How it's going

Shearing? No more progress. I'm hoping to harvest two more fleeces this week, probably the rams because the ewes are busy during the day....

Stretching our hay with grazing? Wonderful! Our good neighbors on the north have almost five acres of grass that someone used to harvest for cattle hay but no longer does, and they have made it available to us. We both had some electric netting and we've combined it so the ewes can intensively graze one small section at a time, eliminating their need for hay. To get them out there, I selectively halter five of them each morning and lead them (with the loose three following) through three gates. To get them in each night, I take out a can with some sheep feed to rattle and they follow me back to the fold. We may end up grazing the horses over there part of the time as well, but right now they have good grazing in our upper pasture. As for the middle pasture, at least some of the grass seed has germinated; hurray!

Hopefully the barn swallows can raise a clutch before we fill the barn with hay again.

Agility with Poppy? Slightly better results at our trial yesterday, and no falls. In fact, I felt better physically than I have in a long time, no knee pain or sciatica to impair my movement or make standing uncomfortable.

Agility goals: This woman is almost 90 and is an amazing handler.

"I just exist to look cute."

Gardening? I bought some starts and Rick weeded the strawberries last week, and Rick tilled the garden Sunday. He says he might till it again to work in some compost but I'm not going to wait too long to plant!

Rhubarb at back left, walking onions in the middle, snowpeas on the right.

Sky shows? Still happening; I capture them when I can.

That's it for now from . . .

Wool work

I've finally picked up my Dala sweater again. I ripped back several inches after running my needle around  as a 'life line,' then started knitting again with centered double decreases under both arms to take in the body. However, one side's decreases are looking wonky and have strayed from a vertical line, so I'm going to drop those stitches and fix them. No point in spending this much time on a spindle-spun, handknit sweater only to be unhappy with it!

If only I was a quicker knitter (and spinner). Last week I picked up enough fresh roving for at least two more sweaters!

The brown is a Romney lamb fleece I purchased years ago already scoured and picked. I planned to finish preparing it with my drum carder but that never happened and now I've sold said drum carder, so I decided to take it and my one remaining 2023 fleece to a mill's booth at the Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival last fall.

While I'd love to lose myself in spinning the above, the longer, warmer days demand a different kind of wool work – harvesting and marketing this year's fleeces. Today I started with Bridget because she's the easiest to catch – and the easiest to shear. Yeah; it's all uphill from here.

That's it for now from . . .

Retreat and advance

Blogging time has been getting away from me this spring. I don't think I have anything to post about and then look behind me to see things piling up, like the annual women's retreat last weekend and today's agility match.

We couldn't have had nicer weather at the coast. It was windy Friday evening when I headed out for my first beach walk, but I keep a headband in my jacket so was fine. We had the same house that our women's ministries likes to rent every year, and my room, with three roommates, was quiet and comfortable. We had good food and a good speaker. I walked on the beach several times and took as many walks through the neighborhood, where I could wear my sandals and give my infected toe a break. I collected a bag full of 'holey shells' for wire-wrapping, and took lots of pictures. I even played ping pong Saturday night!

my bed was on the right in the back

Friday evening

Saturday morning

a flock of brown pelicans were fun to watch

looking over the neighborhood from the coast-most dune

zoomed in on our house

SO many singing white-crowned sparrows!

At home there have been pretty skies and rainbows, flowers and a feline – and an impressive gopher snake Brian found while strimming (trigger warning for those who need it):

it was hiding in this fallen birdhouse

doing its best pit viper impression

Today's agility trial didn't have a photo booth and it certainly wasn't much to write home about; I think it was our worst ever. Poppy had uncontrollable zoomies in the first two classes; we managed to Q in the last two. And in the first class, while I was trying to get her back on track, I slipped and fell, landing in a vaulter's position with one leg straight out in front of me and the other bent back – more than one of my knees has bent in quite some time. I had to have a lot of help to stand up and hobble out of the ring, but was able to walk it off and run three more courses. I did ice it when I got home, but I think it's fine. I hope things go better in two weeks at our next trial!

That's it for now from . . .