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Random Farm Photos Here and There
California Wildflowers and Returning to this Blog
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I started writing this blog in 2008, but when I started my SquareSpace website (www.meridianjacobs.com) in 2019 I switched to writing my blog there. It bothers me that if (when) I stop using the website for business someday and, therefore stop paying for it, I’ll lose all my blog posts. My blog is like my scrapbook and I like to look back at things every so often. Besides, I liked the way that I could find previous posts when I wanted to here. It’s never worked as well on the other site. I hope I can set this up the way I remember from the old days. Hmmm. 2019 was the “old days”, the “before” days. Before the major injury I had and before the pandemic. Things seem different now. Rusty’s blog is still here too although he didn’t write anything after mid- 2019.
Another thought is that the website blog should be business and this one is more the rest of life. However, in my life business and everything else are completely intertwined. Is it realistic to think I can keep up with two blogs? That’s doubtful. So this is a trial to see if I like this and how best to do it.
About two weeks ago we drove to Ukiah to deliver wool to the mill. Knowing this was the best time for wildflowers we planned to find a place to hike on the way back.
Here we are overlapping business and pleasure already. The trip was to deliver wool and I decided to bring my Ashford e-spinner to make use of time while on the road. It works great this way, although it would have been handy to have it on a box instead of the floor.
We stopped at a place where Dan remembered seeing a trailhead. Don’t confuse this Lynch Canyon with the one in Solano County. We were in Colusa County. There is nothing here except a place to park and this map, which has seen better days.
The trail is a dirt road and you can see that its going to be very hot once summer is here.
The first part of the hike is across the side of the hills where it looks as though maybe rock had been removed when making the highway. It looks as though the terrain was disturbed years ago. Along side the dirt road we were walking on were these boulders of serpentine.
I am fascinated by this rock and by the photo. Doesn’t it look as though that brown part in the center is something dropping in front of the boulder? Or is that just me seeing it that way? That is part of the rock.
I am disappointed that I don’t know all the plant ID the way I think I used to. However I don’t remember ever seeing this grass. It is quite different than the usual species we see.
I can identify an oak tree, however, even if I’m never sure of which oak it is.
About a mile or so away from the main road we found this building. There are old tables and chairs and evidence of electric lights. There is also a menu on the wall for “Roadkill Cafe” and it includes things like Chunk of Skunk and Awesome Possum. This is obviously a more modern addition and you can find downloads of various versions on-line. I looked because I was trying to find out some history of this building. The best I could find is the description of a hunters’ cabin at this location. It would have taken quite a bit of effort to get this building here and also power it (a generator for lights?). Or maybe it was brought here without the plan of ever having power to it again. So it remains a mystery to me.
I was intrigued by these flowers, thinking that I recognized them and that they don’t get any more showy than this. Later I found one that had finished it’s blooming but I don’t have a photo. When it pops open it looks like a white papery dandelion. I have photos of that in one of the next blog posts I’ll write here from when I went to Jepson Prairie. It is called Blow Wives.
After a stream crossing past the cabin we found several trails going in different directions. We chose this one.
This flower is Ithuriel’s Spear, a native perennial.
In quantity, they were quite showy.
We didn’t reach the end of the trail. We kept going a little farther to see over the ridge, but there was never a ridge top to look over, just more hills and trees. Without a map we decided that we’d probably gone far enough.
As we turned around and came back down the trail we did have a great view of where we’d been. You can see the dirt road through the grassy area at the base of the ridge on the left.
Buttercups I think.
A view of the Road Kill Cafe from the other direction.
Just beyond that point it looks as though the creek used to be dammed. This is quite a sizeable dam. It’s obviously not being used now but it makes me wonder again about the history here.
View from the car on the way home.
So I hope that I can format this blog the way I remember it from before. Then I’ll have to decide where I want to live…at Squarespace or here at WordPress… or both?
New Blog on Website
My blog has continued on my website at SquareSpace. Here is the blog address. There is a sign-up form there if you want to continue to follow the blog. Recent posts: new lambs!
We’ve Moved
I’ll put out more info later about how to follow the blog, but the new posts are on my new website. The previous posts are still here–all ten years!! But I’ll be adding them to the new site eventually. I’m leaving for Texas in the morning so no more now than this annoucement. Partly because Rusty wants to write a blog post before I quit tonight. His blog is still here for the moment.
Christmas, 2018
What a relief to have the lead-up to “the holidays” over. When you’re in a business that counts on sales during one month and those sales are dependent on 1. how many things you are able to make, and 2. how well you market your business, the pace becomes more and more frenetic. So Christmas Day for me was a relief. Work was over. The house was clean (as clean as it gets) and fixed up (after we’ve lived here for almost twenty years and finally replaced floors and some windows.) We had pretty Christmas lights outside. The weather was beautiful. The food was easy to prepare (don’t peel potatoes this year and see how it goes–it went fine). Best of all family was here (except missing the TX branch).
Here are snapshot photos of the day.
Matt brought his drone.
The sheep have been in the barn and corral area for the last month because the pasture is soggy and I’m waiting for the grass to get some growth, but I set up the fence to let them out onto part of it for the day.
The drone gives us a great view of the property. There is a video taken with the drone on my website.
We opened gifts. I bought Dan a series of used books that are by author Stan Lynde. Our last name is unusual and we had found a book by this author on our most recent road trip. Dan got about half way into it and found that pages 140-180 were repeated and 180 to 120 were missing. When I looked into replacing the book I found that the author was dead, his publishing company no longer existed, and that there were about 7 or 8 books in the series. So I hunted them all down and wrapped up the Stan Lynde books for Dan Lynde.
Dan made DIL, Meryl, a marker for her parking spot to reflect her new job as an Orange Theory coach. 
My daughter sent us all aprons embellished by the grandkids. 
Time for getting dinner in the oven. Chris, mac and cheese lover that he is, has become a cream sauce expert.
While dinner was cooking we went out for another drone session…
…and a family photo. 
Dinner on the table.
We may have started a new tradition with a game from Santa. It’s a card game based on the old computer game, The Oregon Trail, that my kids loved to play years ago. 
You can play with up to six players so we created teams so that all 11 of us could play. We may study the rules between now and the next time we play. Our wagon team eventually all died–there may be better strategy than we used. 
After pies (pumpkin and apple) we moved onto a game my niece has on her phone. 
Trying to get my brother to guess Valley Girl.
A lively time was had by all.
And to all a good night.
#856
I was looking in Lightroom for a photo of ewe # 8056 and I typed in 856 by mistake. I saw a selection of photos that were fun to review. Here they are.
This is etched into the barn floor after one of our concrete pours. Papa-San was my father-in-law. Dave is my brother. 
And speaking of writing on the floor, this was taken Across the Road, not as permanent as the concrete etching except in my photos.
My oldest son side job is climbing trees to remove branches or, as in this case, to remove a tree that should no longer be where it is.
Sunflowers.
Wedge weave rug at Convergence in Reno last summer. 
Hiking in Arches National Park.
Hiking on the PawPaw Trail in Maryland last spring.
Taken from our road trip in September on our way back from Washington.
The photo I was searching for when I mistakenly typed 856? This is ewe lamb 8056, Meridian Quartz, a 6-horn ewe lamb. People talk about Jacob sheep having six horns but I’ve never seen one that has room for six really distinct big horns.
Woven Goods
It’s the season for selling when you’re in the business of making. Now I seem to spend extra time taking photos and then trying to keep track if the items are at The Artery or here, listed on the my website or on the Fibershed Marketplace site . Ideally there were would be three batches–some at the Artery and not on the website, some here and just on my website, and some here and just on the Fibershed site. The goal would be to have everything sold by Christmas and to not double-sell anything…but those lines are crossing. I have to be vigilante. Here are a few examples of what I’ve been weaving.
Chenille scarf using clasped weft.
Local yarns dyed with coreopsis and dahlia flowers.
More local yarns dyed with mushroom and black walnut.
This is the stack of ponchos that I finished in early November just before the Fibershed Wool Symposium.
This is how the loom looks from where I sit.
The rainbow colors are a result of a prism that hangs in the window behind me. After my mom died a friend gave me the prism and said that it was to remind me of my mom. And it does, as it reminds me of the friend, Sylvia.
Coreopsis dyed yarn.
The computer that holds the “brains” of the loom. This loom does not weave without me doing everything (for those people who think that having a computer hooked up means I’m not really weaving). It only keeps track of the pattern that I have put in.
This is what that pattern looks like. It will be completely different after fulling.
A look down through the warp threads to the cloth below.
OOPS! I think I have this in an earlier photo and I haven’t told the story yet of what I did about it. That will still come.
Some of the finished ponchos.
Talk about a versatile garment. I have grown to love the poncho. It’s really just a blanket with a hole in the middle for your head. Whether you’re at the computer late at night (gee, does that ever happen?), in the car, or trying to stay warm while reading in bed it’s an easy garment to throw on. And it also makes you look young and pretty! Just look at those photos! (Disclaimer–that’s really not me.)
Texas Trip Revisited, Family
The last blog post about my September trip to Texas was mostly my favorite flower photos. Here are my favorite family photos.
Kasen was about 21 months.
Kirby is was four and a little bit.
I think that I would have loved to have a trampoline when I was a kid.
We visited the pumpkin patch to choose pumpkins and try to get a family portrait.
First, a chicken picture.
I don’t think it was possible to get everyone looking in the same direction at the same time. But a beautiful family nevertheless.
Texas Trip, Revisited
I took a trip to Texas in late September and wrote about that here. I didn’t realize until later that I hadn’t yet downloaded the photos from my camera. I thought I was missing some but things were too hectic back then for me to think straight. Eventually I figured that out but the photos have been waiting for me to review and edit them. It seems lame to go back to “old news” but I like some of these photos and, after all, this is my scrapbook blog, so I’m going to include them.
The day Kasen stayed home with me while everyone else went to work or school we walked up the road.
We spent over a half hour parked on a bank overlooking the main road and watching cars and trucks go by. That entertained Kasen, but I was more entertained by the diversity of flowers there and on the way back–so many more than I expected in September. Unfortunately I didn’t ID any of these while I was there and I just spent some time on-line looking for them, but I gave up. I’m just going to enjoy the photos and maybe use Katie’s wildflower book next time I’m there.
Once Kasen was out of the stroller than I was more involved in keeping him out of trouble than playing with my camera.
Woven Goods
I’ve been neglecting my blog. All my computer time has been spent at other things–mostly trying to stay caught up with email, working on my website, and trying to organize and edit photos for items listed on the Fibershed Marketplace and on my website (each of which need differently formatted photos). I’m also trying to figure out the best way to keep track of what is listed where and which items go to the Artery. I really don’t want to take the chance on selling something on the website and find out that I already sold it at the Artery.
The website is up now and, although I haven’t listed a lot of products yet, I’m happy with it. I hope you’ll explore it a bit. I’ve worked most at getting some weaving classes scheduled for January-March and in getting handwoven items listed.
Here are some of the items that I have listed. Don’t judge my photos. I struggle with trying to get decent product shots.
I didn’t list this one because right now I can’t find it. That may mean it is at the Artery. Or did I sell it? This is what I mean be trying to keep track. I’m not doing very well with that.
My niece was nice enough to model for me at Thanksgiving.
Photobombing brother.
These are yarns from Lunatic Fringe and all appear in the latest scarf I wove. Hopefully I’ll get to that blog before too long.
