A Blip on the Radar

Hey Everyone it's Caturday!

2012-01-28T10:33:00.000-08:00

Hello everybody and everykitty!

It's Caturday, and it's nice to have Mummy home all day. We miss her when she goes off to the salt mine and doesn't come home until after dark.

The question for the week is:

If a tree falls in the driveway and no one is outside to see it fall, does it make any noise?

It was really windy on Tuesday afternoon and this is what happened!

The Shepherd was home, but HE didn't hear anything - so maybe it didn't make any noise...

Mummy had to park out by the gate and walk through the muddy garden in the dark - luckily she had a flashlight in her car - she would have been in a lot of trouble otherwise. She's not too steady on her feet in the mud.

Since the driveway was blocked and he could not get his truck out, The Shepherd took Mummy to the salt mine on Wednesday morning and used her car to go to a wonderful place called Hardware Sales where you can get just about anything you want to do with hardware or plumbing or electrical - (they even have a wedding registry of all things!) and they rent chain saws too. (A friend of Mummy's says if they don't have it or can't get it at Hardware Sales, you don't need it)

So even though we thought that tree would be an excellent Jungle Gym for us, The Shepherd cut it all up and a friend of Mummy's came today and took away the wood for his fire place.

"All's well that end's well", I always say.

Everyone have a great weekend.

Love, your roving reporter, Gracie!

It takes all kinds -

2012-01-25T22:11:00.001-08:00

See the lady mid-picture by the grey truck? She owns another business on our block. She thinks we take up too much of the parking. (he is parked a half a block away from her business entrance - and as you can see, there is a bit of parking available on her side of the street)

She is leaving a little pile of brown poo courtesy of her doggie where my co-worker will unwittingly step in it before he gets into his truck.

I guess she didn't realize that all the cameras on our building might catch her in the act....(we are a "security company" after all). Sheesh!

Just wrong on so many levels.

Spinning Silk Caps

2012-01-23T23:11:00.000-08:00

What the heck is a silk cap? I asked my friend and spinning teacher, Yvonne, when she offered to teach a seminar on Spinning Silk Caps at our Guild meeting. She said that she had been "gifted" some silk caps and would love to teach people how to use them in spinning. And we had a big group of people who were interested too - several visitors from guilds to the south even.

Quoting from The Silk Worker : "Silk caps are made from cultivated cocoons that have been degummed and stretched over a frame shaped like a bell. They consist of a number of extremely thin layers (maybe 10 or 12 layers) each layer is one cocoon." (There are also "Silk Hankies" where the silk has been stretched over a square frame instead - several people were working with those)

And they really are the size of a cap, in fact the one you are looking at here was a birthday present from our friend Nancy - and it really was big enough for me to put it over my head like a cap, but I digress...

Nancy had taken a silk cap and dyed it all these beautiful colors.

When I was in China in 1981, I remember going to a silk factory and watching the little ladies and probably young girls putting the cocoons on the thread machines - Each cocoon has about a MILE of silk strands on it - and these strands of silk are very strong -

The trick is to separate ONE layer from the cap and then you pull it out flat, sort of like you were shaping out a pizza dough - then, you pop a hole in the middle and take this "donut shape" and keep making it bigger, and bigger - one cap will stretch out so much that you can have a circle of "roving" that will go around your hands if you have your arms stretched out to each side (like wings)

Then you can, as The Silk Worker suggests - put the stretched out silk roving into a bowl and spin from that, or Yvonne suggested wrapping it around a TP roll or around your wrist. I couldn't get it to stay on the TP roll, so I opted for winding it around my wrist. That worked perfectly for me - as you can see, it perplexed Gracie - who was very interested in snoopervision of my efforts.

Have you ever worked with silk? The tiny fibers catch on ANY little rough place on your hands. I forgot to mention that one of the things that we had to do before we started working with the silk was to do a little "spa treatment" on our hands - use an emery board to smooth off any hang nails or chips on our fingernails then we did a scrub with sugar and oil, of all things - it really did get rid of most all the places that the fibers were catching.

Here is my silk roving ready to be spun. It is such strong fiber that you can actually knit directly from the roving.

One thing spinning silk requires though is a LOT of patience. This is the result of TWO HOURS of spinning! I have two caps to spin - One is the one pictured above and the other is just reds and golds. I decided that I will ply the two together for my silk thread and use it to crochet jewelery - necklaces, bracelets, etc - guess what everyone will get for Christmas NEXT year? Ha ha ha...

Wishing my Sister Wisten a Very HAPPY Birthday!

2012-01-23T01:11:00.000-08:00

This big bouquet of flowers is a "virtual" birthday bouquet for my oldest sister.

I won't tell you how old she is, but here is a hint - she was ten years old when I was born.

This picture was taken at my grandparent's 50th wedding anniversary. My sisters and I were the youngest of their eight grandchildren. (one sister was on the other side of the "eight" and I'm not skilled enough to photoshop her into this picture)

She was about 15 in this picture -

And because we both have January Birthdays, here is a big bouquet of summer flowers!

Here she is in her thirties - I wanted her granddaughters to see how pretty their Grandmom was when she was younger (not that she isn't pretty now - ooh, ooh, I'm stepping in it...)

And because she loves Hawaii - some plumeria -

So, to my dear sister, with love, I hope you have the happiest of birthdays! And Many, Many more! (and your present and card will be there sometime in the middle of the week)

And you know what they say - Hogs and quiches!

The Caturday Report!!

2012-01-21T22:57:00.000-08:00

Hello everybodies and everykitties!

Gracie here with the Caturday report.

Well you know all about the snow that we had this week. Georgie and I were too little last year when it snowed, so this is the first time we've had to play in it. We go outside for a little bit, the come back in and warm our toesies on Mummy's big bed.

This week's report though is about this guy who has been climbing in and out of under the house, both yesterday and today!

It is a mystery to me, because every time he climbs out from under the house he is dripping with water and saying bad words. Then he comes to the back door, reports to The Shepherd and then he climbs back under the house. If it is so cold and wet under there, I don't know why he keeps going back. Mummy was mumbling something about "Many green papers going out the window...."

(Yes, folks, Mummy here - the reason that man goes back under the house is because he is a very highly paid plumber - (although I don't think you could pay me enough to do the job he is doing)
We are hoping that our insurance will help cover some of the costs.)

And take a look at Gracies little toesies that were warming up on the big bed. Aren't they sweet?

The snow is almost gone - maybe tomorrow - Mummy has lots of Laundry & other errands!

Love and smootchies to you all - especially to our friend Momma Maria who has started her own new blog called The Cat's Meow. Mummy has known Maria for a long time now - maybe 20 or so years! She has lots of kitties and a very quirky sense of humor.

See ya next week! XOX Gracie!

The view from the Cat Door

2012-01-18T23:05:00.001-08:00

Yup, 16 degrees - that's what the little widget on my computer said this morning. What it didn't say was that there were NE winds of about 30 mph blowing out of the Frasier River Canyon up in Canada.

Make that about 2 degrees. Brrrrrr!

With my bad knee, I move so slowly that I'd freeze to death between the back door and the car. I decided it was a good day to stay at home.

So I spent most of the day at the computer working on "work" stuff - "Logmein" is a wonderful program.

I got two of my quarterly reports done!

And spent a lot of time monitoring the cats coming and going - mostly worrying about them when they would go out and wishing they'd get back in the house.

Hmm - doesn't really look too bad out there -

Look the wind has died down -

.

"18 degrees - schmeighteen degrees - that's what I've got a fur coat for", says Gracie on her way out to check up on The Shepherd when he went out to feed the sheep!

George finally succumbed to his favorite snoozing spot after deciding that "Schmeighteen" degrees really was too cold to spend much time out there...

Even Bella spent most of the day inside. But with a careful watchful eye on bird TV.

And Gracie - after a few short trips in and out, spend most of the day on "the big bed" -

"Come join me Mummy" -

No, sorry sweetie, I have to get back to work. You have a nice nap now.

Snowdazed

2012-01-17T23:51:00.001-08:00

Thank heavens.

Mother Nature waited a few days to deliver my "Birthday Snow"

I had WAY too many things to do last week to have to do them in the snow!

It started snowing Saturday night when we were driving home from the Asian Bistro.

And it snowed all night, scuttling my plans to do errands on Sunday morning - Oh, well, I'll just sleep in - since my spinner guild meeting was Saturday morning and I didn't get to sleep in then either.

And it snowed the better part of Sunday too.

Until Sunday evening when it warmed up a little and the snow flakes fell off of the trees - do you recognize this picture from the first one?

Do you see the Witch Hazel, all covered in yellow blossoms? If you biggify the first picture, you can see it all covered with snow.

The Shepherd said it was mighty slippery on the roads when he came back from church.

The Mrreows were racing around "like crazy pants" in the snow. In and out the cat door about
eighty seven times - They were very little the last time there was snow here and I think their previous mommy kept them in the house because they were so tiny.

It ended up a pretty sunset on Sunday, but then started snowing again during the night. I decided to stay home from work yesterday, but went in today. The roads were traveled enough that they weren't too bad. It is only supposed to snow a "skiff" tonight and tomorrow then warm up AND IT WILL ALL BE GONE!!

Hey Everyone it's Caturday!

2012-01-14T21:18:00.000-08:00

Hey everybody and everykitty - it's me Gracie, your roving reporter here, trying to get the camera out of the hands of the pawparatzi - always with the flashy box in my eyes, drives me nutty.

The biggest news of the week is that the Black Kitty (aka Bella) is being allowed to stay in the house at night.

See, here's Bella - curled up at Mummy's feet, under her chair, practically snuggling -

Hey, Bella, that's MY mummy - no snuggling allowed!

The second biggest news was that Mummy turned 60millioneleventy on Thursday. The Shepherd sent her these pretty flowers at her grindstone. She brought them home from work on Friday so she could enjoy them even more.

She's had a good week - out to dinner (Olive Garden, yummm) Wednesday with two BFFs, lunch Thursday with some old work friends, dinner Friday with some "sheepy" friends and Chinese food tonight with some friends from church and all around - Party Hearty Mummy - next week it's back to business.

The third biggest news was that Party Mix was on sale at the PetsMart store. So when Mummy went to spend some big bucks on our kitty food, she got a couple of big bags of it for us. We all LOVE Party Mix around here - it's Yummy!

Hope you all have a great weekend.

Love, your roving reporter, Gracie

The "other" shopping spree...

2012-01-13T09:46:00.000-08:00

On Sunday, Jan. 1st I got an email from my local yarn store that, since she had decided to be open on January 2, which was kind of a holiday, because everything else was going to be closed, the ladies at the store decided they wanted to have lots of company, and would 25% off entice me to come in and see what they had in the way of fiber (actually they put all their yarn on sale too, but I generally don't buy yarn)

You are darn tootin it would and I did still have some Christmas Cash burning a hole in my pocket. So I went shoppin'. "Bye honey, be back in a while"...

Unfortunately, purples are one of the colors that don't show off so well with my camera, but think a vibrant "royal WE" purple here. There's 4 1/2 oz. of the solid and 4 1/2 oz. of the variegated - merino top - I'll spin singles of each and ply them to make a pretty heathery looking pattern when it is crocheted.

These three bumps are "Potluck roving" from Ferndale Fibers. Kathy does a really great job of processing and dying her wool. It is a lot like spinning Targhee - makes a soft and lofty yarn. (I'm hoping that she'll be involved in the farm sale again this spring - last year she had some GREAT buys)

These three colors are Jungle, Steel and Night Sky, and I was looking for some "earth tone" colors to spin - one can't live by blues, purples, and teals alone...

The money had been earmarked for a "roving of the month" club, but I saved enough money with the sale prices it was like getting one of these bumps for free! Can't argue with that.

Pssst, - - - Gracie -

2012-01-12T01:11:00.000-08:00

Can you keep a secret?

Mummy turns 60 years old today!

Do you know how old that is in Cat Years? Something like 60millioneleventy or something like that - boy - she's old!

(Better be careful buster, remember who fills your cat bowl...)

Torti-Tuesday

2012-01-09T23:11:00.000-08:00

Mummy loves looking at my furs.

She says ifn I wasn't striped, I'd be a tortoise shell cat (The term “tortoiseshell” is used for cats with brindled coats that have few or no white markings - if there is white, they are calico)

They say tortoise shell cats are fiercely independent and strong willed - that's called TORTITUDE!

Tortitude - That's me alright!

Love, Gracie

It's Caturday!

2012-01-07T23:11:00.000-08:00

Hello everybodies and everykitties!

Gracie here and "It's Caturday!!"

My Caturday report today is that Mummy spent half of her Christmas green papers that she got from her sisters on sheep furs - old colored sheep furs.

And I thought maybe she might spend some of it on ME!

She said that this is 8 ounces of "Mountain Colors hand painted Targhee roving and the color is called "Wilderness"

Mummy likes to spin Targhee sheeps furs - she says it is fluffy and soft. She made a baby sweater out of this kind of yarn a couple of years ago and it turned out really pretty.

This is called "Louet Northern Lights Handpainted Pencil Roving". It came in an 8oz bag and the color is called Fire Moss. Mummy has never spun any pencil roving and thought it looked like it might be kind of fun. She also thought she was getting a bag of sheeps furs that was all kinds of blues called Ocean Waves, but this is what showed up. I think it is pretty anyhow.

And this is whole bag is full of sheeps fur string -

I also think it looks like it might be kind of fun to play with - what do you think?

This whole frenzy of green paper spending was started by this little doohickey called a "yarn yardage counter" - Mummy has been wanting one because she says as a hand spinner she wants to be sure she has enough yarn for her projects. It will also make it more accurate when she wants to sell some of her spun sheeps furs to other people.

It was her present from The Shepherd for Christmas - but she had to find it on the internets because The Shepherd looked ALL over the city and he couldn't find one. So she went to a web site that she had gotten stuff from before called Paradise Fibers . She got very excited because it turns out they were having a sale AND if you spent over $75 you got free shipping.

Well, Mummy thought it would a very good time to buy some new sheeps furs, especially since it was going on The Shepherd's credit card and not hers - he, he, he - (but she did give him the green papers from her sister to cover the charges)

It's not very big - that is a teaspoon lying next to it.

Anyways, it was cold and rainy out today so me and Georgie spend most of the day snoozing here and there in the house.

As a matter of fact, here is Georgie, helping Mummy wrap her belated Christmouse presents to her sisters. I think I heard her say that he was being a "great help"... wasn't that nice of him?

Well, that's my Caturday report for this week. Mummy says she'll tell you later about the other spending spree she went on at her local yarn store. Have a good week!

Love, Your roving reporter, Gracie

Random Thoughts -

2012-01-04T21:22:00.001-08:00

Hope you all had a Happy New Year.

We went to our friend Nancy's for New Year's brunch and music - delightful as always. I wish I'd taken a picture of the potato casserole that I took. My friend at church calls it "Mugga's potatoes" after her sister. Involves frozen cubed potatoes, cream of chicken & mushroom soup, grated cheese and sour cream. How could you go wrong with that? It was yummy.

Had a minor setback today with a "knee thing" - couldn't put any weight on my "real" knee - I don't have the slightest idea what caused the problem, but this knee has been going down hill for (more than) a couple of years now - the ortho doc says he'll replace it when ever I want - Heck - I haven't finished paying for the other one that I got done 6 years ago yet! But I actually stayed home from work today - first "sick" day I've taken in about three years - I hate to miss work though - it always puts you more days behind than what you missed, if you know what I mean...

I hope to have a Caturday Report this week. The kids spent the whole day sleeping on the bed with me - except for the poor birdie that Gracie "defeathered" in the bathroom this afternoon - I decided to spare you the pictures of that! - so tonight they are in and out, in and out, in and out - luckily we have a cat door so we don't have to tend to the comings and goings.

My motto for the new year is change - (or try to change, at least) Like W.L. Bateman said - "If you keep on doing what you've always done, you'll keep on getting what you've always got."

It's Caturday!

2011-12-31T01:06:00.001-08:00

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?

2011-12-27T20:37:00.000-08:00

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

2011-12-24T22:14:00.000-08:00

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

More yarn

2011-12-20T23:11:00.000-08:00

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

2011-12-18T23:11:00.000-08:00

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...

2011-12-16T23:11:00.000-08:00

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

2011-12-14T23:55:00.000-08:00

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...

2011-12-09T22:18:00.000-08:00

see more Funny Captions

Looking back Sunday

2011-12-04T00:11:00.000-08:00

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 -

2011-11-28T01:11:00.000-08:00

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!!

2011-11-25T22:50:00.001-08:00

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

2011-11-24T12:58:00.000-08:00

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

2011-11-19T23:04:00.000-08:00

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

2011-11-13T22:01:00.001-08:00

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

2011-11-11T07:07:00.000-08:00

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

2011-11-10T01:11:00.000-08:00

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

2011-11-09T01:11:00.000-08:00

The apples of his eye

2011-11-07T21:31:00.000-08:00

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

2011-11-06T20:10:00.001-08:00

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!

The Caturday Report!!

2011-11-05T22:26:00.001-07:00

We were practicing to be zombie cats for Halloweenie - but Mummy didn't get the pictures taken out of the flashy box in time -

So here we are in our best zombie pose.

Mummy promises that she's got lots of things to show you and will "do up a bunch of posts" tomorrow - what ever that means...

Love, George & Gracie

Talk to the paw!

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday

2011-10-26T18:53:00.001-07:00

Georgie caughted a baby rat!

He brought it in to show Mummy.

She didn't even screech!

Looking back Sunday

2011-10-23T18:10:00.000-07:00

Looking back into my October pictures found LOTS of pictures of pumpkins - pumpkins on the vine, pumpkins waiting to be made into pumpkin puree, pumpkins, pumpkins, pumpkins.

Last year we put about 25 or 30 1# packages of pumpkin in the freezer. I didn't bake as much this year so...There is still a LOT of pumpkin left - we have some friends who really like it though, so they will probably take a bunch - We've got snacks tomorrow at church, & I'm making pumpkin bars and pumpkin muffins - two more packages gone...

In October 2006 I went to San Antonio (all expenses paid) with our local Building Industry Association Membership committee -

It was a fun trip and San Antonio is a very interesting city. Doesn't hold much draw that I'd go back anytime soon though

The Grand Canyon in 2007 - probably one of the best vacations that we've taken - except maybe to Sequoia National Park -

Even though I'd seen it in pictures, they don't do the area justice - and there is just something about walking up to the edge of the canyon and looking over to the other edge - WOW is all you can say.

We also got down to The Shepherd's old home town of Tucson.

Mission San Xavier is one of his favorite places. It is so serene there. I always look forward to the visit.

In 2009 I got my Ashford Traveler wheel. I sure have enjoyed using it and creating some pretty nice yarns.

Our trip in '09 was over to Eastern Washington - the pictures were very much like the ones I had on my post last Sunday - things don't change very quickly over there.

Things are changing quickly here though - this year it seems like the reds are redder - the yellows are bright sunny yellow - and I just realized that we are less than 10 days away from November - Only two months until Christmas ! EEeekk! - BUT, I have my main Christmas presents for my sisters already - so I'm a step ahead of where I usually am this time of the year.

And it's only 2 1/2 months until my birthday! Another EEEeekkk! I will be celebrating the 20th anniversary of my 40th birthday this year. That's when The Shepherd and I started going out.

Why does looking back make everything seem like yesterday?

The Caturday Report!!

2011-10-22T23:05:00.001-07:00

Hello everybody - It's Me! Gracie, with the Caturday report!

First of all we sleeped in. The Shepherd had to go to work in his truck and do some yard things for somebody. It was almost still dark when he left - and it was raining!

But we sleeped in long enough that the rain went away and the sun came out. So Mummy got up and fed us.

We played Thundering Herd of Elephants for a while then we went outside to see what was going on - Mummy went away in her car - but she wasn't gone as long as she is most of the time - I heard her saying something about doing smelly laundry and errands. I was glad when she came home early. It was a good day - she found our favorite kind of stinky goodness at the Walgreens store!

Hope you had a good Caturday too.

Your Roving Reporter, Gracie

The Squalicum Valley Artisan Faire -

2011-10-20T22:21:00.000-07:00

Over, but not forgotten - I can't believe that it was almost a month ago that we did the Artisan Faire -

It was organized by our friend Lydia McCauley and a few of her very talented neighbors (click on her name to see a few more of the items that were in the show and to hear her beautiful music)

Squalicum Valley Artisan Faire - With a few invited special guests - - that would be The Shepherd and me, my friend Linda, who makes these adorable cut paper collages, and a couple of other ladies (I was never quite sure who was local or not)

Here is my yarn display (which was made to fit on a card table) with baskets of fingerless gloves and friendship roses just below - It worked just like I thought it would - although because of the placement of our table, instead of having yarn on both sides, I pushed the dowels most of the way to one side - and hung two skeins on each dowel. But that was the nice thing about having the dowels moveable - and the whole thing comes apart and is stored in a cardboard box about 6" thick, 12" wide and three feet tall, that will just fit in the corner of my closet (if I can ever get the boxes of stuff out from in front of it so I can get INTO the closet - but that's a whole 'nuther topic...)

And The Shepherd had his display of roving from our sheepies -

I sold a little over half of my yarn and gloves - he only sold the two bumps of black & white roving (from Wicket) - but I think he made some very good contacts - Roving is not really something that one expects to buy at a craft fair.

I also had my spinning wheel there, which elicited quite a bit of attention (also the fact that I was just about the first person that people saw when they came in the door)

All in all I sold enough to cover the costs of the new display, the new table for the roving display, the wire cubes that The Shepherd had his roving in - all things that we can use again. So I was happy.

There were lovely jewelry items -

And some knitted and crocheted items from a small yarn shop in Skagit county.

Nancy Rumbel was there with some vintage collectables, and items of "whimsey" - she also plays the ocarina (in addition to many other insturments) and sat in with Lydia when she played her music -

If you click on any of these pictures, they will biggafy and you can see some of the exquisite work that these talented people brought to sell.

These are my friend Linda's collages and greeting cards.

Linda & I played some music together too - We'd been practicing for about 6 weeks - she on banjo and me with my 12 string guitar. She did a short set alone, we played three songs together and then I played a half dozen songs by myself - I hadn't played in public for several years (with the exception of church) and I was nervous - but it went well.

These painted silk flags were some of my favorite items - and you have to look more closely at her felted people - I think I might have gone to college with the fellow in the red jacket...

This was Lydia's display of soaps,lotions and essences that she makes - She did a wonderful job of advertising and marketing the show - we had nearly constant traffic the whole six hours - something unusual for the first year of an event. We were also lucky that the weather was exceptionally nice (almost too hot) - but it certainly brought the folks out to see what we had.

Even thought we were both totally exhausted. I unfortunately decided the night before the show that I needed to re-measure/re-price all my yarn & was up until about 3:00 a.m. - and we had to be up at 6:00 a.m. to be out at the grange by 8:00 to set up - so I essentially got a three hour "nap" - but, I would absolutely do this again. I know my "pitfalls" and how I would change things for the future - in fact I even got an email from someone who was in the process of planning a small arts & crafts fair in one of the assisted living facilities in town. If I had more yarn spun up, I might have considered it, but I have a 4 oz. skein of yarn and 7 pairs of fingerless mitts to make and I still have to spin the yarn for several of them - so, I think I have my work cut out for myself without adding in another venue, don't you?

The Caturday Report!!

2011-10-15T16:53:00.000-07:00

Hello everybody!

(Excuse me while I attack this rather frightful corner - it's in my way - even my laser stare can't get it to move)

Well!! It's Caturday!

And, Mummy proclaimed that this week was our first birthday! She was told that we were born in October, but they really didn't know when, so, Mummy picked a very wonderful and good luck day for our birthday - 10-10-10!

Mummy, put that flashy box away!

Mummy got us a new toy when she went to the PetCo store for our foodies last week. She said that she refused to get us any thing with feavvers on it because she thought it would make us want to chase birdies - Well, that might be true -

So this is a plastic stick with a stretchy cloth string on it -

We like playing with it and sometimes tag team it

We got some very tasty stinky goodness for our dinner (I think she gave some to that floofy black kitty too)

I (George) like to sleep on Daddy's clothes - I keep them all nice and warmed up for the next morning.

Good night Gracie...

And I (Gracie) like to sleep on Mummy - It makes me smile to be next to her at night - especially if she moves her feet around - I can pretend that they are tunnel snakes and ATTACK them!

Good night George.

Good night and happy birthday to our two darling kitties - you have made such a big difference in our lives. XOX Mummy

Oh, give me land

2011-10-09T22:22:00.000-07:00

lots of land, under starry skies above,

Don't fence me in -

Let me ride through the wide open spaces that I love,

Don't fence me in. -

Let me be by myself in the evenin' breeze

Listen to the murmur of the cottonwood trees

Send me off forever, but I ask you please,

Don't fence me in.

Trip to "The Ranch" 2011 -

Thanks to Cole Porter/Bob Fletcher for the great lyrics.

Not quite Wordless Wednesday -

2011-10-04T23:25:00.001-07:00

Well, mummy has really done it now!

She fed that furry black cat some of OUR food! Both crunchies AND stinky goodness!!!

I think The Shepherd is kind of mad at her. He likes only having two kitties (that would be US, me and Gracie) - and doesn't want that furry black cat to think that it lives here.

I think that the fur monster was REALLY hungry though - I heard mummy say that it's been hanging around the neighborhood since just before we came to our new furever home here and that's since July! She thinks that someone dumped it and when it finally came to our porch last night, it looked so hungry that she couldn't let it go without food. And it must have been too, because boy he/she sucked down the crunchies and then begged for more - mummy caved and gave it a can of stinky goodness that the sis & I had stuck up our noses at (well, the label said it was for Senior cats, and we are just kittens!) And it kept trying to come into OUR house! Through OUR cat door!

Then I heard mummy on the telephone begging (I mean asking) the kind neighbor lady to take this nice kitty. We'll see what happens...

Well, that's it for now! Your Roving Reporter, George

Looking back Sunday

2011-10-02T00:01:00.000-07:00

Ah, October -

Looking back at brilliantly colored leaves -

Let's take a stroll down memory lane...

A trip to Hawaii in 2004 - We figured October would be past the hottest part of the summer - we were wrong - but the flowers were beautiful

Pumpkin bars made from some of the wonderful pumpkins that The Shepherd grows in our garden.

A trip to Sequoia National Park in 2005 - do you get a sense that October is our vacation time?

More beautiful color from our yard - we lost the Sumac a couple of years ago - fall hasn't been the same since....

2007 found us gazing across the Grand Canyon and visiting our shepherd friends Kathy & Ralph in Arizona -

October 2009 - I got my Ashford Traveler -

....Memories, light the corners of my mind...

Oops sorry -

They Webified Me...

2011-09-29T20:40:00.000-07:00

So, Firefox has this quiz that creates a collage of how you relate to the web and the world. This is mine.

Huh . . . ?

The Mrreows are up to something tonight - -

George and Gracie must be working on some special undercover assignment. Gracie came in, (after much calling on my part) and ate some dinner and rushed back outside. I called George every 15 minutes for about 1 1/2 hour - finally, he just appeared, came in, ravenously ate a little out of his bowl, then ran back out. A few minutes later he was back in, ate some more and looked up at me as if to say, "Is this all we get for dinner?"

I caved and gave him another 1/2 (little) can of his favorite food. He ate and then RAN back outside, like he had to catch a train!

Darn cats. My feline teenagers are turning my hair grey(er)!

Wordless Wednesday

2011-09-28T00:01:00.000-07:00

It's Caturday!

2011-09-24T00:01:00.000-07:00

Gracie here -

Mummy & The Shepherd have loaded up their string and their sheep furrs and have gone to the faire.

Hmm - Wonder where Georgie is?

George's report:

A faire? What ever that is...

GOTCHA!

Wordless Wednesday

2011-09-21T06:16:00.000-07:00

Monday Musings or, The Beginning of the End

2011-09-18T23:11:00.000-07:00

Of Summer, that is...

I had last Wednesday - Friday off from work to get ready for the Artisan Faire that I'm participating in next weekend. The weather, which has been SO nice for the past month, suddenly took a turn - grey and cloudy - not too cold, but not really warm either.

George was napping on the back porch, catching what rays he could. This is one of his favorite positions - stretched out, arms in front - flat like a pancake - but on his tummy, not on his back like Neelix did.

Funny cats - it is hard to believe that we've only had them for two months on Friday. They really have taken up a niche in my heart. It's hard to imagine life without them now. The V.E.T. is coming tomorrow evening to give them their last shots for the year. *(Shhh)

One thing I did this week was set up a mock-up of how our table was going to work & I wanted to show you my new display stand for my yarn. A friend of mine is a great "woodworker" and put together this awesome stand for me (if I don't sell any, and don't have plans for any other shows, I don't know what I'll do with it.) It fits handily on our card table and the dowels go through both sides so I can hang 10 skeins (minimum) - And it comes apart into three pieces and stores flat, so it will fit in the closet without taking up much space.

I hurriedly stashed my yarn on it to take this picture, and have re-skeined almost everything so I could put my price tags on it. Hopefully it will look a little tidier on Saturday.

Since it wasn't too bad out, I went on a walkabout with the kitties - took some pictures of the leaves that are turning on The Shepherd's bonsai plants...

And the black-eyed-Susans that are blooming to beat the band.

And it started to rain, so the Mrreows & I headed inside.

I also promised to show you some of the other things that I have made for the Faire - these are little (well, they are about 3 1/2 inches across) rose pins - they have a pin back sewed on the back side. Aren't they cute? If I don't sell them, I'll use them as Christmas presents.

So, there you go, my Monday musings. Got some busy days coming up - I'll try to post when I can.

It's Caturday!

2011-09-16T23:11:00.001-07:00

Hello everybody!

Your roving reporter Gracie here, with THE CATURDAY REPORT! (I am all ready with my reporty this week and I especially liked this picture that Mummy took of me yesterday. It really shows how pretty my furrs are, don't you think? They really are that color too)

It's been a weird week around here - Mummy has been home - ever since Wordless Wednesday! I don't know why, but she has been really busy with that string maker and got kind of annoyed with me and George when we took off with some of it. We thought it was fun!

(She said that next week, she will show you some more of the string things that she has made to sell next weekend at the Artisan Faire that she has been getting ready for.)

Yesterday Mummy followed us as we went on our appointed rounds.

We didn't realize it, but she caught us having this little sibling skirmish.

I was just about to whap him a good one when she yelled at us to quit fighting.

We weren't fighting Mummy, we were practicing our break dance routine...

Mummy said that she had a really bad day on Friday and was in a snit because #1, she couldn't find some important Tax paperwork for her C.P.A. - (is that something like a V.E.T.?) and then #2, while she was looking for her C.P.A. paperwork, she opened a credit card bill and discovered that someone had put almost 3500 green paper charges on her Discover Card! Boy, was she upset! Anyhow, she called the nice people at the credit card company and they are going to close that account so the thieves cannot charge any more on it and take all the bad charges off when they transfer to the new card. Whew...

Anyhow Georgie and I made up and spent the rest of the day checking on Mummy to make sure she was OK.

Hope you have a nice weekend and HAPPY CATURDAY EVERYONE!!!

Love, your roving reporter, Gracie

Wordless (Almost) Wednesday

2011-09-15T23:11:00.001-07:00

Yum!

Monday Musings

2011-09-11T21:34:00.001-07:00

Yesterday's post was #700!

Wow, who knew? (or, maybe, who'd-a-thought?)

Last week I read Sharon's stories about the long time Labor Day gathering that they host. She talked of a trailer called "The Road Toaster", the 2011 Gathering Jigsaw Puzzle and fondly about the "storytelling" that goes on all weekend.

I was reminded of a group of friends I had in my "before The Shepherd" days - we hung out at a local tavern called Cap Hansen's - just a beer and sandwich joint - for years, we gathered nearly every Friday night after work - and as the beer flowed, so would the stories - each year adding a few more - laughing until the tears ran down our cheeks. As the old song says: "Those were the days, my friend, I thought they'd never end" -

But they do end, don't they - The owner retires, the place is sold, the old time bartender gets laid off - some of the friends pass away, some divorce, some get new jobs and move away from "the old crowd" -

But the memories are still there -

Occasionally I sit an reflect on the new friends I've met while blogging - some almost a half a world away - and wonder - would we sit in an old tavern and have a beer and trade stories like in the old days.

I'd like to think so.

We Remember

2011-09-11T00:01:00.000-07:00

Something that has affected us all so much is not even given much place in the history books of our school children. They will grow up not knowing what it was like not to have to take off your shoes before you could board a plane -

They won't have any recollection of getting ready for work and The Shepherd calling on the phone - "Turn on the TV - something is going on in NY" - then, watching the dust of the poor souls who were lost, float to earth like feathers from a wounded dove.

My thanks to Mimi Lenox for the Remembrance globe.

It's Caturday!

2011-09-09T23:56:00.001-07:00

What?!

You didn't tell me I was doing the Caturday report this week!

I'm not ready! I demand a do-over!

And mummy, when are you going to vacuum?

Yah, that's right, try and change the subject...

Looking back Sunday

2011-09-04T19:03:00.002-07:00

Looking WAY back - probably 1905 or so...
This is my dad's parents - "Pete & Dot" (her name was actually Henrietta - she would never tell us where the "Dot" came from)

Grandpa Pete was born Sept. 1, 1885. (originally I thought it was the 5th - cousin Janet says his obituary said Sept 1- We always had big parties for his birthday - celebrating the end of summer, harvest, and Grandpa's birthday - my cousin Janet will hopefully email me the correct date if I'm wrong...she did - see above)

I'm pretty sure this was their wedding picture.

He died when I was 11 - so I don't really remember much about him - He played a mean harmonica and he and my dad would get together and play music sometimes - my dad on the guitar - and we would all sing.

Now, back to the future...

I took this picture a couple of years ago from the harbor in Blaine - the little town where we go to church -

We have this beautiful view of Mt. Baker from many places in our county - we could even see the top of it from our deck until the neighbor's trees got too tall...

I often wonder what the first settlers thought when they came "around the corner" and this beautiful vista was in sight?

2009 - These are yellow mangle beets. They were very tasty and we ate LOTS of them - in fact, I think there are still some in the freezer - I was going to try making "white" borscht. Never got around to it.

The Shepherd was going to plant some again this year, but he lost the seeds and by the time he found them again, it was too late, and he was too busy. There's always next year, I guess.

2006 - That was the year of the big sunflower patch. This year he planted broccoli and cauliflower - just doesn't look the same an a vase.

2009 - Wow - I can't believe that it's been two years since the Labor Day that we bought the Fusion and go rid of the Jelly Bean - I miss it sometimes - I had a lot of good times in that little car.

2008 -

Red sky at night, sailor's delight,
Red sky at morning, sailors take warning.

We're supposed to have sunny weather with temps in the upper 70's all week long. Oh, how I envy my retired friends -

Have a great week everyone.

It's Caturday!

2011-09-03T16:51:00.001-07:00

It's not too hard for me to find a cozy place to sleep -

When I sleep outside, Mummy says I blend in with the scenery

Not much happening on the farm this weekend. It's a comfy 74 degrees out this afternoon. Just right for taking cat naps - Mummy says I'm lazy - I told her I'm just conserving energy.

Wordless Wednesday

2011-08-31T23:37:00.001-07:00

Purty, ain't she?

Monday Musings

2011-08-29T23:19:00.001-07:00

Last month The Shepherd & I went to a special concert given by our friend Lydia McCauley and her current music partner Nancy Rumbel. It was an open air concert at a charming little Italian restaurant out on the Mt. Baker Highway. Truth be told, I didn't really enjoy the food all that much - but the music was fantastic, the evening was lovely and the bread was good -

It was kind of an anniversary celebration for us, as on our anniversary in April The Shepherd was sick in bed. All in all, it was a fun evening.

This little lady has fleece as white as snow - just like "Mary's little lamb" - her name is (Little) Eva - and she's going to be a contender for the BEST fleece next summer at Black Sheep. Her fleece is very much like her Uncle Galloway's fleece - a fine crimpy fleece - BSG, here we come!

I led the service yesterday at church. It was our end of the summer service (we only have two services during the summer) - and everyone who was there contributed - it was fun to hear how Laura, a 70 plus year old great grandma went on a zip line ride in Costa Rica - I mean really - you couldn't get ME to do that - You absolutely rock, Laura! - and another friend, whose daughter & granddaughter visited from England, fell in love with that little girl all over again. Oh, you grandparents - sheesh...

Well, speaking of children - aren't these two just so sweet - George has now decided if Gracie gets to sleep with Mummy at night, George gets to sleep with Mummy at night too - sometimes I wake up and cannot move my legs - It takes me a minute to figure out that I'm not paralyzed, I just have a 10# weight on each side holding me down.

They are pretty good about coming in at night - sometimes teasing me - one will come in and the other one disappears and no amount of calling will get him or her in until they are good and ready.

Here are some more of this year's lambs, with Vanessa from last year in the back.

Wendy, they black one in the front has changed colors again - according to The Shepherd, she has three colors in her fleece now - I'll have to go out with him one of these afternoons - I'm sure she wouldn't let me touch her by myself.

Her half brother Blanco went to the big BBQ in the sky last week. I just try to think about it that we gave him a very good life for the first 5 months of his life, and hope that the fellows that bought him will humanely end his life.

My friend Diane (who happens to work in the tech services department of our local Voc-Tech college) came over to visit on Saturday, and helped me put my new W I D E screen FLAT monitor together with my new/refurb computer. I had to get the new monitor because the new-to-me computer was not a tower style, and would not have worked with the old Gateway monitor that I had, which was AS BIG AS A HOUSE! It always seems like every time you upgrade one thing, another has to go...

I am grateful l that she was here, I'd never have been able to figure it out myself. Thank you Diane - I owe you a lunch! (at least...)

Well, that about catches you up on all the "noos" that Gracie hasn't imparted - I'm busily spinning and crocheting and now on top of the things that I'm making for the Artisan's Faire I have special orders for six pairs of fingerless gloves. Yikes!

Oh, and five more posts and I'll have 700 posts! Double Yikes!

It's Caturday!

2011-08-27T13:37:00.001-07:00

Hellow everybody! George here with the Caturday Farm Report.

I have been doing a lot of snoopervision of The Shepherd. Every day he loads everything into a big white thing with wheels (that's his work trailer, sweetie) and drives away and doesn't come back until it's almost time for Mummy to come home and feed us dinner.

I heard him tell Mummy that he has been very busy working on some pretty new yards for people. Maybe he'll say it's OK for us to show you some of them next week.

Here is that silly Gracie taking a dust bath. I give her a bath every morning before we have breakfast - I don't know why she has to go out and roll in the dirt. (Mummy here - boy, I don't know why either - they both run outside every day and flop down in the sand - I think their flea medicine might have worn off - they aren't doing it as much since I put new stuff on them last week...)

We gave Mummy a scare last Wednesday - the V.E.T. lady had been here on Tuesday evening - she gave us a "FLV vaccine" - and Mummy said it didn't agree with our systems (or something like that) because we were both under the weather all day. Mummy's eyes were leaking because she thought that we were really sick. Our tails were draggin' - but as the day went by, we got to feeling better and by Thursday morning, our tails were waggin' again.

That's about all I have to say. Mummy has been spending a lot of time on the 'puter and sitting behind that yarn making thingy and not enough time playing with us. She keeps saying "soon, kitties, soon" -- Then she goes off to play music with another lady, and leaves us and The Shepherd to our own devices...When's soon, mummy?

In Memory-

2011-08-24T22:02:00.000-07:00

Our dear friend Miss Peach went to the Rainbow Bridge yesterday.
My heart is breaking for her Mama and The Lapdaddy.
She was a quirky old girl and had so many escapades that always made me smile.
Rest in Peace, Peachy.

The 'Citing Noos -

2011-08-21T00:15:00.001-07:00

Hooray for The Shepherd (and Galloway too!) They took Best of Class at the NW Washington Fair in Lynden this week.

Our friend (and the Mrreow's V.E.T.) AnneMarie, who was demoing spinning that afternoon took this nice picture of the proud papa.

And I can toot my own horn too - I got a blue ribbon on my blue yarn (the "center" one here) - Now, when I launch my Ewenique 4 You Designs at the Artisan Faire next month, I can add the by-line "Blue Ribbon Yarns" Hooray for me too!

Tomorrow we will go down to Monroe to pick up our processed fleece from our friend Gretchen. I am anxious to see what she has come up with for us.

Happy Caturday

2011-08-20T10:54:00.000-07:00

The Shepherd's corn and pumpkin patch -

Man, let me tell you, that corn is REALLY good!

Gracie here - testing my stalking skills - oh, and that s'prize I promised you? Think Red & White rosette and pretty blue ribbons...

Here are some more pretty flowers from The Shepherd's garden - not as pretty as me, tho. Ha, Ha...

Thursday Noos

2011-08-17T23:07:00.001-07:00

Hello everybodies -

Gracie your Roving Reporter here to say "Happy Almost the Weekend when Mummy will be home all day on Saturday to play with us day".

Anne Marie, the V.E.T. came out on Toesday to stick us with more needles. She forgot part of her stuff though, so she has to come back again. Mummy tricked us and closed the door on the family room when we came in to have dinner so we would be inside when the V.E.T. came. I don't think that was very nice, do you?

I have some more 'citing noos, but I can't tell you yet - maybe this weekend...

Meanwhile, please enjoy one of The Shepherd's pretty flowers while you wait.

Your roving reporter,

Gracie

Yarn & such

2011-08-16T20:29:00.000-07:00

Here is some of the yarn that I am spinning for the Artisan Fair in September

And here is George, the floor supervisor...

My Fngerless Mitts haven't garnered much interest on Craftsy.com, but I got a real "commission" to make a pair for the lady at the laundromat's granddaughter. Woo hoo! My first real commission.

Meanwhile, my floor supervisor saw something very interesting in one of the potted plants on the deck -

What do you see there George?

Farm Report

2011-08-14T20:28:00.000-07:00

Hi - my name is Vern and I'm feeling a little cranky because The Shepherd and The Food Lady have me all tied up so I can't bash on my brother.

It always makes me nervous when they put me on this leash and tie me up - it either means I'm going to get stuck full of holes by the V.E.T. or shaved naked by somebody with loud clippers.

We know what you mean Vern - the minute that barn door bangs shut, we know we're in for something -

Well, this time it was Dr. Amber - to "stick them full of holes" - and do a "well sheep" visit. Here she's checking out Little Eva's "tum-tum" - hmm - maybe you need to lose a few pounds there Eva...

The V.E.T. came out the same day that I picked up the Mrreows, but I haven't had time to show you the pictures yet.

Don't worry girls - it will all be over soon and you'll get to go back out to the pasture.

Plus we get to look at everyone's fleece - this is Wendy. It is a soft and lustrous fleece.

Don't they just have the cutest little ears?

The Shepherd likes to have Dr. Amber come out and see the sheep when they are not in a "sick or stressful situation" so she knows how they are "supposed" to look.

OK everyone- Dr. Amber has given you a clean bill of health - you are free to go.

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday

2011-08-11T00:11:00.000-07:00

Here, let me get that for you...

What I did this weekend - -

2011-08-08T20:08:00.000-07:00

I'm back!

Still some bugs to work out and now I have to monkey around installing the new monitor that I bought yesterday. And for some reason, my computer keeps telling me I need to talk to my administrator about downloading any programs (like the Olympus photo organizer software for my camera) - What's with that!?!

So, instead of fiddling with my computer, I spent a lot of time behind my wheel. This is some wool & mohair roving I got at Black Sheep this year.

Would you like to buy this yarn? It will be for sale at the Artisan Faire at the Rome Grange in September.

I feel so honored to have been included. There are some very talented artists who will be there.

This is some of the Roving of the Month Club roving that I just got. I figure the Artisan Faire is my best chance of getting rid of this - it is not a color way that I would have ever chosen - for myself or to give as a gift!

This yarn will be for sale, unless I make it up into some fingerless gloves and a scarf for a teenager - what do you think?

looking back Sunday

2011-08-07T23:22:00.000-07:00

This is The Shepherd showing off some of his beautiful lilies from August 2007. We didn't have anything near this big this year - in fact many that were normally 4 or 5 feet tall didn't even reach 3 feet this year - We're not sure if it was the weather, or if he needs to divide them.

They are very fragrant though.

I really need to go do some stuff for my "day job" - I've been putting it off all day, and my sparkling coach turns into a pumpkin in 45 minutes. I guess I'd better get busy!

But, I hope that you had a great weekend. If you come back tomorrow, you'll see what I was up to.

Well, heck

2011-08-02T23:11:00.001-07:00

Hey peoples, Mummy said we haven't been on the interwebs lately because her computer was on the frank (no, sweetie, thats "on the fritz")

Anyhow, she ended up buying a "new-to-her" one. She said that fixing the old one would be like "pouring money down a rat hole"

Maybe she should get Georgie to check out that rat hole ...
- he's pretty good at catching things (Yes, like that baby mouse he brought in Sunday night and let go under the couch?)

Anyhows, we'll be back soon!

Your roving reporter, Gracie

Happy Sunnyday!

2011-07-23T20:08:00.000-07:00

Happy Sunnyday everyone!

Mummy is letting us go outside more and more - in fact, yesterday she left us in the house, but left the door open between the family room and the back porch (she calls it "The Air Lock")

We surprised her by being outside when she came home from work. We figured out how to get OUT the kitty door!

Today we are just lounging around and George is stretched out as l-0-n-g as he can get so he is not so hot. He wants Mummy to stop with the flashy thing, so he covered up his eyes!

The weatherman said it got up to 74 degrees today - that is warm enough for us. Although Mummy says maybe if it got up to 80 degrees for a couple of days it would toast those pesky mosquitoes -

I like to chase them, but I don't know if I'd like them toasted...

Dr. Anne Marie came this week to start our shots. We just got the distempered shot this time (that's a good one for Georgie - he is distempered a lot of the time - ha, ha, ha) She tried to draw blood to do some tests for an awful disease that a lot of kitties get, but Georgie tried to bite Mummy's thumb off - so she decided to wait until she could come back with a V-E-T tek (what ever that is) who was more used to holding squirming kitties....

Mummy says this is her artsy-fartsy picture of me - taken through the hanging screen on the back porch.

I think I take a good picture whether or not I am fartsy, don't you?

Your roving reporter,

Gracie

Spinning, spinning & more spinning

2011-07-20T23:16:00.000-07:00

Here is some more yarn that I've been working on for the Artisan Faire in September. It is potluck roving from Ferndale Fiber - I talked to Kathy at our wool sale last spring, and she said that it is most likely Targhee - it is soft and springy.

The colorway is called Granite. The pink didn't come out very well in the close-up, but you can see it in this picture really well.

I will make a pair of fingerless mitts from it and have the rest available as yarn.

This is my first attempt at three ply yarn. I don't know how it should look, so I don't know if it looks good or not. It will be for a sweater for The Shepherd

It is 80% Shetland/20% Alpaca - It is spinning up OK - it's just so boring spinning white yarn.

The Tail of two Kitties

2011-07-18T22:50:00.000-07:00

Little by little we are learning the ways of The Mrreows.

Gracie is soft and kind of like a rag doll. The black rings on her tail go all the way around.

George is growing daily. The Shepherd says it's like living with a teenaged boy - and he eats like one too -

I love the ladder pattern on his tail - the tip is black, as are the bottoms of all four paws. His fur is soft and sleek -

The Mrreows go outside!

2011-07-17T22:53:00.000-07:00

Mummy and The Shepherd let us go outside last night!

But not for long - there were big thunder-boomers happening and Mummy was afraid that we might run away like Neelix (one of the ones who came before) did one time - he didn't come back for a week! So she called and called and we finally came back in the house .

I think George was kind of annoyed, because he tried to jump on the front door.

They said that they would let us out again tomorrow. I hope it isn't raining!

Your roving reporter, Gracie

"Mummy here - The Mrreows got to go outside for a good part of this afternoon too - so much that they totally exhausted themselves exploring and chasing those darn pesky wabbits (GO George) They won't have free reign for a while, but they were good kitties and came when I called for them to come inside.

The "Camelid Sampler" skein

2011-07-16T22:22:00.001-07:00

I had my skeins of camelid sampler out today to show "Dr. Amber" - she was here to make her annual visit to the sheepies and wanted to see some of my yarn.

I took the sampler singles and plied them with a single spun of grey baby alpaca top. Oooh. It is soft!

Then I hand carded some mohair locks that had been dyed in jewel colors and "floofed" them in when I was plying.

I found a scarf pattern in Crochet Today that I think will "biggafy" into a shawl. We'll see how it turns out.

If you click on any of these pictures they will biggafy and you can see more detail in the yarn. Let me know what you think.

Camelid Class at BSG

2011-07-14T21:34:00.000-07:00

I took a class at Black Sheep that lasted All day Friday. The instructor was Paula Shull, who is a long time spinner, a llama/alpaca judge, and a long time spinning teacher.

She had decided that she would not be teaching her class on "Spinning Camelid Fibers (that is, camel, llama, alpaca, guanaco and vicuna fibers) again, so she divested herself of ALL of her camelid stash - (well, except the vicuna)

She said that normally when she taught this class each student would get between 6-12 inches of any given fiber - she was giving us, sometimes, between 6 & 12 feet - roving, top, etc, and bags of raw unprocessed fiber. Wow!

My favorite was probably the baby camel - so much so that I bought 8 ounces to spin yarn to make something for my sister who "doesn't like wool" - well, this won't be wool, and it is certainly soft and non prickly - I hope that she will like it -

I put samples of every fiber in a 3x5 zip lock bag with a sample of the spun yarn that I came up with. It was fun. I would have liked to have gotten a few more tips and pointers on spinning the different fibers than she gave, but learning about all of them and how they were used (especially the camel hair!) was really fun.

This is one of those "Ready Box" type storage boxes - It is full of "sandwich size" zip lock bags full of different fibers on the bottom half and gallon sized bags of raw fiber on the top.

During the class I "half filled" a bobbin with the different samples of fibers - I decided to finish spinning "sample singles" alternating light and dark fibers throughout.

One of the "samples" that she was so generous with was grey baby alpaca top. I decided to buy another 4 ounces, filled a bobbin with just the grey and then plied it with the sampler bobbin, adding in little tufts of combed mohair in jewel colors.

You'll have to wait to see what it looks like, but here is a close up of the sampler bobbin - the pretty brown on the left side is guanaco - Oooo, nice.

I have been spinning every night in my own little Tour de' Fleece - and crocheting fingerless mitts during my lunch hour - hopefully I'll have enough to make a good showing at the Artisan Faire in September!

Two 'fer Tuesday

2011-07-12T21:20:00.001-07:00

The Shepherd gave me this little orchid for my birthday last year - it bloomed at work then I brought it home and set it on the window sill above the kitchen sink (so we'd remember to water it!) and, what do you know, it's blooming again!

The Mrreows are doing just great - you would almost think that they had lived here forever - it's interesting to learn the differences between them.

We think that George is going to be, as The Shepherd puts it - "a Grande Unit"

His favorite place to sleep is on The Shepherd's place mat on the kitchen table - ick - so we've taken to putting a newspaper over it - he can lay on that.

Gracie will not be as big as her brother, but she is built for stealth. Right now their favorite game is "Thundering Herd of Elephants" - Sinda used to play that by herself - how can such small kitties make so much noise?

Meet the Mrreows!

2011-07-09T20:31:00.000-07:00

PTU's (*Prisoner Transport Units)

Check -

Dinner table ready and waiting

Check -

Litter boys & girls room ready

Check -

Oops, no pooper scooper (I think it got thrown away when Sinda went to the bridge) - have to correct that soon...

Thursday night we went out to Nooksack to meet George and Gracie - two tiger striped tabby cats - about 9 months old - Our BSG house sitter had connected us up with Linda, a friend of hers, who was actually an acquaintance of ours from the local fiber world. She needed to find a new home for these kitties.

George and Gracie are siblings - they had been fixed, but have not had shots, etc., so that would be on the docket - but they seemed like nice enough cats and we wouldn't have to worry about tiny baby kitties being by themselves during the day and getting into who knows what kinds of trouble. We told her that unless we called to say no, that we would take them and made arrangements to come out Saturday morning to pick them up.

Turns out that today was the Everson Nooksack Festival Parade, and she said that I should make sure that I was out of town by 10:00 because they would be shutting down the main road (only in small towns, I gotta tell ya) at 11:00 for the parade - so I told her I would be there at about 9:00 - Yikes, that's early for me on a Saturday!

So I was up early this a.m., got the PTUs in the car, directions noted, called Linda to tell her I was on my way. Yes, when I got to Everson, the flags were out - a flagpole on the sidewalk about every 10 feet - it is a couple of miles from Everson to Nooksack and the school district serves both communities from buildings half way between - that is were everyone was gathering to be in the parade - I got to our friend's home and we got George in his PTU right away, but Gracie was no where to be found - but I hung around for about a half hour and she re-appeared - never having been in a PTU before, she was, lets say, none too happy...

But they both settled down right away once I got on the road - on the trip back through town, even though it was just 10:00, everyone already had their chairs out on the sidewalks - holding the prime real estate for the best parade viewing.

We're headed home kitties -

Once inside, the investigation begins - "Where the heck are we?" and "What is this place?" was written all over their little faces.

But they soon found the dinner table and were delighted to find the "stinky goodness" (that's canned cat food for you non cat-bloggers)

I had just put a little bit out - and they scarfed that down, so I put out some more - which they didn't touch until just a little while ago - - so I'll just have to get a sense of how much they are going to eat. I have quite a few tiny cans of gourmet cat food that I had bought to tempt Miss Sinda - she would only eat about a quarter of a one of those itty bitty cans and didn't like it when it got stale - I threw away a lot of expensive cat food over that six months. (Mind you - I'm not complaining - the extra time with her is something that I've treasured.)
So I set about trying to take some pictures for you - As you can see, George moves much quicker than the shutter on my camera...

Gracie was actually quite agreeable and posed quite nicely.

They were happy to join my "on the big bed" for a nap after lunch.

Gracie (on the left) is much lighter color than her brother, and her fur is also much softer.

Here, let me get that for you Gracie...

They are very affectionate towards each other.

They spent the entire afternoon in the bedroom - on the top of the bed, not underneath - that was a good thing.

Gracie seems to be a little more cautious than George - but I think that they both will like living here.

Don't you?

And you say, What is a Mrreow? They were the feline animals that lived on the southern continent in Anne McCaffrey's (one of my favorite authors) Pern books -

You can be sure there will be more to come.

Whew, it's fernly Friday!

2011-07-07T21:59:00.001-07:00

It is amazing how a 4 day week can seem so long - so I thought I'd take you on a little walk around The Shepherd's garden and show you some of he beautiful lush ferns that dot the local landscape.

I can't believe that it is July already! (and one friend had the audacity to mention that Halloween is a mere three months away!) Is it too much of a cliche to whine about how fast time has been going?

We had a nice 4th of July - we were invited to a co-worker's family gathering - or I should say "previous" co-worker - he was retired on June 30 as his division was disbanded. I will miss him a lot, as we have worked together for over 17 years! That's nearly as long as I've been married to The Shepherd!!

We've gone to their 4th of July party for about the last 4 or 5 years. He has just the nicest family - His sisters and their families, his kids and grand kids - it is fun to watch how their grand kids have grown over the years.

Another good friend at work was let go this week too. Sad day. I will really miss working with him too.

But my job is going well (except for seemingly spinning my wheels with too many interruptions - I'd do better if I would say "No" to people instead of jumping on their request instead of writing that letter I was supposed to write or doing that one report) I was even supposed to get a new computer this week - the one I have is circa 2003 and moves along like a river of molasses in a snow storm. It almost got put in tonight, but the one main accounting program that we use was incorrectly installed, so I'll have to wait until the tech can re-do it. Maybe tomorrow...

Big news on the home front - We went out to the home of an acquaintance this evening to look at a couple of kitties that she needs to find new furever homes for. Her husband passed away suddenly in December and a friend thought that she needed these two kittens to keep her occupied.

They are about 9 months old and seem to be very well mannered - a little shy - but hey, they didn't know us from Adam. They have been fixed, so we won't have that expense, but will need all their shots and etc. But she wants to be able to travel or leave at the drop of a hat and not have to worry about them, so I think we'll be giving them a new home.

I'm looking forward to having feline companionship again - it's been 5 months since Sinda died - I haven't gone that long with out a cat since college.

We decided to wait until after the 4th of July to bring them home - it has been like living in a war zone here - someone down the road celebrated on the 1st, the 2nd, the 3rd and finally again on the 4th. I wouldn't have wanted to put those two babies through that kind of noise.

The sheep? They were kind of skittish about all the noise, but The Shepherd went out and filled the hay feeder up - they "bellied up to the bar" and suddenly it was like "Fireworks, we don't hear no stinkin' fireworks"

I hope you've enjoyed our little visit - and yes, I'll be putting pictures of the "new kids" sometime this weekend.

Oh, and their names are George and Gracie...

Black Sheep Gathering Recap

2011-07-04T11:51:00.000-07:00

We had a fine time at Black Sheep Gathering this year - We have several things that are "traditional" with us - first is to get together with our friends Kathy and Mike - Kathy used to live in Bellingham, but moved to Eugene many years ago for work - every year we try to get together with her (and now her new husband) to catch up on each others lives.

Friday night we have Chinese food inviting any other Shetland (or not) breeders who might be at the gathering to join us - this time we had dinner with our very good friend Nancy - she and two spinner friends were camping on the fairgrounds. Vicki & MaryAnn had never been to BSG before and they were having a WONDERFUL time - by Friday night, they had already bought 5 fleeces!

This is one of my favorite booths - all the little packets hanging on the right side of the picture are (washed!) dyed mohair locks - I got some from another vendor and when I started carding them last night discovered that they were quite full of chaff - -

I buy something here every year - generally wool blended with mohair - the bags on the far wall were full of loose roving - 8-9 ounces a sack - and yes, I got some in my favorite blues purples & greens

I didn't take many pictures this year - and with the light coming in from the windows above, they are a little dark.

Yes, that "light" coming in from the windows was SUNLIGHT! All three days were just beautiful, sunny and warm.

Friday I took an all day class from Paula Shull on "Spinning Camelid Fibers" - Lovely lady - turned out that she was not going to be teaching this class any more, so, she didn't need her incredibly HUGE stash of camel, llama, alpaca & guanaco - which she liberally shared with us (I'll show you what I'm doing with mine in a later post) -

I didn't buy anything from her, but this booth was just so colorful, I had to take a picture.

After taking the camelid class, I decided to get some baby camel/tussah silk to make a scarf for my sister Merrill who doesn't like wool. The baby camel is so incredibly soft, I'm hoping that she will like it.

Hope everyone is having a great 4th of July weekend - I'm off to finish a Taco Saladto take to a potluck.

We took 4th Place!

2011-06-27T23:22:00.000-07:00

This is Ian Stewart - he was this year's fleece judge for the Black Sheep Gathering.

He had to pick the top 5 Shetland fleeces out of the class of 24. Not an enviable job, by any means.

Click on any of these pictures to biggafy them and see the beautiful crimp in this fleece

This is the proud Shepherd with his fourth place fleece from our wether, Galloway. Hopefully the ribbon will help us find a nice fiber home for him, (Galloway, that is, not The Shepherd) even if we can't find a place for him with his twin brother Vern (the ram) who has produced so many beautiful babies for us.

We have entered three times in four years, and been in the top 5 twice, and in the top 10 all three times. Good job Mr. Shepherd!

And can you believe it? I think I convinced The Shepherd not to sell this fleece - I want to spin it.

Nice strong locks - and it will wash out a pretty creamy white.

I took a few more pictures of our visit to the Black Sheep Gathering - I have stories of the class I took and pictures of (I know I didn't need any more, but I just couldn't help myself) the fiber that I bought to play with. Later -

Show & Tell

2011-06-24T11:40:00.000-07:00

This is some Kathy Green combed top - probably mostly Targhee - nice fluffy stuff - I'm calling it Caramel Fudge Ripple. I bought an 8 oz. ball of it at the Spinner's Eden Fleece sale in April.

I will make a couple of pairs of fingerless mitts and have the rest of the yarn for the craft sale.

This was the April offering from my Roving of the Month Club. It looks like the sky on a summer's day.

I still have 4 ounces of it left to spin - I'll do the same with it as the brown - a couple pair of mitts and the rest in yarn.

I'm trying to decide if I want to enter anything (yarn or crocheted items) for the Fiber Arts Show at BSG - It will depend on if they will let me remove it from the show on Sunday morning because that's when we are leaving....I guess all I can do is ask -

What's in the feeder today?

2011-06-22T11:16:00.000-07:00

The Shepherd gave us some icky hay last week.

My mom was really mad and she would stand out in the front pasture and yell, and yell, and yell. Some of us yelled with her, but he didn't realize why she was yelling.

The Shepherd's Wife (that lady who doesn't come out to the barn very often) thought maybe there was something wrong with our food - she found that we were out of water and filled it up, but that still didn't shut up my mom.

But this stuff doesn't taste too bad...maybe it's a new bale?

Let's see if I can get in there a little closer...

Yes Eva, The Shepherd discovered that he had an old musty bale of hay - actually almost a bale and a half -

Your mamma is a pretty smart sheep - now if she would just stop getting up at a quarter to five in the morning...

A very long 10 minutes -

2011-06-20T23:04:00.000-07:00

The little miss in the front is Rita - she's got a thing for sticking her little schnoz through the fence (you know, the grass is always greener thing...)

Well, Saturday evening, I heard one of the lambs calling - I said to The Shepherd that it sounded like someone was in trouble - "Oh, no", he said, "it's probably Blanco - his mom is cutting him off...and the world is a pretty horrible place right now"

Turns out, later, he said - "You were right, that was Rita crying - she had her head stuck in the feeder - I had to cut her out" (4" hog panel holding the hay in - just the right size for a hungry lamb head to stick through, but not the right size for her to get it back out again)

Tonight, The Shepherd had a church meeting (in Blaine - 25 minutes away) - I'm at home, puttering and trying to get the living room to a state that doesn't look like chaos for our house/sheep sitter while we are at the Black Sheep Gathering this weekend. Suddenly, I realize that there is a lamb crying again - frantically crying - Adrenaline kicks in - I grabbed the cordless phone and ran out to the pasture - sure enough, she didn't learn the first time - now she has her head stuck through another piece of hog panel that he'd put up as a temporary fence right after the lambs were born to keep them in a smaller space and he just had it tied up against the fence in case he needed to use it there again. And on the other side (the greener side, mind you) was some very choice looking bamboo... and there was Rita with her fat little head stuck again.

Now, one might think there might need to be some genetic interference here - and we've lost a lamb from getting her head caught in a feeder a couple of years ago - it was a very sad deal - and Rita has a very pretty apricot colored fleece - Don't want to lose that - So I get on the phone to The Shepherd - luckily he has his cell phone turned on - and even more luck - he was on his way home - but he could hardly hear me "what is the matter?" he kept asking - I'm out a ways from the phone base, so he can barely hear me - "Rita stuck - head in fence" I kept yelling (like that was going to make him hear me better...) I finally determined that he was going to be home in about 10 minutes - (it was 15 but who's counting) - and he had to change out of his good clothes - (another 5 minutes-)

Luckily, Rita was still pretty interested in the grass on the side of the fence her mouth was on - go figure - but she was struggling and it was hard to keep her still -

The Shepherd found a hacksaw blade (unfortunately blade only - the saw was too big to fit in the space) and it seemed like it took him forever to cut one of the bars and free the little gal - after a quick once over, she took off for the comfort of her mommy and sister -

All's well that ends well - the old saying goes - I'm still strung out on the adrenalin from seeing her stuck in that fence and trying to hold her still, while waiting for The Shepherd to get home. That was a very long ten minutes.

These pictures were from Saturday afternoon while everyone was milling around - I managed to catch them when they were lined up so you can see the colors.

Looking Back Sunday? Nope, real time...

2011-06-19T22:34:00.000-07:00

I went back to 5 years ago on the 18th of June (when these pictures were taken) and I had almost the same pictures - so I thought I'd show you the pictures I took last week and what is in our garden this spring.

This beautiful peony was a gift from our friend Diane. We didn't have it staked very well and the blossoms were so heavy that the stalks are all lying down on the ground - but it is still one of the prettiest peonies I've ever seen.

I took LOTS of pictures of bonsai azaleas -

Mother Nature came out all "girly" in our yard this year - it seems like everything is pink or close to -

Actually I don't think I had any pansies in my 2006 pictures, but this one was so cute, I just had to show you - and remarkably, the color came through real true - and my camera is not very good at picking up the reds and blues...

This little rosa glauca was just about a foot tall when The Shepherd planted it out by our driveway - now, even with some pretty stringent pruning it is over six feet tall - the flowers are just about this size. and the blue foliage is very striking.

Last year, The Shepherd experimented with planting lupine out at the front gate - it has come up much bigger than his expectations - some of these plants will probably have to be moved - but they are so pretty - especially the pink ones.

And this picture is for my older sister - recognize this paper bark maple that The Shepherd got from you a couple of years ago? He whacked it off and put it in this little pot. If you click on the picture to biggafy it, you can see how the bark is beginning to peel - hence the name "Paper bark maple"

I hope you've enjoyed this little walk through our gardens - up next? Sheep! They are growing!

What we've been up to...

2011-06-12T19:31:00.000-07:00

I know that I have talked about our church before. It is a small, and, as The Shepherd puts it. blue collar, Unitarian-Universalist church in Blaine, WA - - Established by Icelandic fishermen in the late 1920's - in fact for many years, the service was even given in Icelandic!

Well this spring, our minister (Rev. Nan) , who has been there for 20 years (!) announced her retirement. Although only paid half time, her ministry has been much more -

Here she is with The Shepherd, who is also known as "The Minister of Music" -

They have worked very closely over the years.

For several months he has been planning a service to celebrate her ministry with our church. A couple of weeks ago, he decided to make a small "garden" on the table that holds our chalice.

Isn't it pretty? (If you click on the pictures, they will biggify - and you can see the details - so cute)

He put plants that he will re-purpose into Nan's garden at home and interspersed them with some button mums and freesia for color spots.

He used moss and little pieces (maybe 2 x 3 inch) of slate for a little path.

It made a lovely centerpiece for the front of the church.

He spoke and did some readings - we had several church members volunteer to write about how her ministry had affected them.

Nan's daughter came up from Seattle. She spoke about how her mom had influenced her life and she sang two songs, one "Wild Mountain Thyme" needed my guitar accompaniment

And our choir sang several songs

And it was not all serious business though - Remember I spoke of the church's Icelandic roots? - one member proclaimed Nan and her husband Queen & King of the Vikings - including the fancy "hats" -

One of the gifts we gave Nan was a lap quilt (that I made) - (don't ask - it was the first of quilts, it was the last of quilts)

I can really see, though, how quilters are seduced into the craft - it was kind of fun (except for the midnight work by flashlight) , and the materials - oh my, it just made me drool to walk through the aisles of fabric in that quilt store -

I used four panels of photos printed on material - just used my old ink jet printer - worked like a charm and they were very good reproductions. I was impressed.

As people came in the door of the church, we had them sign the back of the quilt as the "Guest Book" so she could see the names of everyone who was there

Here is our Board President Vikki presenting Rev. Nan with a picture of another gift - a wonderful slate garden bench - (to be delivered at a later date to her home)

Some of you also know that I also do the newsletter for our little church - Here were my thoughts from my last column as our church looks for a new minister -

"Holy cow! Loosing Rev. Nan AND Oprah at the same time? What ever will we do?

Over the past 20-25 years, both of these fine ladies have nurtured and taught us new ways to deal with the events and issues in our lives.

It will be a brave new world out there for millions worldwide (on a grand scale) and oh, 40 or 50 of us here in Whatcom County (on a much smaller scale) - but soon, it will be summer and we will be distracted by (hopefully) warm sunny days - until reality hits - the re-runs are over - wait a minute - what do you mean, there are no new episodes?

Both Nan and Oprah have encouraged us to be the best that we can be. They have encouraged us to take responsibility for our own actions and to share, lovingly, and sometimes outrageously, with others who are not as blessed as we might be."

So, we'll use those lessons to do our best - we'll be OK - and sooner or later, they'll be back.

Tree peony Tuesday

2011-06-07T23:39:00.000-07:00

The Shepherd is slowly building a collection of tree peonies -

They are pricy little suckers - $25 - 40 minimum - but well worth it - they have been fairly hardy and are putting on more "shrubbery" every year.

I particularly like this variegated one - some of the blossoms came out all red this year - I hope that isn't a sign of things to come.

I like the flash of color that they add to the garden.

And here is another of our pretty Japanese Maples for Michelle - this one in miniature!

We are enjoying the few days of sunshine that we have been given - It had been almost 9 months since we had 70 degree days!

I need to get out and take some pictures of the lambs - or the little sausages as The Shepherd calls them - they are so rolly- polly, and growing like weeds!

Busy hands are --- well, busy hands...

2011-05-31T22:52:00.001-07:00

I have been doing a LOT of crocheting lately - this baby quilt for a friend's son and daughter-in-law who just had their first baby -

It's about 3 1/2 feet wide -

And this one for a co-worker whose wife is expecting their second child. It is about 3' x 4' - both of them are double strand baby acrylic - (I finally found a use for all that baby yarn I inexplicably bought two years ago)

I wish that the color on this one had come out better on the big picture -

but you can kind of see it here - it looks like you are looking into a swimming pool - all green and blue (my favorite colors) and sparkly white. -

I have them all wrapped in tissue and stashed in some neat cloth bags that I bought on line from Oriental Trading Co. I was looking for some project bags for some of the kidlets at church that I am teaching how to crochet - these were bright rainbow colors - about the size of a small fabric shopping bag - a dozen for about $12 - one for each kidlet and a half dozen for me for gift bags - such a deal.

After I took the afghan pictures, I puttered around on the porch taking pictures of our Japanese maples. This pictures is for Michelle because I know they are her favorites.

This made me think of all the Sci-Fi movies and TV shows that are coming out this summer - no, it's not a pod people plant, just a wisteria getting really close to blooming.

You probably won't hear from me for another week or so, as I'll be working on a project for church - a craft that is really seductive - I can see why people fall in love with it...but certain people read my blog sometimes, so... mum's the word...

Looking Back Sunday

2011-05-29T21:46:00.000-07:00

This was taken last year at the end of April. This year, the lilacs have just started to bloom- they are almost a month late.

We still haven't hit 70 degrees yet. People in other parts of the world are having such horrible weather, I hate to complain, bur really - this is getting to be too much!

Luckily I have lots of indoor projects - I have finished two baby blankets - finally using up some acrylic baby yarn I purchased for unknown reasons at Joanne Fabrics a couple of years ago. They are really pretty - I'll take pictures of them tomorrow

Recent rain storms (although nothing like other parts of the country) have stripped our trees of blossoms -

I've also been busy spinning - we have been asked to take part in an arts & crafts fair in September - I suddenly realized that if it happened today, I'd have very little to offer - So I'm busy making yarn and will be using some of it to crochet fingerless gloves to offer at that same fair.

Mother Nature seems to have gone all "girly" this year - it seems like there is pink everywhere - especially our dogwood, which stands out in the garden like a beacon -

I have been rendered speechless again and again when looking at the pictures coming out of Joplin MO. The town is very much the same size as Bellingham - and the devastation there is unfathomable.

Looking back to May of 2006 - I was home from surgery at Seattle's Cancer Care Alliance. Our friend Diane brought me this bloom of a beautiful peony from her garden, We loved it so much, she was kind enough to give us a start from it. This year it has four stalks and lots of blossoms - again, it is also about a month late in blooming.

It's been a busy couple of weeks - church newsletter time and all - plus I'm working on a top secret project for our minister, who is retiring after serving our church for the past 20 years. You'll probably get to see a picture of it, but not until after next Sunday.

Hopefully I'll be able to get back to you before then - but if not, have a great week! Can you believe it is almost JUNE??? - the next thing we know, it will be the 4th of July!

From the Garden

2011-05-15T18:53:00.001-07:00

Aspergrass - that's what my sister & I used to call it - my grandma had a bed of asparagus the size of- well, the size of a single bed but maybe longer -

This is asparagus from The Shepherd's garden - and yes, those are quarters -

And, yes, it is purple...

It wasn't that it had been growing for a while - one of the bigger stalks (the one at the bottom of the picture) is only a day of growing!

But it was very tender and tasty - because I was cooking it with some (much thinner) stalks that I had bought at the grocery store, I decided to split each stalk in half - the cooked up very tender - in fact much more tender than the thinner stalks from the grocery store.

The shepherd thinks there will be one more little picking of about this much - he's got more growing in the greenhouse from seed - and some he planted last year in gallon pots. I'm thinking he'll be moving it all into the garden for coming year's production! Yum.

Looking back Sunday - Happy Blogoversary to Me!

2011-05-07T23:04:00.001-07:00

May 7, 2006 - my first blog -

May 7, 2011 - my 663rd blog -

Wow, where has the time gone??

I took this picture of this peony on 5/7/2006 - it has been so cold and rainy this year, this peony hasn't even thought about blooming yet...

Looking back, it was also the weekend of our church's plant sale. (these pictures are from that weekend - a nice sunny day)

Today was this year's plant sale - We previously had it at one of our member's home - she had a nice BIG garage for us to sit in - chilly but DRY-but, all good things must come to an end - she sold that house, so we moved our sale to our church premises in Blaine - No big garage p in fact, no outside covered area at all.

Well, this year, not so much on the sun, in fact, it was raining like a son of a gun when I got up - this morning, and all the way to Blaine, it was pouring so hard the windshield wipers were on double time.

Oh, man, I thought, I sure hope the put up a "canopy" to sit under... (I take the money)

When I got there, no canopy, but also, no rain. By the time The Shepherd got my chair out of my car, the rain had miraculously stopped - (the power of prayer??) and it did not rain the entire 4 hours of our sale - in fact, when I left the church, it was actually a little bit sunny.

We didn't do as well this year as before - we had built up a "clientele" over at Vickie's house - people who knew to look for the sale - so now we are starting over again - and, it has been so rainy and cold, I think that people just aren't thinking of gardening yet.

Oh, I suppose I shouldn't complain - my home is warm and dry - I can still (barely) afford to put gasoline in my car so I can drive the 25 miles to Blaine to get to our church, and the nearest tornado - well, we have never had a tornado in our area -

So, on this my 663rd blog, I say thank you to all my loyal readers - I know you are out there, even if you don't leave any comments. (hint, hint)

Oh, and Happy Mother's Day to all you moms out there.

Spring Green

2011-05-05T23:19:00.000-07:00

Larch

Coral Bark Maple

The first Green Bean - up and at'em

Bonsai Dwarf Astilbe

Still hoping for sun.........

Wordless Wednesday

2011-05-04T01:00:00.000-07:00

Loking Back Sunday - Happy May Day

2011-05-01T15:58:00.001-07:00

Every year on the Sunday closest to May 1st our Sunday School teacher at church organizes a May Pole "event".

Everyone wears crowns of ivy,

There is a small park adjacent to our church where one of the members puts up our May Pole that Margot has festooned with ribbon.

Although these pictures are from 2009, today's "dance" was much like this one - the sun was out (for once) and the group was in good spirits.

Everyone is given their ribbon and assigned either to "sky" or "grass" - ie - you go over first or under first - the finished pole is colorful and festive.

One year she took all the ribbon off the pole afterward and made it into a beautiful woven wall hanging.

Not much is made of "May Day" any more - When I was a little girl my sister and I would make paper baskets and fill them with flowers from my mom and grandma's gardens - for who else? My mom and grandma -

This year everyone came back to the church to share a yummy Transylvanian lunch that our minister had made to benefit our partner church in, where else, Transylvania.

On the home front, The Shepherd is still sick with the flu - I say still - he's been sick since Friday the 22nd.

I'm more than ready for him to get well.

So, Happy SUNday (which we've had might little of here in the Pacific NW - April was the coldest and wettest in HISTORY) and Happy May Day!

Mission Complete

2011-04-24T17:52:00.001-07:00

This was the scene at the Sunset Fibers booth at my spinner guild's March 2010 Spin-In.

Faced with so much yummy lushness, my eyes always glaze over and my hand immediately reaches for my check book.

"My Pretty - My pretty" - I sound like Gollum in The Lord of the Rings!

I decided that I absolutely needed to purchase enough wool to make sweaters for my bosses impending twins.

I chose a colorful rainbow mix for one.

It ended up that I didn't get as much as I should have (12 ounces instead of 16 that I really needed), so I blended some of the rainbow with a white Shetland wool single (and some of the lavender pastel with grey Shetland single - )

And a lavender pastel mix for the other -

Little did I know that they planned to name one of the girls "Violet"

If you have been following my blog for a while, you'll remember that I told you about my first BIG mistake HERE (ahh - the first round through - they were too small)

Could I have "revised" the sweaters so they would have fit? Maybe. But I wanted them to be better than that.

So, after all the frogging (rippit, rippit, rippit) I finally got them re-crocheted and finished - washed, blocked and buttons sewed on -

Can you see this adorable lavender rose button?
(click on the picture to biggify it)

Here is Annie's "coat of many colors" - on the "re-do" I was actually able to make the pattern of the colors from the sleeves match the pattern of the colors on the hood. I thought I was very clever for that...

And I found these sweet little heart shaped buttons for her coat.

And here are none other than the recipients themselves.

Probably the cutest babies I've ever seen.

And the sweaters fit! Their grandma Mel said that she thought they'd be able to wear them for a while.

Spring and summer in the Pacific NW is often chilly, so I'm hoping that they will get a lot of use out of them before they outgrow them. The hazards of making a sweater for a baby...

But it was a fun project and I actually enjoyed myself.

Thank you to Mommy Rachel for the lovely pictures of the girls.

The end...

Happy Easter - Looking Back Sunday

2011-04-24T08:00:00.000-07:00

This is a combined post to wish you all a very Happy Easter and to look back a few years ago when it was a much warmer and nicer spring!

Our choir is singing for church this morning - some special cheery spring songs. We've been singing a lot this month, and had our annual "Choir Service" on the 3rd. We've been doing some new and challenging songs this year.

Won't you come hunting for Easter eggs with me?

I think Mother Nature gives us daffodils so we'll know that she hasn't forgotten about us.

Even though we've had the coldest and wettest April on record, there are still bright yellow dafs and big clouds of pink flowering cherries and plums everywhere.

The Shepherd & I are having a nice spiral cut Easter Ham for our Easter dinner. It's my favorite!

I think I'll surprise him and make a pumpkin pie for dessert since it's been too cold for the rhubarb to get much size yet.

I hope you and your family have a great day and find all kinds of fun things in your Easter Baskets.

New Socks

2011-04-23T10:05:00.000-07:00

Some gifts really come from the heart. My friend Yvonne (and the host of the Farm Sale that we were involved in last weekend) made me a pair of wool socks!

Wow - they are really cool. (or, as the case may be, really warm)

OK, I know my leg looks kind of like a tree trunk, but things are what they are.

Anyhow, I've never had a pair of handmade socks. I do know she's been working on them since my birthday (in January) What a neat present!

Thank you Yvonne!

Wonderful Woolies Fleece & Fiber Sale

2011-04-21T21:20:00.000-07:00

Last weekend our friends Yvonne & Doug of Spinner's Eden Farm had a fleece & fiber sale at their farm here in the county.

We had about ten farms participating providing everything from CVM, mohair, Shetland (ours and our friend Nancy's), Alpaca, Llama, Corriedale, and a huge luscious colorful mountain of combed top and potluck roving from Kathy Green's Ferndale Fiber (that's Kathy on the left).

We had many discerning customers who were willing to brave the windy COLD (in the low 40's) day to come out, feed their fleece habit and get bargains right off the farm.

A happy customer with two bumps of Ferndale Fiber and a beautiful big bump of Yvonne's CVM.

And YES, did I mention it was cold?

Here I am in my "little nest" - I had two shirts, a fleece vest, a winter coat (fleece lined and a wind breaker outer skin) - I was sitting on a fleece blanket that had been doubled up AND I had a down coverlet over my lap. Oh, and my new cowl/hood that I made from a blend of merino, alpaca and mohair.

I forgot to bring my fingerless mittens home from work, so I tried to wear my gloves, but I was cashiering and it was difficult to write with gloves on - I was also working on a crochet project in the down time (which there wasn't much of, it was really pretty busy!) and that really didn't work with gloves on.

OK, I know that I don't need any more fiber, but I just couldn't help getting these three bumps of Kathy's combed top. The colors will work really well for a crochet project I'm working on for a arts & crafts sale I've been invited to be in this fall.

Tables and tables of fiber - I'm sorry that I only took pictures of what I could see from the cashier table - It was a really fun day.

We got to know some very nice new "fiber farmers" and my ulterior motive for being cashier was that I got to meet and greet every single person who came to the sale. Many were folks on my spinner guild email newsletter list who don't come to meetings so I got to meet all those people too.

Yup, it was a really fun day!

Can you guess?

2011-04-21T00:01:00.000-07:00

What is it?

Wordless Wednesday

2011-04-20T00:04:00.000-07:00