caracolina

I did some sorting of the stash corner yesterday and came across two batts of wool/wool mix that I got from Nikol last year (I think they were included in my goody box when I bought my Fricke wheel) and decided it was time to seriously practice spinning a woolen yarn, using a long draw technique. It has taken a while for me to understand the difference between woolen and worsted yarn and I still get easily confused on the finer details. Based on the Joy of Handspinning website, a great resource by the way, I’ve been using the inch worm technique so far.

After spinning half of the red batt I don’t think I’ve gotten anywhere near proficient at the long draw technique although I did get a flow going and only broke the yarn a few times.

We got up at 5 AM after almost oversleeping because I accidentally had set the alam clock to 4.45 PM. Luckily John has been turning into the human alarm recently! Driving up North was pleasant and we arrived at the Sheep is Life celebration in Tuba City around 9.30 AM. As we approached, John said, “If this is it we’ll be here for all of 5 minutes!” It was much smaller than we expected. However we still had a blast for a few hours. We visited with the sheep and goats that were hanging out in pens waiting for contests or sale, watched the judges scrutinize beautiful rams while the owners hung on to their massive horns, and chatted with several people. While I was hanging out next to pen where the lambs were being judged, John called me over to a stand with several piles of raw churro fleece. He pointed at one particular pile and nearly told me to buy it, because he loved the coloring. It was pretty clean, not too greasy – and for churro, very soft. Twist my rubber arm!!! For $20 it was mine and I carried it off to the car before venturing out for more buying. I ended up picking two more lamb fleeces which had a very similar, beautiful coloring and were in a very good condition. I don’t really know how to pick fleeces properly so I just squeezed them in different places to get a feel for it, then separated some locks and pulled on them to see if the fiber was brittle or not. I hope some day I get to choose raw fiber with an expert to see how it is done right.

Soon, we became very hungry for lunch so we followed a local’s advice and headed on over to the flea market down the street and ordered Navajo style lunch of roast mutton, stew, and fry bread. We also sampled a local delicacy, mutton fat wrapped in intestines which is then grilled. It is called ach’ii. It was a food challenge I have been curious about. The small piece that I tried was pretty good and muttony at first but after a couple more bites the flavor became kind of bitter. Naturally, ach’ii is also VERY chewy.

After lunch we did a short round of the flea market and picked up a few food items such as apricots, banana bread, and dried corn. On our way out of town we passed the historic trading post and stopped to take a look inside. We ogled the rugs, one of which was a pictorial with Santa Claus and presents and Santa’s beard were locks of fiber. Really cute! There were also two other rather modern looking patterns which I want to ask Sharie (our weaving instructor) about. In the general store at the back of the trading post we spotted a number of Brown Sheep wool skeins hanging from the ceiling rafters. We couldn’t resist and bought a few more for future rug experiments.

We finally left Tuba City by way of the Hopi Reservation. The skies were beautiful with a surprisingly large amount of clouds and hints of rain in the distance and the desert was relatively green. We had dinner on the way home and arrived around 8 PM. All in all, a grand day out.

We were supposed to drive up to Flagstaff tonight so we wouldn’t have to drive so much tomorrow when we’re visiting the Sheep is Life event in Tuba City. However… John called a few motels about room prices and the rates were outrageous! Super 8 rooms for 90-ish Dollars!? After a while we resigned ourselves to staying at home tonight and just getting out really early in the morning – we’ve been doing the same thing for the last weeks, haven’t we? From that point on, even affordable rates sounded too pricey. We did find a couple of places in the 40-50 Dollar range. However, those are the crummy motels with the really poor reviews. Funny, they usually look okay to us when we drive up and enquire about a room, but when you see the “ACK, stay way from this place” review headlines on a website you think twice about reserving a room…

As usual we got out early to drive out to Tonopah to help Rob with the Farm Stand. However, the highlight of today was a short hop over to Chile Acres once I was done with the CSA boxes for the local pickups. Celia and Jimmie were not due home until later today and Mary (the goat pictured above) needed milking. John had been doing this all week and today was my turn. You can see why she was named (Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary) because she really isn’t keen on getting pulled out of the pen, even though the milking provides relief and is accompanied by some tasty goat feed. Since my roping skills are non-existent I had to chase her around the pen about 6 times (while John was laughing his head off) until I had her trapped and was able to slip the noose over her head. Once Mary was outside she knew the drill and jumped on the milking stand. I quickly hooked the lead (which John had secured to the stand) on her collar. Soon Mary was munching away happily while I had little trouble getting her milk flowing. Before I knew it, I had gotten an entire quart out of her and probably made some bottle babies very happy come next meal time.

After a few more chores we headed back to Tonopah Rob’s where John made lunch for the guys and us, which not only included veggies freshly harvested from the farm but also a cobbler made with blackberries which we picked last month. A la mode and yummers!

Yesterday morning our 2006 Hyundai Accent bit the dust. I had just stepped out the car into the parking lot at my office and John was driving away when the car just croaked. John tried to start it a couple of times, unsuccessfully, and then we pushed it into parking spot. Alan, one of my co-engineers drove him over to a rental car place, where all they had was a red pickup truck, meh.

We later found out that the timing belt had slipped, taking out the engine. Our options were to replace the engine or get a new car. So we got a new car, of course. For about the same money we would have put into fixing the Accent we got ourselves a Kia Spectra 5 today and a slightly higher car payment. Painful, but it could have been so much worse.

And to top it all off – John really had to get out to Tonopah early in the morning to milk the goats at Chile Acres. When he got there, hours later than planned, two of the pregnant goats went into labor with one needing assistance, since the kid was breached. If he hadn’t been there late and she had gone into labor alone she and the baby could have died. That thought made us feel a lot better.

Last weekend I spun up the first half of my hemp roving, inspired and encouraged by the hemp spin along in my ravelry group (garden spinning group, yay!). Sadly, the result feels very much like spun straw, or the twine that you’d use to tie up packages. I think I have to learn how to do fluffier yarn rather than focusing on making it thinner and thinner. I’ve been told that hemp will get softer with repeated washing so after spinning the second half and plying the two I plan to knit a washcloth out of it. There is hope!

I managed to finish a crochet hat and a headband, both made out of my very first handspun yarn. About time! The hat is based on a pattern from the book “Stitch ‘N Bitch Crochet: The Happy Hooker”. I used the first yarn I spun, the first fiber I dyed, and some other handpainted fiber that I spun at Yarn School 2007. The hat is supposed to have two buttons to tack up the ear flaps, but I haven’t found anything suitable yet.

The headband is a panta, which is a Finnish term. The pattern is available free on Ravelry, courtesy of Sara Morris. I still can’t believe how neat the colors turned out. It almost looks as if I knew what I was doing!

I didn’t finish my rug in time for the last class tonight, but it doesn’t really matter, I know what to do. The next class doesn’t start until July so I have plenty of time. I’ll repeat the pattern from the bottom, this time really focussing on keeping even tension. You can see how the outline of the rug changes from the bottom up, first drawing inwards, then increasing. I actually made an effort in making the tan parts looser around the squash blossom design (the triangles) because the bottom pattern ended up too tense. I’ll try to stay somewhere in the middle for the rest of the rug. Hopefully I’ll manage to keep the rows more horizontal as well. On the up side, my diagonals turned out pretty nice!

We drove back out to Tonopah to spend more time with Celia and Jimmie at Chile Acres and, more importantly, for some shooting practice for me. I’ve always considered that I should try shooting a gun while I have the opportunity here in the US and this was a good one. Jimmie owns several firearms that are not too intimidating and enjoys going out for some target practice. I wouldn’t call it target practice in my case since I am not very good at hitting anything but was grateful to be given the chance.

We loaded all the gear into the truck and drove off to Saddle Mountain where I proceeded to try a 22 mm pistol (see photo), a 22 mm rifle, a 38 mm pistol, and a 12 gauge shotgun. I was getting used to the 22 mm caliber, but the 38 mm was pretty scary and so was the shotgun. The whole idea that a false move could kill someone was pretty daunting. It is probably easier to deal with when you learn how to handle guns at an early age where mortality isn’t at the forefront of your mind. It reminded me of learning to drive again at age 30+ and worrying way too much about getting into an accident. No matter what, I think I should do it again, to face my fears, jump over the inner schweinehund, so to speak.

After a busy morning at Tonopah Rob’s farm stand where I boxed up almost scores of CSA boxes John dropped me off at Chile Acres just before lunch. I visited the new foal Lunar, helped clean out his stall, and just had an all around good time. The friendly horse above is Oachelita, who is one of my favorite horses to pet. She likes following people around, probably for the off chance that a horse cookie might fall her way. Actually most of those horses do that, especially if they’re born and raised at the Acres.

I also got to try Celia’s first attempt at making cajeta which is a Mexican goat milk caramel. Her version was really nice and more cinnamon-y than the commercial stuff you can get in a jar at the Mexican store. After sampling the cajeta numerous by dipping animal crackers into the pot we used it to top some home made goat milk ice cream. Yum!

We had thought about driving out to Saddle Mountain for shooting practice, but John was too tired when he came over from Rob’s in the afternoon, so we postponed that to tomorrow.