Craft Fair

One of the towns closest to me is hosting a craft fair.  They want the focus to be on the craft and demonstrating how to do it, instead of filling space with pampered chef stalls.  There is nothing wrong with Pampered Chef, but many craft fairs get overrun by vendors selling items they had no hand in making which makes people not want to attend. 
This craft fair will have polymer clay jewelry and demonstrations on how to make it, stained glass with some demos, hardinger lace, rose malling, many other artisans, and it will also have me.  I am trying to work out space.  I have not been able to pin down what size space I will have, but, for sure I will bring my 2 spinning wheels.  I will have the Reeves wheel for me to demo and the Joy for others to try out.  My mother is learning how to use the drop spindle, so she will be there showing people how to spin with that.  We will have 13 drop spindles for sale and for demonstrating.  I also plan on having a basket of Suffolk wool and a pair of hand cards for children to sit and card, but that will depend on the space I have. 
The other things I want to have, but I am not sure there will be space is my drum carder.  My 2 youngest children know how to work it and would prepare special batts for people who want to try their hand at combining colors and fibers.  I also want to bring my English Combs that I would bring our at the top of the hour to demonstrate how to comb fiber.  They are too scary of a tool to leave out. 
We will also have fiber, yarn, pelts, and noils for sale along with the spindles.

This is quite a project.  I have never done this before, but I think it is a great opportunity to get people interested in spinning and wool.  I have a ton of prep to do to get ready.  I don't think I have enough fiber or knit items for display.  I am looking forward to it and apprehensive because this is not only new to me, but, also to the people who are putting this on.

Wool

Recently I purchased some wool from etsy.  It was a 10 pack of 1 ounce each from different breeds of sheep.  There was a discussion on ravelry about how much you can spin from 800 grams of wool and I weighed in on the different masses of wool and that it would be impossible for anyone to estimate how much a perfect stranger who is not an experienced spinner would be able to spin from 800 grams and it would be impossible to judge for even me (I tend to know how much yardage I get from merino) because the person in question did not know the breed of sheep.  Some people did not think the breed would make any difference, so here is a photo of 4 of the tops I received to illustrate this fact.

From left to right we have one ounce each of: Shetland, Merino, Falkland, and Gotland.
There are other properties of these wools that will determine how much yardage you can obtain.  The most yardage will be from the merino because it will spin up the finest and next would be the Falkland.  The Shetland is very airy but also coarse, so it would be third and make a nice woolen yarn.  It too can be spun pretty fine.  Now the Gotland is very dense.  Trust me, it has the same mass as the Shetland.  The gotland can be spun fine if you have patience, but it will want to be spun thicker than any of the others and because of the density, there just is not enough fiber, no matter how fine, to come close to the merino.  I also doubt it would be even 2/3 of the Shetland yardage.
Having never worked with the Gotland, I would guess that it would make a great carpet yarn.  It appears to have a very long staple (length of the individual fibers) and very little crimp.

Article from JAMA

Intellectualization of Drug Abuse
....
Here, I draw on my experience as a drug abuser who for years maintained a relatively successful career as a basic biomedical scientist studying the neuroscience of addiction and compulsion to present a cautionary tale regarding the extreme dangers of intellectualizing drug use. No matter how well versed one may be in pharmacology or the addictive process, the fact remains that severe problems due to drug abuse can arise almost instantly, and no matter how in control one may believe himself to be, these problems can lead to tragic and irreversibly life-altering consequences.

In my case, this intellectualization occurred on three main levels. The first related to my drug use patterns. I was a daily user of cannabis for most of the past decade, and an intermittent user of opioids, primarily via the intravenous route, for approximately three years. This use occurred while I pursued a career in basic science research, with a heavy focus on addiction. Consequently, I was intimately familiar with the drug abuse literature and psychiatric diagnostic manuals such as the DSM-IV. I was able to finish my doctorate and conduct research at a high level at the same time I was a regular drug user.

...
This is just a snippet from the article, the rest is equally interesting.

Nostepinne

A nostepinne is an old tool used to wind balls of yarn into center pull balls.  They cost around $20 and up.  A wooden spoon is a common household item that can be used as a great substitute.  I got this idea from a You Tube video, but for some reason I can not get the code from that video to load here.

Here are the results of my nostepinne:

a little more than 850 yards, 165g, 5.8oz of handspun, 2 ply, merino from my flock. 

I think the spoon worked well, slow, but well.

Lambs

Last Tuesday the kids had to go to the "big" town to take some tests for school.  I got up early to take Dear to work, fed the sheep, and made breakfast for the kids.  Before we left I checked on the sheep and noticed there was a new lamb.  I saw she was standing and looking strong and everything was fine.  I did not have time to investigate further.  The kids' test is a requirement for the school and unless they are hospitalized they are to be there.  They could be kicked out of the school if they fail to show for these tests.  So, we left.  I got back home 6 hours ater to find a very weak ewe lamb, so weak she would not get up.  I felt terrible and responsible.  I tried to get some milk in her and finally got her to stand.  She was very weak and I did not have any colostrum at home or electrolytes.  We left so the kids could finish their last day of swim class and test.  While they were testing in swimming, I went to the vet to pick up a few things for the ewe lamb and any others that may come along.  We were home about 90 minutes later.  Dear and I put a tube down her throat and got some colostrum in her and we monitored her.  After about 30 minutes of near death, she stretched and stood up.  She was baaing forcefully so I brought her to her mother.  I gave it about 15 minutes and she did not try and nurse.  We took her back inside and made sure she got the required amount of fluids, but after 12 more hours she would no longer open her eyes.  I waited until Dear got home to take care of her and tried to make her as comfortable as possible. 
Meanwhile, another ewe, Na-Na, lambed and had twin ram lambs.  I had been watching the barn and checking ever 1-2 hours for signs of lambing, still feeling terribly guilty.  When I saw the one lamb I quick got her into a pen with the help of all of the kids who were on a vacation from school because of the testing.  She looked like she was taking good care of her little guy and she had another lamb.  The lamb still had its hindquarters in her and she looked tired and as though she was done pushing.  I tore the sack open and cleared the lambs throat, grabbed the lamb and carefull pulled him out when I could tell she was having a contraction.  The umbilical cord of a lamb gets severed when it exits the birth canal so it is important to get to them quickly and get their mouth cleaned off so they can breath.  After I got it out of her I laid it next to her other lamb and noticed he too was a boy.  It is also important to get the lamb where the ewe is focused so she accepts it right after she gives birth.  If you do not, she may not reckognize it as her own and can even try and kill it.  Our merinos have never been rough with a foreign lamb, but the Suffolks are brutes and can be quite mean.  I then iodined their navels because bacteria enters there easily, stripped the waxy plug that protects bacteria and infections from entering the ewe's teats, and attempted to show the new guys were to go.  The ewe needed some quiet, so we left her in the barn for a little while.  When we returned, we noticed that the first ram lamb (easily identified from the iodine that spilled on his leg) was not nursing.  We turned him around so he could find the food and he turned back around to her front legs.  He was quickly given colostrum through a stomach tube and we hoped he would figure it out.  Nope, he is stupid.  Even after a few days, he still goes to the front legs.  Obviously we have been feeding him, every 4 hours.   
The little girl was put to rest that evning.  It took me a while ot get over the feeling of guilt, but I decided to focus on the lives saved.  I know we will have more lambs and some will die, I have to learn to deal with that.
We also had another ram lamb two days ago, but that is another story.

Nifty inventions

Last Christmas I bough a set of cake strips with a gift certificate from Williams and Sonoma. I have always had a problem with my cakes having a dome. When you want to layer the cakes, domes are not fun. So, I thought I would try the cake strips. So far I have baked 2 cakes with them and both have turned out perfect. I love these things.

This Commercial Bugs Me!

Watch this and see if you can spot what drives me up the wall.

Do you think she will remember how to find the area of a triangle? Do you think this is really tutoring? How about telling her WHY the area of a triangle is 1/2 bh? HMMM??? This is how I explain to my kids:

How do we find the area of a square? Base times height, right (we already went over how to do this and why it works)? Please draw a line from one corner to the other corner of the square. What shapes do you see? 2 Triangles!!! So, the area of one of those triangles will be 1/2 of what the area of the square was, right? Right. If they are confused about other types of triangles have them take 2 of the triangles and cut one in half and arrange it on either side of the whole triangle to make a rectangle. Still it is 1/2 the area of the rectangle. Now they will remember. If I just tell them the formulas, how will they learn? How will they figure out how to explore problems on their own? Hmmmm? I hate that commercial.

On the farm

My camera did something weird to this photo, but I kind of like it.

I watched a documentary on Messner and I think Rosebud is practicing for Everest.
Here is our new mama for the year, 64. She is a great suffolk (with a little bit of hampshire) mom. She delivered 3 full breach lambs at about midnight on Friday. We stayed with her from 10-3. It was a long night but we wanted to make sure it all went the way it was supposed to. She had one ram lamb and two ewe lambs and they are all hopping around.
The heat lamp is nice and warm, so sometimes the chickens steal the lambs' spot for themselves. This time the lamb was able to sneak under it.

Here one is, hiding under mom.

A few weeks before 64 lambed we vaccinated her for entertoxemia and tetanus. We do that close to lambing so the lambs get the benefits of the vaccine through the ewe's milk. Later we will give them their own dose to strengthen their immunity. We will band their tails tomorrow. We already cut their umbilical cords shorter and iodined them. It is important to disinfect the navel because illness and disease is easily passed through the navel. Many people iodine the navel twice.

We will try a partial castration on the ram at 4 weeks. We usually just band the scrotum and it falls off, but this time we are going to push the testicles up into the lamb's body and band below that, right at the body line. The body heat kills the sperm and sterilizes the ram, but because he still has his testicles, his body still produces male hormones that help with the growth of lean muscle tissue. This kind of banding needs to be done at about 1 month of age.

More bands

Osip, Button and Kodiak's little one, has also shown a fleecy sensativity to feed changes. You can see there is a grey-brown section at the tip. That was fleece from when he was eating hay in the barn after he was born, about 4 months. Then there is a creamy section that is when he was on pasture, about 6 months, then there is a new grey section from now, in the barn, eating hay again. Strange sheep I have!

Bam Bam won his first prize!

While at the Lamb and Wool conference we had the opportunity to enter in the fleece contest. All we needed was a small sample and they would micron test it for us for free and the finest sample won. Well, out of all of the samples, BamBam won. He had a 16.8 micron sample with very little variation in fiber diameter. The next best was a 21.7 micron. His prize was $50 (about what his feed costs are for the year) and the honor of being the finest. We congratulated him as soon as we got home. It was dark, but I think he was pleased.

Unfortunately, the tester's printer was not working. I will have to wait for him to print off the data and mail it to me. Untl then, here are his parent's tests results from this last shearing:

The CV is really just the amount of variation in diameter of fiber. It should be under 22% or it will be downgraded. Mary's CV is bigger than PeeWee's because she had a pregnancy, birth, and lactation cycle. Even so, her fiber remained remarkably consistant.

The comfort factor is the percentage of fibers under 30 microns.

I will have one or more new lambs from this pair in April. We are very excited.

Brown Eggs vs White Eggs

From the top left corner going clockwise: brown egg dyed blue, white egg dyed blue, brown egg dyed blue and then red

Left: white egg dyed yellow, brown egg dyed yellow

I prefer the brown eggs. The red dyed eggs were red instead of pink when using a brown egg.

Kanga and retracted tendons

Kanga is a recently aquired ewe lamb. We were unsure what was wrong with her and instead of put her down I agreed to take her. We had the vet come out and he knew almost instantly she has retracted tendons or something like it. We are giving her a long acting tetracycline to help relax her tendons while we stretch them out. To better care for her we have her in the house with us. It is a lot like having a baby again. She cries (maaa) and gets up and pees so we go clean up her towels, she cries louder so we go get her a bottle. We have to constantly watch her to be sure she does not get into trouble. We keep her away from cords because she will chew them and we give her little bits of lettuce to munch on so she is occupied. She also has my stinky barn boots on a mat right next to her to comfort her and she is constantly nibbling the laces.

She is showing some imrovement and the vet thinks she will be fine in 10 days.

Secretary of Agriculture, NoNAIS

Because this is important and well written.....


January 27, 2009
Letter to USDA Secretary Vilsack


We have a new Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack. Let’s welcome him in and let him know what issues we want to see him address. You can write him at AgSec@usda.gov. Keep it polite. Here is my letter:
Dear Secretary Vilsack,
Welcome to your new office as our leader of the USDA. I hope that you will take seriously that 86% of the farmers in America are small and very small farmers (USDA statistics), 96% of us don’t need or get subsidies and 95% of us don’t want NAIS (Independent Surveys). What we do need is:
1) A level playing field rather than the current one biased toward Big Ag. Subsidies predominantly go to the big players giving them an unreasonable advantage in the market which lets them under price their products and hide the true costs of production. This makes it harder for the small farmer to compete and burdens American tax payers with the bill. Eliminate the subsidies and the big producers will have to price their products honestly to reflect their true costs. This will let us all compete on a level playing field and allow small producers to get a fair price for their products too.
2) Real Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) that forces imports to be labeled as such. We don’t need Premises ID for COOL - simply label all imported foods, even if they are mixed origin or processed, as Made in Canada, Made in China, Made in Argentina, etc. Simple, honest labeling for whole cuts to hot dogs and more. We have it on T-shirts, auto parts and plumbing supplies - why can’t we have honest labeling on meat, peas & corn or honey? If it is from another country, during any part of it’s cycle, then it should say so. Any import should be properly labeled to let the consumer know where it was imported from. The burden should fall on the importers, not American producers.
3) Delete the National Animal Identification System (NAIS). Yes, simply delete it. It’s the key in the upper right of your keyboard. NAIS needs to be killed at both the federal and the state levels - all the databases must be purged. Burn the backups. Why? They are filled with erroneous and involuntary premise registrations, the system is deceptive and unconstitutional and lastly NAIS gives a false sense of security to consumers while burdening taxpayers and small farmers. NAIS does nothing real or productive. Our customers know where our pork came from, our farm - They can drive by and see our pigs grazing in our fields. I don’t need NAIS. My customers don’t need NAIS. NAIS will not help the vast majority of farmers and it will increase the costs of production on millions of small farms. This will raise food prices and drive small farmers out of business. That means more consolidation into the hands of fewer big players which will result in less food security for our nation. Big Ag, on the other hand, will gain a marketing advantage from NAIS at close to no cost for them since they can use the Group ID numbering and won’t have to tag animal to gain source verification paid for by tax payers. This is an unfair competitive advantage for Big Ag who’s already getting USDA subsidies. As to health, NAIS does nothing to control or eradicate disease as the USDA has admitted, see the FOIA response: http://NoNAIS.org/2008/10/31/depopulation-foia-response/ NAIS does nothing for BSE which is caused by feeding cows to cows which is outlawed in the USA. NAIS does nothing for E. coli, Listeria or Salmonella which are all introduced after the farm at the processing plants. NAIS does nothing for foot and mouth disease - we don’t have it in this country so no need to waste $100,000,000 chasing ghosts that don’t exist. NAIS is not cost effective. It’s a boondoggle for the benefit of Big Ag and the tag makers. If Big Ag wants source verification for marketing or foreign sales, their apparent real rational for NAIS, then let them create and fund a private, voluntary system for themselves. My customers and I already have source verification - I know where my pigs are.
4) Support small meat processing plants while also better inspecting the big processors. Everything to scale. The small local processors don’t have the same problems we see in the huge processors so don’t over burden them with unreasonable regulations, testing and requirements. Instead, support the development of more very small processors. Every year we lose more very small processors, the only ones that will work with small farmers, due to the high costs imposed by over-regulation while we simultaneously suffer recall after recall out of the big processors due to too little oversight. Small farmers, which make up the vast majority of farms, need small and very small slaughterhouses, butchers and smokehouses. Without them we can’t get our meat to market so we might as well not raise the animals. Without livestock we don’t have high quality manures for organic and naturally grown vegetables - even the vegetarians and vegans will suffer if we lose the very small meat processors. The very small processors face different issues and need different approaches than the mega processors. In recent years the USDA has made great strides with the small and very small plant outreach program. Continue and expand this so that small farms can get their products to the American consumers.
5) Conservation and sustainability to involve current and future generations at all levels of society. When people think of these issues they typically think that we need to save our soils, water, breeding stock genetics and such for our future generations. This is true, but it goes a lot further. We need to save farming itself. Without farming there is no food. Factories merely transform raw food into processed foods. We need man diversified farms to maintain our heritage of farming, the core of knowledge. Farmers must be protected from the predatory legal practices of GMO companies - we are not responsible for where the wind blows GMO pollen and seed, the GMO companies are. Agriculture must be an attractive career & life style for our next generation. America has gone from a land of a great many farmers to less than 2% being involved in agriculture and much of that concentrated into the hands of few. Onerous zoning and regulations are outlawing livestock ownership and even gardening. We need more people interested in very small, even micro agriculture. We need victory gardens in every backyard, on every balcony to conserve the land and the knowledge, our connection to the earth and maintain our national food security.
I welcome your new leadership to this important office. I hope you’ve gotten your feet under you and are settled in so lets get running on fixing the USDA to better represent the needs of all farmers and American consumers, not just the biggest players. Remember, the vast majority, 86%, of us are small farmers and we don’t need subsidies - we need a level playing field, less invasive government, local small scale infrastructure and the ability to pass on our farming heritage to the future.
Thank you,
Walter Jeffries
Sugar Mountain Farm in Vermont

Turkey lungs

For the scientists out there, this is a picture of a turkey lung. It has a spongy feel to it.