It's Caturday!

Hello everybodies and everykitties!

Gracie here (with my face planted in the blanket - thanks Mummy for the flattering picture)

With the cold, wet and rainy weather Georgie and I have been spending lots of time indoors, snoozing -

But last week, we had an exciting time here on the farm!

The shepherd wanted to move the lady woolies out from the boy woolies fenced place.


We haven't been here all that long, but we heard that it used to involve lots of chasing the woolies around in the muck and mud and flopping of hands to get them back into the ladies pasture. This year, The Shepherd decided to call a friend of Mummy who has goggies that she has trained to chase the woolies around.










Special Sheep Goggies -

Mummy said it was just like watching the movie "Babe" - what ever that means.

The woolie ladies didn't much like the goggie chasing them around...














But after a few runs around the pasture, I think they got the idea.














And they popped right through the gate into the area where The Shepherd was waiting to take them into the Ladies Pasture.












Meanwhile, Vern, the BIGGEST woolie boy stood calmly with his halter on. The Shepherd never expected him to be so polite and had lots of friends and neighbors here to help in case he got out of hand.

Everyone had a good time (except Vern) and then they all had to go back to doing what they were doing before they came to help.








And the black kitty that Mummy showed you in her last post?

That's Bella - Mummy doesn't know if it is a boy or a girl - so she calls it Bella - Beautiful if it's a girl, or Bella Lugosi if it's a boy - Somebody said it belonged to one of the neighbors, but it was starving and lonely and the neighbors weren't feeding it, so Mummy has (to the dismay of The Shepherd) been giving it part of OUR DINNERS -

(Mummy here - No, little apple of my eye, you're not missing out on any dinners - I think our dear readers can figure that out - I just buy enough extra that there's some for Bella too. )

Well, folks, that's it for The Caturday Report!
Wishing everyone a Healthy and Happy New Year from everyone here on the farm!

And who are you, my pretty?

And this is why WE don't have a tree either....

Merry Catsmouse to all and thanks to LOL Cats
for a little laugh every day all year long.

More yarn

One of my nieces has requested some brown fingerless gloves. I don't have any brown wool right now, but I have a whole bunch of this yummy brown Alpaca.

It is in a huge batt. I pulled it into roving










See what I ended up with.

It is REALLY soft!

They're on their way

These four pair of fingerless gloves went in the mail last week for a customer down in Seattle.

I hope that she liked them.

I hope they fit her friends!







I particularly loved the blue/green wool - from Blue Faced Liecster wool that I bought at Black Sheep a couple of years ago. It ended up making the coolest stripes.

The black is from Inky's Shetland roving that I bought from Michelle (not coals to Newcastle, because we don't have any true black sheep) It spun up BEAUTIFULLY and these gloves are just the softest.

I am half the way through the 12 pairs I had on order. Luckily they are pretty easy to make...

Did I mention...

This is the handsome sweater that our friend Denise knitted for The Shepherd out of all the yarn I spun from Moni's fleece.

I love how the cable goes up the front and splits & goes to the shoulders.

Next we're working on one with all our Shetland colors. Yikes!

Christmas Countdown - 10 days

Georgie , I don't think you've got your top screwed on tight enough,,, you look like you're coming loose...

On another note - Christmas countdown - Mummy realized today that even though she has lots of pressies for her sisters, she doesn't have ANY of them wrapped - Georgie and I have volunteered to help her.

I think her words were "Not on your life"....

Your roving reporter, Gracie

Just thinking...

see more Funny Captions

Looking back Sunday

Well, there really wasn't much for a Caturday
report, so I'll go right into my Looking back Sunday post, to 2007 -

It SNOWED on the first of December - Brrr - and if I remember it was quite a storm.





For my newer readers, this is Mr. Neelix, and this was one of his most endearing and most enduring poses - you could tell he was a happy cat - he would sleep flat out on his back right in the middle of the living room floor. Neelix went to the Rainbow Bridge in the summer of 2008. He still leads in the number of posts I have labeled. The Mrreows have taken a bit of the sting out of his passing, but there is still a big hole in our hearts.





The bad thing when we have an "early" snow is that the girls are still in with the ram and they just have two little bitty barns to go in. As you can see by the look on her face, she is none too happy.









This was some yarn that I made in December of 2008 - I decided that everyone got homespun, hand made hats for Christmas that year. Unfortunately, I guessed wrong at sizes and most of the things I made did not fit the recipient. Bummer.

We've got snacks for church tomorrow, so I'd better hit the sack. A lot of people will be gone - traveling, etc., so I'm not baking anything special - just taking ham & cheese for sammies, vegies & dip and some fruit for dessert. That should keep 'em happy.

Oh, and I'm doing a PartyLite Catalog party - leave me a comment if you want to order anything and I'll get you the link to my party!

Ready to crochet some more fingerless gloves -

This is my black yarn from "Inky" - my friend Michelle got me out of a jam with some of her lovely natural black roving. Unfortunately, the picture has a lot of reflection from the flash - I tried a couple of different ways to shoot it differently (check it out in the basket at the end of the post) - it should be really nice to crochet with though.






I did some stash busting to make this yarn - some red potluck roving and some black & white Romney that Kathy in Arizona gave me a couple of years ago.












So here it all is - wound up into balls ready to go!

The Caturday Report!!

Before the Storm - CATching some rays -

There were lots of leaves for me to chase, but between The Shepherd and the windys, there's no more leaves left.

Mummy was very nervous the one night that it was so blowy because the lights went out. She said the only thing that saved her from falling over things was her neat battery operated candle from PartyLite. She has one on the bookcase (not a place where you'd regularly put a candle, huh?) It even has a timer - so it comes on at around 7 pm and goes off around midnight - and it flickers like a real candle but she doesn't have to worry about me or Georgie burning off our furs - she's pretty smart, that Mummy.

The Shepherd spent ALL day moving his fancy potted plants from their shelves by the house into the big plastic house where he keeps things during the winter. He keeps some of his sheeps furs in there too - but he chased me and Georgie out 'cause he doesn't want us playing in them. He was pleased because a nice lady came out today and paid him a bunch of green papers for two big bags of sheeps furs. I think they are kind of stinky - she can have 'em...

I heard Mummy tell the Shepherd that she was cooking a turKEY for his dinner tomorrow night - she got it from one of the people she spends her days with at the lock shop - do you suppose that's why they call it a turKEY?

Georgie and I love turKEY - but ours come in little shreddies out of a can - Mummy said some of her friends call it "stinky goodness" when it comes out of a can - I don't know if it's that stinky, but it sure is goodness - I could eat a WHOLE can of it myself!

Hope you all have a great weekend. It will be nice to have Mummy around all day tomorrow. I'll have to check on her all the time to make sure that she is working and not reading a book or playing with her string.

Your Roving Reporter, Gracie

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving!

We're going to our friend Nancy's for dinner - I'm taking the pies -

This is a pumpkin cheesecake pie - I made up the recipe - I'll report in later how it tastes...








This is my regular pumpkin pie - They are both made with our home grown pumpkin.












This is some alpaca that I am spinning up to make fingerless gloves for my niece- it is such a pretty color.

The Mrreows are prowling the house looking for the little birdie that George brought in about an hour ago - luckily (for the birdie) The Shepherd was able to catch it in a net and let it go outside -

Everyone take care and have a great Turkey Day!

Our favorite Yoga poses

Crouching dragon















Reaching for the moon.


(This is actually one of George's favorite places to sleep - on my lap while I spin. His little head goes up, and down, and up, and down, and up - well you get the picture. )

Mancat Monday

Gees, the way Mummy follows me around with a camera, you'd think I was a movie star.

Hey you, paparazzi - get outta here!

Mr. Stinky

This is Vern - and this time of the year, he is affectionately known as "Mr. Stinky".
















The Shepherd had barn and pasture maintenance to do this past weekend to get ready for breeding season. I offered to come out and help "baby sit" Vern as he needs to be supervised when he is in the small pen.









Earlier in the morning he and Galloway were having a brotherly trot around the pasture -











All of the halter training that The Shepherd did with Vern when he was a lamb has really paid off now that he is a BIG boy - although the halter is almost too small, he is still very good about having it on- for a while -

This is his "Please, Please, Please, can't I get out of this thing" look - poor baby.

He got lots of pets and "scriches" - which is why I now have to wash my "new" fingerless gloves before I can wear them again. It seems that this time of the year, rams get that pungent "Hey baby" smell about them - what was I thinking wearing my good gloves out to the pasture?



Three of these lucky ladies were moved out to stay with Vern and Galloway for a few weeks. (Don't ask me which ones - I'll take a picture of them all together soon)













Here's one reason why he's decided to use Vern again this year. He does make beautiful wool.

Spinning & spinning

I am still spinning for yarn to make fingerless gloves that were ordered from the Artisan Faire that I did in September - and some ladies from church ordered some special yarn for a family member as a birthday present - so that's one reason why I haven't been at the computer much -

This was some BFL roving that I got at Black Sheep Gathering a couple of years ago - that is the nice thing about "stash" - it inevitably comes in handy - and it doesn't spoil.

Maybe someday I'll learn how to Navajo ply like the beautiful BFL silk yarn that Michelle just finished (you have to scroll down past the tree pictures) -







But it made a beautiful yarn and the fingerless gloves will be colorful.

Depending on how early The Shepherd goes to bed (the time after he goes to bed is my spinning time) and what kind of fiber I'm spinning, I can almost get a two ounce bobbin filled in a couple of hours -




And speaking of Michelle - here is a bobbin of "Inky" - from the beautiful black roving that I bought from her last month. Talk about coals to Newcastle - me, buying Shetland roving? But except for some black & white from Wicket, we don't have any plain black that isn't part of a project already, and I wanted to use a natural colored yarn.

I have been wearing the one pair of fingerless gloves that I had left over (the gold ones in the front) from the Artisan Faire. They are not long enough for my hands, and I don't have any of that particular yarn left, so I've been coming up with some scraps that I think will be good contrasting colors to add some "stripes" to the top of them. But, having never had "real wool" gloves or mittens, I've been amazed at, even with the short length, how warm they keep my hands. I'm looking forward to getting these lengthened.

Stay tuned to find out why I'll have to wash them before I can wear them again though.

Wordless Wednesday

The apples of his eye

This is Wendy - ain't she sweet?














This is Eva - she'll knock you off your feet -















And this copper colored lady with the little top knot is Vanessa - I do know for sure that she is one of the three who got moved in with Vern last Saturday. Her coloring and his wool should produce some pretty babies, don't you think?

Fall colors in the yard

This tree is such an amazing color - the photograph doesn't do it justice. When I walk from our bedroom to the kitchen in the morning, the red shines through the windows like a beacon.










It's leaves blanket the ground underneath it - a carpet of red with gold from the ginkgo and other colorful leaves.











Like our Coral Bark Maple -
















and this tree -















and this fine lace leafed maple















Gracie was perched between the bench and this plant - keeping a close eye on her brother so he couldn't do a surprise attack.











Rats, foiled again!