I saw this term on a church board on the way to drop the kiddos off at Grandma's house this morning. The exact message was " Thank You Mothers everywhere for your sacrificial love". This seems like such an odd statement to me. I don't consider being a mother a sacrifice. Yes there are times I miss certain aspects of my life BC(before children). I think of those times and then of my kids. I think my kids bring so much more joy to my life and fill it more than any of those things I might temporarily miss.
After having children I do have a deep respect for other mothers and all that we go through. Seems odd to me that this joy would be considered a sacrifice.
As a late post a big Thank You to all the moms out there, and I hope each of you had a wonderful day yesterday.
Question: Do you consider being a mom a sacrifice?
Monday, May 14, 2012
Saturday, May 12, 2012
I admittedly am not the most social person. In fact I'm probably one of the least social people you'll ever meet. I am the perpetual wall flower, the loner, the shy one. I have been this way my entire life. I remember as a child shying away from anything where I had to be in a group of people.
This social shyness in itself is not an odd thing. I have met many people who are shy and slightly introverted. I usually become friends with them easily. What makes this odd is that I am from a large family. I mean a LARGE family. I also scored high on leadership test in high school.
I think my problem is I always feel like the 3rd wheel. I never truly know how to behave in any "normal" social situation. If I'm around animal people or fiber artist, I generally tend to be okay. If you put my in a wedding, church gathering or some other appropriate societal function I become all clammed up and have no idea what to do. I would rather retreat into a corner and watch the happenings.
This social shyness in itself is not an odd thing. I have met many people who are shy and slightly introverted. I usually become friends with them easily. What makes this odd is that I am from a large family. I mean a LARGE family. I also scored high on leadership test in high school.
I think my problem is I always feel like the 3rd wheel. I never truly know how to behave in any "normal" social situation. If I'm around animal people or fiber artist, I generally tend to be okay. If you put my in a wedding, church gathering or some other appropriate societal function I become all clammed up and have no idea what to do. I would rather retreat into a corner and watch the happenings.
Thursday, April 19, 2012
Breeding sheep for Fleece Quality
Many years ago my husband and I were talking and he asked me. "If you could raise just one breed of sheep, what would it be?"
What only be able to have one breed of sheep. What a drastically awful idea. I don't think I could bare it. Right now I am working with at least 3 different breeds and crosses of them. You see the problem here is that I am a spinner and I'm not really a spinner who goes looking for a certain type of sheep. I want a certain type of fleece. I love a good long staple with a good bit of crimp and lots of luster. I also want it to be soft.
We started with Lincolns and Border Leicesters. They were both very nice breeds with the beginning fleece qualities that I like. We had tried some Romney, but I didn't really like the fleece quality that came out. The fleeces just weren't talking to me. Those of you who are spinners and dealt with raw wool know what I am talking about. LOL.
The Lincolns and Border Leicesters were doing a good job. Then I read about the Bluefaced Leicester and their fleece qualities. This brought about intrigue. I liked this idea. A longwool that had the possibility to be worn next to the skin. We did get a Bluefaced Leicester ram and have used him the last 3 yrs. I am very impressed with the quality of wool that we are getting and hope to only improve from here. This year we are going to be using the Border Leicester ram again over most of the ewes. I am hoping to use the new Lincoln ram over the Lincoln ewes.
What only be able to have one breed of sheep. What a drastically awful idea. I don't think I could bare it. Right now I am working with at least 3 different breeds and crosses of them. You see the problem here is that I am a spinner and I'm not really a spinner who goes looking for a certain type of sheep. I want a certain type of fleece. I love a good long staple with a good bit of crimp and lots of luster. I also want it to be soft.
We started with Lincolns and Border Leicesters. They were both very nice breeds with the beginning fleece qualities that I like. We had tried some Romney, but I didn't really like the fleece quality that came out. The fleeces just weren't talking to me. Those of you who are spinners and dealt with raw wool know what I am talking about. LOL.
The Lincolns and Border Leicesters were doing a good job. Then I read about the Bluefaced Leicester and their fleece qualities. This brought about intrigue. I liked this idea. A longwool that had the possibility to be worn next to the skin. We did get a Bluefaced Leicester ram and have used him the last 3 yrs. I am very impressed with the quality of wool that we are getting and hope to only improve from here. This year we are going to be using the Border Leicester ram again over most of the ewes. I am hoping to use the new Lincoln ram over the Lincoln ewes.
Sunday, April 8, 2012
What dreams may come
I have almost always been an artsy type. It' started with my mom years ago. She started early to teach me to embroider and also to crochet. My dream job when I was younger revolved around horses and raising them. As a teenager I wanted to be a vet. I guess I just always knew I would be around animals.
Now as an adult I have let the artsy side of me come out. Not only do I crochet, but I've also learned to spin and knit. I do some needle felting and have on occasion used a triangle loom. I will leave color combinations to my husband though as he is much better at putting colors together.
I have found a world I am happy in and would like to enjoy more. We have been running the wool business out of a house for a few years now. In the last few months I have been having the dream of starting a shop as in an actual brick and mortar store front. I would love to do this full time.
My dream involves a co-op of sorts with locally produced goods. Items made and/or produced locally by artisans. This would include everything from raw wool, honey, handspun yarn, hand knit and/or crocheted items. I'm sure the list could be so much larger, but as you could probably guess my mind tends to concentrate on items that I am most interested in.
At this point it is just that a dream, but my hope is one day for this dream to come true.
Now as an adult I have let the artsy side of me come out. Not only do I crochet, but I've also learned to spin and knit. I do some needle felting and have on occasion used a triangle loom. I will leave color combinations to my husband though as he is much better at putting colors together.
I have found a world I am happy in and would like to enjoy more. We have been running the wool business out of a house for a few years now. In the last few months I have been having the dream of starting a shop as in an actual brick and mortar store front. I would love to do this full time.
My dream involves a co-op of sorts with locally produced goods. Items made and/or produced locally by artisans. This would include everything from raw wool, honey, handspun yarn, hand knit and/or crocheted items. I'm sure the list could be so much larger, but as you could probably guess my mind tends to concentrate on items that I am most interested in.
At this point it is just that a dream, but my hope is one day for this dream to come true.
Monday, March 19, 2012
Alliance Women's Fiber Fest
Well this was our first show of the season and it proved to be so in every way. I realized that the truck is more necessary in this venture than I realized. We did get everything there and back, but it two loads there and luckily we got it all to fit in one load back.
My husband has a very artistic eye. This should really come as no surprise to. I have used his eye many times in my crochet and to put rovings together. I had him working on labels and price tags the night before the show.( I will admit I am the perpetual procrastinator. ) He did such an awesome job and even added some extras.
I need more little baskets( and big ones too). This seems to be a never ending problem. I am constantly putting things in baskets and never seem to have enough of them. I find the baskets useful. I put the roving into them loose so that people have a chance to touch and feel them.
The rack is wonderful and very useful. I was in love with the rack the minute I saw it and have fallen in love with it even more over this past weekend. I finally figured out how to get the legs off of it. It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. It was one of those things were you had to be smarter than the machine. I set it up and only found one fault with it which wasn't exactly a fault. A friend had some baskets attached to her racks and now I would like some to put on.
It was a rather slow show and we ended up selling more stuff to other vendors than to visitors. Our big sellers came from leftovers of an auction buy. We had some books that had water damage and some cable needles that I just don't need right now. We were selling them at discount prices and if it wasn't for them I would've been really worried about the booth fee. I had 3 bigger sales of the day and luckily these made our day. When I did the final tally for the day I was extremely happy to see that we had actually made more than last year.
a picture of our booth.
My husband has a very artistic eye. This should really come as no surprise to. I have used his eye many times in my crochet and to put rovings together. I had him working on labels and price tags the night before the show.( I will admit I am the perpetual procrastinator. ) He did such an awesome job and even added some extras.
I need more little baskets( and big ones too). This seems to be a never ending problem. I am constantly putting things in baskets and never seem to have enough of them. I find the baskets useful. I put the roving into them loose so that people have a chance to touch and feel them.
The rack is wonderful and very useful. I was in love with the rack the minute I saw it and have fallen in love with it even more over this past weekend. I finally figured out how to get the legs off of it. It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. It was one of those things were you had to be smarter than the machine. I set it up and only found one fault with it which wasn't exactly a fault. A friend had some baskets attached to her racks and now I would like some to put on.
It was a rather slow show and we ended up selling more stuff to other vendors than to visitors. Our big sellers came from leftovers of an auction buy. We had some books that had water damage and some cable needles that I just don't need right now. We were selling them at discount prices and if it wasn't for them I would've been really worried about the booth fee. I had 3 bigger sales of the day and luckily these made our day. When I did the final tally for the day I was extremely happy to see that we had actually made more than last year.
a picture of our booth.
Monday, March 12, 2012
Updates
Ok so I've been really bad at this lately. I'll admit it. I get busy and forget to post stuff.
At home: My grandpa passed away this week so that involved a quick trip out to Iowa. Which involved a rental car and 3 days in it with my sister and 2 little girls. It was good to see family that I haven't seen in forever again. I just wish that I wasn't seeing them at a funeral and we could all get together more often. My mother's family is thrown to the end of the earth almost literally. They live all over the country. I used the occasion to get pictures of all of them together and the separate family groups. My mom also used this time to get a group picture of her 6 kids. This is the first time we have all been together in a little over 5 years. I have to get the pictures off my camera yet and see if editing is needed and then create a file and send it out to everyone. May start on that this afternoon.
On the farm: Lambing is coming along at a slower rate than I would like. We had a nice spurt there for a little while and now we are only having 2 or 3 ewes lamb a week. The older lambs are looking good and I'm happy with the fiber coming in on the fiber lambs. We started out with a string of ewe lambs and are now running into a string of ram lambs. Mostly 3/4 BFL.
In the shop: I had ordered some top from an etsy shop. Loved spinning it. It just seemed to glide onto the wheel. I wanted to navajo ply it, because it had a wonderful colorway that I didn't want to muddy up with a 2 ply. I needed to work on my navajo ply techniques. I finally felt comfortable the other night and pulled it out and went to work on it. The ply came out better than I had ever anticipated. Watching the youtube videos really did seem to help.
We have our first show of the season coming up this week. I can't wait for it. Of course right now I'm in a little of a panic mood. Trying to think if I've got everything. Hoping for a good show with a good turnout.
At home: My grandpa passed away this week so that involved a quick trip out to Iowa. Which involved a rental car and 3 days in it with my sister and 2 little girls. It was good to see family that I haven't seen in forever again. I just wish that I wasn't seeing them at a funeral and we could all get together more often. My mother's family is thrown to the end of the earth almost literally. They live all over the country. I used the occasion to get pictures of all of them together and the separate family groups. My mom also used this time to get a group picture of her 6 kids. This is the first time we have all been together in a little over 5 years. I have to get the pictures off my camera yet and see if editing is needed and then create a file and send it out to everyone. May start on that this afternoon.
On the farm: Lambing is coming along at a slower rate than I would like. We had a nice spurt there for a little while and now we are only having 2 or 3 ewes lamb a week. The older lambs are looking good and I'm happy with the fiber coming in on the fiber lambs. We started out with a string of ewe lambs and are now running into a string of ram lambs. Mostly 3/4 BFL.
In the shop: I had ordered some top from an etsy shop. Loved spinning it. It just seemed to glide onto the wheel. I wanted to navajo ply it, because it had a wonderful colorway that I didn't want to muddy up with a 2 ply. I needed to work on my navajo ply techniques. I finally felt comfortable the other night and pulled it out and went to work on it. The ply came out better than I had ever anticipated. Watching the youtube videos really did seem to help.
We have our first show of the season coming up this week. I can't wait for it. Of course right now I'm in a little of a panic mood. Trying to think if I've got everything. Hoping for a good show with a good turnout.
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Baby lambs on the ground
We are coming into my favorite time of year. I love lambing/kidding season. It's kind of like all of the work in the fall of putting the rams with the ewes or picking just the right buck for the right doe, all come down to this. The fruits of the labor. We have started having the wool lambs.
For those of you who don't know the sheep flock is in essence split into two different categories. We have the wool ewes who produce the fiber and hopefully new fiber lambs. :-) And then we have the meat ewes who's lambs are simply used for sale for meat purposes. While I like watching the new meat lambs being born. I love when the wool ewes start having lambs. It's like Christmas morning.
We are having a heavy ewe lamb year which makes it a little difficult because we can't keep them all. There are some very promising lambs out there already, but now comes another waiting period to see who turns out and who doesn't.
And now I leave you with lambie pictures:-)
a 3/4 bluefaced ewe lamb
some 1/2 bluefaced leicester/ 1/2 lincoln ewe lambs
For those of you who don't know the sheep flock is in essence split into two different categories. We have the wool ewes who produce the fiber and hopefully new fiber lambs. :-) And then we have the meat ewes who's lambs are simply used for sale for meat purposes. While I like watching the new meat lambs being born. I love when the wool ewes start having lambs. It's like Christmas morning.
We are having a heavy ewe lamb year which makes it a little difficult because we can't keep them all. There are some very promising lambs out there already, but now comes another waiting period to see who turns out and who doesn't.
And now I leave you with lambie pictures:-)
a 3/4 bluefaced ewe lamb
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