All this wool!

All this wool is from 1 ewe. Buttercup. She has the most beautiful soft wool of all my sheep. This is some I just took out of the washer to be rinsed.

And this is some that's drying on the big long rack.

This is some more that didn't fit on the big long rack.

                                                   This is how long it is. It's just beautiful.

I have been washing wool the past few weeks now. I have already washed 4 huge bags full. I only have about 12 more to go. Still debating whether to take it to that little mill in Tn to make into roving. It's $20 a pound. So I figured if I did take it, being clean would be less weight. I don't know.

Does anyone else take their wool to a mill? What is your experience? I think it will be so much easier to just have roving to spin. Not have to go through all the carding. Which I don't really like doing.

100

She's finally REALLY 100 today!

This lady, who has been telling everyone she meets that she's 100 or 102 or 104, is finally 100 years old today!

She's an amazing lady. Still lives in her home that her parents built when she was 8 years old. Has been married  3 times. Has 3 wonderful grown children who love her dearly and take such good care of her. I love her too. She's just amazing. I can finally say I know someone who is a centenarian!

Ooppps, didn't mean to put 2 on here.

Mrs. Thomas. I remember about 33 years ago when I first met her. We bought a house a few houses down from her. We were out in the yard one day in early spring and she came around the house and down to where we were and introduced herself. She was beautiful and tall and just stunning. She was a potter and an artist and an avid gardener. Was always working in her very large yard, full of azaleas and box woods that her mother had planted so many years ago. (She got me started on gardening and gave me many plants and flowers from her yard.) It's still a beautiful yard, but you can tell she has not been in it in years. But she has a few yard people who are working on it and it's getting back to where it used to be.

Me and a friend home schooled our kids for a few years and Mrs. T taught them all art every other week. They loved it. She was a teacher for 10 years too. I still have some of the things my kids made there.

She used to go off on long trips during the summers and I'd be the "care taker" of her place while she was gone. I loved going over there and walking through her yard, watering all her plants and flowers, or just sitting in her house for awhile. I love how it smells. She has the most beautiful stone sun room that has the best view of her yard and all the bird feeders we keep full for the birds. And squirrels.

Lots of good memories! I hope she has many many more good years with us all.

Thrift store find...

I love thrift stores. I go all the time. So I'm in Statesboro to visit my sister and had to go to Goodwill while i was waiting for her to get off work. And i found this!!! I just absolutely love it! Looks just like what I spin. So cool!

Kind of crazy

Wow, I do not know what's going on with these huge gigantic pictures, but it's quite annoying to say the least.

Anyway, if you can possibly see these 2 paintings, they are beautiful. I found them yesterday at a thrift shop for $1.99 each. I always rescue paintings and pottery from thrift stores when I see them. And these just jumped out at me. The colors are perfect for my studio. Just perfect.

The 1st one has MRAZ at the bottom. The other is not signed. So I put these pictures on my face book page to see if anyone recognized the name or painting style. Someone said I should google it. So I typed in local artists with this name and came up with a guy named Tony Mraz from Chattanooga. I checked to see if he was on face book and he was. So I sent him a message asking him if these were his paintings.

It didn't take long til I heard from him. He said yes, they were his paintings. and that they had been stolen from his yard during a move back in either 2007 or 2008, along with several other things. He was so happy to see them.

I am not though. I really like these paintings a lot. I kind of wish I had not said anything about them. But I did tell him he can have them back. He said he would love to get them. He did say he'd reimburse me. I'm sad.

But anyway, it's kind of crazy that these turned up in a thrift store and I found them and they're his. Very small world, right?

New red boots...

Stella's little swimming hole...

Just sheep. And a few alpacas.

Earlier this week, I thought about asking my friend Cara if she'd like to take Freya and Olga for awhile. So I could have a break. I called her to ask her to think about it. The next morning she called back and said she'd love to have them! So her husband came in a little truck to get one of the stanchions and the feed barrel. I loaded the goats in my Trooper and took them to their new farm, not too far from here. Cara has all four of the doe kids. Plus another doe and her buck kid. They have 35 acres, so there is plenty of room for them.

It's been about 3 days now. And I don't think I've really missed them. Or the milking twice a day. I think it was getting to me. Having to hurry in the mornings to get out there to milk them. Then I never could go anywhere at night, because I'd have to hurry back home to milk. And I want to go places. So now I can.

I cleaned out the barn real good after the girls left that afternoon. Put down some mulch inside the barn. Got all the feed bowls and hay racks. Then put the sheep and alpacas out back.

And I don't have to hurry with the sheep. I can just take my time. I feel so much better. I even found two pretty good sized trees about 10' apart out back and thought I'd get a hammock. I finally found one yesterday. I'll put it up tomorrow.

I have way too many sheep right now. 8 ewes and 14 lambs. The ewes were all sick awhile back and they are finally all better. Then a few days ago, I noticed Legolas, one of the ram lambs, had a huge jaw. So got all my worming stuff together and got him good. All the others looked fine. So I've been keeping an eye on them all. He's better now. We've had so much rain here and the worms are really bad. It didn't rain for about 5 days and now it's raining again for the next few days. I really need to try to sell some of the lambs.

This back pasture used to be a pine forest years ago. They got pine borers and had to be all cut down. There are still piles of dead wood back there. The baby goats love to play on the wood. And I just think it's kind of cool looking.