Happy Birthday, Punkin

32 years ago

I doubt I'll ever be more grateful for anyone or anything ever again.  What a gift.

So Where Are We

I'm sitting on the Wool House porch drinking coffee and watching Pinot mess about being a happy rabbit.  It's been cool this morning and last and he loves that.  I'll be so glad when summer is over.  This has already felt like a long one and it's just the beginning of July.

I've mentioned the Tour de Fleece, Pinot, the woven rug.  The month end compilations have at least included pictures of the gardens, sunrises, sunsets, sheep, horses, cats.  I made a little knitted Maisie, but while I've wanted to start my walnut dyed sweater, I haven't let myself cast on.

It's a good thing Maisie's so cute ;-).

I get beat down by the "can't do something fun until you get your chores done" mentality.  First, I live on a farm.  The chores are never done.  Not only are the chores never done, but I keep adding to the chores by planting too many flowers, getting a rabbit friend, wanting to teach Frankie something new...  I love my flowers and Pinot and I'm proud of what Frankie and I are getting done this summer.  Some rain would be helpful.

Second, if you want to maintain a fiber business to help support your sheep, maybe actually doing something with the fiber needs to be a "chore" if that's how your kooky brain works.  Just because a chore is fun doesn't mean it's not important.  I'm assuming ten years from now I won't remember the blood, sweat, tears and bruises, but I will enjoy looking back at the blog pictures and stories while wearing warm sweaters made from my best friends fleeces.  

I'm going to be 56 this summer.  If I haven't figured life out by now, maybe it's not going to happen.  Or maybe I'm just now getting old enough to start figuring it out.  Maybe I'm just a slow learner...

So, some things to look forward to:

The next post will be about all the building we've done lately.  Mostly for Pinot and some flowers.  Oh, I also put a board back up in Frankie's stall, so I guess I covered all my "distractions" ;-).  Don't let me forget to share the out house as well.  

I've started skirting my spring fleeces...finally...and promptly ran into a nest of very aggressive bees living in guess who's fleece. 

I covered them back up and was trying to find a place to safely stash them (even mean bees are important pollinators and they were just trying to protect their family), but our resident barn skunk cleaned them out last night.  I should have seen that coming.  Slow learner...

Yep, it was Maisie.  You can't make this stuff up...

The Bluegrass Yarn and Fiber Crawl is coming up and I'm going to participate this year.  I'll do a separate post with my open dates and information about what we are going to offer along with some new farm and fiber products.

I finished my first bobbin of Ellie last night and I'm going to carry on spinning her for the Tour de Fleece.  She's a sweet spin and I'm really excited about her yarn.

How's your summer going?

What A Brain

I've been trying to take pictures of the B Garden all spring and summer and had yet to get even one that I'd liked.  The B Garden has been Beautiful.  So much color, so much depth, sooo many bees, some butterflies and a few birds...but none of the pictures ever captured any of that.  I've been unhappy about it for Many Weeks. 

Of course I was using my iPhone...that does take some really nice pictures...but when it doesn't, I have a tool that can fix that.  I even set out it where I had to step over it to get in and out of the Wool House.  I stepped over it for Several Weeks and then finally put it back away.

This morning I tried to take a picture of some yarn from the Tour de Fleece and could not get a picture that truly reflected the softness and the rich creamy color with just a hint of halo and shine.  Even adjusting some settings on the phone didn't help...but I knew what would.

(blows dust off big girl camera)

Yep.  Sure enough.  That was the picture I was going for.  The picture of Ellie's yarn...looked just like Ellie's yarn.

Hey, while you've got your head out of your...  you have the camera out, why don't you go take some pictures of the B Garden!

Oh look!  A pretty picture of some of the flowers...and a hummingbird and bumble bee thrown in to boot!  Do you see the bee?

This is pretty much how most of my life has felt this summer.  I'm not happy with the way things are going...and I have the tools to fix them...but I just keep stepping over them.

I had fun taking some nice flower pictures.  When the hummingbird buzzed in, I happily set up my camera to best capture her.  I thoroughly enjoyed sitting on the bench next to the garden to wait.  I even ate my lunch out there...like in "olden" times.

I love my iPhone and I take a lot of great "memory pictures" that I'd completely miss if I had to carry around a heavy DSLR all day.  The camera you have on you is frequently your best camera.  Still, there are many times I miss the days when phones really weren't very good and I mostly used the big camera.  

There are many things I miss from the days before we carried computers in our pockets.  I hate thinking about everything I'm missing now because of that computer that doesn't stay in my pocket as much as it should.  And all the things I should be missing.  

I'm going to try to fix that.  I have the tool to do it.  I've been tripping over it all summer. 

If you'd like to hang out in the B Garden for a bit longer, here is a video from this morning and a new puzzle :-).

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A post shared by Sara Dunham (@thecrazysheeplady)

Enjoy!