Yes, LOOT!

 (Thanks Michelle for reminding me that I hadn't put a title on this post!!) 

Well, as you surmised from the last post, last week was the Black Sheep Gathering down in Eugene.  Our annual vacation.

Some changes this year - all the vendors were in the concert pavilion - Air conditioned comfort
and lots of room - but more on that soon -








The thing is, to get to Eugene, first you have to go through Seattle, Tacoma, Olympia, Chehalis/Centralia - and then there is Portland.

 

 The land of bridges & tail lights -

Portland is called "The Rose City" and they have bush roses planted all along the freeways there.








It is so dry this year, they look kind of stressed already and all the brown grass in the medians - somebody throws out a cigarette and everything is going to burn to the ground!

But we MADE IT through Portland, with only a few delays - Generally Thursday early afternoons are not too bad (and actually coming home on Sunday morning we breezed right through!) 

 The Lane County Fairgrounds is comprised of this big pavilion, then barns that the animals are in - because they had moved the MarketPlace into the pavilion, they also included alpacas this year. 









 As you can see, lots of wide aisles
and lots and lots of vendors!

 With room left over for three spinning circles!  (no, my wheel stays home - I bring my crochet projects on the road)

 This was one of my favorite booths - she has such pretty colors! 

 How could you pass this up?????

















 So, while The Shepherd shopped for sheep,



I shopped for spinning goods

One lady said she figured that her stash had now exceeded her life expectancy.....  


















Gracie says: "I think mom has EASILY exceeded that mark - she brought home TWO BIG BAGS of spinning stuff!"

 

Sigh

Beautiful tulips in The Shepherd's garden

Sigh –

I’m sitting at the kitchen counter, eating a bowl of tomato soup with tuna fish on crackers (is that the oldest lunch in the book, or what?).

Sitting at the kitchen counter because it is the only open counter space in the house (have I ever mentioned that my housekeeping methods leave a little to be desired?) and sighing because it is my last day of "my" spring vacation.

Lambs first day outside!

My Staycation – as they are called – little bits of time carved out so you can just stay home and nourish your soul - - - man, I had a lot of things planned – but with lambs, general exhaustion, gosh, they just didn’t get done.

So,  I’m trying to decide if I should go finish cleaning the living room or make these yummy looking cookies I found on the Land ‘O Lakes web site - maybe if I get off the computer and get busy, I could do both…


But first, a few pictures from around the farm -




Everything in The Shepherd's greenhouse is reaching for the sky.  This stuff is only a week or so old - spring is so marvelous...










And here is some of the pretty stuff I bought on Saturday at the Wonderful Woollies Farm Sale that we participated in.  "Oh," you say, "the object of being in that sale was to sell, not to buy..."

Huh - coulda fooled me...

I did sell five skeins of yarn (one of which was priced at $69!  Yay me. 

And this is the view from the barn.  In the chair where I spend a bit of time waiting this week.

Waiting for lambs to be born....

Waiting for The Shepherd to get home and check on the lambs that were being born...

But generally enjoying one of my favorite views in our garden -

Maybe I can get Gracie to tell you about the Wool Sale in her Caturday report.

No doubt she'll be bummed out because her Mummy had to go back to The Salt Mine tomorrow - but not as bummed as her Mummy is. 

See ya Saturday. 




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The "fruit's of his labors - - -

Most of the time you think of "harvest" on the farm as being in the fall.  Not so with sheep - your harvest is the fleece, that comes in the spring with the shearing.  The "crop" you have worked on all year - keeping good nutrition, TRYING to keep them clean, etc.

Elliott's fleece is fluffy and soft, and comparatively clean, in regards to what he's been up to lately -










 As you can see, he's taken a little dislike to the "ramada" on his little barn.  None of the other rams we have ever had have bothered it - they seemed to realize it kept the rain and the heat of the day off  of them - but this little  stinker banged on the 4" support post until he broke it, then proceeded to run and jump up at the roof - further deteriorating the particle board that was under the shingles - covering his fleece with it.  Luckily, while The Shepherd was waiting for the shearer to arrive  a few weeks ago, he had some one on one time with Elliott and was able to pick a lot of that crap out of his fleece prior to shearing. 





This is a sample of Vanessa's fleece - it will  wash up a real pretty honey color, I'm sure.

Another sample of Elliott on the left, with Donna on the right - Donna's fleece has really lightened up this year.  It has nice crimp to it though.











This is the sample that really made me swoon - which I was already doing from the lovely smell of the fresh fleece and the grease from the lanolin on my hands - This is Sandy's fleece - look at those crimpy locks.

The ends are kind of sticky with the dirt/lanolin "gunk" that gets out at the tips of her fleece and The Shepherd was going to take a pair of scissors to it and cut off those ends.

"Wait a minute!" I said - "let me try washing out a bit of it!"

Here is part of her fleece after a little soak in a "hot tub" of hot hot water and wool wash.

Oh, yeah -baby - look at that - and you should feel it.  I think any spinner would love to get his or her hands on this fleece, don't you? 

Here's a close up of the washed locks -

Very nice. 

And of course, an obligatory Kitteh picture of George, that I managed to nab while he was out tearing up the nursery the other day. 

Speaking of Cats - A "sweet 16" side note - The Shepherd was beside himself this evening - do you root for your "home team" - in this case the Arizona Wildcats - from his home town of Tucson, or for the "home team" - the Gonzaga Zags - the local team from Spokane.  I think he ended up rooting for his Wildercats - they won pretty handily.   Go Wildcats! 

What's on my Wheel?

In my favorite colors, of course...

What's on yours? 

Hey, it's Caturday!

 Hey, effurrybody and effurrykitty! 

It's me, Gracie, and It's Caturday!

And Mummy has been wandering around singing a song about Mem-Rees and corners in her mind (I thought you could only have corners if the thing was square) - that Mummy is W I E R D, don't cha think???

Actually, this flower isn't a Mem-ree - it's another "Yellow thing" to show you from The Shepherd's garden - I heard Mummy say it's called a "Pee-o-nee Too-lip" 









And there's lotsa them bloomin out under the tree. 

She also says she's been dreaming of sugerplums, what ever those are...

I thought these were balls of sheep furs...funny colored sheep, tho I might say...

What do you think?  Red sheeps?  

Getting back to the farm, the rhubarb (the three plants in the front here) is growing.  Mummy thinks there might be enough to make The Shepherd a pie for their anniversary on Tuesday.

They will have been married for 19 years!  That's a lot of time.  

More Mem-Rees here - only mem-rees of baby sheeps this year.  

More sugarplums - as you can see Mummy went crazy at the wool sale last week.  She has it all put away in her wool room so's we can't play with it, darn.  

The girl sheeps will go out into this front pasture tomorrow, sans the rug rats, as I said, no baby sheeps this year.

The neighbors are all disappointed.  They like to come watch them play.  

The weather next week is supposed to have blue skies like this - and this cherry tree should be in full bloom then too -  It will be nice to have some good big sun puddles to sleep in.

So no dreams of sugerplums here, I like dreamin of joocy mise & frogs -

It's me, Gracie, signing off, til next time.  


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New "stash" from Black Sheep -

 I'm finally getting around to showing you all the goodies that I brought back from this years Black Sheep Gathering.

I went shopping with the intent of buying fiber to spin for the 2012 Squalicum Valley Artisans Faire in September.  I'm hoping to have at least a dozen skeins of yarn for sale and hopefully some crocheted items too.

BSG is such a feast for the senses!  You can find yarn, fiber, and what ever else in just about every color of the rainbow. 

This picture, taken a couple of years ago, illustrates the magnitude of the decisions that you have to make - what to buy, what to buy? 

I knew for sure that I wanted to go to Crown Mountain Farm  booth to get some grey baby alpaca and baby camel roving to match what I got last year so I'd have enough to finish my project.  But look what I found - mullberry silk sliver, in a 2 ounce package, dyed in the most beautimus colors! (honestly, I could have gotten one of each color, and there were 13 or 14 shades!)








And they had some Blue Faced Leicester dyed in the same color way!  How could I not get this big bundle of deliciousness? ? ?  

And then there was this blue green "lake colors" that are my very favorite colors in the whole world (get the feeling that this one might not make it to the sales table???)

Write it up, Mr. Crown Mountain - I gotta get out of your booth before I spend any more money! 

Then down the way at Carolina Homespun (where their motto seems to be "Spin for Peace and Equality") I found this pretty Mountain Colors BFL .  It JUST MATCHED the silk, don't you think - good fiber karma, I thought...

I also bought a couple of new crochet hooks - you can never have too many crochet hooks, you know.

Other things I got was this 1# bump of blue variegated potluck roving - It is probably corriedale or another fine, soft wool.  I have a couple of projects in mind for it.  







Another place that is a favorite to shop is Dawn's Custom Carding -

This Romney roving will spin up like a dream. 

She always has something to feed my mohair locks addiction...

More Romney in some nice fallish colors - it will be a pretty variegated yarn, that,  hopefully will sell well. 

And of course, I needed a new bar of Fogwash Soap.  Couldn't leave BSG with out that~

Let me know what you think of all my new treasures, OK?