Road Trip 2024 – Day 5 – Colorado Springs

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I’ve been at the computer a lot, but haven’t had time to finish this story. I usually start with a photo of our campsite, but we stayed in a motel in Trinidad after seeing the Cowgirl Artists show. This day we were headed to Colorado Springs to visit Dan’s brother.

We stopped in Pueblo along the way just to get out of the truck and wander around a bit.

We found a shady place to park and walked into the old downtown. This bike was one of many that we saw painted in bright colors. I didn’t notice if they all have the same message. I suspect that they are all different. This one: “Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving.”

This is the old train station. Notice the blue bicycle leaning on the lamppost.

There were lots of brick buildings. I took this photo for a reason.

Did you notice who is climbing up the side? I got a kick out of seeing Batman and Robin from the old TV series on the wall.

Another interesting building. We drove onto Colorado Springs.

We stopped near a park where we thought we might walk along the river, but then we saw that the Olympic & Paralympic Museum was right across the street. There is access from these stairs that go up to a walkway and down the other side.

The walkway comes out near the main entrance of the museum and since we were in the middle of the 2024 Olympics it was fun to watch a portion of it on the large screen that was set up outside the museum. They were broadcasting swimming at this time.

This was a difficult place to take photos. It’s also difficult to describe. You enter on the bottom level. After you pay you get a badge on a lanyard. You can use that to sign in to computerized presentations, many of which are interactive, throughout the museum.

After the initial check in you take the elevator to the top floor. The museum is set up so that you spiral down through many different exhibits. This case held Olympic torches from many of the Games. I hadn’t realized that all the torches are different.

There were a few opportunities to try out sports via video. I chose skiing over archery.

As you follow the path through the layers of the building there are dozens of different displays about everything from the professional staff that is required to support all the athletes (did you know there is a Team Mom?) to highlights of specific games, stories of individual athletes, and information about gear and clothing.

I’ll end this post with a sweater that I recognized. This was the sweater worn by the athletes at the opening ceremony of the Winter 2014 Games. It was designed by Ralph Lauren and knit from wool grown in Oregon. The whole process supported U.S. businesses. I remember writing a blog post about this yarn when I used it in an Artery show and there I found this link to a video about the ranch and the creation of this sweater. It was worth another watch.

We drove to my brother and sister-in-law’s house and spent the night there.

Road Trip 2024 – Day 4 – Cowgirl Artists

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The first half of Day 4 is in this blog post. It’s the destination at the end of Day 4 that was the incentive for planning the first Road Trip we’ve taken since 2019!

Trinidad, Colorado

That destination was Trinidad, Colorado.

The reason for going to Trinidad was the opening of a show Called Women’s Work put on by the Cowgirl Artists of America. From the website: “Celebrating the true contributions of Women in the American West…Much Western art is an ode to the work and contributions of men, while often limiting women to a single sphere, or pretty face. “Women’s Work,” a groundbreaking exhibition that teams artists up with women on working ranches, turns that notion on its head. By showcasing Western women as multi-faceted contributors to the Western way of life. Furthermore, Women’s Work aims to provide a platform for Indigenous women to authentically share their own stories, rooted in their intimate connections to culture and heritage. Traditional and fine artists are included, with all work on the theme of “Women’s Work.”

I was not one of the juried artists but was contacted last summer and asked if I’d like to be a farm partner. That sounded like fun so Amy Hanley visited in the summer and we talked about sheep farming and the other things I do. It turns out that Amy is not only a ceramic artist but a weaver. She bought some yarn and told me about the piece she planned for this show.

The show was held at the A.R. Mitchell Museum of Western Art.

This is a view of the two levels of the gallery. The Woman’s Work show took up the whole second level. What a gorgeous place for this show!

There were 56 artists represented. I took photos of a small number of pieces. You can see all of the work and descriptions in the catalog here on the Cowgirl Artists of America website. The descriptions below each piece in this blog post are taken from the catalog.

This is the piece by Amy. It’s hard to tell from this photo but look at the next photo to see that the design is made by weaving in her ceramic button shaped beads.

The views from different angles give unique patterns of color. Very impressive!

Laura Petrovich-Cheney makes fabulous “quilts” from salvaged wood. She contacted the ranch/farm partners last year to find out if we wanted to send wood scraps for her work. I asked if she’d like fabric scraps instead, partly thinking of shipping to the east coast, but also that my fabric scraps are better than any wood scraps around here. So all the fabric pieces in the work above are from me.

This piece is glass mosaic by Lauretta Newby-Coker.

I spent some time talking with these ladies, the artist on the left and the partner on the right. Barbara Meikle donates a percentage of each sale to support horse, donkey and wildlife rescues.

Beverly Moran, of Lakota heritage, creates stunning beadwork, wearable by horses and people. Visit her website to see more.

Morgan Buckert builds custom boots.

Emily Boksenbaum is another boot maker but she made these chaps for the show. Mejo Okon painted the piece to the left of the chaps and also the artwork on the poster (below) that was in the window of the gallery.

I didn’t do a very good job with this photo because of the glare on the glass. Great painting though. I am considering entering this show again, partly as a farm partner, but also with my own weaving. I need to make start weaving some samples of the idea that Dan gave me for this entry!

Road Trip 2024 – Day 4 – Sand Dunes

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I just looked at when I wrote about Day 3 of our trip. At this pace it will take me 3 more weeks to finish the story. I need to speed this up. There are more stories to tell after this.

As told in the last post, we found a road on USFS land and pulled off to the side to park. It was dark by then so we could only see what the headlights of the truck showed. Looking back now at the GPS data on my photos I see we were not too far east of Mancos on the San Juan National Forest. In the morning we got on the road and headed east on Hwy. 160.

We drove through beautiful country heading northeast from Pagosa Springs towards Wolf Creek Pass. The scenery was markedly greener than during the previous days.

The old green truck that is used to living at 30′ elevation wasn’t happy about the climb to 10,000+ elevation.

Standing with one foot on each side of the Continental Divide.

From the pass it was about two hours to Great Sand Dunes National Park.

After spending some time in the Visitor Center and learning about how these dunes were created we walked to the dunes.

This is another place that I could come back to.

You could spend a whole day exploring this landscape. There are 30 square miles of dunes! There are no trails through them but you can walk anywhere.

This is a panoramic shot of the closest dune field and shows the mountains at over 13,000′ where you can find alpine lakes if you’re willing to hike. Most of the park is not accessible by vehicle.

There were plenty of wildflowers on the surrounding land. Prairie Sunflower.

Rocky Mountain Bee Plant

Road Trip 2024 – Day 3

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If you’re just tuning in you can see Days 1 and 2 here.

Red sunrise over brush.

I woke up in time to see the sunrise at Great Basin National Park.

Here is another view of our campsite.

Sign with map of Wheeler Peak and trails.

The only paved road in the park winds up to the trailhead to Wheeler Peak (13,063′ elevation). We didn’t plan on hiking all the way to the peak but hiked to the lakes at the base. The hiking is all above 10,000′.

Stella Lake is the first of two lakes along this trail.

Deer in green grass and logs behind.

This doe posed nicely for the camera.

Wooden sign about Teresa Lake with the lake and trees in the background.

This sign indicates that we were about a mile from the trailhead where we started on this loop trail. However, there were signs that said the area was closed due to ongoing work. In fact, the road had been blocked before we got to the end and we’d parked lower than we first planned. Law-abiding citizens that we are, we didn’t take this trail back but took another fork and ended up back-tracking over most of the way we had already walked.

That just meant that we got to spend more time in this gorgeous area and put in about 6 miles that morning.

I’m always the one taking photos. Dan took this one so that I could prove I was there. Funny story, and maybe an example of things to come on this trip–there were two large trucks in this parking lot waiting to get past the gate that is just to the left of those porta-potties. They were full of rock or gravel or whatever they were using for the road surface. However the gate was locked and no one had a key. The drivers were trying to find the right tools to take the gate apart. I figured that one of the trucks could have just rammed the gate (being just a pipe) and driven through, but I wasn’t going to suggest that. We were able to move our truck around to get between the two big ones, but then the traffic was stopped on the way down until the pilot car that was with these trucks could make it down the mountain. So these was the first delay of the trip.

We planned to go to the visitor center and maybe see the Lehman Caves.

We spent a little time at the Visitor Center and I made a point of finding these Tempestry panels, knit by my friend, Lisa. They depict the daily high temperature for a given year and location, in this case 1916 and 2016 here at the park. You can find out more about the Tempestry Project here. This is the same idea I use in my Year to Remember blankets

This was Thursday afternoon and we needed to be in Trinidad Colorado by Friday afternoon. We didn’t have time to take a cave tour, so we’ll have to go back.

We took Highway 50 across Utah. This highway is known as “The Loneliest Road in America”, at least in Nevada. It gets a bad rap because it can be desolate, but this area in Utah known as the San Rafael Swell is stunning. (Click on one of the photos to enlarge and scan through them.)

We were somewhere west of Green River when the traffic stopped. We spent about two hours in stop and go traffic, mostly stopped, with no where to pull off. A friend (the afore-mentioned Lisa) and I were texting at the time and she found a a clue to what was going on–there had been a police chase that ended in a fatality.

Later I searched for myself and found a local news report that confirmed a chase that followed an attempt at a traffic stop. The driver passed into the median and eventually wrecked the car killing himself and another person. By the time we got to this area where we’d be able to get to an offramp our truck indicators showed that it was overheating.

We finally got to the exit and were able to let the truck cool down. Fortunately it hadn’t caused damage.

We headed south towards Moab as the sun was setting.

Not long after we turned south two sheriff trucks passed with lights and sirens. One of them weaved back and forth, stopping traffic. We were the first vehicle behind the trucks. The deputy told us that there was a pursuit in progress and, if the vehicle being pursued hit their trucks, then we should “get out of here”. That was a little nerve wracking, especially after the last episode and seeing these cops with guns drawn. Eventually the car drove past in the northbound lane with at least a dozen cop cars following. The car was being driven on rims–there must have been a spike strip that the driver ignored. All those vehicles went by and then these two turned around and followed It seems as though for the next hour we continued to see law enforcement vehicles going that direction. I never did find out what that chase was about.

These stories are not the most significant ones of our trip, but the situations pop to the top when we think about the day.

We drove south on Hwy. 491 and into Colorado and then turned east on 160. I followed the big map book and found where the highway was bordered on both sides by USFS land. There were some roads shown on the map where we could get off of the main highway. We didn’t need a campground as long as we had a safe place to pull off. We were in the San Juan National Forest and found a road that turned north. We found a spot where we could pull off that road. I think we were still eating bagels and bagged salad that we brought from home. That was dinner. We rolled out the sleeping bags in the truck and went to bed.

Road Trip 2024 – Day 1 & 2

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Finally…another Road Trip. The last real trip Dan and I made was in 2019. Yes, we drove to Estes Park last year, but it’s not the same when you have a trailer full of sheep and can’t stop to play along the way. This trip was planned to coincide with the opening night of an art show in Trinidad, Colorado, but I’ll get to that in a later post.

I drove my granddaughter to the airport Tuesday morning (July 30), and we were finally packed and ready to go by about 5:30 that evening. How do we get away when there are all these sheep to take care of? Thanks go to Farm Club members who were able to spend two to three days each to take care of sheep, the garden, and of course, Ginny.

We have our phones, but I sure like to follow along with real maps. We can find a lot of interesting details along the way, figure out USFS lands where we can camp, and get a broader overview of an area. Then I use my phone to look up odd place names and read background info as we travel.

Some of my photos will be “drive-by” where there are plenty of windshield splotches visible. I haven’t been in the higher Sierras lately. I don’t think I’d seen this devastation from some of the fires over the last couple years. I think this was from the 2021 Caldor Fire that burned in the El Dorado National Forest and beyond. There were miles of devestation.

We drove east on Hwy. 50 and turned south towards Markleeville and then Hwy 395 on the east side of the Sierras. It was dark by the time we were near Mono Lake where we decided to spend the night. We got gas ($6+/gallon) as the last station was closing in the nearest town. Then we found a place to park the truck and camp.

This photo is from the next morning. Our style of camping is to bed down on the platform Dan made in the back of the truck. I sleep on a foam pad and a sheepskin and am almost as comfortable as in a real bed.

It’s hard to imagine that this was once part of the lake. The sign in the next photo says that in 1994 the State Water Resources Control Board set a target level of 6392′ which is 25′ below the lake level in 1941.That decision decreased diversions by Los Angeles from four Mono Lake tributaries.

I don’t know how much progress has been made but there is still a long way to go, The mandated level of the lake will be at the base of these signs

We walked down the board walk to the lake edge.

From The Geology and History of Mono Lake: “Along the southern shoreline of Mono Lake, large tufa towers or pinnacles rise above the water’s surface. These iconic pillars, comprised of precipitated calcium carbonate, formed over thousands of years by the interaction of freshwater springs and the highly alkaline waters of Mono Lake.” This website also says that when the water diversions were stopped in 1994 the lake was at about half the water volume and twice the salinity of what it was before the water diversions began.

Mono Lake
Mono Lake

After exploring a bit of the lake edge we got on the road. We planned to camp at Great Basin National Park, on the eastern edge of Nevada, Wednesday night.

We have always wondered about the Clown Motel which we discovered on a trip through Tonapah when we made a decision to NOT stay there and try another. It is even more clown-themed now than I remember it from before. I just looked it up and found that in 2019 it was purchased by someone who embraced that theme and has modernized the motel. I read more and found that there is a history to the clown theme. You can see that here if it intrigues you.

We made it to Great Basin National Park by about 5 p.m.

I needed to get out of the truck and get some exercise. After we chose a campsite I followed a trail along the nearby stream about a mile and a half. We didn’t see any warnings about bears, but I started thinking about them and wondered if hiking by myself near dusk was a good idea, especially with the recent fatality in CA by a mountain lion. The only bear encounters we have had were at Grand Tetons and Yellowstone, but maybe it’s the older I get the more I know that sometimes things go wrong. I decided to turn around. I still enjoyed the beautiful scenery.

This was our camping spot.

Granddaughter Visit – Birthday Beach Day

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Kirby’s last full day here was her tenth birthday and the day after the fair. She had celebrated with the other set of grandparents in Dixon when they picked her up from the fair on Saturday afternoon. When we discussed what she’d like to do for her birthday, she asked to go to the beach.

We had got home from the fair with the sheep after dark the night before. We could all sleep in a bit on Monday (as if I ever really sleep in). Kirby came out for chores and gave her sheep, Rose a treat.

One of my Farm Club friends volunteers at Pt. Reyes National Seashore, so I had talked to her about where to go. She thought Drakes beach would be a good choice and that’s where we went.

The cool temperature was a welcome contrast after the Central Valley heat.

But Kirby didn’t keep her sweatshirt on for long.

One of the goals we had while Kirby was here was to help her create some entries for her 4-H show in January. We were so busy that we didn’t get very far on those, but I remembered that photography was one of the categories she could enter. I gave her my iPhone and Kirby took dozens of photos. As I saw her running at the hundreds of birds on the beach I gave her an idea.

I suggested that she practice holding the phone in position while running and then be able to hold it still and click as soon as she stopped.

She took several photos that way as well as some still life photos that she carefully arranged.

Kirby also asked me to take posed photos of her.

We spent a couple of hours at Drakes Beach but then drove to another. This is a view of Point Reyes Beach South from above. Here there were signs about a dangerous undertow and the beach has a much more severe slope where the waves are crashing.

We spent some time looking at the sea creatures that were washed up with every wave. These burrowed quickly as the wave receded and all that gave them away was a small hole in the wet sand.

I think I like this photo of Kirby best because it features her wonderful smile.

Is there something wrong with this picture? I didn’t take off my jacket or wool hat all day. I also forgot about sunburn on an overcast day. didn’t realize that Kirby would be sunburned by the time we went home.

Here is the sunburned birthday girl after dinner. She had a real birthday cake on Saturday and she was going to have another back home. With the fair and then the beach trip I didn’t try to make her a cake, but I remembered the blueberry muffins that Kirby and I had made using her Harry Potter cookbook. We had put some in the freezer to save for later and I thawed them and surprised her by turning them into a birthday dessert.

On Tuesday Kirby and I got up at 4:30 so she could make her early flight to Texas. She made a visit to the barn to say goodby to Jade before we left.

Dan and I were leaving that afternoon for our own adventure…next post.

Granddaughter Visit – State Fair Show Day

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I realize as I’m writing this post that is more about the sheep show than about Kirby, but she starred in the last post, and the sheep show is why we were there. The Heritage Breeds show was on Sunday, the last day of the sheep show. I am the person who, several years ago, asked State Fair to include a Heritage Breeds show so that those of us with Jacob, Icelandic, Navajo-churro, Shetland, to name a few of the breeds that have shown there, could enter. The entries slacked off towards 2019 and then there was the pandemic. Since the fair has been back, Kirby’s sheep and mine have been the only entries in this division.

This year a Karakul breeder from Southern California entered. so we had competition.

This has nothing to do with the sheep show, but it is another animal with impressive horns. The longhorn cattle are in the other part of the barn during the sheep week. Their show was also Sunday afternoon.

One of the reasons that I originally wanted to show sheep here is that I thought I could be competitive for the Marketing Award. I spend a lot of time in preparing the different components of this display. It is probably more educational than marketing, but I am marketing more than sheep–for me it’s about the other parts of the business, all related to the sheep and wool.

Before the show we got all the sheep on halters and brought them outside the pens to get the straw off the bellies. In the morning Kirby and I spent a few hours with sheep at the wash stalls trying to scrub feet and legs and clean horns. Jacob sheep are shown in a natural state at the fiber shows where I have seen them, and I would not show at all if they were expected to be fitted. I do feel as though they look out of place compared to all the other sheep at this show.

The first class was Yearling Rams. We took first and second place because mine were the only two in the class. There was competition in all the other classes and the Karakuls mostly placed over the Jacobs. That’s OK–it’s a good lesson that you don’t win just because you show up.

Both Kirby and I had 2 sheep in each of the other classes (yearling ewes, ram lambs, ewe lambs). That meant that we needed four of us to show sheep and I wanted one person to be available in case Kirby had trouble with her sheep. I don’t have any good photos of Kirby in the show ring, but she was able to show her own sheep. She is in the middle of this photo and the one below.

There were just enough Farm Club members here on show day to help with this.

The last few years we have had a ram and/or a ewe in the Supreme Champion classes, the last event of the sheep show. Not this year.

These are the winners of the last three divisions in the show. There is the Natural Colored ram, bigger than any of the other breeds in the ring, the Karakul representing the Heritage division and the winner of the All Other Breeds Wool division, a Cotswold I think.

The judge pulled his five favorites out of the line. From right to left, Dorper, White Dorper, Southdown (I think), Dorset (I think), and Natural Colored. One of the Dorpers was the winner.

After the Supreme Champion show they announce winners of the Marketing Award and Herdsman, both awards that are not for the sheep but for the appearance and presentation of your space. Many of the exhibitors don’t include any signage or have any interaction with fair visitors. These awards are meant to be encouragement for exhibitors to provide information for the public.

For the sheep and goat show I got 2nd in Marketing overall, Best Program in Marketing, 1st in Herdsman and Best Educational Presentation in Herdsman. I also got 2nd for Best Educational Presentation over all the livestock shows during the run of the fair.

Last year Kirby’s birthday was at the fair. This year her birthday was the following day. She chose the activity and that will be the last post about her visit.

Granddaughter Visit – State Fair 1

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A couple days after our Airbase Tour it was time for State Fair. We had worked with the lambs every day since Kirby got here nine days prior to the fair, but I didn’t get any photos then.–too busy. For the last couple of years Kirby has had a long enough visit to California to spend time working with the sheep and then going to the fair.

I gave Kirby her first lamb in 2019 and she showed at State Fair that year. There are photos in that blog post on my website, but the one below is one of my favorites.

This is Meridian Belle as a lamb in 2019. Kirby’s flock has grown to include Belle’s daughters, Beauty (2021), Rose (2022), Cindy (2023), and Jingle (2024) and their offspring. Beauty’s daughter is Belleza (2023) and Rose’s daughter is Lily (2024). There have been male offspring as well but I haven’t kept them. We may keep one of the rams this year. Kirby’s flock prefix is KJ Royalty.

The sheep arrive at the fair on Thursday of the third week.

I forgot to take a photo of the space before we unloaded sheep. First thing is getting sheep out of the trailer, vet check and then putting them in pens. We have a lot of other stuff to unload because of the display that I do. That will be another post.

Kirby enjoyed taking her sheep out to share with the public and so that they get calmer when being handled. This is KJ Royalty Jingle, Belle’s daughter.

We used to show dairy cattle at the State Fair and Katie (Kirby’s mom) was a little younger than Kirby is now. At that time people from the Livestock Office took visitors on barn tours. Katie would spend time at the end of the line-up of cattle and talk to people. I remember hearing one woman telling another “that little girl knows more than the tour guide”.

Kirby is also good at engaging visitors and answering questions.

Sometimes you need a break from it all…

…and then maybe a nap.

After a break it’s time to go back to engaging the public.

KJ Royalty Lily, Rose’s lamb.

The signs over Kirby’s yearling pen.

When friends were at the fair I was able to walk around with Kirby a bit. We spent a lot of time at the Cavalcade of Horses, where different horse performances happen every hour.

A display presented by the California pear industry.

Granddaughter Visit – Airbase Tour

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The previous two blog posts were about Kirby’s two-week visit in July. On Tuesday of the second week we drove to McClellan Air Force Base, no longer a military base, for a private tour by Matt. Dan’s sister and my brother joined us.

We started at the building used by the USFS for operations and training. I have a general idea of what Matt does at work, but it is sure different to see the details. He is a Helicopter Operations Specialist for the Pacific Southwest Region and spends time in the air managing helicopter operations and coordinating the air traffic over fires (water drops, retardant drops, keeping planes and helicopters from flying into each other). He has an office in this building as well.

Since this tour I have heard reference to fire strategy training with the sandbox, but I would have had no idea what that meant before seeing this. There are at least two rooms with sandboxes of various sizes. They use red and black yarn to designate active fire and burned areas.

There are toy vehicles, buildings, trees, animals and more. When in use the sand can be moved to create geographic features so that firefighters can discuss fire behavior and fire fighting strategies.

After looking at the sandbox rooms we went to the simulator room. There are probably a dozen simulators for airplanes and helicopters.

We all had a chance to try the simulator. It’s not easy.

Dan and Kirby were both in the airplane simulator here and my brother tried the helicopter. Most of us crashed numerous times and dropped retardant on unintended locations.

Interesting photos line the hallways of this building. After the tour of Matt’s building we went to the airfield and met up with a friend of Matt’s who is his counterpart working for CalFire.

We watched this DC-10 land and taxi to where it would be filled with retardant.

It carries 9000 gallons but can be filled quickly.

The turn-around time was just under 30 minutes. This was a few days before the Park Fire began (arson) near Chico, CA. That fire is now over 400,000 acres and is still burning. On this day this plane was working the fires in northeastern California, where my daughter-in-law was also headed that afternoon. She is now on the Park Fire as a Public Information Officer.

Cal Fire’s C-130 also landed to refill. This plane doesn’t carry as much retardant but is more maneuverable for many situations. It can also land at many more airports than the DC-10s, which need longer runways.

Retardant (mostly fertilizer) in large bags is mixed into a slurry (85% water) and then piped to where the planes are loaded. This article describes the components of fire retardant and how it is used.

OV-10 – Spotter plane

This OV-10 is the favorite plane of Matt’s friend who was showing us around. These were originally military planes used in Vietnam with some being used more recently. This is used as a spotter plane and for directing air traffic as Matt does in the helicopter. This plane is fast enough to also be a lead plane for the retardant drops.

This is a narrow plane and reminded me of the Cobra helicopter Matt was in until they were retired a few years ago. The pilot is up front and the fire personnel sits in back.

We saw the hangars where CalFire houses and repairs aircraft. These are just a couple of the Bell helicopters. There were several hangars but I already have too many photos in this post.

This helicopter was called a Blackhawk when used by the military but is now set up for civilian use and CalFire calls it a Firehawik.

Our last stop was an old air traffic control tower, shown in the photos of the DC-10 taxiing and taking off, that Matt’s friend uses as his office. Here is his view.

This was an extraordinary tour and I appreciate the time spent by Matt and his CalFire friend in showing us around.

Granddaughter Visit – Around the Farm

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The weeks between Convergence and State Fair were super busy, but I tried to do as many things with Kirby as we could fit it. She learned to spin. As with most beginners the biggest challenge is understanding the relationship between amount of twist necessary to create a stable yarn and the diameter of the yarn. It helps to use fiber that is easy to spin. Carded Jacob fiber fits that criteria.

Of course we spent time with sheep. Jade is always the favorite. We spent every morning that Kirby was here working with the lambs that would be going to the fair. Maybe I didn’t get photos of that.

I wanted to do some dye projects for my fair display. Kirby learned something about preparing indigo for the dye pot.

I do the cold fresh leaf method.

State Fair time is when the blackberries are ripe.

We picked blackberries together.

It is a challenge when we have irrigated because the blackberries are on the other side of the ditch. Its a good thing that I had an extra pair of rubber boots to share.

Kirby and I spent time in the barn sorting and cleaning the horns and skulls to use for our touching table at the fair.

Kirby likes to catch chickens as well as sheep.