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Lilka was born last spring and from the beginning it was obvious that she would stay on here at Stonehaven Farm. Everything about her was beautiful to my shepherd’seye…she is a katmoget (light badgerface genetics) with a perfect little body,  a big soft lustrous fleece with the long single coat that we have been breeding for….and beyond that, her impish personality completely captured my heart.

We almost lost Lilka this week to polioencephalomalacia…presumably from stress related to shearing a few days before. We were unaware of any problems until we found her having seizures last Sunday afternoon; she has been in “intensive care” ever since. An hour or so after giving her B-vitamins fortified with thiamine, CMPK sub-Q and some Banamine, she was once again able to stand….but still blind and confused. As soon as she was able to swallow, she got doses of probiotic to restore her ailing rumen.

Since Monday, Lilka has been looking like a well sheep in all regards except one. She hasn’t been able to eat or drink by herself. She has been given our rumen remedy, oral CMPK and copious amounts of probiotic several times a day…all keeping her alive, but somehow the flora in her rumen hadn’t been able multiply to numbers that would sustain her.

In addition to all this, as soon as she was able to deal with it, I began feeding her small amounts of hay by putting it into the side of her mouth…and although I have been careful to give her only a little at a time, she has chewed and swallowed very well; just couldn’t pick it up on her own. But she was obviously hungry for it…lately sniffing me and nudging me a bit when I was in the pen with her.

For the past three days, with sunny warm(ish) temperatures, it seemed better to let her out of her little pen in the barn so that she could feel like a “sheep” and could be as stress free as possible. So in the mornings, she got her meds and probiotic and was topped up with the rumen remedy and gruel before she went out with the others.

Each day, she has stood watching the other sheep, and going from hay pile to hay pile feeling that she ought to do something, but was unsure how to go about it. But TODAY (tah-dah!) she ate a little with the others…not terribly efficiently, but she managed to get her mouth around the hay for the first time.

We won’t stop giving her the rumen support and vitamins, but I feel sure that our dear little Lilka will recover, and will grace our farm for years to come.

This Wednesday…inside.

And outside!

The first of two shearing days.  We thought that spring was coming this week….the blackbirds had returned, there was some open ground, and the chickadees were singing their spring song.

Happily we were able to keep all the sheep in their respective barns and do our skirting under cover. The cloudy skies kept the temperatures relatively warm for this time of year, and the sheep seemed unscatherd (granted they were bedded heavily and fed up well, but this year, they were almost relaxed).

In two of the barns, the shorn sheep were put back into the pens instead of being turned outside  as usual. They were cozier that way, and out of the wintery weather.

The Border Collies had two great days of sheep-watching…notice those bright eyes:

Angus thought that a dog could fit under this gate, and proved it…..but was busted immediately!

Everything had to be done under cover; we set up our skirting table inside the barns:

We were cozy if not all that warm…..

Again the star of the show was Clint Godwin, who comes all the way down from Northern WA to shear our flock.

The best shearer that we have ever had…thank you Clint!

And thanks to all our dear friends who help us at shearing….we love sharing this time with you!

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints — I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! — and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

Written by Elizabeth Barrett Browning to her future husband, Robert; one of the sonnets that she gave to him as a wedding gift.

I have been traveling again…and am just on the way home from my latest week of work on the Reservation. I have held this dream-like image of our farm in my mind….and Brook and all the animals in my heart.

On my way to Tuba City, I always stop in Flagstaff to visit Kathy and Ralph who have made me so welcome over my time in AZ. The Flagstaff climate is almost identical to ours in Pine Valley, and being there always feels like home. Flagstaff has had a deep snow winter so far (unlike us) and the night that I arrived, their farm was graced with another 6″ or 7″. I say “graced” for my benefit; it was beautiful.

But at this point, they likely don’t feel the same!

When I arrived in Tuba City, I brought to my room there the loom that my friend and weaving mentor Betty Nez set up for me a few months ago. I forgot to take a photo this time…but here is what it did look like at the beginning:

While I am there in Tuba City, I weave, knit, spin and read…but after a long day of work, I seem to only have enough energy to weave. I am in a learning curve that is longer than I would choose, but the weavers around me have spent a lifetime doing this, and have generations of tradition behind them. I have much to learn…

In her kindness, Betty has given me some of her handspun and wound a warp for me to take home. Her yarn is spun traditionally on a Navaho spindle, but her choice is to spin a more bulky yarn. I LOVE it; the weaving has such character and will go faster…a great thing for my impatient-to-experience-it-all self.

I borrowed the loom frame from a friend in our valley, saving me lots of work, and I have set up the warp on the frame. But I only had time to weave a little before I left for AZ. I am excited to get back to it…

This evening I will be home and back to my “real” life. But in the meantime, everything about my AZ home is a blessing.

Cedar Haven Cleopatra has come to live with us….

The decision that we would bring this little ewe into our flock (of too-many sheep) seems to have been made a long time ago:

In 2008, Jan Dodge contacted me, hoping that I would be interested in a horned ewe…she knew that this was a particular weakness of mine.  At that point, Jan was dispersing her flock and hadn’t found a home for the sheep she described as her dearest ewe, Egypt. Jan sent me a photo, and some fleece samples.

Egypt in 2008

It was a hard decision but on January 22, 2008 (remember that date), I wrote to Jan explaining that we just couldn’t see our way clear to take on another sheep; we had bred way too many ewes to lamb that spring. But Egypt had such a beautiful look in her eyes…she seemed to be begging me to take her. I couldn’t get her out of my mind, and wanted to find the right home for her if we couldn’t bring her here.

So my thoughts went to my dear friend Lynne, who had just lost Twinkle, one of her favorite ewes (another horned lady with amazing presence). I suggested to Lynne that her farm might be the “right home” for Egypt…sent her the photo that Jan had sent me….and she couldn’t resist those eyes either! Eygpt went to live with Lynne at Cedar Haven Farm.

Fast forward to 2010….

Late last fall, in our perpetual state of flock reduction, I offered Lynne Twinkle’s daughter Crystal…who is very like her mother, thinking of it as a way of Lynne’s having Twinkle back again. Since Crystal carries spots, Lynne and I agreed to breed her here to the HST ram Shady Oaks Spats.

Crystal

We have a Crystal daughter (Fantasie) who is another Crystal…and who will lamb this spring, also bred to Spats. I could do this…

Fantasie

The day that we brought Crystal to Lynne was January 22, 2010….two years after we decided that we couldn’t take Egypt. But Lynne had a plan….she offered us Cleopatra, Egypt’s daughter, whom she described as Egypt’s clone!

Brook and I met Egypt and her elegant little ewe-lamb that same day, and although we didn’t “need” another sheep, we followed the path that we had faltered on two years ago…and Cleopatra came home with us. She will likely be shaela like her mother, and has the most beautiful silky soft fleece. She is lovely indeed.

The circle is complete…and after only a few hours, Cleopatra seemed to have been a member of our flock all along.

Yesterday Juliette left us….she was tentatively diagnosed with a bone marrow malignancy over a year ago. Her anemia was amazingly severe, but from the beginning, we couldn’t subject her to bone marrow biopsies, trips to veterinary centers, and chemotherapy. We knew that it was a battle that we ultimately could loose (and almost did last summer), but we had to try to keep her with us….and wanted her to be as happy as she could be.

We choose steroid therapy as the only possibility we felt would not make her life traumatic. And it worked; she rallied and went into remission, gained weight and never complained about the daily injections she needed to survive. Her year has been full of hills and valleys, but mostly it has been a good one for her, until this past week when her blood counts plummeted again.

Through it all, her loving personality never changed. Even when she was weak, and lounging on the bed or the sofa, she rolled over on her back and miaou-ed softly to us when we said her name. At the vet’s, she luxuriated in the attention…whatever condition she was in, she purred so loudly that no one was able to hear her breath sounds. And this was so even on the day before she passed away.

Juliette loved her life and wanted to be near us, whatever we were doing. She was a little buddha, living in the moment, and finding pleasure in whatever she was given…we had much to learn from her.

She came to us in a litter of feral kittens that we rescued and hand raised nearly 5 years ago. Juliette and her brother Lefty have been beloved members of our family ever since.

We will miss her sweet spirit….and pray that she will find us again some day.

I have been inside all day, nursing a cold and cough. I was beginning to get sick on Thursday, but ignored it since I had committed to help at the Halfway check-point for the Eagle Cap Extreme dog sled race and nothing short of hospitalization would have kept me from it.

This race happens each January and is one of the highlights of my year. I bundled up well and temperatures were mild (in the mid-20s), not the bone-chilling low single digits that we experienced last year. I think that I am not the worse for going…or so I want to believe! I don’t see myself dog-sled racing in this lifetime, but I can at least taste a little of it in this way.

There are 100 and 200 mile races in this event, and the longer race is a qualifier for the Iditarod. There were only four competitors doing the 200 mile race this year, and they began arriving at the Halfway midpoint in the early morning hours Friday. The going was rougher this year and the course a little longer on the outbound loop, and so only one team arrived in the dark. Seeing the bobbing headlamp of the musher and the all but silent approach of the team is thrilling….no picture could capture that, but I did take some sunrise photos:

As each team came in, we checked their required list of supplies, marked down their official time of arrival, and led the team to a resting place. There was an obligatory 6 hour lay-over….dogs and mushers spent the time sleeping and eating and rehydrating. Bedding was provided for the dogs and tents were available for the mushers.

Three of the four teams of dogs were wearing booties to protect their feet. And after they settled into their places at the rest area, the mushers put leg braces on the dogs and treated all their feet with a drying healing salve.

The musher who came in first ultimately won the race…finishing 10 hours ahead of all the others. I watched as he put down bedding for his dogs (who went almost immediately to sleep) and then got out his sleeping bag, and lay down to sleep with his team as the sky lightened:

After the dogs on this team had slept awhile, they were ready to eat! All eyes were on their musher encouraging him with not so subtle woofs to hurry, hurry, hurry with the foodbowls!

Some were tired enough to eat lying down, but most were on their feet and scrapping for their food.

My mind’s eye is still filled with sleeping dogs…

Seeing these sweet hard-running dogs made comfortable, and so carefully looked after by their mushers was a beautiful experience.

My shift was over at 8:00, but I stayed until all the teams had come in and scribed for the vet as he carefully went over each dog. It was such a thrill that I never felt cold, never felt sick, never felt tired.

I just got home yesterday evening from my last stint in AZ…and I will say this first of all:

Home is the BEST place!

In the spirit of the New Year, I am trying to chip away at the several UFOs waiting for me, and have vowed not to begin a new knitting project until I have finished at least one of them. There are 4 neglected unfinished objects, and only one qualifies as a WIP.

The reasons that these items ended up as UFOs are NOT complimentary to me….

For the past 6 months or so, I have been knitting furiously….it was my solace and my passion through the summer and fall. I don’t mind difficult patterns, and have actually pushed the envelope a bit in knitting skills. But during this time, it seemed that when the project I was working on challenged me too much, I found something else alluring….and bolted!

Too wit: I began a Gansey sweater for Brook; designed the body (knit that), decided on the neck type and its depth (knit that), designed the shoulder straps (knit those), attached them, and picked up stitches along the first armhole.

It wasn’t until Brook tried the sweater on that I realized that the shoulder straps made the armhole a lot bigger than I had planned. And although I decreased more rapidly, it still wasn’t enough, and the armhole was baggy. I knew that I had to rip the sleeve out and begin again. (the pin marks where I have to rip to). The whole process was just too painful, so I put the sweater by until time would allow me to make my trip to the frog pond. I haven’t yet….

Then I decided to knit some socks with the yarn I bought from Blue Moon….and teach myself the Magic Loop. But on the second sock, I tried using two circular needles….I found that I preferred that technique to ML. Both socks came out fine, but I was stopped in my tracks when I decided to use the Kitchener stitch to graft the toes. These socks were going to the ones that helped me learn to graft:

But I decided that I need time to concentrate quietly and intensely. I was sure to find it when I was working in AZ. But the sad truth is that since then, I have taken them with me twice….they still have open toes.

In the meantime, I decided to knit another pair of socks, both at the same time. The socks were progressing swimmingly, but I found that I hated knitting two at once.

I don’t have second sock syndrome, never have and don’t like the fiddly feeling I get having two socks on the needles. I planned on separating them and progressing one sock at a time….when Kathy sent me an e-mail that there would be an Entrelac class at the LYS in Flagtaff (Purl in the Pines)

The course was taught brilliantly and part of the process was to learn to knit backwards (turning the work over and purling back again for each little section had kept me from Entrelac up to that point). The yarn I chose (quite by accident) proved to be just right and I am smitten…I want to keep knitting and knitting. But this is to be a LONG stole (and a long-term project)….and so can’t slip all that easily into UFO status.

With that in mind, tomorrow I am going to frog the sleeve of Brook’s sweater and begin my decreases again. And Tuesday, a knitter friend who does the Kitchener stitch is going to help me finish the Blue Moon socks. The Entrelac stole will wait….

My mother always remembered the year, the month and the day that someone she loved had passed away. I never have; initially I felt a little guilty about it, but eventually realized that I couldn’t bear to relive those losses as sad anniversaries. And to this day, I have to count carefully to remember how many years it has been since some loved one died. My heart forces me to erase those facts.

But I will remember 2009 and my mother’s passing….yes, out of love and respect for her…but also because this was a year of intense and unwelcome emotions (most of all grief and loss, but mixed in were fear, dread, despair, guilt, confusion, and loneliness). On the Solstice evening, I wrote all those emotions and troubling thoughts on a piece of paper, and burned the words. I have never particularly valued or needed ceremonies, but I think that this one helped me.

The bright light in all of the past year (and in all years) came from Brook who empathized, suffered with me, helped me hold the center. And the peace and joy of our life together kept me afloat. He shouldered the responsibilities of the farm and caring for all the animals during times when I couldn’t be home, and dealt with many crises single-handedly.

Since we are so much the same, when I go away, I don’t worry about the welfare of the animals; Brook loves them and cares for them as I do.

Brook drove all the way to AZ this fall to visit me there, and we had a wonderful long weekend. We visited all the places that I loved and until then, hadn’t been able to share with him. We came to the Grand Canyon for sunset and hiked there the next day…it WAS grand on all levels!

I have one more week in AZ before I go home to make the work lighter by half. And then Brook can work in the guitar shop without interruption in his days. His happiness in doing what he loves, mine at being home, and our joy in being together again will brighten the winter days.

I am reminded of a saying that always hung on Brook’s mother’s wall:

“Who has a friend with whom to share, has double cheer and one-half care”