Ram Conundrum...

I love that word! Conundrum! I kinda rolls around in your mouth doesn't it?

OK, so I have a 'puzzle' if you will; I talked to a friend last night about this, but thought I would put it to all of you, my cyber friends.

I have two rams. Laz is four years old this year, Carmine is one. I havn't separated them from their ewes yet because of this paradoxical (yeah, I'm having fun :) problem!

Here is the poser;
If I put Carmine in with Laz, Laz will hurt (if not kill, maim or otherwise lambaste) Carmine. Carmine however, has this horrible aversion to being alone since the State Fair where they put him in a pen far away from other sheep. In short he is monophobic! Actually, I guess all sheep are, but he gets down right frantic when he is alone, starts obsessive compulsive behavior...

Back when I had three rams, and they were all about the same age/size it wasn’t a problem. After breeding I would make their pen smaller so they couldn't hurt each other, then a few days later I would let them have their commodious pen back. Because I have things like posts and old tires lying all over in their pen, they could never get a good go at each other and so never caused any more hurt than a broken scur.

My friend last night said I need three rams. Two will perpetually focus on one another and will batter each other unerringly until one falls down and doesn’t get up. Unfortunately, I don’t have another ram, I can’t even borrow one.

I am left with this; I can take two older ewes out and put them in a separate pen with Carmine, but only until they come close to lambing. Maybe by then I would have lambs old enough to be in with Carmine, but not likely...

Any suggestions? Solutions? Persiflage?

Sick Days and Dye Pots...

I took delivery of 36 packs of Cushings Perfection Dyes from a seller on eBay yesterday, and as I sat here at work feeling sorry for myself, I got a phone call from my new supervisor. He pointed out that there was no reason to be at work if I didnt feel good! HA! My new enabler! So I went home and started the dye pot!

This is about a pound of romney I've had laying around for awhile, it is long stapled and fun to spin, so I thought I would give it some extra character!

I use a stainless steel pot to dye, and I havent used any dye besides Cushings so far... I dont have enough dye in the pot in this picture, I had to add more.

It is prettier than it looks here, just a subtle green that will look nice when made into something... I think I know just who to give it to!

I also dyed some skeins but the pictures didn't come out right, maybe I will try again, but then maybe not, mabye I will save those until later ;-)

The 'Ickies'

For the last three days I have felt 'icky'.
I have a cold in my head and it has moved into my chest where it is, it seems, determined to wait out the winter.
I looked at my blog on Sunday, looking for those people who had posted wanting to be a part of 'Pay It Forward' and to my consternation, no one had posted other than Michelle of Boulderneigh, who is already a part of the circle. Nothing like rejection to fuel a cold.

Well, this morning what do I find but two more posters, Astrig, who definitely wants to be a part of PIF and Julie, who I'm not sure about. I need snail mail addresses from the two of you so I can get your yarn in the mail. If you dont knit or crochet, you can always gift the yarn to someone who does!

It has been a miserable three days, other than my ailments, it has been windy, cold, snowy and generally 'icky' inside and out. It is still 'icky' outside, and I still feel 'icky' inside, but I am starting to feel better :)

Getting ready for Lambs and PIF

How cute! I love these things! I just got them in the mail yesterday from a woman who sells them on eBay. Apparently, she buys surplus material on eBay, her Mother cuts out the patterns and she sews them up! She calls these goat or kid coats but they will work great for lambs also. Two coats in the picture are 10" and the other two are 14" long from the middle of the chest back. If lamanchappy doesn't have any coats listed right now, please add her to your favorite sellers and watch for them.

Cant wait to see lambs in them :)

So, to Pay It Forward.

Michelle at Boulderneigh challenged the first three people that responded to her PIF post, to also do a PIF post. I was making a totally innocent comment about the movie "Pay It Forward", where I stated that it was the saddest movie I had ever seen! And got myself into this.

Actually, I do try to live my life in a Pay It Forward context, but I guess I never quite go out of my way to do anything really out of the ordinary. So I think this is going to be fun :)

Here is how it works (hope this is how it works, I'm not sure, but I think Michelle and I have the same people perusing our blogs :), I will send within two weeks (because I forget to do things if I don't do it right away), to the first three people to comment on this post, two skeins of soft hand spun wool (since I don't really make anything out of my wool, unless I am under duress), this should work out (the way I spin) to somewhere around 500 to 600 yards. I have a great big tub of yarn that I have spun and it is all looking to be loved by someone. Or, I will spin some up for the occasion. In return, the benefactors of this PIF will offer the same deal on their blog.

Happy PIF'ing :)

Last of Three... Pogonip? Hoarfrost? Cold?

OK, so if you read the 2nd post of the day, you know it was foggy yesterday, BUT what I didnt show you was this...

I stopped just as I left my driveway this morning and snapped this. This kind of thing happens every few years here, I should have seen it for what it was yesterday, but I was too self-absorbed about shooting in the cold :)

My horses don't seem to mind, as long as they have their grub!

The neighbors house is a sight with all those trees...

Thought this was an interesting picture...

Whew! OK, that's all :)

Sunday; Shooting Range

Since the topics of the things I wanted to share today vary so widely, I thought I would split them up into three posts....

Thrusday night, at karaoke, we all decided we were going shooting Sunday, come Hell or High Water, as the saying goes.

Turns out it was both. The humidity was 100% (checked with NOAA)and it was as cold as Hell frozen over! Well maybe not that cold, but my butt thought it was! (It was actually in the mid 20's)

You may or may not be able to tell, about 200 yards outside the shelter is a dense bank of fog. Usually this fog burns off as the sun rises, but at 3PM when we had decided we had had enough, it was still just as thick as it had been at 8AM.

Everyone was bent on shooting the AR that a friend brought, a $2600 shoot-em-up. DH wants one so bad he could chew bullets! He wanted me to shoot it, and being the practical person I am, I just cant see why anyone would want on of these things! So I shot it. OK, it was fun, but I still think they are over priced.

Then comes my favorite sport! My DH bought a double trap flinger for my BD a few years ago because I love to shoot trap! We have invested in some very nice shot guns; mine is a 12g Ruger Red Label, DH has a 12g Browning semi-auto, and Kevin's, well I cant remember what his is...

Our good friend was manning the flinger in this picture, my son Kevin is on the other side of the truck and Derek is closest to me. After we shoot heads up for awhile, we will start shooting doubles, sometimes heads up, sometimes one at a time. And later still we will challenge Kevin to shoot 4 targets out of the air with his pump. Yes, I've seen him do it! One of my nick names for him is 'dead-eye Dick' he has awesome hand eye coordination!

So, after 200 targets, with numb rumps, tired eyes, but light hearts, we headed home. It was a great day :)

May I have a drum roll please!!

Ta-Da! Well, its almost finished. I ran out of the crimp beads I was using to secure the regular beads with, but I figure it is close enough for a picture, since it may be a couple weeks before I find those crimp beads again...

And YAY I finally got the color right! On my monitor anyway :)

Tried to get a close up of the beads... can you see them? I wasn't sure what color beads to use, so I got this package of mixed dark beads that had pearlesant colors throughout, may have been too dark but c'est la vie!

Blending

Another cold day in northern Nevada. Its not as cold today and it isn't snowing, as it has been off and on for the past three days. Everything is just wet. You would think that it would be icy, our high isn't supposed to be over 33F today, but everything is still dripping out side... gonna get all the way up to 39F on Sunday! Whoohoo! ;-)

Man I love my drum carder :)

A picture is worth so much; to the right, a bat of romeldale/romney and merino blend, fresh off the carder; middle, hand drafted balls of merino (white), romeldale/romney (very dark), and the blend. To the left, locks of each fleece, respectively, and the flicked locks that I feed into my carder.

I am just having too much fun!

I am hopelessly unorganized most of the time and I found these neat little containers to stash my stash. When did they come out with these??

I am spinning the blend now, I think I am going to dye it .... oh I don't know, for some reason, ocean mist green keeps popping up in my head. It might not show up enough though....

Over Christmas, I was working on a scarf. It is made from the two dyed skeins I posted pictures of a few weeks back. I am still working on the fringe, started it this morning, then I had to go to work... phooey.

Again, I am having a hard time getting the colors to come out right! Navy blue and dark maroon is what it is supposed to be. If you click for big you can see them better. I took the pattern from an afghan book, I really like the way it turned out, although hind sight being what it is, I think it would have benefited from a row here and there of something a bit lighter. I am planning on putting beads in the fringe. Will post a finished picture, when its finished :)

Life goes on...

Views of an Arizona Christmas Trip

Guess what? My camera was in my truck! :)

These pictures are pretty much in a time line

The Big Smokey Valley: Very nice drive any time of year, lots of scenery, not much of anything else. Between Austin and Tonapah. One year we were traveling to AZ, when the kids were younger we traveled at night, and the Valley is so dark, we could actually 'see' helicopters from the nearby military base outlined against the myriad stars! Another year we saw comet Hale-Bopp from here, a truly magnificent sight with a tail much longer than what we could see anywhere else!

Boulder Dam: They are building a by-pass over the dam, this picture really does it no justice, it looks WAY bigger in person.

My Family on Boulder Dam

The Arizona Desert: This picture has a bit of everything in it; mesquite, paloverde, jumping cholla, prickly pear, saguaro cactus, there is probably a barrel cactus close by too.

Picacho Peak: This mountain is actually a volcano plug, the dirt has eroded away.

Kevin: big prickly pear! and another type of jumping cholla

Joshua Tree Forest in Northern AZ

Merry Christmas! Happy New Year!

Wow! That was quick! The whole of 2007 went by in a flash it seems, and here I am looking at another lambing season that will, in itself, be over all too quickly!

My first day back at work, also means my first day at a computer with a connection fast enough to allow me to upload pictures...

Our trip to Arizona was great! I was warm! We spent too much time in Tucson, spent way too much money but had a wonderful time! We went to see National Treasure; Book of Secrets (great movie!), got to visit my favorite store, Brookstone in the Tucson Mall, and otherwise stayed at my FIL's house being lazy on vacation :)

We started home on Friday the 28th, the temp was in the mid 50's; Several hours later, we had driven about 450 miles, and the temp had dropped to around 40. Three hours after that, it was dark, we were in Tonapah, the temp was around 10 and it was snowing. We were also pulling a 12 foot U-Haul full of furniture my FIL had gifted us.

Two hours later, after traversing the great Smokey Valley, we were headed up Austin Summit, one of the worst places to drive in Nevada, in the winter, in the snow, at night... I hate that summit! Visions of sliding over ravines, blood and broken glass were at the fore of my thoughts, so for the most part, I kept my eyes closed and sang to the radio. About two hours later, around 3:15 AM we were safe at home and the terror of the crossing was a vague memory. I say it every time we do it; I will never do that again!!!!

This is a picture I found on the web of the town of Austin. Just to give you an idea of what the summit is like. Austin lies in the heart of a mountain range and the summit is just to the East of town and ascends to over 7000 ft, quickly!

The next morning, I went to pick up the rest of our family members; Zip, Kujo, and Beamer. Kujo jumped into the back of the truck without looking at me, Beamer almost jumped over my head he was so happy, and Zip wagged and whined his joy at seeing me. So only one ticked off dog was OK I guess, she got over it :)

The trip home not withstanding it was a great ending to 2007.

I forgot to bring my camera with me today, I will post some pics tomorrow.