The in-between

(chow time)

We've had the drabbest, wettest, foggiest kind of days this week.  I don't mind it so much when I can stay home and have a cozy fire in my little studio woodstove.  Because I have fewer numbers in the sheep flock, I can satisfy my need to bring everyone into the barn whenever I feel like it, which makes them happy and me, too.  No sloshing around out in the fields, spreading hay for sheep who would much rather be hanging out inside the barn, eating their hay from the hay racks.

(Turkey plate time!)

Thanksgiving was quite the stromash (ah, can't help but let a little Outlander slip into my speech when I have the chance!) We ended up with 20 folks around the tables. There are not so many littles anymore. Atticus is 19 months and Parker is 5 years old.  Mia is next youngest at 10 and after that it was all teenage boys (the two older girls were absent this year). I'm reminded every year of how fortunate I am to have most of my family close at hand and that they are willing to spend time here at the farm. The energy is quite different now that most of the grandchildren are getting older.  There are no worries about little boys being upstairs jumping on the beds or moving the clawfoot bathtub around! (That clawfoot bathtub business is true. A game of hide-and-seek caused the tub to get scooted just a wee bit and next thing we knew water was dripping out of the ceiling downstairs!)

(Tiny tree in the studio)

The Thanksgiving decorative (not the eating kind) turkeys have all gone back into their storage places, but very little in the way of Christmas decorations has made it out.  I'm feeling a little ambivalent about the whole thing in this in-between time.  I have put up a tiny tree in my studio with some of the wool felt ornaments I've collected over the years and am almost wishing I could do something similar in the house.  Oh well, some kind of a tree will appear in the house this weekend.  I'm not quite into the bah-humbug category, just feeling the need for simple this time around. There was a time in my life when decorating for Christmas took on epic proportions. Every room in the house had Christmas baubles. That was mostly when my boys were small and it appears that I'm over that now.  All I want are the most simple and natural decorations, with a minimum of glitter and gaudy.  My friend, Teresa, says if you can't be tacky at Christmas, whenever can you be, but I've somehow slipped into a quieter frame of mind in recent years.

Not so much going on in the knitting department either.  Still working on the Hitchhiker, though it suffered a setback when I discovered a mistake many rows down and my attempts at fixing it didn't work out well.  I ripped back at least 5 inches and that caused some minor discouragement and a time-out for the scarf.  I'm back to it now after knitting a few hats and finishing a set of fingerless mitts. My knitting ADD has reached embarrassing numbers and I'm feeling the need to frog and donate some yarn.  It has come to my attention that no matter how long I live, it is very unlikely that I will knit up all the yarn in my stash. Only if the dreaded world-wide shortage of wool happens will anyone consider that I have been wise to assemble this much yarn in one place. I am embarking on a major cleanout and donate. This mindset could have been triggered by the decision to move my dye room to my storage room in the barn. Cleaning out the storage room (that's a euphemism for the let's-just-dump-it-here-room) is an exercise that can only be described as painful. At this point, if it were legal and all the animals were safely outside, I'd be quite happy for the barn to burn down!  Problem solved. I recently read a book about tidying and organizing your stuff and the advice was to hold every item in your hand and ask yourself if it gives you joy.  Well, all I can say is I'm wishing I had a lot less stuff right now because not much of it feels like joy!

So, onward into the weekend and with Christmas approaching fast, I hope we all can find some peace and joy in the days ahead.

Monday is wash day

and so is Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and even Sunday right now.  I'm in the throes of washing fleeces in preparation for taking this year's clip to the mill for spinning into our 2013 Sheep Dreams yarn.  I've been washing non-stop for days now and still have a pile more to do.  The greenhouse has been a wonderful drying facility - no more fleeces on old window screens or in the hammock or scattered about on the floor in the studio and house.  Fleeces dry quickly in the greenhouse, even without the sun, which is a good thing because we have had day after day of rain lately.  Finally, yesterday the clouds parted and the sun came out.  Today we've had sun all day and it has shown me just how much weeding there is waiting for me in the garden.  :-(

(Ivy was very intrigued......finally, someone about her size!)

Our weekend was lovely.  Baby Atticus paid his very first visit to the farm and was on his best behavior.  Taylor, Crimson and Atticus came down from northern Kentucky on Saturday and spent the night with us, so we had a nice long visit with lots of cuddle time.  We discovered that Atticus loves to be outside, especially when we would spend time sitting on the porch swing with him.  Of course,  that's all the excuse we needed to give up on the chores and spending some time swinging.

(Before)

 

 

 

(After)

So, what else happened this weekend?  After years and years of owning a Night-blooming Cereus, we "accidentally" witnessed the blooms opening.  It has bloomed a few times before this year, but it always seemed to happen in our absence.  I was heading to the barn to close the chickens in on Friday evening, just at sundown and noticed the buds looking awfully plump.  A few hours later,  it was obvious that the blooms were going to opening.  Mike and I both were thrilled to finally see what all the fuss is about.  Mike remembers his grandparents staying up late and inviting people over to see the blooms open and I've heard of people having parties for that purpose.  Obviously, we're not quite organized enough to have a party, but at least I can share by way of pictures! (and, apologize for the bad iPhone pictures.  I've gotten very lazy about taking pictures lately and I know I need to get the "real" camera out and start working on getting better.)

So, it's back to washing fleeces and planning for this year's edition of "Fresh from the Farm Yarn".  I'm thinking worsted weight, but maybe with some special additions to the mix that will make it different from last year's version.  What's your favorite weight and fiber blend?

Number Nine

We finally were able to go to Cincinnati on Sunday and I got to spend some quality time holding grand-baby number nine!  I was sick for more than a week after he was born and didn't get to go to the hospital with Mike.  Shortly after I got well, Mike came down with the sickness, then it was the natural dye workshop and finally the Kentucky Sheep and Fiber Festival.

Baby Atticus is such a little blond cutie, it was hard to relinquish him, once I got my hands on him.  I'm a baby lover from way back and there's nothing I enjoy more than having a tiny body snuggled up against me.  After raising three boys and experiencing the eight grandchildren before him, I know all too well that these first months go by in a blur.  Crimson and Taylor are in a bit of a newborn-in-the-house fog, but settling in and hitting their stride in their roles as a mom and dad.  We can't wait for Atticus to be big enough to come find out what life on the farm is all about!

Crafty girl

A few weekends ago, my youngest granddaughter (she's 8) was here for an overnight visit. Recently, Mia has been affectionately called "Crafty Girl" around her house and that is music to this nana's ears!  I've done a pretty good job of indoctrinating encouraging my oldest granddaughter, Jordan (she's 22), and now she's knitting and spinning and hooked on interested in natural fibers.  (Can I hear an "Amen"?)  Because I raised three boys, I didn't have much opportunity to teach the so-called feminine arts to my offspring.  My chance has finally come with granddaughters and all those daughters-in-law.  Mia's mom, Jennifer, is my latest knitting convert, though as it turns out, she's a knitting prodigy so I can't really take much credit.  (I am definitely not eliminating the possibility of teaching my grandsons.  In fact, I have taught three of them to knit.  They just don't seem as interested as the girls.)

(Sorry about the blurry picture-I think the camera was confused by the pajama pants!)

So anyway .....  I did some thinking about a small project that Mia and I could work on together and came up with embroidery.  I looked in vain for a kit that might be appropriate for teaching an eight year old some simple stitching, but found nothing.  (I suppose few little girls are learning to stitch or sew these days.  Even though my mother taught me to sew, I also had exposure to needlework in Brownie Scouts and 4-H programs.)  In the end, I think not finding a kit turned out to be a blessing.  I assembled my own kit with several colors of embroidery thread, needles, scissors, hoops, disappearing ink tracing pen and plain muslin fabric, plus a small canvas bag from the craft store for Mia to keep her supplies in.  I bought her a copy of a book I already had, Doodle Stitching, for inspiration and after looking at it, we were ready to begin.  Mia drew a simple picture (her first one was a heart with a few flowers around it).  We held her drawing up to the window, placed the cotton fabric on top of it and traced her design with the tracing pen.  I showed her how to make a simple running stitch and she got right to it.  Within a short time, she had drawn, traced and embroidered four or five little squares of fabric and by then her brother had decided it was pretty cool and was requesting she do a project for him.  I think embroidering her own simple drawings made it less intimidating and more fun for Mia.  (And it's a lesson I need to remember.  You know - K.I.S.S.!)

My ultimate goal is to have my very own family knitting and craft guild and I think I'm well on my way! 

Summer

(welcome storm clouds that actually brought rain)

I've been noticing that I'm apparently not the only blogger suffering from the heat of summer doldrums.  A lot of the blogs I read on a regular basis are offering succinct commentaries at the moment.  I don't know for a fact that it's because they've fallen into a stupor, as it seems I have done.  Hearing me whine about the heat is, I am sure, getting more and more (and more) boring.  So today, just a few pictures of what's been happening around here.

(sixteen year old boys can sleep almost anywhere)

(and so can some cats)