Better Late Than Never

And it's never too late to share something fun, right?  And the annual trip to Kentucky to visit The Crazy Sheep Lady at Equinox Farm is the 'funnest'.  We always have a list of activities we want to get to but never manage them all. 

One of the biggest things we did was make poor Frankie work give Frankie a training session each day. Frankie is a Standardbred and comes from New Vocations Racehorse Adoption.  He's a very nice horse with tons of potential. Sara has been working with him daily since his adoption and he is coming along well, but had not pulled a cart with two people in it and I had never been in a cart so it was a new experience for us both!  I think I had a lot more fun than he did. 

It was very hot there (Kentucky....August....uh, yeah) and I was the only one happy about it.  Sara always puts her animals' comfort first and Frankie has a slick anti-fly costume (light mesh, not hot) which really does the trick to keep them from bothering him so he can concentrate on the lesson.

We started with a warm up of just walking which is more work than it sounds like since he had my added ballast to haul and the field does have a slight slope.

We did some big figure-eights and I learned the whip functions like a rider's leg, just reinforcing the rein with a very light touch.

"Stop walking uphill to stand for a picture?  Don't mind if I do."

Another day's lesson was more structured and involved maneuvering between cones (gates) and poles (bridges) while at a trot.  He had never done this before, but never blinked.  Trotted right through everything like a pro!

Julie also took a turn in the cart and everyone had a good time, especially Frankie when he got his 'good boy graze' on the lawn after his bath.

Speaking of grazing, we had our fair share of good eats over the weekend including an amazing tomato frittata and home baked peasant bread.  Sara uses good old cast iron for cooking.  I should go down into the basement and see if I can resurrect Andy's mother's pans.  I'm sure they are better for one's health than Teflon.

Poor Betsy nearly faded away from hunger, neglected as she was while we were busy having fun.  Doesn't she look mistreated?

Of course the sheep are a big part of any day's activities so there was lots of scritching and cookie handouts besides regular chores.

The oldies have their own section of barn and pasture so they don't get roughed up by the big, able-bodied sheep.  Don't worry, the gray one laying flat out in the middle is just Rebecca Not-Boone napping.

What?  Can't a sheep take a nap without being accused of looking dead?"

The sheep in this flock are all pretty "special" and have a lot of latitude at chore time when gates are left open.  Here Cheeto acts as look out innocently minds her own business while the two youngsters investigate the tack room.

"Nothing to see here, lady.  Just kids being kids."

"And now he's smelling a chicken.  Maybe nobody will know we're together if I don't watch."

Good old B. Willard......

"Are you just going to let those kids do that?"

"I don't think I even want to go in there.  All kinds of crazy stuff going on."

I did do a teensy bit of work over the weekend.  Sara let me borrow her box picker.

I ran several pounds of dyed Cotswold locks through it in preparation of using my drum carder at home to make spinning batts. It was awfully pleasant to work outside on the porch of the Wool House.  The picker did a great job opening the fiber up and I've since ordered one for myself.  It will speed things up a lot.

In just a few minutes it turned this.......

into this......

Sara has some amazing gardens and beds of flowers, both for the beauty and for butterflies and bees.

She wanted to add a few particular plants to the farm so one day we went to a big nursery about an hour away.  One of the attractions there is a butterfly garden which features all Kentucky native butterflies.  It was a lovely place and two or more employees were present at all times to point out the different species, tell people what the flowers were, warn you when the misters were going to come on and I suspect to keep people from pocketing things they shouldn't.  

There were a LOT of butterflies everywhere.  You did not have to hunt for them!

And of course we wouldn't be proper fiber people if we didn't do something involving wool.  Sara had a big project for the Tour De Fleece this year and plied together a LOT of balls of spun singles.  She had wondered if That Andy could come up with a way to wrangle balls for plying.  He did, and so we had to try it out!

First though, because she had used those balls already we had to generate more.  She had some roving from Rocky and while she spun some on her e-spinner I borrowed a wheel and spun an equal amount resulting in two balls to ply together.  Tilly did quality control.

It was so pleasant to sit on the porch and spin.  Peep, the cardinal, kept coming to the feeder to grab seeds to feed his kids.  They were in the bush and not real visible here.  You can just see his spot of red on the bird feeder.

Anyway, here is the Ball Wrangler in use.

Andy made it to hold four balls at once, which may be a bit excessive.  It holds the balls nicely and the hole in the upper deck keeps the yarn feeding straight up so it will unwind from the outside of the ball without hanging up or getting tangled.

We did discover one aspect that needs tweaking - when the balls are very small they pop up and off the dowels.  We've already come up with a way to address that, it just needs doing.  

When the yarn was all plied Sara involved another friend who sat on the porch and visited and whipped out four crocheted granny squares.  Now we all have a keepsake from that weekend.

The weekend flew by.  Lots of things I didn't get pictures of because they happened too quickly or I needed both hands or I was just living in the moment and didn't think to snap a picture.  All too soon it was time to head for home.

The sun was just coming up when we put our bags in the truck.

Folklore in that regions says that foggy mornings in August mean a snowy day in winter.  Sara wants snow so I'll hope this low mist counts.

Frankie and some of the early risers in the flock were out grazing already, mist or not.

Once the sun touched it, it was gone in a moment. 

The chickens were up and having breakfast on the 'patio' of the wash room.  Comby came by to say 'so long'.

"And bring some of those Party Mix cat treats next time!"

So we definitely have to come again.  Comby says so!

December: The Month of More, Part 1

Somehow December's thirty-one days have more of everything packed into them than any other month.  More fun get-togethers, more food, more meetings, more deadlines, hopefully more fun and not more stress. 

We made sauerkraut again this year.  Fifty pounds of clean, trimmed cabbage was shredded on our old three blade kraut cutter and blended with one pound of non-iodized white salt.  Andy just went by what his mother always did and it was nice to see that the recipe in the Ball Blue Book, (edition 32) agrees with us.  If you need a canning guide the newest edition is here. The heads were large and tight and six made an adequate amount although we could have squeaked in a seventh.  Given that cabbage was twenty-nine cents a pound at the farm stand, sauerkraut is one of the least expensive canned goods to make.

The heads were cut into wedges that would fit into the cutter box and the tedious task of running the box back and forth over the blades fell to Andy.  I suppose they make some kind of tool nowadays to hold the cabbage down but we're used to doing it by hand and just being careful when the cabbage is almost all cut through.

Salt is added and stirred into the chopped cabbage until all is mixed well in the crock.  This is an eight gallon crock and we could have gotten another cabbage in there but it's hard to tell at the beginning. 

The salt draws the juice from the cabbage and by the time you're done you can press your hand into the middle and liquid will well up around it.  Sauerkraut is just fermented cabbage and fermentation is an anaerobic process.  Air equals spoilage.  To minimize the loss we put a big dinner plate on top and weight it down with a bag filled with water.  This seals the edges nicely and holds all the cabbage down under the juice.  You can just see a little liquid squishing up around the bag.

We put a towel over the top and tied it tight with a string.  This keeps out both fruit flies and cats.  (Ha ha, just kidding...... sort of.)  And five weeks later we have sauerkraut!  We've already used a couple of quarts but this should last us most of the year.

Mackerel skies brought an end to the streak of warm sunny weather we had been enjoying and turned it more chilly and somber as befits December.

We were able to keep letting the rams out to pasture daily and the supply of apples, and thus apple parties, lasted until just a few days ago. 

Norris and his 'uncles' got their share.

The curls are showing up well across his back now, do the snow pellets that were falling.

The ewes are completely off pasture now and have to wait outside in the yard while we clean the mangers and set out fresh hay. 

Tahiti always looks so hopeful to me.  Some sheep just have an expression that's all theirs.

Andy has been putting firewood in the cellar and got into the big 'buzz pile' - firewood about as thick as your arm that needs to be made into shorter pieces on the buzz saw.  He found some interesting insects who had worked their way into the pile to escape the weather.

A butterfly!  I tried to look it up online but didn't get very far having only the underside of the wings to go on.  I didn't want to force him/her to flutter around since it was clearly trying to avoid the weather so I settled for relocating him to a big void in one of the apple trees and hoped for the best. 

There was also a cluster of three pretty moths and while they were also seeking shelter in the wood pile they were more active when exposed and I only got a picture of this one.  Couldn't ID him, either.

Wee Little Guy says,

"I'm just gonna put my feet up while you figure out da bugs.  Crazy lady."