Schlitz Happens
Current mood: hopeful
Category: Life

Life has taken a turn to the bad.  My health has taken a decline due to the head pain...I caught that late season rebound flu earlier this year and it ruined all the good work the MD in Seattle had done.  Now I'm in such intense pain, I can't even imagine how I did so much before...  Oh well...another surgery scheduled in the next few weeks which will hopefully reduce the pain to what it was before (or perhaps more relief than before).  Send positive thoughts for good surgery results in any form you might want to send it (prayer, good thoughts, positive thoughts, etc.).  It will all help.

Other than that, the time we were in Seattle the time before last, I visited with my daughter, Alexandria, and her roommate.  We invited him out to dinner with us, but he couldn't go...had to work early the next morning.  He's got a standing invitation to come with us next time.  He's a good friend to her and does care about her, and vice versa.  It's so nice to see her living with a guy friend and not have to worry about him.  I figure she learned a lot about men friends from me.  She never even met most of the men I dated because I didn't know if the relationship was going to be just friends or would become something more or less as the case may be. 

When my daughter was really small, I got her two books: "Sometimes It's Okay to Tell Secrets" and "So That's How I was Born."  The first books talks about good and bad secrets, how to tell them apart, and what to do if someone wants you to keep a bad secret that makes you feel bad or yucky inside.  The response is to tell someone you trust.  The second book is good for teaching your child all the correct names for body parts, so if something does happen, then can give the correct words for the parts of the body.  Kids rarely lie at 3-6 years old, but when a child tells you that someone asked them to keep a bad secret, you respond calmly and tell them that you believe that the person they're talking about would tell you anyway, so it would be okay if your child tells you about it.  Don't freak out...it will make the child freak out...just stay calm and try to get as much information as you can...  Life can be so scary for children. so if they ever tell you someone asked them to keep a bad secret...stay calm...find out what's going on...and if you need to, call Child Protective Services.  

Whatever you do, DON'T let the person who wants your child to keep bad secrets to continue to get away with whatever they're doing.  They use fear (I'll kill both you and your mother/father), being special (You're more special than your sister or brother), and other manipulative techniques to keep them from telling the bad secrets.  The longer it goes on, the child will suffer more damage emotionally.  You want to be the person your child trusts most of all.  Then you take appropriate actions.  Remember, you are the adult.  Your child has done enough just to come to you because s/he is afraid.  Acknowledge how brave your child is to come to you and that you are so glad they didcome to you, and now you can protect them.

I'm still spinning, knitting, and crocheting (helps me ignore the pain somewhat, so I stay pretty busy).  I've still got my ad in the "Country Register" crafts newspaper (under Celtic Crossroads) at all your favorite crafts, antique, tea shops and yarn stores.  If your in Walla Walla, WA, please stop by and take a look at my handspun yarns, handcrafted gifts for home and hearth as well as a variety of handcrafted garments, toys, and accessories for people of ALL ages.

8:11 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Fiber Artisan Forever
Current mood: ecstatic
Category: Jobs, Work, Careers

I picked up "Knits," Interweave's Knitting magazine, from Knitochet last week because I'd let my subscription lapse. I was so happy to read the article on Elizabeth Zimmerman, Meg Swanson and Schoolhouse Press, Ltd. written by Franklin Habit. I was so delighted to read about people who have done what I've been doing for years. I only bought my first Zimmerman book, "Knitting Around," about 4 years ago. I grew up in Wisconsin and never realized what a fabulous knitter we had within the state. And like usual for me, I missed her at a time it would have been so easy for me to have met her. I lived about 150 miles from her, close to Lake Michigan, but north. I moved out West when I was 22, to Wenatchee, WA for a year. Then to Seattle, where I dabbled in assorted fiber arts and started my own custom-made sweater business. I made sweaters from my own imagination and from others' imaginations, from 1974 to 1987-ish. I stopped knitting for others and sold my sweater business to another knitter when I divorced my first husband, but soon found that some of my former customers came back to me. I was divorced by 1986 and worked for Providence Hospital for a little more than a year, then to the University of WA in Seattle for 10+ years. Being a single mom was not easy and I really envied people who had the local support of loving families to support them...the few I trusted in my family, my paternal Grandmother and sister, Tracy, were still in WI and the rest, I had disbanded from when I moved out West. The relationship with my Mother changed over the last few years and when she died last October at least one fence was mended to a certain extent. The past was just that, the past, and those things do not change, but we have the chance to try to make amends now, which my mother did try to do. I was one of the lucky ones--my mother apologized to me for what she'd done way back when. It changed a lot of my feelings towards her, so she she died, I mourned not having enough time with her--the mother I got to know after she apologized.

I have been knitting on and off for years, starting when I was 6 yo. I've also been crocheting on and off since I was 8. When I remarried after 12 years of being a single mom to Alexandria, we lived for 6 years total in both Southern and Northern California after we got married--my husband and his family settled there after his father retired from the Air Force. When we moved north again, we bought a small 2.3-acre farm in Walla Walla, WA, and several handfuls of a flock of Icelandic sheep, two Finnsheep, and two alpacas. We also had Miss Lacey, a tortoiseshell Persian cat and have Bud, a dwarf Great Pyrenees, who are deceased adn 3 yo respectively. At this moment in time, I am selling out of all but 3-4 Icelandic sheep and 4 alpacas because I need more time for knitting, spinning, felting, selling at the Walla Walla farmers' market, designing new items and patterns, and teaching knitting, spinning, and toysmaking classes at the local knitting/fiber store called Knitochet (http://www.knitochet.com/ and NOTE: if you get a chance to visit the owner, Michelle Keith, at Knitochet, you will be delighted by her assortment of yarn as well as her friendly demeanor, she'd be so happy to see you and to visit with you as well as give knitting advice if you need to confer on colors or designs).

Life takes many turns and all we can do is adapt and change with them. I got tired of being confined to just the store bought yarn and so in preparation for when I would have fiber animals, I learned to spin at Rumplestiltskin's (http://www.rumpleknits.com) in Sacramento, CA. So, when we finally moved to Walla Walla, I was ready for my fiber animals. I decided on sheep and alpacas, which turned out to be a wonderful direction for me to go seeing I'm allergic to rabbits. I can spin the kind of yarns I want to be able to use for knitting and crocheting. I'm planning to learn to weave when I get more time, but it may be a while. I already have my table loom, so it's a matter of finding a good teacher and I know some wonderful weavers here in Walla Walla. So, weaving will be something I'll be able to do soon enough.

For the present, I'll sell my items and yarn at the Farmers' Market, some of my yarn from Knitochet, and also from my farm. In the winter, when the market is over in October, I sell from my foyer "store" in my home, until the Market opens again in May. As I've mentioned before, I have Icelandic wool, Icelandic/Finn wool, Alpaca, Alpaca/wool blends, and various other fiber I've bought locally and spun into yarn. Alpaca always seems to be the first I sell out of in terms of yarn, but I have silver grey, rose grey, cinnamon, black Huacaya as well as white Huacaya and Suri. I process all the fleeces myself, then hand spin them, so it takes me a lot of time to get them finished. I finish one fleece at a time and if I dye any of them, it takes a bit longer. I have Romney (I sold my Romney ram last year), Finn, 3 shades of Icelandic, white Finn, Green Merino/nylon blend (sold my nylons last year--lol-- they were just too wild, but I will probably buy it from Paradise Fibers -- http://www.paradisefibers.net/ -- in Spokane, WA).

When I look back on my almost 54 years of doing fiber arts (I learned to embroider when I was 4 to create a bib for my forthcoming baby sister), I am amazed by what I've learned and am still learning. I picked up a DVD on Portuguese Knitting which I've been watching and putting into practice. I hope that once I've learned it, it will increase the speed of knitting I do now. I enjoy being able to design and knit/crochet patterns, but it all takes time. I figure if I can increase my speed, it will help me do even more. I haven't had any problems with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, and hopefully will not have, so I will be able to knit and crochet the rest of my life. I do gentle stretching of my hands, wrists, and arms for range of motion (ROM), so that will help me be able to continue doing fiber arts. I enjoy working on a knitting machine, and on knitting looms, I've tried many other types of needle work: double pointed crochet hooks, dpns, circular needles, needlepoint, cross stitch, crewel emboidery, beading, punch felting, regular felting, fulling, etc.--but other than pot holders looms or trivets looms, I haven't used any larger looms for my crafts, but I am waiting to begin weaving as well. If I don't caretake so many animals, I will most likely find the time... It is my belief that we will not grow old if we continue to learn at least one new thing every single day...and I intend to make sure I don't grow old. ;^D I also believe that we will always go back to the things we love doing, even if we don't always stick with it all the time. ALL fiber artists, which is what we all are when we knit, crochet, or work with textiles or fibers, will always have at least 3-10 projects going at any one time. We finish 1-3, but start at least that many more. I think if we finally do finish all our WIPs (works in progress), it is time for us to move on to another life...so we will all live forever in our projects--forever remembers, just like Elizabeth Zimmerman...."Knitting Onward."

I enjoyed the article by Mr. Habit in Interweave Knits magazine, and hope to read his book called "It Itches" which will be put out by the same magazine.

Take care,
Jet

10:13 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Life Today
Current mood: ecstatic
Category: Life

I want to apologize to my friends here about why I haven't written a blog in so long.  I've been in severe, chronic pain, & had surgery to either stop or reduce it.  I had a line of electrodes implanted under the skin on my right cheekbone by the 2nd branch of my trigeminal nerve...& a pulse generator above my right breast/below the collarbone.  So, I guess you could say I'm a bionic woman now...lol...  At any rate, it's reduced the head pain by 80-85%, so I'm extremely happy.  I still am recovering from the pain of the incisions where they threaded the wires from the electrodes to the pulse generator, but that's well worth it considering how much it's helped.  I'll be seeing my pain MD on October 4, so he'll help me to start reducing the pain meds.  I've been on them for almost 15 years so it needs to take time to get them reduced without impacting my health.  Lance, my husband, says I'm more lucid & my eyes seeem to much brighter now that I'm not dealing with such significant pain...makes me happy to hear that considering he's never known me not in pain.

I've decided that I'm not going to keep as many sheep & may get rid of all but 2 alpacas.  It has nothing to do with the pain or lack of pain, but because of the crap the government is trying to do...namely the National Animal Identification System aka NAIS.  I belong to a group called Stop NAIS WA on Yahoo, but I believe all the states have similar groups to stop the ID system.  I'm just too tired to deal with it, so I'm not going to be sellign sheep after this year, though I will continue to sell fiber, yarn, & handmade items for people & their homes.  I'll keep fighting to stop it, but am not too sure it's going to do any good as they're hell bent to pass it in one form or another, like they did the Homeland Security...by piggy-backing it onto other bills for things we really needed to have.  So, I'm only keeping my Icelandic sheep, 5 ewes, a ram & a wether.  I keep the wether (a castrated ram) & the ram together for when I don't want the ewes or won't breed them for a year.  We'll slaughter some of the sheep that we aren't keeping for meat for the year because we don't use very many chemical dewormers on them or hormones & stuff like that, so we feel a lot better about eating the meat, especially safer to eat it.  I'll start to milk the ewes next spring so I can make my own cheese, yogurt, drink the milk, & make sheep milk soaps to sell/use.  A friend of mine used to live on a sheep far & grew up on sheep's milk, & says it is very good, so we're going to give it a try.  I just don't want to milk more than 2 sheep so that 1) I don't have more milk than we can drink or use, & 2) the amount of time it takes to milk them may be more than I want to do. 

Now that I don't have the level of pain I did, I'm planning on developing my business so that I can make a good living at it.  As it was, it's been more of a hobby to help keep the pain at bay, but now that the pain is almost gone, I can work a 40-60 hour week or however many hours I decide is good, & start putting money into my KEOGH again.  Because I've been medically disabled, I haven't been able to do that, nor really put in many hours because of the pain, so couldn't really make a living at it.  So, self-employment will be my mode of making a living from now on.  Now, I'll have a going concern...I may not get rich doing this, but I'll be doing what I love doing, & I think that's more important than working for a company that doesn't care about you.  It's harder to be self-employed than it is working for someone else, but in the end, it's more rewarding. 

I'll miss my animals though...you get so used to having them around & getting the affection from them (yes, sheep & other animals can give you affection), but it will be easier for me as I'll need the time to really develop my business. 

Because of the lack of using the nasty chemicals to keep them free of internal pests, I use herbal dewormers.  I do have to give them shots of selenium once a year because there is none in the soil, so none in what grows in the plants they eat/need, in the Pacific Northwest (& other areas of the West as well, or so I understand), you have to supplement the animals.  I also give them a shot of A&D as a supplement once a year as well...  My babies are healthy & happy. 

Next spring when the farmers market starts, I'll be selling my yarn & other items.  I'm adding other items to the selection I already have: felted/fulled purses, afghans, sweaters, hats, mittens/gloves, scarves, dolls, baby blocks, socks, & teddy bears, & will continue with what I already make.  I'll be donating 2% of what I earn to a different charity every year, so they could be getting substantial money from me.  My first charity, probably New Beginnings in Seattle, WA.  They help abused men, women & children.  My second charity will be Heifer International who donates funds to women in countries who need help making money to support their families.  Not sure where I'll go from there, but it's a good start on a good idea. 

I've been working on a plan so that everything will go wtihout a hitch.  I do have to remember though to take things slow.  I've been so run down by the pain, that I've been overdoing things, so have to keep reminding myself to take it easy and to take things more slowly.  If I get too run down stamina-wise, it won't do me any good at all, so I need to make sure I do things a little less than moderately.  But all in all, it's going well.  It feels so wonderful not to have such intense pain...& once I get the pain medication reduced, it will help a lot, too. 

So, for right now, I'm writing my friends and my blogs to let peole know what is going on, & to let them know I'm fine.  I know they'll be happy for me...Dec. 2 would have been the 16th anniversary of when the pain started, so I'm going to have a large party to celebrate with my family and friends that things are better now & so they can share in my joy & celebrate with us.  Lance is just ecstatic about how much the pain dropped.  I mean  that it's not every day that a man has a bionic woman  for his wife...  LOL  

TTFN, and I'll write more later!

10:22 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Life Today
Current mood: ecstatic
Category: Life

I want to apologize to my friends here about why I haven't written a blog in so long.  I've been in severe, chronic pain, & had surgery to either stop or reduce it.  I had a line of electrodes implanted under the skin on my right cheekbone by the 2nd branch of my trigeminal nerve...& a pulse generator above my right breast/below the collarbone.  So, I guess you could say I'm a bionic woman now...lol...  At any rate, it's reduced the head pain by 80-85%, so I'm extremely happy.  I still am recovering from the pain of the incisions where they threaded the wires from the electrodes to the pulse generator, but that's well worth it considering how much it's helped.  I'll be seeing my pain MD on October 4, so he'll help me to start reducing the pain meds.  I've been on them for almost 15 years so it needs to take time to get them reduced without impacting my health.  Lance, my husband, says I'm more lucid & my eyes seeem to much brighter now that I'm not dealing with such significant pain...makes me happy to hear that considering he's never known me not in pain.

I've decided that I'm not going to keep as many sheep & may get rid of all but 2 alpacas.  It has nothing to do with the pain or lack of pain, but because of the crap the government is trying to do...namely the National Animal Identification System aka NAIS.  I belong to a group called Stop NAIS WA on Yahoo, but I believe all the states have similar groups to stop the ID system.  I'm just too tired to deal with it, so I'm not going to be sellign sheep after this year, though I will continue to sell fiber, yarn, & handmade items for people & their homes.  I'll keep fighting to stop it, but am not too sure it's going to do any good as they're hell bent to pass it in one form or another, like they did the Homeland Security...by piggy-backing it onto other bills for things we really needed to have.  So, I'm only keeping my Icelandic sheep, 5 ewes, a ram & a wether.  I keep the wether (a castrated ram) & the ram together for when I don't want the ewes or won't breed them for a year.  We'll slaughter some of the sheep that we aren't keeping for meat for the year because we don't use very many chemical dewormers on them or hormones & stuff like that, so we feel a lot better about eating the meat, especially safer to eat it.  I'll start to milk the ewes next spring so I can make my own cheese, yogurt, drink the milk, & make sheep milk soaps to sell/use.  A friend of mine used to live on a sheep far & grew up on sheep's milk, & says it is very good, so we're going to give it a try.  I just don't want to milk more than 2 sheep so that 1) I don't have more milk than we can drink or use, & 2) the amount of time it takes to milk them may be more than I want to do. 

Now that I don't have the level of pain I did, I'm planning on developing my business so that I can make a good living at it.  As it was, it's been more of a hobby to help keep the pain at bay, but now that the pain is almost gone, I can work a 40-60 hour week or however many hours I decide is good, & start putting money into my KEOGH again.  Because I've been medically disabled, I haven't been able to do that, nor really put in many hours because of the pain, so couldn't really make a living at it.  So, self-employment will be my mode of making a living from now on.  Now, I'll have a going concern...I may not get rich doing this, but I'll be doing what I love doing, & I think that's more important than working for a company that doesn't care about you.  It's harder to be self-employed than it is working for someone else, but in the end, it's more rewarding. 

I'll miss my animals though...you get so used to having them around & getting the affection from them (yes, sheep & other animals can give you affection), but it will be easier for me as I'll need the time to really develop my business. 

Because of the lack of using the nasty chemicals to keep them free of internal pests, I use herbal dewormers.  I do have to give them shots of selenium once a year because there is none in the soil, so none in what grows in the plants they eat/need, in the Pacific Northwest (& other areas of the West as well, or so I understand), you have to supplement the animals.  I also give them a shot of A&D as a supplement once a year as well...  My babies are healthy & happy. 

Next spring when the farmers market starts, I'll be selling my yarn & other items.  I'm adding other items to the selection I already have: felted/fulled purses, afghans, sweaters, hats, mittens/gloves, scarves, dolls, baby blocks, socks, & teddy bears, & will continue with what I already make.  I'll be donating 2% of what I earn to a different charity every year, so they could be getting substantial money from me.  My first charity, probably New Beginnings in Seattle, WA.  They help abused men, women & children.  My second charity will be Heifer International who donates funds to women in countries who need help making money to support their families.  Not sure where I'll go from there, but it's a good start on a good idea. 

I've been working on a plan so that everything will go wtihout a hitch.  I do have to remember though to take things slow.  I've been so run down by the pain, that I've been overdoing things, so have to keep reminding myself to take it easy and to take things more slowly.  If I get too run down stamina-wise, it won't do me any good at all, so I need to make sure I do things a little less than moderately.  But all in all, it's going well.  It feels so wonderful not to have such intense pain...& once I get the pain medication reduced, it will help a lot, too. 

So, for right now, I'm writing my friends and my blogs to let peole know what is going on, & to let them know I'm fine.  I know they'll be happy for me...Dec. 2 would have been the 16th anniversary of when the pain started, so I'm going to have a large party to celebrate with my family and friends that things are better now & so they can share in my joy & celebrate with us.  Lance is just ecstatic about how much the pain dropped.  I mean  that it's not every day that a man has a bionic woman  for his wife...  LOL  

TTFN, and I'll write more later.

10:22 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Lambs Lambs, Lambs
Current mood: Mixed: Happy, Sad, etc.
Category: Mixed: Happy, Sad, etc. Pets and Animals

We finally have lambs now. We had 5 born, but one died when the ewe stepped on her and broke her neck (and it would be the one that I wanted to keep–wouldn't you know). FYI, Finn & Icelandic sheep are in gestation from 145-155 days and I'm not sure if that is the same as other sheep or not. I now have a Cotswold ewe in the flock, so I have to figure out if she's even pregnant this year.

Rocky, my registered Icelandic ram, was a little off this year and I still have 3 ewes left to lamb, and one is that Cotswold ewe, MJ, is the registered Icelandic ewe, Sandy, and the last is the Romney/Icelandic/Finn cross, Little Bits aks Bitsy. Bitsy was the product of a mistake when the Romney ram I was selling got in with the ewes, hence the 3-way cross. She is cute and her fiber is really nice so I thought I'd keep her for the novelty factor. Her lambs will be 50% Icelandic, 25% Finn and 25% Icelandic, so should have even nicer fiber.

I'm selling Rocky this year and buying a new Icelandic ram who's a dark grey mouflon. I want more color in my flock rather than white. Rocky throws a lot of white lambs, so this is how I discovered how to get more color.

Having sheep is amazing! This year they're lambing later than the last 3 years, but that's fine. We had a set of twins our of Sophie a 50/50 Finn/Icelandic cross: Sam the ram, and Boyd: Sam is white with very light silvery gray spots on the left hip and left shoulder, and Boyd is black with a grey or white undercoat. Then we had a set of triplets out of Madge, our 100% Finn ewe: Stockings, a little black and white ewe lamb; Bobert, a white ram lamb; and the last, Sylvie, a white ewe lamb. Now we have Sandy, Blesa, and Bitsy left to lamb. I'm not sure MJ got pregnant this year, she's our Cotswold ewe.

I mainly raise Icelandic sheep, but I like a little variety and I'm looking for a cross that has the ultimate fiber to spin. So far, the Finn/Icelandic crosses seem to be quite nice…easy to spin, lots of crimp, very soft, and it felts like a dream. So the other types of sheep I have are Finn (Madge), Cotswold (MJ), a Romney/Finn/Icelandic cross (Bitsy), and a Shetland/Lincoln cross (BW).

We also have our Icelandic ram, Rocky (after Rocky and Bullwinkle—we sold the lamb named Bullwinkle last year to a nice family along with 2 ewe lambs), and Whitey, an Icelandic wether. Whitey will be our meat sheep for this next year. The nice thing about Icelandic sheep, is that you can butcher from 9 months to 5 years and it still tastes like lamb, it's that mild. You can tell it's not beef or pork or veal, but it doesn't have that strong taste. I believe it's because the Icelandic breed doesn't have as much lanolin in it's fiber and less fat in their meat, where as the stronger, more muttony tasting lambs have a lot more lanolin in their fiber so more fat in their meat. I've talked with other shepherds about this and they agree, so I think this is true across the board, but I'll have to talk with a few more sheep people to see what they say about it, so at this time, it's my opinion.

My chickens are laying again, about 4-6 eggs a day, so I'll have enough to sell again this year. I have 2 roosters and 8 hens after the feral cat killed 7 hens, so we got a live trap and trapped the cat, and took him to jail (actually the animal shelter) so they could either get him adopted or whatever (and I think it was the whatever). He was really feral and had been adopted and abandoned at least twice since we've been here (not by us but our neighbors that adopted it, abandoned it, then adopted it again, then moved away and left him). That made me really upset and I called the animal shelter about it, but they said just to bring him in—I think the people who adopted him, then abandoned him should have taken responsibility of taking him to the pound, but because they'd already moved, the shelter didn't do anything to them. So, I don't think he was save-able as much as I wanted to save him, but I tried to 4 months to try to get him to be more friendly, and I never got past the snarls and his urinating because he was scared and then he'd run. I felt so bad for him, but I didn't want to lose any more chickens.

At any rate, once he was at the pound, I bought 25 more chickens, this time Aracaunas and all pullets at that. I ordered 25 straight run Americaunas (the Easter Egg chickens), so I won't be doing business with them next year if I need more chicks. So, if I want chicken soup or dinner, I'll have to butcher my hens instead of the spare roosters. I had 13 roosters in my freezer and ate them, and I have one left. We had chicken once every two weeks from last summer until now, so it worked out well and though they were a little tough, the soup helped that a lot also.

I also have to shear my alpacas so they have bright and shiny new haircuts for summer before it gets too hot for them, not to mention I have to trim their hooves as well. In the Autumn, they'll have all their shots for the year. I worm them about once a month with a naturopathic wormer using cob (molasses mixed with grains), chopped garlic, finely chopped onion, nutritional yeast (aka brewers yeast), and DE (diatomaceous earth) in appropriate amounts. I stopped using store bought wormer because I'm not sure what it does to the meat as well as the fiber. It seems that the natural wormer keeps the fiber softer, and when I used the chemical wormer, the fiber was more coarse—not what I want in my fiber. I'll have a great fiber crop this fall though, and it wasn't too bad this spring either, but I'm not sure if I'll use the shearer that I used this time for next year. The sheep all look ragged, but that's the way it goes.

Our cherry and apple trees are blooming. I love the light pink blossoms that shower down the sweet smelling petals when the winds blow. It was lovely yesterday. We planted 3 spreading yews in the front area where we took out the blue rug juniper. Lance and I are both allergic to juniper so we're going to get rid of all of it, unless we move to our new property, but not for a while. We also planted 4 yucca, 2 rhubarb, 6 daylilies, and some other bulb flowers as well as a dianthus (different are than the others). I like having some color out front instead of having it all green. I like the idea of the rhubarb also because once the leaves come out it, almost looks tropical, Kind of like small sized Gunthera or Giant Elephant ears.

I'm planting my garden as well…mangels for the animals in winter (it's a type of beet they use for farm animals—trace minerals, iron, B-vitamins for stress and cold), both spicy and mild mesclun, herbs, lettuce, and I bought 3 tomato plants: a cherry, an early girl, and fantastica…I wanted more heirlooms, but this year they didn't have any, much to my dismay.

The only dismay I do have is that there is something killing my adult chickens so my egg production has dwindled along with the flock. However, I bought 25 Auracana chicks in March and they're about half grown now, so when they get about 4-5 months old, the egg production will go back up. I have 10 customers patiently waiting for eggs and now they'll have to wait longer. Oh well, they're still less expensive than store bought farm fresh eggs and really are farm fresh. We have a live trap out there now with cat food in it to catch the raccoon or feral cat. We've already caught two feral cats who've killed the chickens and taken them to the pound, but there is something else out there killing them (we're down to 4 now out of 13). I really wish that people would not let their cats run wild. The second one we caught was half-tame and was part Siamese or Himalayan, but Lance said no more cats than Norphan, so to the pound she went, but I think she's salvageable, not like the first one we caught. People move away and leave them behind or they just dump them on the highway, so between feral cats and feral dogs, it's a huge problem in the country. Really ticks me off that people put off their problems and don't take responsibility for their animals.

Also, I'm now selling again at the Farmer's market, this is the 4th year now, and sold over some yarn and a few other items, but it always takes time to get people to see me. I had a nice 2' x 6' banner made with the picture on my business cards as well as the same information on the front of them. I'm also doing flyers this year so that I can give them to people as they pass buy. It really has helped a lot in the marketing and it's harder to get rid of flyers. One woman bought some yarn for a friend who lives in another state and will send my business card along with the yarn so she can call me to order more if she wants. It was a good connection, to say the least. I also sold some yarn to the local yarn shop. I hope it's selling so that I'm able to keep supplying her with yarn. It would be terrific.

That's about it on the home front for now, except my tomatoes are in, the mangels are planted as well as the mesclun (spicy and mild) for salads. I'm feeling happy right about things–life, love, marriage, business–and can only hope it goes as well in the near and distant future…and I hope they go well for all of you, too.

I've got groceries to get, so I'll write more later! TTFN!

5:28 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Sophie had two ram lambs on March 28...
Current mood: cheerful
Category: Pets and Animals

It's been raining in Walla Walla pretty regular now, so the winter wheat farmers are doing quite well, but for animal ranchers and farmers, it's been muddy. 

Sophie lambed first and gave me two ram lambs: Sam (who I'm bottle feeding due to some intervention from Bud when he wanted to play with the newest lamb) is a white and gray lamb, and Boyd, who is a black lamb. Both are 75% Icelandic and 1/4 Finn and are lovely little boys. They were born in the morning of March 28, so are only 2.5 days old and are as cute as bugs in rugs. I love lambs, and I should make a few pins saying this, don't you think?

Anyway, I also have my 25 pullets aka hen chicks and though I would like it if they started laying very soon, it will be 4-5 months or more before they start. However, my 8 hens started laying as soon as the  sun was out more and the days grew longer. I'm getting about 5-8 eggs a day depending on when they're laying. So, I already have 4 dozen eggs and have sold 3 dozen. $2.25 for a dozen and $2.75 for 18, if you bring your own cartons. Otherwise add 50-cents to the cost of the dozen and they're still cheaper than the eggs at the store at $2.78 and $3.78 depending on whether they're brown eggs or organic.  The brown eggs may or not be organic, but the ones with the organic identifier are definitely much more costly. Mine are farm fresh and chemical free (we're been chemical free since we moved here & cannot get the organic identifier for 7 more years if we stay where we are).  All I know is how good the eggs taste and how bright orange the yolks are meaning they have a lot more betacarotenes in them (so lots of A, D, & E). So, I'm a happy camper.

In the last rain we had, we lost all our peach and apricot blossoms, so though they're bare of blossoms, they still look dark pink. The apple and the cherry trees are getting ready to blossom though. All the daffs are in bloom, and not the irises or the roses, but they're coming along as well. Everything else is leafing out so the leaf buds have broken open and I should be getting more of my plants in the mail any day (more everbearing raspberries, hardy kiwi, and other things I ordered but didn't survive). I can hardly wait.

I have some bulbs and more rhubarb to plant also that I picked up or have to transplant. I have two rhubarb plants already showing with lots of leaves and stalks. I'm so hungry for rhubarb and strawberry pie I can almost taste it. The strawberries should be coming in June and then I'll have a steady supply until frost, so I'll have pies all summer. Yes!

I didn't get to go to the High Desert Fiber Festival this year because of feeding Sam. In the first week, I have to feed him every two hours the first day, every 3 hours the second day, every 4 the third, then 3 times a day thereafter, until it's time to start weaning them after two months...then it's 3 bottles a day, then in another month, one bottle a day, so by 4 months, they're weaned, (though they still come for bottles--they don't get them). Besides, they start eating hay solids and grass solids starting after the first week, but don't eat it totally until 3-4 months. Sheep and lambs are amazing. Anyway, I was disappointed I couldn't go to the High Desert thingy, but that's life.
 
So, that's all that happening right now, so I'll keep you updated. I should be having between twins to triplets from Blesa and Madge, Sandy will probably have one or two, and Little Bits (or Bitsy) will probably have one. I just hope I have more ewe lambs or I'll have to butcher a few of the ram lambs (who'll probably wind up being wethers or castrated rams). We'll see how it goes.

We'll be selling lambs and/or grown lambs this summer or autumn again...and eggs all summer and autumn long.

4:41 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

What a beautiful Day is was yesterday!!!
Category: Life

It was such a beautiful day yesterday in Walla Walla, I couldn't believe it.  Sunny, warm enough I had to take my coat off to work, with a lovely light breeze starting to stir the branches on the fruit and nut trees.  Absolutely lovely!  I didn't realize how much the gloomy late winter, early spring gray was affecting me until then--who would have thought I'd have a minor case of SAD (Seasonal Affectiveness Disorder).  I believe there are tons of people who are affected by SAD, but don't even realize it.  I grew up in WI, and I used to get "cabin fever" from time to time, but they didn't call it SAD.  Now I know better.  :?

No lambs yet, but it is getting closer by the day.  I do believe my sheep, Blesa, will be the first to lamb.  Her udders are as large as after she had her lambs last year...only problem with that is that the teats nipples are too large to fit inside her lambs' mouths and they hang almost to the ground.  I had to milk her last year to get the colostrum out for the poor little lambs...and it looks like she'll have twins or triplets this year, so another year of bottle fed lambs.  But I do love the bottle fed lambs dispositions anyway...they come when I enter the pasture knowing I have breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the few few weeks, then later in the coming months, it drops off to two bottles a day, then one bottle a day, then weaning.  I follow exactly what the mothering ewes do so that the lambs don't get a short shrift of milk and grow properly.

Lance told me last night that he'd finish up my stanchion today so that I'd be able to milk Blesa properly for the lambs' milk because her poor udders get so sore that she really needs to get the milk out, not to mention that if I don't get the milk out, she could get mastitis (udder infection).  

In addition, with the stanchion, I can milk, trim hooves, give the sheep their 8-way, vitamin, & BoSe shots, and in the future, possibly shear.  Oooh...I feel like I am getting a birthday present early (Feb. 19 is my birthday). 

Lance took me out to dinner at the Homestead Restaurant in Walla Walla for Valentine's Day, which also happens to be our anniversary (our 10th, no less)!  We had a really nice time, but I wish we could have sat next to each other rather than across from each other.  The pricey dinner included hors d'oeurves, dinner, dessert, a polaroil pic, a rose, and great service (we had to pay for wine, coffee, and anything extra).  We ordered batter fried mushrooms and bruchetta, very rare filet mignon with garlic potatoes & veggies, & raspberry cheesecake for dessert....lovely and delicious, except for the mushrooms which had the batter being a little under done (the batter around the large mushrooms was still wet instead of fried) so I sent them back.    Oh well, we all know nothing is perfect, not even 10 years of marriage, but we try to keep things going for each other with lots of "I Love You's" and hugs and kisses each day.  Seems to work out fine considering what we both had with our first marriages.  Guess those first marriages were our practice marriages to get ready for our marriage.  ;)

So, yesterday...  It was almost 70 degrees.  Lance and I both worked on the trees that had been cut down (we lost 2 willows to 50+ mph winds in the fall and winter, then had an arborist take the rest of them down this spring).  Cutting up the large pieces and putting the small branches and such into the burn pile (we haven't burned anything yet as we need a County burn permit).  We've cleaned up most of the property since we moved here, so that we have gotten some additional land which I threw grass seed on so the sheep will have a bit more pasture where the original burn pile was.  When I dug and hauled everything out of the corner, I noticed that one of the previous owners had actually tried to burn wood/garbage in that corner and several of the fence posts had chars on them as well as two posts almost burned entirely through.  We also had a branch on the apple tree that we had to take off and when we did, we noticed a lot of dry rot and perhaps termite damage in the center of the branch.  Of course, we were already aware that one of the previous owners didn't know how to prune trees either, so that left the cut branches parallel to the ground leaving a place for water/rain to get between the bark and the inner tree to be compromised.  Oh well, we'll have to replace most of the trees anyway (we've already taken down 10 of the 14 apple trees, the two willows, probably 2 of the peach/apricot trees, and maybe one of the walnuts...  What a waste.  Oh well, we'll put in trees that are more appropriate (a couple of elms, arborvitae around the front pasture to replace the ones that are dying for bad pruning, put in a couple more apricot/peach trees to replace the ones that are almost dead--basically starting from scratch.  It really upset me to see how poorly those trees on the property had been taken care of and I knew that this would happen, but I didn't think we'd still be here to deal with them...  But isn't this what life is all about.  I do have 2 tulip trees coming though for the lawn area, so we'll see how fast they grow; and we've got volunteer elms coming from Dale's Dad's farm (Dale is Lance's partner in Zydax).  But I'll still have to buy the peach and/or apricot trees and maybe get a few bush cherries and sand cherries to provide a nice privacy screen near the front pasture, but I don't want them to grow so tall that I can't see my sheep and alpacas when I'm looking out the front window.

So, today, I'm a little sore, but I'll go out and work a bit more in the pastures scooping alpaca pucky and sheep sh*t to put into the back pasture's compost heap.  You'd never believe just how much accumulates during the winter when I can't get out to shovel it each day, but the lovely compost I have for my gardens is wonderful.  I can hardly wait to see how my garden grows...  Mary, Mary, Quite contrary.  How does your garden grow?  And all of that nursery rhyme.

Today, the wind is a bit stronger and I see clouds encroaching in the SW, so I'd best get my behind out there to finsh what I can before the clouds get out here and I lose the day.  You'd never believe how young raising sheep and alpacas keeps me--learning new thiings every day!  I can't think of a better way to do this! TTFN!

9:55 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

No lambs yet, but they are coming...
Current mood: hopeful
Category: Pets and Animals

Well, it's mid-February and no lambs yet.  Seems like Rocky, our ram, was a bit slow on the job this year.  Last year, we had lambs in the first week of February, but every other year, we had lambs in the second to third week, which seemed to be the norm.  Rocky's 2.5 years old this year--we bought him from a friend in Midland, MI, when he was a lamb. I am very pleased with him, but he can be a bit ornery when he doesn't get his way, but mainly he likes people and will let them scratch his forehead and around his horns.

People always ask me if sheep with horns are dangerous.  I'd have to say they can be, but for the most part, the rams are probably the most dangerous whether they have horns or not.  They don't use their horns for anything much, but all rams ram with their foreheads.  They can hurt you quite badly if you don't watch out for them, especially when they're in rut (in heat) because then you become either a danger to the flock as in another ram, or you're a potential mate to ram which is just as dangerous. Think of when a male dog's in heat and how they jump up on you...now imagine a 300-pound ram trying to mount you.  You can see how dangerous that can be, and they are fast as well.  When Rocky's in heat, I don't give him scratches unless I'm outside of the pasture...that way he can't make any mistakes.

I can hardly wait for the lambs though.  This year, I have a 3 Icelandic ewes (100% Icelandics), an Icelandic/Finn cross ewe (her lambs will be 3/4 Icelandic & 1/4 Finn), a Cotswold ewe 50/50 Icelandic/Cotswold), a Finn ewe (50/50 Icelandic/Finn), and a Romney/Icelandic/Finn cross ewe (her lambs will be 50% Icelandic-25% Romney-25% Finn crosses).  It will be interesting to see how they all trurn out and what their fiber is like.  I also have two wethers, a 100% Icelandic and a Lincoln/Shetland cross and both have lovely fiber.  I enjoy the Icelandic/Finn crosses because they are single coated (Icelandics have a dual coat called the thel and tog) and the fiber felts better than either breed separately, so it's perfect for people who enjoy felting.  The Finn's have wonderful crimp and the Icelandics have wonderful luster so you can imagine what the crosses fibers are like.

I prepare the fleeces myself: first skirting (that's cutting the stained, manure, & bad part of the fiber out, as well as second cuts--very short pieces of fiber), then you separate the fleece into about 1 pound sections and put them into lingerie bags in order to scour (that's washing in spinning-ese) the fleece, then you rinse them, then you hang them to dry.  After they're dried, you can card them or spin from the lock, both of which will create two different types of yarn.  If you card it, it blends all the colors, but if you spin from the lock, you get a self-striping yarn and is quite lovely to knit with.  One thing to remember though, do not agitate the fleeces or they will felt on you in the washer.  You can spin the water out of the fleeces, but you take them out before you refill the tub.  Or you can wash smaller amounts of the fleece by hand, which takes much longer.    So, I generally use the washer to do wash the fleeces and can often get 2-3 fleeces scoured in one day.

I don't know if I mentioned this, but I give tours at the farm and have a Children's reading time on Sundays at 1 PM, PST.  The stories take about 30-45 minutes so after the kids have hadn fed the alpacas and have gotten really excited, it is time for something to drink and a story so they'll calm down for the ride home.  I ask for a donation of $1 per child, and that goes to helping to feed the animals (a bale of hay costs over $5/each now so though I never come out ahead on donations, I do have a little help and it's very much appreciated).  Besides, the kids have worn themselves out so after they get put into the car after story time, they usually fall asleep on the way home, which is a boon for the parents.

Last year was a strange year for selling lambs though.  We didn't sell any lambs in the spring, but we sold all of them between October and November.   Maybe our lambs are later than other people, but we put a sign out on the chain link fence which runs along the highway and that seems to draw a lot of people in for either tours or to buy lambs.  I like living along the highway because of that.  I also sold a lot of eggs last year for the same reason.  I sell them for a little more than the store does because they are farm fresh, and if they bring an egg carton with them, it costs them 50-cents less per dozen or an 18-count would, which brings the price pretty even with store bought eggs...and I don't have to buy cartons which will increase the costs of the eggs.  The eggs are very tasty.  The yolks are so yellow they're almost orange so you can see the chickens have been eating lots of bugs and grass, as well as the food and oyster shells I give them so they're eggs are not too soft.  We also give them their own egg shells back for the same reason...it helps them keep their calcium up.  Earlier in the spring we noticed that the chickens were laying eggs, but they imploded because their shells were too soft, which is why I started to give them oyster shells...then their shells became much harder.  I also blow the eggs out and dry them for people who use egg shells to make dioramas, egg shell ornaments for Easter or for Christmas, or use them for egg shell mosaics.  I have mainly Americana chickens so they lay eggs colored from pinkish ivory to pinkish brown, 4 shades of green, and 5 shades of blue.  So the egg shell mosaic artists don't have to dye all their egg shells to get the blue sky or water or green grass or leaves.  Americana chickens are also known as the Easter Egg chickens because their shells are already colored, and the kids love having Easter eggs for breakfast.  Americana chickens are hybrid of the Aracana chickens, who also lay colored eggs (but have less colors).  It's pretty amazing collecting the eggs to see what they're going to have.  Also, the insides of the colored eggs are white...it's just the outsides that are colored.

Bud, our Great Pyrenees dwarf, is now 2 years and 1 month old.  He's only knee-high on me, where as a regular sized Great Pyr is about hip high or taller.  However, despite his size, he is a formidable opponent against predators like raccoons, opposums, other dogs, or squirrels and birds (though they're really not a threat, he acts as if they are--chasing them out of the pastures he's in and is so proud of himself when he does).  He's caught a couple raccoons and has eaten them, which is why they do, so it saves on dog food on those days.

Norphan is our barn cat.  I "bought" her at Albertson's when two young ladies had a box full of kittens with the male kittens in bright blue ribbons and the females with bright pink.  Good marketing kudos for those girls.  There was one female left and I told them I needed to get change after I got my groceries and could they hold onto her for me, which they did (also good integrity kudos for them as well), and I came out and bought my kitten.  I had both Bud and Norphan neutered/spayed respectively, after they were both old enough to have it done.  Our Vet helps out charities and does spaying and neutering once a year, then donating the money on that day to some group who helps animals...that year it was a group who helps feral cats/kittens.  The other Vet we used to use doesn't do any volunteer work or donate any money to anyone, so I'd prefer to work with someone who does that rather than not do anything.

I'm in the process of starting a nonprofit group locally called The Blue Mountain Fiber Cooperative to help local fiber artists and fiber producers get the most money for their products as they can as well as splitting the costs of booths, dyes, gas, rooms, etc., so we can save money as well.  I'm filling out the paper work to get things started and have about 4 people who are going to serve as officers and on the board.  I'm excited about it, but it takes time to get enough people involved to get them to understand that it would be to their benefit to join the group.  This will be my second non-profit group I've started in the last 25 years.  I'd like to see a lot of these groups started so we can all benefit from organizations like this.  I got the idea from the food co-ops of the 60's and 70's.  We'll see how it goes.

I finally have a shearer, but he's a lot more expensive than our retired shearer was.  Of course, Jim (the retired shaerer) lived less than a mile away, and this guy lives an hour or so away, but there is no one else closer to us.  If Lance ever finished my stanchion, I'll be able to shear, trim hooves, give shots and whatever else I need to do all by myself.  I'd just use cob (a mixture of grains and molasses which the sheep love) to get the sheep into position, close the V and they can't get back out, but they can stay in place while I take care of all their needs.  I miss Jim a lot as he had such a wonderful rapport with the sheep and they liked him very much.  It was easy for him.  The first year, I had a shearer who kicked my sheep becasue they didn't do what he wanted, and he had a bad temper, so I refuse to use someone who doesn't care about animals and kicks them.  He probably kicks his dogs, too.  Animals deserve to be treated with respect. That shearer even drew blood on most of them so that just shows me that he was in too much of a hurry.  Not the kind of people I like to be around and I certainly don't want them around my  babies.  Hopefully the shearer from Sunnyside will do a good job.

We had a arborist come over to the house to take down the rest of our two willow trees that both had lost 1/2 of themselves to some strong winds.  One of them had fallen into the apple tree we have so we had to get it down as  best as we could before we called him.  He came by on Tuesday and took them down, so we have lots of firewood for next fall though it will probably burn fast, it will make good kindling, even the big pieces.  Now we have to find some trees to replace them as they were the trees that shaded the south side of the house, and it does get very hot in Walla Walla, so we need that shade to keep the house cooler in summer.

That's about all for now, but will right more when the lambs start to come along.

2:29 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

<b> Life is what you make it! </b>
Current mood: determined
Category: Life

3:16 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

My farm and animals
Current mood: cold
Category: Jobs, Work, Careers

I raise sheep and alpacas on a small farm/ranch. I have my animals sheared once a year, then process the fiber myself, and then spin the fiber into yarn. I started spinning because it seemed a good thing to do–making my own yarn to make things I've designed myself. It takes more time, but is a lot more challenging than to go to the LYS (that's Local Yarn Store for those of you who don't buy yarn) and picking out the best and greatest type of new yarn that the yarn producers have put out for big bux!

I love making natural colored yarn, knitting or crocheting with it, then using the product, selling it, or giving it away as a gift. I often donate what I make to one of my favorite charities. I donated a small teddy bear to a group who is making a specialized book to be auctioned off to benefit abused children. Another was a group in Sacramento who was trying to get 100 scarves to give to the homeless there. It's not like I don't have more fiber in bags just waiting to be spun and made into something. I think more people should do what they can for those who are less fortunate–it helps them and makes us look inside of ourselves and see what we've learned from helping them.

I also teach knitting, crocheting, dyeing, spinning, and felting to people, and I've always learned more from my students, than I do from books. Why? The students aren't afraid to ask questions and it helps me dig deep to figure out the right answer for them. It's great! I do learn from books, don't get me wrong, but it's more to figure out new techniques for what I'm working on at the moment–like 2-handed fair isle knitting or the continental cast-on, but that's how I keep my own work fresh!

I met my husband on Match.Com in February 1996. We were friends for almost a year, then met for the first time on 12/30/96. He proposed on 12/31/96, and I accepted on 1/2/97…and we got married on Valentine's Day 1997…what a great day to get married on and started our new life together. We've been married almost 10 years now–I can hardly believe it. I never thought I'd meet someone who would be there for me or someone who loved me as much as he does, and I feel the same way about him. Not that we don't have disagreements, but we haven't had but one bad disagreement the whole time we've been married. I think we found an almost perfect match in each other. We're planning on being married for 50 years, then renewing our marriage for another 50 years. We both have very long-lived relatives (my paternal Grandmother died 6 years ago at 98 yo, and his paternal Grandmother lived to 93 yo), and it is possible that we could both live to over 100 years and we've already put 10 of the first 50 years in, so 40 years plus another 50… Hmmmm…it's a possibility, after all. I can see living with him for 100 years and not really knowing everything about him, but it would be a pleasure doing so.

We each have a daughter from our first marriages: his daughter 10 months older than my daughter. Andrea is 23 yy and Alexandria is 22 yy–both are out of college and doing well. Nothing is worse than having adult children who've lost their "way," so that makes both our hearts feel at ease that they can take care of themselves.

About Celtic Crossroads: Living on a farm with animals is something I used to dream about when I was 8 yy and never have lost that dream. I didn't realize it until after I married Lance, but his reasons are very different than my reasons. I wanted to live on a farm because of self-sufficiency and he wanted to because of the peace and quiet, but nonetheless, it has worked out between us. So, we have a small 2.3-acre farm with 10 sheep, 4 alpacas, 11 free-range chickens, 3 guineas, a ranch dog (a dwarf Great Pyrenees named Bud), and a barn cat (name Norphan because she was "an orphan" = "'norphan" like in the Pogo comix strip).

Alpaca names (they're all male):
Alpacas are part of the Camelid family which includes camels, alpacas (Huacayas & Suris), llamas, guanacos and vicuña. Today, the llama, alpaca, guanaco, and vicuña are found in South America. There are 28 different colors of alpaca.

• Koko is a Huacaya (cinnamon with a white Harry Potter stripe on his front locks on his head)
• Earl Grey is a Huacaya (rose grey which is a grey with reddish/brown in the grey that looks rose or purplish)
• El Dorado aka Eldie is a Huacaya (a beautiful sparkling white boy and very handsome)
• Al Paca is a Suri (with white dreadlocks and fiber so fine it feels like silk)

Sheep names:
Icelandics are a primitive, dual-coated breed originating from Iceland and have been there for over 800 years first brought to Canada in the late 1970's-early 1980s, then brought to the U.S. shortly thereafter. The fiber grows from 8-14? long in one year, so I shear twice a year to have fiber I can spin without too much trouble.

• Rocky is our Icelandic ram–lustrous white fiber will be 2 yy in spring of 2007 and is our flock sire
• Sandy is an Icelandic ewe–dark grey mouflon lamb will be 1 yy in April of 2007
• Blackie is an Icelandic ewe–charcoal grey, 5 yy
• Blesa is an Icelandic ewe–reddish brown, aka moorit, fiber that's almost as soft as a lamb's wool & she's 4 yy
• Whitey is an Icelandic wether (a wether is a castrated male)—ivory and tan and he's about 5 yy

Finnish Landrace or Finnsheep:

• Madge, a white Finn ewe–4 yy in May

Cotwold

• Emmy, a multi-colored brown, gray, black ewe–1 year old in April

Crosses:

• Sophie, an Icelandic/Finn cross ewe–3 yo in February
• BW aka Black Wether, a Lincoln/Shetland cross wether—2 yo in March)
• Little Bits aka Bitsy, a white Romney/Icelandic ewe—1 year old in May
  

This is a picture of Sophie & her two lambs below. Quite a color difference in the lambs, isn't there? (The lambs are sold.)