Fiber People

I thoroughly enjoyed rubbing elbows with some heavy hitters in the fiber art world, especially my idol, Linda Cortright of Wild Fibers Magazine.  It's not every day that I have Linda all to myself for a few minutes of sharing fiber art stories.  If you think her magazine is amazing you should speak to her in person.  She radiates love and passion for the history and geography of natural fibers.  I wish I could go to the Himalayas with her fiber tour next summer.   Pictured from left to right are:  Andrea, wholesale yarn rep for eight major companies, Richard Ashford - President of the New Zealand Ashford spinning wheels, Linda Cortright - Editor and Publisher of Wild Fibers Magazine, and Kim Parkinson, owner and CEO of Cornerstone Fibres, based in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. 

Happy Bag Ladies

Maryland Sheep and Wool was fabulously successful.  Many Bag Ladies came out to buy another Bundaflicka Knitting Tote, and many first time Bundaflickas were initiated.  Kim and I camped in the van next to our building and spun wool under the full moon before bedding down for a wonderful night's sleep.  The entire weekend was full of laughter and old friends, sheep and more sheep.  It was heaven...

Maggie's Farm on the Road Again

Got checked out yesterday by the local legend, Nurse Maryann Bigger, who has doctored several generations of  the hill people around here.  She said no, my Lyme Disease is not back, and gave me a prescription for a muscle relaxer for my neck, and strict instructions to take better care of myself and get that blood pressure down.  If only she knew about my job....and Maryland Sheep and Wool.  It is such an honor to be in this show,  and I raise all my own wool and mohair.  I wouldn't have it any other way.  I'm waiting for Kimmie Cornerstone to pull in from Ontario, and we'll finish loading and off we go.  It will take a day to set up the booth at the Howard County Fairgrounds, two days of fun with many sheep friends, then pack up and drive home with back to work on Monday morning.  Come and find us in the Farm and Garden Building, next to the tee-shirt building, at the Howard County Fairgrounds in West Friendship, Maryland, just one hour west of Baltimore.  This is the ultimate sheep and wool festival - emphasis on SHEEP, with very few alpacas!  I don't have anything against alpacas...but, remember,  Wool is the Mother of All Fibers!  It is the skeleton on which all the exotics hang!

Stiff

Twenty degrees warmer this morning, dark and wet.   Rain forecast east of here but might skip us.  Too bad as we are still way down on the wet stuff.  Up late second night in a row mixing and pouring Shepherd's Friend Hand Creme.  Thought this batch of little 2 ounce jars would have to go without lavender oil but, miraculously, the package was waiting on the steps when I got home.  People ask for unscented, but, selfishly, I won't have any for them this year.  I don't like my creme without a little lavender oil.  It's just not right!  Besides, the scent is so subtle in this year's oil, largely due to the prohibitive cost of ingredients, the unscented people might not mind.  I have 200 odd jars, and that will have to do.  My neck and shoulders are so stiff I was afraid my Lyme Disease of '96 came back.  Don't think so as my mind is semi-clear, which is the best I can do, and with the Lyme I was horribly confused.   There are times when confusion is a good thing, like when I'm trying to figure out how I'll get everything done for Maryland Sheep and Wool.  One day at a time, one foot in front of the other, and so it goes.

Maryland Musings

Sunny, blustery and cold today.  Love this weather.   20F this morning when I woke up.  Temps expected to get back up to seasonal levels by the end of the week.  I find this weather much more energizing, which is just what I need right now.    I'm getting seven hours but it doesn't seem to be enough these days.  Got my shaving mugs done yesterday, and put together many Mother Fiber Felting Packs.  It takes more time than you think to put colors together that a needle felter might need for a landscape picture, complete with curly locks for silly embellishments.  The apartment was/is a mess, with bags of wool, fabric, and soap making accoutrement everywhere.  I swear I need a trailer in the barn yard to live in, as my crafting activities take up this whole living space.  I bought a 20,000 square foot barn so I would have all the room I need but it doesn't work that way.  Walls, cabinets and closets are necessary for organization and storage.  A recurring theme I seem to voice.  One can only live and hope - I hope I live that long.  I made sure I got my hot soak this morning, and decided to pull little Sadie in the tub with me for her first bath.  I would have done Izzy, as I'm mad at him for running in the road, but Izzy got wise and darted away as I went for his collar.  Cute little Sadie didn't know what I was up to and just wagged her tail as I pulled her in the water with me.  She was good as gold, but with two feet on the rim of the tub, ready to bolt if I let go.  Now we are both scented with my recent soap batch, Garden Rose.  Very lovely and creamy I must say.   I just got back from my Sunday trip to New Berlin to pick up the NY Times.  I always call ahead to make sure they have one and ask them to hold it so as not to make the twenty mile round trip a waste.  On the way back I spied a great black bird on the side of the road, not looking so good.  I stopped to inspect it and found a lovely, heavy purebred hen, which must have been clipped by a car and left for dead.  I couldn't let her sit there and die in the wind and sun.  I have her in a pen in the barn, with water and feed, but she's in shock.  We'll see.  I put my patron saint Hildegarde Von Bingen's liturgical chanting on, the music I do chores by.  Maybe she'll perk up with the music and chickens all around her, even if they are strange chickens.  I'm clearing the decks to make my Shepherd's Friend Hand Creme.  Clearing the decks is a big deal around here, with nowhere to put the "stuff" besides boxes on the floor.  I had to clean off all six shelves of my sewing shelves for soap to cure.  Can't find a thing and it's driving me crazy.   Have to make the creme today, as I'm back to school tomorrow.  Matt is cleaning off tables for me today.  I used to obsess about my booth, but it's as good as most, and better looking than some.  The first year I did Maryland I was all wrapped around the axle about my booth, then the next door booth people came - The Fibre Company from Maine.  They came late and drove their Subaru right up to the booth.  Out came stacks of plastic crates filled with yarn.  They stacked the crates up and that was it.  No frills.  The lines for their booth were out the door.  I think people care more about product.  I still use the same red and white checkered tablecloths I did ten years ago and they do fine.  Very farmy and simple.  If I ever get all this soap wrapped it will be a miracle.  My roving is just exquisite this year - with lots of mohair blended with wool, my favorite.  So soft and "slippery" for easy spinning.  Only the Lipstick is all BFL wool with flecks of angora.  Trouble is the wool/mohair roving is so soft it will fall apart when people handle it.  Hopefully they will grab it and buy it.  I wouldn't blame them, it's great.  I had a note from a Rhinebeck customer asking for more messenger style totes in Maryland.  I'll try to get one made for her.  Most of the totes are the classic two-strap style as I had some fabulous goat horn toggle buttons to put on them.  Better get to work.  Coffee first as my head is nodding a bit.  I'm using my Susanne Farrington mugs, as I love things that are hand made by people I know and admire.  They inspire me to be creative myself. 

Lipstick

This year's Lipstick roving is a very rich cherry red, with flecks of angora rabbit dyed bright pink.  Come to the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival, at the Howard County Fairgrounds in West Friendship, Maryland, just one hour west of Baltimore, next weekend and you can claim your pound ball of Lipstick.  Orders are already coming in.

Too Much Too Doo

How wonderful that I'm getting calls and orders for the Lipstick roving I got back from the mill last week.  Gotta love that red.  I like it myself, even though it's a challenge to dye.  Red wool needs a lot of dye and extra citric acid to make it "stick."  Even then you lose a lot in the rinse water.  Bluefaced Leicester felts if you look at it, and it's tough to rinse all the fiber without getting some felting.  Every strand is precious with the Blues, who don't produce a very heavy fleece to begin with.  I'm thinking I won't be coming back from Maryland with any Lipstick roving left over.  On deck for today...travel to Hamilton to pick up Susanne Farrington's fabulous mugs for my shaving cups.  Luckily I have 15 brushes, which are prohibitively expensive to purchase but they are good brushes, waiting for mugs.  I don't sell a whole heck of a lot of shaving mugs, but the people who have purchased them before invariably come back for another one for a friend or for themselves.  I have another Bundaflicka tote on the machine, and a few that need bottom boards sewn in.  This is Shepherd's Friend Hand Creme weekend, which is always a big deal and requires much organization and a very "fresh" Maggie.  I stand on my feet for hours running the food processor and packing every little jar by hand.  It's a labor of love with lavender essential oil wafting all around me, contributing to my "zen-like state."  Tomorrow is Mother Fiber Needle Felting Fiber Pack day, which requires ferreting out all the odds and ends of roving and scattered locks for collating into a color pallet that a needle felter would enjoy.  I try to put everything into them that a landscape scene would require.  At $10 for a gallon freezer bag of several colors, the fiber packs are very popular.  I just sent out five to a spinner in New Hampshire who likes to spin multi-color yarn.  The sun is shining and everybody is waiting for me to go out and feed/water them.  The critters come first, then the fibery fun.

True Colors Like A Rainbow

I know, I know....Cyndi Lauper sings that.  I adore her.  I also adore the big boxes that were waiting for me when I pulled in from school today.  All my hard work raising that wool and mohair has come back to me in lovely one pound balls of carded wool, mohair and angora.   I'm so thrilled with the way it came out.  The Bluefaced Leicester is oh, so soft.  The mohair blended with it adds such a silky softness and lovely slip for spinning.  Mohair wears like iron and makes sock yarn so strong that your heels won't wear out.  I just love the stuff.  John from Frankenmuth sent me a lovely celery-chartreuse run that I gave him last year and forgot about - manna from heaven!  I'm so excited about putting this gorgeous fiber out at Maryland Sheep and Wool, which is one short week from now.  Don't know how I'm going to pull this all together...but I say that every year, and somehow I do it.  Kimmie Cornerstone is coming from Kingston, Ontario to help me out.  She's a one-woman Army who will help me get all this soap wrapped and labelled, and put my booth together.   Maryland only comes once a year - the Holy Pilgrimage of the Wool People.  Yes, Wool is the Mother of All Fibers. 

More Rain Please

Two big batches of soap in the molds - my precious Lavender (I love it so much I won't blend it with anything else) and Fruity-Tooty.  I have some fragrance oils left in the fabulous stash I was given by my soap-buddy, Laticia Mullin.  I blended some Bramble Berry Coconut with various fruity oils and came up with this tropical scent.  I'm an essential oil snob, but those oils are light on the scent (which many people prefer) and heavy on the wonderful medicinal and insecticidal properties.  The fragrance oils have a stronger, longer-lasting scent.  They can knock you over.  I decided it might be good to have a fragrance scent for those customers who like their bathroom to smell good.  Took all afternoon but it's great to be well-stocked with soap.  The Hamilton Farmer's Market begins for me the weekend after Maryland.  I'll have a good presentation that should last all summer.  Still have a few batches to make - old favorites that I know folks will look for.  Hand creme will start next weekend after I've received my unrefined shea butter from Ghana via Ohio.  I'm always nervous about having enough product, but I try to turn the anxiety into energy to get things done.  I cut up a lot of fabric for soap wrapping last night.  I used to quilt, in the old days when I didn't farm, and love to play with the cotton prints.  I'll try to get a tote finished this morning before I meet the Central New York Fiber Producers at the Bouckville festival site. We're walking the grounds then having lunch at the Quack Diner on route 20.  That show takes place a month after Maryland and promises to be great fun.  Hoping for more rain tomorrow.  Yesterday's wetness was not the deluge we hoped for.  It's very simple - no rain - no hay - no sheep next winter.  It's ridiculously hard to keep critters fed with the price of gasoline as it is.  Drought compounds the problem exponentially.  Let it rain...

Looking for Grass

Oh, the joy of it.  Home on the farm all day with my critters and my crafts.  I've often wondered if I would appreciate it so much if I did not have to leave it every day.  Yes, I would appreciate it.  On deck for today - make more soap.  I scored some lye at Lowe's yesterday.  Can't always find it and I have to order online.  I'm pushing hard to have enough soap ready for Maryland Sheep and Wool in two weeks.  A little misery and anxiety is necessary to keep one firmly planted on this earth and keep everything in perspective.  On deck for this morning....barn chores, get a couple of orders together for mailing this morning, pick up hay in Brookfield, get chicken feed from the Louis Gale Feed Mill,  make soap, sew totes,  put together Mother Fiber Needle Felting Kits, pick out pictures to send to web guy for a long overdue site overhaul.  We are looking at three days of rain, thank you Lord.  We should have snow melt water gushing up from the underground springs now and there is nothing.  My tadpole pond next to the apple orchard and under the ridge is a big mud slick.  It should be six inches deep and teeming with fishy-frog like creatures.  Drought is a scary thing and it is looming large over us.  The winter was gloriously free from travel anxiety, but we need that snow to keep the fields green and grow that hay. 

Fun's Over or Back to the Front

I haven't left the farm yet but can't wait to get home.  Back to work after a week on the farm.  Too bad I was sick but at least I was here and not there.  Mia's visit was definitely the high point of my vacation.  I hate to leave all my babies.  They are going to wonder where I am all day.  Wish I could tell them I'm doing this for them, to keep their bellies full and this nice big roof over their heads.  They wouldn't understand, but maybe I'll try telling them anyway. 

Now You See Her, Now You Don't

She can't come very often due to her career obligations, but when she comes she makes such an impact on our lives that leaves me wondering if I was dreaming.  Sure, it stinks to get sick on my vacation but with Mia here to take care of us all it's not as bad as it might be.  She's just so much fun and I love to hear all the news from New Jersey and the hospital scene, with all her nurse girlfriends and their colorful lives.  Mia left last night and is back at work on the ward today, leaving happiness in her wake.  On deck for me today...Vanilla soap making and playing with mohair.  I've shipped 200 pounds of beautiful dyed wool to the mill, to be returned in time to haul it to Maryland Sheep and Wool.  I have a lot of black/gray mohair, which dyes beautifully, taking on many different hues.  I might not have time for shipping to the mill and back, but I can take it to Md. to give it to someone there.  I had some yarn mill spun a while back, but it costs a fortune and just doesn't give me the same thrill as Kimmie Cornerstone's hand spun.  That girl is a spinning demon when it comes to producing gorgeous, artsy, sturdy hand spun yarn that makes mill spun looking boring with no character.  I have a wash tub full of luscious black mohair right now, that I picked last night after Mia left.  When I miss my kids I turn to my animals and my crafts to fill the void.  There's a price to pay for living up here in the hills of northern Appalachia and one must deal with it the best way she can.

Breakfast with Mia

Mia ran down to the Brookfield General Store for cat food and juice this morning while I made us a spinach/egg/cheddar frittatta for breakfast.  What a treat.  Mia got me hooked on a medical ethics book called "Better," written by a surgeon.  It's a book any lay person can enjoy.  I hope she leaves it with me when she leaves today.  We're working on soap today and hoping to catch a bushy goat to clip.  Mia will be driving back to New Jersey tonight.  She's on duty at the hospital this weekend.   I'm so glad we had some time together.   Prior to this visit she had not made it to the farm since Christmas. 

Bundaflicka Junior

Mia loves the sheep and was happy to give little Valentine his bottle for me.  V. is finished with milk replacer, but, with Vicky's udder completely gone dry, I'm giving him a little molasses water for hydration and vitamins.  He's so cute it's hard to resist his cries for a bottle.  I figure I'll wait until the flock is on green grass full time to stop it.  The sheep get a lot of water from the grass, and springs coming up out of the ground along with the pond.  I love to watch my junior Bundaflicka enjoying the farm so much.

A Little Sunshine

Mia came to visit me for a couple of days and truly made my "vacation."  We drove to Hamilton yesterday to hand in my farmer's market registration, due by 4 PM.  Mia treated us to a delicious and nutritious lunch at Hamilton Whole Foods.  Yes, Mia keeps me on the straight and narrow path to health and success.  She is my biggest fan and supporter.  With this flu-like syndrome I've been plagued with all week, my plans to get all kinds of things done has not exactly panned out.  With Mia here, the week is saved.  She helped me get the Rosemary soap cut up and out to cure, and runs the doggies up the big hill every few hours just for the fun of it.  Mia loves the farm.  I mean, she really LOVES the farm.   Mia is starting her new job with the surgical group on the 30th.  For the first time in many years she will have weekends and holidays off.  What joy!  We're catching up on all kinds of news about girlfriends and hospital stuff.  We pushed the sofas together so we could watch Dragon Tattoo movies in Swedish with English subtitles late into the night.  Today we're working on soap, doing barn chores, and setting out more wool to dry outside.  Yes, it's a beautiful day and I'm trying to ignore the fact that a serious drought situation is happening here.  I'm not going to worry about that now because my darling daughter is here to keep me company for a few more hours.  Life is good.

Snug and Cozy

Mama Hen and her chicks are doing nicely in the rabbit cage, high off the barn floor, with plenty of hay, foot and water and protected from the Kitty Cadre.  When I put the little ramekin of water in the cage, they all drank and drank until it was dry.  Who knows how many weeks Mom had gone without water while waiting for those eggs to hatch.  The weather is gray and windy, threatening rain but not really coming through with it.  Too bad, as the ground is parched and a drought looms large.  With very little snow last winter we are in bad shape for water.  My underground springs are still bubbling up through the ground, but I don't think that will last for long.  The winter before we had 12 feet.  Don't know if we even had a foot.  Not good for the hay growing season ahead.  We are so spoiled with water in upstate New York.  When the rest of the country is dry we are usually swimming in ponds and basking in waterfalls.  Might not be that way this summer.

Heart Buttons

I had drifted away from the heart buttons I adore when a few customers asked me to cut them off a Bundaflicka tote they wanted to buy and replace it with something else.  Hearts are so Swedish and countryish and they always appealed to me.  Now I make some heart buttons to offer in a box of Bundaflicka Buttons.  I do sell some occasionally.  Now I'll have some horn toggles on some of my totes, from my own goats who die of natural causes.  Kimmie Cornerstone started with the horn buttons and they were so popular I thought I would make some.  The horns don't do anybody any good on the dead pile.  I went up there on the ridge to check around for any horns but the skulls must have been dragged away by coyotes and other hungry varmints.  Live and learn.

Pots

Dye pots simmering in the milk room, soap pot in the sink after pouring a big batch of luscious Rosemary Goat Milk Soap into the molds.  It's a good day to stay in and do stuff as it's cold, windy and gray out there.  Sadie wants to go out and play all the time, but she's not allowed outside by herself and I would have to suit up in coat, hat, mitts and boots.  I've started taking her out in the barn with me, with the outside doors closed.  Sadie thinks the barn is a Disneyland of fun, with chickens and cats to chase and all the sheep poop a puppy could eat.  She's learned not to go too close to ole Thor, who has no patience for a happy puppy and gives her a warning growl to stay away.  After all that fun, Sadie likes to get on the sofa and take a nap.

Safe

Not a pretty day out there.  Cold with quite the blustery wind going.  Glad I got my red wool in last night.  Also glad this hen who decided to hatch her chicks in a box of wool that I put out for the kitties to keep warm is safely enclosed in a rabbit cage.  The kitties who the warm box was intended for would love to make a snack out of these tasty morsels.  The chicks are just so tiny and so fragile, and chill so easily.  Every once in a while a hen finds a place to go broody and hatch some babies.  I don't encourage this as some of them will be roosters, and the hens grow up to be more free rangers who hide their eggs, etc.  Every night I walk around the barn, and it is a big barn at 240 feet long and 40 feet wide, checking certain spots where I might find eggs.  I use them for cat and dog food.  Occasionally I find a mother load of eggs, like I did last night, in the upper mow, in an old kitty litter box.  The kitties had a good meal, and the chickens feasted on the egg shells. The ducks are loose in the barn now.  I felt bad about keeping them in the pen,with all the earth worms wiggling around out on the hill.  Apparently the ducks are not that eager to leave the safety and smorgasbord that is the barn.  I thought I would look out the window to see them marching up the hill in single file, but not yet.  They even came back into their pen to give me some of their fabulous duck eggs.  I am still throwing out corn for them, when the sheep leave the barn.   We opened up the kindergarten pen and let Vicky/Valentine and TJ/Robin out to roam.  It's quite the tender scene to see a little lamb, afraid of the outside world and sticking close to his mother.  Soon he'll be a big bully who pushed her away from the grain.  That's what happens when little ram lambs grow up.  For now I'm enjoying my last lamb of the year and his cute little baby baaas.  I'll continue his bottle with water and some molasses, since mom has no milk, until I'm sure he is drinking from the water bins.  Haven't seen that yet.  Easter Sunday was another day on the farm, with chores and keeping busy.   I got a batch of Spruce Cedarleaf soap done which left the house smelling like a forest.  The cold I'd been fighting has taken hold with fever and chills.  Ibuprofen, Sudafed, herb tea with raw honey keeps me going.  Farmers are not allowed to be sick.  I had a nice chat with Mia yesterday as she came on duty at the hospital.  She had nine very sick patients to care for.  Not an easy Easter holiday for her.  Father Aaron called after his services.  He was out with another priest taking it easy after the rigors of Holy Week.  AJ is really liking the Army these days, and is hoping to be deployed again.  He wants his Combat Infantry badge that says he serviced in a combat area.   A year at Gitmo was not considered a combat deployment.  It would suit me just fine if he stayed in the states.  On deck for me today, more soaping.  I have to figure out where to put all this soap to cure.  My big rack is filled with fabric and sewing "stuff."   The soap needs to cure in a temperature controlled area, free from dampness and critters.  I have two more runs of wool to get out to the carding mill.  Won't it be a treat to see how it turns out. 

"Woman, Why are You Weeping?"

"Woman, why are you weeping?  Whom are you seeking?"  These lines from the Book of John are especially poignant and meaningful to me.  We are all seeking something.  Some have found it.  I'm still looking.  The farm feeds my soul in a way nothing else does.  The beautiful land, big sky and wide open spaces are sustenance to my spirit.  I believe God is an unseen Force that moves among us in mysterious ways.  We are all on a journey.  I pray that Force guides us and protects us on that journey until we meet the end that is not ours to know.  On this Easter morning I wish blessings on all who take the time to stop and share a little bit of my life here on Maggie's Farm.