Thursday, July 31, 2008

Dye Day


the kool-aid yarn, originally uploaded by lamb lady.

Vickie invited me to her home a couple weeks ago for a dye day with the South Cumberland Fiber Guild. What a fun day we had. I'm used to working with the great array of natural colors of the Navajo-Churro sheep we have here. Adding dye to the mix was so much fun. I hope you'll slip over to my slide show and take a look at the photos and read the captions.

Handsome New Ram


bide a wee Blue, originally uploaded by lamb lady.

Through an amazing effort on the part of Maria Amodei of North Face Farm in Mass, Brad and I were able to pick up Blue near Williamsport, PA, one evening after work in May. I love the looks of this guy and I'm pleased to have him here at Shepherd's Loft. He is from Bide a Wee Farm in Oregon. I'm hoping he'll make lots of badgerfaced babies for us next spring.
I love bagerfaced sheep and haven't had any for awhile.

Monday, July 14, 2008

Our July 6 Picnic at Mom's and Dad's


Mom and Dad had a great picnic for us Sunday afternoon after July 4. All the kids and their spouses, grand-kids and spouses and great-grand kids were present and accounted for. Joycee was able to join us and the Moores did, too. The weather was great but the fellowship and food were even better. I'm not going to post any of those pictures here, you can click on the "slideshow" to the right that will allow you to see them on "flickr." Here's a lovely sunset we had one evening recently.

Monday, July 7, 2008

Road Trip: Belleville and Big Valley, PA

Early on Wednesday, July 2, a carload of us left Guitner Road for Belleville. Mom, Dad, Joel, Susie, Lane and I were off for a wonderful day together. We went up Route 75 and crossed over to Route 522 at Cowan's Gap. We stopped to look at the Saint Mary's Covered Bridge.

It's been a few years, maybe five, since I've been to Belleville, but little had changed. Once again, I searched for a sign indicating whether the town's name came from the Belle family or because it's a fine little town but we didn't find that info. The market had more produce than I expected. Lots of cherries and berries and some veggies. There were the usual crafts and flea market finds. There were plenty of baked goods but since we had filled our bellies a short time earlier, I was able to leave them alone. We checked out the horses and buggies. Mom asked about the different colors of buggies (we saw white, black and yellow) and was told the white were owned by the most conservative of the Amish. The white buggy group use lanterns, not battery power, to light their buggies at night. Lane was impressed by the size of the horses' hooves. I was impressed by how many horses were there.

We left Belleville and drove north to Reedsville. We stopped at the flea market and browsed till lunchtime. There were some neat finds at both places but since my house is full, I spent only $1. (Yes, I'm a tightwad.) A book of 5500 quilt patches caught my eye and came along home with me. By lunchtime we were all wearing down. Flea marketing is HARD WORK :) We detoured off Route 655 as we headed south and saw lovely parts of Big Valley. There were a lot of horses working the fields, cutting and raking hay. Sorry I didn't get a better shot but this shows you the fields are big.
There were long clothes lines filled with clean laundry. We stopped for lunch and refilled our bellies. I was ready to nap after that and glad I wasn't driving. It was a special day telling stories and being together. What a lucky person I am, to have such a great family.