Post Card From The Trail

Quick Iknitarod check in.  It's late and I'm tired which is never a good combo for blogging, but the last few days have been crazy busy.  More about all that later.

I'm still mushing along and I'm so happy to have a new dog team to follow as I knit and that's made the race fun again.  Justin Olnes of Rerun Kennel is racing a team made up of 75% rescued dogs.  This is a great story and if you're interested, check him out.

On the Iknitarod Trail, I've finished the back of the vest (minus the bind off at the bottom) and am ready to pick up the stitches at the top edge to start down the front.  I was hoping to get that started tonight, but I had other duties and now I'm tired and headed for "one of my 8s" (mandatory eight hour rests ;-).

Mushin on!

The I-64 Spring Fiber Fling

I don't travel much.  It's hard to leave a farm full of animals that count on Things Being Done Like They Always Are.  Having the barn cameras now may help at least my peace of mind if I decide to go somewhere, but taking care of animals, especially lots of older animals can be a challenge.

Some nights Maisie likes to eat her hay on the steps.  Some nights she wants to eat from a bucket.  Some nights she'd like a pile of hay placed in front of her in bed.  Sometimes a young sheep gets mud stuck between their toes that dries into a hard stabby rock and you have to pick it out and at the same time grab the thorny rose branch that they got stuck in their wool...Big Moose!

That being said, I do like when people come to see me.  We don't have the fanciest place and I'm never going to fix you a gourmet farm to table meal, but the farm is peaceful and fun and the sheep, horses, cats, Bea and Pinot are good characters and if you are here around lunchtime, I'd be happy to make you a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

I also have lots of wool in all stages of "production" - raw fleeces, washed fleeces, roving, batts, handspun yarn, small batch mill spun  farm yarns, learn to spin kits, felting supplies, quilt batting, punch needle ideas, ideas in general...so many ideas...

I also have some fiber processing equipment, a couple of spinning wheels, a loaner weaving loom and a whole bag full of knitting and crochet needles.  Want to give something a try?  Come on out.  And while I'm not an expert, I'm happy to teach you what I've learned along the way.  

We've dabbled with participating in more agritourism ventures, but are just far enough off the main road that it would take a little more effort and experience than I really have time for right now.  Did I follow my "schedule" and spin yesterday?  Nope.  I spent my time wrangling with a feral kitten/cat that you can meet on my Instagram feed because I haven't had time to share all that over here because I'm trying to write a blog post about the I-64 Spring Fiber Fling because someone else has done the agritourism prep work for me and I'm pretty excited to be given the opportunity to participate.  (inhale...exhale)

20 and his friends are pretty excited about this "yarn crawl" as well.

I'm going to send you to the I-64 Fiber Fling website for all the details on how to join, who you can visit, what each store or farm is offering, prizes you can win...  I'll also do another post over here next Thursday or Friday telling what I have planned for our stop.  It's going to be fun!

In the meantime, I'm headed out to make a quick barn check and then to the house to make my peanut butter sandwich.  The feral cat escaped from the greenhouse so I don't have that to contend with today...unfortunately.  Maybe I'll get some Iknitarod knitting done this afternoon.  I am working my way down the trail, just not as quickly as I'd hoped.

Whew!

Schedules

Years ago, when I was thinking about starting my small sheep business, a good friend told me that the best part of working for yourself is that you get to pick your own hours.  You can pick whichever 18 hours of everyday you want to work.  She wasn't wrong.  I've also heard that if you love your job, you'll never work a day in your life.  That's not wrong either.

One thing I haven't enjoyed along the way is getting to the end of the day...or week...or year...and realizing that I didn't do all the things I wanted to do.  This is a recurring theme and I know it's not just for me so that's all I'm going to say about that.  There are probably thousands of books about that and I should probably just find make the time to read them.

I do think having a schedule helps me.  I enjoy Tuesday nights because I "have" to join the Wool House Crafters zoom meeting.  Some weeks I get more done than others, but I like having that set schedule...and the company is good :-).  We meet for two hours and that's a good amount of time.  It's amazing what you can get done in two hours if you just put your butt in the chair.

I'd love to dedicate every afternoon to "chair work", but I've tried that and I never manage to pull it off.  Two hours isn't much time, but it's like spinning with a drop spindle.  If you spin 5 minutes here, 10 minute there, 5 minutes another time, 20 minutes after dinner...at the end of the week you've probably spun more yarn than I have with my spinning wheel.

I use "probably" in that last sentence like I've actually done any spinning lately.  Well, I did spend a little time at the end of the Kentucky Shepherd's Market last month spinning with some friends and it was really fun.  Spinning IS really fun.

The same thing happened back at the first of the year when I was playing around with the little electric drum carder I am borrowing from a friend.  Pulling those pretty batts off was really fun.  It was nice...and a little weird...to have to be reminded why I started all this in the first place.  Wool is fun.  Take the time to enjoy it.  MAKE the time to enjoy it.

So I know I can't show up from 1:00 to 4:00 every day.  Seems silly, but we both know that if that was going to happen, it would have already happened.  I don't work for myself as well as I work for other people.  

I'm not even sure I can show up every day.  I mean I show up for work every day, but not the butt in chair work.  Obviously the animal care comes first.  And if I have to be available on the farm, it's hard not to let the art side of life fall off.  It's been a crazy start to the year.  Hopefully things are settling down...just in time for spring :-o.

Here's the plan:

Monday - Catch up day.  Set things up to make the rest of the week successful.

Tuesday - Wool House Crafters.  Already on the schedule and anything goes.  

Wednesday - Art Class.  Butt in chair and pencil, pen, brush in hand. 

Thursday - Spinning...or any fun wool work.

Friday - Make up day.  Get the things done you didn't get done on Wednesday and Thursday (being realistic here).

Weekends are wild cards.  Just try to be mindful of what you'd really like to do with your "one wild and precious life".

Okay, this post went way off the rails.  My original plan was to tell you about the new I-64 Spring Fiber Fling yarn crawl we are participating in this month, but I'll have to try for that again tomorrow.  That means I need to find a new picture to share today because anyone who's made it to the end of this epistle deserves a pretty or at least funny picture.  

Hang tight while I search the archives....because I need to add photography into the schedule above.  Okay, I've added the picture of me and Frankie having a meeting about our spring schedule the other morning.  We're probably doomed ;-).

February

I almost forgot to do my beloved Month End compilation.  What a brain...

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February was crazy...but not too shabby.

 

At The Start

After last year's musher and dog issues I was no longer looking forward to the next two weeks as my favorite two weeks of the year...but I had a new project ready to start so I've decided to give it one more go.  I miss the old mushers and the more historical feel the race used to have, but maybe the kids will do them proud.  For the 2025 Iknitarod...

Yes, this is the same Lamb Camp Bottle Lamb yarn from last year and the same general project (vest) that I did not finish last year, but I've switched to a different pattern.  This is the Lulu Slipover from Petite Knits, the same designer as the Jared sweater.  We cast on this afternoon!

The ravatar is still basically the same, but I've lost my red hat (!) so I changed that out to a new hat made from the same Lamb Camp yarn...for good luck.  My Iknitarider (I almost forgot to pick someone :-o) is a nameless (!) little gray faced lambie wearing a Jacob sweater that I knit maybe as a pattern for a sweater I knit for a friend.  

I think I might call the lamb Punkin because as I was dusting off my ravatar from last year and looking at all the sheep, I couldn't for the life of me think who was standing next to me. Most of the sheep are pretty obvious, at least to me, but I was completely stumped by...Punkin :-o.

Maybe I'll find my brain when I dust off my Red Lantern and my sled!