January Thaw!!!!

Warm...sunny...and great. Working in the barn is a joy on a day like this. I had hoped to get the Bobcat out and clean the barnyard but the mud is so bad that I'll be mired down on my first trip out to the dump site. (My brothers think it amusing that I love to drive my skid steer loader.)Instead I just worked in the barn and prepared for lambing. Two BFL ewes look really close. Guess the nights of walking to the barn several times will be upon me soon. My friend Emma who is 77 and has raised sheep for 50+ years tells stories of lambing 500 ewes and weeks sleeping in her quarters in the barn complete with cot,heater and coffee pot. Makes lambing about 60 ewes seem like a piece of cake. Emma lambs about 20 now because can't give up the joy and excitement of lambing season. It's like Christmas going out to the barn each time to see what you'll find. I use monitors so the sounds give me a clue as to what to expect but seeing newborn lambs up and about is so rewarding. I tell people I work for 5 cents and hour raising sheep but it is such a joy...most of the time. Like Emma, I couldn't imagine a year without lambs and all the joy, frustration,anxiety and exhaustion that goes with it.

PA Sheep to Shawl Competition

PA Farm Show is a 94 year old farm fair held in of all months...January. One of the biggest crowd drawing shows is the Sheep to Shawl Competition, which has been part of the Farm Show for 31 years.
Yesterday's competition was another fiber inspiration. 5 youth teams competed in the morning and 5 adult teams in the afternoon. The youth teams differ only in that they are fleece to shawl. No live sheep to be sheared. This year,being one of 3 judges was a joy! There is such excitement about fiber. The fact that there were 5 youth teams competing was amazing. These kids were really good too! Sooo creative! For all the details and pictures of this event go to yarnymarni.wordpress.com
Was I surprised when the BFL ewe awarded to Art Lester in the 2008 for his winning essay was brought in to be sheared for the Treadlers in Time team! I love seeing my former lambs as adults and Ava was still sporting all her Potosi Farm tags. She was beautiful and healthy. This team made a lovely all BFL shawl. I accused the team of trying to bribe the judge and we had a great laugh. The man who sheared her won the shearing award! Ava was a calm candidate with no leg wool and belly wool to deal with. The other shearers had fiesty Shetlands, big Romneys and wooly crossbreds. All had beautiful fleeces. And the shawls produced were OOOO LA LA. Wish I could have afforded any one of them at the auction after the event but the cheapest one sold for $175. Every team produced a true work of art that would be a treasure to own and wear.

2010 Lambing Begins

Went to the barn this morning to find Madeline,an 8 year old moorit Romney/Merino cross in the midst of lambing.In her usual easy independent style, Madeline popped out 2 beautiful black ewe lambs (sired by my CarryHouse V2 ram). Don't you just love ewes like this? Great mother, beautiful long 8 pound lambs and nothing for me to do but move them to a lambing pen and dip navels. Wish it was always this easy.

2010 Rovings Arrived

I have tried some new colorways for the new decade. All rovings are 100% BFL and vegetation free. The carding was done by Heather Lathrop at Dreamweaver Creations in NY. Thanks, Heather.

Roving prices are $2.50 an ounce or $36 a pound.

Just What I Need

My husband's granddaughter moved home from Taos,NM bringing her horse. He is staying with us til Sarah gets a place for him. I have no idea what to do with a horse! In fact, this is exactly how I got into sheep 22 years ago. My friend's flock came for temporary housing and never left. Is this Deja Vu? The shetlands are so afraid of him that most of them refused to come in to eat this morning. Just the sight of Joe in the next pasture sent them darting in all directions. My Shetlands are wild.
Molly is thrilled. She has wanted a horse since she spent Thanksgiving with the Lloyd family in Colorado. Look what you have gotten me into, Jared.

2010 Blows In

The wind is howling. 60 mph gusts It feels as tho the wind is coming right thru the walls of this 1921 farmhouse. All I do is bring in wood and feed the woodstove! I hope this is not a sign of the coming months with lambing due to begin in 3 weeks. Thank goodness for thermal barn suits.
I brought a little Shetland ewe into the basement. I suspect pneumonia and it is so windy that she is using too much energy to keep warm. I notice a big improvement since she's had antibiotics and yogurt and is warmer. Hopefully she'll go back to the flock tomorrow. Having her in the house has made it easier..and warmer.. for me to care for her, that's for sure.
Molly, my reluctant model is wearing her new scarf and fingerless gloves. They are made from the wool of the Shetland lamb that Molly found without a mother while I was at MDSW in 2008. Molly located the reluctant mother and somehow managed to get her to acknowledge her motherhood before I got home from the weekend. The knitted items were a reward for devotion!

Eating our way through NYC and Brooklyn

Since Molly's home that means I don't stop for a second.But if it weren't for Molly I would never have seen half the places I've been. We just returned from a trip to NYC, not to see the ordinary stuff but to visit some of the Best Affordable Restaurants. We started out in Brooklyn in the Brighton Beach section. We were the only ones there that didn't speak Russian. The stores were full of fur coats and hats and some really wonderful felted hats and shoes. We could have been in Moscow by all appearances. The restaurants had all kinds of Russian favorites that they loaded on your plate then charged by the pound. Tim's girlfriend, Elisabeth, was along so we all shared. We were stuffed for less than $9 so some walking was in order. Too cold for the beach (Coney Island is right next door) but the shops were interesting.
From there were headed to the Flatbush section of Brooklyn to Junior's and the World's Best Cheesecake. Awful traffic but we got a parking space amazingly enough. The cheesecake went into boxes for later. Next stop Hoboken NJ, just across the River. A mere 4 miles as the crow flies but the Garmin took us accross the Brooklyn Brige and right thru Chinatown in lower Manhattan. AAHHH. I grew up in NJ and have gone to NYC all my life BUT I have managed to avoid driving there until now. My brother who works in the city is still laughing. This is another fine mess you have gotten me into Molly!
We survived Canal St. and gratefully arrived in Hoboken where we had a hotel room booked. And what a room it was! 16th floor with a 12 foot window overlooking the NYC skyline and the Hudson River boat traffic. AWESOME. The girls were still ready to go since we still had daylight so we found Carlo's Bakery...Cake Boss on TLC... and got on line. By this time it felt more like Chicago than NJ with the wind whipping off the river, but the people on line with us were fun so we braved the cold. Molly and Elisabeth got pictures with Buddy...Cake Boss... and more bakery items. By now I was craving protein so we walked around in search of real food. Hoboken has really changed since I was last there MANY years ago. They say Eli Manning lives there but we must have missed him. I swore I saw Clinton Kelly of What Not To Wear Fame but they girls assured me that if I had indeed seen him he would have immediately pulled me off the street for a fashion intervention. I kept purchasing cheap additions to my attire as the day got colder and was not too careful about matching. My Teva's and wool socks were reportedly the worst fashion faux pas.Even my brother who just worked outside in NYC all day looked better than I did when we met him for coffee.
Tuesday morning was bitter. Wind chill of 6 and 40 mph wind gusts. Now I was wishing I had purchased one of those Russian fur coats in Brighton Beach.
This time we took the train into NYC and the subway to Dylan's Candy Bar on the upper East side. That place makes you feel like you are living CANDYLAND.... A magical lollipop land. Chocolate fountains,hundreds of candy bins on 3 floors. Even the floor has a candy motif! The music was all candy realated tunes. The girls were thrilled but I kept asking myself "Why does the daughter of Ralph Lauren need to own a candy shop?" Too realistic I guess. Maybe I am as cynical as Anthony Bourdain.
From there it was blocks and blocks of walking. Molly and Elisabeth were not interested in the old standard NYC stuff like the tree at Rockefeller Center (Rockafella Centa, as my mother used to say) but I made them go anyway before returning to Hoboken. Actually we were glad to get out because the Christmas tourist crowds were impossible to navigate in spite of the cold.
It was a great time for all of us in spite of the fact that our camera was missing. All of our pictures gone! The girls were devastated that their pictures with the Cake Boss will never be on Facebook but they now have no proof that I wore what I wore. Guess we will have to go back and retrace our steps... in warmer weather tho.