A Very Simple Drive to Work

Reese River Valley is more or less triangular, and I live right in the middle of it. When you take into account that trees taller than 30 ft are not really native to the high dessert, you don't expect to see quaint farm houses dotting the landscape. The high dessert is an acquired taste I think, most people just see dirt and sage brush, but when you live here (or in other places where you can see for miles in any direction) you learn to look beyond what is immediately in front of you. Out-of-towners can't seem to see the mountains!
click for big, you can see another mountain range to the right. The tallest peak in Lander County is to the left, Mt. Lewis at 9,573 ftThis is looking towards the southern mouth of the valley, towards Austin. As you get farther south, the mountains get closer together and the road twists and turns through lush green cattle country and Reese River actually runs with water there; it is a dry wash this far north.
Southern Reese River Valley; I didn't take this picture, I borrowed it from http://www.schweich.com/geoNVLanReeseRVy.html
In the 1800's when this area was seeing settlers making their way down the California Trail an enterprising individual back East, who had previously visited the area, was selling tickets to sail the great Reese River Paddle Boat, gambling and wenching to contentedness! At least thats what we hear around these parts, makes a great story :)

Looking West, into the Tobin Mountain Range where it is said Battle Mountain got its name (not the closest one, that was put there after the fact ;-). I would tell the story, but these guys tell it better. Synopsis; some guy said he and a wagon train he was guarding were attacked by Shoshone indians on a mountian. I'm tellin ya, the other story is much better. Farther West is Winnemucca, NV.

OK, I photo-shopped this one just a little; I wanted you to see the fog. This is looking East into the Shoshone Mountain Range. On the other side is Cresent Valley, at the southern end of which is the Cortez Gold Mine where my DH works. Further East is Elko, NV.
Last but not least, a view to the North and the town of Battle Mountain. Established as a mining district and siding for the railroad in 1868, and later (much later, you really should go read the page at the last link) made the county seat of the great County of Lander. The mightly Humboldt River runs just to the North of Battle Mountain as it wends its way from its birth at Humboldt Wells, just out side of Wells, NV, around several mountain ranges for 300 miles to the Humboldt Sink in the valley that Lovelock, NV occupies. The Humboldt River is the longest river in the Great Basin.
So, this is what I see on my way to work ever morning. I took all of these pictures at one time, parked on the side of Historic HWY 8-A, which at one time ran 99 miles, all the way to Austin hugging the mountains and the now removed train tracks that also went all the way to Austin and down the middle of Main Street (back durring the silver rush, when the population of Austin was over 50,000!! It is now about 300). These train tracks (and the HWY) served hundreds of people in small mining settlements along its length, all of which soon followed the tracks back to Battle Mountain and the settlements they left became memories and ghost towns.

Distractions... and 18 days :)

In an effort to distract my self from the waddling sheep in my back yard and their impending lambs, here are some random pictures from my life;

This is Chilli. I know, real original huh? I didn't name him, I am his third owner and have been for 7 years now. The first family to have him broke one of his legs. The mother decided the young kids didn't need a chinchilla and sold him to his second owners. They put his home out in the back yard and fed him vegies and fruits off their table. They didn't know what chinchilla dust was. Some might think this is a good life, but if you think about it, chinchillas are a native to (where else?) Chille, South America. Their diet in the wild consists of roots, fruits, leaves, bark, and tubers. In captivity alfalfa, pellets, and hay are their staples (as well as their favorite snack, raisins). So you can see where a diet of just fruit and vegies might not be the best. Chinchillas do not get wet in the wild and because their fur is so dense, if they do get wet it is more likely to kill them than clean them. They are from a naturally arid area so they dont take 'baths' as most animals do. Chilli now lives in my living room with the rest of us and although he is nocturnal, it works out OK. If you have never touched a chinchilla, make a point to go to the nearest pet store, it is a treat :)

Do you remember the Budweiser commercials with the two chameleons, Frank and Louie? This cat's name is Louie, note the spare toes on his front feet. Louie has opposing thumbs. He also has claws between his multiple toes that don't retract. His 'thumbs' don't do much other than help him keep his balance, but it is novel. Louie's mother has twenty seven toes and claws to match, when she decides to jump on your lap, a cringe comes to your face and you hope you have enough clothes on to keep you from being flayed.

This is Jasper. And Zip of course :)
When Jasper came to me he was not in very good shape. His name then was "Jerry Garcia" (ugh), he was skinny, had bald spots on his face and collicked three times within the first week of his life with me. The first time was from drinking too much water at once; when I had picked him up, there was no water bucket/trough anything in his pen. I can't imagine what he drank. Not much of anything obviously. The people that had him at the time had been turned in multiple times for animal abuse but no one ever tried to stop them from getting more animals. Anyway, I had to sell Jasper a few years ago, he was just too much for me in the sadle. On the ground he was the most willing of students and he was so friendly, if I walked through the paddock and stopped suddenly he would run into my back. But in the saddle he had too much energy for me to manage. He went to a young cowboy who fell as deeply in love with Jasper as I had AND he worked hard enough that Jasper didn't have all that extra pent up energy. I miss Jas but I know he is well cared for and is content with his life and a cow rangler.

Here are some pictures I just want to share...


Kujo curled up in a food dish

A couple of the yearling thoroughbreds I used to work with (added after-the-fact note: This was in Georgia; I realized this might not look like a real photo. It is a scan of a photo that has seen better days. I wasn't a photographer as you can tell, I cut off their legs :)

The most magnificent sunset I have ever seen (no, it is not photoshoped)

Jari with a bottle babie

Tad with his first deer

Jugs

We are virtually finished with the garage lambing jugs. All that is left is to hang heat lamps from the back of each jug and lay down straw. Oh, and have lambs of course :)
Does anyone know where I can get these green sheep panels? I bought these used and have no idea who the manufacturer is. They are pretty old...


Sunning area, front of garage.

View from garage door

View from back of pens towards door
Last year we only had one pen and no alley way, the pen included the doorway so we could let ewes in or out, but it caused some distress when we had to take one ewe out so the other could be alone in the pen to lamb. We ended up opening the door and putting something up to act as a half door so the lambing ewe could still see the other ewe. Necessity is the mother of invention, right? I am really excited to use this new set up this year, I think we though of everything. I hope we thought of everything....

A 'Dyed in the Wool' Weekend

Friday - recuperation from Valentines day. Had dinner with friends, movie, Life of Brian (yes Monty Python, funny movie :), went to karaoke, had a ball!

Saturday -
I had planned on going to Reno to spend Saturday dying with Sharon, Mim and Amy but wasn't able to make it. So, I did it all by my self! I am actally pretty proud of myself, I've never dyed this way and even though it didn't quite turn out like I thought it would, I had fun and learned a few things.

I have wanted for a while now to dye top, some green, some yellow. Our school colors here are green and gold. I also bought some silk hankies (I saw Linda spinning some she had dyed last time I was in Reno, had to try it!). I improvised on some of the equipment to use, such as the squirt bottles, they are actually water bottles and dont have the aim that squirt bottles do, they worked in a pinch and were in the dollar section at the super market.
I used Cushings dyes; Plum, Orchid, Chartreuse, and Blue. Since I didn't have the green I wanted, I mixed Chartreuse and Blue for some of the top, and the Plum and Orchid as well as Chartreuse went to dye silk hankies.



After steaming; ick.

After rinsing and drying, here are the results;

OK, so there isn't much traditional about this post but I thought it was a catchy title :)

Silly Sheep.... T-Minus 33

OK, I promise I wont do that every day... I'm just so excited! Can't contain it.

When I went home for lunch yesterday, it was another beautiful day so I had to stop at the sheep pen and take some pictures. This is the goofiest sheep I know, Honey would rather drink from the stream of water coming down than from the tub.

This is Aubrey, Honey's ewe lamb. She has very nice wool, like Laz.

This is Babs (who is for sale btw, very correct, beautiful eyes), a brockle out of my dorset, Eliza, who is in the next picture...

Eliza is the fat one waddling up to the water tub. She had triplets twe years ago, they had brought her down pretty far and I hadn't realized it until she was sheared the next spring; by then she was within two weeks of lambing and went into ketosis. She came out of it fine, with two healthy lambs, but about 3 weeks later we found the ram lamb dead. Not sure what happened, but she is fit as a fiddle this go round and looks like she might trip again. Hindsight being what it is (sometimes helpful) if she does have triplets again, I will keep her by herself and feed her accordingly.

And last but not least, Zip, guarding his sheep (and probably chewing on sheep poo, cause thats what dogs do with sheep poo, ugh) from his cushy shady spot.

The Weekend & T-Minus 34 Days & Counting!

We went to the crab feed on Saturday, why I didn't take pictures of the crab is beyond me; I guess I'm not quite used to having a place to share things like that yet. Put on by the Battle Mountain Arts Presenters to raise money to bring the Arts to town, it is always a fun event; we started going about 5 years ago, and it was kind of a posh evening, a reason to get dressed up and have fun stuffing your face with all-you-can-eat Dungeness crab, homemade spaghetti, salad and cole-slaw, and then dance till your feet hurt. Personally, I've never tasted the spaghetti, salad or cole-slaw, nor have I ever had a piece of bread at the crab feed, why fill up precious space with anything but crab? :)

Anyway, it used to be a reason to get dressed up, wear something sparkly... we missed last year, I guess they changed the dress code, this year there were more people in t-shirts than anything. I dressed up, my once a year excuse. People didn't recognize me (I'm a t-shirt kinda gall, and I 'never' wear make up :) I felt over dressed and a little conspicuous, but I got over it. We had a nice time, spent too much money and even went home early. It was fun :)

34 Days to Go!
Sunday was an absolutely beautiful day! The temp got to over 50F, so I brow-beat or guilted as needed to get everyone out of the house to help start getting the garage ready for lambs.

This is one of three 6X6 lambing pens, all against this wall in my garage; to the immediate left of this pen on the south facing wall is a regular door, then to the left of that is the garage door. To the right are the other two pens. When done, there will be straw on the floor, a heat lamp hanging from the wall at the back of each pen, two feeder tubs hanging from the front panel (also the gate) of each pen, and there will be an alley way running the length of the pens leading to the door and out into an enclosed area so we can let them out to get sun on nice days. The thing hanging from the rafter here is a 50lb scale for weighing the lambs.We have chairs an old couch and even an old kids bed out there so we can be comfortable while we watch and wait. We did this last year and it worked out really well, we didn't have any lambs born in the big pen. I got to thinking about that last night (while I lay in bed coughing and trying to go to sleep) and I realized the reason none where born outside the lambing jugs was because I had a marker on my ram and knew when everyone was due to lamb last year. No such luck this year, for some reason I didn't put a marker on either ram, so it is going to be a turkey shoot.

This picture is from last year; the outer area where they can sun. The ewe to the front is Honey, one of the first tunis ewes to come here. She had a ewe lamb, dubbed Aubrey and a ram lamb. The one to the back is Rose, she came to us in '06 from the Klemen farm in Ohio. She had a little ewe lamb that is now in Oregon. If you look close at honey, you can see scars in her wool; she was attacked by a tiger-striped brindle great dane/mastif cross dog we adopted (he was dumped on our road, presumably because the irresponsible people who had him couldn't handle a dog his size. He was beautiful!), he is happily living in Idaho now with people who don’t have livestock. It broke my heart to send him away, but the day after he attacked Honey, while I was at the store buying a chain so we could secure him while at work/school, he attacked one of our neighbors ewes and killed her. I am happy that he found a home.

Threads n' Thanks, n' other stuff

Look what I got!! Michelle sent this to me, its my PIF gift! I showed my DH, he said "Good! Now you can quit wearing my scarf." He wouldn't know 'style' if it hit him in the arse! lol

Thank you Michelle, I love it!

Yesterday's post was of romney that I was flick carding, this morning I spent about 30 minutes spinning it, now I want to go home and spin some more!! One of the many things I like about this wool is the color; it is silvery with grey/black highlights, but when it is spun up it has a platinum color to it. It is great in singles as well as plied, but I think I will leave this batch as singles... its going to make someone a very nice gift! Wouldn't it make a great lace shawl or shrug? I don't think I would want this next to my skin, even though it is very soft for romney; it still has a bit of itch factor to it, you can see it in the picture, nice patina huh? If you click for big, it looks really cool...



I took delivery of the rest of my hay last night, it was nice that he owed me hay but I didn't owe him any money lol

Happy Horses

It was snowing again this morning when I came to work. Now the sun is shinin to beat all and not warming up a thing! Except for the snow-ice on the telephone poll next to my truck. I just watched it fall down and hit the top of my Silverado. grrrr

I dont know what I was thinking the other day when I posted all my 'YMMD' links; I left one out! I'm sorry Kathy, I do visit your blog daily and I had intended to put you on the list, I didn't realize until last night that you weren't on there so, here it is, another "You Make My Day award to "Sheep Thrills Farm" - fellow spinner, shepherdess and blogger, a great read any day!

Ancient History & Ummmmm! Romney

When my daughter and I went to Moab in 2004 to Cunnington Farms to see Sam's (AKA Mary) tunis sheep, little did I know that it was the begining of not just one journey, but two.

Turned out that Sam was more than a sheperdess of rare breeds of sheep, she is also a spinner. She was more than happy to bring another unsuspecting dupe into the fold. She gave me half a corriedale fleece; actually, she was giving the fleece to my daughter, who it turns out, had absolutely no interest at all in what a sheep wore, just how it would perform at the 4-H show. So now you know who is responsible for my wool fetish. Sam and I are great friends now and talk often. I don't miss many chances to remind her who's fault it is that I am wallering in wool.

To make a long story short, I decided to find out what I could do with the fleece and I went on line to find out what kind of tools I needed to spin wool. That is what started my love affair with corriedale wool. It should only follow that I would eventually find romney and my love would be divided forever more.

I wish there was some way for you to feel this wool. Scratch and Feel button or something... it is absolutely the most beautiful wool I have had the pleasure of working with, I just wish I could remember where I got it...

Ahh well, the dangers of adiction! So, I have this romney, wonderful crimp, tremendous staple length and ohhhhh so soft! And it has so much grease it is almost impossible to get it out. I have washed this wool I don’t know how many times (really, I lost count). The only thing I can think of, is it sat before I bought it and the grease kind of solidified. ...of course I've had it for over a year... anyway, back to the point!
I washed it in my sink first with Dawn (0riginal), then I washed it in my washing machine, and again.... and again.... decided to try using Fiberworks Fiber Wash, last night, and after drying it for the umpteenth time, and it was still greasy *sigh* I put my dye pot on the stove, filled it halfway up turned the stove on HIGH. I put the wool into a wash bag and into the water with a bit of Dawn and walked away! Finally SUCCESS! Now I am sitting at work with it by my side, thinking of flick carding more of it, but instead I am typing this post...

If you have never tried to flick card with a dog comb and a cutting board, you're missing something! I was sitting one day, after flick carding and scratching up two or three phone books, tearing up my jeans and trying several other things that didn’t weather the teeth of my little dog comb very well, decided to get up for a drink and spied my 4 cutting boards. Then the idea hit me, 'Who needs four cutting boards!?!?' I took the smallest one back to my chair and haven’t looked back :)

PIF's, YMMD's, IOU's... And Wind Balls?

I have been trying to decide what to do with this. To me, the best part of blogging is knowing (through comments) that your friends are reading your blog and are genuinely interested in your triumphs, your failures, your sorrows and your happiness from day to day. I have not held back any of these experiences from my posts; at times, I go back and read one and think 'how depressing!' but I know now, even when I have a bad day and sound bitter and depressed, you guys will come back and read my next post. I tend to type like I talk, by measures I am cynical, sarcastic, (hopefully) funny, and sometimes a bit dour.
To sum up; thank you for reading and commenting on my life.

So, here are my 'You Make My Day' Awards!

Since there are only a few blogs I read, these are the ones I am going to list. There are many reasons that I read these blogs; a couple I started reading because I knew the blogger previously, and have since enjoyed their blogs immensly, some I found later.

• Boulderneigh - I eny her a bit; what would it be like to be married to your Vet? Funny, whimsical, and always interesting.
  
• In Stitches - Wow! What a tallented woman! From homemade soap, to handspun, hand knitted and felted bags (and probably a whole lot we dont know about), if I had half of the talent... funny and interesting all the time!


• Purple Fuzzy Mittens - Speaking of satire and witticism! And loads of talent! Always a good read.


• Willow's Rest - A new comer with like interests; Tunis! We even use the same template ;-)

Wind Balls? Yes, wind balls!

These may look like ordinary bumps in the snow but they are very deceptive! These are wind-blown snow balls.

Only in Nevada!

We had fresh snow on Saturday, then about dusk the wind picked up to a ferocious gale in which our power went out three times and we thought the roof was headed for Elko!
My son had the night feed and came in talking about these wind-made phenomenons. Unfortunately, my camera was here on my desk at work and I wasn't able to get pictures until just now in the parking lot of my office building. If I would have been able to get pictures Saturday night, we would have seen neat little furrows following each snow ball! How cool is that!?!