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I am writing this in a state of desperate resolve, hoping I can find someone with helpful advice. Even with double margaritas and a soak in the hot tub last night, and Aleve and coffee this morning, my joints are screaming and my back has stiffened like a pole. As many of you may have guessed, we sheared yesterday. And I did not even hold the shears! Here's the situation:
I used to shear my own flocks, but hubby and I are nearly 70 and, though still active, not in the best shape. So we have had help. After running through a string of semi-qualified, often crazy people (I even tried listing on Craig's List, but that's another whole story! ) we seem to be left with a sorta local guy ... let's call him Rodney... who has been coming down for several decades, when he isn't sick or out of town, or busy or, well, you know. This year I lost half of my goat fleeces because they matted while waiting for him to get things together, and many of the long wools are LOOOOOOONG! Two of the Wensleydale rams had more than 12" of dreadlocks.
I understand how difficult shearing can be, and take special pains to keep the fleeces clean and the sheep healthy. They are my business, after all. I don't think I am excessively demanding: I don't yelp about a nick here or there, I just get the Blu Coat. Second cuts make me grit my teeth a bit, but I am making myself be quiet because there doesn't seem to be any hope for improvement. I try to explain, year after year. Yesterday Rodney asked (as he chopped up a nice black fine-wool ewe), "Can you use this fleece?" I picked up a handful that he had just sheared, and spread the locks out on my hand, showing him one piece 3" long, and the rest chopped into 1" bits. "Well... not much of it. See?" But there is never any acknowledgment or apology, or effort to improve.
Although we are available almost all of the time, Rodney will only shear on Saturdays, the one morning when we sell at the market. So we rush home at noon and pen the sheep and goats, then wait - and wait - often two or three hours - for him to show up. Rodney's top speed is about 4 sheep per hour, so you can do the math to see the hours, days, and number of trips required to shear our flock of @ 50 animals. And, because I keep Wensleydales and angora goats, this is a twice-a-year ordeal.
When Rodney arrives, he is generally exhausted, having sheared already in the morning, and it takes a while to assemble gear, argue about where to shear, find combs and cutters that aren't broken, and clean the crud off his tools and boards. Once set, hubby and I catch and deliver each animal, check for bell collars, etc. If hubby is working, I do it alone. Rodney will wait patiently while some ram or other drags me around the catch pen, but very seldom intervenes, even to the point of opening (or closing!) a gate, unless the request is screamed out in panic. When the shearing is done, I may be able to get him to trim hooves, but often he just "forgets" and releases the animal so we have to either run it down and catch it again, or just leave it 'till next time. We gather fleece and trash and sweep the boards and spray the wounds. Sometimes the bleeding goes on for hours, and many will limp for days after their foot-shearing.
Yesterday was tough on all of us. After chopping away at two Wensleydale ewe lambs, Rodney ran his finger into the shears. He wanted to keep going, so wrapped it good and on we went. But I swear he was taking revenge on the animals. His board was slick, and angled slightly downhill, but rather than use that to his advantage, he insisted on starting with the animal in front of him, facing down-slope, so that he had to fight it every inch, and everyone eventually ended in the dirt (or weeds). We opened the tarp even bigger, to try to salvage the fleece. One ten-year-old ewe lost about 3" of skin over her jugular, which bled like crazy, but fortunately the vein seemed intact, at least last night. Others had ribs, flanks and bellies opened up. He sheared the ear-tags off my registered ram, and nearly severed his hamstring, and a ram lamb had his ear so badly gashed that I couldn't staunch the bleeding no matter what. His beautiful, white curls (first shearing) were drenched in blood, the board was bloody so that the fleece was acting like a sponge, sopping up the blood. "Hold his head down," Rodney suggested, while he tried to finish the first side. The lamb was very cooperative, but I could see that his ear was filling with blood, which soon spilled over my hands and out onto his neck, again into the fleece.
We "finished" just before seven, and I gave up on cleaning the goats, who were dragging around huge hunks of shed fleece. It will fall off sooner or later, and at least they are still in one piece!
So, finally, at the end of this rant, here is my plea:
Can anyone refer me to a competent and dependable shearer? I have 5 months to find one, because I am not going to call Rodney again. Requirements are rather basic:
1. Show up when you say you will.
2. Separate fleece from critter with minimal damage to fleece and critter.
3. Trim feet and hold for pour-on if necessary.
We live in north San Diego county, and have a "rustic" guest house if someone needs a place to crash if traveling.
Thanks for suggestions, or at least for letting me vent.
Thank goodness for summer. Now I just have to get busy skirting and sorting.
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Hayfever Haze
We have been having absolutely beautiful weather here, in sad contrast to the rest of the country that seems to be inundated with floods and tornadoes. Fortunately, we took a spur-of-the-moment trip out to the desert the last week in April, because temps there now are climbing fast. Every year we manage to get out several times, to see the wildflowers or to hike or to soak in the hots prings at Agua Caliente, or just to sit in the quiet and enjoy the sound of rocks baking in the sun.
This time there had been some recent cold weather on the mountain, and the normally-sad-looking dead pines on the flanks of Palomar were dusted with snow, making them look like something from a fairy tale.
The flowers in the back country were still out; if you could see this picture a bit better, you'd see the wild lilac still in bloom. Puddles, ponds - even lakes - of tiny yellow flowers were every where.
However, the desert floor had pretty much moved on to an early-summer display of ocotillio and cactus blooms. Nothing much out of the ordinary.
As luck would have it (?) we chose a weekend when the park was celebrating Archeology Week, and the opening of a new addition to the archeology lab. There was quite a crowd at the museum center, with lectures, displays, and walks geared to the occasion. They also were having a silent auction as a fund raiser. One of the items really caught my eye: a small oil painting that reminded me of the flowers that we had just passed on the way down. And not one, single bid on it! I wrote down $20, and then forgot about it. I knew it would be snapped up by someone in the crowd.
Pretty, Isn't it? The artist was Betty Greer Rikansrud, and she lives in Julian, but no one knew anything else about her.
We toured the little lab, poked around in the museum, and then went back to our camp to make dinner. No one called about the auction, which closed at 5 PM. Sniff.
The next morning we poked around a bit more, then took our time and headed home back over the mountain. No snow this time.
Heard a covey of quail calling at one of our stops: chi-kee-ta, chi-kee-ta. In just a few minutes they all came tumbling out of the brush, tottering down a big boulder with top-knots wagging.
The whole trip was less than 24 hours, but it was as restorative as a week's vacation.
ML was rejuvenated upon our return, and started in painting the water tank and - between coats - tearing apart the old metal truck body.
To celebrate, I made a dutch baby, covered with strawberries (soaked in Grand Marnier) and a ton of mulberries from our heavily laden tree.
As RR would say, Yummm-O!
At about noon the next day, I got a call from a docent at the park telling me that I had won the little painting. "When can you come pick it up?" he innocently asked.
This time there had been some recent cold weather on the mountain, and the normally-sad-looking dead pines on the flanks of Palomar were dusted with snow, making them look like something from a fairy tale.
The flowers in the back country were still out; if you could see this picture a bit better, you'd see the wild lilac still in bloom. Puddles, ponds - even lakes - of tiny yellow flowers were every where.
However, the desert floor had pretty much moved on to an early-summer display of ocotillio and cactus blooms. Nothing much out of the ordinary.
As luck would have it (?) we chose a weekend when the park was celebrating Archeology Week, and the opening of a new addition to the archeology lab. There was quite a crowd at the museum center, with lectures, displays, and walks geared to the occasion. They also were having a silent auction as a fund raiser. One of the items really caught my eye: a small oil painting that reminded me of the flowers that we had just passed on the way down. And not one, single bid on it! I wrote down $20, and then forgot about it. I knew it would be snapped up by someone in the crowd.
We toured the little lab, poked around in the museum, and then went back to our camp to make dinner. No one called about the auction, which closed at 5 PM. Sniff.
The next morning we poked around a bit more, then took our time and headed home back over the mountain. No snow this time.
Heard a covey of quail calling at one of our stops: chi-kee-ta, chi-kee-ta. In just a few minutes they all came tumbling out of the brush, tottering down a big boulder with top-knots wagging.
The whole trip was less than 24 hours, but it was as restorative as a week's vacation.
ML was rejuvenated upon our return, and started in painting the water tank and - between coats - tearing apart the old metal truck body.
To celebrate, I made a dutch baby, covered with strawberries (soaked in Grand Marnier) and a ton of mulberries from our heavily laden tree.
As RR would say, Yummm-O!
At about noon the next day, I got a call from a docent at the park telling me that I had won the little painting. "When can you come pick it up?" he innocently asked.
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Good things, for a Change
OK. That helped. Thank you for your patient listening to that last bit of self pity. Now taking a breath, and taking a look at some of spring's encouraging signs.
Lady bugs are back. And, apparently, so are their gentlemen friends.
After slipping on our "walk-the-plank" bridge arrangement in the garden, and ripping various thigh muscles from their attachments, ML painted and installed this cool little "Monet" bridge for me. I was so inspired and grateful that I started weeding.
Stopped weeding pretty much after this picture was taken.
We decorated ML's old scar for the benefit and enjoyment of the doctor and staff at the dermatologists' office. Ml's instructions: "Make it look like Wilson, you know, on Castaway."
I think the likeness is pretty good.
It's amazing what you can see when you stop moving for a minute. What's in this picture?
Yeah she's there, sunning herself between two logs:
Poor, cold toad.
Out with the old, in with the new. When we moved here over twenty years ago, a decrepit old red truck body was part of our storage system. It filled up with junk, as all empty spaces do around here, was basically sealed off and left to the rats and opossums.
In my paranoid old age (and in no small part as a result of our forced week-long evacuation in 2007) I have worried a lot lately about having our water supply interrupted. Justified or not, with 60 dry mouths to feed and water, it looms large in my recurring "What-If " nightmares. So I located a 2,500 gallon storage tank, which we bought and hauled back to the ranch. And - even more amazing, ML managed to empty the "red barn," drag it from its decades-long plot, and move the new tank onto a leveled pad, pretty much single-handed. I tell you, the man is a genius!!
Some of us were working like dogs during shearing last weekend, but Yollie and her goat, Mouse, were just plain bored.
Monday, April 4, 2011
Urge, Purge, Dirge, or When to Call the Doctor
First off, this is crazy. I have lost both parents, a sister, one marriage, and countless other people, things and critters of value. Why - how - can the death of this dog so unhinge me? It has been almost a month since Tank died, yet crying jags continue to ambush like sudden seizures. It's totally crazy.
It can come on quite suddenly, maybe when I realize that we are filling just three bowls instead of four, or five. Maybe when I catch site of the shaded empty pen. Maybe when a sudden wind comes rushing from nowhere, roaring like a river through the tall Torrey pine tree near the house, while every other bush and tree on the hill is calm and still.
We both miss him, Michael perhaps more than I, but we soldier on in our own little capsules of grief and quiet, offering the briefest of hugs coupled with many resigned sighs and consoling phrases. He was miserable. He was very sick. There really was no hope, either way. Even if we had elected chemo and radiation over the surgery, his time was running out. The tumor was huge. He must have had it for a long time and we just didn't know. Or it was very aggressive. Or maybe both. At least when one dies on the operating table in an attempt to remove an enormous fibrosarcoma that was literally squeezing the life and breath from him, the survivors are saved from having to play the coulda, woulda, shoulda game. Kindly old Karabey died almost two years ago, and made it until five, despite multiple disabilities. But Tank, dead at three years? It shoulda been different.
It has long been my theory that the loss of pets helps to prepare children for losing loved ones later in life. We start out with a pale goldfish belly-up in a murky bowl of water, or a turtle that escaped and was later found, dessicated shell like a poker chip, under the couch. We all had legions of little wounded birds resting in shoe boxes full of tissue, which later become convenient coffins. And all of this should be bringing us to the stage where we, as adults, learn to recognize and accept the impermanence of life. But I am not finding it so. In fact, each death now seems cumulative, shock based on a Richter-scale-like rating system, each one ten times worse than the previous.
Apparently now there is research that shows people who have been dumped in a relationship, and are said to be "suffering from a broken heart," actually do feel real, physical pain. It's a fist in the gut, labored breathing, and - quite literally - a sore heart. In ancient Greece, around in 300 BC, Menander wrote: "Time is the healer of all necessary evils." This has been thoughtfully appended by J. Worth Kilcrease , when he wrote, "Time doesn't heal, it's what you DO with the time that heals."
So we continue running the ranch, mowing, chopping thistles, installing an emergency water tank, feeding, shearing, and loving those that are left just as much as we can. They say you stop crying when you run out of tears. But I swear, when that strange wind starts tearing at the top of the pine tree, and it sounds like big Kangals running through tall grass, I would surely join them if there were any way at all.
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| Tank was the firstborn of seven puppies, and earned his name by his physique. |
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| Here, Tank (left) keeps a watchful eye on the goats. |
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| Tank checks out Mouse, a tiny, preemie Pygora. |
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| Tank was Michael's dog. Period. |
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| Tank (center) and the girls rough-housing. Zerrin, his mother (right) avoids a fatal nip by leaping into the air. Notice his two-curl tail. |
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| The end |
Thursday, March 3, 2011
What The...?
As one might imagine, nights around here are not necessarily silent. There are occasional calls from sheep and goat kids who have temporarily misplaced mom, coyotes chorus in the distance, our dogs and sometimes the neighbors' dogs answer them. We also have a frog population, that carouses most of the night this time of the year as the males seek female companions.
A variety of night birds chime in from time to time, the most impressive of which is the great horned owl's "hoo hoo-hoo hoooo hoo." Starting in November they call and respond in what eventually becomes an almost soothing addition to the rest of the nocturnal orchestra. After having three of my own kids and acting as animal midwife to hundreds of critters, I am a fairly light sleeper. Noises don't necessarily bother me, but do cause me to rise to the surface of a dream in order to make positive identification of the noise and its cause. Let's just say I sleep with one ear open.
So when the owls went off the other night I just made a note and rolled over, but it did sound unusually close - like maybe in the big, old live oak tree near our bedroom window, the one that is in Tank's enclosure. Then Tank woofed, a sort of confused, "what the...?" utterance, followed by some growling. Before I had time to sort that out, there followed an enormous disturbance of some sort; no voices or yelps, just the sounds of one or more large objects thrashing and crashing about ... in the tree? On the ground? Oh, no - could Tank have an owl?!
I raced out of bed, stuffed feet into Crocs, pulled on a jacket and ran out to the deck that overlooks Tank's pen. The scuffling noises continued, but this time were punctuated by incessant high pitched chattering and squeaking, and they were coming from the ground ... underneath Tank. By now the "hoo hoo-hoo hoooo hoo" had deepened and moved a dozen yards away into the neighbors' yard, but I still could not see what what was going on.
Back inside, I grabbed our big hand-held spotlight and went outside and down the steps to the pen. From outside the gate I could clearly see Tank standing over something that was glaring at us with beady little red eyes. Tank threw me a pathetic "Now what?" sort of look, to which I had no answer.
"I dunno, Tank; what IS it?"
As I opened the gate to go inside, the creature made some sort of a very bad decision, because it struggled and Tank calmly reached down and dispatched it with one chomp to the neck. Then he backed off and looked at me for orders.
The "hoo hoo-hoo hoooo hoo" now came from atop our Torrey Pine tree, so it wasn't the owl. Closer examination showed a well-armed, furry creature taking its last gasp.
Then I started looking around in an attempt to unravel the puzzle. Where did it come from? Tank's enclosure is surrounded by a six-foot-tall fence, much of it topped with barbed wire. There was no way it could just walk in or "drop by."
Or ... DROP by....?
A cursory postmortem examination of the raccoon showed him to be a nearly full-sized male, 20 - 30 pounds with no external signs of damage whatsoever, other than some scrape marks on a front leg. There was no blood, but Tank did have a small scratch or two on his face, which is understandable. The owls have not been heard since.
I am still puzzling over the incident, but little by little the pieces seem to be coming together. What do you think happened?
Tank checks it out, then wants nothing to do with it.
A variety of night birds chime in from time to time, the most impressive of which is the great horned owl's "hoo hoo-hoo hoooo hoo." Starting in November they call and respond in what eventually becomes an almost soothing addition to the rest of the nocturnal orchestra. After having three of my own kids and acting as animal midwife to hundreds of critters, I am a fairly light sleeper. Noises don't necessarily bother me, but do cause me to rise to the surface of a dream in order to make positive identification of the noise and its cause. Let's just say I sleep with one ear open.
So when the owls went off the other night I just made a note and rolled over, but it did sound unusually close - like maybe in the big, old live oak tree near our bedroom window, the one that is in Tank's enclosure. Then Tank woofed, a sort of confused, "what the...?" utterance, followed by some growling. Before I had time to sort that out, there followed an enormous disturbance of some sort; no voices or yelps, just the sounds of one or more large objects thrashing and crashing about ... in the tree? On the ground? Oh, no - could Tank have an owl?!
I raced out of bed, stuffed feet into Crocs, pulled on a jacket and ran out to the deck that overlooks Tank's pen. The scuffling noises continued, but this time were punctuated by incessant high pitched chattering and squeaking, and they were coming from the ground ... underneath Tank. By now the "hoo hoo-hoo hoooo hoo" had deepened and moved a dozen yards away into the neighbors' yard, but I still could not see what what was going on.
Back inside, I grabbed our big hand-held spotlight and went outside and down the steps to the pen. From outside the gate I could clearly see Tank standing over something that was glaring at us with beady little red eyes. Tank threw me a pathetic "Now what?" sort of look, to which I had no answer.
"I dunno, Tank; what IS it?"
As I opened the gate to go inside, the creature made some sort of a very bad decision, because it struggled and Tank calmly reached down and dispatched it with one chomp to the neck. Then he backed off and looked at me for orders.
The "hoo hoo-hoo hoooo hoo" now came from atop our Torrey Pine tree, so it wasn't the owl. Closer examination showed a well-armed, furry creature taking its last gasp.
"Ohhh, Tank. It's a raccoon," I said, regretfully.
Then I started looking around in an attempt to unravel the puzzle. Where did it come from? Tank's enclosure is surrounded by a six-foot-tall fence, much of it topped with barbed wire. There was no way it could just walk in or "drop by."
Or ... DROP by....?
A cursory postmortem examination of the raccoon showed him to be a nearly full-sized male, 20 - 30 pounds with no external signs of damage whatsoever, other than some scrape marks on a front leg. There was no blood, but Tank did have a small scratch or two on his face, which is understandable. The owls have not been heard since.
I am still puzzling over the incident, but little by little the pieces seem to be coming together. What do you think happened?
Tank checks it out, then wants nothing to do with it.
Monday, February 14, 2011
Sorted, Skirted, Picked, Weighed and Sampled ... Oh My!
What a GREAT week this has been! Last Saturday (AM - After Market) we sheared a dozen of the (mostly) Wensleys, and I spent that week getting fleeces sorted out and ready to sell. I have a spread sheet with pictures, prices and fiber information, but it was too big to upload here. If that link doesn't work for you, cut and paste this:
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B743nbzGR7t_MDA2ZjYzZGUtNWExNC00YjZiLWFhOWEtNjhlMWNkMTczZWYw&hl=en&authkey=CPvHudcJ
UPDATE: Opal and Lila's fleeces have been sold. Thank you!
It is over 6MB, so takes a while to load.
Next weekend we do more and some goats, yay!
This week, we skipped the Saturday market and instead drove to LA where I was able to sit in on the SCHG (Southern California Handweavers' Guild) monthly meeting. Patsy Zawistoski gave a great talk and slide show on Using Your Yarns; A Look at the Creative Process. That afternoon and all day Sunday she taught a superb workshop called Quick Novelty & Boucle Yarns. I don't know how quick I was, but it was a treat and a challenge to keep up. We worked on spinning a worsted slub spiral, a core spun bouclé, a knotted yarn, a cable yarn and a lopi style singles yarn, among others. The worksheets she designed served to keep us on track as well as provide a reference for future projects. Never have I been so organized! All in all I found them to be a wonderful, lively guild, and the workshop was stupendous.
Today (Valentine's Day) I gave a short presentation on carding and spinning on a Navajo-style spindle to my own guild, Palomar Handweavers' Guild, PHG . Now I sit with my brain quite literally spinning, thinking "Fiber, fiber EVERYWHERE but never time to think!"
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B743nbzGR7t_MDA2ZjYzZGUtNWExNC00YjZiLWFhOWEtNjhlMWNkMTczZWYw&hl=en&authkey=CPvHudcJ
UPDATE: Opal and Lila's fleeces have been sold. Thank you!
It is over 6MB, so takes a while to load.
Next weekend we do more and some goats, yay!
This week, we skipped the Saturday market and instead drove to LA where I was able to sit in on the SCHG (Southern California Handweavers' Guild) monthly meeting. Patsy Zawistoski gave a great talk and slide show on Using Your Yarns; A Look at the Creative Process. That afternoon and all day Sunday she taught a superb workshop called Quick Novelty & Boucle Yarns. I don't know how quick I was, but it was a treat and a challenge to keep up. We worked on spinning a worsted slub spiral, a core spun bouclé, a knotted yarn, a cable yarn and a lopi style singles yarn, among others. The worksheets she designed served to keep us on track as well as provide a reference for future projects. Never have I been so organized! All in all I found them to be a wonderful, lively guild, and the workshop was stupendous.
Today (Valentine's Day) I gave a short presentation on carding and spinning on a Navajo-style spindle to my own guild, Palomar Handweavers' Guild, PHG . Now I sit with my brain quite literally spinning, thinking "Fiber, fiber EVERYWHERE but never time to think!"
Friday, January 21, 2011
What a Strange Way to Start the New Year
I know that most people begin a new year by making a list of resolutions or taking stock of the year past, but I decided to start by taking the Death Test. The questions are reasonable, thoughtful, kind of interesting, and some are downright funny. You should try it - it doesn't take too long.
After several pages, the verdict was revealed:
Why they showed a picture of this odd man from the 50's with a bump on his head, I do not know. But the truly spooky part is that I actually toook the same test twelve years ago ... and got the exact same answer, down to the actual day: November 18, 2016.
Then came the sobering statement:
You have 1944.3 days left on this earth.
You’ve already lived 93% of your life.
Now THAT calls for some taking stock, doesn't it?
If this test is too morbid for you right now, check out the web site: there are 43,442 more tests, dealing with a dizzying array of subjects. There are tests in other languages and on all maturity levels, rated on the star system, complete with statistics of how many people have taken it - ever - and how many have taken it in the last hour.
The top three?
So hey, if you are bored this weekend, or don't want to examine your life and learn your fate right now, just jump right in! Maybe I'll try the PERSONALITY DEFICET Test next.
After several pages, the verdict was revealed:
Why they showed a picture of this odd man from the 50's with a bump on his head, I do not know. But the truly spooky part is that I actually toook the same test twelve years ago ... and got the exact same answer, down to the actual day: November 18, 2016.
Then came the sobering statement:
You have 1944.3 days left on this earth.
You’ve already lived 93% of your life.
Now THAT calls for some taking stock, doesn't it?
If this test is too morbid for you right now, check out the web site: there are 43,442 more tests, dealing with a dizzying array of subjects. There are tests in other languages and on all maturity levels, rated on the star system, complete with statistics of how many people have taken it - ever - and how many have taken it in the last hour.
The top three?
The Which Karamazov Brother Are You Test
Which of the Karamazov brothers from Fyodor Dostoevsky's famous novel are you? 4.43
Which of the Karamazov brothers from Fyodor Dostoevsky's famous novel are you? 4.43
3085 (#3206) people have taken it. 10 (#282) people took it in the last 24 hours (↑400%).
22776 (#408) people have taken it. 8 (#348) people took it in the last 24 hours.
So hey, if you are bored this weekend, or don't want to examine your life and learn your fate right now, just jump right in! Maybe I'll try the PERSONALITY DEFICET Test next.
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