Today’s Random Farm Photos

Posted on September 11, 2026 by Robin

This seems to be a recurrent theme now. There are a lot of moving parts. Maybe I should call this A Day on the Farm.

Dan ordered a load of sand. It’s hard to imagine right now, but when we get a lot of rain all at once, the water gets ankle deep here. Dan is thinking ahead.

Water flowing out of orange valve in green pasture.

I am irrigating today. We asked for water for 24 hours so we need to get the whole pasture irrigated in that time. I am still figuring out the best way to manage this with the Goldilocks plan (not too much and not too little). Last time it worked and I hope I have it right this time as well. So my main task today is to continue to check water and open and close valves as necessary. There are 28 valves along the pipeline.

View into a green barrel with frothy liquid inside.

I am working on a variety of other things between checking the pasture. This is the look into a barrel that holds some heads from the latest harvest day about ten days ago. We’ve had some very hot weather and that should hasten the progress on these skulls. It’s very disgusting and, even more disgusting, those white things are maggots.

Two sheep skulls with horns that are not cleaned.

This is how the heads looked after I dumped the barrel. The horn sheaths on the smaller skull have loosened and are easy to get off. The big one went back in after I pulled off a lot of gunk. I can’t get those horn sheaths off yet, and I hope another week in the barrel will do the trick, but I sort of doubt it.

Three sheep skulls with horns and other small bones draining in a red tray.

These skulls just came out of a bucket with peroxide and water.

Bright white sheep skull with five horns.

This one has had further treatment. Now I have to get those horn sheaths back on. I wonder if I overdid the cleaning process because that seam has separated more than I’d like.

Plastic bin and green plastic tub containing white fabric folded into different shapes arranged to fill the tubs. Photo shows dye canisters with labels.

In between irrigating and working on skulls I prepared another batch of bandanas for ice dyeing. Results in 24 hours.

Two dozen skeins of blue or blue-green yarn on a brown wooden background.

I also finally organized the latest skeins dyed in indigo. The earlier ones (on the left) are more blue while the rest have a blue-green cast. I don’t know if it’s due to time in the indigo bath or stage of growth of the plants or some other variable.

I’m preparing yarn for dyeing tomorrow, but realized that to dye with wolf lichen I don’t need to mordant. I weighed the lichen that I gathered off fallen branches on our last visit to the mountains and the wound three ounces of yarn to match the weight of lichen. The yarn and the lichen are in the pot now.

It’s 11:20 p.m. right now. I plan to check the water in about ten minutes, so I just looked at the readings from the soil moisture sensors. The red line shows the water flow onto our property. We were supposed to get it at about 10, but early in the morning I looked at the ditch that carries the water, and it was more full than when we order water. It was the “leftover” water from someone at the upper end of the canal and it runs out of an overflow pipe adjacent to our property. I wish I had known and could have opened our valves sooner. As it was I opened the valve at 6:30 a.m. and that’s when our meter picked it up. The water tender must have made a drastic change at 7 a.m. and we stopped getting that water, but the water we’re paying for followed at 11…so 12 hours ago. The blue, purple, and green lines are the soil moisture levels at 4″ (green), 8″ (purple), and 12″ (blue) at two different stations. The darker lines are from the west sensor and the lighter ones are the east sensor. This shows that it was about 5:30 when water reached the one on the west. It shows the east one is also wet, but it might be from the water accumulating at the south end of the field.

Time to go look at water and see what is really happening. Hopefully I can close some valves and open others and then not go back out until about 5 a.m.

Dye Experiments – Hollyhocks

Posted on September 12, 2023 by Robin

Yesterday’s post was all about vibrant orange of Cosmos! Today it’s Hollyhocks. Guess what color the deep purple, almost black hollyhocks give to yarn!

This is the traditional hollyhock I have grown for a long time.

This year two friends gave me a few hollyhocks that look like this. Even the leaves are different. I’ve been calling these “frilly” to differentiate the two batches. These were started later so didn’t flower until later in the season. I’ll get back to this.

Before the frilly flowers were blooming I was paying attention to the hollyhocks growing in the front dye garden. These hollyhocks had come back from last year’s plants or had grown from seed dropped from the previous year. I didn’t pay much attention at first, but it became obvious that the flowers were not all the same color. It’s known that its the dark purple, almost black flowers that dye yarn. But I thought I’d experiment with the others.

I worked methodically to keep the dried flowers separate as they were ready to pick or had already fallen.

I dyed in four separate pots and got these colors.

Then I dyed another four pots. This photo shows yarn from the first batch and the second. The shades are close, but not exactly the same.

Now to the frilly flowers. Would there be a difference? As I did with the Cosmos I figured out weight in grams to use to dye 4 ounces of yarn. I based this calculation on the recipe in Harvesting Color by Rebecca Burgess. She suggests 20 flowers for 2-1/2 ounces of yarn and that recipe has worked well for me. I get a strong dye and there is enough color left to dye another yarn in the same pot. I calculated how many flowers I would need for four ounces and the weight of the flowers when dry. Yes, I counted flowers as I harvested and then weighed them after they were dry.

These are handy pots for small batches of dye. Notice the one on the left says R. Pratt 308. That was my dad and his lab was room 308 at UCSF Medical Center back in the 50’s and 60s. These are stainless steel and I use them all the time for my fiber activities.

Here are the results. I used these dye pots four times. The color lessened each time, but there was plenty of dye left until I got to the fourth time. The first three times I put four ounces in each pot. It was only at the last one that I put in just one ounce. There is a bit of difference in the regular and frilly flowers, but I don’t know that it would be repeatable. I think there is enough variation among different batches that I wouldn’t say it’s due to the frilly versus regular flowers.

Before I dyed the frilly/regular samples I had run a similar test with successive batches of yarn. The first pair here was putting a gray skein and a white skein in the same pot.

Here is some of the yarn listed on my website.

Now I also have the dried flowers ready to sell.

Loom With A View

Posted on November 5, 2017 by Robin

I wrote two blog posts about setting up this show but then I moved on to other things. Now I’m getting to the show itself. I’m not thrilled with the photos I have taken at the Artery, but I am thrilled about the show and want to share it.

As I said in one of the previous posts this theme started with the idea of using the old windows that were around here. As you enter the gallery you see the title and the Artist’s Statement. If you want to read that click here.

This is the wall to the right… …and these are some of the sheep.

More sheep.

Continuing around the gallery there is this collection of photos. I used two of these six-pane windows to display photos and give a feel for the farm. These are not for sale because they are too rotten (people have asked) but some of the photos have been matted or framed and are for sale.

This is the Solano Colors wall and the yarns are the 2017 locally grown yarns that are on my website. Don’t they take natural color beautifully? There are three examples of the natural dyestuffs–black walnuts, weeping willow leaves, and dried coreopsis flowers.

If you look at the previous photo again you’ll see that the shawls and the yarn are hanging on what looks like bamboo. I decided to use the Arundo (an invasive species that grows on our north border and had big hollow stalks like bamboo) for hanging the pieces in the show. It was in keeping with the rest of the props (stuff found on the farm), I have an infinite supply of it, I could cut it to any size, and it is free. The perfect solution! Originally I had planned to use the Arundo for weaving, but I just didn’t get to it. On the morning I was to set up the show I got up early with a lot on my mind. I got out the loom that I had already warped for this and I wove this piece. It inspires me to do more because I think it is very cool.

Moving on around the room this is the next grouping. Those scarves were woven on a space-dyed warp that I dyed a few years ago and found in a box on the shelf. Do you see something hanging to the left?

I wanted to do something interesting with the weeping willow branches after stripping the leaves for the dye pots. I tried weaving with them but I think I like this mobile best.

The Sunflower wall is around the corner. These are rayon chenille scarves in the colors of the sunflower field that was Across the Road last summer. I didn’t just stick with the yellows and oranges of the flowers but included all the colors of the fields. Here is a closer view of the flower scarves.

In addition to the window pane photo collage, I included this piece that is not for sale. I wove this years ago when we lived and worked on our family dairy.

This close-up includes my daughter carrying milk buckets, my sheep, and our pony. Here is another farm photo collection.

These ponchos and ruanas use the same yarns as the Solano Colors wall, but mostly in natural sheep colors. There are also a couple of handspun Jacob pieces here.

Close up of a ruana.

The display in the center of the room is really panels out of my sheep trailer. I used them to hang my blankets and some scarves.

Here is an overall view of the room…

…and this is the table in the doorway when you come in. The notebook is for visitors’ comments. I’d love to see your comments as well.

Keeping Busy on the Farm

Posted on September 30, 2017 by Robin

I’m keeping busy.

Most of the photos are from yesterday but this was a few days ago. I like this view.

Morning chores. Do you see the grass on this ewe’s back? The dallisgrass is tall right now and it’s sticky. (From the web: Once dallisgrass seed heads ripen they can be infected with an ergot fungus. Infected seed heads are black and sticky.”) It is so strong that it trips me up when I walk and get my feet stuck under it. The sheep are coming in with it draped around their necks. They are dirty because all the dust sticks to the dirt. We’ll need rain to get them clean again.

The sheep were going into this paddock on the right. I pulled the net fence out of the dallisgrass and put it back in so that it tipped the other way so hopefully they don’t get their horns in the fence.

There is a 3-wire electric fence here that you can barely see. I stomped down the dallisgrass on the side of the paddock they’ll be in so that the fenceline is more visible. The only way this fence works when the grass is so tall is that the flock is used to the configuration of the paddocks.

The ewes don’t even want to venture in when it’s that tall. They walked in and then came back to this part in the lane where they could graze normally.

Catalyst-Buster

The rams spend most of their time right now at this fence looking for the ewes. At night there are always a few ewes hanging around here. Tomorrow is the day, boys.

A good contrast of lilac and black and white coloring. Also typical 2-horn and 4-horn contrast. That’s Catalyst on the left and Buster on the right.

1019-dyed yarn

This photo is from a few days ago. These are yarns I used as the warp for two shawls that I just finished weaving. There will be photos of them after they are washed. These are dyed with weeping willow and hollyhock.

More recent dyed yarn. Weeping willow on the left and coreopsis on the right. The three shades are successive runs through the same dyebath. All that color from 8 ounces of flowers!

Eucalyptus

I set up this pot outside. Eucalyptus getting ready to add yarn.

I am moving onto plans for a sunflower series of chenille scarves for my upcoming show. I finally got to the warp dyeing part.

There will be more photos as I progress with these.

Warp chains–two scarves each.

While I was dyeing yesterday we got a hay delivery. Eighty more bales to go in the barn.

Redbud leaf

Color inspiration next to my dye table. Redbud leaf. It is incredible what you can see when you look closely.

Ginny in her usual behavior. He’s not going to throw it, Ginny.

Dyeing with Davis Spinners Guild

Posted on October 23, 2016 by Robin

I like it when guilds want to hold their meetings at my place. I usually get to those meetings!

Today, DSG member, Jen had offered to set up several natural dye pots. We used several heat sources to heat the dyes. Jen brought all the dyestuffs along with plenty of pots and jars and we all dyed sample skeins of wool.

Pomegranate rinds.

oak-gall-dye

Oak galls.

onion-skin-dye

Onion skins.

peach-leaf-dye

Peach leaves.

black-walnut-dye

Black walnuts.

A watched pot…

jens-cotton

While waiting for the pots to cook we chatted and spun. Jen spun brown cotton directly from the bolls that she grew herself.

madder-dye

Time to check the yarn. This is madder root dye.

Removing fiber from one of the pots.

Jen had wood shavings from several exotic hardwoods and extracted the dye by soaking them in vodka. (She wondered about what the guy in the store thought when she asked for the strongest, cheapest vodka in the biggest quantity that he had.) We used one pot to dye with all five of those extracts by using half-gallon jars in the pot. red-heart-dye

Look at the color of the Red Heart!

peach-leaf-dye-2

Here is yarn dyed with peach leaves coming out of the pot.

These are the yarn that I dyed. From left to right: oak galls, black walnut, Red Heart wood, peach leaves, onion skins, pomegranate.

The dogs were allowed to join us after awhile. Ginny, ever hopeful that someone will throw a toy for her.

Thanks so much to Jen for organizing this and bringing all the equipment and dye. And thanks to the Davis Spinners Guild for being such a fun group!

Wedding Dress Blues

Posted on May 24, 2016 by Robin

I like jeans and sweatshirts or shorts and t-shirts. I rarely go anywhere that I need to wear more. There was an upcoming wedding. Not just any wedding. I’m the Mother-of-the-Groom and will be forever more in photo albums and on Facebook. I figured that this may be the last time in my life that I have to wear a dress. I am not a shopper. What to do?

I was telling Farm Club friends the story of the dress I wore to my oldest son’s wedding seven years ago. There was an “aha” moment…I’ll do it again. Here is the story. Wedding-1986_

This is our wedding day in 1986. We got married at the dairy where we lived and worked and I made Dan’s and Matt’s matching shirts. I don’t remember where I got the dress but it wasn’t a “wedding dress”. It was just a white dress that fit me.

This is Matt’s wedding many years later. I’m wearing the same dress. I dyed it and made a shawl to go with it.

When my daughter got married a few years later the wedding was to be an outdoors wedding in Vermont in the fall. Based on normal weather patterns I chose a wool dress and boots and made a chenille shawl. There was a heat wave and I probably could have used the same dress but who knew?

My aha moment came when I realized that I could use this dress for another wedding. I like the dress and it fits me and I Don’t Have to Shop. Why not?

The wedding colors were navy blue and yellow. The bridesmaids and the Mother-of-the-Bride were all wearing navy blue. I was discussing colors with a friend and she offered to help me dye the dress with indigo. Realize that we’re about 5 weeks from the wedding date at this point. Dottie brought a car-load of supplies. She put indigo in a tea strainer and we watched the water turn color. We also noticed a metallic sheen on the water and weren’t sure what to do about that. We forged ahead……sampling with cotton fabric that Dottie had brought with her. The metallic stuff showed up on the fabric but it seemed that we could wipe it off easily.So we went ahead with the dress. When dyeing with indigo you don’t want to stir up the dye bath because indigo dyeing relies on a chemical reaction as the fabric comes out of the dye and reacts with oxygen. If you introduce oxygen into the dye bath you lose some of the effectiveness of the indigo.When you bring something out of an indigo bath it is green at first.As it reacts it turns blue. Usually you rely on several dips to darken the color, but this one came out fairly dark the first time. However, we saw unevenly dyed areas where I had been too careful about lowering the dress into the bath and the dye didn’t get into the folds. There was also that metallic stuff in spots. I decided to hose the dress off (no pictures at this point) and see what it looked like. Not good. Very splotchy and not in a good way. So I tried again, this time stirring the dress in the pot with my hands. It was more important to get an even dye job than to save the dye bath for later.Here is the final product. But we weren’t done. There was another step and that was a surprise to me. First though the dress had to be completely dry, so that step was going to have to wait until later.No, one of us didn’t grow an extra hand. Dottie came with a friend who took some of these photos while we were working.

The next step involved a process that indigo expert, John Marshall, describes in a booklet about using soy milk when dyeing with indigo.

This seemed very involved and I put it off about a week but knew that I had better get moving because it was a lengthy process. Dottie had brought soaked soybeans and I had put them in the freezer. I thawed them and followed the instructions in the booklet to prepare soy milk. I put the soaked beans in the blender and added water.

After blending I poured the mixture into a cloth lined colander. This process is repeated three times, adding water each time to make more soy milk.

Eventually I had a bucket with enough soy milk to cover the dress.

This is the leftovers from the process (which, by the way, I fed to the chickens).

I soaked the dress and put it on a hanger. The dress was supposed to cure for a minimum of two to three weeks to ensure that any leftover indigo would not “crock” or come off. (Picture washing brand new jeans with white things and the dye running…or me hugging the bride and leaving streaks of blue on her dress.) Time was running out and about a week before the wedding I dunked the dress in a bucket of water with synthrapol (a detergent that is meant to attach to unfixed dye particles). Low and behold, there was very little discoloration of the water. Dottie, you nailed it!

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The big day arrived and the dress was just fine. You can’t tell from this photo but I belted it with a silk scarf that one of my Farm Club friends dyed with our eucalyptus leaves. I chose shoes that matched the sash and when I looked back at the other wedding photos I realized that I was wearing the same shoes that I wore at Matt’s wedding!

Black Walnut Dye

Posted on November 21, 2015 by Robin

Here is one dye pot that won’t quit. I guess I didn’t actually take a photo of the dye pot. But here is a post that has a dye pot full of black walnuts.

I had been soaking black walnuts in a 5-gallon bucket for a few weeks in anticipation of getting a shipment of Timm Ranch yarn here. It turns out that due to medical issues at the mill I won’t be seeing this yarn any time soon. But a Fibershed event was coming up and I wanted a naturally dyed cloth to cover my table. I decided to use the black walnut, but I didn’t want to waste any dye so I thought I dye some yarn too.

This is 5 batches of yarn out of the same dye pot. The first four skeins on the top are from the first batch. The next four are from the second and I crammed the tablecloth in that pot too. The rest of that row is from the third batch using the same dye. It looked like there was still plenty of dye in the pot so I did two more batches that are on the bottom row. They are lighter but still colored. Here is another view. It is interesting (at least to me) that the fifth batch appears to have slightly more color than the fourth. It is a different yarn. The first four batches included Anderson Ranch yarn, white Jacob, and gray and white Jacob. The last batch was Columbia yarn that hasn’t been sold and I’ll use in a project now.

This is the white Jacob from the first four batches…

…and this is the gray and white Jacob.

I was photographing the skeins outside and out of the corner of my eye I kept seeing this other brilliant color.

Odds & Ends…or what do I do all day?

Posted on October 30, 2013 by Robin

I am always behind, but this year I feel more behind than ever in the weaving department. I read the blog of a production weaver I know and she commented that any weaving she does now through the end of the year is “extra”. Everything for this season’s sales is finished. What? I should have woven my scarves and blankets LAST January? I thought about it. I also thought about it in March and July and August and September. I knew that I’d get to it in October. What have I been doing when I should be weaving? Here are a few examples beside the obvious sheep farming, Lambtown, etc.

Last week I hosted a field trip of middle school home-schooled kids and their families. We spent a couple of hours in the barn and at the shop. After lunch I guided them through a needlefelting project. They all made up their own designs. This is one student’s work. Cute, huh?

I taught a Learn to Weave class a couple of weeks ago.

Here is the scarf woven by a brand new weaver. She used Zephyr Jaggerspun yarn and doubled it in warp and weft. It turned out great!One of the students couldn’t come back on the second day of the class and she finished her scarf today. This is a close-up. She used Jaggerspun Maine-Line yarn. I taught three students in a Rigid Heddle Scarf class, which, by the way, I will offer again once in December. No more other classes until January. This is the blackberry jungle growing (for those of you who know the farm) just north of Faulkner’s pen–in fact part of this IS the fence-line for Faulkner’s pen. There is an engineered septic system under those shorter blackberries that is supposed to be maintained and inspected every year. This is what I did on Sunday after working another several hours on the final Lambtown reports and finances. There is still a lot of blackberry work to do but at least the septic guys can get to the valve covers. Farm Club was here all day on Saturday and helped with the list of chores on the clipboard. We didn’t get to all the barn cleaning, but did a lot of other stuff. Maybe I’ll ask Rusty to write a post about that since he hasn’t done much writing lately.It’s the time of year that the pomegranates need to be picked or they will split (if we ever get any rain that is).