Mrs. T.

Mrs. T is 97 years old. She tells everyone she's 100. We all just let it go now. If she wants to be 100, then 100 she shall be.

And this is what she does when she goes outside for a walk. She cannot just go out and enjoy the beauty of her yard. She has to work. She has always taken care of her almost 3 acre yard. It's called Azalea Hill. There must be over a hundred azaleas here. Her mother started planting them, then she added a lot more. It's beautiful in the spring. She used to have garden tours and garden parties. People come to take pictures. It's just amazing, this yard.

And when she would go out before, when she could go out and walk alone, she would always have an armload of sticks to take to her ever growing brush pile. She was always working, while walking.

So this is what she does now. I had wheeled her out to her "formal" garden, with this bench at the end for her to sit and enjoy the beautiful fall colors. Then ram inside real quick to grab my camera. This is what I saw when I came back. She had reached down and got a stick and was raking the leaves at her feet. Typical mrs. T. Even though she can't really walk too good anymore, she can still do this.

I had to call her name several times to get her to look up. She's so beautiful. Just so photogenic. I love this lady.

Fall, in Mrs. T's beautiful yard this week...

In the mail...

I had ordered some things from Jeff and Taryn at Wooly Moss Roots last Sunday from their Etsy shops. And I got them Thursday.

I ordered the hand made wooden earrings with beets on them for a friend. Jeff made these. They are so cute. I just might have to keep them.

He also makes these wooden buttons from reclaimed wood from around their property in Oregon. They are all hand done. I love them.

Also some organic seeds. Mullein, stinging nettle, cat nip and kale. And there are a whole lotta seeds in those little envelopes. I think I will have to share the mullein seeds.

Thank you Jeff and Taryn Wilson! Y'all need to go check out her blog too. woolymossroots. I love it.  And her Etsy shop of the same name. Jeff's shop is Mystic Orb. Really nice things there.

We're ready now.

Finally got a nice huge round bale of hay delivered today for the sheep and alpacas. It's nice loose small hay too. Just right for the sheep. They are quite picky animals when it comes to their hay. And it fit perfectly in this middle stall, so they have plenty of room to fit around it and still get out of the rain.

This is some of them, checking out the hay. I feel so much better now. I was getting a little worried. I wanted to just use round bales this winter, because it would be so much cheaper and less waste. And would last so much longer too. And NO hauling hay to them twice a day now! I am good with that! And the people about 2 miles from me can deliver it!

I made these 2 little cuties today from Adelaide's pretty long locks. I love them.  They are so fluffy and sweet. I love making these little guys.

Happy hump day, y'all! Have a good one. I am off to market.

Fiberintheboro...

 I went to a fiber show in Murfreesboro, Tn. Saturday with my niece Jill. I had so much fun. My very first fiber show.  I was told if I saw a fleece I really wanted, to get it. I didn't. And I missed out on a beautiful black Romney fleece, for $5 a pound. I am still mad at myself for not getting it when I saw it. I am a slow learner. But I did get a lot of good fiber.

The black fleece is Wensleydale. The white is Cotswold and Teaswater locks. These are so pretty. The colored roving in the front is Mohair, from goats. The lady said $1 each at first then when we were going to buy them all she said maybe $2 each. Which was fine because we told her she needed to make some money. They are so soft. I would love to have one of each of these sheep, and a few goats,  one day.

On the left is a pretty alpaca. I got 2.5 oz. of this. I love the soft light brown color. And I also got 2 huge balls of this pretty green roving. It says what it is on the tag. I can't remember now. It's so soft.

This is a Shetland ram lamb fleece. $10. It's so pretty and long locks. Needs washing.

This is from the same place that had the black fleece. When I went back to get the black, of course it was gone. I had also seen this fleece, so went ahead and got it. Almost 6 pounds at $5 a pound. I know! It is beautiful. Romney. I pulled it out of the bag yesterday over at the studio to see what it looked like. It's huge. Some of it is full of VM really bad. But most is really nice and clean. Can't wait to see it all cleaned up.

And this is the gray Icelandic roving I traded for some soap from Jessica in NY. It's really pretty and soft too. Don't know what I'll do with this yet. It's a pound.

I wanted to see what Jacob fleece felt like. I did not like it. Really course and not very soft at all. Good for felting I think. S I didn't get any of that. Didn't see any Finn there. And also, when I was asking about a diz, no one knew what I was talking about. I thought that was strange. I did buy a set of really pretty pottery buttons that I could use for a diz. That's what makes the roving off a carder.

So it was a fun day. And funner getting all this prettiness out of the bags to look at and touch all over again. And now to figure out what to do with it all. I will  maybe take some to the school in a few weeks to learn to spin it. I'll be washing the 2 fleeces this week and carding it. Looking forward to going!

I hope you all have a fabulous week! And stay warm. We have the wood stove roaring away. With the windows open! It's quite warm in here. Oh, and we are being taken over by flies. Oh my goodness, I have never seen so many flies. When I got home Sat. I could not get in my kitchen door for all the flies cakes on it. It was scary. They are all back again this morning, catching the sun. I hate flies. Anyone else being invaded by flies?

Campbelle. And 36 years.

Mom and I drove down to get my sister Monday to take her to Savannah for surgery Tuesday. Heidi had a job interview at Ga. Southern before we left for Savannah. She was already so stressed about the surgery, so we hope her interview went well and she gets the job. She's worked there before for several years before she moved to Colorado. So we all hope she gets back in there again. With her house burning and not being able to find a contractor to rebuild, plus everything else going on, she has had a rough time of it for the past few months. She needs some good stuff to happen. She'll be looking for an apartment so she can get closer to GSU while they are rebuilding her house.

We stayed til Wed. when they finally let her out if the hospital. At 3:30. What happened to discharging patients before 11:00? Geeze, all the computer work these days is crazy! So we got her back to her daughter's and settled in. It was about 6 by then. And we had another 300 miles to drive. Got to mom's about 12:30. She was so tired. I kept trying to get her to lay the seat back so she could sleep. She said she can't sleep in a car. But I'd look over at her and her head would be down flat on her chest. Poor mom. She got a little sleep. But she's in bed by 7 most every evening.  So I know she was slap worn out.

I got home about 1:30. Soon as I got out of the car, I could hear a lamb, far away. All the other sheep were right where I could see them. I'm the only one with sheep within several miles. So I knew it was one of my babies, calling for help. I got my flashlight (thank you SO much Sue! That little tiny flashlight is amazing and bright and I can see all over with it. Best little flashlight ever.) and took off for the front corner of the pasture, where I knew she was. I knew who it was, because she'd been in the same place a few days earlier. Poor Campbelle. I don't know how long she'd been there, but my husband said he heard baaaaing when he got home after dark too. But didn't associate it with a lamb needing help.

I have a cattle panel in front of some field fence in the corner of the pasture, where my cow had messed the fence up years ago. This is how I fixed it. This lamb has been stuck in the same place a few times already. All I have to do is lift up on the field fence and she can get out. Poor baby. She was probably there all day like that. She was a little wobbly when we started walking back. So I moved the sheep back over to the other side til I can get that fence fixed properly.

She's one of my 3 bottle babies. One of the quads. She's the sweetest one of the whole bunch. I can get all the sweet lamb kisses I want from her and she just lets me. I love her. And I would hate for anything bad to happen to her.

This is some of the other sheep, in the back pasture. Don't know why Campbelle was in the back yard by herself. But then some of the other lambs came to be with her.

It's such a beautiful day today. Cool, but nice. I'm washing and hanging clothes out on the line.

That darn rat is still hanging out under the sink. The other day, I noticed this thick brown liquid on the floor under the cabinet.  It was some furniture polish that the nasty rat had bitten into the bottle and gotten all over the cabinet under the sink. So it's nice and stained real pretty. And I got it cleaned good while I did that. I never did find the bottle.

When I got home last night, I heard some noise and went to look under the sink. There was a bottle of vinegar water on it's side with holes chewed in the bottom of the bottle. Got that cleaned up and thrown away.

Then this morning I was looking for a bucket and saw this. In the bucket. It's my hand milker. Without the rubber tubing and syringe that hooked to the teat. Gone. Can't find it anywhere under there. I can tell it's been chewed off. I guess that nasty rat is making a nest? Ugh! I am going to have to get a trap. This is getting bad. Stupid rat.

While we were gone, me and hubby celebrated our 36th anniversary. Apart again. I think the past 30 years, we have never spent one together. He's been on the road. And last year, he got home and almost died. But he got me roses. And he sent me a text with a picture of my roses for this year, while me and mom were waiting for my sister's surgery to be over.  I almost cried. He's so sweet. Don't tell him, but I really never have liked roses. But he's always gotten them for me. One year, he had to leave the day before our anniversary. When I got up the next morning, he had yellow roses in the fridge. I did cry then. It's just the fact that he's always done this for me. No matter what. Last year, he could barely walk and was so sick. But he went to a store and hobbled inside to get my roses. Then got to his truck stop and called me and said he didn't think he'd make it home. He was in the hospital 7 days. One year ago. I do love him. And his roses.

Washing fleeces...

 A few days ago, I washed Amarillo's wool from this past spring. I used nearly all that was in the bag. Just a little tiny bit was no good. I was really pleased with how well it turned out. It's very white and fluffy and soft. I really don't know all the terminology that goes along with wool and fleeces and such. I watched some good you tube videos on how to wash fleeces and just went from there.

This is Amarillo's fleece. It just kept coming out of the bag. There was a lot of it. And not too awfully dirty either. Not much work in this one.

And it's really pretty. All of this I am thinking can be spun on the wheel for yarn. When I learn to spin. In 3 weeks. I am so excited to be going to the John Campbell Folk School in N. Carolina to learn to spin. And they will also teach up to the spinning as well.  So when I come back home, I just might know what all this means.

And today, I decided to get Adalaide's bag of wool out and start washing it. Man, was it a mess! Full of VM and nastiness. Took a while to just get it all untangled and looked over. And she has some really nice wool right now. I might have to look into getting a coat for her and Amarillo. They are both full Finn. And this was their 1st time being sheared.

Just look how nasty this is. A whole lot of it was so matted together I don't think I'll be able to use it.

This is really pretty here. So nice and fluffy. And some pretty good crimp, I hope.

This is the really crimpy part of her fleece. There was a lot of this. I tried to keep most of it together.

                                   Here it is in the wash water. And it's not pink. Just the lighting.

And all washed up on the drying rack. When it's all clean and white like this, I see all the crap I missed. But I'll get it all clean as I pull it apart.

I still have a little more of Adalaide's to wash tomorrow. I just got tired of doing it and it was getting dark over at the studio.

The 1st weekend in Nov. is a fiber show in Murfreesboro, Tn. I am going with my niece on Sat. I have never been to one before and am very excited. And a little nervous. I'm afraid I'm going to want a little of everything there. I do want to try some different fiber from different breeds. I would like to get a few different breeds for my farm later.So I hope there will be sheep there to see. If anyone is up this way next weekend, come by the fiber show.  I have to clean out my Trooper so I will have room for wool!

I hope you all have a great weekend. It's beautiful here.