Eight Days on the Road!

I'm so excited - tomorrow morning I am attending the Shibori Symposium at the Textile Center of Minnesota. I signed up for a seminar by Chad Alice Hagen. I love her felt work! Her latest book, "Fabulous Felted Scarves" is full of innovative felting techniques. The seminar will be on transferring dyes on paper to felt. Should be interesting!

Immediately afterward, Kim Nikolai and I are leaving for an 8-day road trip to Wilson, WY (near Jackson). We will be staying with her friend Susan for four days. We're hauling out five Scottish Blackface ewes for Susan from Littledale farm in WI. Kim and Susan want to work with their Border Collies and the sheep. I plan to take photos, sketch, paint the mountain scenery.

We'll be heading down to Estes Park, CO for the Wool Market and BFL Revolution over Father's Day weekend.

I am really looking forward to meeting some of the BFL and Shetland breeders from out west! I can't wait to see all the sheep in the competitions too. The BFL breeders are hosting a banquet on Saturday evening and I hope we get there in time to attend. Sounds like Jared has a great menu of lamb planned that night.

I'm not sure I will have access to my email account out there. So if anyone needs to get a hold of me via email, you can use riveroaksshetlands@yahoogroups.com if I don't respond to the regular address.

I've been busy getting ready to leave my home and flock for a whole week. I got the older lambs started on their CDT shots and filled all the mineral buckets. Put out two water buckets just in case someone forgets to refill them. I got the garden planted yesterday and put hog panels around it to keep the cats and dog out. By the time I get back I should see corn, lettuce, zucchini, cucumbers, squash, pumpkins and watermelon sprouted. The forecast looks warm and rainy for the coming week, so my onions, peppers, and brandywine tomatoes should do fine.

Check out how hefty River Oaks Lana is getting! The lambs are all growing so fast! Well, except for Jemma's little black Shetland Mule ram lamb. Gosh, he's so cute and little! Cora's little ram lamb is super friendly and has the quietest voice. I think he'll have a long and wavy fleece and a great little tail.

Here's a shot of River Oaks McIntire evading the wrath of Derra the other day. He was hoping to get a drink and she let him know it wasn't gonna happen. I'm still hoping he may turn out to be dark brown. He's out of River Oaks Hattie, a black F2 Holly (BB/Bb) and Windswept Boggart, a mioget. Sabrina has a black she's hoping is modified and I think they both look brown in the face already.

One last shot of my azalea blooms and bleeding hearts. They'll be history when I get back. I love the azalea blossoms. I wish they would last longer. The bleeding heart has been in bloom for a couple weeks and it's getting bigger every year.

Okay, back to packing and cleaning. We have a party to attend this afternoon at Mark's place. Here is a shot of his figure after I added the glasses and before I added wisps of BFL locks for hair in back. It stands about 7.5" tall. Yes he did like it but would have liked to have seen some abs on the tummy.