Farm Club Retreat in San Francisco – 2024

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From looking back at photos and blog posts I figured out that the first Farm Club Retreat was in 2011. That would make this the 13th retreat, but we had to skip 2020 through 2022. It was fun to look back through that post just now and see the origin of some of our traditions.

Entering San Francisco from the north we drive across the Golden Gate. It was gorgeous weather for this visit.

The Native Daughters of the Golden West Home is on Baker Street. It was designed in 1928 and built for NDGW. Now members and their guests can spend the night in SF in a spacious yet cozy and friendly space. One of the long-time Farm Club members told us all of this in 2010 and that’s when we began the tradition of our Retreat weekend. It used to be just for one night, but we enjoyed it so much that now we make it for two nights.

We were the only guests there for Friday night and we all had our own rooms. Room 401 was a new room for me. Each bedroom is decorated by one of the Parlors (chapters of NDGW) and has it’s own style.

There is a bakery across the street that used to sell pies. We began the tradition of lemon pie for breakfast. Some of us started to bake our own pies and that’s a good thing because the original bakery is no longer there. Saturday morning began with pumpkin pie, lemon pie, apple pie, and plum cake.

I pulled up the live YouTube for Hayes County (TX) Livestock Auction in which my granddaughter was “selling” her Champion bunny.

This is an auction to support all the 4-H and FFA youth who win champion awards in the show. It turns out that the entries go home with the kids but the bids are for real money that go into the bank accounts to help support future projects and college funds.

After watching Kirby we gave our new Farm Club members a tour of the building. This is part of the museum collection in one room. These are gowns worn by some of the Grand Parlor dignitaries. (I can’t remember their designation.) This made me think of watching the movie of the recent Taylor Swift tour with Kirby and DIL Meryl right after Christmas. Taylor had a bit more sparkle but these ladies were very sparkly for their time.

We decided that our destination for the day would be one of the SF Library branches. There are so many fascinating houses.

I’d sure love to see inside some of them. Look at that gorgeous detail.

It was about a mile to the Presidio Branch. Why the library? A California resident can get a SF Library card by showing up in person. That card gives access to all the digital and audio materials from the library and a lot of us make good use of those.

After getting our library cards we split up and two of us walked to Golden Gate Park. This was a unique art structure not far from the park entrance. These are LED cubes that change color I think. If you search for Entwined in Golden Gate Park you can learn more about this art installation that has been in various locations for four years.

Our destination was the Conservatory of Flowers, visible behind the Love alphabet blocks.

The Conservatory originally opened in 1879.

I took photos of some of the extraordinary plants we saw. The variety is fascinating.

The sign here says “The Fanged Pitcher Plant may look sinister, but in the wild colonies of an ant species called diving ants live symbiotically with this plant.” The ants dive into the pitcher part of the plant to consume pests and in turn fertilize the plant with their droppings.

The common name for this plant native to Peru is Lollipop Plant or Golden Shrimp Plant.

Beautiful shades of green on these leaves.

When I saw this I thought that now I know where candy corn is grown!

We walked a few blocks to a restaurant where we enjoyed a great dinner. In this photo we have moved onto dessert. After dinner we went back to the Home to spend the evening working on projects and enjoying the atmosphere.

Surprise Lamb!

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I was expecting the first lambs in about two weeks so it was a surprise when I saw a ewe who looked as though she was in labor tonight. I put her in a lambing pen and the more I watched the more I knew that she would lamb. I was a bit worried though because lambs can be considered premature and at risk if they are born even ten days before their due date. I put most ewes with rams on September 16 which makes first lambs due February 11. There were two ewes with a ram 6 days earlier which gives us a lambing date of February 5.

All is OK. I went to the house for dinner and pulled up the barn camera feed on my phone.The ewe was definitely in labor. By the time I went back to the barn the lamb was mostly out. The ewe was standing. One more push and the lamb was out.

This is a single ewe lamb out of a 7-year-old ewe, Meridian Dilly.

She was on her feet in about 20 minutes…

…and nursing within a half hour.

So how did we get such a vigorous healthy lamb that much sooner than expected? I sent an email to Farm Club to announce the lamb. One of the members reminded me of an email I had sent in early September in which I said three ram lambs had gone through the fence to where the ewes were. That timing makes sense. One of those is the sire.

Shearing Day 2024 – More Photos

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I shared the first batch of photos from Shearing Day last night. Here are more.

John has been shearing for us for years. He is an excellent shearer and a nice person.

I recorded some of the sheep being shorn which I’ll share when I have time. When I record I can pay attention to time. Some of them are right at 2 minutes or maybe even a little faster.

There is no blood. The sheep are in good shape and the fleeces look great! What more can you ask for?

Farm Club members kept up with getting the sheep to John. I got outside and started to take photos of the sheep after shearing. This ewe is Sandie.

They sure look clean now! That won’t last.

Kathleen weighed all the fleeces.

We had two skirting tables available so that fleeces could be skirted before purchase.

This is just a portion of the fleeces that I need to skirt and put out for sale. Give me a little time to get to that. The sooner the better though.

Distraction…there was a lamb born tonight! Surprise! I guess the next post will be about lambing.

Shearing Day 2024

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Shearing Day was Sunday, January 21. Rain was predicted all weekend. We need to shear dry sheep. For several years I have used the wool from my friend’s Jacob sheep. It’s easier to shear them here and we can be sure they’ll be dry. So I pay for that shearing and we bring her sheep here the day before.

This year we brought them two days ahead of time due to the weather and because of my Saturday activities. I had two extra stalls there was plenty of room when we split the group.

There were 16 ewes and one ram lamb.

We sheared those sheep first. This is the ram, first sheep of the day to be shorn.

John’s dog, Oakley, found a comfy place to settle down.

As soon as the neighbor’s sheep were shorn we loaded them in the trailer and Dan drove them home. They fit in the trailer much better after shearing than before.

First up for me was Peyton, the BFL ram. The BFL’s seem to gain weight very easily. He and the two crossbred ewes I have are probably a bit too heavy.

The Jacob rams were next. This is the ram lamb (almost yearling) Typhoon.

Here is the lilac ram, Horatio. Look at all that luscious fiber!

Ewes followed. I took recorded lots of video but haven’t had time to do anything with it yet.

Shaggy looking sheep.

This is the view of the main sheep area looking into the lambing area where there are pens, and beyond to shearing.

Shearing Day wouldn’t go as smoothly without all the Farm Club help. We crowd the sheep into the main barn with panels and move them through to the shearing area.

I’m grateful that so many Farm Club members have been here enough that they can just jump in and take over. There were several new members as well who are well on their way to learning about sheep handling.

Sheep in the lambing area moving to the pen on the top left near the shearer. That’s a goat on the right. The goat has to go in a pen or she gets in the way.

She got plenty of attention there.

Two or three people bring a few sheep at a time into this pen where they are moved through the gate to John.

Kathleen took her regular job of weighing fleeces.

Thanks to everyone! There will be another post.

Shearing Day…for One Sheep

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Sunrise with gray clouds above green grass.

Shearing Day was scheduled for January 21, but this was the day before. I was up before sunrise again (necessary if you want to get enough done in the day in the winter) and it’s nice when there is color to go with it.

Five women sitting in a circle, each spinning on a different type of spinning wheel.

I had a spinning class scheduled for the morning. Five people from five different cities came to learn about spinning. Most had a little bit of experience or at least an introduction to spinning so we started right in after I explained the different wheels and some basic terminology. They all had a chance to ply their yarns by the time we finished a little after noon.

Just as we were finishing Siobhan and Ivar got here. Siobhan is a Farm Club member who has been here often, either teaching a class or to farm sit, besides our regular Farm Days. She and her husband spent a few weeks in England on a belated honeymoon last year. While there they took a lesson on blade shearing and bought hand shears. Siobhan asked if she could shear a sheep for her Farm Club fleece for this year. I said “sure”.

She chose Harry, the offspring of one of our pet sheep, Hazel, who died last year). I had wethered Harry because he had become such a pet to Siobhan and my granddaughter, Kirby. Ivar did the actual shearing while Siobhan helped with sheep control.

I can’t believe that I didn’t get photos between the start and the finish. I was doing some other barn clean up but also helping with a bit of sheep management. In fact I took this photo while Ivar was finishing his last strokes from the front of the sheep where I had one hand (or maybe my knee at this point) on Harry’s head. Siobhan however has a great time-lapse video of the whole process.

I’ll bet it felt like longer to Ivar, but when I looked at the time on my photos I saw that between the first and last photo there was about 55 minutes. I’d say that’s pretty good for your first sheep and doing it with handshears…and the sheep has horns, which only adds to the difficulty.

The fleece looks good too and I can’t wait to see what Siobhan does with it. Great job, Ivar and Siobhan!

The next day we sheared 77 sheep, but John uses electric shears! Stay tuned for another post.

Today on the Farm

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There was a lot I wanted to accomplish this morning before people came for a dye day. So when I woke up at 5-something I got up. I went to the barn for chores.

The sunset really was this intense this morning.

Every so often the Wednesday Weavers meet in person instead of just on Zoom. I know this isn’t Wednesday, but it was the day that several people could come for dyeing. I had planned to wind some warps to dye, but ran out of time after catching up with email and computer stuff and hemming Year to Remember blankets and photographing them.

This is a custom blanket for the birthday year and place of the recipient. Each color represents a 10 degree range of the high temperature for the day and I weave two threads for each 365 days of the year starting with January. This customer chose her colors.

These are three more blankets on that same warp. In this case, they represent 2023 in Vacaville and show how the stripe pattern will be the same for a given year and location, but the colors can be completely different. These will be listed on the website when I have time.

This is one of the three blankets in a “lifestyle” photo.

I think seven people came for Dye Day. I don’t do this for this group as an official class. They have all become friends and I can provide the space and materials to have a fun day. Fortunately we avoided rain today and even had a bit of sun at times. Usually we choose to do either protein fibers or cellulose because they use two different dyes and procedures. This time I got it all out.

I ended up dyeing some chenille warps that I found in a bag when I cleaned out the dye corner a month ago. These are four 7-yard warps of 4 to 5″ wide each. I think I must have wound these years ago to use up white and light colored yarns that I don’t usually use for my chenille scares. The narrow width means that I intended to wind solid colors to mix with these painted warps when they go on the loom.

After we finished I finally came to the house to sit awhile and immediately got a text from Dan to say that there was a sheep with a coat problem and the other sheep were all panicked. I found April with the coat neck behind one front leg with the rest of it wrapping around underneath. She couldn’t get her foot away from the part on the ground so obviously wasn’t walking correctly. The sheep would panic and run away from her. But she wanted to be with the rest, so she’d follow.

That is one reason that I am not a big fan of coats, but look at the fleece underneath. We are only three days away from shearing and I wasn’t about to risk this fleece at this point. I had changed coats a few weeks ago. The point of changing coats is to go up a size so that the fleece doesn’t cot (felt on the sheep). But I guess this one had a leg strap that was too loose and eventually April got tangled up in it.

I found another coat of the same size. I wanted to tighten up the leg straps. Here are the tools.

The solution is to tuck a small rock under the coat and hold it in place with an elastrator band.

Now the coat fits just right.

The day isn’t over. I need to do chores right away and then I’m presenting a slide show to a weavers guild over Zoom. Got to go.

Farm Day – One Week Until Shearing

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I scheduled a Farm Day today to take care of some chores prior to shearing next week. The ewes were ready to be vaccinated to provide the highest level of antibodies in the colostrum. I wanted to clip fleece samples from the yearlings (their second fleeces) to send in for micron testing. We also made sure that the ear tags were clean enough to read and that the tags would match the cards that go with each fleece.

Some long-time Farm Club members were there as well as some people who are new to Farm Club. It all went very smoothly and it took only a couple of hours to work through all the sheep and take time to take a closer look at some of those fleeces.

Farm Club members get a chance to reserve a fleece at this Fleece Preview Farm Day.

Deborah took the photos from above and this is me remembering to take at least a few photos. Often we get so busy that I overlook that.

While most of us were in with the sheep Susan, Chris, and Nikki volunteered to clean behind the barn. That’s always a big chore. When they finished here they moved to the ram pen and cleaned the ram barn.

Mary checked off the list on the clip board and made sure the cards matched the ear tags. Susan drew up vaccine into syringes.

Marina and Katy caught sheep, marked faces, and cleaned ear tags.

Rachel and Siobhan also helped catch and mark sheep.

The photos below are what it is all about. I had been thinking that the sheep are looking a bit bedraggled, but when I got hands-on those fleeces I changed my mind. They are looking good.

April is a yearling ewe, almost 2 year old.

Queen Q is the same age. The photos below are an on-the-hoof look at the fleeces of the four rams I have here.

Meridian Blizzard (Meridian Silverado x Meridian Bessie), 10 month old ram.

Meridian Typhoon (Meridian Turbo x Meridian Rocha)

Fair Adventure Horatio, 3 year old ram, from Colorado.

Hillside Gabby’s Barrett, 3 year old ram, from Michigan.

Shearing Day is Sunday, January 21.* We’ll be shearing about 70 sheep. Fleeces are available on shearing day and for a month or two afterwards as I skirt them and post them on-line. If you live in the area you can come here to choose a fleece. Contact me.

*I just fixed this. A friend pointed out that I wrote June 21. Yikes!

Big, Round Sheep. Is it Wool or Lambs?

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After all the thoughts I had about keeping up with blog posts I see that the last post was the day after Christmas. I sure write a lot of blog posts in my head and even take the photos. Best laid plans and all…

We are shearing on January 21 and I like to take photos of the sheep in full fleece so I can update the website. I just updated the Ram page and the Ewe page. I moved the lambs that I kept in 2023 to these pages so that is a record of the whole flock now.

Shearing is only 11 days away. If you are a fiber fanatic and want to attend shearing day contact me. Or maybe if you’re part of a fiber guild you have already seen an announcement. First lambs are due two weeks later.

Zora is the first one due and is pregnant with twins. Due date is February 5. All the others will start a week later.

Bessie sure looks big enough to have multiples, but the ultrasound showed one. Is it all wool?

Sweetgrass Eilwen is due at the end of February and has twins.

This will be Rose’s first lambs. She is carrying triplets and is due February 11. Eight ewes are due that first weekend. That is why I will not be demonstrating at the Sacramento Weavers Open House that weekend.

Janna is also due on the February 11 with triplets.

Patchwork Amara is the third ewe that according to ultrasound is carrying triplets. Her due date is the 21st.

Bide a wee Trista is due the 17th. Ultrasound notes say 1+. That means that one lamb is confirmed, but they couldn’t say for sure that there isn’t a second.

Columbine has twins and is one of the 8 ewes due on February 11 or 12. Of course the due date is only a guideline. Lambs could be a few days before or after that date. I have to be paying attention. Looking at this photo, I remember that she had a wool break early in the year while nursing 2023 lambs. You can tell that some of her fleece is shorter than the rest. So this will not be a prime fleece. It’s possible that it can be salvaged. If not it will become part of next year’s Gardener’s Gold, a soil amendment for houseplants or the garden and made just down the road! It is available on line or here at the shop.

We have 45 ewes that will all lamb in February. The barn will be full!

Family Here for Christmas

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The best gift of all is having my family around. Not all could come, but here are photos of the start of the holiday week.

Chris and Meryl got here on Saturday afternoon along with dogs and cats. Meryl went to visit her mom, and Chris and the dogs stretched out on the couch at our house.

Ginny is not supposed to get on the couch but Finn and Sawyer don’t have that restriction. Notice that they are all focused on the tennis ball that Finn dropped on Dan’s chest.

Finn and Sawyer feel right at home.

If you follow me on Instagram you may have seen these photos. Chris and Meryl were away for the first night and the cats stayed in the other house, where they used to live before moving to Bosie. I went to check on them and found one, but went back three times to find Luke. Do you see a cat in this picture?

Now do you see him? I finally found Luke when he jumped onto the refrigerator. Later he retreated again and I took the photo.

Chris and I took all the dogs on a walk Across the Road. Do we seem a bit mismatched from the standpoint of clothing? Our mid-50’s/60’s felt warm to Chris.

All three dogs like to run after the ball. The goal is to get them tired out.

On Christmas afternoon we went for another walk and Meryl joined us. People dump things along some of these dirt roads. When I find something metal I bring it home for Dan because he plans to weld something artistic one of these days. Usually it is rusted bolt or something they fell off a tractor. We found this in the dirt and thought it was a good gift for Dan.

Tonight’s excitement is that Kirby, age 9, flew to Sacramento from Texas today. She will stay with Uncle Matt and Aunt Kaleena for a few days and will then be here for until January 1.

Searching the Archives 12-25

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I was looking for a photo earlier and got distracted by others that were of memorable events. Then I realized it had been a long time since I searched for a number to see which photos showed up. I chose 1225 and searched my Lightroom catalog for that number. I turned up a group that is not that exciting, but there are some stories attached.

In May 2017 a group of friends and I went to the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival. We made our trip long enough for some sight seeing. One of our stops was Assateague Island National Seashore where we saw ponies. Here is the story about that.

This is from setting up a show at The Artery in November, 2017. I called the show Loom With a View. In looking back through the photos I have two conclusions. One is that it it looked pretty good. The second is that my style hasn’t changed much. Is that a good thing–in that I weave functional pieces with a recognizable style? Or not so good in that I haven’t evolved? Here is a link to the post about setting up that show.

Maybe this is cheating to keep within the theme of this post (photo # 1225), but here is a photo of how the room looked.

The next #1225 photo is from March 2021. Ahhh, the pandemic years of wearing masks everywhere. I can’t find a blog post from this shearing at the Timm Ranch but here are two from shearing in 2019 and shearing in 2022.

This is not Photo #1225 but Warp #1225. That’s the 1225th warp since I started keeping track. I guess if I run out of ideas for blog posts I could go back in those archives as well. This warp was a sampler that I ended up using to develop the class I just taught last month. Blog post is here. Class description is here.

This piece is from that same warp and seems to be an appropriate end for Christmas Eve.