Here is my long promised visual explanation of continental knitting. I have taught numerous people how to knit continental way. My friends find this way of knitting very easy. One thing everybody say is "gee, this totally makes sense"! Enjoy!

First snow storm. Running for cover.

Yesterday we've had a unexpected visit. A young bear found its way to our neck of the woods. He must be looking for a nice comfortable place to dig his den for winter.

Artists speak for themselves, usually, this is just too funny!

Enjoying hay, beautiful sunset casting last rays into the shed.

Mo Rocca eats crow, but learns the valuable art of knitting... as long as it he doesn't confuse it with crocheting.

Sort of funny video, I like listening to the Wait, wait don't tell me, nice radio show on Saturdays.

I came across this giveaway this morning, nice yarn! Would love to have it:)
www.thetwistedpurl.com/?p=424

I saw this adorable house on the Tiny house website.
Here is the link, tinyhouseblog.com/stick-built/idaho-sheep-wagons/.

A new pair of socks, a few more rounds. Love the color combination, 100% wool, warm and toasty.

I found this fabulous hat pattern in Twist Collective's latest issue, twistcollective.com/2011/fall/magazinepage_012.php

It got a bit hot in the last few days, so I moved my office into the wood shed behind the house. There is a nice breath and I even have a new assistant, English Patient, he is just as baffled as I am at the new websites I am creating.

Sorry to hear about the East coast baking in that awful heat. What? Climate change? We're having wonderful days, a bit of rain last night gently watered the garden, hopefully our tomatoes will get the message and start turning fruit soon. Everything else is growing beautifully, peas, lettuce, swiss chard, my all time favorite and of course we pick strawberries every day- several cups. Thank you chickens and thank you sheep for your not so sudden contributions to our little ecosystem.

and here is a bit on fun on the set, these are the good times on the film sets I sort of miss, other then that glad hollywood days are long gone from my repertoire ...

Fleece cleaning has started.

Yesterday afternoon we had an unexpected visit from a wolf. We spotted him calmly sitting on a hill above the pasture where the sheep were grazing. It was the chickens who created a noisy and loud ruckus, sheep correctly ran into their pen and we observed the wolf with binoculars. Unfortunately not enough time to grab the camera. After a few minutes the wolf slowly got up, turned and walked into the woods.
This is the closest image I found online.

Gray wolf. Photo by Flickr user Fremlin used under a Creative Commons License Visit Center for Biological Diversity

Yesterday we sheered our little flock! I will post images later today. What an experience, I think it was more traumatic for me then for the sheep. They sure did not want to cooperate. As Martin said the more pets they are the less cooperative they are. And aren't these first class pets! All is well and they happily running around without all that weight of one year fleece. Speaking of their fleece- looks very very nice and very very soft. Now cleaning, all all the steps to turn the fleece to a nice yarn. Will keep you posted, documenting all the steps with images of course.

First warm, sort of, evening, sunset setting over the hills.

My studio and my reliable assistants. Yes, those three wooly bears outside the window.

Last Monday my friend Lee had her entire flock of sheep sheered. It was rainy in the morning but soon the wind pushed the clouds and the sun came out. The sheep very a bit cold but as Lee said today they are used it by now. See more image on my flickr page.

I could not resist.

My Little Princess Lamb Note Card made it to a nice treasury.

And here is the Forest Collection of lichen, moss, and twigs.

Here is the screen shot of a Treasury on the home page of Etsy
My art/funky/edgy card "The Rooster Calls his Lady Home" is one of the featured items.

I was on the way home from the Saturday Farmers Market, this was last May, Memorial weekend. The pasture with the lambing ewes is located about 1/4 mile from our land. The ranchers were in the field working with the newborns. I chatted with them, as I have done numerous times during the lambing season. Early in the spring they brought 690 ewes and each had between 2 -3 babies. It was an exceptionally cold spring, rain, hail, many moms and baby lambs did not make it. I was going over there often, several times a week to help out. This rancher has (as I found out later) a common attitude towards life stock- it is a commodity.
That last Saturday of the cold and went May the guys carried three bummer lambs from the field towards the road. They put them down at my feet- Hey Lida these are for you. I resisted and asked the guys what are they going to do with them. Not saying much, they silently looked at each other. They knew very well how upset I was with all the lost moms and babies. And I knew, the lambs will be left in the field to fetch for themselves.

I took them home in the back of my Subaru, the ranchers gave me a half a bag of milk replacer and a bottle. I put them with the chickens, brought extra hay under one of the chicken coops and made them a nice small shelter to stay out of the cold rain. One was a half day old the other two, brother and sister, were about two days old. Next day we build them a little shelter in the woodshed, a couple of days later a friend drove over here from Lenore and did her vet procedures. The same day I drove back with her to pick up penicillin, looked like one of the lambs had a slight pneumonia, she also gave me several gallons of goat milk. I spend over four weeks feeding them every 4 hours, including nights, giving the sick one penicillin shots, spending countless nights in the woodshed keeping them warm on my lap wrapped in old jackets.

They thrived and as the weather warmed up and new grass started popping up they learned grazing and drinking water from the watering can. Now they have their own sheep shed, their own fenced large pen, but they still prefer to hang out in the open, play with the chickens and munch on their feed.

They are a wonderful addition to all our creatures. Everybody loves them and of course I love them the most.

A picture are worth a thousand words, check out the greeting cards I made out of the thousands of images I took and still taking. Enjoy.