Yes, friends, Lucy has ended her long-running drama and delivered her lamb.

He’s a big, strapping ram with fantastic eyebrows and what look like exceptionally fabulous wooly boots. Lucy is enamored with him, and all seems well with both of them.

That’s the short and clean version of the story. Just the facts, ma’am. You can stop right here and enjoy a satisfying and happy conclusion to her story.

But…

Do you for one moment believe that our little Lucy had a drama-free and uncomplicated lambing?

No.

No, she did not.

The morning started just like all the other last eleven million days of Lucy’s pregnancy. My morning check revealed a grumpy, ginormous sheep who looked about as ready to deliver as she did the night before. And the night before that. You get the picture.

I went home to work, setting a mental alarm. The next time I looked up, I realized I must have snoozed that mental alarm and hustled down to the barn.

Lucy was nowhere in sight when I drove by her maternity paddock. I found her in her lambing stall, practicing her statue act again. She’s really mastered it by now. I thought, “ah, well, it’s a gorgeous day, and the poor thing’s miserable…I’ll just sit with her a bit.”

About ten minutes later I texted Greg: “I think it’s time.”

It was absolutely time. There was no question. Looking back, I can’t believe I wrote “I think,” because without going into more detail that anyone wants with a cup of coffee, there should have been no doubt whatsoever. But by this point in time, Lucy’s psychological shenanigans had completely shaken my confidence.

So there we were, quietly watching what all the books and videos informed me looked like textbook lambing.

Until it wasn’t.

We had what is politely termed a malpresentation. It required what is politely termed an assist.

There is absolutely nothing polite about what happened to dear Lucy to get that lamb out of her.

Because not only did we first need to do a little internal rearranging, but then the lamb’s shoulders got stuck. Hard.

At this point, I feel like it’s important to share our agricultural resumes. As far as I know, Greg’s most intense farm experience before this year was being kicked by a cow as a kid. Mine is a toss-up between horse camp as a Girl Scout and being assigned a live chicken as a prop during a high school theater production.

I’m not even all that whippy with birth as a whole process. My kids were all born via c-section. I had zero context for being elbow-deep in a sheep assisting a live birth.

And yet. There we were, in our mid-fifties, four months into this hands-on shepherding adventure, covered in sheep stuff, buzzing on adrenaline and fear, watching Lucy clean her precious little lamb who was only slightly more stunned than we were at what had just happened.

We have now had a grand total of two lambings on this farm, and each were challenging in their own way. Jane’s was an effortless (for us!) delivery, but a big challenge for the lamb to start nursing. Lucy and her lamb only needed a little help getting nursing going, but the labor and delivery…

Here’s what I know. It’s a great privilege to see the things I’m getting to see, and I’m cherishing these days. Not all lambings will turn out well. Had the timing been different, this one would not have. In a few years, I won’t have the strength to pull a lamb. And who knows when circumstances may change and we won’t be able to enjoy things the way they are right now, with these animals.

But for now, I’m soaking up the experiences, because they are rare and precious.

And I’m putting Advil on the Walmart pickup list because my back muscles are still talking.

Greg’s Got Questions

(As a matter of procedure, the poll function takes you to another page to submit your vote, so if that happens to you, you’re on the right track!)

Question 1: Why do you think Martin’s wool looked like a hand-dyed Easter egg when he finally exited Lucy?

Question 2: What sort of purpose do you have in mind for young Master Martin on Pemberley Farm once he’s matured?

Question 3: And, of course, the question I have to ask every time a new name arrives in our Jane Austen-esque world, why “Martin?”

Question 4: Would you be willing to share more about the live chicken prop high school experience? Was there only one chicken involved? Did he or she have a backup? What play involved live animals? Were any eggs produced during rehearsals? Did the Kansas State chicken department provide this bird? So many questions…

Happy knitting,

Kiersten J

The post A Happy Conclusion appeared first on Kiersten J.

It was the finals round for Original Oration in a regional forensics tournament hosted at the local high school, and I was lucky enough to be asked to judge.

I have very fond memories of participating on my high school debate team. For three years I practiced how to speak and think on my feet. I learned how to construct arguments based on facts, research, and logic, and how to disagree respectfully in a public forum. Most importantly, those years helped build the foundation of learning to appreciate that there are usually several reasonable perspectives and approaches to solving problems, and it is wise to be open to hearing, examining, and fully understanding those you may eventually reject.

The event I got to judge was a little different. These students had the task of informing their audience about a topic and persuading us to think or act in a certain way. In my day, the event may have been called “Persuasive Speech.”

I learned quite a bit that day! Did you know there’s a literal island’s worth of trash in the Pacific twice the size of Texas? Were you aware that doomscrolling is tied to our need for vigilance?

The things you can learn!

I don’t think it would qualify as doomscrolling, exactly, but I think Lucy’s lambing watch is a close cousin.

Here’s the deal. We don’t know exactly when Lucy interacted with sheep of the male persuasion. We only know when those interactions stopped.

We know that she is progressively getting enormous. She has entered “wider than she is tall” range.

We have learned that she is not very tolerant of discomfort. Or, perhaps more accurately, she is quite expressive about her discomfort. She grunts, sighs, bleats, baas, and positively hollers. She butts her head against the wall, the feed trough, the hay feeder, the straw bale, the water bucket, and has gone so far as to go shoulder-deep with her head into the water bucket and stay there for a good three to five minutes for a proper fuss.

She will go into statue mode, complete with the thousand-yard stare, for minutes, and you can see ripples along her enormous flank, she braces like she’s about to embark on a momentous journey, and we think YES! FINALLY! THE TIME HAS COME!

And then she urps up some cud and goes back to normal Lucyness.

And she’s done this for two weeks.

After the first few times, we were so convinced the time was now that we went on literal watch. I set alarms to check her every 90 minutes through the night.

For a fair few nights.

I checked her rear more times than I want to confess and took eleventy billion pics to compare with all the “How Do You Know When Your Sheep Is About to Lamb” sites that exist out there.

Because Lucy is only the second ewe to (potentially) lamb under our watch. The other was Jane, who managed to completely hide that she was pregnant until 20 minutes before she started labor. Suddenly she was rolling on the ground, showing parts she’d kept hidden (SURPRISE!), and shortly thereafter we had a little ram bleating out his arrival. Bing, bam, boom, lamb.

Lucy is not pulling a Jane.

Friends, we called our vet friend for advice. She came out and was kind enough to examine her…nothing doing. NOTHING.

Lucy is just pregnant.

Perpetually pregnant, enlarging at an astronomical rate, sometimes mad about it, and only becoming more of all of it.

Again, not exactly doomscrolling, but it feels awfully close. We go check the feed (drive by and lay eyes on Lucy), get the same news (no lambing activity, but sometimes sheepy disgruntlement at her current state of affairs), and a teaser (well, but does she look a little different? Better not wait too long before the next check…).

It’s funny how “just checking” can become something else entirely.

Greg’s Got Questions

Thank you to those of you who participated in the poll last week!

The winning question was:  When you think of Lucy, what makes her unique compared to our other sheep, especially the baby dolls?

In addition to all the aspects of her personality that we’re learning during her pregnancy, Lucy is the smallest of all the adult ewes.

She’s lowest in the hierarchy and tends to be shoved and butted out of the way at the hay feeders and feed troughs until the bigger girls are finished.

She came from Illinois with the Valais and Merinos, and I wondered how the Arkansas Babydoll ewe flock would react to her when they were all put together. Lucy sort of drifts on the outskirts a bit. When she’s in a tighter group, it’s usually with Emma and Harriet, the Merino mother/lamb pair who she shared space with while Emma was lambing and the pair was bonding.

It will be interesting to see how the dynamics shift when Lucy is back with the ewe flock after her lambing time. Jane has become more willing to interact with us and assert herself around her lamb. Maybe Lucy will alter her behavior a bit, too?

Questions for YOU:

Would you be willing to take a moment and give some feedback on what you would like? I’d appreciate it! Thank you!

(As a matter of procedure, the poll function takes you to another page to submit your vote, so if that happens to you, you’re on the right track!)

Option 1: More photos.

Option 2: More videos.

Option 3: More knitting.

Option 4: More farm life.

Option 5: More educational tie-ins.

Happy knitting,

Kiersten J

The post Checking In appeared first on Kiersten J.

Quiet in the corner 
Nestled in straw and hay 
Head against the water bucket 
Tucked and shaped
A breathing loaf 
Time marked by cud 
And ripples along her flank. 

What does she think? 

Held safe in the stall 
Next to her flock 
Their sounds and their smells 
Carry on the wind or through wood walls 
That keep them apart. 
Keepers come with soft words, yellow flowers 
They are not sheep and yet 
She is not quite alone. 

Does she know what is coming? 

What wriggles within her 
And squeezes and pushes? 
What compels her to paw and dig and butt her head 
And call to someone who cannot yet respond? 
Was she born with the knowing? 
Did the other sheep tell her? 
Will she recall if it happens again? 

What does she think?

Greg’s Got Questions

Thank you to those of you who participated in the poll last week!

The winning question was:  Georgiana’s wool is less white than the lambs. Is that because of dirt or some other substance in the wool or does the wool actually become more off-white as sheep age?

This question gave me the chance to do a little research. Fun! Through it I learned that there are some breeds of sheep that change the color of their wool as they mature from lambs to adults. Some sheep can also “gray” as they age, becoming whiter as they get older.

One of our sheep breeds, the Babydolls, can have either black or white wool. Those with black wool often appear brown as the sun fades the tips of the fibers. This is true with our Mr. Bingley, but if you separate his wool and look at the color closer to his skin, you can see the black coloring.

With our Valais sheep, I’m afraid the issue is mostly dirt. The older sheep have had more time to act like massive filters, grabbing all the dirt and dust in the air that blows around in their windy home. The lambs will catch up, but for now they look whiter and brighter than their mommas and aunties.

The Merinos are especially prone to dirt collection, but in an odd reversal of the Valais dynamic, it’s our lamb that looks the filthiest. If you look at the wool near her skin, it’s a beautiful creamy white. From the outside, she looks like a strange sort of long-legged armadillo. I think she must be an especially good lanolin producer and is coated with it and the dirt it collects.

Cleaning these sheep’s wool will be a serious project!

Greg’s Questions for This Week:

Here are the questions up for the vote this week. I’ll answer the winner in the next newsletter. (As a matter of procedure, the poll function takes you to another page to submit your vote, so if that happens to you, you’re on the right track!)

Question 1: When you think of Lucy, what makes her unique compared to our other sheep, especially the baby dolls?

Question 2: What do you think has been going through Lucy’s mind as we’ve been with her in the barn stall so many days and nights recently?

Question 3: Do you think the other sheep are aware of what’s going on with Lucy? If so, how do you think they know?

Happy knitting,

Kiersten J

The post Lucy appeared first on Kiersten J.

Shortly after I arrived, I sent a text that said something like: I lied. We may be having lamb today.

I wasn’t talking about dinner plans. I made an adrenaline-induced typo/word omission inspired by seeing one of our sheep acting oddly.

I won’t go into the messy details today, but here are the Cliff’s Notes:

1. WOW was that an awesome experience to witness (and we actually recorded it from beginning to end)!
2. Jane, the mom, gave away not one single clue that she was pregnant. Not one. And I checked a whole bunch of a lot. The other three ewes in her group lambed together over 6 weeks previously. I figured she was sitting this dance out. I figured wrong.
3. The lamb was a slow starter. It took him almost 24 hours to get nursing figured out. We learned that determination to avoid bottle feeding a lamb for the next 6-8 weeks could make us try all kinds of things. After a very long night of not sleeping in the barn, a very patient ewe, and some supplemental top-offs from a bottle, we are very relieved to say all is going swimmingly.

Watching a lamb learn the world is a lot of fun. We’ve been loading up the photo libraries on our phones (Seriously. We had to buy more storage.), and friends and family are patiently accepting the lamb spam we’ve been sending. But as we’ve been collecting all these photos and videos, our Chief Ewe has made sure we’ve been paying attention to her, too.

Georgiana rules not by force or by argument, but by presence. She moves calmly and things happen around her. We’ve got another ewe who ranks near the top of the hierarchy who very occasionally takes a fit and puts on The Jerk and chases and butts other sheep for a short period of time.

Not Georgie. She glides about, demanding her share of the conversation, feed, and attention.

I went to take video of little Fitz this morning, and if you look closely, you can see the view lurch now and again. That’s because Georgiana was behind me, leaning against me, slowly putting more and more of her weight against my back and side. Friends, she is not slight. She’s a consequential creature, and she’s got power in those haunches.

She is also not shy and has no qualms about getting right up in your business.

I’m thankful she’s friendly, because the next generation is watching her. Eliza and Betsy are following in their Auntie’s hoofprints already. Maybe they, too, will influence with quiet steadiness.

Here’s our newest lamb, Fitzwilliam (Fitz for short), named for his sire, Mr. Darcy the Sheep. He’s bravely going to meet and hang out with his cousins all by himself for the first time.

Greg’s Got Questions

Thank you to those of you who participated in the poll last week!

The winning question was: Would you care to explain the origin of the roosters’ names, Elvis and Cogburn, for your readers who might be curious??

I think Elvis was given his name by Greg’s nephew due to the decorative feathering he has on his legs. They make him look a little like he’s wearing those white sequined pants and performing in Vegas.

The credit for Cogburn’s name goes to Greg. In a rare break from our Jane Austen theme, Greg took inspiration from an old Western, Rooster Cogburn. I’ve never seen it, but it looks promising. John Wayne’s in it, so that’s an automatic win for Western fans, right? Then there’s Katharine Hepburn to class it all up.

I had toyed with the idea of calling Cogburn after Wellington to stay on theme. We do refer to the chickens as “the regiment” at times. But how could we NOT go with “Cogburn” once that came up? And after all, there will be other roosters.

Greg’s Questions for This Week:

Here are the questions up for the vote this week. I’ll answer the winner in the next newsletter. (As a matter of procedure, the poll function takes you to another page to submit your vote, so if that happens to you, you’re on the right track!)

Question 1: As with all these Jane Austen-based sheep names, I need a bit more explanation to understand the connection. You said Fitzwilliam is named after his daddy, Mr. Darcy the Sheep, but what’s the connection there? (Please be patient with me, all you Janeites who are trying hard to not roll your eyes at me. I’m still learning!)

Question 2: And sticking with the theme of my ignorance of most things Austenian, does Georgiana’s personality match the Austen character she’s named after, whoever that might be?

Question 3: Georgiana’s wool is less white than the lambs. Is that because of dirt or some other substance in the wool or does the wool actually become more off-white as sheep age?

Happy knitting,

Kiersten J

The post Enter, Stage Left appeared first on Kiersten J.

I was standing quietly in the corner of the chicken coop, as one does on a pretty midmorning. I was hoping for a repeat of the performance I’d happened upon the other day, and it looked like the first act was about to begin.

You see, the chicks we got last October have started to lay their eggs. We got six Australorps and three Golden Laced Wyandotte chicks (all allegedly pullets, more on that in a minute) from the local farm supply store. This is my first experience watching the whole cycle from chick to laying hen, and it’s been completely fascinating to me from their first pin feathers to their introduction to the older hens, and now to Their Big Moment: Graduation to Laying Hen Status.

Those of you who are familiar with chicken life already know this, but I didn’t: the first eggs are mini size. You know those tiny sized candy bars they sell around Halloween that feel like a little bit of a cheat because they’re not even a whole mouthful? These eggs remind me of those, but instead of feeling cheated, I feel like we discovered something rare. I wouldn’t be surprised if some chicken lovers found ways to preserve these. “Eggatha Christie’s First Egg” in a shadowbox or something.

Etsy should get right on that.

Anyway, we’re finding most of these pullet eggs in one particular corner of the chicken coop. On the floor. There are ten perfectly good nesting boxes in this coop. But for some reason that only makes sense using chicken logic, that corner is The Place.

I acknowledge that I am not a chicken, at least in the biological sense. But you know what? Of all the corners in that coop (and there are four of them), I think it’s the worst one for egg placement. It’s right by the door the chickens use to go in and out of the coop. It’s as far as you can get from the nesting boxes and still be inside the coop. It’s directly under the prime nighttime roosting spot, so the chances of unpleasant rain are good. It’s on the floor, for Pete’s sake.

And the worst aspect of that spot is that it’s much less protected than a nesting box, so a potential layer is at the mercy of all the other chickens who feel free–no, OBLIGATED to comment, kibitz, criticize, poke, peck, and perturb any poor pullet who might place herself in the corner with the idea of having a quiet moment to lay.

And so, my question: Why THERE?

I thought a similar question with the not-a-pullet Australorp chick, Rooster Cogburn, who became a free-range rooster last week.

Elvis, the established rooster who has Godzilla energy constrained in the body of a bantam, does not care for Cogburn. Cogburn, who could probably swallow Elvis in a gulp and a half, was terrified of Elvis and was sporting bare patches on his neck from being strongly and repeatedly encouraged to remember who Chief Roo of the coop was.

We decided that even if the rest of Cogburn’s life was short, it would be an improvement to be less terrorized, and so we released him from the confines of the coop and fenced run. After a few maneuvers around the barnyard, he took off across the road and into a ditch. We lost sight of him for a while. Later, we came back to find him, still across the road, but perched on top of a round hay bale. He had a whole barn, a couple of other sheltered structures, and the entire familiar yard he could have picked, but he went across the road.

The next day he got himself back across the street, but “stuck” in a big paddock.

He’s now back in the yard, patrolling, centered around the coop and run, but slowly expanding his territory. His current nighttime roost is an old tractor in the barn, but I’m not sure he’s settled on exactly where his place is yet.

My favorite part of the day is when all but the last chores are done, and we let the ewes into the big stall where their feed is waiting. There’s a big rush, because they love the stuff, and then they settle into the serious business of getting as much hay as possible into their bellies. There are three hay feeders in the stall, and it’s fascinating to watch the movements between them.

Some of the ewes like to stay at the same feeder most of the time. Some make circuits that can appear methodical. Some seem completely random.

And sometimes, something will startle them all, there will be a massive reshuffle, then they’ll settle, but never in exactly the same arrangement.

I’m noticing something similar in me as we’re doing our own reshuffle. As we sort through belongings, pack boxes, bring some things, say goodbye to others, find places for stuff in our new space, and create spaces for what is new, we’re settling in, but the arrangement is necessarily different.

It’s not just about downsizing a house or going from urban to rural, though that’s certainly part of it. The choices we’re making about what we’re prioritizing do more than determine the location where the next chapter takes place. They also shape the character of the life that will be in that place.

It’s nothing earth-shattering. It’s not dramatic.

It is more a matter of being aware of how these transitions are gifts. They’re organic opportunities in normal life to intentionally “settle” in a slightly different place than the one we came from.

Greg’s Got Questions

Thank you to those of you who participated in the poll last week!

The winning question was: Of your 17 moves, which was the most extreme for you? I’m thinking about the move that was the furthest distance, biggest upsize or downsize, most joyous, scariest, etc.?

I was in my early twenties, with one young child, and we moved from Kansas to a suburb of Jackson, Mississippi.

It is important to note that I had lived in Kansas since I was four, and my exposure to all things Southern was through books, movies, TV, etc.

It is even more important to note that I am VERY grateful for my time living in the South, in several different locations. I met some wonderful, lovely people and got to experience and learn amazing things.

That being said, moving there was a complete culture shock for me.

One of the first things we did after arriving was go to the grocery store. The local grocery store was called (I am not making this up) Jitney Jungle. What. On. Earth.

Graduate school is not a time when most folks are flush with cash and we were no different, so I tried to stock up on inexpensive staples. At that time, in Kansas, you could get hamburger on sale for less than $1/pound. (No, I’m not playing Two Truths and a Lie.) It was much more expensive at the Jitney Jungle. So was tuna. So was a lot of stuff. I am pretty sure I cried.

That seems like a complete overreaction, and maybe it was, but it might seem slightly more understandable if I tell you that right before we left for the grocery store, I took a phone call. (On the house phone. Really.)

I am 85% sure that the nice lady on the phone was trying to sell me a subscription to the Jackson newspaper. I can’t be 100% sure, because I could not understand her. Absolutely could not. Her accent was AMAZING. And I was from Kansas. And I have never, before or since, had as much trouble understanding another human being on the phone as I did this woman.

Bless her heart. And I don’t mean in that special way that I learned you could say that phrase while I lived in Jackson. I mean it in the genuine, “Lord, please bless this woman, because I just made her day hard” kind of way. After about three repeats of her message, I finally said something like, “This is no fault of yours, but I cannot understand what you’re saying, and so I’m going to hang up the phone now. I’m really sorry. Bye.”

She probably thought they’d let someone answer the phone who shouldn’t have been allowed to have contact with the outside world.

Then I went to the Jitney Jungle of all places and couldn’t find tuna fish and couldn’t buy ground beef without taking out a loan.

Hence the tears.

Greg’s Questions for This Week:

Here are the questions up for the vote this week. I’ll answer the winner in the next newsletter. (As a matter of procedure, the poll function takes you to another page to submit your vote, so if that happens to you, you’re on the right track!)

Question 1: Regarding Cogburn’s trip across the road, of course I can’t not ask, on behalf everyone who is also thinking it, Why?

Question 2: How does your wondering about the reasoning for why our farm critters do certain things in their chosen locations apply to knitting? Do you have similar “Why THERE?” questions about knitted creations when you’re observing them?

Question 3: Would you care to explain the origin of the roosters’ names, Elvis and Cogburn, for your readers who might be curious?

Happy knitting,

Kiersten J

The post Place appeared first on Kiersten J.

Many of these moves have provided opportunities for me to sort through the stuff I’ve accumulated and make decisions about what to bring and what to discard for the next leg of the journey. I’d like to say that I’ve been wise and thoughtful each time so that each occasion is a simple exercise, dealing only with the items I’ve gathered since the last move.

Wouldn’t that be lovely?

While I certainly deal with those things, I am realizing that I have become quite adept in decision procrastination when it comes to a handful of categories of items.

The Heirlooms

I have a box of beautiful glasses from my grandparents’ house that has not been opened since I first packed it. Growing up, I thought they were SO fancy. I have golden-toned memories of Grandpa fixing drinks for people chatting in the living room of their house, and how he’d let me pick ice cubes out of the horrid ice tray contraption (they still sell them!) or tip the jigger into those glasses.

They’re happy glasses. I can’t let them go, but I’ve never been in a situation to use them.

In a slightly different subcategory are the old plastic knitting needles that came to me from my great aunts. They were used to create many, many sets of hats, mittens, scarves, and other lovely things for my sister and brother and me when we were growing up, and for many others, I’m sure. I tried to use one set once, but they were so old and brittle that they shattered (they were made of a hard plastic). So I don’t use them, I also don’t use the teensy lace-making crochet hooks suited for thread, or the lace bobbins I also have from them. I’m not keeping them for their utility.

The Memories

Baby blankets. Art projects. Stuffed animals.

I don’t know if you’re anything like me, but I have to deal with two dynamics when it comes to these. The first is that dreaded but common symptom of aging, memory loss. My sister asked me just the other day if I remembered a particular incident about my oldest child. I should have. It’s hilarious. It’s relevant. I don’t. I’ve got nothing. Tangible tokens are helpful visual cues to me and anchors for memories I’m nervous might fade away.

The second dynamic is good old-fashioned misplaced guilt. It makes zero rational sense, and I acknowledge this. But when I contemplate discarding something my child loved or was lovingly produced by my child, I see that child’s very young face, shocked with betrayal that I would even consider letting go of that object. In fact, this imaginary accusatory child would also like to know why this beloved thing has been put in a box for the last period of time rather than being prominently and lovingly displayed? Hmmm? Wounded puppy eyes are sometimes involved. It’s brutal.

The Moral Obligations

Sometimes you have to hold on to something because it feels like it would be a crime against humanity to trash it. I work really hard to place those things into the appropriate hands, and most of the time it works out.

I’ve got photos and albums I’m keeping for the sake of relatives and future generations who may want them. We’ve got some things to pass on to grandkids as they get older. And then there are items of Great Historical Significance. Like my nametag from when I worked at Blockbuster Video.

Seriously. I’ve kept that dumb thing for over 30 years. At first, I think it was just in a box I never went through carefully, but now it seems like an artifact.

Planned Obsolescence

I’ve never been a huge fan of the idea that some companies deliberately manipulate products so that their lifespan and replacement cycle is artificially shortened. But I am coming to appreciate that some things might only be useful to me for a limited time.

I’m thinking about this as I’m working on a sweater commissioned for a very young man. With a lot of sleeve rolling on one end of the range and stretching on the other, he might be able to wear this sweater for a year or so. And then its usefulness to him will be over.

His parents might choose to box it up and save it as a memory. They might choose to share it with another child. They might donate it. It might encounter a tragic but memorable end, suitable for inspiring an epic trilogy in the Annals of Heroic Outerwear of the Third Age and live on only in memory. Who knows?

But when you get down to the heart of it, it’s only meant for a short span of time. Its original, intended usefulness will have a beginning and an endpoint.

And then?

It may have found another justification for keeping.

Greg’s Got Questions

Thank you to those of you who participated in the poll last week!

The winning question was: Can you remember and share an example of when you created something far below your typical standard and yet were still very pleased with the outcome?

No.

Is that the answer you were expecting?

The truth is that this is an area where I have a lot of room for growth, as a coaching type might say.

I have perfectionistic tendencies when it comes to my own work. While that can produce lovely items, it can also drive a person batty. And it often risks missing something truly beautiful.

One of the best examples I have of this is the first pair of socks I entered into the State Fair. They were going to be perfect. Flawless. And I made them as exactly correct as I was capable of making a pair of socks, in a complicated pattern with yarn that was designed to show any flaw like it had neon arrows pointing to it.

I was so pleased with them. They won first place. Yay!

Then I gave them to someone I love as a gift. She didn’t care a whit about whether or not they were perfect or if they placed at the Fair. She’d have loved them if they’d been completely goobered up because I made them and wanted her to have them.

I have no idea where my blue ribbon is. I remember her face opening her gift like it was yesterday. So which is really most important?

I have more growing to do.

Greg’s Questions for This Week:

Here are the questions up for the vote this week. I’ll answer the winner in the next newsletter. (As a matter of procedure, the poll function takes you to another page to submit your vote, so if that happens to you, you’re on the right track!)

Question 1: Of your 17 moves, which was the most extreme for you? I’m thinking about the move that was the furthest distance, biggest upsize or downsize, most joyous, scariest, etc.?

Question 2: What did you enjoy most and least about working at Blockbuster?

Question 3: What exactly does “commissioned” mean in the fiber arts world?

Happy knitting,

Kiersten J

The post The Things We Keep appeared first on Kiersten J.

That’s how much time I have, from the day of this writing, to get my act together for the first Home School Convention to share Beast to Blanket in person with the public.

I have lists of things to get done. I have lists of lists.

What things are absolutely essential to bring? What are nice extras? Do I have these things already? Do I need to make or buy any of them?

What do I need to do to make it all look pretty and accessible and fun? How can I help people see what I have to share among the bazillion shiny offerings that will be there?

What logistics need to be arranged? Do we want to sleep somewhere other than the vehicle? Do we want to eat anything during the days of these conventions?

I get to thinking about all these things and my mind starts whirling in different directions.

Sometimes I catch myself wondering if we should bring a couple lambs and position them near the spinning wheel to encourage people to stop long enough to look at the curriculum. I usually wake up from that daydream when I start wondering about making custom t-shirts for the lambs with their names on them or dealing with the inevitable by-products of live animals.

More often, I think about all the disciplines that are coming into play as we prepare for this adventure, and about which I know very little.

Here’s an example: Think of the last time you went to a trade show, craft fair, or similar sort of event. I’ll bet a lot of the booths or tables had big banners or signs to identify the business or product being sold. There were goodies being given away, business cards, handouts, flyers, and other things that needed to look nice and represent the business well. Like a graphic designer would do.

I am not a graphic designer. I am just barely comfortable with calling myself an artist in the most limited sense, and that mostly because I believe everyone has some creative ability within them and I’ve happily discovered a way to express mine. If you ask me to draw, paint, or sculpt, though, you’re in for a comedy or tragedy, depending on your mindset. Unless you’re a rare soul deeply moved by unproportional stick figures. Then, I’ve got you.

So, graphic design.

Then there’s the magical combination of interior decorating and marketing that is “booth design.” Did you know that’s a whole big serious thing? It intimidates the spank out of me. What height should the hard copies be? Should we have wool samples on the table or under the table? What side of the table should I be on as I work the spinning wheel? (Seriously. Apparently, there’s a right answer.)

And then…dress code. Do we wear on-brand t-shirts? (Do I design those? More graphic design!) How many do we need? Are we eating anything during these days? Wait, that’s on another list.

It’s a little ridiculous.

And so is one other little issue that has had me stalled out for a few weeks.

Really, it shouldn’t have. I know the answer to this one just as clearly as the booth designer experts know how high to hang signage and exactly where the exhibitors should stand. But it hits me in a certain spot. I wonder if you’ll recognize it.

I’m ready to assemble the sample blanket. I have all the squares for it knitted, ready to go, and I have a choice to make. I need to choose whether to make it look “perfect” or “slightly flawed.”

In the actual classes, the squares are delightfully imperfect. Most of them are not squares at all. In fact, several of them don’t even lay flat without some serious persuasion. The finished blanket is charming precisely because all these swatches of first knitting attempts are messy, inconsistent, corporate testimonies of taking on and sticking with a new task to produce something. Together, they are a tangible record of a new adventure.

Well, I can’t reproduce that. I used the same yarn they do, dyed my yarn the way they did, and followed the same instructions, but mine mostly look the same. The only variation in size is when I made myself finish out each skein so that I ran out of yarn before some of the squares were complete.

I don’t have to use the shorter rectangles to make an irregular blanket. I could just use full squares and make it even, symmetrical, and…not right.

Because what am I ultimately trying to share at these conventions?

Another arena for parents, teachers, and students to be stressed about doing things “just right?” Not at all. One of my favorite parts about this class is that it gives students room to fail, and to grow through it, both in skill and in character.

If I mean that, deep down, I need to be okay with my own intentionally imperfect work on display. For days. Blanket and booth.

But probably not the lambs in the matching t-shirts.

Greg’s Got Questions

Thank you to those of you who participated in the poll last week!

This week we had a tie! The winning questions were: Why is Merino wool your favorite wool to spin? AND Of the 18 wool factories now in our flock, who do you think has the best wool and why?

The answers are related, which is nice and tidy.

Merino is probably my favorite to spin because it’s the one I’ve worked with the most. I’m used to it and I love the way it feels in my hands. It’s soft, and I love the quality of the yarn I can make from it.

Right now, our Merino Lizzy has gorgeous fleece on her. I’m really eager to spin hers and Mr. Knightley’s. Emma, or other mature Merino, has nicely crimped wool, too, but she diverted a lot of energy into producing Harriet this year, and less into producing wool.

I have never spun Babydoll wool before, so that will be a fun adventure. The Valais wool is destined for rugs and felting.

I’ll probably be better able to answer the question of whose wool is best after shearing happens this year!

Greg’s Questions for This Week:

Here are the questions up for the vote this week. I’ll answer the winner in the next newsletter. (As a matter of procedure, the poll function takes you to another page to submit your vote, so if that happens to you, you’re on the right track!)

Question 1: What are some of the best ways we can serve the participants of these homeschool conventions while we’re interacting with them?

Question 2: Can you remember and share an example of when you created something far below your typical standard and yet were still very pleased with the outcome?

Question 3: Why did you use the word “probably” in this sentence!? “But probably not the lambs in the matching t-shirts.”

Happy knitting,

Kiersten J

The post On Display appeared first on Kiersten J.

“Why do you have sheep?!”

These are the most frequent and emphatic responses I’ve been getting over the past couple of weeks. The best part about the one starting with “Wait!” is that it’s one of those sentences where any and every word can be emphasized, changing the meaning ever so slightly. I’ve heard every variation.

So, it seems like it might be a good idea to share the whys behind this dramatic midlife shift.

Fiber

I first dreamed of owning a sheep (and yes, at one point I thought a person could own just one sheep) shortly after I learned how to spin wool into yarn. Honestly, who wouldn’t want their own personal wool factory? It’s the next best thing to growing yarn on trees!

I’ve loved spinning the wool from different breeds of sheep. There are lots more I’d love to try, but Merino is definitely one of my favorites. When we had the opportunity to bring home a few Merino sheep, I was eager!

As I’ve visited yarn shops around the country and spoken to the owners, I’ve seen several yarns from folks who are committed to improving the domestic wool industry. It’s an exciting movement. I don’t have any ambitions of running a large enough Merino flock to contribute significantly to U.S. wool production, but I love the idea of taking care of the sheep whose wool I spin.

The Merino and the Babydoll wool will, I hope, work well for next-to-skin garments. The Valais cross wool is too coarse for that, but I’m collecting all sorts of ideas for weaving and felting rugs using their fleece. I think I’ll need to try needle felting a wee Valais Blacknose sheep as well, don’t you?

Education

Most of you have heard by now of Beast to Blanket, the curriculum I wrote and teach to make Fiber Arts accessible for children and adults. In those classes, we spin wool into yarn using drop spindles we make.

The first time I taught the class, I only had access to clean, combed fiber, and that’s what we used. It was absolutely fine, and it was a new experience for almost all the children. But the last time I taught the class, I had samples of wool from each of the sheep for the students to study.

They were dirty, smelly, and wonderful. The children saw the differences in the wool between the breeds, and even between sheep of the same breed. Several of these children had had no exposure to sheep at all before this class, and the wool served as a tangible bridge to a new world for them. (We are pleased to offer these wool samples now for others to use in their own classrooms, as well!)

Having these sheep nearby is giving me the opportunity to explore and expand the “Beast” end of Beast to Blanket.

The sheep are also providing inspiration and material for other educational projects.

I wanted to provide some material and resources for students who are a little young for Beast to Blanket, and now we’ve got some packets I’m offering on Teachers Pay Teachers and on Kit (Meet Three Sheep and Fiber Arts Coloring & Activity Pages).

I’m also starting work on a Science-focused curriculum that aligns with Beast to Blanket’s tone and scope. I’m so excited about it, both because of all I’ve had the opportunity to learn, and because of the potential I’m seeing to incorporate observational science and study in this intersection of fiber arts and life with sheep.

Joy

I can’t deny the cute factor. And I can’t quite explain how satisfying it is to watch the sheep grazing in the pasture or feel the lambs nuzzle at my hands. I’m not sure I even want to try.

But there’s another aspect of “growing my own wool” that is deeply gratifying.

Spinning wool into yarn is all about de-industrializing a process. It’s taking something out of a fast, mechanical process and putting it, literally, into one person’s hands.

It’s inefficient, slow, and intimate. How much more so when you know the sheep by name? When you watch them grow from lamb to first shearing? When you wait months, or (most often) a year for your supply of wool from each sheep?

What’s it going to be like to wear a hat made from Emma’s wool? Or socks made from Lydia and Lizzy’s wool blended together? How cool will it be to have a rug in my home made from the locks of the Valais ewes?

Those objects will carry more than the hours spent designing and making them. They’ll remind me of the individual sheep themselves, and the days of care and company we’ve enjoyed with them.

This evening, we spent a long time rubbing down the lambs, enjoying their snuggly personalities and soft, soft wool. Years from now, their wool won’t be so soft, but woven into a warm rug that cushions and soothes our cold feet, I wonder if we’ll find it any less miraculous and sweet.

Greg’s Got Questions

Thank you to those of you who participated in the poll last week!

The winning question was: How are you able to maintain a mindset of staying present to observe and appreciate all the things around us when we’re with the animals? I typically see all the tasks that need to be completed and let these precious moments slip by unnoticed. Maybe there are others like me who would like some tips on what works for you.

My elementary school did a really cool activity with the sixth graders every year when I was a kid. For two days, they bussed us all out (four classrooms’ worth of sixth graders) to an area that looked like it was in the middle of nowhere. We spent the entirety of those two school days there.

It felt like the middle of nowhere, but it had been the site of a small settlement. All that was left was the ruins of some old building and a cemetery. I don’t remember all of the things we did during those days, but I remember doing charcoal rubbings on the markers at the cemetery and learning about generations and life expectancies, and how you can tell quite a bit about a community’s history by noticing clusters of death dates.

The other memory I have, and one that has stuck with me for decades, was the activity run by the science teacher.

The class “HQ” was at the top of a hill. From there we had a great view of a big meadow with grasses tall enough for sixth graders to get thoroughly lost in. And that was the first part of the instructions: Go get lost in that field, so you can’t see or hear any other person besides the teachers on the top of the hill. The next instructions: You’re going to be there for a long time. Be quiet. Pay attention to what you see and hear and smell. Don’t come back and tell us you didn’t notice anything. You should have a very long list.

It was a crash course in immersive observation.

It was fascinating. And terrifying. Because of course for the first few minutes, I noticed nothing! And then, slowly, as my mind quieted down, as I wasn’t distracted by my friends or other people, I started to see and hear and smell what was around me.

I think they left us out there for an hour. And then you know what? They did it again the next day but added: Today’s long list should have all different things on it.

I LOVED that activity.

Part of it is my personality, in that it’s more natural for me to observe than to act, but I think anyone can learn to be more noticing of what is happening around them.

With the sheep, I find it fascinating to watch them learn and interact with what they are encountering: other sheep, new grass, the zappy fence, the noises from the neighborhood, the wind, one of us entering or leaving the pasture, the rattle of feed in the scoop, a truck rumbling down the road. Their environment is always changing, and as prey animals, they have to always be aware of their environment. They’re scanning, learning, categorizing as “threat” or “not threat,” and negotiating flock dynamics all the time.

To me, there’s always something new to see, and it’s completely fascinating. Much more interesting to me than a list of tasks to complete.

Greg’s Questions for This Week:

Here are the questions up for the vote this week. I’ll answer the winner in the next newsletter. (As a matter of procedure, the poll function takes you to another page to submit your vote, so if that happens to you, you’re on the right track!)

Question 1: For those readers who may not have read the story of why we made a mad dash to Arkansas to buy friends for Mr. Bingley, why can a person not own just one sheep?

Question 2: Why is Merino wool your favorite wool to spin?

Question 3: Of the 18 wool factories now in our flock, who do you think has the best wool and why?

Happy knitting,

Kiersten J

The post Honey, Do You Have a Plan? appeared first on Kiersten J.

I love taking them, sharing them, and getting them from other people. If you happen to be one of my frequent texting buddies, you know this to be true. And I’m only a little bit sorry about it.

My eye is completely uneducated. I don’t have a clue about composition, lighting, or anything else that makes for truly excellent pictures. I subscribe to the philosophy, learned from Dad, that says “if you take a million of ’em, surely one or two will turn out okay.”

I hope the person who conceived the idea to include a camera with the cell phone was compensated ridiculously, because that human contributed mightily to the well-being of society. At least this corner of society.

We have completely filled our phone memories and cloud memories with photos and videos of the sheep making themselves at home. As expected, the wee ones are hogging the spotlight. I wonder if this experience is similar to human babies, when the first ones get loads of documentation and the later ones somewhat less? We’ll see. For now, we’re building an embarrassingly thorough photo library of lamb growth and development. If you need a stock photo of a black and white lamb standing, sitting, grazing, nursing, dozing, chewing, peeing, pooping, frolicking, wandering, baaing, or various other things, alone or in company, send up a flare. I probably have it.

I’m building another collection along with the photo gallery. It’s fleeting and impermanent. This library is filling with residual echoes of experiences that are only full in their moment:

• The quiet but tangible sense of anticipation in the ewes when I’m about to open their stall door to the pasture.
• The vitality in the synchronized tail wiggles when the twins are nursing.
• The gravitas in Lizzy’s regal stare compared to the clear expectation in Georgiana’s.
• The soft, warm weight of Eliza as she curls up against my leg in the pasture to rest.
• The insistent outrage in the cry of a lamb stuck on the wrong side of a fence.
• The scent of the barn.
• The harmony of geese overhead, sheep and donkeys in the pasture, chickens in the run, and dogs in town all calling out in the morning.

And then the less romantic impressions:

• I have exactly zero pairs of shoes at our new home that have not had unmentionable substances on them.
• I am learning the physical sensation of straw and/or hay everywhere. And dirt. And sometimes, unmentionable substances.
• I might be washing my hands almost as much as when I worked in a nursing home.
• Dry and scraped up hands make for a different knitting experience.
• Worry about well-being crosses species lines very easily.

None of these will make it into a photo album. They can’t be captured with my cell phone camera.

I will probably become accustomed to most of these, and it may all become part of the regular rhythm of this new life.

But maybe the photos and videos we’ve been capturing will help trigger some of the magic and joy of this season of discoveries.

I hope so.

Greg’s Got Questions

Thank you to those of you who participated in the poll last week!

The winning question was: What have you enjoyed the most about filling out the “Beast” part of our Beast to Blanket business? And, what have you not enjoyed about it? Bonus question on top of the previous bonus question I snuck in on you: What has surprised you the most?

So far, the most enjoyable part for me has been learning the personalities of our flock members. Not all have been quick to reveal themselves, but we already have some strong personalities who have made themselves known. And, of course, the babies are a delight. Especially when they’re little enough to be held and petted without much objection.

I did not enjoy experiencing our first loss, especially because of how it happened. I know we’ll go through more losses, but God willing, they won’t be like that one.

It was a bit of a shock to realize we’d seriously underestimated the strength of the rams and the security of the housing they’d require. But, as we keep reminding ourselves: We’re learning!

Greg’s Questions for This Week:

Here are the questions up for the vote this week. I’ll answer the winner in the next newsletter. (As a matter of procedure, the poll function takes you to another page to submit your vote, so if that happens to you, you’re on the right track!)

Question 1: Did you know that the invention of the cell phone camera was the result of another newborn cutie and her proud daddy? Philippe Kahn – Wikipedia

Question 2: Again with the big words for your vocabularily challenged husband. “Gravitas”? Sounds like what came into play when you fell down while we were chasing Mr. Bingley around the pasture.

Question 3: How are you able to maintain a mindset of staying present to observe and appreciate all the things around us when we’re with the animals? This is such an amazing skill you have and I would like to be better in this area. I typically see all the tasks that need to be completed and let these precious moments slip by unnoticed. Maybe there are others like me who would like some tips on what works for you.

Happy knitting,

Kiersten J

The post Picture Imperfect appeared first on Kiersten J.

Other weeks appear relatively free and clear. I’m learning to keep my eyes peeled during those weeks, though. They can be squirrely. One minute you think it’s the week to knock out some extra projects, and then whammo! It’s your turn for the winter bug, or you get asked to host a small intimate gathering for a hundred of someone’s nearest and dearest, or some other surprise suddenly claims a bunch of time.

And then there’s a completely different sort of full week. The kind where there’s not much going on inside the planner squares, but spaces in your life are being discovered and filled to overflowing.

For good or for ill, you will never be the same person you were before those weeks passed.

We had a week like that this past week. It didn’t look like much on paper, but it was the culmination of a lot of love, labor, planning, and fear and trembling. Elements of it have been whispers of dreams for decades.

Sometime soon I’ll share more about why we made the choices we did to move from a city to a rural small town in our fifties. Some of those reasons can be shared in the joy in the images and videos below. I’m really happy to share them with you.

From Mr. Darcy, Mr. Knightley, Emma, Harriet, Lizzy, Georgiana, Anne, Kitty, Eliza, Betsy, Jane, Charlotte, and Lucy, newly arrived from Illinois, greetings. We hope your week is full, in the very best way.

Greg’s Got Questions

Thank you to those of you who participated in the poll last week!

The winning question was: How does a knitting pattern designer go about creating a pattern that covers such a wide range of sizes? And what makes that difficult?

One way to think about this is to picture a plain t-shirt in your mind. Most folks can wear a plain t-shirt, regardless of age. And as you increase sizes from the smallest to the largest, a lot of the changes in the shirt are proportional, predictable increases over the same basic shape. That works really well until kids hit puberty. Bodies start getting curves and angles and rectangle shapes are no longer adequate. People sprout up and out and every body gets its own quirks. (That same style/cut of t-shirt is going to look very different on a muscular male athlete than it is on a Marilyn Monroe figure.)

You can see this in clothing departments for young kids. We cruise along, sizing by age for years (18 months, 4T, 6-8 years) and then we suddenly start a numbering system that half the population will obsess about for the rest of their lives.

One of the great aspects of knitting is that you can customize your garments to fit. So, if you need a broader chest on your boyfriend’s sweater, you can make that adjustment. If you’re a little curvier than a “standard model” (whoever that mythical being is) you can add shaping (add fabric), so your piece of clothing doesn’t pull and stretch awkwardly. You can add short rows to the back of the neck to make the neckline rise higher in the back and not sag too low. You can make your sleeves 3/4 if that suits you. You can turn a cropped sweater into a tunic.

That kind of flexibility in knitting allows designers to use the same basic pattern for all ages/sizes and add specific modifications or suggest modifications to larger sizes when it would create a better fit.

Greg’s Questions for This Week:

Here are the questions up for the vote this week. I’ll answer the winner in the next newsletter. (As a matter of procedure, the poll function takes you to another page to submit your vote, so if that happens to you, you’re on the right track!)

Question 1: WHAT WERE WE THINKING?!!!!

Question 2: What’s your favorite experience you’ve had in creating a custom knitted garment for someone?

Question 3: What have you enjoyed the most about filling out the “Beast” part of our Beast to Blanket business? And, what have you not enjoyed about it? Bonus question on top of the previous bonus question I snuck in on you: What has surprised you the most?

Happy knitting,

Kiersten J

The post Full appeared first on Kiersten J.