It has been so long since I blogged last - we have been that busy! - it seems like I have time for email and to do quick postings on Instagram.  But, finally, here is a ranch update for those of you who are interested which is, I hope, as Google says, Everyone in the world -

On November 18 we left in a rented minivan, to attend the annual Wool Symposium of the northern California Fibershed.  I went as a vendor this year - last year (our first) I was a speaker, subject Santa Cruz Island sheep.  The symposium was in Pt. Reyes Station, and wonderful friends Sandra and Rob at Black Rock Ranch let us stay in their beautiful home at nearby Stinson Beach.  This year Jim was kind enough to go with me and did most of the driving, and dear friend and neighbor Devon was kind enough to ranch-sit for us.  We took scads of wool as roving and raw fleeces, as well as some llama/cotton blend drum-carded batts, some yarn, and a few loom-knitted hats.  Sandra brought Santa Cruz Island wool batts, an herbal smudge stick, home-grown eggs, and some lavender arrangements.  The weather forecast for Pt. Reyes Station included 100% rain prediction for the Saturday (19th) of the symposium so instead of the planned 10 foot by 10 foot space, we were limited to an 8-foot long table with a little space in front.  Most of the fleeces and roving had to stay in the van parked outside.  The llama/cotton batts sold very well, and the Santa Cruz Island wool yarn, and one Navajo-Churro fleece sold (thank you beloved customers!!!!!!!!!!!) and the rest of the wool etc. came home with us and most of it is advertised on Etsy right now.  A couple items have sold already, wonderful, and thank you beloved Etsy customers!!!!!!!!!!!!).  Sandra sold a batt and some eggs.  We had fun, and the talks and panel discussions in the symposium were VERY interesting and timely.  Amazing what folks are doing.  Fibershed is awesome.

Speaking of vendoring and selling stuff (or not) my plan is to have a booth at the San Miguel Christmas parade and craft fair on December 17 from 2 pm to after dark.  So if you are in the area come on by.  We didn't make it last year as Jim was ill and it was raining and cold.  No way am I going to let my spinning wheel get wet.  So if it rains this year I will not take the wheel(s) but will bring knitting instead.  Always plenty of that to do.

In the normal course of doing business, I had taken some photos of the young Santa Cruz Island rams - born in 2015 - several of whom are casually for sale (meaning I haven't officially listed them yet!) to serious breeders or future breeders of Santa Cruz Island sheep.

So far this autumn - in late October - we got/have gotten 1.15 inch of rain.  (we measure, yes)  One inch of it came as a subtropical storm, was warm, and I think that is why the seeds in the soil sprouted right away and have been growing like crazy.  In places the grasses are two inches tall already.  Seems like in past years, the annuals grow more slowly in response to rain.  It's glorious.  So on Sunday Petunia and I went for a walk and I documented some of these crazy growing little plants.

We are in somewhat of a holding pattern with respect to our sheep - shearing is finished for fall and is nowhere near to starting for spring, we haven't started breeding yet - because of my work schedule, we lamb late in the season and thus breed late in the season.  I am planning breeding schemes - as in, what ewes go with what rams - but we aren't moving sheep around yet.  They are growing wool, flirting with each other through the fence, lambs are growing, and we are feeding them hay.  It is too early to put them out on range - what little forage is left is dry, and it is too dry here to risk electric fencing - and the barley in the pastures is nearly eaten down.

Here are some photos of some of our ewes and lambs.  Some of these may also be on our Santa Cruz Island Sheep page of this website, or will show up there sometime. 

The photo above was taken on August 30, 2016, and the sky is so red because what is left of the sunshine is travelling through smoke from the Chimney and Soberanes Fires.  You have to look closely but if you do, you might be able to make out the Evening Star, Venus, low in the west.

Years ago, when we lived in Atascadero, we had several - 3 or 4, if I remember correctly - beehives.  Jim had kept honeybees before so they mostly were his project.  At the time we only had one each of bee suit and bee hat with veil, so when he managed the hives he would wear those and I would stand off to the side to hand him things.  Several times bees would get tangled in my hair and sting, which is a very sad occasion (for me and most especially for the bees).  Eventually, we got busy with other things, a neighbor was afraid of bees, and that was also about the time the varroa mite moved into our area, and the colonies gradually died off.

When we moved to Blue Oak Canyon Ranch, the bee hives and other paraphernalia moved with us, but no bees of course.  There was (and still is) a colony of feral honeybees living in an oak tree at the east end of the ranch.  Also there was a rather irresponsible beekeeper who would bring lots of hives into the area, about a mile away, every spring.  I say irresponsible because he didn't provide water for his bees so during the hot time of year they would come in huge groups to our livestock waterers, and make it nearly impossible for our sheep and llamas to drink from their own waterers.  Just as we became fed up, after a few years of this, and were ready to lodge a complaint with the county, he stopped bringing his hives. 

During the past few years, we tried 2 or 3 times to introduce purchased nucs (a bred queen plus a small colony of workers) and moved them into one of the hives which we had set up at the west end of the ranch.  I believe the purchased bees were from the Central Valley.  The first time was successful for about a year, stored huge amounts of honey, and we actually did get a little honey from the hive.  But then, the colony mysteriously collapsed.  The other attempts were not successful, and the colonies would collapse after a few months.  We never could find any sign of disease or mites or any other pest, so we had no explanation, other than possibly the bees simply were not adapted to our local conditions. 

Then last spring (2015), we were out at the west end of the ranch and - !! - there were bees busily going in and out of the hive.  The only thing we can think of is that the feral bees from the east end swarmed, and the swarm moved into the hive, all on their own.  So far, they seem fine - survived the winter and our very hot summer - perhaps because the feral bees are adapted to our environment.  We are letting them have their own honey, not intending to harvest any this year, in the hopes that they will continue to do well.

Recently we added two German Angora rabbits to our fiber animals.  May they produce lots of soft, beautiful rabbit wool for our use and to offer for purchase as a ranch product!  While contemplating the decision, I was reminded of something by Joel Salatin I read some time ago.   He said that every animal on his farm - as I remember he specified chickens and pigs - had to do two jobs.  With Angora rabbits, fiber production is obviously one of the jobs.  When these two grow up, they most likely will have the "job" of producing more rabbits.  And, I remember from long ago when we raised French Angora rabbits, their manure and discarded bedding makes wonderfully excellent compost as a garden amendment.

Our Santa Cruz Island sheep have multiple jobs as wool producers, grass and brush mowers, and fertilizer makers, also producing more lambs to bolster the population of this very rare breed.  The Navajo-Churro sheep we still have also are wool producers, mowers, and fertilizer manufacturers.

The llamas, like the sheep, produce fiber which is quite nice (if I ever get around to shearing them, and making a fiber tumbler to remove some of the vegetation matter).  They mow grass and brush nearly as well as the sheep, and can reach upward into the trees to defoliate the lower branches.  It all helps reducing fuel of wildfires.  A couple llamas, namely Georgie and Sahne these days, do the additional job of guarding sheep from coyotes.

The chickens produce eggs and the combination of manure, bedding, and feathers makes excellent compost.  Chickens will graze too, helping with weed abatement.  And they eat insects.  One of these days I need to find an artistic use for the beautiful feathers they moult.  I don't write about the turkeys much, but they are grazers too, and insect catchers.  Their eggs are great especially for baking, when we get them before the ravens carry them off.  And their feathers are beautiful.  The main use of the turkeys are for meat, of course, but we have a few old ones left that probably would be tough.

Dogs and cats?  Theoretically the cats are mousers, the dogs guard dogs, but their main function is companionship and entertainment.

I think where I left off with Part I, we had installed and re-installed various antennas (antennae?).  The signal amplifier works well and we can use our phones at several places in the house, whereas before we could only phone out and receive phone calls from a certain spot upstairs.  I have found, the stairwell works well and is convenient since I can sit on the steps.  We can text even with one or two bars (spots) and texting is fun.  We have unlimited texting as well as unlimited phone calls, our "data" is limited to 2 GB per month but we have carryover.  Needless to say I am writing this on the laptop using WiFi not on the phone.  The keyboard on the phone is really tiny so couldn't be used for this.  Hence Instagram with short captions, more about Instagram later.

One funny thing, the company that provides our phone etc. service initially got our address incorrect.  When they shipped our phones, they were addressed not only to the wrong address but also to an address that doesn't exist.  Eventually the phones found us, our road has so few residences - mainly large ranches each with only one or two homes - FedEx knows where we live, and we got them.  I called the company, and was assured the address was corrected.  First bill arrived sent to the nonexistent address.  Called again.  Assured the correction was made.  Second bill arrived, sent to the same nonexistent address.  Called again.  Assured the correction was made.  Waiting for the third bill or other correspondence.  Fortunately the post office also knows where we live.  Would hate to have our credit rating ruined because of silliness.

We have Instagram, follow us! at @blueoakcanyonranch.  I put our website on the Instagram profile but haven't figured out how to put the little camera icon on our website home page.  Maybe later.

Today, for a short time, my smart phone told me we had no service.  The signal amplifier was fine, on, all lights green except the first light which was blinking red and green and that doesn't, we have been told, matter as that is the light for WiFi which we have a satellite dish for internet access.  Anyway, the fault didn't seem to be in our part of the system and pretty soon service returned.

O my blog, how I've neglected you!  This Instagram thing is so easy, once I remember to carry my smart phone with me everywhere and take photos with it.  I've noticed, lots of folks USE Instagram AS their blog, with wonderful photos and long beautiful captions.  Entirely appropriate.  I hope to keep my captions short, since I have a blog for longer essays and messages.  Such as this. 

The c key on my laptop is sticky.

Will try to write more interesting blogs, with photos and videos of real stuff, such as sheep and chickens and sunsets.

This past Sunday morning, we (finally) got around to combining the Santa Cruz Island ewes and lambs with the rest of our mixed flocks of unbred Santa Cruz Island ewes and wether and the Navajo-Churro ewes and wether.  We had three reasons for doing this - one was, it was time to incorporate this year's lambs with the rest of the larger flock, to move them all into a larger field with some remaining standing barley for them to graze/browse, and the third reason is that the rams born in 2015 are due to be sheared this weekend, since we didn't shear them in the spring, and we need to pen them up ahead of time in the catch pen which is contiguous with the shearing shed.  The two videos below show the ewes and lambs combining with the other sheep.  You will be able to see there is a little head-butting with the ewes as they re-acquaint themselves with each other and re-figure out the pecking order.  No ewes butted the lambs.  Georgie the brown llama moved into this field with them.

Almost as an afterthought, I entered a Santa Cruz Island fleece in the Monterey County Fair Wool Show - as I have several times in the past.  This time I entered Lucia's fleece from our 2016 spring shearing, as it seemed very nice, clean, with a longer-than-typical staple length.  We weren't able to attend the wool judging in August due to a previous commitment.  So this past Friday we went to the Monterey County Fair to see how the fleece, and the three skeins of yarn I also entered, did.  Much to our delight, the fleece won first place in the Breeds division, "Other" class, and won Reserve Champion for its division!  It was displayed prominently and wonderfully, and I think will do a lot to promote the Santa Cruz Island sheep breed and their wool.

The judge was very kind, rated the fleece Excellent on everything (Cleanliness, Weight, Uniformity of Crimp, Strength, Character of Fleece, and Color) except Staple Length (rated it Good for that), and wrote "dreamy, fine, soft, very little waste" on the scorecard.

So, kudos to Lucia for growing the fleece, to Jim for shearing, and to me for skirting and entering the fleece into the competition.