A Goat and Lamb's Woolly Kind of Day

Went to our Goat Meeting on Saturday in Wilton, in the valley... to a farm I had not been to before. 

Lots of goats...

One buck that looked suspiciously like my Nubian Wether, Bart. Could it be that this handsome guy and my Bart have some shared genes? We know the same people. I bought from the same breeder.

You just have to love these Nubians... look at that face.
But, this breed (below) has a different look.

They have no ears. They are LaMancha goats and you can read about them here.  They were very curious and friendly. One followed me around the whole time we were out in the field with them. She kept rubbing against me like an old friend. She was just so lovable and cute.

Speaking of cute... Here's your "Awww!" for the day.
These baby were very reserved and keeping an eye on Mom. They wouldn't let me get too close.
But the Nubian kids (below) were falling all over themselves and being so lovable that I wanted to bring them home with me.

The "nubies" were prancing around and playing games in the sunshine. It was as if they knew just how cute they were.

Then we went to see the sheep. I was told that I could have some fleece after the shearing about a month ago. The owner said that I could have it all if I wanted it. Well....
"Baa, baa Dorset sheep,
Have you any wool?
Yes sir, yes sir,
Fifteen bags full."
(Please forgive the adaptation of the old nursery rhyme.)
I could have brought home 15 bags of wool fleece. I chose one bag..

I don't know how much is in this bag but it's a lot. It's dirty stuff..., full of lanolin, grass and sheep poop.

"Thanks ladies"

Thank ewe (I mean you) wonderful animals. You will be cooler this summer and I will learn the process of taking sheep wool from animal to artistic endeavor.
Yesterday I pulled a big hand full out of the bag and after going online to learn how to clean raw wool, I took a small bunch of this...

 ...the dirty, lanolin laden fleece of a yearling Dorset sheep....washed it (long process that I will explain later), dried it and carded it.
This is what it looks like now. Amazing!? Yes it is.

It's clean, soft and beautiful. It's ready for a felting project or spinning into yarn. But spinning means that I need to buy some spinning equipment.. and as much as I would love to have a spinning wheel, which I have no room and is very expensive,
I think my first investment will be a small drop spindle. It won't hurt to learn from scratch. The drop spindle is the oldest way of making yarn from fleece. Here's a site that explains what a drop spindle is and does.
I love the "Warning" at the top of the link page.
I haven't gotten the "spinning" bug, yet, but I sure know what happens when the" felting" bug hits. It's like no other illness. You feel great. You don't have to stay in bed and you accomplish something while you're "under the weather". The "felting" bug is rather mild except when you find yourself hunting in the corners of you're house for fur and asking friends for their dog or cat hair. I have tried to felt everything that I can possibly think of around here, including dryer fluff and dog hair. It's just ridiculous what these passions do to you. You look at animal fur in a whole new way.
Seeing this fleece go from dirty and sticky to clean and white makes me want to spend HOURS washing and drying this stuff.

 It will probably be more like DAYS of washing and drying.... but I'm game.
Someone back in ancient times looked at a sheep or goat and thought that if the fur kept an animal warm why wouldn't it work for humans too... and so the process began.
This disentanglement from modern living has been going on for a long time with me. I don't trust the future of technology. I use it and I enjoy a lot of it, but I don't trust that it will always be here.
When I wash this fleece and make felt, I feel  connected to some ancient human who lived many centuries ago, a person that  lived close to the earth and lived his or her live with what was found in nature.. It was a matter of survival for them. For me it's a connection to that tradition,  wanting to learn what they knew. Wanting to bridge that distant time when what we did mattered and life was lived elementally.
Life was harder, physically, but the process was there. I find it hard to believe that all of this technology isn't going to collapse someday in the future and I would like to think that knowing how to make clothing by felting some fibers... or fishing in a river... will come in handy. I may never have to worry about it in my lifetime, but I want to show my grandchildren how to do this, just in case.
It's also just a lot of fun.

This beautiful animal agrees. She says, "I grow this fleece every year and you can have all you want. Just let my people know that you want some and zip, zip, zip... it's all yours. I'm ready for my Mary Jane's Farm Magazine "close up" this summer. Now, all I have to do is find a shady spot, some ice tea and and a handsome leading man. I'm all set for lights, camera.... action."

You go girl!

A River, a Gold Mine and Lunch at a Friend's

Thursday was  one of those days that California is known for and why so many of us live here. Sunny, dry, and beautiful. The temperature reached, maybe 85 degrees and there was a light wind.
I had a date for lunch at a friend's house in Wallace. It's about an hours drive from our house, if you know where you're going or have been there before.
I went the back way, across the Mokelumne River and over Gwin Mine Rd. into Paloma. It was a lovely drive. Part of my late arrival was wanting to take so many pictures along the way, but I DID GET LOST.... kind of.

The Gwin Mine is for sale if you're interested.  It was a very productive gold mine back in the day and, as they say, "Gold is where you find it." You can read the history here.
I think that these old stone foundations would make a very interesting and unique house.
I drove over to Paloma and then on to Valley Springs. I had directions to my friend's house but I had never driven down this way before so, at some point,  I thought that I wasn't going the right direction. I stopped and asked an electric line man who was very nice and knew the area. He sent me on my way with a new perspective and renewed confidence.
I was only about 15 or 20 minutes late.

I arrived at "M"'s charming home and she was waiting out front with a big smile and a wave. We had ice tea on the porch while a cow grazed nearby....

She had prepared a delicious lunch which we enjoyed while talking our heads off about all kinds of things... and then I got a tour of her farm.
There is a huge storage/ workshop that I would kill for (probably not a person... but maybe a rattlesnake.) and it was organized, as this friend always is. She is a person of perfection and an artist. There is a work "area" for every artistic endeavor, shelving and places to store everything.
This is a very useful space...

AND, a BARN too....

You will never guess who was waiting inside this barn for me.  It was the brother of the Alligator Lizard that had the near death experience with my cat, Annie. (The post before this one.) This one was waiting as we walked inside and it didn't move the whole time we were in the barn. This lizard looked right at me as if to say,
" Hey, lady! Are you the owner of that cat over near Jackson who attacked my bro' and you just kept taking pictures?. I heard about you and THAT cat."
Maybe this lizard just thought he owned the place. I don't know, but it was downright spooky the way he watched me.
The barn is empty now. "M" said her horse died a while back. She showed me the stalls, the tack and the saddle. I didn't ask too many questions. I could tell that "M" didn't want to talk about the horse.
Cows were too much for she and her husband to deal with. They both worked at the time. Not enough fencing and ... just a lot of problems. Now, she only has the black and white one on the porch.
Each of these buildings, the barn and the workshop, are bigger than her house. Now that's what I call getting your priorities straight.
This is eleven acres of flat usable land and I, having lived on the edge of a cliff for fifteen years, really appreciate the fact that ALL the acreage is usable. We own 42 acres but we live on about two acres. The rest is all up and down hill like a roller coaster.

"M" has charming little vignettes on her porch that runs the length of the house and these beautiful Cymbidiums (orchids) blooming and thriving all over the place.

They're awesome.
It was a quiet, peaceful and lovely place.. just across the street from Comanche Reservoir. The closest town is called Wallace, which only has a post office. If you want to spend some money you have to drive to Valley Springs or San Andreas or... my town, Jackson... or drive down into the valley to Stockton.
I spent the afternoon and then headed back to Jackson via ...

Passing the old stone foundation again...

I thought about the history that is so ever-present in this area and how lucky I'm an to be living in such a beautiful historic part of Northern California. I just know that  there is still GOLD around here. I can smell it.
Oh, maybe that's the Broom.

The Broom bushes are thriving with all the late rain. They may grow right over the road soon.

Even the wildflowers were still showing off along the road.
I drove on, over the bridge that crosses the wide Mokelumne and headed north. I know this road well. It's the road home.
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Tomorrow.... goats in Wilton and clearing the space for the potting shed.

Cats, Critters and a Beautiful Summer Day

The garden is so beautiful right now.

We don't have to water much.

Everything is new and beautiful.

The heat isn't so intense that flowers wither from it.
Even the angry little Gerbera Daisy is happily planted with some friends. He has survived the other companion flower, the prettier one, possibly because he was a conjoined twin and has the strength of two. Two stems... one flower. He seems very happy now.

All is good in the garden.

All is right with the world.
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Then, you look across the driveway and you see Annabel, the cat, playing with .....
OH NO! That can't be a small Rattlesnake!
Not yet. It's too early.
This can't be happening.
You grab the shovel and run through the gate and across the driveway... yelling at the cat to stop.
She ignores you.
You pick up a small piece of gravel and throw it at the cat to make her back away.
As you get closer, throwing another stone above the cat, you can see the snake tail twitching and the cat pawing at the critter as if it was a moving cat toy.You throw one more piece of gravel. This time you hit dead center in the conflict and Annabel backs away.

Yelling and getting between the cat and the critter, you close in on what you have to do.... but wait.
This is not a baby Rattler.... this is not what you thought was the end of the best  "mouser" you ever had.
Maybe you need new glasses...This is a very good sized Alligator Lizard...

and it's mad....

"You better keep that Cat away from me or I will give her a bite that will make her wish she was never born."
He was on the defensive. He lifted his head up and stared at me.
I said, " I'm sorry little guy. Annie's gone." (She wasn't really. She was sitting on the hillside watching us, but I continued the deception....) "You need to run and hide somewhere."
I reached out and touched his back. He didn't move.
"Go on now. I know the sun feels good and you're a bit shook up but you need to go somewhere else. PLEASE."
He looked at me for the longest time.

"Don't get any closer, lady."

He didn't move. He was really on the defensive and , I suspect, a bit tired from his wrestling match with Annie.
Finally I reached down and started to touch his back again. This time he was ready.

He'd had enough of this inhospitable farm. He gave me one more tough expression and then ran. I don't think he even touched the ground. He ran across the road and disappeared into a pile of  dry garden clippings. He was like GREASED LIGHTENING.... he was gone.
Annie was watching the whole thing.... switching her tail. She was waiting for me to finish off this poor creature and hand it to her, on a plate, for lunch.
"Oh Annie. Why do you do this? Next time it will be a Rattlesnake and I guarantee that you won't win."
She looked at me and walked away.....

Wordless Wednesday: Things that get caught in chicken wire

A Place of Her Own

I went into the back garden this morning. This is behind the house near our bedroom. There use to be lawn here.. and then a small plastic pool... and then a pool made of plastic that had a filter. Now the lawn is gone and so are the pools, that were always nice on hot summer afternoons, but were forever clogged with debris and dirt... not to mention being a Bed & Breakfast for Mosquito's.
So the area has become a place for pots: Pots of blueberries,  containers of succulents, tomatoes... and my wonderful. sweet  Basilicum.. growing bigger each day in the early summer sunshine. Waiting for its transformation into Pesto. Can you smell it?

The tomatoes are somewhat behind this year.

This tomato will grow to the top of this wired cage and flow over in a month or so, but its been shivering in the cold and we even had to pinch some frostbitten, curled black leaves a few weeks back.
All of these pots will have to be moved around in the yard, soon, because this lovely, FLAT area is getting a makeover. It's going to share space with the little building of my dreams... A POTTING SHED.


I'm collecting ideas...

and reading serious books on the subject...

I would like this to be my own little place to pot plants and start seeds... but even more... this will be a place of solitude and reflection.
I want a table to write on and a comfortable chair to sit in.

and a wall for tools, baskets for gloves and shelves for pots. It will also have windows to see the view from and, maybe, even a pretty, old rug on the floor.
SO MANY IDEAS!
SO MANY PLANS!
This is something I have wanted for years. The Prospector is going to build it for me, bless his gold seeking heart. I will help.  It will be a simple structure and small. I will add the "Farmlady" stuff  later.
There will be flowers, garden art, and COLOR.

There may even be an outdoor table for really messy jobs.... like felting? Well, maybe but...
I should probably stick to garden projects.

And I want a bike like this...

A used up and retired bike, like this one, above, that is painted purple to match my French lavender and the joyful songs of the birds. Isn't birdsong purple?  Well...whatever it is... to me, it feels like PURPLE.

And why not a miniature faerie garden on a rusty iron chair. Who knows what little creatures might come to live here.

My wonderful little potting shed will settle in here somewhere between the Chitalpa tree and the Chinese Tallow. These trees will shade the little house in the dog days of summer and this is where we can tap into water and electricity at the corner of the house. Yes, I will have electricity... and maybe even a chandelier.
It will be a dream that is practical and yet where I can let go of life's irritations, plunge my hands into  good dirt or sit quietly doing nothing if I so choose. It will be a place of my own, my "man cave" of the gardening world.... my garden getaway.
A blogging friend that shares the love of gardens and nature says...
"I believe you have to look for the joy factor wherever you are and whatever you do." *
She says that having a sense of wonder isn't age-specific.
I love this statement.
Doing something that you truly love is so important.
This garden shed will be part of the "joy factor" in my life.

Quote is from an article in Country Gardens Early Spring 2011
Garden of Earthly Delights- author Sharon Lovejoy written by Debra Prinzing