Arts & Crafts

Combing the arts of design, supplies acquisition, construction and painting, we have completed our sign! Along the bottom we will hang notices like Open Farm Today 10-4, Yarn & Roving, etc. -- as soon as I make them. When granddaughters are here next week, we will plant a flowerbed beneath it.

People enjoy this road as a lovely "back-door" drive into Eugene, and the sign will capture the curiosity of passers-by for Open Ranch Days. We love visitors!

Very Local Painters
As Mike and I unloaded the van recently, we noticed a car driving slowly past, and a few minutes later, it returned up the hill. The car stopped across the end of the driveway and the passenger jumped out, rushing to introduce herself as a neighbor from a nearby street. She and her friend were in search of a place to set up their easels and paint boxes, to watercolor landscapes before daylight eluded them. We made our introductions and invited them to look around for a vista that would work.

Cathy and Victoria are members of Plein Air Painters of Eugene, and they go out each week, rain or shine, to paint outdoor scenes. Enjoying their enthusiasm and expertise, I invited them to come again, and they connected me with their fearless leader, Brooks. Now Aragon Alpacas is on the painters' April calendar, and we look forward to hosting the group, rain or shine.

Spinners' Camp
Mike gifted me with my first trip away from the farm since the alpacas began to arrive last March by taking over my chores while I attended a 4-day spinners' retreat at the Silver Falls Conference Center. The EWES (Eugene Wednesday Evening Spinners) get away for a long weekend every spring and fall. This time, 16 clever, bright, creative, energetic women shared their expertise and joy as we spun, knitted, crocheted, and laughed our way through the days, pausing only to eat and sleep.

Besides me, the EWES welcomed two other newcomers to the retreat, one a knitter, the other a crocheter. We stayed in threesome cabins, and geek-knitter Andrea bunked with Elissa and me.

No longer can I shyly claim to be a beginning spinner, although as with everything else, there is always more to learn. I came home with a greater appreciation for fiber arts and a heightened self-confidence in my spinning abilities.

I learned to ply my early spinning attempts into chunky yarn. With practice, and from watching others, I can spin more delicately. Now to complete some other projects on the needles so I can knit something from my beginner yarn. Much like the first pot that comes out of the kiln in pottery, this first yarn attempt will be memorable for its own lessons and reasons.

I have signed up for the 'wheel mechanics' class at Black Sheep to learn which knob to turn when, and how to alter the functions of my double-drive Ashford Traveller wheel. Hopefully the four births due mid-June will be accommodating so I can attend this session!

The Art of Weaning
While dancing with the rain these spring days, I am weaning cria: day weaning for a week, and then 24/7. Troubadour and Jedlicka are looking especially damp, although beneath all of that alpaca fleece is a very dry animal.

Mike is drafting plans for another shelter, to increase the use of our pens. Then we can house the kindergarten class of weanling boys in the male area.

Brew-crafting
Oh, and we've purchased four hop rhizomes as starter vines. In home-brewing, hops are one of the most expensive ingredients. By growing our own, we'll not only have enough for the recipes, but also for making into fragrant wreaths and arrangements.

Our beekeeper brought by a bucket of honey and recipes for mead, so that's on our agenda, too!

(our little cabin in the woods at Silver Falls' Retreat)

More Arrivals

by transport, not by birth... yet.

With the latest nine sets of alpaca toes that stepped off the transporter this morning, most of our herd is at our Eugene farm now. Matt and Don drove through the night and arrived at 7:30 a.m. Flora was first off the trailer, quickly followed by the others. At four months old and still nursing, Tesoro stayed close to his mom, Windancer.

The girls were met with open spaces and lots of green grass -- and six other inquisitive dams on the other side of the fence. Galileo and Orion checked them out as the group ran past through the nearest open gate. Curiosity took them into the next pasture, where we really wanted them to go.

Next, the weanling males disembarked, to be rejoined with Dakota and Sorrento. Sundancer (7/06) is still small for his age, the same size as Sulaymon, who is a whole year younger (7/07). Sulaymon's white fleece is dirty enough to look like Sundancer's golden locks. Soon we will become adept at telling them apart at a glance. They all have their nametags on, scribed by Humberto, sometimes with Spanglish spellings.

Our last five alpacas more are in various stages of breeding in So CA and will join us in a few months. Plus the weanling Modoc who missed this 'bus' so will catch the next one. He was shorn yesterday, so at least he's ahead of everyone else in that respect.

Nineteen alpacas reside here now. Waiting for the birth of Disa's cria to make it an even 20!

Mike's symphony, in three movements

I was born about 30 miles from our Eugene farm, up in the mountains in a little one-horse logging community (honest, they only had one horse!), but I've been gone so long I had forgotten about the snow, mud, rain, cold, et al. My sun-baked Southern California epidermis took a short while to thicken and tolerate the less temperate winter conditions at this higher latitude. But now the cold isn't particularly bothersome. Flannel sheets helped. And a thermal sweatshirt. Oh yeah, and insulated boots. Um, and those fuzzy gloves... two pairs of socks...

The mud, however, is a different story. From late November on, workmen were sticking their vehicles in so deep they had to be pulled out, so they started parking on the lawn. Which accordingly now sports ruts that'll twist a camel's ankles. I spooned some pea gravel onto the less stable parts of the driveway so at least it could be walked across to the trash cans, garage, and Alpaca Store without sinking in, but after watching the rain wash down the drive, I've come to the conclusion that our driveway is and always has been crossed by the prevailing stream off the hills behind us. That could by why the cistern is where it is.

But thankfully, it froze and the mud became hard enough to walk on again. That was better. Even the pea gravel froze into a solid mass. We reveled in the fact we could walk to the barn without sinking in up to our ankles. Mind you, we're not talking legendary freezes here, just into the high teens and twenties, but with a daytime high of about 33F, it didn't thaw for a week or two.

And then it snowed. The first snow was on Christmas night, then it took a month's respite before returning with a vengeance in late January. Old Timers said it was the most snow they can remember. We were "snowed in" (well, okay, I bet I could have shoveled enough snow to get out if I'd really needed to) for several days, but we didn't really have anyplace to go anyway. So we just stayed aboard and had a great time looking at it, playing in it, romping the dog in it, etc. We even made a snowman and a companion Snow Alpaca on the lawn. I think maybe the workmen skidded into them though, because they didn't last long.

We planted our four foot living Christmas tree as the first of what we intend to be a row of evergreens along the street side of the upper yard. When I pulled out an old fencepost to plant it, subsequently landing on my keister in the mud, there was an actual running river at the bottom of the hole. I suspect there's a drain culvert down there that the fencepost pierced so many years back, the water was really running. Either that or I discovered the "headwaters" of the spring that runs... you got it... across the driveway when it rains.

But the craziest upshot of all this "weather related" diatribe is: I'm currently down in Southern California readying our sailboat-slant-woodworking-project for trailering up to live with us (where it can bug me until I finally get around to finishing it), and all the friends and neighbors are commenting how much I must really enjoy the wonderful spell of weather we're having. For some reason, it's too hot for me. I guess it always was, I was never really completely comfortable in this climate, but I always attributed that to being a tad on the "husky" side.

Who knows, might just have never been enough mud for me here.

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Lunacy

It never occurred to me, until just now, to name a sailboat "Luna Sea" but one could easily say Lunacy is involved somewhere in there.

I was surfing the 'Net one night and chanced to see if I could find out anything about the One-Design class of sailboats I learned to sail in, the "Geary 18" (or as it's lovingly known, the "Flattie"). Sure enough, I made a connection with some of the people that still have them. The boat was designed around 1927 by famous naval architect Ted Geary, who went on to design many large luxury yachts and eventually merchantmen for the war effort. They are numbered up to about 1500, but there aren't many of the older ones left - maybe 50 or so - scattered all over the West Coast. I spent many a Saturday "racing", a moniker offered to wondering parents - more like just fooling around, in one of the real old ones: sail number 228. I had the idea of rebuilding an old one as a joint project with my darling daughter, as a way of teaching Perseverance by example.

So my loving wife and best friend said "Why don't you just buy one?" Yeah. Thanks a bunch.

Unsuspecting, I bought a damaged one for $400 in unmarked bills (hull number 272, originally built beneath an under-construction freeway overpass in LA around 1930), never received a stitch of paperwork with it, and have since come to some realizations:

1. no amount of money can get you two pieces of 21' long by 2' wide clear Port Orford cedar, as called for in Geary's plans for the sides. Substitute $1500 worth of mahogany. Now I have eight 80' tall Port Orford cedars in my front yard. Go figure.
2. finding a piece of 3/4" plywood 21' long by 6' wide is technically feasible, but how are you going to get it home? Substitute a few thousand more bucks worth of woodworking tools (darn), lots of wood joinery, and more expensive replacement wood.
3. when you take one rotted piece of a boat out, almost everything it ever came in contact with, will also be rotten. Substitute another paycheck worth of mahogany, longleaf pine, etc.
4. owning a boat when you have anything else to do with your life, is just plain Lunacy.

I'll finish the thing someday and sail it on Fern Ridge reservoir or Dexter Lake, but next week I'm starting the second chapter of the adventure by boldly trailering it (on those little 8" mini wheels) straight up Interstate 5 for about 800 miles. My job tomorrow is to wire it for lights, since some of that drive will be in rain and at night. Nobody alert the Highway Patrol, please. Oh, and by the way, I'd stay away from I-5 the beginning of next week if I were you.

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Multiplication.

We prepped our house in Southern California for sale last year and put it on the market. Detecting this miniscule flutter of butterfly wings, the real estate market across the United States promptly imploded. So we are left with a large and pristine home, richly upgraded at extreme expense, that we now find we must rent out and wait for the market to recover.

So to finish emptying it, I find myself back in the land of SoCal, in the town in which I lived for nearly 50 years. My family is still in the area, beloved members are interred here, and I still have a few surviving high-school friends as well as many other friends of more recent acquaint. However, this trip has invoked a great deal of solo-ness and I find myself sleeping on the floor in a house that's now been completely emptied of familiar accoutrements. Even the Internet connection has long since been turned off and I find myself stealing tincan-and-string level connectivity from some neighbors down the street who neglected to set a password on their wireless router. The echo in this empty house, once so warm and vibrant with friends, is the clarion call that it's time to move on, physically and metaphysically.

And right on cue, the 20-year-old Oldsmobile minivan I'm driving started giving me trouble. Nothing monumental, it still goes down the road, but the driver's side window locked in the wide-open position, for instance. Admittedly not a show-stopper. I could still get back to Eugene, but it'd be pretty darn uncomfortable driving through February weather with an Oh-Dark-Thirty departure and arrival and 18 hours of window-thunder between. With no "fat" in the schedule to allow me to find a cost-effective solution, a trip to the GM dealership put the window mechanism back in showroom condition. They even washed and waxed the beast for me! All for only.... about half the market value of the van itself. But like I said, there was no time to shop around and hope someone else could get the right parts the first time.

But what I really can't figure out is where all this STUFF comes from. When we emptied the house to sell it, we thought we had emptied it down to where one more van-full would take care of the last of the stuff. Now it seems, in the darkened privacy of the closed closets, the coat hangers have multiplied and we now have a van-full of coat hangers, a van-full of potted plants, a van-full of empty pots for plants, a van-full.... well, you get it. I'm being as ruthless as I can about throwing the "that's only barely used" piece of soap away, but the Stuff-o-Meter on our storage place keeps going up regardless. I'm worried they might surcharge us - out of the corner of my eye I noticed the clerk at the storage place hanging watchfully around as I put the last bunch of Stuff in. I think the door was bowed out just a little when I closed it.

And I don't think I'm getting any less Stuff in the van for the trip home, either. Every cabinet I open, even those I think I cleaned out the other day, seems to have Stuff in it. Someplace in a different universe, some guys are having a beer, pushing a button labelled "Multiply Mike's Stuff", and laughing at me on the monitor. "Quick, he's not looking, put some more Stuff in there!"

All right you guys, knock it off! I got my hands full here!

Tomorrow, I think I'll do a "test load" and see how much Stuff I can get in the van, then take it all back out and put it in the middle of the floor where I can keep an eye on it. Applied quantum physics - if I continually observe and am only open to the possibility that I have 1X amount of stuff, it can't multiply on me.

But sadly, I'm feeling like an interloper in a town in which I know every rock on every street by first name. Neighbors have remarked "isn't this weather wonderful?" and I find myself biting my tongue to avoid saying: "Naw, too hot." But maybe that's normal - I've only moved to a different town once in my life, and that was from the Eugene area TO Southern California, about the time the speed limit on the freeway went from 50 to the breakneck 55. This trip back north, with a van-full of (multiplied) stuff and towing an antique sailboat, will be at 55 miles per hour as well. That's some sort of circular experience, I guess.

musings toward a new year

All of my plans to document the readying of the barn and fencing for our alpaca herd have gotten lost in the actual doing. Rarely now do I sit and journalize the details of decision-making and tasks, yet it always seems to be in the back of my mind, wanting to share the process.




Mike rode the Goldwing up in October, while I was safe and warm inside the packed van. He only encountered rain for an hour and a half of the long trip. Remaining is the flattie sailboat (Geary 18) to trailer up, and that's the last of our vehicles.




We spent three weeks here in October, and delighted in the beauty of autumn in Eugene. What a perfect time to select trees according to their showy fall colors! So we went to Duckworth Tree Farm selected three brandywine maples, and ash, and some evergreens, to obscure the view to a neighbor's steel workshed. We extended our visit for a week while waiting for furniture from my family home in Texas to be delivered. And the 10 acres of hay pasture was fertilized and planted. Now for it to grow!








On our first weekend, my children and families were able to visit. We celebrated with a turkey grilled on our new Weber, and a family photo taken by the picket fence ~ an early Thanksgiving!










In early December we officially moved here in time for the holidays. After prepping our home of 31 years for sale, we left it behind and made the 16-hour trip all in one day. This time Mike drove the van, packed to the gills, and I chauffeured Onyx (14-yr-old cat) and Kelly (9-yr-old dog) in the folded down rear space of the Volkswagen.



Kelly has taken to the farm fine. She loves to romp and run in the pastures whenever we are all walking outside. She and Mike have created a game by running all the way around the house to meet each other on the other side.

Onyx loved her traveling box so much (a small U-Haul box with wide slits cut into the sides, and lined with alpaca fleece) that we have put it near a heat vent in the living room, and she sleeps there whenever she's not upstairs, holding down the covers on our bed. Like the rest of us, she has gained weight and seems much healthier since she has been here, although it is an adjustment for her to be an indoors cat. When the sun is out, Onyx searches out the bright spots in the dining room floor for her morning ablutions.






Watching hay grow.

On Christmas Day we took the dog for a long walk and decorated our living tree. Then we baked a chicken dinner and shared it with our neighbor, Elissa. We looked forward to visitors the first week in January, to have a belated celebration with them. And it snowed the following day...

We scurried to unpack boxes that had been in storage for most of the year, delighting to discover old friends among books and knicknacks. When family arrived from Tyler, TX, and Seattle on Dec 31, we had made the place livable (and sleepable!) and holiday festive.




Six of the nine of us had knitting projects going, so over the course of the days, we'd sit and chat and knit or work puzzles or cook in various groups. The kids greatly enjoyed playing in the finished attic rooms, and having a picnic in the top floor of the barn while most of the grown-ups went wine-tasting. The weather wasn't especially cooperative for out of doors enjoyment, but our time together was warm and fun.

Moving from southern California to central Oregon in the midst of winter definitely has it's own challenges. We have been here for 6 weeks, and only a few days have been not cloudy. On the first fully sunny day (44°), Mike and I bundled up in multiple jackets and took a motorcycle ride to visit a new friend's farm. Every third vehicle on the road was either a motorcycle or a bicyclist, enjoying the shiny afternoon.

I have been missing my critters, so just visiting Margo's 2 alpacas and angora goats was a great delight. Earlier in the week, we were at Elissa's when she brought in her flock of 6 sheep and 5 mini donkeys. That was a treat, too. It seems I have easily shaken off my life of technology in favor of time spent caring for livestock and a simpler way of life.

Yesterday we had a new cria born at the Carpinteria, CA, farm where we agist (board) some of our alpacas. This is the first time I have not been available to go greet the new little life! Windancer is a great mom and very attentive to him. Always hoping for a female, this birth made our 10th boy in a row. We are awaiting photos from kind friends, so we can choose his name.

back view from Dillard road

Meanwhile, our 100+ year old barn is looking magnificent, under the fine workmanship of our treasured carpenter, Lee. He has strengthened the weaknesses, reused old gates and materials in alternate places, created new pen enclosures, and more.

This sliding gate fits into the side of the pen when open.







There is a wonderful reclamation center here in Eugene called Bring, where contractors and remodelers bring their usable leftovers for others to purchase at reasonable prices. ( love their tagline: Planet Improvement Center.) Lee has found many old windows there that allow more daylight into the dark barn, or so I can peer into pens in an adjacent section. He even visited another alpaca ranch to see how they have things set up, how their mangers are made, etc.

The adjoining sheds are for the boys, segregating the older from the weanlings, and creating a storage area. They look so very Americana.

Now I am preparing to order supplies for the animals, so we can begin to bring them to join us. We will start with some of the boys, so I can "practice" on them and gain confidence in the daily routine. We look forward to welcoming Orion, Dakota, and Sundancer here, and possibly a few others. Then the expectant moms will come when the weather is slightly warmer and the passes in I-5 are snow-less. A nippy 18° is forecasted for Sunday night!

Gradually we are transitioning from town to rural life, from technology to livestock as our primary focus. But since the herd is not here yet, and it is generally cold and wet outdoors, much of our days are spent sorting and filing, and often doing computer tasks and online research. But whenever I weary of sitting and staring at the screen, I grab a jacket and my mud boots and take the dog out for a romp in the pastures. I relish the fact that this is our land, that we are the caretakers and managers of it, entrusted with it for a time. We are very blessed!




* * * * *
As I looked through photos to include with this posting, there are others that I had intended to share over the past few months. So I present them here with a string with light commentary so you can see some of the progression of the work and fun in this place:

Blackberries welcomed us in August
and they were delightful on cereal.





Several Italian plum trees grace our driveway. We plan to add other fruit and nut trees for a personal orchard.







Sunrise in late summer,















and half an hour later, same view.









Dewdrop diamonds strung on spiderwebs.

The pasture is planted
and we grew a rainbow!

land o' Goshen

I am 'home again' — back to our California house where I've lived for 30+ years. This week I set up appointments to get bids for a new fence, exterior painting, garage door, and some other fix-its. The alpaca Farm is now the pretty carrot dangling before us, urging us to sell this home to a family who will love and care for it as much as we have.

Jennifer's youngest daughter is almost four — as old as Jen was when we moved here in '76. Paul was two then, and he could walk under the pull-out chop board in the kitchen. Now he's 6-ft-1 and drives a Honda Element to service his wholesale clients.

I saved the doorjam with marks of their childhood growth through the years. Now I am ready to move from this home that has served us so well and on to the next era.

Mike was born in Oakridge, just 35 mi from our farm. So this move is a return to his roots, and a parallel to mine in east Texas.

Our alpaca farm, near the tiny town of Goshen, used to be called Goshen Hole Farm, so we're trying to learn more about it. The house and barn were built around 1900. Mike has been investigating (online) the little towns near our farm and gleaning some of their history. Goshen was originally a stage coach stop, and later a train depot. Interesting stuff...

There's a long, chatty article about the Goshen Truckstop Cafe, and another one about a local truck driver, Main Street Mahlon.

One of our neighbors lives on property that once belonged to her grandparents, and she remembers coming to visit the lady who lived in our farmhouse, her grandma's friend. She recalls lots of colorful carnival glass pieces in the windows, catching the sunlight. The farm lady gifted her with one of them that Sandy still has in her china hutch.

The next little town 5 miles south is Creswell, population ~4500. I've learned about going to the recycle center/dump that will become part of our routine. I intend to go to the library and do some 'hard copy' research of the area. We made friends with owners Kent & Laurie of The Coffee House, where we'd go to hook up to WiFi and check our email before we set up DSL at the farmhouse. Very welcoming folks!

And 14 miles south of our farm is Cottage Grove, the area I'd first centered on for alpaca farm possibilities. Actually, there was a 60-acre farm there that was just beyond our financial reach, but the exquisite old home and barn beckoned us. Whenever we'd go to look for property, we'd stay in Cottage Grove to 'test drive' the commute to Eugene. It wasn't bad, but the short 5-mile drive is so much easier now that we found our place. And that much more convenient to veterinarians and other services we'll need, too.

I've arranged to have our hay field mowed. The next time I'm there, I plan to have the Lane County Extension Agent out to make recommendations of where to plant fruit trees, garden, grape vines, and where to locate the poop pile/compost, according the the drainage pattern of our land. We are watershed-conscious and want to ecology of our land to work for us and for our neighbors.

Today we are taking a break from packing/planning to make a batch of 'Son of Toad Spit' stout beer. At least that's the name on the recipe, but we're calling it Movin' Out Stout.' We'd already bought the ingredients (from the Homebrew Store in Eugene) and need to use them. I joke that "it's a beer kit, you just add water" — the right amount of water at the right temperature for the right amount of time (the recipe is included with each batch of ingredients). Now we're waiting for the 1-hr boil before proceeding to the next step: cooling and decanting into the carboy with yeast for fermentation. I love the smell of the hops in our kitchen! It will be fun to baptize the farm kitchen with it, too. We may just have to grow some hops...

And we need to transplant a few rose bushes that grow along a fence where we want to fill in with hedge. They'll go nicely in our former vegetable garden in the back yard, a nice sunny spot making the yard a bit more formal. It's progress towards that carrot!