Achieving Escape Velocity

My friend Diane, she of Acorn Works, shared a keen observation the other day.  No matter how urgent your need to leave a place, you have to first achieve escape velocity to do so.  For example, if you have an appointment and have to be in the car at X o'clock to get there on time, you have to escape the drag of the phone, email, person at the door, laundry buzzer, cat carrying a chipmunk up from down cellar, that bill that you must get into today's mail, take the cell phone off the charger, answer the phone again, etc. before you can get. out. the. door.

We have had a week like that, crazy busy, but at least we did get a lot accomplished.

I finished dyeing and drying the wool that will be Ferns and Moss and Beneath the Waves and handed it off to Diane at the Fiber Fest meeting along with more raw Cotswold for her to wash.

This will be Beneath the Waves.  Really.

 

I spent a day at the New York state fair in the Wool building demonstrating hand spinning, and also dropped off fleeces for the show.  I used the demo time to spin skeins of the two roving colors that she has already given back to me.  (Still have to ply a bobbin and wash both, though).

 

We ran both the ewe and ram lamb groups over the scale to check weights and eye scores and deworm as needed. 

 

I filled and mailed out web orders as they came in, confirmed some activities for the upcoming festival, scheduled ads in various local publications for same and answered a slew of emails about the flock, the items we have available, possible farm visits from people interested in breeding stock, etc.

 

Andy continued to bale second cutting alfalfa and for once we are getting gorgeous hay, although there is less of it than one might wish due to the drought.  We've seen it selling at auction for up to $6 a bale but that just seems like an obscene price to us.  Guess we're stuck in a time warp and don't realize that $6 isn't what it used to be, nor is $50 nor $100 nor $1,000.  :-/

 

Green gold.

 

We also had all the Cotswold lambs shorn - 64 in total - all in one day.

 

White lambs........

 

 

Silvery gray lambs...........

 

Really black lambs........

 

Lambs that were really concerned about the proceedings..........

What. Are. You. Doing??

 



Lambs that really couldn't have cared too much less.......

This is the gate?  Too bad.  Step over me.

 



Coming up, I have an overnight trip planned to pick up a new Cotswold ram I'm purchasing, two days scheduled with Carolyn to dye 45 yards of fabric,  I have to go back to the State Fair on Labor Day to retrieve the show fleeces, do a spinning demo at the Patterson Inn in Corning next Saturday, help set up the fairgrounds for the festival next Sunday, paint a shelving rack for my booth and sew a new fabric cover to span the back of it, find better lighting alternatives for said booth, do gigantic batches of laundry that have gone begging,  retrieve the fiber Diane is processing (and hopefully hand her more), assemble drop spindle kits and, and, and ...........

 

I don't seem to see cleaning or much cooking on the list.......  oh, darn.  I'll try to manage without it.