Nearly finished with my pygora / rayon scarf this week.  I've finished weaving it and just have to hem the end, then cut it off the loom and twist the fringe.  After that washing, ironing and its done.  It is pretty and I hope it will look nice when finished.  Pix later.

We worked out in the yard a little today.  I was telling a friend how much I loved being over in the pasture today, walking the fence line with the dogs, checking out the barn and everything else.  We've had several deer over there nearly every day and saw a lot of deer sign (poop) in various places.  We also saw some poop that looked similar to deer but much larger and a very light color.  Wondering what might have been there.  Whoever (whatever) it was had to jump the fence (about 5' tall), so I don't think it was a moose as I've seen them step over our fence when we had a lot of snow, but never on bare ground.  Checked the internet to see what kind it might have been and I guess it is moose.  Unsure how it got over there though.  

According to the internet, some people even make earrings out of it.  Not me, thanks!   Eeeuuuuuuuu!

When I told my friend about how much we enjoyed being outside after a long winter and how one of my favorite things is the first time I can mow the grass, being the cartoonist he promptly sent me the following picture he drew.  He got it right on!  Right down to my hat, scarf, boots and best of all Bella sleeping on my bed.   Too funny.  Thanks Jerry!

My hand dyed pygora scarf is coming along, slowly but nicely.  The pink in the picture is where it was space dyed and it turns out like planned stripes.   The yarn doesn't feel quite as soft as I'd like, even though I used the black rayon accent yarn.  I'm really hoping it will soften up a lot after its washed.  But I always say that.  And it does.

I'm only able to weave about an hour a day, maybe three days per week.  So many other things to do now that spring is right around the corner.  Also a trip into town takes us nearly all day with errands.  Then we have to eat, of course.  We've discovered some really great places to eat this year.  Not all are restaurants, but more like the Costco food court.  They have got to have the very best pizza!  And hot dogs!  And berry parfaits.  Guess I'm hungry.

A received a gift of a mangle iron from a friend today.  No pix yet, I don't have it in my studio but it is an older model and works good.  This will save a lot of time when making scarves so I don't have to keep running back to the house to iron, then back to the studio.  We will be able to use it on woven scarves after washing them and also for silk scarves that we've hand painted.  I usually iron the silk ones twice, once to set the paint and the last time to iron out the wrinkles.

My daughter and I got our new chicken coop assembled.  I took this picture before I got the roof on but its very cute and the same color as our house and studio.  :-)

It said it was large enough for four chickens, but I'm thinking two, possibly three.  Two nesting boxes in the rear, the small section with the little door is for roosting,  the rest of it is open all underneath so they don't feel so much like they are locked up.  We put it in the fenced garden and I hope to let them out to run around but we'll need to put some chicken wire along the bottom so they can't get through those large squares in the field fence.  Right now we don't have any chickens yet and we covered it up with a tarp, since we are still having snow / rain / wind / sun / gropple (those little tiny snow balls that fall like rain).  No roosters this year so no baby chicks either.  We've got too many hawks that swoop down to eat our chicks.  A couple years ago we lost every one of our hens.  I guess those silly roosters (seven!) were too fast for the hawks because they never caught any of them unfortunately.  And the roosters wake us up at 3:30am every morning.  Waaay too early for me.  But we will have lots and lots of eggs.

Hopefully our egg storage will work out.  Don't wash off the bloom from the eggs, just the poopy if there is any.  Then rub them with mineral oil and they should keep a long time without refrigeration.  We shall see, I'll let you know.

Now that spring is right around the corner I'm feeling so much more energetic these days.  Finally finished tying some lace weight hand dyed pygora yarn to what was left of the merino / silk warp from my last scarf, the white one.  I miss my pygora goats very much, but they would call to us so early in the morning.  It is nice and peaceful these days without them.  But their fiber is beautiful and soft, much like cashmere. 


For once, I've remembered to take pictures as I progress with the weaving process.  Here's a picture of what is involved in tying a new warp to an old one.  I don't believe I will do this again as it seems so much more work than just putting on a new warp.  Since the old warp was just plain weave, I may be incorrect about that if it was an intricately designed project.



Also did more silk scarves this week with a friend.  Here is her scarf.  It always seems like an experiment when trying a new technique.  This was her first time painting silk.  She is the go-to person if you want to do any tie dye, but she was anxious to give the silk a try.  These scarves are hand painted, not hand dyed.  There's a huge difference.

Its about a two day process and you don't need to cook the paint like is done with dye.  Just a little drying in between to give the paint a chance to adhere well to the silk fibers.  Then iron to really set the paint, wash, iron again.  They are so soft and beautiful.

Got a shipment of some new interesting yarns today.  I'm thinking of doing some woven scarves of a plain color and using a few strands of one of these for an accent.  It will be a while before I do this as I'm still working on getting the merino / silk / pygora warp on my loom.  I'm not very fast but love doing it.

We had only a couple inches of snow last night but enough to cover up a lot of dirty areas.  We saw Bella laying out by the pool early this morning.  I think she thought it was summer.  She can make any place look so comfortable.

I don't go outside right now any more that necessary.  Our temps aren't freezing but its enough to make me want to stay inside these days.  I do go to the studio to check on my dye and paint projects.  After painting the first silk scarf I got the idea to paint some sik camisoles.  One green(s) and one sort of pink or salmon.  Guess I will have to check on my recipe for this, when I rinsed them out nearly All the paint washed out.  Probably forgot one simple little step of the process but I always do a couple trial runs before I ever attempt to do one for someone else.

The pink one might be ok but I think that green one that was so dark originally will have to be painted again.  No problem, it just makes it more interesting the second time around.

Ok, so here is the picture of them after I rinsed in cold water.  Uh oh, where's the paint?  

And I still need to wash in hot water after I iron them to set the paint.  Looks like back to the drawing board this time.

Trying out a new technique yesterday.  I had some 100% silk scarves I had purchased a couple years ago that I had been wanting to dye.  I also had purchased some silk paints that didn't go very well the first time I tried them, but since they were here thought I'd try them again.   This is my first silk scarf done with the silk dyes.  

Loving watercolor as much as I do I really like the way this scarf came out.  Not necessarily my colors but springtime-ish and cheerful.  They kind of look like waterlilies to me.  What do you think?

These colors are muted and not too bright.  I was surprised as they looked so much darker as they were being painted on.

In a more recent post there's a picture of a scarf a friend did last weekend.  I love it too!  We may decide to do a few projects for the craft show this summer.  You will only get to see the pictures if (IF) they turn out.

Stay tuned!

Have any of you ever wondered about all the chem trails in the sky these days?  We have been noticing them for months now.  When I got up this morning around 6:30 am I saw this out my window.  The sun was just coming up and it was really pretty, but how dangerous can these things be?  They float through the sky getting bigger and bigger.  These are not the old airplane vapor trails we used to see, but they keep enlarging until our blue sunny skies are over cast and gray.


Our Great Pyr Bella seems to be feeling better.  The surgical vet examined her this week and said both her knee caps were sliding off her knees going to one side or the other.  Usually they will just slide off one way, but her ligaments in her back legs are so weak the knee cap slides either way ... both legs.  No wonder the poor girl is in a bad mood from time to time.  That really must hurt.  He didn't think surgery was necessary right now.  He thought we could wait a while and we have put her on glucosamine, Boswellia Extract, collagen and an herbal supplement for inflammation with an emergency painkiller of rymedyl just in case she needs it.  She seems to be doing fine for the moment.

BTW, my white scarf is now ready to use.  And it turned out just as I'd hoped, nice and soft with lots of gentle draping.  This just may be a good one to enter in our fair this fall.

Well, I finished weaving my white scarf and yesterday removed it from the loom.  As I suspected it is a little stiffer than I want so after I get the fringe twisted today it will be washed and dried.  I did some washing of some yarn scraps the other day.  After drying them they were much softer than they started out.

Twisting the fringe used to be a huge task, one that I put off doing.  It would take a couple days and I always got a stiff back from sitting for so long.  So these days I use a tool that used to be sold to make 'braids' in hair.  Works perfectly.  Anyone who doesn't have one of these and wants to get one, you might find one on Ebay.  Don't think they sell them any more.  Here's a picture.

Feeling sorry for those folks in the northeast today.  From the pictures on the news it does appear they really got dumped on by the storm.  I would not live there for that reason, although we do have family members in NY and IL.  Give me the Pacific NW any time.  Our weather is a combination of the wet NW and snowy Rocky Mtn weather systems.  Which, results in beautiful weather both winter and summer, also fall.  Spring can be long and wet sometimes, but we are always green and fresh up here.

Had some bad news yesterday.  We had to take our beautiful great pyrenees Bella to the vet.  She's been limping every so often and was getting pretty crabby with our other animals.  That's not a trait pyrs usually have.  We suspected she wasn't feeling well and waking up a lot at night.  She sleeps in my room now so that was very disturbing.

Our wonderful vet, Dr Marnie, did some blood tests and xrays on her and has surmised Bella may need some surgery on both back knees and also possibly has arthritis in her hips.  Bella has an appt Tuesday with a veterinary surgeon to see if he thinks she needs surgery.

Also have some homeopathic ideas for her, herbs and other things.  A good friend gave me several things we're going to try before I commit her to surgery ... my last resort.  Also before we do the surgery friends have given me the names of two other vets that use other types of treatment, such as aqua-therapy and acupuncture.  Unfortunately, acupuncture won't solve the kneecap problem, but may give her some pain relief without drugs.  We shall see what happens.

Lastly, we had some excitement the other morning.  The dogs had been barking for an hour, wouldn't come when we called them and both were up just beyond our little pool.  Standing upstairs I had been watching to see if I could tell what they were barking at, all of a sudden a great big shadow moved ... Moose!  No wonder they were fascinated.  I think it was on the other side of our field fencing but it sure looked like it was in the yard.  We've had as many as seven at one time in our yard, so we sure didn't venture outside until he turned and walked up the hill.

I'm sure both dogs thought they were the ones that had scared him off.  Ha!  Here's a picture, sort of.  He's standing in between the two skinny trees but back in the shadows.  Can you see him?

I'm weaving a new scarf.  This one is made of some merino / silk from Henry's Attic.  I've wound the warp and was going to use it for the weft also but it fuzz's so easily I was afraid it would be too fuzzy and warm to wear.

So I pulled out some cotton / rayon nubby yarn I bought several years ago from Catnip Yarns.  They've got to have the most beautiful yarns made for dyeing.  I seem to be in a white mood (maybe because of all our snow?) so probably won't dye any of this.

Wasn't sure at first it would be suitable for the weft, but after weaving a couple yards, I'm loving it!  But I do hope it softens up after I wash and finish it.  Here's a close up of that lumpy-bumpy weft.

If it doesn't get softer, maybe I will use it for a table runner.  They can be approximately the same size, but not worried about it.

That leicester (lie-ster) longwool I spun and wove into a scarf was similar to burlap until I was told to Always wash and iron before making a judgment.  And I really love it now.

The only problem is the lumps and bumps take up a lot of space on these little shuttle bobbins so I'm always jumping up to wind a few more.  But that's ok, I really feel better if I move around a little when I'm weaving.



Our snow continues to fall and stay.  This picture shows the accumulated snow off our roof in the front yard.  I just hope it doesn't warm up too quickly and start to do a fast melt.  We have had frozen water, otherwise known as ice :-) ... on our front porch clean up to the door.  Not fun.

Winter goes on here.  The dogs always enjoy it as they love playing in the snow.  They could stay out for hours but we worry about their feet getting too cold.  At least Dexter's.  He isn't as long-haired as Bella and its not nearly as thick.

Bella looks like a sheep and I don't think she ever gets cold.  But she sure likes being in the house sleeping.  Maybe she's part kitty, as she sleeps All The Time.

Daughter was out trying to snow blow a path from the house out to the garage.  Our neighbor who usually snowplows for us wasn't available this week so she did it instead.  Usually its not too hard with this snow blower but take about half a day to do the entire thing.

The driveway goes from where the dogs were playing to down past that stand of trees in the first picture.  Our driveway is on a bit of a slope and coming back up can be tricky.  She got her truck stuck down at the gate the other day and it was a while before she could maneuver her way up.  One year we slid not just one, but two cars into the chicken coop (on the right of the first picture) and finally had to get a neighbor with an ATV to come pull them both out.

Oh the fun of living here.  BTW, Dexter thinks he's saving her from that noisy snow blower.  He does the same thing with the vacuum.

 2013 is here! 

HAPPY NEW YEAR everyone.  Ok, so I will start my diet tomorrow.  This was just too good to pass up.  Twelve different kinds of cheesecake.

Remarkably, I haven't gained a pound.  Well, probably more than just one pound.  We ate a few pieces each, then decided to save the rest for later in the month.

I sat it outside on our covered screened in porch where we eat in the summer time.  Frozen by the time we got up this morning.  Oh well, I was going to put it in the freezer anyway.



















And here's a picture of one of the pieces I ate last night.  All cheesecake, all sweet and soft, all soooo good.  But I haven't had one today (yet).







Just in case you don't believe our cheesecake froze out on the picnic table last night on the covered, screened in porch, here's some proof.  I took this picture this morning of our thermostat around 8:am.   It didn't warm up to the 20' until around noon.  Now its back down in the teens.

But its still 74 inside.   Lovin' it.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!  We just would like to take this opportunity to wish every one a Happy New Year and say Thanks for visiting our farm on our blog.  We appreciate your interest and comments.  Happy 2013!

Oh, and this picture?  I finally found some advice I can follow.  I think I will use this as my New Year's Resolution!  :-)

Christmas Eve day we treated ourselves with the best, most delicious freshly made cinnamon rolls ever.  The little country store just up the road from us makes these, caramel rolls, breads, cookies and just about everything you can dream up.  They are all so good.  These were still warm when we brought them home.

We were going to eat just one each, then put the rest in the freezer for later.  HA!  After the first bite that idea wasn't going to fly.  We have been eating them every since.  There's only one and a half left.  They are so big, all you can eat is a half at a time.  Cream cheese frosting!  A little butter, warm it up.  Oh my.

We had finger foods and snacks on Christmas Eve instead of making our usual soup dinner.  Then on Christmas Day I did make homemade yellow split pea soup.  This time it was in the crock pot, but not the big one, just the little one I usually use for dip and snacks.  It was the perfect size for just the right amount.  Yummy! 

We had a very blessed Christmas spending time with each other.  Daughter and I played a new computer game that we love.  Lots of laughing and snacks to eat.  We really treated ourselves.  She gave me a new pair of cowboy boots!  How cool is that.  I wore them all day yesterday in town and didn't even know I had them on.  Ahhhhh

We pretty much gave each other things we really love, such as new sweats.  We just about live in sweats around here.  So much work to do both inside and outside, its just the right thing to do.  That way we don't get our 'going to town' clothes all dirty working outside.

Here' a picture of our vicious guard dog Bella.  She has taken to sleeping under the stairs so she can guard her food bowl.  What ever happened to sleeping outside guarding the house?  She sleeps inside at night now, but somehow is able to hear every little sound. 

If ever we had a problem, she certainly would be the first one out the door.  Dexter would be right after her.  Those two would scare the heck out of me.  GRRRRRRR Wuff wuff wuff! 

I just knew I shouldn't have talked about our lack of snow a couple weeks ago.  Yesterday we really had a storm.  I think we must have received about 12-18" of fresh snow.  The storm seemed to be over a fairly small area as friends just south of us didn't receive more than an inch or so.

My sister in Washington was so surprised we got that much, she said they got rain.  You just never know up here.  We are only northeast of her a little bit.

The picture on the right is our front yard swing.  Check out some of the summer pictures on the blog for a comparison.  The left picture on on the bottom is of our driveway with the chicken coop on the other side.

Not only all the snow but we lost power around 1pm yesterday.  That happens frequently around here.  But it usually comes back on in a couple hours.  Yesterday it was nearly 7:30pm before we got it back on.  Because it gets dark so early these days (3:45pm)  we decided to eat early while there was still daylight, so we had salad, crackers and cheese and of course some spice cake and lemon bars from our Bible study the other night.  Not bad.

We just had a feeling things were going to be a little rough so we'd laid a fire ready to be lit as needed.  After our heater and lights went off that was the first thing I did, light the fire.  So glad we have our little wood stove.  It has saved our lives, or our comfort levels, so many times over the years.  We have cooked on it, dried our boots and coats near it, and heated our whole house with it.  So tiny.  And they don't even sell these any more.  What a shame.  Its perfect. 

We've also stored water for times like this.  We have our own well.  That has to have electricity in order to operate the pump.  Lots of water to drink but we don't 'buy' water to flush with.  Summer, we can dip water out of our pool, winter ... well, let's say the ice skating is great.

I was in the middle of baking a pecan pie when the power went out.  Fortunately the only thing I hadn't done was put it in the oven to cook.  So today, that will be my duty to get it done.

If it hadn't been so dark outside with the snow I might have gotten my new book read, my new scarf knit or so many other things I ended up not doing.  Oh well, there's still lots of time.

One last thing I wanted to share with you all.  If you don't watch The Voice on TV you probably haven't seen this yet.  The show wanted to do a tribute to Sandy Hook so decided to do it at the beginning of the show.  It had nothing to do with the show itself, just their way of remembering the victims.      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IO64urOFNaY    Please watch this.