I combined a wonderful visit with family in Maryland with a trip to the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival.  While I do enjoy seeing spinning and weaving equipment, I wouldn’t go if it weren’t for the chance to see Jacob Sheep and visit with other Jacob Sheep breeders.  It was great to finally meet Ralene and Eli! 

 I don’t much care for crowds - and MSWF is definitely crowded!! I enjoyed taking a look at the 30″ Jensen wheel in person and will be daydreaming for abit on that. I got to treadle on a Fireside tapestry loom and now I gotta have one, maybe after I buy the Jensen :-). I did buy two new bobbins for the Woolee Winder on my Kromski.  Oh, I did I mention that I also bought a sheep???

 Unzicker Jedd is such a handsome boy with a wonderful hornset.  

I also saw my very first sheep show and even got to show! Thanks to Royal and Sue for letting me show Patchwork Madison.  It was really alot of fun.

Here’s me and Madison (on the left) with a pretty 4Horn Farm ewe on the right, owned by the Robisons from Pennsylvania.

We even placed!! Here’s Royal Unzicker with Unzicker Mingle winning first (and Grand Champion Jacob ewe), with Unzicker Mingle, Brandon Woolley with Showphar Libby (owned by Royal) in second, me with Patchwork Madison (owned by Royal) in third, and Peggy Vanbeek in fourth.

Brandon Woolley showed Unzicker Basil and Alex Vanbeek showed a very nice Ridgecroft ram in the yearling ram class. Alex’s ram won the class and Basil placed second.

The ram lamb class was won by Unzicker Jenner.  A really nice Ridgecroft ram took second.

Spring is here in all its fire and glory, a gallimaufry (is that a neat word or what!) of thunderstorms and gentle breezes, misty days and blazing sun.

Flowers are blooming and the bugs are here.

The bunnies are growing and starting to get fluffy. This little girl is a harlequin angora.

The ewes get to head out back to the clover. They are in a hurry! No, I didn’t tip the picture - we really are that steep.

It’s time to weedeat the path to the rabbit barn. Dorothy is not happy! She likes to sneak up in the weeds and catch mice.  A few years ago, I almost stepped on a timber rattler in just that spot - sorry, Dorothy - go chase mice someplace else. And watch for snakes!!

Or so it seems.  Spending time at the computer on a gorgeous spring/summer (it was hot! here today) just doesn’t compute.

Since I refused to go to town for the last 2 weeks after surgery on my lip for fear of frightening small children, I did have some extra time at home. It’s amazing how much time errands take.  It was wonderful to have an excuse to stay at home, although something less annoying would have been fine with me. I don’t much care for shopping.

I decided to see if I could wash, card, and spin an entire fleece in a week - and here it is! It was purposely carded to leave in the color variations and it’s a pretty heathery yarn from Olivia.

Alina asked once why I never named a sheep Alina or Alex.  Because sometimes sheep get culled.  How could I take Alex or Alina to the butcher? Which reminds me of funny story. A friend had goat kids in her car on the way to have them castrated at the vet’s.  She stopped on the way on some errand or other. When she left, she said “gotta run, I’m taking the kids to be castrated”.  A little later, she realized that perhaps that didn’t come across just right.

This little girl is a keeper and I don’t think she’s going to the butcher, so she’s going to be Willa Lena. Which is close to Alina, but not so close that I’ll never be able to part with her.  Here’s Willa Lena. 

I’m going on a quest! The dictionary defines a quest as:

Do I search for treasure? adventure? knowledge? Nah - I search for my ear tag pliers.  Somewhere in this house is a gateway into another world, where things like one sock of each pair, the tv remote, my Interweave book of scarves, and my ear tag pliers slip silently and unobserved into a household in another dimension. That household is currently exclaiming “my goodness, how did these ear tag pliers get into the refrigerator? Do we have anything around here that needs ear tags?” You never know where the gateway will open.  Once I found noodles under a pillow on the couch.  Although, Lucky the dog may have had something to do with that.  He was an adopted stray and liked to have emergency rations hidden just in case he ever had to go hungry again.  Perhaps I unfairly accused him and in another world a family was sitting down to supper and wondering where the noodles went.

During my quest, I’m sure I will run across things from the other dimension.  In the process of finding my pliers, I’ll find old cooking magazines and will sit and read all the recipes.  A Handwoven that might be mine, but might have come from a weaver in another world.  I’ll read that, too.  By the end of the day, I may not find my pliers, but I’ll have some great ideas for supper and ideas for weaving projects.

A war protest? No, just Macaroon’s lamb looking like she’s on her way back to the womb rather than out into the world. 6 am this morning finds Macaroon standing dejectedly in a corner with her head down and under her tail - another tail. No sack, no feet, just 3 inches of a tail.  This is not good. Lambs are supposed to jump joyously into the world feet first followed by a wagging tail. Not proceeded by a limp tail.  I haven’t had to pull many lambs as in actually having to reach in, as opposed to a few gentle tugs, thank goodness.  This is my second in 15 years.  The hard part is sorting out the parts. I can find the butt - follow the tail.  I find two hind legs which are quite different from front legs and fairly easy to identify. And check for extra parts that might belong to a sibling.  Ok, push butt forward, work legs back. Use lots of vasoline.  No matter how hard I work, I just can’t get the hind legs straightened.  I call my vet, who can’t get here soon, but gives me instructions for tying ropes to the feet and working the lamb forward while using the ropes to gently work the feet into the outermost position. At this point, I decide it’s a good time to wake Dave and ask for his help. And what do we find when we get there?  Macaroon laying down, motionless, and a “blob” behind her. Fully expecting to find a dead lamb, I am surprised (and quite happy) to see movement in the “blob” and even more gratified when the blob stands up and becames a lilac ewe lamb.  Dave says “I’m a pretty good helper, I just need to be here!” Macaroon is busy making mother noises and cleaning her lamb, but she doesn’t want to stand.  When the lamb strays out reach, I move the lamb back.  Another call to my vet. Write this down “anytime a ewe goes through a prolonged or difficult delivery, she needs calcium. Dextrose and B complex are also good, but calcium is very important.” Thanks, Dr. Ann!!!  After the calcium injections, Macaroon stands and finishes cleaning her lamb.  All is well!

Went to the doctor today.  Or, more precisely, the clinic that is part of some medical comglomerate. And doesn’t have one single MD.  For almost 20 years, Dave and I went to Dr. King here in Georgia.  He had retired from the Army as a doctor and chose to operate a small, very personal, medical practice here.  One day a week, he went to the nursing homes to minister to the patients. A doctor that was still doing house calls! He removed Dave’s skin cancer. He treated my pleurisy and helped me through quitting smoking.  He helped me through a cancer scare.  He drove an old pickup truck and his wife drove an old Buick.  Eventually, it was time for him to retire and Med Link took over.  

 Today I go to the doctor. He says “beyond what I can do - call a specialist - that will be $51″. 

 I’m 59.  I don’t remember when dinosaurs walked the earth.  But I sure do remember when Dr. Barnes  set my first husband’s broken arm and later on delivered my daughter.

What’s this shit (it’s my blog, I can say shit) where we have a primary care physician with only one job - to point us to to other doctors?

Belvedere thinks Sasquatch makes a good pillow!

 So what if I don’t have eye patches. How do you spell the sound of a raspberry?

Seems to be hard to find the time to sit down at the computer lately. First there’s this @@##! daylight saving time and the warm weather. Who wants to be inside?

This little ewe is much prettier in person - her head isn’t really twice the size of her body! She is just so goldarn silly looking in the picture, I couldn’t resist posting it. Every lamb gets to be cute for a minimum of a month and then we get serious with the critiquing. And you gotta admit, she’s cute! No, she doesn’t have much in the way of facial markings in person,either. And yes, that is a tuft on the right eye. She is a twin born to a 13 year old ewe. I think RubyBelle just ran out of eye patches

Here’s an interesting result of a carefully (so I believed, anyway) thought out breeding pair. Heather has big eye patches, but not much of a muzzle patch. Finalist has big eye patches and good muzzle patch. OK, I’m going to put muzzle patches on these lambs. Huh? where did the eye patches go?

Just so you don’t think that we didn’t get any eye patches :D, here’s Atocha’s ewe lamb from Wednesday and Olivia’s ewe lamb from today.

We sheared yesterday.  It was scheduled for last week, but we were snowed out (can you believe it! in Georgia?) Randy, our much appreciated shearer, very gently sheared Daphne and Viva standing up as it was rather obvious that lambing was close.

I guess it was!  Patchwork Daphne delivered this handsome four horned ram sired by Perfect Spot Artemis.

Patchwork Viva (half sister to Daphne) delivered these two pretty ewes by Southwind Sasquatch.