Well, not so much me, I’m still fighting off the last of the dread lurgy I picked up in Kansas (I arrived with the last touch of my LAST cold, and really thought it was just allergies….nope, a whole new exciting cold! Blerg.).

But the garden is officially up and running! I am already all atwitter in anticipation of eating local, participating in the One Local Summer Challenge, and bartering down at the local veggie stand. I got home last week to lots of wee baby seedlings just starting to grow. I’ve switched to sowing almost everything direct because through much trial and error I’ve discovered I get far better germination (ahem, this is no doubt in part because when sowing direct I have Nature to help me with the watering) and faster growth.

What’s popped up so far? Potatoes (red, yellow, and fingerlings), spinach, radishes, Walla Walla sweet onions, kale, broccoli, cauliflower, assorted herbs, and tons of various salad greens.

While there’s nothing to see from a distance, I’m very excited about my herb circle this year, it’s chock full of my favorite annuals….parsley, cilantro, purple basil, dill, chives, and nasturtium.

Hello, I’m back on the homestead! Yarn School was fabulous and exhausting.

The students were an absolute delight, the food was officially yumtastic, and the scenery was still just as intriguingly flat. The evening we arrived the skyine was glowing from people burning their fields. Which was very creepy, we don’t really have that sort of thing around here, other than people burning their fence lines to keep the tall grass down. But entire scorched glowing fields? That’s quite a site.

I worked primarily with the absolute beginners, which I enjoy so much. Getting to help someone create their very first handspun yarn is just hands down awesome. And it’s always super groovy to do something rewarding AND meet excellent new peeps at the same time.

Should you want to see more exciting Yarn School Spring Session ‘08 photos you can find my album of pics here, and there is also a Flickr group with tons of great shots. If you’re on Ravelry, there’s a Yarn School group.

The frenzy is upon me. This week has seen the house overrun with woolliness.

A quick Yarn School reminder: Registration is closing this Wednesday and there are just a couple of spots still available.

I cannot properly express precisely how much fun there is to be had, plus oodles of learning. It’s really an amazing experience. For those of you reading this that are already signed up and coming, I’m all atwitter to get there and meet you! Oh, and for a little preview, you can find my pictures from last Fall here. They’re also part of a Flick group full of tons of groovy shots.

And now I ought to go do some laundry so I’m not dressed like a woolly hobo on my trip

Yes, yes I did

More chicks, that is…our plan this year was to add anywhere between 3-6 new girls to our flock. It seems there have been a lot of problems this year with hatcheries getting ridiculously behind on their hatchings, anyone else noticed? Our local feed stores have all had problems getting their normal allotments of day olds this Spring, and if they attempted to order anything out of the ordinary (say, “chocolate eggers”) just forget it. A couple places have given up and aren’t going to get any at all.

I had picked up our lovely little batch or Ameraucanas (for us) and Barred Rocks (for a friend) but since then…nada. Then I stumbled across a local chicken fancier….and tah-dah!

Three more little girls, who are in fact bigger girls. Allow me to introduce (drumroll, please):

Tilda, Calamity Jane, and Trixie!

That’s not a terribly great picture, but it at least shows them all together….those Welsummers are a bit squirrelly! Tilda is a Salmon Faverolle and the other two the Welsummers (we felt strongly that these chicks were sassy enough to be named after surly women from Deadwood )

Right now they’re absolutely identical, so who knows which is Trixie and which is Calamity, but as they get older if I still can’t find some difference between them I may get one a leg band. I’m thrilled about getting them because they’re going to give us gorgeous dark reddish brown eggs.

Tilda is just big and soft and incredibly laid back. Well, as long as you aren’t actually picking her up, then she shrieks like a banshee. But once you’ve got her, you can set her anywhere and she’ll gaze around for a moment and then just lay down and make herself comfortable. I took this closeup of her face below right after bringing her home and she didn’t mind one bit.

Why am I downright giddy about getting a Salmon Faverolle? Well, they’ve supposedly got lovely laid back dispositions, they’re big and fluffy, they have beards and muffs, feathery legs, AND extra toes. What more could you ask for in one chicken??

Here’s one of the Welsummer girls, looking slightly dazed and concerned. I just love it when the babies reach the awkward and gawky “dinosaur” stage.

Around these parts it’s time for me to be getting ready to fly off on a jet plane to beautiful rural Kansas once again. It’s time for Yarn School, whoo! (Well, in two weeks, but I’m excited )

Once there, I’ll be teaching alongside Adrian and Jennifer again. Last Fall I had such a wonderful time, and I’m really looking forward to going again and catching up with great gals I met last time and meeting a bunch of new students.

Just to have a small break from chicken talk (of which there will be more of pretty quickly), here’s a little yarn progression for you…

Hand dyed Corriedale top-

On the bobbins-

And then finally all plied up (3-ply)-

Ok, so it seems there’s a problem now with comments not working. My apologies and hopefully I’ll get it fixed up soonest!

ETA: Ok, things look like they’re fixed. Phew. Stupid database errors.