Back Home and Photos from the Trip

We had great fun in New Hampshire but it is always a relief to pull in the driveway and unpack your stuff and see that all is well with the world when you get home!

The annual photo in Mattawa at the Ottawa river.  Ontario to the left and Quebec to the right.

Will and the Wee Wren

Sam and my wheel on the deck of the Llama barn

This is the lovely Llama barn where we slept and spun.

Tidepooling on the Atlantic Ocean

Hamming it up at the Ocean at low tide

I found this wee pool on the top of a large rock.  Evidently it is mostly exposed at high tide and the water that splashes into it dries out under the sun....creating those white salt crystals at the bottom!  We couldn't resist tasting them.

Inuksuk with ocean stones.

Much swimming was done during the hot weather and great progress made by all three kids.  Lila was jumping off the diving board and swimming in the deep end by the time we left.

Child throwing was considered great fun and Sam only lost his suit once.

...and then there was the bag party on the eve of our departure.  The main idea is that you call out a number when asked by the bag party ring master (Aunt Alis) and you get a prize.  However, if you call the WRONG number there are consequences....

A pie in the face.  I'm not sure who called the wrong number for Will.

Now it is RARE for the wrong number to be called at a bag party.  Having a wrong number TWICE in the same bag party is unprecedented.

Not impossible however.  Poor Aunt Bonnie got a pie in the face because Duncan called a negative Seven.  The universe doesn't appear to like negative seven.

Duncan was a bit suprised but quite relieved that HE didn't get the pie in the face!

Spinning at the llama barn

One of my favorite things to do since we've been on vacation has been to set up my Ashford Joy on the llama barn porch and spend some morning time spinning.  I didn't have much time before leaving to card fleece which stressed me out to no end since it is silly to cart a wheel across 1,000 miles with nothing to spin on it.  Will convinced me that we had plenty of room to bring the drum carder and some fleece so I did.  I spent a morning carding up some of Cameo's fleece which is long and soft and fluffy!  I had brought some angora to blend with it but it was soft enough already and I really just wanted to feel that long silky fleece slip through my fingers.  I think she is classified as an intermediate fleeced shetland and she is the largest sheep in our flock (her picture is on the sidebar).  She has a white background with very large patches of fawn and it blends into a nice dark oatmeal/pale taupe color.  She has a rather shy personality.

The llama barn actually WAS a llama barn before it was converted into guest quarters.  Seems fitting.

Shaker Village

Yesterday we went to the Canterbury Shaker Village in Canterbury NH.  The village was originally 3000 acres with 300 members at the height of their movement, and is currently at 600 acres with one remaining sister (not on site) who is 91.  It is a lovely timepiece and testimony to the incredible ingenuity that the Shakers had and the furnishings left me drooling after leaving each house in the village.  Will enjoyed looking at all the post and beam construction in the barns and houses and shared my enthusiasm for the beautiful, labor intensive and simple furnishings.  We left the gift shop a few dollars lighter with some gifts, though I resisted the siren call that a shaker sewing box was singing to me (not hard at $165.00).  There was a very sweet lady spinning on an Ashford Traveller at the gift shop and we had a nice conversation with her.

Spent last evening, sans children, with the Wheelers, Pouilliots and Johnsons around a campfire overeating some wonderful Maine corn and listening to tunes from the fellows playing guitar, pennywhistle and mandolin.  Dear friends and very enlightened people whose company we always look forward too.  It is always interesting hearing stories about your husband being naughty when he was in college....  The Wheelers have a feed and grain business and I was able to hold a few bunnies, pat some goats and horses and stroke some kitties....I didn't realize how homesick I was for the animals until then.

Evidently the kids had a great time with Aunt Bonnie yesterday at the amusement park.  We spoke with them all on the phone and Sam said "this is the best vacation I ever had!"  Aunt Bonnie sounded pretty beat though!  :)  They will be home this morning and Aunt Mary will be arriving sometime today for a visit.

We have arrived..

Well, we've actually been here a couple of days.  Nothing too eventful on the long drive except the nasty traffic jam just east of Montreal due to construction.  Had we known that we would have taken route 89 south into Vertmont...  Stopped in Vertmont Monday afternoon at a welcome center for some Green Mountain Roaster coffee and pressed south to Lee, NH.  Spent the first evening in Arnprior Ontario at a hotel on the edge of a hydroelectric dam that has a nice view of an artificial waterfall and enjoyed (some of us) Chinese takeout at a picnic table in the park.  It is a beautiful drive along route 17 from Sault Ste. Marie to about North Bay.  The smell of cow is pretty darn strong once you head east of Montreal.  And the city of Montreal itself is rather stunning if you can bear the sprawl outwards with all the walmarts and other non-canadian cultural influence.

It is WARM bloody hot here!  Yesterday it was in the high 80's and will hit 90 today.  We are not used to the heat and high humidity.  Spent yesterday at Odiorne Point State Park and the Seacoast Science Center (Otherwise known as the Starfish Museum) and the kids had fun playing in the touch tank with sea urchins, starfish, marine snails, mussells and crabs.  We went down the beach a bit to the seacoast and did some tidepooling.  I have photos but I don't think I have a way to transfer them to the pewter.

Today will be spent primarily in the pool!  We bought six ladderback shaker styled chairs that we will be picking up today from a local antique shop.  I think we can get at least four of them back to Michigan on the roof of the van...it will look most interesting I'm sure!  The kids are going to Aunt Bonnies this evening to spend the nite and then tomorrow during the day she is taking them to something akin to an amusement park for the day and Will and I will be going to Canterbury Village (a shaker village).  I have hopes of getting to the Harrisville Loom Company while we are here too.  They have a curriculum book on spinning that one of the teachers at the school will be using this fall and she agreed to teach it if I would help.  SO I NEED THE BOOK RIGHT???  :)

More updates later....

Shearing Llamas

One of my favorite blogs is Whispering acres and Claire did a blog about how to shear a llama the "traditional (ie. South American) way".  You can view it HERE to get all the nitty gritty details that were useful to us.

We were THRILLED to find out that it works and is relatively easy once you get past the body slamming putting the halter thing on (this with Igraine, the tamest of the lot!  Pikachu was just fine).

It LOOKS bad.  In fact, a trussed up Llama looks a lot like a dead llama.

Mmamma Llamma Llilith looks on...she was rather concerned that we were taking her darling Igraine out of the barnyard and made all sorts of interesting llama noises but did refrain from spitting.

They look even more dead when you start removing fiber...a victim of a depredation (a fiber depredation!)

Igraine received plenty of loving...especially from her beloved Will.  She lay prone like this for a long time even after being released from the rope around her hindquarters.  Will is using a nubbly rubbery brush on her and she enjoyed that quite a bit!

Llillith defied capturing.  She is wily.  She witnessed both fiber depredations on Pikachu (background) and her wee Igraine.  She is going to be hard to catch unawares... Both girls received much needed pedicures as well!

Soccer is Over!

That didn't seem over gleeful did it?  Two nights a week and three different games a night...makes for a long summer!  :)  Duncan is sad it is over, but Sam and Lila are glad.

The coach took all sorts of abuse...

Duncan was the experienced player in the U6 team.

This was Sam's first year on the U8 team...he was a goofball...no surprise to anyone but his coaches!

Lila grew some long legs this year.

There were messy ice cream treats at the end.

Grouchy Wren

I didn't take any of these pictures so I'm not sure what the actual scenario was but I know that Lila is not totally awake very early in the morning and that her father tends to find this amusing...

Ignored

Usually when I go out to the pasture to spend time with the woolies I am completely inundated by sheep, llamas and now goats who want pats.  These girls were so into their grass duties that I was completely ignored, even though I called and cajoled....all 12 sheep and 2 goats are in this photo.

"You know lady, if you would have bothered to bring cookies maybe someone would come visit you".

Er, sorry Tea- you are absolutely right.

Amy could use some cookies.  She is the only woolie here not in the best condition.  She is thin and has been wormed a few times with different concoctions but still doesn't put on weight.  I try to sneak her some oats through the fence every couple of days which generally causes quite a commotion amongst the gang.  If anyone has any ideas about how to get some weight on her I'd be happy to hear them.  She is just the sweetest sheep...

Big D's Glasses

I'm not sure where these silly glasses came from but Duncan decided to model them last night as we were reading bedtime stories and I couldn't resist capturing "the mood". 

Time flies...

That old cliche about time flying seems to be more true the older you get and the more work there is to be done I'm finding out.

This weekend was busy finishing up washing fleeces-a chore that I normally enjoy very much but was drawn out to the point of sillyness by all the rainy weather we had this early summer.  It was only completed as quickly as it was because a chunk of it will be sent off to be made into top...some of the beautiful fleeces were just completely full of VM.  Thank goodness for the sheep coats because I certainly can't afford to have more top next year and I cringe at throwing all those individual fleeces with all their character into one big pot to get the weight up for the minimum needed to process the top!

The llamas still need to be shorn and have their toes attended to.  Weeknights this week perhaps working around soccer?  Maybe next weekend as well.

Sunday I spent a few hours at a fellow spinners house playing in the dye pots.  She had a batch of indigo going so I dyed some mohair roving in that pot, and experimented with rainbow dyeing some correidale roving I had.  It was a blue day!    I had experimented with a black bean dye for some mohair last weekend and it turned out more gray than blue...reminds me of the "blueing" that little old ladies used to have done to their hair.  I'm going to try some copper pennies and ammonia next...ideas gleaned from Jane's fertile mind.

Top to bottom: Indigo mohair, "rainbow" corriedale, black bean mohair.

One of my purchasers for the bunnies fell through- a family emergency will be taking her out of town so it is not a good time to add pets to her life. This means I need to place five bunnies instead of three! Will have to work on marketing this week. Speaking of the bunnies....they are starting their Fuzzy without Faces phase.

The agouti buck is really friendly and it is hard to get a picture without him in it!

Eating pellets with gusto... The black kit is also a buck.

Oh me, me, me....take me out please!!  There are three white does and one white buck (last I checked anyway!)

Are you looking for me?

The chocolate vienna marked buck has one blue eye and one brown eye.