Dye Day, Sore Feet, and Goofy Animals!

Lately I had noticed that all the yarn left in my bag from one selling op to the next, was gray or white. So, I had myself a dye day! The first three skeins were dyed together, first one was dark gray romeldale, second two were white romney; next four skeins were dyed together, first two I don't remember what they are, the second two are dark gray romeldale (I think); the next four dyed together in chartreuse, first two are some of Mim's shetland, next two are gray alpaca; the last three also dyed together are anyones guess, but they have been in my bag for a long long time. It was a blast, I haven't dyed anything in so long, but my feet protested adamantly; I went to the clinic yesterday to find out why my heels have been hurting (for about the last 6 months or so) and the Dr. gave me his opinion and a referral to a specialist; he thinks I have planter fasciitis ( a break down of the connecting tissue between the heel and the fasciitis which is like a flexor tendon between your heel and your toes), which by his description of the symptoms, I would say he is correct. I have an appointment to see the specialist on the forth of August.

This is Louie. He got his name from the old Budweiser commercials with the two cameleons, because of his toes. We call him "Louie, the lounge lizard" because he has always seems so comfortable when he sleeps, no matter where that happens to be. I have an old pic of him draped across the back of a chair, front legs dangling on either side, and another on a saddle hanging from the porch rail, same position :)
Here is a close up of his from feet. You can see he has multiple toes, front and back. I figure if he ever learned how to use that opposable thumb, nothing in the house would be sacred. He has over 25 claws, and half of them don't retract. He ran up my arm a couple weeks ago and lost his balance on the way, it still hasn't healed well. He got his oddity from his mother, who has 27 claws but her paws are just splayed with the extra toes.
And this is Spaz. He came to us after my DH's Mother passed away in Arizona. Yes, I went to Arizona and got a stray cat. He was sooo cute when he was a kitten, still is very lovable.
Meet Tweet and Twit, my two cockatiels. We've had Twit for quite awhile, actually havent a clue how old he is, but Tweet just came to live with us two years ago. She is quite the acrobat! Twit was never very social, although he loves to sing to me (cat calls, dog whistles, and attempts and several other tunes, he was whistling when I took this picture), but he has never been playful. Tweet makes up for his seriousness. As you can see she sits in the perch swing, reaches over and grabs the toy, pulls it to her and then perches on both. She sleeps this way. When she isn't sleeping she is climbing up and down and around the cage, hanging from the rafters, swinging from the toys, looping in and out of the perch swing... very entertaining :)
My animals keep me busy, and happy. I really dont know what I would do without any of them.

Bluegrass Festival 2009

Wow! What a day! I haven't until this weekend been able to attend the Battle Mountain Bluegrass Festival for the entire day. My son and his friends helped the organizers set up tents and lighting, move in straw bales and get the park ready for the festivities. I showed up around noon, Billie and her friend (from Elko) were already there, Gary (that lady from Reno :) had called to say she was just past Golconda and on her way.
When I was married to my first husband, we made it a habit to go to South Carolina once a year, to a place called Bryson City, and the campground named the same. There was a three man band, a fiddle, a banjo and a guitar, played every Thursday night and we tried very hard not to miss them. I remember one year they couldn't make it for some reason and it completely ruined my trip. This is where I fell in love with live Bluegrass. Not much for listening to it recorded, but will sit spell-binded watching a good banjo player pick or a good fiddler fiddle, with this kind of dreamy half smile on my face (I know because I've been told). So I totally enjoyed my self yesterday, Gary's company was great, and although we didn't sit close to Billie and her friend, they were between myself and the stage, and it was great to know they were there.
This was by far my favorite band of the day (and night, they all played two or three sets), the Burnett Family Bluegrass band from Flagstaff, AZ. These kids were all home schooled, there's Mom on the Bass, Dad on the guitar, son on the banjo and daughters on the mandolin and fiddle respectively. This was the only fiddle I saw all day so that was at least part of why I enjoyed them so much. Then their second to last song was Orange Blossom Special (I had requested it, but I dont think I was the only one :) a song I LOVE beyond words, it is so intense!

Here are the Bromely's from Los Angeles. I enjoyed them well enough too, just not as much as the Burdetts :)
There is a set of train tracks very close to the park, so everytime a train would come by, didnt matter what song or what band, they would stop the song they were doing and start a train song. It was a wonderful day :)

And now, off to celebrate Jari's 17th birthday with a trip to see Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince!

Just a Quicky

Just a quick note to show you something extra special! My sis called me the other day, said she got dive bombed by a bird that had nested in a tree next to her porch. This isn't just any bird. You all in the exotic parts of the earth (like Arizona, Washington, California and Oregon) have probably seen more of these little beauties in the last week than I have in my entire life. They just don't happen in northern Nevada, well at least not too darn often! :)
This picture is zoomed as far as my camera can zoom; she is about 3 inches long, her nest about half the size of a Chinese tea cup, maybe. Her beak is roughly half the length of her body. The nest really amazes me! Im used to seeing these twig nests that other birds build, this one is so neat and tidy it is almost smooth, like adobe. I think she is a black-chinned hummingbird, one of the few species actually found in Nevada, but I'm not positive.
So that was the highlight of my week. Oh besides the fact that my chickens love me now! They come running when I go out to feed and call 'here chick, chick, chick!'. I have to be honest though, I think they only love me for the corn on the cob that was left over from the 4th :)
Happy bird watching!

Unknown Futures, Depth of Twist

When we bred last year, up until we lambed this year, we thought Jari was going to be showing in 4-H again this fall. Well, things don't always work out as we plan. For instance, we tend to plan our children's lives from the moment they are born, as they negotiate the traps and hazards of life, all the way up until they do something that takes all that musing and planning out of our hands -- and theirs.
In short, I'm going to be a grandma. It's a mixed blessing to be sure. On the one hand, if something was bound to change Jari's future, I'm glad it didn't involve death or dismemberment. On the other, I am grieving for the future she will never have, the one she so casually discarded, the one that involves being her own person after high school; going off into the unknown and living a life separate from ours. Boyfriends, college parties, sororities, homework, self-enlightenment...
Well, I cant change the past, and obviously I have no control over the future.

So back to the reason I opened with lambs. We have always watched for the first few days to a week, to see which two have the best potential as 4-H market lambs and we wether them if needed. (I don't normally wether the males as in this breed it doesn't change the taste of the meat and they tend to grow better when left intact)
This year, one of the two is out of Scarlet, our oldest (actually foundation) ewe, and the other out of Babs. As I have watched Babs' boy grow I have been increasingly amazed at his structure! He is thick legged, thick necked, fairly long bodied, but the most amazing thing to me (and some of you may not understand this) is his depth of twist!
Here he is at a day or so old.
And this! This is him (from a different angle of course) today. Next time you go out and look at your lambs, look at them from the rear. Most people do this anyway, but for this exercise, I want you to look at the distance between the bum and where the legs meet. In 4-H, or other meat showing circles, the depth of twist is very important because the deeper it is, the more meat there is going to be on the leg roast. Every day I look at this lamb and wish I had left him intact! But, I didn't. The only saving grace is that I have the genetics on my farm and I will watch for this again. He is out of Carmine, who is still surprising me with the lambs that he throws.
As it is, I am anxiously awaiting his arrival in our freezer with his 8 lb leg roasts. Ummmmm!
I know, kinda morbid aren't I...

July 4th Weekend

We were supposed to have a plethora of family show up for the holiday weekend, turns out only 5 came, my niece Sandra and her kids. That was OK though, I love her to death and she has good kids. We did get to see one of my favorite nephews (him along with the other four are my favorites :) and his wife but they had to leave on Friday as his son had to spend the weekend with his mother (joint custody thing), but it was nice to see Michael and Gina, even if for just a couple hours.
My kids and I had spent the whole of the prior week getting the house ready for company, we don't have company a lot (and that is usually family) and haven't had a party to speak of since January 1st 1994. We are a bit out of practice. But, between the elbow grease and the spic-n-span everything was presentable by Saturday.
Whenever we have family come visit, we host some kind of feed, everyone comes to our house because it can accomodate a lot of people. We eat, we drink, we make merry! So since most of the people I was expecting to come family-wise didn't make it, I started inviting friends of mine and Derek's, told the kids to invite their friends. In the end we fed something like 26 people and we had an absolute blast!
We ate around 5 o'clock, sat around until 8:30 then went to find ourselfs good parking to watch the town's festivities at the Rodeo Grounds. This is a small town but I think we usually manage to pull off a fairly nice fireworks show. Then we went to a friends house, partied until the wee hours of the morning, went home (Kevin drove!), and promptly went to bed.
It was a great day!