What goes in must come out

The couch provides better scale; they don't look so big on the wall!

After driving ~1700 miles straight through by taking turns at the wheel, my guys got home at 11:00 last Friday night. Saturday night Rick brought in two of the three things on my list to bring back – the bigger set of longhorns and an antique German wall clock that had hung in my parents' living room (item #3 is a four-drawer file cabinet; our two-drawer file cabinet has long been insufficient for our record-keeping). We knew where the longhorns would go, and installing them was quickly accomplished. The wall clock needs some work, but we know where it will likely hang. That left the vast majority of the truck and trailer contents to be unloaded Sunday so the rentals could be returned by Monday morning, so for Fathers Day, Rick and Brian worked on that. Brian loaded his pickup with tools to take to work, Rick stored a few things here and there, but a lot of it is now taking up his parking bay in the garage. At the end of the day, Brian invited a couple friends out to drool over his 'haul,' and they started a campfire under a fiery sky:

In order to move the file cabinet upstairs to the bonus room I needed to clear the way. First, the stairs. All three of us have put books there instead of carrying them up to the library shelves (along with papers to file, etc.), but the shelves are full to overflowing already. So I pulled a bunch of books to take to GoodWill, along with clutter from elsewhere like old toys and sports equipment; the first load got donated on Monday. Next I cleared off and around our two-drawer file cabinet so it can be moved out and the four-drawer can take its place. I'm hoping that will happen tonight, so tomorrow I can file a lot of papers lying in stacks around the bonus room. Step-by-step, my One Big Thing of 2024 is moving forward! Here are the before and after photos of the stairway:

We had another cool, wet weekend (Sunday didn't reach 60°!) that's transitioning to summertime temps in the upper 80s. My garden doesn't seem to mind the roller coaster; everything is growing well. I took progress photos of both this morning, pulled some weeds, and ate some delicious parsley and tender kale for my efforts.

I'm getting excited about Black Sheep Gathering coming up the last weekend of this month. It's the 50th anniversary of the event, so several "Jenkins junkies" (those who love to collect and use Jenkins Turkish spindles) are making a special effort to come, and quite a few of us are making up 5g bundles of fiber as trading cards of sorts. I'm proxy-shopping again for those not fortunate enough to be able to shop for these special spindles in person, and providing transportation from the Portland airport to Albany for a 'junkie' flying in from Germany. We might even swing by here on our way so she can meet the sheep. 😁

That's it for now from . . .

Blossom and Bud

'feral' cherry

one of the last daffodils of the season

part of our home orchard

pieris in flower and new growth

this tree is always a highlight of the season

Eek, another week has zoomed by! Until today, it has been rather uneventful except for a miserable bout of vertigo(?) that kept me in bed and unproductive from nausea most of Sunday, and threatened again on Monday. That made me leery of trying to shear anyone because of all the movement that shearing on my short stand requires. So I've spent more time researching options (equipment vs. professionals) for next year than shearing this year's fleeces since my last post; c'est la vie.

Of course I've been keeping my eye on Boop and Broadway, above. Sure glad that I didn't separate my breeding groups any earlier as they were obviously bred in the very last days of 'togetherness.' This fall I plan to wait until mid-November to put my breeding group(s) together so that next spring I can go to our church's women's retreat; I'm tired of missing out and my ewes don't reliably cycle in October anyway. Bridget mystifies me. Even though she is clearly not pregnant, she has been acting late term – slow to leave the fold in the morning, the last one into the fold in the evening, and often staying off to herself in the pasture. This morning Boop was acting suspicious, and Bridget was staying close. My ewes often ask to go back into the fold by themselves when they are nearing delivery and Boop did that this morning; it was tricky letting her through the gate and not Bridget, who then proceeded to call for her.

Boop's coat was on the loose side after shearing, so it needed to come off. I gave her some time to settle, and then managed to catch her without much drama (she is my wildest sheep) and remove it. Then I left her to it for awhile, checking in discreetly from the upper window to keep disturbance to a minimum.

Oops; she spotted me!

When I saw a water bag, I settled in to wait and occasionally watch. In between peeks, this happened!

It didn't take long to see that another lamb was presenting, but Boop was too busy reacting to the first strange new creature lamb to  settle down and push. Eventually, I decided to intervene, finding only one front leg and a nose. I felt around for the other front leg, then managed to ease #2 out using just the one leg. Lamb #1 took advantage of Boop's interest in #2 to get its first meal:

So you might be thinking I buried the lead, but after checking for plumbing I named these two . . . Blossom and Bud. 😊

Both are strong and vigorous and have nursed multiple times. I divided the barn stall with the chain-link panels Rick refurbished for me, and moved Boop and her lambs in next to Blaise and Bitsy. Blossom (lamb #1, a ewe) looks black with HST spotting (HST stands for white on Head, Socks, and Tail), but will turn gray. Bud (lamb #2, a ram) is black with the gulmoget pattern. Because Sanson, their sire is a gray (Ag) gulmoget, all his lambs will be either gray or gulmoget.

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Today I finished the second rug on the black warp. The first one will be short (I ran out of the darker pink); this one will make up for it by being extra-long. I did identify a couple threading errors which I'll fix before using the remainder as a dummy warp. My next warp will be a variegated cotton thread with a natural wool weft; I'm looking forward to seeing how that turns out.

Rug #2 above the beam; reverse side of rug #1 winding on below

Rug #2 finished

My crafting room has gotten more cluttered because I'm putted bagged fleeces there as I shear them, but I am still focused on my One Big Thing of 2024. What I've already accomplished has made room for my drum carder; I'm much more likely to use it if it is easily accessible (it's currently closeted in a storage space off the crafting room). I have assorted old fleeces, mine and others, that I can then prep and spin, and already have spaces where I can crank out the yarn with my Louet or miniSpinner. Decluttering by tossing is much faster, but decluttering by utilizing is so much more satisfying!

That's it until the last lamb(s) drops at . . .

Visible progress!

After soliciting recommendations from neighbors last month, last Wednesday I finally called a guy several of them have used for outside clean-up. He showed up the same day to give me a  bid for cleaning up ivy, blackberries, volunteer saplings, and weeds, mostly right around the house and in our garden space. His price was acceptable, so he and his crew showed up bright and early this morning and started work. By the time they knocked off, things were looking ever so much better; when they come back next Tuesday they will finish the rest, including killing the ivy. (I'm glad they didn't do any spraying today; the dogs will have four more days to run freely before I restrict their access in an abundance of caution.) I took before photos and duplicated them as best I could after they left today, although doing so doesn't show how dramatic the improvement is in some areas. And yes, the weather is as gorgeous as it looks!

On top of that I've made some progress on my One Big Thing of 2024. Wednesday I got rid of a lot of stuff in the cabinets so I could put other stuff away, then loaded up my old phone/fax machine, flat-bed scanner, and color printer and hauled them off to electronic recycling. I listed the two birdcages on Facebook Marketplace and one of them has already been picked up. Again, I tried to match before photos I took to show progress; you might have to squint to notice much.  😉

Meanwhile, my chances of attending the women's retreat are not looking good. The expectant ewes are just barely beginning to develop udders, although Broadway is waddling/gimping about most uncomfortably. Her dam moves the same way when heavy with lambs. Hopefully Broadway won't have the same problem Bernadette did with her first lambing; if you recall, Broadway was delivered by c-section.

I collected photos and fleece samples from the ewes this morning before turning them out. It was a small-scale rodeo; I ended up in the bedding (more than once) with bent glasses and a broken fingernail. I have yet to collect photos and samples from the boys; will do that in time to mail the lot of them off on Monday.

Enough time on the laptop. I've got a horse to ride, a house to clean, and supper to make.

Wishing you a good weekend from . . .