few here. There seemed to be 2 main types of creations–raft-type of crafts powered by feet and  floating foot-gear. The former seemed to function better than the latter in most cases. There was a 3rd structure as well–wait till you see that photo at the bottom!

This is my son’s team with the smallest guy as the “walker”. That’s Chris in the water in front. The “walker” had a bar to stand on but brought pedals forward one at a time that turned the paddle wheels. They used large water bottles as floats and old plastic pipe that has been lying around our place since we moved here–they had to buy a lot of fittings though. (I think the local hardware store has to stock up on duct tape and PVC fittings for this event.) And, of course, there is baling twine.

This team used a similar idea but taped shoes onto the pedals so the feet would stay in place and they made a different kind of paddle-wheel.

Here is the most successful of the floating foot-gear style. I don’t know what the big tubes are, but the walker’s feet are so well sealed in them that she had a hard time getting them off.

Here is another raft type of craft. The walker used the supports to hang on and paddled the water directly with her feet.

There were several of this style, but they kept filling with water. I think that this one finally made it after a few attempts.

This is was a crowd-pleaser–the hamster-wheel craft. There is a PVC pipe framework inside and the walker rolled through the water in a record-breaking time of 21 seconds. It’s a good thing that it moved quickly because it didn’t take too much longer until the cardboard structure was falling apart.

A bunch of clever kids, don’t you think?