Saturday, September 19, 2015

Hay in the Morning, Hay in the Afternoon

Up by 6:30 as Sara and Tim needed to be on the road by 7:30.
Before they left, Sara did a little spinning in preparation for her class at the 
Fiber Festival in Hemlock this morning.
 She said that the process was started by shepherds who would do this while they were tending their flocks.  Naturally, I don't know the terminology for all these things (a different language), but it sure was interesting to watch.  It takes longer than it would using a spinning wheel, but the advantage is, it can be done anywhere. "Drop spindling."  I just looked at Sara's blog...


It takes her about 20 hours to get enough yarn to make a sweater.
Pretty neat.  She raises the sheep, has them shorn, then I think she bags the wool and sends it somewhere to be washed and put into these fluffy pieces that she spins.  (After she reads this I'll probably have to make corrections).
 After a quick breakfast of bagels and cream cheese (with homemade peach jam) they loaded up their car and we added a box of veggies along with some rhubarb and a jar of raspberry jam.
 We never have enough time with these two sweet people, but we make the most of it and look forward to our next visit.  Fortunately, Sara and I are very tuned in to what is going on at our farms as we read each others posts regularly.
After teaching her second class at the Fiber Festival (and Tim's day of fishing), 
they headed back to Kentucky.
The sky looked pretty nice when I went out to do chores, but it ended up raining later in the day.
 Our friend Jerry was picking up a load of hay for us to look at (our last) so after cleaning the stalls Karen and I went upstairs and stacked up what we  had left all over the floor (Wednesday) to make sure it was nice and dry.  It was.

 Got everything cleaned up and made room for another hundred bales.




 While we were waiting for Jerry to arrive, I put up a few of our campaign signs
 around the neighborhood and met with a couple team members to a little brainstorming.
 By three, we were in business.
 Our friend, Ted F. had stopped in for a visit on his way to Buffalo and ended up helping us unload and stack.  It was nice to have an extra person, as Karen frequently does a lot of the heavy lifting.
 
 Before Ted left, he and Gary went down to the Town Park to catch Cooper's baseball game.
He was having a great day in the hitting department...just in time for his Grampa to see it.

 Gary and Ted both lived in Jamestown, NY and attended the same High School.  I knew him through my family.  We have kept in touch and manage to see each other almost every year.
Many years ago our oldest daughter (Stephanie) had the pleasure of spending 6 months in Paris with his family, as Ted was working there.  A once in a lifetime opportunity for her.
 No rest for the wicked today.  
It started pouring so I tucked the girls  in a little early.
 Tim took this picture of our table last night and sent it to me.  Love it.
...and this was our dinner tonight.  An instant replay.
 Night all.

6 comments:

  1. That is a lot of work! I would love to get a section of the shed cleaned out for stacking small bales. We have gotten some great quality round bales that we peel and feed off from for this winter.
    Looks like it was a beautiful and busy day.

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  2. Always nice to see good friends. I love having lots of hay stacked and ready to go.

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  3. What do they say, "Make hay...". How many crops can you get? 2? 3?

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  4. Ah Lori, I also follow Sara's and Tim's life on her blog. Great that you all spent quali time together.

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  5. Sara looks great! What a great head of hair she has! I'm sure it's so nice to pull up to your house after a long drive and know what good food is in store! I think I'd still like to have sheep at some point. What I'd really like most is for a neighbor to have sheep so I can just look at them :)

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