caracolina

I found out recently that there is a farm with Cotswold sheep not to far away from us, in Wilhoit (outside of Prescott) . John tried to surprise me by ordering some fiber for me, however since I hadn’t specified “washed” or “unwashed” he decided to change plans and arranged a visit to High Castle Ranch to meet the sheep and their owners in person.

We arrived shortly before 10 am and shook hands with Diane and Mark who we liked immediately. Probably not surprisingly, we found a lot in common. They found their farmstead about 6 years ago, got sheep, and left urban life in Phoenix behind.

And the sheep are simply adorable! They are a herd of 20+ Cotswolds in all kinds of colors, with a great disposition, the friendliest sheep we have met yet! They would just stand there and let us pet them, or even approach and nuzzle us. Their fleece is soft and long, and has a great sheen, especially the white. Diane told me that people buy it to make Santa Claus beards with it and that’s exactly what it looks like, perfectly white, curly, and soft. I got some white (both washed and unwashed) and some beautifully variegated gray fiber (washed). John took some photos of the sheep and we left around 2 pm. We hope to return soon, maybe when Diane is shearing? Based on her website, shearing a Cotswold is quite the experience. Not because it is a huge struggle, they seem very mellow, but because the color of the fiber can be so different underneath the top layer. Actually, after seeing John’s photos at home I was wondering why I didn’t get some more of the other colors, but I reckon there will be another chance.

When we left, John and I were in agreement – these guys are kind of where we’d like to be 5 years from now. Who knows, maybe there’s hope for us?

Mr. Shah

This is Mr. Shah, I also called him Naveen uncle. Mr. Shah is the father of our friends Rinku and Krupesh. He passed away yesterday after battling numerous health challenges. I joined Sonal tonight and attended the evening prayer at the Shah residence. This was my first experience of Hindu rites in this aspect. Family and friends visit the house of the grieving party to recite prayers which are meant to help the departed soul travel to heaven. These prayers are sung or chanted rather than spoken and could have been in Sanskrit, Hindi, or Gujarati, I couldn’t tell. A thoughtful person had brought copies of the lyrics for those who were able to read those languages (not me). I just sat, listened to the beautiful chants and prayed in my own way.

That huge sack of churro fleece had been staring at me for quite some time so I decided to finally get serious about turning it into some yarn. I carded for hours and only got about half of the big fleece turned into batts and those have to go through a few more times, too. This is slow going, thank heavens for my drum carder! Sadly, there were still copious amounts of red sand falling out of the fiber, plus, the fleece is almost felted in part (too much handling when washing!) and there are a LOT of short bits. Not just second cuts, but just shorter hairs. On the up side, the color is very nice, a heathered light brown (camera is in the shop, ack) and the fiber is very soft, much softer than regular churro, so this might have been a mutt sheep.

Another plus – I made my first roving, using the diz in my yarn gauge, yippee!

Today I attended a board meeting of the AZ Federation of Weavers and Spinners Guilds. I help them out with their website and volunteered to hook them up with online registration for next year’s Fibers Through Time conference. Paypal, here I come!

We met at the Crowne Plaza near Metro Center, the location of FTT 2010. After a tour of the premises and lunch the meeting was called to order. It was nice to meet everyone in person and put faces with the people that I hadn’t gotten introduced to yet.

Celia had told me that one of her riding students was going to compete in the Maricopa County Fair with her pig and I thought – why not check it out? Today finally was the grand day. John picked me up from the office at 2.45 PM and we made our way to the fairgrounds. We had brought enough canned goods for the St. Marys Food Bank food drive to get 50% off coupons for the fair entry, checking the fair website ahead of time was a good idea!

Based on what I had heard about the County Fair I didn’t really expect much other than farm animals, but we found a number of flashy (and scary) rides assembled next to the Coliseum. Passing several shiny food booths we located the livestock barns and entered the universe of 4-H and FFA, belt buckles, blue jeans, boots, and hats. Everywhere we looked, kids were prepping their animals, filling feed troughs, cleaning out stalls, and leading critters to and from the judging arenas. It was exciting! The first barn contained sheep and goats. Obviously fiber isn’t a big deal in Arizona, the sheep were all freshly shorn and showing off their well-fed physiques. However, we didn’t stay around too long because we wanted to find our friends who were hanging out with the pigs. Next barn was pygmy and dairy goats, followed by cows, and finally – swine! We unknowingly came in from the wrong (exhibitor only!) side and hung out with the piggies for a bit, then located Jimmie and Celia in the bleachers of the judging arena. Sadly, we had missed Kristen, Celia’s young friend show her animal. Apparently Princess, Kristen’s pig, had been very ornery during the showmanship class and decided to run all over the place. When we caught up with Princess after meeting Kristen and her family she was sleeping in her stall, all tuckered out from her big adventure. 

Kristen, one of her sisters and one of her brothers were brave enough to try the mechanical bull ride next, which was tough! The operator didn’t even give them a chance to warm up a bit. None of them lasted very long and sadly, Jessica hurt her hand when she was thrown off. She was such a trooper though! Her mom took her for x-rays, I hope it was just a bad sprain!

Then the whole group of us wandered back through the other halls to take a closer look at the goats, sheep, and poultry which were in a hall with rabbits and guinea pigs. The chickens were especially interesting because of the sheer diversity of sizes, shapes and colors present. In a corner, a very impressive turkey made his presence known by fluttering his wings and making turkey sounds (not gobble-gobble).

After all the walking around it was time for a break and Jimmie and Celia shared some funnel cake while we saved our appetites for dinner at Persian Garden Cafe later. We chatted some more, then all of us took off. It was fun!

Wow, that went fast! Next, I’m going to have to travel to LA for a day because I need to show up in person to get fingerprinted for the “permanent” passport. The instructions on how to set up an appointment for the fingerprinting are somewhat cryptic, but I’ll call the 800-number tomorrow to find out what my next steps are.

Three funny things about the temporary passport: a) it is green, like the old German passports (before the “Europa Pass” which is red) and b) I’m listed with my maiden name because I’m not yet officially married in Deutschland. c) I can tell my photo was taken on St. Patrick’s Day because of the color of my t-shirt in the photo (how often do I wear bright green shirts again?). While I stared at my photo and info John pretty much took the words out of my mouth: “You are German again!”

We just got back from S.B. where we visited our Aunt and Uncle for the first time since last year. We felt a little nervous about how they’d be but were pleasantly surprised how well they were doing given the circumstance.

We left Phoenix Friday midday and reached La Casa B. around 10.15 PM, a fast drive with a gas stop in Quartzsite and dinner at Mix Bowl in Pomona. Needless to say, only minutes after exchanging hugs and hellos, the unavoidable cheesecake was pulled from the fridge, this time it was key lime.

On Saturday we had breakfast at Cajun Kitchen (right when they opened at 6 AM, of course), walked Sophie the dog, then returned to the house so John and I could take a quick nap before driving over to St. Rafael’s for the traditional Easter blessing of animals. I was somewhat disappointed because I had hoped people would show up with snakes, parrots or lizards, but with the exception of one bunny it was all dogs and cats. Although there was one gorgeous bengal cat that caught our attention. He was nonchalantly draped across his owner’s shoulder and when we went over to say hello and pet him we found out the reason for his calm was that he lost his hearing! After the ceremony we dropped Sophie off at home and, instead of the usual Costco run, drove down to Oxnard for a visit to Hometown Buffet and Wal-Mart to check out shrubs and blouses (our Aunt works in a hospital) and pick up a tan colored garbage can. Apparently all the store in S.B. only carry white. I also snuck into Joann’s because I needed a knitting needle but that place wasn’t well stocked at all. On our way back we struggled to keep our eyes open and the oldies took a short nap. John also swung by the Samy’s Camera in S.B. to pick up a new polarizer for the camera, then we returned home. For the rest of the afternoon we just hung out, chatted, watched a bit of TV, and John eventually bbq’ed up some sausage (from Buffalo, NY). Eventually, our Uncle shuffled off to the den to go to sleep and the rest of us settled in front of the TV for a rerun of the Ten Commandments. Our Aunt and I pretty much fell asleep right away, John held out a little longer. We pushed off to bed between 9 and 10, I believe.

Sunday breakfast was at McDonalds since Cajun Kitchen was closed due to the holiday. We walked the dog again, then headed back to the house to load the car and talked until it was time to leave at noon. Lucky us managed to see a pod of dolphins and a sea lion at a spot where we hadn’t ever seen anything other than surfers and the occasional swimmer – John pulled onto the shoulder overlooking the beach (probably illegally) and we stood there for a while, watching the dolphins swim back and forth. For the rest of the trip, traffic wasn’t so great and we stopped at Shakey’s in Redland for dinner. We skipped getting something to drink so we could pay with cash and surprised ourselves by eating a large pizza! Shakey’s just rocks. We got home just before 10 PM.

I’m still not done with that skirt! I didn’t have a lot of time on the weekend and I have a hard time sewing in the night – the light on the machine isn’t very bright and I don’t have an adequate table lamp at this point. So I forced myself to proceed with the waist facing and lining. Surprisingly things did come together (no pun intended) quite nicely in spite of my griping, all I have left at this point is to seam the liner and to handsew the facing/liner to the zipper parts, then clean off all those lose threads. If you don’t look closely at the various seams it actually looks like an ok skirt.

Only problem is… it is way TOO BIG!!!

Last week I reached a milestone when I finally sent off the remaining paperwork for my German passport to the embassy in Los Angeles. Friends may remember that I initially applied for this a couple of years ago since my passport expired in the late 90s (!). Let’s just say it hasn’t been a priority? Anyway, some of the documents and my passport photo weren’t up to German standards and had to be re-copied, re-done, re-filled out. Add to this that the German authorities were as of yet unaware that I am married and changed my name. (I do recall applying for a German marriage license before we left the country in 95, but apparently that never became legit.) Sooo…. to make a long story short – someone from the embassy called me at work this morning and explained that since some time had passed since my application (small understatement there), rules had changed and I will have to make an appointment to show up in person so that I can be fingerprinted for my passport – however, since I’m planning to travel to the Canadian side of Niagara Falls in May they will sport me a temporary passport, yay! I vow to take care of the appointment, fingerprinting, etc. asap! You (all two of you) are my witnesses!

And then…. after work we swung around Paradise Valley Community College, my “alma mater”, to pick up my associates diploma! Another chapter closed, done. I actually felt kind of whistful walking among the students of various ages for those few minutes. It was a great experience, even if the paper in itself is worth nothing. Maybe I’ll look into a bachelor after all, after my mother’s stay.

Some time ago I told John, “Two people I’d really like to see live some day are Laurie Anderson and Lisa Gerrard.” An hour later he let me know “I got the tickets!” Turns out Laurie Anderson was going to perform with Lou Reed at the Chandler Center for the Arts as part of a concert benefiting the local Yongey Peace Prevails Center, which specializes in meditation training. I’m no fan of Laurie Anderson, but know enough about her to be interested in seeing her perform, and the concert turned out to be a real treat. I really didn’t care that much about Lou Reed (I didn’t know until today that the two are married, so the pairing didn’t make much sense to me at first) but the two of them did well together, creating a collaborative atmosphere that felt original and “in the moment” to use a somewhat tired, yet fitting metaphor. At some point during the performance, Steve Hunter joined Laurie and Lou on guitar for a few songs. While I am not running out to buy Laurie Anderson’s music on iTunes, I’d definitely consider seeing her perform again. What struck John and I as very curious is how many people left during their performance – what did they expect? Lou to break out Walk on the Wild Side?

Another highlight was the Phoenix Chinese Art Music Ensemble. They were part of several opening performers and John and I enjoyed their music a lot. We’ll definitely keep an eye out for them in the future.

Now if we could only persuade Lisa Gerrard to make a trip to Phoenix (or at least L.A.), soon!