The Curve Balls of Life

It seems people are always asking me what I've been doing and it seems like I never really have an answer. But I must have been busy with something because I never seem to have time to do the stuff *I* want to do.

This past weekend is a good example of doing things I hadn't planned. Last Friday I was in the kitchen when I heard a crash. It wasn't ....CRASH.... It was more like ....crash, tumble, clink, crash, clink, clink..... Looking around I found the shelves in the pantry had simply given up.

Sigh.... although I've been meaning to reorganize the pantry, I really would have preferred to spend the weekend doing something else. But sometimes life hands you a curve ball. So Saturday the kids and I (remember, dh got on a plane that day so he could visit the Queen) spent time driving around looking at various shelving options. We finally found something that would fit as well as maximize the space. After a few days of reorganizing, we now have this:

Maybe this weekend I'll get to play with the new Bamboo yarn that arrived on Monday. I'm itching to do some painted warps.

North Fork renovation work

Right after DS's baseball game on Saturday, we drove up to North Fork to do some more work on renovating the house. It was chilly when we arrived so we set about starting a fire in the wood stove. Our first discovery was a long-dead bird in the cavity of the stove. As I shoveled that out, I then discovered the level of ash was, oh, about 6 inches deep. When was the last time this stove was cleaned out? 1898? Sheesh. Back in June when we were cleaning up the property, we wisely saved any tools we came across. The all-metal axe came in handy as Ken chipped away from a log to create some kindling. It was awfully hard on the hands without any handle padding. (I've added "axe" to the list for next trip.) In about half an hour, we had a roaring fire going. The amount of wood we went through that night and the next morning was a bit surprising. Even though we have what we thought was a good size wood pile, it's clear we're going to have to cut a lot more for future trips. (Adding chainsaw to the list too.)

Another discovery is the winter temperature. Boy oh boy does it get cold at night INSIDE the house. And there isn't even any snow yet! I kept waking up because my nose was freezing. I had already planned on adding whole house cooling to the renovation but after this past weekend, we'll be sure to be looking into heating solutions as well. The wood stove needs to be replaced anyway (not up to code).

The last time we were up there working, the kids discovered a scorpion. I didn't even know there were scorpions up there! I figured it was too high of an elevation. According to another rancher up in the area, there are small and large varieties in the area. Lovely.

Renovation work is going along slowly but surely. We've removed all of the wallpaper the downstairs rooms except the bedroom we slept in. On our next trip, we can tackle that and be ready for texturing the walls downstairs. The current job is getting a contractor to replace every door in the house. All of the interior doors except for one have a hole(sometimes holes) in them. The front door has been busted in one time too many so the jam is nearly useless. The back door is exposed to the weather and looks it. Nearly all of the surface has flaked away. The back French doors were destroyed by the previous owner's dog. I would have like to repair those because they're really nice doors but a woodworker says they're too damaged. And the master bedroom door is missing. Gone. It wasn't even among the junk we disposed of this summer. I'm hoping we can get this work done before Christmas.

Major Update

Life has been quite demanding these past 6+ months. Here's a quick synopsis:

North Fork House and Land
Right around my last post we started having trouble with the tenants/former owners of the North Fork house. They stopped paying rent and by mid-March, I had to start eviction proceedings. We finally got possession of the house in late May. But oh my, what a mess! Nine trips to the dump later (the trailer we used was 10' by 5' by 6' and we piled it higher than the 6' walls) and we have a house we can start remodeling. Anyone know of a way to clean 30 years of smoker's soot from a pine tongue-in-grove 21 foot high vaulted ceiling?

On the herd front...
We were expecting two crias this summer - one from our own female Melody, and one from a female we don't own but chose the stud for breeding. Melody graced us with a beautiful white female cria on June 26th. We named her Aria to start us off with our alphabetical naming tradition. Sadly, Aria only lived 28 days. The necropsy showed her intestines were just not working and any hay she ingested sat in C1 (the first stomach) fermenting to the point it released toxins which shut her system down. So $2908.00 later we are back to square one. The second female, Halley, slipped her pregnancy at some point because a blood test taken a month before her due date came back negative (she's now months beyond her due date). The stud we chose to use with Halley died about 2 weeks ago so we can't try that match again.

After all that's happened this summer, if I was in this business for breeding, I'd have thrown in the towel. As much as I love the animals, this was just a heartbreaking summer. Thankfully, I also love alpaca fiber and thoroughly enjoy spinning, weaving, and felting. Running a fiber ranch of males is looking more and more appealing. But we're not quitters, so it's off to Derwydd Alpacas to breed Melody and get ready for Round 2 next summer.

Fiber Arts Competitions
My daughter and I both entered things in competitions the last few months and Dana even competed on several Sheep to Shawl teams.

The first judged event was in April at Monterey Pronk. My woven suri scarf won a first place! Every yarn I entered also got a ribbon. Dana entered a knitted pencil holder necklace and got first place. Hers was the only entry in the kids category and she said she wishes more kids would enter so it would feel like a real win. Her lace weight suri yarn competed with the adults and she got second, only because she didn't set the twist. (DH chided me for not doing it for her.) The judge was very impressed that a 10 year old spun such fine yarn.

The second competition was the Alameda County Fair. The same woven suri scarf got third - and when I saw what got first and second, I understood why. First and second were very complicated weaves that must have been woven on 16+ heddle looms. They were very pretty and very well done. Dana's pencil holder necklace got second - we never did find first place (They display entries by themes, not by category.) Her yarn got third - again competing against adults. Pretty awesome!

The Alameda County Fair is where one of the sheep to shawl competitions Dana participated in was held. She was on a kid's team against four adult teams. They placed third!! Dana will get to keep the shawl they made - for now all of the shawls are making the rounds of the guilds.

Dixon Lambtown (July 30th) was Dana's second sheep to shawl competition this summer. The same kids from Alameda participated along with two adult teams. This time they came in second!! The organizers of this event solicit prize donations from the vendors. All of the kids were awed with the prize table and took home oodles of goodies.

Layout change

Time for a change here. As much as I like the option of letting people leave messages when they visit our blog here, I detest the pop-ups that the tag board people subject my visitors to. So I'm taking the tag board down.

I'd like to change the look of the blog too. Get a new layout and background. I checked out the freebies offered by blogger and none of them worked right: the two columns wouldn't line up properly. I don't have time right now to fiddle with the code, so I'll save that change for another day.

In the meantime, enjoy reading without any of the annoying pop-ups!!!

Property update...

We did close escrow on the property in North Fork. Woo Hoo!!! At some point in the future, Humming Hearts Ranch will reside within 11.3 acres just off Road 221. Here is a BEFORE picture of the house.



We plan on doing some serious changes to the house before we move in ourselves. To the exterior for example, the roof will be replaced. The house will be painted white with green trim. We'll add a proper porch to the entire front that you see in the picture. You can't really see the front door because it is directly behind the tree. For now, the house is being rented out to a very nice local family.

Anyone want to come and help put in fencing? :-)

Kimberly