Knitting Onward: Elizabeth Zimmerman, Meg Swansen, and Franklin Habit

I picked up "Knits," Interweave's Knitting magazine, from Knitochet last week because I'd let my subscription lapse. I was so happy to read the article on Elizabeth Zimmerman, Meg Swanson and Schoolhouse Press, Ltd. written by Franklin Habit. I was so delighted to read about people who have done what I've been doing for years. I only bought my first Zimmerman book, "Knitting Around," about 4 years ago. I grew up in Wisconsin and never realized what a fabulous knitter we had within the state. And like usual for me, I missed her at a time it would have been so easy for me to have met her. I lived about 150 miles from her, close to Lake Michigan, but north. I moved out West when I was 22, to Wenatchee, WA for a year. Then to Seattle, where I dabbled in assorted fiber arts and started my own custom-made sweater business. I made sweaters from my own imagination and from others' imaginations, from 1974 to 1987-ish. I stopped knitting for others and sold my sweater business to another knitter when I divorced my first husband, but soon found that some of my former customers came back to me. I was divorced by 1986 and worked for Providence Hospital for a little more than a year, then to the University of WA in Seattle for 10+ years. Being a single mom was not easy and I really envied people who had the local support of loving families to support them...the few I trusted in my family, my paternal Grandmother and sister, Tracy, were still in WI and the rest, I had disbanded from when I moved out West. The relationship with my Mother changed over the last few years and when she died last October at least one fence was mended to a certain extent. The past was just that, the past, and those things do not change, but we have the chance to try to make amends now, which my mother did try to do. I was one of the lucky ones--my mother apologized to me for what she'd done way back when. It changed a lot of my feelings towards her, so she she died, I mourned not having enough time with her--the mother I got to know after she apologized.

I have been knitting on and off for years, starting when I was 6 yo. I've also been crocheting on and off since I was 8. When I remarried after 12 years of being a single mom to Alexandria, we lived for 6 years total in both Southern and Northern California after we got married--my husband and his family settled there after his father retired from the Air Force. When we moved north again, we bought a small 2.3-acre farm in Walla Walla, WA, and several handfuls of a flock of Icelandic sheep, two Finnsheep, and two alpacas. We also had Miss Lacey, a tortoiseshell Persian cat and have Bud, a dwarf Great Pyrenees, who are deceased adn 3 yo respectively. At this moment in time, I am selling out of all but 3-4 Icelandic sheep and 4 alpacas because I need more time for knitting, spinning, felting, selling at the Walla Walla farmers' market, designing new items and patterns, and teaching knitting, spinning, and toysmaking classes at the local knitting/fiber store called Knitochet (http://www.knitochet.com/ and NOTE: if you get a chance to visit the owner, Michelle Keith, at Knitochet, you will be delighted by her assortment of yarn as well as her friendly demeanor, she'd be so happy to see you and to visit with you as well as give knitting advice if you need to confer on colors or designs).

Life takes many turns and all we can do is adapt and change with them. I got tired of being confined to just the store bought yarn and so in preparation for when I would have fiber animals, I learned to spin at Rumplestiltskin's (http://www.rumpleknits.com) in Sacramento, CA. So, when we finally moved to Walla Walla, I was ready for my fiber animals. I decided on sheep and alpacas, which turned out to be a wonderful direction for me to go seeing I'm allergic to rabbits. I can spin the kind of yarns I want to be able to use for knitting and crocheting. I'm planning to learn to weave when I get more time, but it may be a while. I already have my table loom, so it's a matter of finding a good teacher and I know some wonderful weavers here in Walla Walla. So, weaving will be something I'll be able to do soon enough.

For the present, I'll sell my items and yarn at the Farmers' Market, some of my yarn from Knitochet, and also from my farm. In the winter, when the market is over in October, I sell from my foyer "store" in my home, until the Market opens again in May. As I've mentioned before, I have Icelandic wool, Icelandic/Finn wool, Alpaca, Alpaca/wool blends, and various other fiber I've bought locally and spun into yarn. Alpaca always seems to be the first I sell out of in terms of yarn, but I have silver grey, rose grey, cinnamon, black Huacaya as well as white Huacaya and Suri. I process all the fleeces myself, then hand spin them, so it takes me a lot of time to get them finished. I finish one fleece at a time and if I dye any of them, it takes a bit longer. I have Romney (I sold my Romney ram last year), Finn, 3 shades of Icelandic, white Finn, Green Merino/nylon blend (sold my nylons last year--lol-- they were just too wild, but I will probably buy it from Paradise Fibers -- http://www.paradisefibers.net/ -- in Spokane, WA).

When I look back on my almost 54 years of doing fiber arts (I learned to embroider when I was 4 to create a bib for my forthcoming baby sister), I am amazed by what I've learned and am still learning. I picked up a DVD on Portuguese Knitting which I've been watching and putting into practice. I hope that once I've learned it, it will increase the speed of knitting I do now. I enjoy being able to design and knit/crochet patterns, but it all takes time. I figure if I can increase my speed, it will help me do even more. I haven't had any problems with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, and hopefully will not have, so I will be able to knit and crochet the rest of my life. I do gentle stretching of my hands, wrists, and arms for range of motion (ROM), so that will help me be able to continue doing fiber arts. I enjoy working on a knitting machine, and on knitting looms, I've tried many other types of needle work: double pointed crochet hooks, dpns, circular needles, needlepoint, cross stitch, crewel emboidery, beading, punch felting, regular felting, fulling, etc.--but other than pot holders looms or trivets looms, I haven't used any larger looms for my crafts, but I am waiting to begin weaving as well. If I don't caretake so many animals, I will most likely find the time... It is my belief that we will not grow old if we continue to learn at least one new thing every single day...and I intend to make sure I don't grow old. ;^D I also believe that we will always go back to the things we love doing, even if we don't always stick with it all the time. ALL fiber artists, which is what we all are when we knit, crochet, or work with textiles or fibers, will always have at least 3-10 projects going at any one time. We finish 1-3, but start at least that many more. I think if we finally do finish all our WIPs (works in progress), it is time for us to move on to another life...so we will all live forever in our projects--forever remembers, just like Elizabeth Zimmerman...."Knitting Onward."

I enjoyed the article by Mr. Habit in Interweave Knits magazine, and hope to read his book called "It Itches" which will be put out by the same magazine.

Take care,
Jet

The Newest Lambs

We finally have lambs now. We had 5 born, but one died when the ewe stepped on her and broke her neck (and it would be the one that I wanted to keep–wouldn’t you know). FYI, Finn & Icelandic sheep are in gestation from 145-155 days and I’m not sure if that is the same as other sheep or not. I now have a Cotswold ewe in the flock, so I have to figure out if she’s even pregnant this year.

Rocky, my registered Icelandic ram, was a little off this year and I still have 3 ewes left to lamb, and one is that Cotswold ewe, MJ, is the registered Icelandic ewe, Sandy, and the last is the Romney/Icelandic/Finn cross, Little Bits aks Bitsy. Bitsy was the product of a mistake when the Romney ram I was selling got in with the ewes, hence the 3-way cross. She is cute and her fiber is really nice so I thought I’d keep her for the novelty factor. Her lambs will be 50% Icelandic, 25% Finn and 25% Icelandic, so should have even nicer fiber.

I’m selling Rocky this year and buying a new Icelandic ram who’s a dark grey mouflon. I want more color in my flock rather than white. Rocky throws a lot of white lambs, so this is how I discovered how to get more color.

Having sheep is amazing! This year they’re lambing later than the last 3 years, but that’s fine. We had a set of twins our of Sophie a 50/50 Finn/Icelandic cross: Sam the ram, and Boyd: Sam is white with very light silvery gray spots on the left hip and left shoulder, and Boyd is black with a grey or white undercoat. Then we had a set of triplets out of Madge, our 100% Finn ewe: Stockings, a little black and white ewe lamb; Bobert, a white ram lamb; and the last, Sylvie, a white ewe lamb. Now we have Sandy, Blesa, and Bitsy left to lamb. I’m not sure MJ got pregnant this year, she’s our Cotswold ewe.

I mainly raise Icelandic sheep, but I like a little variety and I’m looking for a cross that has the ultimate fiber to spin. So far, the Finn/Icelandic crosses seem to be quite nice…easy to spin, lots of crimp, very soft, and it felts like a dream. So the other types of sheep I have are Finn (Madge), Cotswold (MJ), a Romney/Finn/Icelandic cross (Bitsy), and a Shetland/Lincoln cross (BW).

We also have our Icelandic ram, Rocky (after Rocky and Bullwinkle—we sold the lamb named Bullwinkle last year to a nice family along with 2 ewe lambs), and Whitey, an Icelandic wether. Whitey will be our meat sheep for this next year. The nice thing about Icelandic sheep, is that you can butcher from 9 months to 5 years and it still tastes like lamb, it’s that mild. You can tell it’s not beef or pork or veal, but it doesn’t have that strong taste. I believe it’s because the Icelandic breed doesn’t have as much lanolin in it’s fiber and less fat in their meat, where as the stronger, more muttony tasting lambs have a lot more lanolin in their fiber so more fat in their meat. I’ve talked with other shepherds about this and they agree, so I think this is true across the board, but I’ll have to talk with a few more sheep people to see what they say about it, so at this time, it’s my opinion.

My chickens are laying again, about 4-6 eggs a day, so I’ll have enough to sell again this year. I have 2 roosters and 8 hens after the feral cat killed 7 hens, so we got a live trap and trapped the cat, and took him to jail (actually the animal shelter) so they could either get him adopted or whatever (and I think it was the whatever). He was really feral and had been adopted and abandoned at least twice since we’ve been here (not by us but our neighbors that adopted it, abandoned it, then adopted it again, then moved away and left him). That made me really upset and I called the animal shelter about it, but they said just to bring him in—I think the people who adopted him, then abandoned him should have taken responsibility of taking him to the pound, but because they’d already moved, the shelter didn’t do anything to them. So, I don’t think he was save-able as much as I wanted to save him, but I tried to 4 months to try to get him to be more friendly, and I never got past the snarls and his urinating because he was scared and then he’d run. I felt so bad for him, but I didn’t want to lose any more chickens.

At any rate, once he was at the pound, I bought 25 more chickens, this time Aracaunas and all pullets at that. I ordered 25 straight run Americaunas (the Easter Egg chickens), so I won’t be doing business with them next year if I need more chicks. So, if I want chicken soup or dinner, I’ll have to butcher my hens instead of the spare roosters. I had 13 roosters in my freezer and ate them, and I have one left. We had chicken once every two weeks from last summer until now, so it worked out well and though they were a little tough, the soup helped that a lot also.

I also have to shear my alpacas so they have bright and shiny new haircuts for summer before it gets too hot for them, not to mention I have to trim their hooves as well. In the Autumn, they’ll have all their shots for the year. I worm them about once a month with a naturopathic wormer using cob (molasses mixed with grains), chopped garlic, finely chopped onion, nutritional yeast (aka brewers yeast), and DE (diatomaceous earth) in appropriate amounts. I stopped using store bought wormer because I’m not sure what it does to the meat as well as the fiber. It seems that the natural wormer keeps the fiber softer, and when I used the chemical wormer, the fiber was more coarse—not what I want in my fiber. I’ll have a great fiber crop this fall though, and it wasn’t too bad this spring either, but I’m not sure if I’ll use the shearer that I used this time for next year. The sheep all look ragged, but that’s the way it goes.

Our cherry and apple trees are blooming. I love the light pink blossoms that shower down the sweet smelling petals when the winds blow. It was lovely yesterday. We planted 3 spreading yews in the front area where we took out the blue rug juniper. Lance and I are both allergic to juniper so we’re going to get rid of all of it, unless we move to our new property, but not for a while. We also planted 4 yucca, 2 rhubarb, 6 daylilies, and some other bulb flowers as well as a dianthus (different are than the others). I like having some color out front instead of having it all green. I like the idea of the rhubarb also because once the leaves come out it, almost looks tropical, Kind of like small sized Gunthera or Giant Elephant ears.

I’m planting my garden as well…mangels for the animals in winter (it’s a type of beet they use for farm animals—trace minerals, iron, B-vitamins for stress and cold), both spicy and mild mesclun, herbs, lettuce, and I bought 3 tomato plants: a cherry, an early girl, and fantastica…I wanted more heirlooms, but this year they didn’t have any, much to my dismay.

The only dismay I do have is that there is something killing my adult chickens so my egg production has dwindled along with the flock. However, I bought 25 Auracana chicks in March and they’re about half grown now, so when they get about 4-5 months old, the egg production will go back up. I have 10 customers patiently waiting for eggs and now they’ll have to wait longer. Oh well, they’re still less expensive than store bought farm fresh eggs and really are farm fresh. We have a live trap out there now with cat food in it to catch the raccoon or feral cat. We’ve already caught two feral cats who’ve killed the chickens and taken them to the pound, but there is something else out there killing them (we’re down to 4 now out of 13). I really wish that people would not let their cats run wild. The second one we caught was half-tame and was part Siamese or Himalayan, but Lance said no more cats than Norphan, so to the pound she went, but I think she’s salvageable, not like the first one we caught. People move away and leave them behind or they just dump them on the highway, so between feral cats and feral dogs, it’s a huge problem in the country. Really ticks me off that people put off their problems and don’t take responsibility for their animals.

Also, I’m now selling again at the Farmer’s market, this is the 4th year now, and sold over some yarn and a few other items, but it always takes time to get people to see me. I had a nice 2′ x 6′ banner made with the picture on my business cards as well as the same information on the front of them. I’m also doing flyers this year so that I can give them to people as they pass buy. It really has helped a lot in the marketing and it’s harder to get rid of flyers. One woman bought some yarn for a friend who lives in another state and will send my business card along with the yarn so she can call me to order more if she wants. It was a good connection, to say the least. I also sold some yarn to the local yarn shop. I hope it’s selling so that I’m able to keep supplying her with yarn. It would be terrific.

That’s about it on the home front for now, except my tomatoes are in, the mangels are planted as well as the mesclun (spicy and mild) for salads. I’m feeling happy right about things–life, love, marriage, business–and can only hope it goes as well in the near and distant future…and I hope they go well for all of you, too.

I’ve got groceries to get, so I’ll write more later! TTFN!

My First Ewe, Sophie, had two ram lambs on 3/28

Well, Sophie lambed first and gave me two ram lambs: Sam (who I'm bottle feeding due to some intervention from Bud when he wanted to play with the newest lamb) is a white and gray lamb, and Boyd, who is a black lamb. Both are 75% Icelandic and 1/4 Finn and are lovely little boys. They were born in the morning of March 28, so are only 2.5 days old and are as cute as bugs in rugs. I love lambs, and I should make a few pins saying this, don't you think?

Anyway, I also have my 25 pullets aka hen chicks and though I would like it if they started laying very soon, it will be 4-5 months or more before they start. However, my 8 hens started laying as soon as the sun was out more and the days grew longer. I'm getting about 5-8 eggs a day depending on when they're laying. So, I already have 4 dozen eggs and have sold 3 dozen. $2.25 for a dozen and $2.75 for 18, if you bring your own cartons. Otherwise add 50-cents to the cost of the dozen and they're still cheaper than the eggs at the store at
$2.78 and $3.78 depending on whether they're brown eggs or organic. The brown eggs may or not be organic, but the ones with the organic identifier are definitely much more costly. Mine are farm fresh and chemical free (we're been chemical free since we moved here & cannot get the organic identifier for 7 more years if we stay where we are).

All I know is how good the eggs taste and how bright orange the yolks are meaning they have a lot more betacarotenes in them (so lots of A, D, & E). So, I'm a happy camper.

In the last rain we had, we lost all our peach and apricot blossoms, so though they're bare of blossoms, they still look dark pink. The apple and the cherry trees are getting ready to blossom though. All the daffs are in bloom, and not the irises or the roses, but they're coming along as well. Everything else is leafing out so the leaf buds have broken open and I should be getting more of my plants in the mail any day (more everbearing raspberries, hardy kiwi, and other things I ordered but didn't survive). I can hardly wait.

I have some bulbs and more rhubarb to plant also that I picked up or have to transplant. I have two rhubarb plants already showing with lots of leaves and stalks. I'm so hungry for rhubarb and strawberry pie I can almost taste it. The strawberries should be coming in June and then I'll have a steady supply until frost, so I'll have pies all summer. Yes!

I didn't get to go to the High Desert Fiber Festival this year because of feeding Sam. In the first week, I have to feed him every two hours the first day, every 3 hours the second day, every 4 the third, then 3 times a day thereafter, until it's time to start weaning them after two months...then it's 3 bottles a day, then in another month, one bottle a day, so by 4 months, they're weaned, (though they still come for bottles--they don't get them). Besides, they start eating hay solids and grass solids starting after the first week, but don't eat it totally until 3-4 months. Sheep and lambs are amazing. Anyway, I was disappointed I couldn't go to the High Desert thingy, but there's always next year.

So, that's all that happening right now, so I'll keep you updated. I should be having between twins to triplets from Blesa and Madge, Sandy will probably have one or two, and Little Bits (or Bitsy) will probably have one. I just hope I have more ewe lambs or I'll have to butcher a few of the ram lambs (who'll probably wind up being wethers or castrated rams). We'll see how it goes.

It was a beautiful day yesterday!

It was such a beautiful day yesterday in Walla Walla, I couldn't believe it. Sunny, warm enough I had to take my coat off to work, with a lovely light breeze starting to stir the branches on the fruit and nut trees. Absolutely lovely! I didn't realize how much the gloomy late winter, early spring gray was affecting me until then--who would have thought I'd have a minor case of SAD (Seasonal Affectiveness Disorder). I believe there are tons of people who are affected by SAD, but don't even realize it. I grew up in WI, and I used to get "cabin fever" from time to time, but they didn't call it SAD. Now I know better. :?

No lambs yet, but it is getting closer by the day. I do believe my sheep, Blesa, will be the first to lamb. Her udders are as large as after she had her lambs last year...only problem with that is that the teats nipples are too large to fit inside her lambs' mouths and they hang almost to the ground. I had to milk her last year to get the colostrum out for the poor little lambs...and it looks like she'll have twins or triplets this year, so another year of bottle fed lambs. But I do love the bottle fed lambs dispositions anyway...they come when I enter the pasture knowing I have breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the few few weeks, then later in the coming months, it drops off to two bottles a day, then one bottle a day, then weaning. I follow exactly what the mothering ewes do so that the lambs don't get a short shrift of milk and grow properly.

Lance told me last night that he'd finish up my stanchion today so that I'd be able to milk Blesa properly for the lambs' milk because her poor udders get so sore that she really needs to get the milk out, not to mention that if I don't get the milk out, she could get mastitis (udder infection).

In addition, with the stanchion, I can milk, trim hooves, give the sheep their 8-way, vitamin, & BoSe shots, and in the future, possibly shear. Oooh...I feel like I am getting a birthday present early (Feb. 19 is my birthday).

Lance took me out to dinner at the Homestead Restaurant in Walla Walla for Valentine's Day, which also happens to be our anniversary (our 10th, no less)! We had a really nice time, but I wish we could have sat next to each other rather than across from each other. The pricey dinner included hors d'oeurves, dinner, dessert, a polaroil pic, a rose, and great service (we had to pay for wine, coffee, and anything extra). We ordered batter fried mushrooms and bruchetta, very rare filet mignon with garlic potatoes & veggies, & raspberry cheesecake for dessert....lovely and delicious, except for the mushrooms which had the batter being a little under done (the batter around the large mushrooms was still wet instead of fried) so I sent them back. Oh well, we all know nothing is perfect, not even 10 years of marriage, but we try to keep things going for each other with lots of "I Love You's" and hugs and kisses each day. Seems to work out fine considering what we both had with our first marriages. Guess those first marriages were our practice marriages to get ready for our marriage. ;)

So, yesterday... It was almost 70 degrees. Lance and I both worked on the trees that had been cut down (we lost 2 willows to 50+ mph winds in the fall and winter, then had an arborist take the rest of them down this spring). Cutting up the large pieces and putting the small branches and such into the burn pile (we haven't burned anything yet as we need a County burn permit). We've cleaned up most of the property since we moved here, so that we have gotten some additional land which I threw grass seed on so the sheep will have a bit more pasture where the original burn pile was. When I dug and hauled everything out of the corner, I noticed that one of the previous owners had actually tried to burn wood/garbage in that corner and several of the fence posts had chars on them as well as two posts almost burned entirely through. We also had a branch on the apple tree that we had to take off and when we did, we noticed a lot of dry rot and perhaps termite damage in the center of the branch. Of course, we were already aware that one of the previous owners didn't know how to prune trees either, so that left the cut branches parallel to the ground leaving a place for water/rain to get between the bark and the inner tree to be compromised. Oh well, we'll have to replace most of the trees anyway (we've already taken down 10 of the 14 apple trees, the two willows, probably 2 of the peach/apricot trees, and maybe one of the walnuts... What a waste. Oh well, we'll put in trees that are more appropriate (a couple of elms, arborvitae around the front pasture to replace the ones that are dying for bad pruning, put in a couple more apricot/peach trees to replace the ones that are almost dead--basically starting from scratch. It really upset me to see how poorly those trees on the property had been taken care of and I knew that this would happen, but I didn't think we'd still be here to deal with them... But isn't this what life is all about. I do have 2 tulip trees coming though for the lawn area, so we'll see how fast they grow; and we've got volunteer elms coming from Dale's Dad's farm (Dale is Lance's partner in Zydax). But I'll still have to buy the peach and/or apricot trees and maybe get a few bush cherries and sand cherries to provide a nice privacy screen near the front pasture, but I don't want them to grow so tall that I can't see my sheep and alpacas when I'm looking out the front window.

So, today, I'm a little sore, but I'll go out and work a bit more in the pastures scooping alpaca pucky and sheep sh*t to put into the back pasture's compost heap. You'd never believe just how much accumulates during the winter when I can't get out to shovel it each day, but the lovely compost I have for my gardens is wonderful. I can hardly wait to see how my garden grows... Mary, Mary, Quite contrary. How does your garden grow? And all of that nursery rhyme.

Today, the wind is a bit stronger and I see clouds encroaching in the SW, so I'd best get my behind out there to finsh what I can before the clouds get out here and I lose the day.

TTFN!

A bit more about my animals and poultry

So, we have a small 2.3-acre farm with 9 sheep, 4 alpacas, 11 free-range chickens, 3 guineas, a ranch dog (a dwarf Great Pyrenees named Bud), and a barn cat (name Norphan because she was “an orphan” = “‘norphan” like in the Pogo comix strip).

Alpaca names (they’re all male):
Alpacas are part of the Camelid family which includes camels, alpacas (Huacayas & Suris), llamas, guanacos and vicuña. Today, the llama, alpaca, guanaco, and vicuña are found in South America. There are 28 different colors of alpaca.

• Koko is a Huacaya (cinnamon with a white Harry Potter stripe on his front locks on his head)
• Earl Grey is a Huacaya (rose grey which is a grey with reddish/brown in the grey that looks rose or purplish)
• El Dorado aka Eldie is a Huacaya (a beautiful sparkling white boy and very handsome)
• Al Paca is a Suri (with white dreadlocks and fiber so fine it feels like silk)

Sheep names:
Icelandics are a primitive, dual-coated breed originating from Iceland and have been there for over 800 years first brought to Canada in the late 1970’s-early 1980s, then brought to the U.S. shortly thereafter. The fiber grows from 8-14″ long in one year, so I shear twice a year to have fiber I can spin without too much trouble.

• Rocky is our Icelandic ram–lustrous white fiber will be 2 yy in spring of 2007 and is our flock sire
• Sandy is an Icelandic ewe–dark grey mouflon lamb will be 1 yy in April of 2007
• Blackie is an Icelandic ewe–charcoal grey, 5 yy
• Blesa is an Icelandic ewe–reddish brown, aka moorit, fiber that’s almost as soft as a lamb’s wool & she’s 4 yy
• Whitey is an Icelandic wether (a wether is a castrated male)—ivory and tan and he’s about 5 yy

Finnish Landrace or Finnsheep:

• Madge, a white Finn ewe–4 yy in May

Cotwold

• Emmy, a multi-colored brown, gray, black ewe–1 year old in April

Crosses:

• Sophie, an Icelandic/Finn cross ewe–3 yo in February
• BW aka Black Wether, a Lincoln/Shetland cross wether—2 yo in March)
• Little Bits aka Bitsy, a white Romney/Icelandic ewe—1 year old in May
  

This is a picture of Sophie & her two lambs below. Quite a color difference in the lambs, isn’t there? (The lambs are sold.)

The lamb below is Ralphie, one of the bottle-fed wethers. Bud’s only 14 weeks here. He was 2 yy now and is a little bigger now, but he’s gotten more chest on him and more weight. Ralpie was sold.

It’s fun watching all the animals interact together. Bud and Eldie (Eldie is about 30-40 times Bud’s size) play, is spite of the huge differences in size, for as long as an hour or more, just chasing each other, then Eldie pushes Bud tail over teakettle, then they rest and start up again. When the other male alpacas, usually Al and Earl or Earl and Koko, start their dominance actions, Bud thinks they’re playing so he gets right in their amongst them. I love watching all their antics: sheep, dog, and alpacas. It’s one of the reasons I love living on the farm!

All the ewes should be lambing soon...usually near mid-February. SOme of them are large enough around the middle that I think several will be having triplets or very large twins. We'll have to wait and see what we get though. I'm also planning on buying 25 Americana chicks from McMurrays Hatchery as the people at the local hatchery I used to buy from retired after their entire flock came down with a disease and they had to be put down...and as they were fairly along in age, they decided to retire instead of starting over again. It makes sense to me, but I miss them dearly. They referred us to other people who hatch chicks, but I don't like them that much.

I’ll chat with you again soon and I’ll tell you about my endeavors with a Kertzer cardigan pattern that I’m making for a friend.

TTFN...

Happy Holidays from Jet and Celtic Crossroads

I know the last 5 posts or so have been under the same date, but I had to republish them from my other blog on MySpace.com. I wanted to make sure you all were caught up on what was going on in my world.

It's interesting that so much has happened in a few months. My November spinning class went well, and my student and I have become friends. I have another kids knitting camp this Tuesday and Wednesday, and that will be fun. I'm pretty excited and I love working with kids. I used to volunteer for the YMCA when I lived in Seattle and used to have great in depth conversations with the kids there...most were very bright and knowledgable for the 8-15 yo group...but kids are growing up much faster than when the boomers were kids. Television, radio, music, magazines, etc., have all helped that happen and I'm not so sure it's such a good thing. Kids don't seem to have as much fun with their busy schedules: sports, extracurricular activities to the nth degree, starting to worry about college when they're still in the 5th grade. No wonder kids are so stressed with everyone pushing on them from their grandparents, parents, and teachers to their friends. It's especially bad in the BIG cities, but even in the country where we live, it's like that now, though they're a bit slower about it than in the big cities, but the stress is still there nonetheless. The kids now don't have any spare moments to really play and be kids for the most part.

I was invited to participate in another festival in Prosser, WA, for the 3rd Annual Wine Country Festival. I'll have a chance to demonstrate spinning and it is so fun to watch people. I love doing that because parents and their kids take such an interest in it.

The people who bought Rommy, two 2006 ewe lambs and a 2005 yearling ewe, will be picking them up today... It's been awhile since we have held the sheep until they could pick them up, but they are getting them. They live here in town, so they'll have the chance to build their sheep farm well with 30 acres (lucky for them).

Lance and I are searching for 20-40 acres near where we are now, but it hasn't been easy. We not only need the land for me to have a profitable business breeding and selling sheep, but we also need water rights to make sure the sheep have their pasture and have some grass/alfalfa we can grow so we don't have to buy it for the sheep each year. It will all work out, but ti takes time. On this land, we'll be building our own home: either a straw bale or a partial underground home. We'll figure that out when we get the land which we'll build. The house will have a solarium where I can keep my plants and raise some exotics that I cannot grow now due to lack of light. I want to raise a pomegranite as well as some oranges and satsumas, maybe even some kumquats and limes. Some orchids too. I wish I could have a banana tree. It would mean another fiber source and banana leaves for cooking if I weren't so allergic to them. It is a shame, but being able to recognize your limits and boundaries is part of life.

I finished spinning up my Ronaldsay wool a couple days ago. On Monday, I have to stop by the airport gift shop to see if anything has sold and to replace or change stock. I have to go by every two weeks, but it's worth it to have a place to sell my crafts and yarn in the winter. With the Farmers' market closing at the end of OCtober, it does make it difficult to sell things though sometimes people come to the house to buy yarn or other items, so I have kept a few here for that reason.

We're practically finished Christmas shopping, only two more gifts to wrap and send. I made a pair of tube socks for my SIL to wear with her new Birkies (blue with peach stripes on the toes and a band of peach at the top). I also have a shawl I'm knitting for a friend and a shrug I'm making for a woman I met through Knitochet (www.knitchet.com), the local yarn and fiber shop. Every time I go into the store, I find some interesting yarn and fiber to knit or spin respectively. This is going into her 3rd year of being in business and her store is beautiful and just as nice, but very different, as Wild Women Yarns, the LYS in Walla Walla that went out of business two years ago.

December 30 will be 9 years since I met Lance, my husband, the first time. When we met that day when I got off the plane at LAX, was the best day of my entire life. Our life together hasn't been perfect by any means, but we love each other a lot, and we both have the same ideas about what we want to do with our lives and our marriage, so it works out pretty well. We've both had to compromise to a certain degree as in all marriages if you want them to work out for very long, but it's not because we have to, it's because we want to. We'll be married for nine years on Valentine's Day next year.

Get your shopping done ASAP so you can enjoy the Christmas Spirit and n spend your time worrying about getting it done. It only gets worse when you procrastinate and you have to deal with all the crowds.

Happy Holidays!

Hugs,
Jet

My Friend Left, but Other Things Have Happened...

Well, my friend, Bill, is gone now to Denver before he heads back to Nicaragua in two weeks. He has family and friends there. He says his stay with us was fine, but it was way, way too cold for him, not to mention the lack of sunshine.

We've lived in Walla Walla for almost 4 years now and this is the first time we've been overcast this much. Usually, it's sunny most of the time and it's overcast only when it rains or snows or is foggy, but when it's foggy, it burns off by noon. Oh well...the same thing happened when I lived in Seattle and my youngest sister, Linda, came to visit. It was the worst winter we ever had with flooding, tons of rain and overcast 100% of the time. The next year, when my second youngest sister came to visit with her husband and his family, it was beautiful with sun every day and warm enough weather that you didn't need to worry about wearing heavy clothing or a raincoat. Much different than the weather in WI at the same time: lots of snow, wind, and cold. That is the main reason why I moved from WI to live out West. Seattle might not get much snow in winter, but it's moderate most of the year. Walla Walla is hot in summer, cold in winter, but usually there is sun all year long because we're in what is considered the Banana Belt of the area. Spring is earlyt here as well, so lets see what happens this spring. I already have 4 seed catalogs...and I can plan for what I want to grow next year.

Looks like some of my ewes are already pregnant, so that is great. I will probably start having lambs the end of February to the beginning of March...then start the sales and the shearing. I can hardly wait.

The last 3 alpacas will be shorn this spring as well, so will have plenty of fiber to spin...

I love having doing my spinning and other crafts that I do... They give me such a sense of peace, very similar to meditation or prayer. I noticed that some of the knitting and crocheting magazines have prayer shawls, so that's a good thing.

I was asked by the "Country Register" to write an article about my farm and business, so I'll get that to them as soon as possible, an article for Fiber Femmes (fiberfemmes.com), and another article for the "Country Register" about the fiber cooperative we're starting up in the Blue Mountain area of SE Washington, NE Oregon, and SW Idaho. I can harldy wait. I have to write up an outline for the Kirkman House Museum to see if they can help with this, but it's possible, so I need to cut this short and get that done ASAP.

Other than that, I've finished 1/2 of a pair of socks for my SIL, Joann, and have 4 more Christmas projects to go...

So, get all yoru projects for Xmas finished, and I will chat with you all again later.

Hugs,
Jet