Sunday, fun day, and a ton-of-work day

When I learned that last weekend was the last weekend of the Canterbury Renaissance Festival, I decided that if at all possible for both of us, I wanted to take a friend on Sunday as an early birthday gift to her. So I picked her up at 9:00 a.m. and off we went. We (mostly window-) shopped, took in parts of several shows, watched the herding dog demonstration and all of the jousting. We didn't eat a single thing there, but did both buy olivewood kitchen tools. And Debbie got to meet Caesar the No-Drama Llama for the first time and thought she might want a couple llamas if they are all like this. (Ha! They are NOT. Caesar is seriously the chillest creature, of any species, I have ever met. He works the State Fair for four days straight every year and never looses his cool!)

Debbie loves dragons

Notice the stare-down between Caesar and the cat!

Because of honoring the Sabbath and Rick's unpredictable work schedule, Sundays are our main opportunity to 'get things done.' So while I was off playing, Rick and Brian (the latter under duress) picked 89 lbs. of peaches (17 lbs. for my MIL). Then Rick picked up a load of hay and made a start of freezing peaches. When I got home we unloaded that hay and a second load, too, then worked on prepping and freezing the ripest peaches that would not wait before falling into bed shortly before midnight.

Needless to say, I didn't have time to finish the last of my fiber on the final day of TdF. I did take it to the festival and spun some, but my spindle was getting too heavy for safe casual spinning. I spun the last of it Monday morning; then I have to decide how and with what to ply my two IF Mushroom Blend colorways.

In 'maybe' news, I have an opportunity to acquire a ram with new genetics and a pattern I don't have in my flock (he's a dark katmoget). Unfortunately I don't have a good place to keep him unless I can sell one of my two rams, so I am going to take new photos and post them on the Facebook Shetland forums to see if I can do that. Now is the perfect time, while people are planning for the fall breeding season.

That's it for now from . . .

Busy days with lots to write about

I follow Leigh Tate's blogs 5 Acres & A Dream and Leigh's Fiber Journal. Her last update of the first one had lots of updates and no photos. Point taken. One does not have to share photos, as much as one may like to. Since transferring photos still isn't possible, I decided to follow Leigh's lead, as much for my own record-keeping as for you. So here goes.

On May 23 I shared the photos I took on Mother's Day, partly out of frustration that I couldn't share the photos I took on the 23rd of Adelman Peony Gardens. We went with friends on a perfect Sabbath afternoon and it felt like being in the Garden of Eden. 

Rick's sister and younger niece flew in Sunday night, May 24. They stayed with Rick's mom, but we all spent Memorial Day together, first enjoying fresh strawberries over waffles at my MIL's, then going to Schreiner's Iris Gardens. We mentioned needing to get hay in our barn, and bless their horse-lovin' hearts, the visitors offered their help. So the next evening the four of us unloaded two trailers full of hay; Rick and I got a third load of hay in the next evening, and the last half-load in today.

And where was Brian? Taking it easy inside. On the 21st he punched a door and both broke and dislocated bones in his hand/wrist; he had surgery on it last Thursday. 😒

Between Friday, May 22, and today I got our garden in. Rick was going to amend the garden soil with compost but I got tired of waiting. I purchased some starts (six tomatoes, two sweet peppers, two eggplant, two six-packs of assorted salad greens, three basil, two curly parsley), was given some starts (two cape gooseberries, two cherry tomatoes, five assorted cucumbers), purchased some seeds (Detroit Dark Red Beets, Tendergreen Improved Bush Beans), and used seeds from my stash (Scarlet Nantes Carrots, Armenian Pale Green Cucumbers, Long White Zucchini of Palermo, Tricolor Zucchini, Butternut Squash). The salad greens and herbs went into the stock tank on the east side of the house; the rest into our little garden plot on the west side of the house. Oh, and Rick finally planted my poor potted fig tree up in our 'orchard' – and he's even watered it a couple times.

Recently one of our hens died after acting poorly for several days. One of my older ewes has also been ailing; I'm hoping the antibiotics we have her on now will turn her around. In spite of the medical problems the humans have racked up, all has been quiet with the animals' health (other than Lance's asthma flare-ups) for the last year and a half at least. Guess it couldn't last forever.

That's the update, sans photos, from . . .

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 90 years old and is an amazing handler.

"I just exist to look cute."

Gardening? I bought some starts and Rick weeded the strawberries last week, then 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 . . .

Showers of blessings and lots of rain

A lot has been going on here, including some big blessings.

I've had 'hay on the brain' for awhile, because we clearly didn't have enough and it isn't going to get any easier to find. There's a place at the bottom of our hill that usually has "HAY" and a phone number spray-painted on a sheet of plywood, so I decided to call. After buying one bale each of the two types the farmer has for the horses to try, I bought 55 more. The quality appears to better than the two 'off-brands' we bought earlier this year, the price is reasonable, and the location couldn't be much closer. Whew, what a blessing for now, and perhaps a good resource for the future (our favorite hay supplier is in his 80s and cutting back).

The remedial construction our next-door neighbors to the north had to have done is wrapping up, and last week they texted to say there was plenty of room in their huge dumpster if we wanted to get rid of anything. Boy, did we, thanks in large part to the shop project! Rick took multiple tractor bucket loads over, and our place does look better now – if you look past the multiple dead vehicles. 🙄 Hey, I'll take any improvements made.

A few weeks ago, I got an email from someone interested in buying a few sheep. I kept my hopes in check, as inquiries don't always, or even often, lead to sales. But this one has; I received the deposit yesterday. Hurray; three ewes are moving south next month, which will allow me to consolidate the remaining ewes into one group who should get along better thanks to who is leaving.

Sunday Poppy and I competed in our final agility trial of the year. We had a great time; the club that put it on pulls out all the stops, with personalized Christmas ornaments for each dog, a toy chest from which a gift for each dog can be chosen, a photo booth, and great raffle prizes. Poppy got three qualifying scores plus a first place out of four classes and a new chew toy, and I brought home a new ornament and a raffle prize!

Once again, some awesome volunteers in the Jenkins spindle-lovers' community on Ravelry organized and created a December fiber swap/fiber Advent calendar.

I so enjoy the daily opening, spinning, and plying of these small and varied fiber surprises, pairing them with different Jenkins spindles, even if it means less knitting time on my Dala sweater. The current weather is helping, though; it's been too wet to ride, so that means more time to knit and spin. Rick is also gone for a few days to the annual horse vet convention, and that gives me more time as well. But when he gets home, we are going to have to do some 'remedial construction' of our own; I noticed this morning that we have leaks over the daylight basement's sliding glass doors and the two east-facing windows on either side of it. 😳 It's always something!

That's it for now from . . .