Wordless Wednesday: Auriferous (gold bearing) Terrain and Winter Moss

(Click on photos for larger picture.)

A Felting We Will Go....

Before I show you some of my first felting attempts, I want to give you fair warning. THIS IS ADDICTIVE!! Sheep and goats have taken on a whole new and respected standing in my heart.... as if my goats didn't have my heart and soul anyway, but now I have a deeper level of affection for what they give (besides attitude). Of course, our boys don't have fleece to give us, being the Nubians that they are, but they clear a fire safe area for us around and down the hill below our house. ..... and the chickens give us such beautiful eggs... and I could go on forever about animals and what place they have in our lives.
But sometimes you get to do something that involves a process so ancient and basic that it boggles you mind with possibilities. This is called FELTING.
My Christmas present from the Prospector was an order of wool yarn, fleece and books from Knitpicks.Com. This got me started. The wool yarn to knit into pieces that were feltable....

The fleece...

A couple of books with wonderful possibilities... 

I spent the better part of December lost in antibiotics and dreams of creativity.
My first foray into felting turn out STRANGE because of my impatience and lack of information.

 I did everything right until I got tired of hand rubbing my beautiful gray and white piece of  half felted fleece.  I threw it into a mesh bag and machine felted the unfinished piece. Oops!
It wasn't ready for all that agitation and the above photo is the result. Now, someone has said that you never make mistakes, you just have "happy accidents". I like that. This piece is actually my favorite hand made piece of felt so far and I will needle felt it into another piece of fabric at some point.... maybe a purse or scarf.... something like this.

 Can't you see a big interesting button right there in the corner? This is on a piece of felted knitting that was part wool (that felted) and an acrylic yarn (that didn't). Another interesting lesson in yarn behavior. I lined it and use it for knitting projects. Now I have a "purse" for my yarn, needles and scissors, all in the same place, that's pretty and handy.

There is always a way to use your pieces that don't quite come out like you expect. Don't throw anything away. Think about other ways that you can use them.

The ideas are endless. Just try it all.

So yesterday I took the beautiful fleece that I bought from Sandy in Amador City and made it into fabric. I choose the one on the left...

unfolded the roll and PULLED the fleece apart.

I layered it, following the instructions at this site (one of the easiest to understand) and wet it down with hot water and soap. I like to use the bubble wrap. It keeps everything in place and adds the right amount of agitation without touching the fibers. You can get rid of the wrap later when the wool starts to mesh together.
This is just a magical process. The more you rub, the more the fibers felt. When it starts forming a solid piece you can just use your hand to rub and shape the piece. It will shrink into a much small size but this is when you can stretch and shape the piece in a process called "fulling". Please read up on all of this before you jump into this process. There are lots of dos and don'ts.
It will look like this....

and then this....

And finally, after you have rinsed and dried the fabric.... THIS.

Which has the most beautiful texture and color to it. You can felt it again to make it stronger. I think it would make a wonderful small purse.... or a background for a small pillow of needle felted spring flowers.... or an altered book cover....what would you do with this little beauty?
This is so much fun it's almost sinful. If you can't come to California and buy fleece from Sandy's store in Amador City here are a couple of sites to get you started:
 The knitpicks site and wistyria.com are great for buying supplies like wool yarn and fleece. Also, if you just google the word "felting", you will come up with all kinds of sites where you can learn about this process.
 Just take a look. It's so much fun.

And, have a happy day in thoughful celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. He was a man of peace and his birthday should be honored.









 

The Mushroom and the Oak Leaf

Look deep into nature,

and then you will understand everything better. 

~Albert Einstein~

The Last Hurrah: Goodby to Sis

Yesterday was the last day of my sister's visit. She had a two hour drive back home to her family (and civilization) looming ahead of her, so we decided that we better go for one last lunch and a quick trip to see Sandy at her Country Living store in Amador City.
We drove over to Sandy's store and surprised her. What a treat it is to see this store and talk to Sandy for a while . She was having a sale which was even more exciting. We had to restrain ourselves. Well, that lasted until I saw her new wool fleece.
Since I saw Sandy two weeks ago and bought her beautiful gray (natural) and purple fleece, she had dyed and packaged MORE  wool and I just couldn't resist these wonderful colors...

I went all weak in the knees and bought 3 packages of this gorgeous fleece. I can't wait to felt some of it.
We spent more time than money there but bought a few things (you know the old saying)... "that we couldn't live without."
One more look at this beautiful fleece before I pull it apart and rub it to death.

Don't you just want to jump right into it and lie there making fleece angels in it?

Sis and I said our goodbyes to Sandy, drove to Sutter Creek on the old highway 49 and  had a quick lunch at the Back Roads Cafe. I took some pictures of this corner of Main St. and Randolph St. Across from Back Roads Cafe is the Sutter Creek Inn (top left photo). I worked there, as a cook, when we first moved here. It's a beautiful old home and a lovely B&B.

Sutter Creek may have a bit of an attitude but I love it anyway. You see.... I'm from Jackson to the south. Its claim to fame, besides gold mining, was prostitution, so Jackson is kind of the "Deadwood" of Amador County and Sutter Creek knows it. But..., we have the grocery stores that they need, to survive, so they tolerate our history. It's a win-win situation.
Sutter Creek is a "destination" for folks and it draws visitors from all over. The new bypass had cut the traffic, considerably, through town and eliminated all the big trucks that use to crawl through it, so that has made it a lot nicer to visit and find a parking place.
After lunch we went into the Antique Gardener on Main Street.

This is a beautiful store that has grown in size since the last time I was there (at the north end of town) and offers all kinds of gardening supplies including plants in its lovely garden out behind the store. If you love garden things you won't want to miss this store when you visit.

I bought a card that has a version of one of my favorite sayings on it....

and was given a couple of postcards... that were free because they were advertisments for the store.

and a small trinket that I will show you later for reasons that cannot be revealed  for a week or so.

Then, I drove my sister to her car that was packed up and waiting for the road home in a shopping center parking lot in Jackson.  We gave each other hugs and said our usual "See you soon. Drive carefully. Love you." and parted company. It's a ritual of love.
We enjoyed our visit and the week went so fast, but I will see her in a few weeks when I do the traveling down to the Bay Area  to see my family.
But now... I must away... from this computer. I go a felting.... woo, woo!....

My Sister must have brought it with her.

My sister arrived yesterday. She brought everything with her.... She brought dinner, cashews, chocolate hazelnut Biscotti from Trader Joe's and sunshine with warmer weather. She even brought her own bedding which freaked out the dogs at bit when she walked up to the house but they quickly got over it and went crazy over their "auntie" being there.
As you can see..

They let her share the couch with them.....

And then Carl made it very plain that this was were he would be, on my sister's lap, for the duration.

I think that Cutter, at his most relaxed, said it all..... They love having Sis here. I've never seen him do this before. He was really loving all his little puppish creature comforts.

This morning it was 20 degrees warming than it has been in quite a few days, so after breakfast we went for a walk. We drove the car down our very long, steep driveway, parked it and walked along the main road that goes to the river. It was still cold but it was so beautiful and all the creeks were full and making lots of commotion as they moved toward the Mokelumne River. I love the sound of water moving over the bedrock and trees. It's a beautiful thing to hear.
As we walked along I took these photos to show you how astounding beautiful this place is that I'm so lucky to live in.

Even with the old graffiti....

Even with the no trespassing signs....

 It's a road like no other.You go from being kind of tired and worn out from what the world has to give, to stretching your arms out  as far as you can reach.... and your whole body smiles....

And you think you might do a little dance, or jog a bit. This is what a walk in the country will do for you. Honest. Try it. Any country road will do. This is just an old country road but it's a magic road. I've seen this happen before. You will hear the gray squirrel calling your name as it runs across the road in front of you. "Come and play. Come into the trees and join us..."

Sis chose to spend her birthday with us. I'm so glad. Tomorrow is the big day, but I can't tell you how many years it's been unless I get her permission. All I can say is that she's my little sister and she's wonderful.

It's One of Those days.... again.

I have no "purpose" today, but there's some consolation in the fact that Shakespeare might have had the same problem if he had been blogging.
So I will kind of do a collage of things for you, starting with a bit of guilt at complaints about the weather. It's foggy and cold today. REALLY FOGGY AND COLD....

The sun tried to shine and did for a while yesterday. The fog backed away and we had sunshine even though it was very cold.

and then, in the afternoon, it came back with the wind and settled into the river canyon for good.

This morning the thermometer read:

And it froze last night, breaking the hose that goes to the goat house for water.  But, it's OK, because then I get pictures from my friend Dawn, the "charming baglady", who lives in Michigan and I feel like a whiny baby for complaining about a 36 degree high and the 28 degree low.
Dawn talks about blizzards, wind chill factors, lake effect snow, loss of electricity and how she can't get to the store for days on end. She says that they do come and remove the snow from the street but it piles up at the edge of the driveway and freezes into ice that can't be driven over so if they are home.... they are stuck.
This is the view from her house. She loves the Michigan winters. She's always been tough.
This is her street and that is her neighbor's house in the distance.

And this is Mugs, her dog, after a romp outside....

Isn't that the cutest dog with snow on face. Wanna kiss?
Anyway, I know that I live in California and part of me is glad that I do. I don't live were it's always below 0 in the winter. I know I'm complaining about nothing compared to other places in the world but .... I'm sorry. It's cold for the California Foothills above Sacramento.  There.... I said it. I'm a wimp. An old wimp. If the rain and the cold would get together and snow for a day then I might be so delighted that I wouldn't feel like this... like Brownie, but it hasn't and, well..... Brownie isn't even talking about it today. Maybe he will have something to say tomorrow.
So, I feel like Seinfeld today. I have a Blog and I really don't have a lot to say, but I'm finding things to talk about the longer I sit in front of this computer. Maybe that's what Shakespeare did. Sat at his desk and dipped his pen in the ink well long enough that he finally came up with "a rose by any another name.." and " How sharper than a serpent's tooth...." etc. Genius is just hiding under this pile of notes on top of my desk. It's going to happen any moment now.....
Maybe not...
 
When I was at my sister's house during Christmas they were feeding the birds in their front yard. Sis, her son Ben and I watched the little Chickadees and Sparrows eating the birdseed from the livingroom window and I was taking pictures.
You know how they say that Opportunity knocks? Well, I have photographic evidence that, even in nature, there are opportunist. This rat was on that birdseed. He was darting in and out of the Star Jasmine grabbing all the seed he could get. 

Now I don't know how you feel about Rats. I have fairly good feelings about them. I don't want one in bed with me or biting me but I think they are very interesting creatures. My Dad use to talk about the huge river rats up on the Russian River when he was young. He said one crawled into his sleeping bag one night and, luckily, didn't bite him but he never slept outside again that I can remember. 
We had a white pet Rat in our 6th grade classroom in Pine Grove school when I was working for a living and he was the cutest little guy (rat) I had ever seen. He would wait for the kids to come and play with him. He would sit on their shoulders and laps. He was part of the classroom. He was cool.
So I don't get all hysterical when I see a rat and it appears that birds don't either. My sister pointed out that they all seemed to be OK with the rat taking some of the seed. She said that she wished all beings could live in harmony like this... sharing and coexisting together. And in a perfect world... she's right. It would be wonderful. I agreed, but I think it had more to do with the size of their brains   and the fact that there was a lot of birdseed to go around. 
In other parts of the world it's more like this....

...and that's just scary.

Christmas Takedown and Hog Rings

It was time to let go of Christmas, so the chaos began yesterday.

 I realized that I only used decorations that were in my closet, because I was sick, and not the multitude of Christmas boxes out in the rafters of the garage. This is the second year that I have not pulled out all the boxes of Christmas things in the garage. I have decided that maybe I don't need what's out there anymore. What I used from the closet was enough and the revelation is mind boggling. Sometime this year, I will tackle the boxes in the garage and PURGE.
We took the lights down from the outside edges of the house....

The old Prospector put them up, this year, without his usual baa humbug, "Do I have to do this?" speech. Maybe he took pity on me because I was ill. He used the pretext that people in Mokelumne Hill (the little town east of us) would miss seeing the only Christmas lights across the river on the western hills. But, sadly, on Wednesday, he went out and took them down. I kind of miss the colored edges of the gutter coming on in the morning before the light breaks and at night as I sat in the living room knitting. It's the old fashion ones, individual and multi colored. No flashing on/off or icicle fakery, just soft color around the porch and across the back of the house where they can be seen from many miles. I will miss them.
Yesterday, in the late afternoon, the Prospector asked me if I would help him fix the goat fence below the house. The wire fencing had finally given way from the goats incessant reaching for the "greener" grass on the other side. This section, if they broke through would lead right up into my front garden and disaster would ensue. So, we corraled the dogs, much to their dismay....

and laid out the new piece of fencing, with SMALLER holes that the goats couldn't get their heads through and began the arduous stretching and attachment of a new piece of wire fence. We decided to leave the old fencing in place and attach the new shorter section right to the old one.
We laid out the new piece of fencing and cut the length we needed. I held the piece up on one end while the Prospector snaked an old t-post through one end and attached the "come along" to it. This is a very nifty device that lets you stretch the wire fencing tightly so you can attach it to the fence posts.I don't know how any fencing could be done without one.

We just needed to pull this new piece tight enough  so that we could attach it to the old fence.

That's where these little guys come in. I was in charge of the HOG RINGS. Now, I don't want to offend any of my readers by going into detail about what the real purpose of these large rings( heavy staples) are for but if you really want to read about it go to this site and it will explain. Please don't if you are into animal activism or don't have a pig farm. Don't tell me you went to the site and now you're offended. I told you ahead of time and you had a choice. Raising farm animals is a learning process. If you want to learn something... then go take a look. Now I know why I wouldn't want to raise pigs. I couldn't do this to them.... and maybe you don't have to. I believe that some of these practices are a bit old and barbaric. I'm glad we were using them on fencing.
OUR purpose for the hog rings was to attach one fence to another as a temporary measure until we can afford a new section of fencing below the house. They are crooked little staples that get all tangled up in the box.  My job, after we got the fencing stretched out, was to untangle them and hand them to the Prospector, one at a time, so he could attach the wires of the fencing to the old one using these nifty staples and his (what else) HOG PLIERS. It all works quite well with two people. We were quite a team. Those old goats won't know what happen. I can just hear them now. "Hey, what happen to the holes we made in the fence? How come we can't reach the grass on the slope.? FARMLADY......"

The fog was coming in over the hills to the west and the wind was picking up. We finished the "patching" as the sun disappeared into the fog and the air got really cold.  We cleaned up, closed the gates and  dragged everything up into the garage.Time to go inside and have some hot chocolate.
It was a day of accomplishment. It was a day of putting away, cleaning up and fixing here on the farm. I like that. Together, with this man that I live with, we make a good team. We always have.