This is your assignment, should you choose to accept it.

Yup, I did it again. I have abandoned my blogging duties. But, after several 'gentle' nudges, and some not-so-gentle nudges in the form of comments left on my Facebook page, I got the hint that it was time to update.

First off, for those of you that don't follow my Crosswinds Farm page on Facebook, I have some sad news. I lost Willow, one of my favorite older ewes, a couple of weeks ago. We will miss her very much. I know that many of you have followed her on this blog over the years, and many of my market customers have made lovely garments from her fleece and looked forward to purchasing her fiber every year. I know they will miss her as well. That is all I want to say about that.

Other sad news. 

I had to say good-bye to Larry, my truck, recently as well. If you have followed my blog for any length of time, you have met Larry through the tales of the misadventures that occur every time my sister Marie and I take a road trip. As my husband so aptly put it, "You and Marie have been lost in some of the best parts of the country in that truck."  He was not even joking when he said it. Dead-pan serious.

I've had Larry for over 10 years and he has carried sheep from every corner of the Midwest, pulled horse trailers on the way to trail rides, hauled goodies home from various flea markets, and kept us safe through all kinds of weather, crazy traffic and misguided directions from a GPS that wanted us to drive off a cliff.....don't say it....

Good-Bye Larry :(

There is good news though. There is a new man in town. Meet.........ummm...

this guy.

Here's where I need your help. This guy does not have a name yet. We used to always say, " Let's take Larry." But now is like... " Hey, let's take...ummm...the truck." It just seems wrong.

We are going to need a name before our first official road trip in this truck to the Wisconsin Sheep and Wool festival the 9th, 10th and 11th of September...I know, it's only a week away!  I have faith in you, you can work under pressure.

You can leave name suggestions either in the comment section of this blog, or on my Crosswinds Farm facebook page. I will pick the top three favorite submissions on Tuesday night...sometime...not midnight 'cause I have already been in bed for a couple of hours by then. I figure the deadline should be Tuesday night because that will give those of you who only read blogs and check Facebook while you are at work ( you know who you are) a chance to catch up after the long weekend ....it's OK, I won't tell  your boss. Besides, this is so much more important. So, just get your suggestions on here soon(ish) and then I will add a poll on this blog on Wednesday so you can all vote on your favorite of those three.....geesh, I hope this works. In return, the winner will have the dubious distinction of being the person that named the truck, and in some small way you will always be a part of our awesome adventures. Thrilling, I know.  As if that wasn't rewarding enough, there will be fabulous and exciting prizes. 

This took a bit of deciding, and as most of you know, I am not good at deciding. 

SO, the winner will receive their choice of: 

An 8 ounce ball of roving .

OR

Two - 2 ounce skeins of handspun  yarn .

OR

For those of you that are not fiber enthusiasts, you can get 6 of my famous, homemade Salted Nut Rolls.

Here are the rules:

1) It has to be a people name...because it is much more fun to refer to him by a name associated with a human being, mainly because it really confuses people at a truck stop. For example: when you say, "Should we stop and wash Larry before lunch?"  it gives you many more raised-eyebrow-reactions from by-standers than, if his name was something like..The Blue Avenger.

2) It has to be a strong name...this guy is going to have to put up with a lot......like, listening to Marie's Queen CD's over, and over, at a decibel loud enough to shatter glass in passing vehicles..... I seriously have no idea why our husbands never want to come along on these adventures...I digress.

3) The new truck is a Ford, but it can't be named Henry, or Henri, because both my dad and my brother are Henris....Henries....Henrises....what is the plural of Henri, anyway? My point is, it would just be too confusing.

There you go. That is your assignment. Do it soon so we can decide on a name before the trip.

If you can, join us at the Wisconsin Sheep and Wool festival. It is a huge, ginormous amount of fun. Make sure you stop by the Shetland Show on Saturday, there will be Shetland breeders from all over the country there with lots of pretty sheep ( and lots of other breeds as well )....you can watch me embarrass myself by trying to drag a 120 pound ram around the show ring....I really should have started halter-training a long time ago.  It. Will. Be. Awesome.

Don't worry Garrett, we have a new GPS, so we won't be driving over any cliffs this year....in theory.

A few ewes and a flea market.

First of all, I am not dead, thanks for the inquiries ; ). I just haven't been very bloggy as of late.

I  have added some of my ram lambs to my 'Shetland Sheep for Sale' page on this blog.  Some of the ram lambs are still being evaluated; it takes a while to figure out what those darn horns are going to do! I have been trying to take pictures of the ewe lambs in between the rain storms, but haven't been very successful thus far. All of my ewe lambs are spoken for...so I almost hate to post more pictures of them...it's kind of like saying, "Hey, look at these sheep you can't have!"  Hopefully next year I will have more ewes lambs than ram lambs to offer.

Here are a few of the girls that I did get pictures of.

What? I said, 'I ALMOST ' hate to post pictures of them.

This pretty spotted ewe is going to an unregistered flock in Indiana. 

These two black ewes, Juno and Forseti, will be living with a nice family in Iowa.

The new owners picked the name, Juno, for this solid black ewe.

 And Forseti is this pretty girl's name.

Freya will be moving to Decorah, Iowa.

This little moorit ewe will be going with Freya to Decorah...I always like it when they have a buddy to go with them.

I will try to get pictures of the rest soon.

About the flea market.

Those of you that have been following my blog are familiar with the Flea Market routine. We (my sister Marie and I) get up before the crack of dawn and meet so that we can make the hour and a half road trip to West Burlington, Iowa, for the monthly flea market. You are probably thinking, "Wow, there must be some great stuff there to make it worth getting up that early!" Ummm, not necessarily, it's just the possibility of some really great stuff that keeps us going back.

So, this time, my husband Gary was brave enough to join us for the trip. Sunday morning we were on our way before 4:30.....yes, AM.

Note the age of my truck by the fact that I have a cassette tape player in the dash board.....more about my aging truck later.

We arrived right around 6 AM, and Marie started finding bargains right away. Large Coleus plants for $2.

 Annnnd a few accessories that we opted to not purchase...

 We found these purses that would go with...well....umm, nothing that I own, but here are some purses.

 And some fancy beads....it was like Mardi Gras- without the nudity.

 ?????

I've been looking all over for this stuff!

And this, apparently, is a Bunny vacuum cleaner cover...to hide your vacuum...'cause this is more attractive than a vacuum?

Nothing says flea market like a heart-shaped hot tub!

We met some interesting people. This guy was nice enough to model his hats for us.

I thought it was adorable how this man and his dog kinda had the same expression.

This kitty picture is for my son-in-law, Andrew, because the only thing he loves more than a squishy-faced cat, is a squishy-faced cat wearing clothes. Not joking. He loves this stuff.

I found an old table and a bench that needed a little TLC, but with some sprucing up they might be kind of neat. Hey, they were a dollar each, so what the heck.

At this point we had wandered around for about three hours and were starting to accumulate a few things. Gary was holding up pretty well, his job was to keep an eye on Marie so she didn't wander off too far; there were shiny things there, so it is sometimes difficult to keep track of her. 

Pay no attention to the pink Barbie Christmas tree.....it has a special purpose bwahahaha!

By the time we had wandered around for almost 4 hours, Gary started looking at knives...I am not sure what that was about....hmmm. I think he had reached his 'fun' limit.

When we were just about to leave, we made an astonishing discovery. I thought I was pretty good at geography, especially when it comes to the great state of Iowa, but something we found told me otherwise.

Apparently, Iowa is farther West than I originally thought...like, West, as in, the desert, West.

And Iowa is much larger than I thought-stretching all the way to the ocean. I must live a sheltered life because I have never seen dolphins in Iowa. Good to know.

And who knew that Iowa reached all the way to the South Eastern part of the U.S.? I had no idea that Iowa was in the land of Dixie! 

OK, now I am really confused.....

 I better study my geography.

After we had just about all the fun that Gary could stand, we headed home. After leaving the flea market we made a brief stop to gas up and hit the road. We only got a short distance from the market and my truck (Larry) started making strange noises. The RPM needle was going up and down and the engine seemed to be "missing". We wondered if we should try to baby the old boy home, or try to find an open service station in one of the tiny towns ( most of them with populations of less than 300) along the way...on a Sunday morning... we opted to try to get him home....which we did...still waiting for a damage report on that one....I think the mechanic is afraid to call me.

The last ewe lamb leaves.

Today the last one of this year's ewe lambs-well, that is to say, the last one that I am not hoarding for myself-went to her new home. Gary and I loaded up the truck this morning with my ewe lamb, Bayberry, and three lambs from Sommarang Farm that also needed a ride in the same direction. Sorry for the foggy photo, Bayberry decided to kiss the lense right before I took the picture.

It is always hard to see the lambs go, but it is especially hard when they are as sweet and friendly as Bayberry is, and even harder when they are the last of the 'for sale' lambs to leave. The longer they spend at the farm the more I get attached. Bayberry was sold as a pet because she initially had a very slight underbite which is an automatic 'no register', her tail is also longer than I like to see in my Shetlands, but that was a moot point with the bite issue. Of course, by weaning time I had already promised  her to a great 'pet only' home, aaaand her bite straightened out, it also became apparent that she is modified and will have beautiful shaela (dark steel grey) fleece.

So with sheep loaded in the truck, we set out for Des Moines....yes, another trip across Interstate 80...at least this time of year the corn is changing color...which makes the trip much more scenic.

It was going to be 87 degrees today with higher humidity, so even though we were leaving early in the morning, and we had the screens open on the topper of the truck for ventilation for the lambs, I was still worried about them being too warm, so we opened the little window between the cab of the truck and the back where the sheep were riding. The window is not big enough for the sheep to try to squeeze through, but it is big enough to let a little air flow from the cab stream back.....not cold air mind you, I have no air-conditioning in my truck so it was whatever temperature the wind provided. We were sweating like pigs up front, but I am pretty sure the lambies were comfy.

And, as if I didn't feel bad enough taking Bayberry away, THESE are the looks that I got every time I glanced over my shoulder to see how Bayberry and friends were doing in the back-

For the most part the lambs lay quietly for the ride with the exception of an occasional "BAAaaaa" from Bayberry, unfortunately she inherited her mama's baa which sounds a bit like someone losing their lunch. We made one stop East of Des Moines to deliver the Sommarang Farm ewe lamb to Deb, who has a small, but growing, flock of Shetlands, and then continued on to the West side of Des Moines with the rest of our charges where we met two of the nicest young women, Meg and Hannah. Hannah is Bayberry's new owner, and apparently Bayberry knew that because she instantly bonded with Hannah.

Meg got the two gorgeous, friendly wethers. It seems as though Meg was camera shy because I only got a couple of pictures of her. Here we are loading up her vehicle with sheepies.....we look like we were all talking at the same time...maybe we were trying to distract the on-lookers at the rest stop.....as my husband so helpfully stood there and took pictures-thanks Honey!

The sheep eventually got loaded and the girls were ready to go.

Yeah, Bayberry is not making me feel guilty at all.

Here are some baby pics of Bayberry.

Not sure why, but she looks very surprised or worried in this baby photo.

Farewell Bayberry, we will miss you.

Omaha, we found you!

Well, we made it back safely from our whirl wind trip to Omaha. For those of you who had no faith in my ability to navigate the 320 mile trip across the great state of Iowa with a load of sheep and my sister Marie as my co-pilot... you've probably met us.
This is a card I gave Marie a few years back and it is a pretty accurate depiction of what happens in our travels.

Our plan was to be in Omaha by 9 AM Saturday morning, so at 4 AM, Marie arrived at our house to load sheep, and stuff the truck full of snacks-cause that's just what she does. Still half-asleep, we clumsily loaded the 3 sheepies into the truck without incident (luckily they were half-asleep as well) and headed for the open road with the wind blowing through our hair ( the air conditioning in my truck is 2-70....two windows down at 70 miles an hour) and the smell of sheep emanating from our clothes.... life is good.

When I mentioned that this trip is 320 miles, I should have clarified. The route is 320 miles....on Interstate 80... each direction....straight, flat shot across this great state that I love. 320 miles.

                          

  I was going to post lots of pictures of the 'scenery' along the way.....like this.......

....and this

But then I remembered this video that really captures the essence of  what it means to travel interstate 80 through Iowa.

Down the interstate we drove, mile after mile, the sheep quietly munching on hay in the back of the truck. The trip went pretty quickly, perhaps it went quickly because we were hauling sheep so we weren't tempted to stop along the route, or maybe it was because there were massive amounts of caffeine consumed due to the aforementioned 4 AM start time....whatever. We arrived in Omaha just a few minutes later than planned, but still were able to meet the new sheep owners by about 9 :15 and transfer sheep into their vehicle so that they could take them to their final destination in Colorado....incidentally, it is surprising how many onlookers gather when you transfer baaaing sheep in the middle of a hotel parking lot first thing in the morning.

Now that the sheep were safely delivered, we decided that we would take our time on the return trip. We pointed the truck to the East and started our trek back to the East coast of Iowa.

We were actually doing pretty well staying focused and hadn't been distracted by too many things along the way. One thing I wanted to do was to get some pictures of the 'wind farms' once we got closer to Adair, Iowa. We have been past the wind farms before, in a previous trip, but since I was driving then too I was never been able to get pictures of the turbines..........well.....there was that ONE incident in the previous trip when I handed my camera to Marie and asked her to take some photos of them. She pointed the camera out the window and after a couple of clicks she turned to me and said, "Darn it!" "What's the matter, Marie?" I asked. To which she replied,  "I wanted to take a picture of that one, but the blades aren't moving." After a few thoughtful moments when I wondered if she had really just said that, I answered, "That's OK, Marie, they won't be moving in the picture either."

So this time I was taking my chances pointing the camera out the window and clicking random shots myself without looking...cause I was driving.

Hmmm...kinda crooked. We decided to follow an exit where we could see seemingly hundreds of turbines off in the distance surrounding a small town-this looked like a great place to take some pictures.

I was trying to get some shots that would show the enormity of these turbines, but I don't know if it is possible to capture it in a photo. I am all for green energy, but I couldn't help thinking, as I looked across the horizon dotted with these massive structures, that I would not want to gaze out on my pastures and see something reminiscent of a Stephen King movie towering over my property.  I have always been curious as to whether or not there is a lot of noise emitted from the turbines...the answer is a resounding YES! From a distance, they seem to be silently sweeping their giant arms through the air, effortlessly turning, but as we got closer we could hear the pulsing "whoosh, whoosh, whoosh" of the blades.

Our curiosity about the turbines had been satisfied, so on down the road we went to turn around and head back to the interstate. Then we saw THIS...

Well, obviously, this begged the question, "Is it an antique city, or a city full of antiques...and does a town of 897 constitute a city in the first place???" These questions had to be answered.

We drove into town along the tree-lined street, passing blocks of beautiful older homes with perfectly manicured lawns, wrought iron fences and cozy porch swings. As we approached the 'downtown' area we saw what we were looking for-shop after shop of antiques...we had hit the mother load.

The first place we stopped had some awesome metal sculptures and garden items.

Here is Marie with a giant metal pig and such.

Inside the shop was full of antiques of all kinds.

We explored store after store...I think it was 'Take your tractor to work day' at this shop.

" OOoooooooooohhhhhh, shiny!"

It could take us years to get out of this place.

This store had three levels. I think we all know how I feel about heights..this picture still makes me nauseous, but...

I had to go all the way to the top floor to find AN ENTIRE ROOM FULL OF OLD CHAIRS!  I love old chairs. I couldn't actually go into the room to look around because that would have meant going up a few more steps and then having to turn around at some point to come back down the stairs which overlook the open center of the building...all the way down. Waaaaay down. See previous photo. Dooooown.

 The last shop we went to had a bakery with the tantalizing smell of fresh-baked bread wafting out onto the sidewalk beckoning us to come in. Once inside, we lusted over the delicious-looking pastries and rolls, but decided to wait and have some real food once we got back on the road. Before we left I went into the restroom to wash my hands and was quite puzzled by this sign on the inside.

Is there a way to get out of the bathroom without unlocking the latch???

We did remarkably well by only spending a couple of hours in this quaint little town, and amazingly, we didn't buy ANYTHING! There were lots of lovely items, but for the most part the prices were a bit high, probably due to the fact that a lot of tourists pass through. I prefer to find treasures under piles of junk at a flea market or in dusty boxes at a garage sale...I guess it gives me more of a sense of accomplishment, the search is half the fun.

We got back on the road and made one other stop at a large garden center, but since it is towards the end of the season there wasn't a great selection left-again, we bought nothing!

 We arrived back home at about 4:30 in the afternoon..extremely tired, but we had a great time. I KNOW! From one side of Iowa to the other in about twelve hours without getting overly distracted? Unbelievable. And you thought we would be gone for a week.