Limping along

I have managed to transfer some photos, a few at a time, to my laptop so I can post "in the manner to which I am accustomed." However, I feel handicapped. Ah; First World problems.

I am also periodically limping thanks to the sheep. Not from shearing; that has gone more comfortably than I can remember, and I am grateful, both for my healed knees and my quieted sciatica. No, twice now I've been felled by my sheep. In order to take them out to sections of the neighbor's pasture every morning, I halter and lead five of them, letting the other three follow. Last week, my neighbor startled them from behind as I was doing that, and they bolted forward. Five ewes weigh considerably more than I do and are probably stronger, so I ended up on the ground; a secondary startle made me fear serious damage to my shoulder. Yes, I was still holding the ends of five leashes, a not-always good habit from a lifetime of handling horses; if I'd let go I wouldn't have been able to catch them again and the halters could have endangered them. This morning it happened again, this time in the driveway, wrenching my left knee. Don't judge them harshly; it is their nature as defenseless prey animals. The daily handling is making them easier to catch, halter, and lead, but doesn't change their instincts!

Speaking of the sheep, here are photos of all of them. I missed a few before and after photos until I got my act together. Let me know if you see a fleece you're interested in; Bench's and Bitta's are already reserved.

Bridget, after

Bridget's midside sample

Bench, before

Bench's midside sample

Bernice, after

Bernice's midside sample

Sanson, before

Sanson, after

Sanson's midside sample

Bethany, before

Bethany, after

Bethany's midsize sample

Broadway, before

Broadway, after

Broadway's midside sample

Bitsy, before

Bitsy, after

Bitsy's midside sample

Bette, before

Bette, after

Bette's midside sample

Bernadette, before

Bernadette, after

Bernadette's midside sample

Bitta, before

Bitta, after

Bitta's midside sample

Forty-six years ago while I graduated from a Nebraska high school, Mt. St. Helens erupted catastrophically. Most of my life's biggest moments have happened in the interim; strange to think about that!

That's it for now from . . .

Wheel woes

The friend whose vehicle we took to BSG after mine died

So nice to play with color after all the black I've been spinning!

Since I just went to a fiber festival, you might be thinking spinning wheel. While I do have one, it's been years since my Louet S10 has seen any action; my Jenkins Turkish spindles are the yarn producers around here. (And yes, I got another one at Black Sheep Gathering, the one that completed my collection.😉) No, our wheel woes are much more troublesome, and expensive....

Rick's current vet truck has been a lemon – trying, it seems, to live up the Ford acronym taunt "Fix Or Repair Daily." He has been pondering a replacement, but late model pickups big enough to handle his vet box, extra equipment, and mileage are obscenely expensive, so he keeps patching his 2002 Ford F350 back together. Early last week another major problem presented itself, putting it up on blocks, so to speak. Fortunately our old '94 Ford keeps on truckin', so he makes do with that when his vet truck is sidelined once again. At least the shop is finally to a useful/useable stage:

Last Wednesday evening on our way to agility my car dramatically lost power. In order to prevent further damage, I had it towed to the nearest VW dealership, in Salem. The diagnosis was grim; the repair would cost more than the car is worth. So we hauled it home where it sits, awaiting its still undecided fate. I was grounded for a few days, and then my boss generously loaned me her mini-van to get to and from work until Rick's vet truck is fixed or replaced. 

Between the fleeces delivered to buyers at BSG and the two shipping out tomorrow, almost half my clip has been sold. Now to skirt and advertise the last eight.

Yesterday Rick was given four tickets for tonight to the St. Paul Rodeo. We haven't been to it in years, and I can't say I'm looking forward to it, except for the fireworks at the end. The risk to man and beast is real, and I sit in dread of something bad happening, especially to the animals (I figure the human participants go in willingly with eyes wide open; animals don't get a choice.)  This is not a hypothetical fear; Rick and I saw a bucking bronc break its leg in the middle of the run, then get shuffled off to the stock pens to wait until Rick went and demanded humane measures be taken. My parents witnessed Lane Frost get gored to death at the Cheyenne Frontier Days rodeo. Praying there are no accidents of any kind tonight....

To end on a more hopeful note, our garden is still going great guns (but for the beets and carrots). The snowpeas and bush beans have started to bloom. I've harvested three cucumbers so far; soon we will be enjoying tomatoes, sweet peppers and eggplant, too.

Inside, my littlest orchid is budding out (again!) as my African violet blooms fade:

And last night's sunset was a lovely one!

That's it for now from . . .

A "State of Nearly Everything" address

Once again updating this bloggy has gotten away from me! And the more time passes, the harder it is to wrestle the updates into a post; I've been working at this for over a week weeks.

Sheepy things first; after all, that's why this blog was begun. 😉

Drumroll: skirting has started! I neglected to collect mid-side samples from two of my sheep during shearing, so I finally pulled and skirted those two fleeces (on two different days) in order to collect samples and get them all sent off to Texas A&M for micron testing. Skirting involves more standing than my knees can comfortably handle, just like too much sitting, but I need to tackle one a day whenever possible to 'git er done' so I can ship off reserved fleeces and advertise the rest. Here are Sanson's and Bonnie's fleeces on the rack:

Young Bryan continues to please and impress. He is getting a taste of 'flock life;' I've started turning the 'barn sheep' (Bernice and Bryan, Bridget and Bitsy) out into the middle pasture. Rick tilled and seeded it but nothing germinated; still, there are a few patches of grass here and there and around the edges for them to eat, and get some exercise and sunshine while doing it.

this one was taken on 5/26; the photos above on 5/21

The larger group of ewes are currently 'forest sheep.' The small wooded lot had a lot of grass, mostly decimated now, but there is a hay feeder there and lots of shade from our early summer heat.

Another drumroll: the day of my last post I did get the garden seeds in the ground: green beans, snowpeas, beets, carrots, and zucchini. Sprouts of all are up, and the starts we planted are looking good. The strawberries are producing big fruit which we are enjoying fresh for now, while the apples, prunes, and cherries work on their crops. Hoping for LOTS of apples, as we're getting close to using up all of the sauce in our pantry.

Last Thursday I had my six-week post-op appointment with my surgeon. If I had expected cheers or high-fives, I would have been disappointed. He thinks I'm doing well, but said I'll need to continue to work hard at PT since my goals are much higher than those of his typical patient. I asked about agility; he thought I should wait on that until the end of June. I asked about riding, and to my surprise he said, "Go ahead and ride; I'm not concerned about that." Woot! Of course I went home, saddled up Stella and rode (proof provided by Brian), and have ridden nearly every day since. Very short rides they are, just walking at first but now we are trotting just a little, too. To my relief riding is mostly comfortable, if I keep my feet in the stirrups (instead of letting my legs hang like I usually do during warm-up) and don't trot too long. Stella has been a good girl, although she would still prefer to go faster-faster-faster.

On Sunday evening when I led Stella to the arena to ride, a young buck was already there. He didn't seem to notice me and wasn't worried about Stella, so I managed to get fairly close using Stella as my blind. A week before that when I was doing groundwork with Stella, she noticed something in the bottom pasture. As I watched, I saw a doe, then a fawn, then a second fawn. I put Stella in the barn, called my neighbor, and together we relocated the two babies to my neighbor's side of the fence (their mom had already jumped over), where there is plenty of tall grass to hide in and no horses or terriers to worry about. Seems to be a banner year for deer; I may call them 'meadow rats,' but still enjoy seeing them.

Speaking of using up all our stock. As of Memorial Day, we were down to three bales of last year's hay, so picking up the small crop of first cutting our favorite local grower had in his barn for us was imperative. That necessitated a bunch of other labor first, though. Through various combinations of equipment and muscle, we had already moved the miscellaneous cabinets and bookshelves from Rick's old clinic out of the barn aisle and up to the new shop, but there was still old clinic stuff on our big trailer. This time, through combinations of borrowed equipment and muscle (and removing a header board to make room), Rick and I got the huge stocks off the trailer and into the shop (along with the old washer and dryer); then it was off to pick up two loads of hay and stack it in the barn. I helped as much as I could (probably too much); Rick did yeoman's work. Chuckie, of course, was chief inspector.

Crossing fingers that the coming month sees my mom relocated from TX to an apartment near my sister in Lincoln, NE. A date has been set; my BIL is flying down on June 21 to drive Mom and her car north. But lots of things have to happen before that, so my sister purchased a refundable ticket. She and I have both observed a steady decline in her cognition and memory, even long-term memory. I look forward to flying east to see her and my sister and family once Mom gets settled. It's been a long three years since Dad died....

That's all the news for now from . . .