Kermit Or Bust

I know you are all waiting with baited breath (silly people) to hear all about our new little Lamb. He is doing fine and is up and at em this morning. Hubby and I have decided that he is getting enough from momma. We penned her in yesterday and probed her nipples to get the juices flowing, so to speak, and made sure that little Palmer had a good suck several times. We went out at 2 a.m. to make sure he was still o.k. and he was. His belly felt full and again this morning. Momma doesn't want him around much so they are in a very small pen and they are slowly getting to like each other. We will let them out later this morning and see how they do. If she is still off him then back into the pen they go. This will be the routine until I can be sure she is letting him suck. Jelly will definitely not be bred again.

Anyway on to other things. I have just finished the question for my level 2 homework that I enjoyed the most so far. I was given in class rovings in three primary colours. Our exercise was to produce a colour wheel with those colours with primary, secondary, and tertiary colours on it by blending the three primary colours that we were given. Here's mine:



I think it is really great the colours flow into each other very well and I was able to very closely match them to the colour wheel which I downloaded from the internet. Two of the matches were slightly off. But not much. The colours are distinct and bright and the whole exercise was a joy. Some people, however, think my green sucks! (you know who you are) They say my green is not a true green. Now what does that mean? I mean I've got Kermit colour there and I can't figure out how to get greener than that. Even Hubby and the Daughters agree that my greens are as green as can be.

I'm starting to feel paranoid. I've always had a good sense of colour and I thought my colour wheel was bang on. But apparently my ability to discern green is slightly off. Actually I've even gone around the house and compared my greens to plants and leaves of different shades and they are green.

So what is a gal to do? Should I tell my anti-green party that they are wrong or should I just glory in my self-righteous green-ness. Should I try for a more green green or should I just pack it in now and never blend green again. I don't know! (sigh) And I thought I was so perfect! (Do I sound like Miss Piggy?)

Palm Sunday Surprise!

This is what it is all about. Welcome to the world Lamby #1. This morning at just after 8 a.m. our first lamb was born. This is BIG! This is very big since we have never had new born lambs because this is our first year as shepherds. Jelly who is our big Romney sheep is too old to be birthing. She did it though. She brought into the world a very sizable lamb. Poor old girl has had trouble with mastitis in past years and is having difficulty lactating, so she will not be bred again. She will be a nice Romney fleece each year and nothing more. This year, she has decided that she will not be nursing this lamb and so it looks like we will be bottle feeding our first lamb ever. Her nipples are not wanting to do what they should be doing and so I think she is just to tired to keep this mommy thing up anymore that's why she has decided not to feed her own boy. We have spent the day trying to get the little fella to suck but momma is not having anything to do with it. Bottle feeding is what is called for in situations such as these. He's docked and castrated and done. He is a strong little guy and so we really want to keep him going. BFL/Merino/Romney should be an interesting mix of fleece.

Here is our new boy!

Sorry About That Chief!

Wasn't that what Tonto used to say to the Lone Ranger? .... or maybe it was Maxwell Smart in Get Smart! Either way I have to appologize to those of you who have nothing better to do with their lives than follow mine through this dialogue (sic) my life. I haven't been very entertaining of late and so I will attempt to do so now. I do have a good excuse for the last few days.... that being the back door trot as dear old gang-gang would say. (no not gang-bang for you sickies.)

Who is Gang-gang and what is the back door trot you ask. Gang-gang was a lovely lady who had many good sayings and just happened to be my grandmother. My sister started calling her Gang-gang, in all of her innocence, at the ripe age of 18 months. She couldn't say grandmother or grandma which my mother was trying to encourage and so Gang-gang and Gang-pop (for my grandfather) became their names. I called them that till the day they died and still refer to them the same way. Though it was an unfortunate name I loved my grand parents dearly as they were the only ones I was ever to know. My paternal grandfather died before I was born and my paternal grandmother had a parting of the ways in mind and body. She quite literally lost her mind.

As for, what is the back door trot. Well in the olden days there was no such thing as flushing toilets and so when one was making regular and nasty trips to the outhouse, since most outhouses were located somewhere near the rear of a home the back door trots meant running out the back door to the outhouse every five minutes. Mine started, to my dismay, two nights ago. On the up side I have managed to lose 10 pounds in two days, on the down side this has not improved my whey faced appearance. If anything I look horrible.

My bed and the bathroom and a bucket has been my sole existence for two days. I am fianlly able to say that I am mending, I think! Not that my body shares this opinion. My body feels like it has been hit and been dragged by a bus for several miles before delivering me to the gutters with not enough energy to drag myself out. I hate gastro intestinal illness. I think I can take a lot of runny noses and coughs before this.

It all started with Daughter #1 coming home two days before spring break with violent "bringing up" as some folks with more dignity than I, would say. Three days later she was on the mend. Then fate struck and Daughter #2 started to indulge in the same activity. Just when we all thought we had made it through. The "bringing up" hit me, only I didn't "bring up' I "brought down"!!!!

Hubby is left. We will see. Can he get through without the ravages of stomach flu??? Time will tell I guess. Meanwhile I am off to my bed to read another boring book (I just read The English Patient. It was great for helping me to sleep.) until the vestiges of this virus leave me to grasp at someone else.

For Everything There Is A Season

Finally it is spring break and like all good vacations we have started ours with sickness. Daughter #1 was the first to succumb. Vomiting is something no one likes. then Hubby came down with a cough and runny nose and now Daughter #2 has started in with vomiting this evening. I live in fear. I really could do without this nasty vomiting and I know Hubby is hoping it will pass him by too. Not likely. It has hit almost every house in this town at some point of the year. I guess our home couldn't avoid it forever.

I am expecting that if we can just get past this next few days hopefully the rest of spring break will be restful and easy. I get up each morning and look out on my sheep and watch to see if there are any new additions. Fanny and Red and Jelly are pregnant. I am not sure that any of the others are pregnant but those three are for sure. Fanny looks as if she might burst at any minute. Jelly is big, but she always has been. Little Red is as broad as she is long. All three have been pregnant before so I am hoping that there will be no problems.

The girls are excited to have lambs coming. To be honest so am I. It is so neat to see these little cute things bouncing around, and they do bounce. They are happy little creatures. We did not breed the alpaca this year as she is too young yet. She will be bred this July. 11 1/2 months is the gestation period for the alpaca. So if she is bred in July she will have her cria (baby) in June 2010. A long time to wait but that will be an exciting time for us too. Being new to the farming game is cool. We are more excited than kids waiting for Christmas morning.

I am also hoping to get quite a bit of work done on my level 2 homework. There finally is a light at the end of the tunnel. I only have 5 questions left to do. Woolen spinning, Navajo spindle spinning, sweater calculations, colour blending and my 25 hour project. I will be glad to get it done as I am itching to start some other projects. I have wool calling to me wanting to be spun. I have a shawl on knitting needles that is needing to be finished. I have a new loom that wants threading and an old loom with a weaving on it that needs finishing. I have rug warp that needs locker hooking too. All these projects are projects I'm really looking forward to getting done.

Then there is the house. We are hoping that the house renovations will begin soon. I am now awaiting the appraisal and the banks finalization of the money set up. That looks good but the appraisal is late by only a day but I'm hoping that Monday it will be ready and then we have an appointment with the bank. With any luck we will begin by the latter part of this week. There will be packing to do as we have to clear out the top floor of the house. But we don't have to have that done until later in the month. The contractor will begin on the front of the house and for that we don't have to do anything. We may even be able to stay in the house while the work is being done upstairs. that is exciting too. All in all it is exciting times for us... now if I can just get Daughter #2 through this next few hours hopefully she will be on the mend and we can move forward with no other afflictions...... I live in hope.

What's Ahead!

So my first tri loom weaving came off the loom tonight. I finished my piece on the 36" loom meanwhile I have a fleece in the sink washing to prep for the next bit of spinning in my level 2 homework. I am spinning for my braid. I did some of the spinning but didn't have enough so I am working on some more. Tomorrow will be a day of work. Today was not. Today I exercised and now I am paying for it. My back is killing me.

Once I have the spinning for my braid done then I will carry on working on my blends. I am just about finished.... well at least I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. I need two more blends and then I only have to spin yarn for my colour wheel blends. That shouldn't be too hard. Yeah right! There's the sweater calculation and the 25 hour project. Onward and upward. But it is getting harder to concentrate as I have more on my mind as the house renovations get closer. I will just have to buckle down and keep going. I want to get it done before I go to Olds. I want to have my mark back by the time I leave to drive there. I don't want that hanging over my head while embarking on the next level.

Meanwhile my big tri loom is calling to me and I want to start a project on that. I bought beautiful mohair boucle and merino fingering weight yarn to do a shawl..... but that will be my reward for when I finish my level 2 homework. I can't wait. I will warp up the 36" tri loom tomorrow and carry on with that as I need four triangles in order to finish this project. I think it will be lovely. Green and cream for two triangles and cream and green for two triangles, altogether making one sweet baby blanket. It should be nice.

I still have my pink lace project too. Yikes! There is a lot of work to be done before June. I had better go do it.

What Else!

Craptastic..... it's snowing again.... : {

More On The Tri Loom Workshop

To add to what I said earlier about the tri loom workshop.... Friday started with the worst snow storm of the year.... and it was the first day of spring. Usually this is neither here nor there since March is usually a month like a mad dog in Nefoundland and I'm a good Newfy.... in other words I'm used to snow in March. But for some reason when I woke up on March 21 this year at 4:30 a.m. (that was bad enough) and looked out my window to see the street light opliterated by snow falling I was most upset. Meanwhile Daughter #2 came to me and said, "Mom my sinuses are really blocked and I'm coughing too much to sleep." This is not good! Hubby and I are supposed to be going window shopping (that doesn't mean looking through windows at items for sale that means shopping for windows for the new addition) in just a few hours, after which I am supposed to take Hubby to the airport before a lovely weekend of spinning and weaving and drinking tea.

Daughter #2 has sinuses so bad that her nose is swolen. She looks like sh--! I can't leave this poor child to the mercy of Mudder. She is likely to poor molases and Buckly's down her throat! And then there is my ailing father. Fadder has serious health issues and even a cold can land him in the hospital. I know this is the end of my workshop and retreat. My brain begins furiously working to figure out what I can do..... but by 7 a.m. and full daylight, I am resigned to my by now coughing daughter holding me back. I finally admit to Hubby who is crawling out of bed that I can't go and he has to get a ride to the airport with his travelling partner.

We get Daughter #1 ready for school and I proceed to load up Daughter #2 with medication while Hubby drives Daughter #1 to school. A short while later Hubby arrives home and says that he just passed his ride, who has already left. Panic sets in because now I know I am going to be driving in the, by now, heavy snow fall. I call my wonderful friend who was supposed to put me up for the night, with the news that I won't be coming. Disappointment abounds on all sides. I have told her that maybe I can make it to the workshop the next day. But when Hubby arrives with the news of his missed ride I call again to let her know that I will be coming after all and that I have no choice but to leave Daughter #1 and 2 with the parents and hope that Fadder doesn't catch anything. WF (wonderful friend) says that I can bring Daughter #2 with me..... Solution at last! Fadder won't get sick, Hubby will make it to the airport and I will get to have a spinning day and my tri loom workshop.... I might even get in some window shopping. And so begins the fury to get ready!

Packing was a mad scrabble and I through myself into forgetting half of what I needed including fibre for weaving.... I'd like to know how a person can weave if they forget their weaving yarn..... obviously my head is not screwed on.... it didn't matter as I'm almost stashless anyway.... that's bad... bad, bad, bad! Being stashless is like being nacked. ACK! (I'm not completely stashless as it turns out I have discovered this morning as there was a few suitable skeins of yarn in a drawer that I had forgotten about. However I am already planning atri loom project with that stuff too!)

The day progressed as planned except I ended up in the ditch at WF's place. (This was no biggy as another friend... lets call her GF for good friend, came along and pulled me out of the ditch with their truck ... and there was no damage either.) I even got to learn how to knit a mobias scarf at a different workshop on Friday night (the snow was grotesque when we came out of that one). The only drawback was that Daughter #1 had to spend the weekend with my parents which requires sainthood!

The snow fell and the wind blew and it was more winter than spring. Driving was treacherous, but I got my windows picked out. And I loved learning how to weave on the tri loom. The instructor was scarey but that's another story for another day.