Bye, Bye Mommy

Pinky, Winky, Magnus and two others went to live with Uncle Steve and Aunt Kelly today. They look a little confused in this picture of them in Kelly's van. They will be in a heated garage/barn until they are weaned and can join the flock at the 500 acre horse farm where Kelly and Steve work. I know they will be properly taken care of and their bellies full. Lots of time and milk replacer have gone into those babies and I didn't want them to go to just anybody. I will still be mixing bottles for two goat kids and three ewe lambs whose mothers don't seem to have a lot of milk. They are out with the flock so the little pen will be empty. Matter of fact, let me get some bottles ready now.

Mixing Dyes

I love to mix my own dye colors. It can be tricky. I adore Jacquard and Cushings Dyes, but they are only available by mail order and that gets expensive. Sometimes I trade with Donna Carlstrom of the Sheep Shed when we are at Rhinebeck together - her Jacquard dyes for my yarn or soap. Spruce by Jacquard is my favorite color, and I think I can duplicate it by mixing green and blue. Lately I've been using Rit dyes, available at the grocery market and Wal-Mart, and mixing them to my liking. The brownish/red was supposed to be golden yellow, but I poured in a little too much brown in my excitement. The purple is just, well, gorgeous. Oh, I do love purple. Picking raw fleeces and washing them for the dye pots helped keep me from getting really weepy over my bottle babies leaving.

Lions Roaring

Wind howled all night. I love the way the barn I live in makes noise when the wind really blows ...as long as it doesn't blow down, ofcourse. It strains and creaks in the wind. In just a few years this barn will be a hundred years old, with the section I live in being a bit younger. My neighbors, Sisters Bernadette and Grace, did a good job nailing the metal roof on so there is nary a leak. I know, I keep talking about the Sisters and the roof - but the sight of the stately Brides of Christ dressed in black, scrambling all over the top of my barn with hammers when they were young girls is very amusing to me. There was horizontal snow and black clouds racing across the full moon last night, what a sight. Nature's I-Max theatre playing for me across the hilly stage that is my farm. I love dramatic weather and will be sad to see the winter cold exchanged for heat and flies...but I am very much in need of green grass. Not going to happen anytime real soon by the looks of the weather today. Off for Good Friday today. Woke up at 5 anyway, after forcing myself to stay up for Jay Leno. Didn't make it through the monologue. I put on my opera channel very low when I go to bed as it helps me sleep. Matt gets up in the night and turns it off. When I got up I put on the TV and there was the 1958 film, Run Silent, Run Deep which I remember watching with my brothers as a little girl. There they were - Burt Lancaster and Clark Gable, commanding a WWII submarine in the Pacific. I always think of submarine warfare in the North Atlantic, but here they were hunting and being chased by the Japanese, not the Nazis. Interesting twist. Matt could hardly get ready for work with that movie on. Got my bottles out to the lambs. Kelly and Steve are coming today to pick up Winky, Pinky, Magnus, two other unnamed wether lambs and a little ewe lamb. The yearlings they bought a couple of months ago are at the 500 acre horse farm, being introduced to the flock they will live with. Steve is home on disability after falling through the rotten bottom of a hay wagon and misses the sheep. He imagines them calling for him from their back yard barn, and can't stand not having something to take care of. He told Kelly to ask me for some more. How could I say no? A nice gig for my bottle babies - an adoring daddy until they are weaned, then over to the farm where there is more hay and corn than they can possibly consume? I can live with that! I will save on milk replacer and keep my numbers down a bit. It seems like yesterday when they were running into my bedroom in the morning, tip-tapping on the wood floor with their little hooves. Life goes on and we have to go with the flow...Had a lovely chat with Mia this morning. Funny how when my kids are okay, I'm okay! Mia is going to get her Master's in Nursing done at Fairleigh Dickinson in Morristown. She won't have to drive back to Newark for class. She said one night when she and another nurse were on the ward knee deep in blood and poop, they both decided to get the applications in and "git 'er done." AJ should be hearing about his Army officer commission any day now. He is at Fort Irwin in the high desert of California doing Army war games, riding around in his very own Chaplain's hummer. What fun! Eric is working hard, drumming up contributors to the Boy Scouts, not an easy task in a bad economy when even the casinos in Las Vegas are down on their revenues. Well, better get out and check on everybody. I have some orders to get packed up and get out (thank Goodness) and a Shimmering Nutmeg bag to make for a lady. Fleeces are waiting for sorting. It's a perfect day to fire up the dye pots.

Another Fiber Friend

Can there be an upside to selling one's handcrafted Robin wheel to pay for hay??? Maybe. The nicest woman came to buy Robin #2 yesterday. Molly from Canandaigua (another upstate New York Indian name) is a rug hooker who purchased some of my roving at the Fingerlakes Fiber Festival last year. She spun the fiber into two-ply yarn and sold it to rug hookers at the prestigious Shelburne Farm Museum show in Shelburne, Vermont, near Burlington last November. I was thrilled to hear about it, as rug hooking is another fiber craft I had not considered for my handspun. She drove almost 3 hours each way so she could buy another pound of roving when she picked up the wheel. I gave her a good price on the last Stag and Hare bag I made. Molly wanted it to carry her rug hooking frame around in. There you go - a hooker who was looking for a BIG bag! You know I am a big bag kind of girl. I plan on making some big bags for the Rhinebeck show this fall. I thoroughly enjoy watching them march out of the booth, when most of the time people usually say, do you ever make smaller bags??? I felt pangs of loss while strapping the pretty little maple Robin into her bag seat...but Molly offered to let me have her spot on Gilbert's waiting list for the Robin she ordered. AND she says she has some terrific tapestry fabric she's going to send me, along with some Femo clay she doesn't need for my buttons. The sheep and lambs calling for hay were ringing in my ears as I waved good bye and went back into the barn.

Ode to Annie

Tomorrow is Annie's birthday. Annie was born on Long Island to teacher/farmer parents. Her father's people were watermen on the Sound dating back to the 1600's. By the 1960's the Hamptons had gotten so fancy and the taxes so high, Annie's parents decided to set out for the frontier of the Delmarva Peninsula on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Now, the Chesapeake Bay Bridge was built in the 1960's, so I suspect Annie's family was one of the first to migrate over it. They liked the fact that it was flat, very much like the land they left in Long Island. No foo-foo folks in that part of Maryland. The phone book had pages and pages of the same family names, and people were very independent. Laura, Annie's mother, was cooking some barbecue by the roadside one day while her husband was doing some work, and people started asking to buy her food. The family restaurant was established shortly thereafter. Now Annie was the oldest child and was often the surrogate mother, taking care of her brothers and sister while Mom and Dad ran the restaurant, Whiskers and Wife (Dad had a beard). When the kids were old enough they all worked in the place. Annie was very smart, and the academic world lured her away from the beach life. She wound up in Kentucky, where she was working on a PhD in English and Rhetoric (say what?) and waitressing in a restaurant (food is in her blood). One day a handsome young lieutenant walked in and sat down. He was looking for an apt. in Louisville, as he was stationed at Fort Knox and had just arrived in town. Annie, who is a very shrewd and intelligent woman, decided to bring him home and let him sleep on her sofa. Weeelllll, the rest is history. Annie and Eric were married in a park in Louisville, in a gazebo. They bought a little house and very soon Hannah Margaret was born. Not too long after that, Luke Skywalker Alexander was born. The little family decided they needed a bigger house and bought one. Eric was climbing the ladder of success with the Boy Scouts of America, and Annie had a very prestigious job working for Senator Mitch McConnell. One day, the BSA decided that Eric was too valuable to stay in Louisville and sent him to Las Vegas to hook the big donors and make them give lots of money to the Boy Scouts. Annie bravely soldiered on alone while Eric paved the way for their new life in the West. She had to take care of Hannah and Luke and hold down her job while keeping the house sparkling clean for prospective buyers - not an easy task. The house finally sold and the little family was together again. One day, while he was walking in the mountains around Las Vegas, Eric struck up a conversation with a stripper, er, "Show Girl." (Eric is also a member of AMMO.) Eric told her all about his wife and her talents, like a good husband, and the clever stripper said Annie should investigate the Yucca Mountain Project in Las Vegas. Low and behold, Annie landed a job editing the reports the scientists write about their nuclear work. She tells them what they are trying to say and how to say it. Like I said, Annie is very smart. Problem is, Annie works a little too hard. The Yucca Project has deadlines, you know. When I spoke to her this past weekend, she was going to her 15th straight day of work. All work, no play, is not good. Fortunately, she is taking 10 days off to take her mom and Hannah/Luke to Disneyland and ride through Monument Valley on the way back. This Superwoman deserves to take some time off. She not only snagged a real cute husband, she gave birth to the cutest pair of kids in the whole wide world...almost as cute as AJ and Mia were when they were little! Hannah was a babe in arms on my wedding day - she was my favorite wedding guest. You should have seen her cute little dress! She definitely upstaged the bride! Thank you, Annie, for marrying my son and giving me my grandchildren! Happy Birthday! Live long and prosper!

Happy St. Paddy's Day

Matt says, "Now I know I'm Irish when there are sheep living in my house!" Have fun, all you non-Irish people (myself included) who like to party-down today. I used to go to the NYC parade to watch all the faithful go by with their patron saints proudly displayed, along with every cop and fireman in the tri-state area. It was a fun, happy time. The VMI (Virginia Military Institute) marching band participates in the New York parade. It was wonderful watching them march by, after spending so many years driving up and down the Shenandoah Valley to visit Eric at VMI. Have to get out to the sheep and get off to work. Hope I can find something green in the laundry basket. Winter is back - in the teens out there. Hope the heat in the truck decides to work this morning.

Beware the Ides of March!

No wonder the Roman Senate decided to jump Caesar and stab him to death on this date (actually yesterday, but who is complaining?). After a long hard winter I'm not surprised they went psycho. The lambs are screaming for milk, the sheep are baaaing for hay and the White Boys are doing their incessant yip, yip which means come and let us out for out nightly run. The wind is howling and the temp is going down, after a few milder days where I was able to fill the bunny bottles without them freezing. Matt is down and out with a cold - coughing, gurgling, moaning, and groaning. I went into town to get him some cold medicine, which knocked him out for a few hours. Guess I better get out to the barn and get chores started. No more milk replacer. I reluctantly and agonizingly decided to get the wether lambs together and sacrifice them on the altar of the Easter season. Matt disavowed any responsibility and said it was my move. He knows how heartbreaking it is for me. I called the "lamb man" and made the arrangements. He wanted a list with weights. I caught them and Matt helped me weigh them and put the required scrapie tags on them. We couldn't look each other in the eye. After all the long cold nights birthing them and nurturing them to live, how could we do this? But my hay source is running out and so is the money to buy it with - and I can't afford milk replacer any more. I made the call for the man to come and get them. They would be killed on Tuesday and go to the city for sale right away. BUT! Guess what?? They are too small and he doesn't want them! I let them go and they RAN for their mothers! The guy said for me to call him when they weigh 45 pounds. I said no, thanks - I may be in a bind now but don't plan to be when the grass is green. Please, grass, grow!

Happy Birthday Laticia!

Today is a very special day. Laticia is here to celebrate another birthday. I met Laticia when I was going through a difficult time. I spent my first winter here on the farm in a 14 foot travel trailer, with seven dogs, two space heaters and a sofa/cot. Matt had to go back to NJ to find work, and I went to my teaching job at BOCES in Norwich every day. Coming home to that trailer, after seven dogs were locked in there all day, was not pleasant. It was rocking back and forth when I pulled in the driveway. The milk room was my "office" with a computer, sink and stock tank for a "Saturday Night Special." I rented a port-0-potty, which made getting up on cold mornings a very unique experience. Come December, the rental company took it away and I used my camp potty (that required emptying every weekend.) The barn, even though there were sheep in there, was rather cavernous and very dark. I was always looking over my shoulder for the ghosts I was told lingered here. I would try to get my chores done early, then lock myself in the trailer with the dogs. The dogs tried to chew their way out of the trailer, leaving a bare metal spot next to the cot. I woke up one morning with my hair frozen to the wall of the trailer. I had spent all my money to buy the farm (what else is new?) and the construction business was going down in NJ. As always, the sheep were hungry and I used what currency I had to make money to feed them - my spinning wheels. Laticia came out of the blue and bought my two spinning wheels. But she did something that made me feel I had done the right thing by moving to "Upstate New York." Laticia offered to hold my wheels until I could buy them back from her - which I did not a year later. Can you imagine? I am still overwhelmed when I think of it. Well, Laticia got some bad news a few months ago. She had cancer of the thyroid that had spread into her lymph system. Her vast world of friends and family were in shock...and her battle was complicated by having no health insurance! Laticia got into high gear and got herself all the tests and required surgery. At this time she is on the mend, in good spirits, and whispering very gently to save her wounded throat. Good thing she is the FASTEST typist on the East Coast, along with the mistress of many crafts, including soap and fiber. Laticia - I'm so proud to know you and call you my friend! May you live happily and healthily ever after! Happy Birthday! Someday I will sing it to you in Swedish (You Tube?)

March Madness Continues

An old farm covered with snow is like a picture from a Currier and Ives calendar, or a Vermont tourism poster - you know what I mean. A farm on the tail end of winter, with all the snow melted and mud everywhere you turn, is not so picturesque. The tracking-in that all the big feet and little feet make is impossible to keep up with. The sheep are just holding on until spring - me, too. Not that I want the flies back, but I want the green grass back. I talked to Annie and my little grandson, Luke, age 6, this morning. Oh, did my heartstrings tug when I heard his little voice. He asked me if Bodie (my Golden) still drops his ball in the hole where we put the hay down for the sheep. He also asked if I would drive a new kitten to him in my car (all the way to Las Vegas). I wish that I could...Annie tells me Hannah and Luke are coming around July 4 to stay the month of July. Oh, how I am living for July! I'll get my old chest freezer up from the tractor shed and fill it with lime popsicles and microwave mac and cheese! Bon fires! Fireworks! Burned marshmallows! Flashlights in the dark! Ghost hunting in the hay mow (actually, there are real ghosts here - I keep waiting for Lydia to reveal herself to me!) Poor Matt is down with a flu-like syndrome and all I had to give him was Hannah's old allergy medicine from last summer. It must have worked - he is snoring on the couch instead of gurgling and coughing. I am doing the chores. Took me two hours to get hay out, carry water to the boys, feed the rabbits and do the bottle babies. I am desperately trying to get pictures posted on my Etsy store, but no matter how I upload them, Etsy says they are too big. Annie suggested I try emailing the pics to myself and letting the computer make them smaller. I did that - still too big. I tried changing my camera settings and screwed them all up. My blog likes big pictures, but not Etsy. Have to move all this beautiful roving I have left over from the last two years to make room for all the fiber on the hoof out in the barn. If any of you smarty pants have suggestions about how to resize photos, please, please chime in! Thank you, Friends!

Goodbye Tink

Last night I finally got my Premier Bottle Bucket ready to hang. I filled all the little holes in the teats with plumber's putty so they wouldn't leak. I experimented with mixing larger amounts for the bucket to save time. Mixing one bottle at a time for a total of nine lambs is very time consuming. I was hoping this would help get me out the door to work quicker in the morning. Well, the lambs took to it just fine, sucking away on the teats attached to the hanging bucket. I was very relieved. I left the bucket hanging while I did my chores, then took it back in the house when I was finished. I suspect little Tinky drank too much and was bloated. She had fresh hay and cracked corn in the pen to eat, but Tink loved her milk. When Matt found her dead this morning her belly was very swollen. We are heartbroken, as she was our only ewe lamb in the house and we became very attached to her. I'm so awfully tired of this lamb drama and being responsible for all these lives is very draining. I wish I could say getting away to my job every day is a relief, but there is drama there on a daily basis. I had hoped Jan would get up here and help a little on a weekend, or at least to see how pretty her land looked in the snow, but she is concerned about the miles on her leased cars. Mia is busy with her two nursing jobs and can't get away. So there's no relief. Nathan is coming to help me this summer. He was my helper before I moved here. He might have to bring his little flock with him, but he has a truck and a trailer, and it's not too far. He can't come too soon for me.

Happy Birthday Big Daddy

He can be snarky and moody. He curses like a longshoreman. He forgets my birthday, Valentine's Day and Christmas presents. BUT he helps me with my sheep and loves my dogs and cats. He spends endless hours picking up and unloading hay for the flock. He always reminds me to bring water to the chickens and bunnies. He's very tolerant of the fact that I spend all my money on my animals. He gets up early in the morning and brings me coffee in bed, then goes out to the barn to sling bales so I can get the bottles of milk replacer ready. He is devoted and steadfast. He loves my cooking and waits every night for me to serve it to him while he sits on the sofa with the NY Times (remember, he is President of the A.M.M.O. - the American Macho Male Organization). It's a small price to pay, for after dinner he comes out to the barn to do two hours of chores with me! He knows more about history than I do and will watch endless hours of WWII documentaries with me. Okay, so he's a registered Republican - I can't have everything my way, can I?

March Madness

So much mixing...all those hungry lambs. I missed one guy's lamb bottle yesterday morning and when I checked again before leaving for work he was not around. He has a rubbed off spot on his nose, as if he has been nursing...maybe Mom doesn't have enough milk? Sure enough, last night I found him lying on his side, stiff and cold. I moaned and picked him up to carry him out when he stretched a little. Took him inside and let him wait until I finished with chores, then tube fed him and gave him nutri-drench. I held him while I was watching my de-stress TV (Marie Antoinette was on - wonderfully entertaining)then put him in the laundry basket next to the bathroom baseboard. It's a terrific way to keep a critter warm, and safer than the oven door. I shut the door and the whole room heats up like a little oven. When I woke up he was standing up in the laundry basket. It doesn't always turn out so happily! I put him in with Pinky, Winky, Tink and Linc for special handling. This way I won't miss him. This late daylight is so lovely. Spring is in the air, even though single digits on my thermometer says otherwise. Four day weekend next week, then couple more weeks and spring break. People say teachers don't work a lot - but I'd like to see them put up with the schtick we have to deal with. Just when we think we can't stand it any longer, we get some time off. Thank Goodness.

Monday, Monday - Can't Trust That Day

Dye pots are cold and we are back to school. Hate to leave the babies. School was bizarre, utterly bizarre. Cold and sunny on the way home. Went to get hay, had it on the elevator by seven when it was almost sunset. Beautiful, giant crescent moon tonight. Mia sent me a bottle of my favorite White Musk by Body Shop to celebrate the End of Lambing Season. A box of lovely soap and candle scents arrived from my friend, Laticia, who traded them to me for wool. New, professional soap molds are on the way from Laticia. I have wanted to try them for years, now I am worried I might miss my paper milk cartons. We'll see...

No Pictures!

Blogger is experiencing technical difficulties and won't allow pictures! We are not amused! No pictures? My blog is all about pictures! Let's hope the sunspots or whatever is causing this problem is gone tomorrow! Ciao, all.

Dyepots Bubbling

I have a huge back log of fleeces to sort, pick, wash, dye and dry. It's something I don't mind doing but it's time consuming. Did you ever see a dirtier Bluefaced Leicester fleece? Kitty doesn't mind...People frequently ask if I have any raw fleeces for sale. I don't consider mine marketable as they have quite a bit of "vegetable matter" in them. Until I get coats on my sheep I can't really take advantage of that lucrative market. A nice shepherd from Oklahoma sent me a homemade sheep coat pattern that I plan to use to make my own coats. In the meantime, I am picking the hay out and washing/dyeing/drying/processing before selling it. The boiling pots heat up the cold milk room nicely.

Lemme Outta Here!

The bottle babies are not happy about their move to the barn. You can almost hear the screams coming out of those open mouths. They have fresh hay, water and cracked corn to heat, but they want their BOTTLES!! I am restricting them to two bottles a day. You have to be very careful about weaning bottles babies...it is very tricky. You can't just take the bottles away, for they can go down very quickly. It has to be done gradually.

Cold, Very Windy, Sunday Morning

Not the greatest weekend shaping up here. Rained all day yesterday outside, and in the barn when I left the hose to the stock tank on. Flooded one end of the barn and had to rake up a lot of very wet, heavy hay. Pushed the dirty water into the Milk Room to hopefully get it down the drain but the MR drain is clogged (pipe collapse?) and we'll have to jack hammer through the concrete to fix it. The way Matt is feeling right now the likelihood of that happening is very, very remote. New job stress on top of farm chores is taking a toll. I managed to do some tidying up in the Milk Room, skirt a fleece and get it in the dye pot. The smell of the vinegar and wool cooking perked me up a bit. The Milk Room Kitties certainly enjoyed the company. Matt did consent to holding the bottle babies for me so I could get them out to the barn. Poor babies, they are miserable. It's a nasty business anyway, putting bands on their tales and private parts, and then they were moved out of their nice, warm room into the big barn. I hope the cold numbed the pain. It's time for them to get to know their own kind. I put sweaters on them - good thing since this cold snap happened last night) and put them in the dog pen inside the barn. They will be together and protected from the big sheep who might bump them around to show them who is boss. Pinky, my purebred BFL, is a bit developmentally disabled and still can't latch on to the nipple of the milk bottle. I have to pry his mouth open and slip the rubber teat in...very annoying, especially since he is the biggest and pushiest one. Tinky, Winky and Link (short for Lincoln) latch on and drain the milk just fine. I still have to get the teat bucket working. I have to plug up the whole in the screw on part with plumber's putty. Better get back to the barn to check on them. More wool sorting and dyeing today, then I'll cut out a bag for an order I got the other day. It will be good to sew again, after a few weeks hiatus for duty in the maternity ward.

Wet and Cold

Got home just in time for rain/snow, or what they like to call "wintry mix" to start. Let the doggies out, feed the bottle lambs, mix some more, feed the supplemental bottle lambs out in the barn, feed the kitties the food I bought for them on the way home, clean up after the doggies in the apt., bring some things in from the truck, make fresh coffee and dinner. Whew! The night has just begun. I like to watch Chris Matthews and Hardball, then the NBC evening news. I feel like a heel not watching Katie Couric on CBS, but I don't enjoy watching her do the news. I watched her on the TODAY show for years, which was a good fit for her. It brought out her personality so well. The news doesn't show her spark, and when I see her so serious and business-like I wish she had never left the Today show. I do enjoy watching Obama squirm a little, now that is knows he doesn't have it all wrapped up. Not that I am a real political junkie, but I am a long-time Democrat and love the way the party is coming back to life. John Kerry was the wrong candidate last time. Now we have two that can win just fine. McCain is a good guy, but he's already getting cranky and short-tempered. Just think what he'll be like by November. And a hundred more years in Iraq? I don't think I want my grandson, Luke, fighting over there. The Republicans would continue to drag the country down, down, down. I showed the kids in English the movie Jeremiah Johnson today. They loved it. All the mountain back woods stuff, complete with grizzly bears and shooting deer. They cheered whenever Robert Redford bagged one. Believe me, that was not something I enjoyed watching...but with this class I was willing to try anything. What beautiful scenery in that movie. I had not watched it in years. Wouldn't it be nice to have a big screen TV to see those Rocky Mountain vistas. Maybe someday...Off to chores in the barn and sack out on the sofa with the doggies.

Hay Day

Bad weather coming next three days so I went to get hay tonight. Picked up some in my little red Ranger on the way home and went back with the big trailer to get more. I have a landscape trailer with walls built around it. It's served me very well and I used it for moving up here a year and a half ago. The weather is gorgeous today, sunny, crisp and cool with a hint of spring. Freezing rain and snow coming tomorrow afternoon. Got 65 bales, enough for 4 days. Brought it back to the farm and sent it up the elevator. The sun was almost down and the stars were popping out one by one, with a few planets in between. Pink jet streams crossed the sky here and there. It was just what the doctor ordered after being trapped in a school that is way too hot. They don't worry about saving energy. Many of the staff are bare armed and the kids wear tee shirts and flip flops. The kids in English were much better today. Different alignment of the planets? There is always a crisis or two going on - this is alternative education after all. I'm very relieved about Hillary winning three more states. Even if she loses to Obama now at least it won't be quite the abysmal defeat she might have suffered if he won all four states on Tuesday. Better get my chores done now, slinging bales made me nicely tired.

Hump Day - Downhill to the Weekend

Had my observation today and right now I am so frazzled I can't even talk about it. I thought it went fantastically. The kids all read outloud a little, nobody spit chew on the floor, turned tables over, etc., although they did try to make cell phone calls and there was some punching. I did what I usually do when the going gets tough, just stick to the lesson like my life depended on it, and don't let them take me off it. When the period was over I looked at my supervisor, who I tried to avoid until it was over, and her face was ashen, frozen in stark disbelief! I'm actually laughing as I write this because it's just so crazy what else can you do? She listed nine behaviors that are "non-negotiable" (don't you like that phrase - it makes sense to me) and we never got to discuss my lesson, just their mischief. Needless to say, we have some issues to work on in my school, and we are doing just that in our meetings. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. They gave me my own office last week and I retreated to it, sitting in the dark with just my little chicken lamp on, contemplating how all those years of hard work and deprivation in school got me to this place. We all make decisions we have to live with, for better or worse. I thought I was going to be okay, but the ceiling vent chugging away over my desk blows hot air right on top of me. I brought in a fan to help, but it's still a sauna in my office. It used to be a storage room for the graphic arts class and no one sat in there for long periods of time. A hot flash overwhelmed me and I just had to get out of there. Good thing the day was over. I staggered out into the cold air and felt the icy drizzle on my face and breathed a sigh of relief. After making my stops for Matt's dinner and milk replacer at the feed store, I got home and played with my cats, dogs, lambs and goat kiddies. If only I had played my cards right so I could stay home with them. Ain't gonna happen.

I Love My Mommy

This is such a tender time in the barn, when the little ones are so attached to their mommies. The whole world revolves around her. She provides them with the milk that warms their bellies and teaches them everything they need to know. She also provides them with a playground where they can jump on her back and chew on her horns. She never complains!

What's on the Wheel?

I'm plying some very soft Bluefaced Leicester/angora with some not quite as soft but very glossy mohair I harvested from my goats before we moved here. My fiber has not been as lustrous as I would like since I moved here. I attribute the luster I once had to the fabulous organic hand-mixed-on-the-farm grain I was giving my flock. It looked like you could pour milk on it and eat it like granola. Last year I gave them pelleted feed from the local mill here in CNY, but it was just not the same. I felt sorry for the sheep. This year we are getting by with only grass hay, and have had fewer lambing problems, but the sheep and goats are hungry all the time. What changes they have been through. I keep telling them next year will be better, next year will be better. I tell myself the same thing.

Landslide

Lately, with all those bottles to mix up and give to the babies (aka bottle lambs, bummer lambs, etc.) along with barn chores and making Matt's dinner and lunch for the next day, washing dishes is the last thing I want to do when I am dead on my feet. With being home for a sick/snow day, I couldn't find a reason not to wash the dishes. Believe me, I tried. Dirty dishes have played a major role in my life and I mused about it as I was building this mountain. I was the only female with four brothers. Don't get me started. They were the founding members of the A.M.M.O. club - the American Macho Male Organization. My husband, Matt, is the current president of that group. I didn't have any choice as a child, as my brothers would threaten to do things to my cats if I didn't "clean up the kitchen." I have a choice now, but I do enjoy things like spoons in the drawer when I want to stir my coffee, clean mugs, etc. I cook every night, and always have. It just seems like the right thing to do. The family dinner holds America together, even if the family only consists of Mom and Pop (and a whole lot of critters sitting around the table waiting to lick the plates clean - my pre-wash cycle.)

Is Less Really More?

Sometimes I scan around a few fiber arts blogs, and do so at my peril. They are just so full of whatever those things are that line the side margin - stamps? - and cutesy labels and long, long lists of their favorite blogs (mine is rarely on the lists) and wonder - should I be dressing up my blog? Quite frankly, I don't even know how. It's like rocket science to me. I wonder how they find the time to read all those blogs. My farm chores would never get done and I would do no knitting or spinning. I have about 4 or 5 that I scan every day, and I am quite loyal to them, even though they are rarely updated daily. I sincerely want to know what's going on in their lives, and care about them. I know that the few readers I have care about me and my farm, too, and I feel a happy obligation to update. It was Auntie Jan who started me on the blog habit. I made a blog after stumbling on Leslie Shelor's Greenberry blog and was inspired by it. I thought, wow, what a powerful electronic literary genre! But I didn't keep it up diligently and Jan would nudge me to update your blog, update your blog. I have some ancestors who did amazing things, fought in the Colonial Wars, lived on the true frontier, helped to found this great country. My great, great Aunt Adeline travelled over great distances in a wagon to dig up her Confederate soldier husband and bring him home to Georgia, etc., but I know nothing about them personally. It's lost to history. I visited her grave site in Sandersville, Georgia, where she is resting between the first husband, whose remains she carried home, and her second husband. What a story. I want to write it someday, but it will be filled with details from my imagination, not fact. If I were still in school I would write a paper on women and their blogs. My Master's thesis had to do with the journals of frontier women captured by Native Americans. They wrote about their experiences once they were "rescued" (some didn't want to be rescued - typical of women they made the best of a bad situation!) There were very few bells and whistles in these journals, and hardly any pictures, but still they were very, very powerful. I am a real dunce as far as internet skills. I still can't figure out how to put text next to the pictures - I let the pictures do most of the storytelling. I go back and forth with myself about how candid and honest I want to be in my blog. My mother once gave me a good bit of advice - don't write anything down that you wouldn't want to see printed on the front page of the NY Times. It's so easy to "tell it all" to the keyboard and screen, and hope the people who read it are kind and giving...but that is not always the case. So I am trying to temper my writing with the hard earned wisdom of age and experience, and still leave a legacy of writing that will tell the family members who come after me what I tried to do here, on Maggie's Farm...even if it doesn't have lots of cutesy stamps and labels in the margin, and a comment counter!

Slip Sliding Away

Most of our sending districts are closed today, as well as Brookfield Central School. That means no sanding or plowing on my road. I went down to the road and, sure enough, it was iced over. I checked the studs on my tires and they are pretty well worn down. I hated to do it but I took another sick/snow day. Maybe it's the story Rosalie, the substitute, told me yesterday about her granddaughter who skidded off the road and went end over end down a ravine. She kicked out the windshield and crawled up to the road to flag someone down. No thanks! Between sheep and snow I won't have any sick days left, but there we are. Good thing I hardly ever get sick. I'm not allowed. In the meantime there's so much I should be doing here. It's almost easier to go to work and leave it all undone. My doggies will be happy to have me home, and so will the bottle lambs who won't have to wait with empty bellies for me to come home. Today is Hillary's make or break day. Primaries in Vermont, Ohio, Texas and Rhode Island. I think she will take Texas - Hispanics ahve a healthy respect for a woman in charge. Come on, Women! Many of the people supporting Barack just don't want a woman in the White House! Let's break the ultimate Glass Ceiling once and for all!

No Lack of Water Here

The springs bubble up through the snow and head downhill to Beaver Creek. God Bless my little Farm and all the water (especially when it runs downhill!) Don't have to worry about a drought here.

Ready for Next Time...

Here are the darling little sweaters, lovingly washed and hung out to dry, ready for next time - whenever that may be!

Goaties Enjoying the Sun

I let the does and babies out of the maternity ward today. Took their sweaters off first, as they were way too tight. Seems like yesterday the sweaters were swimming on them and I was so afraid they would freeze. They were just soooo tiny, yet so hardy. They were scared to leave the barn and venture out into the great big world of snow and sky, but they saw other moms and kids lying around in the snow and tiptoed out.

Meet Barack Obama

I named this little guy Barack after you-know-who. He has great black and white markings, and the cutest little white tip on his tail. I thought he was a she, and learned the truth when I took his sweater off today. That's okay, I love him anyway, and he'll look great in pictures!

Little Miss Rambolina

I let Rambolina and her mother (who is yet un-named!) out of the lambing pen today. I wanted to wait for a nice day, and today is gorgeous. Storms can roll in anytime here, as we are in close proximity to the Great Lakes, but not today. Mom is very protective, and Rambolina is very shy about the big scary world which is the barn. I can't get over how cute my first Rambouillet lamb is, and wonder if my other adopted Rambos have any surprises for me...

Two Handed Knitting

I've wanted to try two handed knitting for a long time, ever since I met the Ann and Eugene Bourgeouis of Philosopher's Wool at Md. Sheep and Wool. They are the coolest "older" couple (about my age!) who tried raising their own sheep, then started using local wool for their yarn company. I bought the video and book, then lost it when I moved. They have the most amazing sweater patterns, although the wool is a little course for me. Someone on-line mentioned there is a video clip of the two-handed method on their web site. I checked it out and there it was. It's lots of fun, but I still have to practice. Ann always uses a circular needle. The left hand knits Continental style, the right hand English (throwing the yarn.) I tried it with my handspun and some ribbon yarn. The back is woven and looks lovely, and the front is really pretty. The knitted piece is thicker and sturdier, which is how two handed knitting, or Fair Isle, started in the first place. I have to find my Philosopher's Wool Video in the tractor shed - like looking for a needle in a hay stack, or buy another one used. We'll see...in the meantime I'm having fun playing with this new method of knitting.

Tommy Boy

Tommy Boy has not gotten much attention this winter. He's in an area for intact males away from the rest of the sheep and goats. I don't think he minds. He still has friends to push around, and there are no females begging him for you-know-what. One of the new does from NJ decided she wanted Tommy Boy and stood by the fence to his pen with her back up to it. I think she was hoping for a miracle - in reality, some mating does occur that way. But not this time, I hope. Tommy Boy is what we call "bred out." Lots of goaties running around with TB's blue eyes. None of them are growing to his stature, though. I only had a few goats when he was growing up and I fed them lots of alfalfa hay and grain. It really does make a difference.

It's All About Hay

We pick up hay every week. Thankfully, the elevator installed years before we bought the place still works fine. I am hoping to get enough hay in the barn over the summer to last the whole winter. A full barn is a happy barn (and a happy shepherd.)

Winter Wonderland

This last snow left us with a winter wonderland - more so because it's Saturday and we can be on the farm to enjoy it. This hill across the road used to be part of my farm. When you stand on the top you have unbelievably beautiful vistas of the valley. There is a hidden field behind the hill where does bring their fawns to drink from the creek.

Love Those Colored Kids

I so enjoy my little goatie babies.