East Kentucky Fibers

There’s so much that I want to post about, but I’m going to try to spread it out somehow.  It would be craziness to blog about every single thing all at once.

I just got back a couple weeks ago from a big 3 month stay in Ireland.  I had a wonderful time.  It was really beautiful there, but extremely rainy.  September was nice, but october and november were WET WET WET.  Here are some gorgeous pictures from the “homeplace” in Clonbur:

I made some pretty socks while I was in Ireland. They’re the Lozenge socks from Knitting Vintage Socks:

Things in old Kentucky are really getting rolling too.  The house in Flemingsburg is really coming along.  I’m supposed to be getting a wood stove soon, and then it’ll be fit for life.  Here are some of the things that have been going on:

Here’s the bedroom in the before time:

After me pulling up the stinky stink carpet and painting the walls:

I thought about refinishing the floors, but they aren’t in the best of shape, and I’m about as handy as a foot. Instead of going through all the horrible trouble of sanding them and getting the layers and layers of paint off the edges, I painted them with Valspar oil based floor paint in Betsy Ross House Brown. I washed the floors really well first, got all the staples out, and painted away:

I also painted the floors in the living room and dining room. I did them this month when it was cold, and it made the fumes much, much more bearable. It took much longer to dry because of the cold (like two weeks instead of a day), but in the heat, the fumes were so bad that even with the doors and windows open and fans going, I had to take a break every 15-20 minutes to breathe outside.
My angelic grandmother had some work done too while I was in Ireland. She got the bathroom in order for me and had some painting done in the kitchen, living room, and stairs.

Fancy!!

I also managed to sneak into the barn and check things out. There are about 5 million groundhog holes that’ll need to be filled in, but there’s some potential!

There horses are doing great out there on the farm, they love all the grass. There’s a huge scary dog running around there. I saw pawprints by the pond:

That means I’m going to have to get an even bigger and scarier dog to protect me!
Here are the girlies and babies:

I’m very depressed because my kitties disappeared while I was gone. I’m putting up signs this week around our road. I hope someone gives them back to me, and that they haven’t been eaten by coyotes.

That’s all for now!

A week and a half (or so) ago, I played in the “Made to be Played” banjo concert in Frankfort. Jesse Wells played with his dad Jaime, Brett Ratliff played, and John Haywood played. It was just great. I loved being there with all my friends. Here’s some video the fellow who filmed put up on youtube.  The first song is “The Brown Girl” that I learned from Lily May Ledford, the human, not the horse, and the second is “The Roving Cowboy” that I learned from Buell Kazee.

I took a bunch of pictures today of the babies, which I do most days.  Everybody is strong and healthy.  Joey had a bath today and Lily and Roanan had their first wipe-downs with a wet rag.  Roanan loved it, Lily didn’t care for it.  She did like being out in the yard while her mommy got washed up, she’d wean herself tomorrow if she got to eat that fancy grass for every meal!  Everybody got wormed yesterday, and it’s a good thing!  The babies were surprisingly well mannered about taking their medicine.  Cookie was the least resistant out of the big girls.

Here’s Omie and her (sadly still unnamed) baby:

Omie’s baby is starting to shed out a little bit, he looks like he’ll be dark, but I don’t see the roaning that Roanan has.

Here’s fat Joey after her bath:

Her mane is growing back nicely after being so unceremoniously ripped out the day she was brought to me in Morehead. That one back stripe is still shorter than the others, but maybe I’ll trim it even after her hair grows freakishly long.

The babies had fun playing today after bath time.

Here’s Roanan trying to share Lily’s supper:

I’ve been making some silhouettes to put up for sale at Washington Hall. Here’s what I’ve made so far. Just for size reference, the frames are 11X14.

That’s Twister, Joey, and Cappuccino from top to bottom, if you couldn’t tell by the varying amounts of fat!

And the countdown - I’ll be leaving for Ireland in 3 weeks, to stay for 3 months. Hooray!!!!!

I’ve been keeping myself pretty busy working on the house and playing with my little babies. I took the plunge and bought paint colors. I got a minty green for the kitchen, a teal color for the dining room, a beautiful blue for the living room, and very pale lavender for my bedroom. [...]

After hanging on for a week past her due date, Omie finally had her foal on sunday morning! It’s a beautiful little colt with a broken blaze and no white feet (hooray!). It was a lot easier on Omie than I thought it would be, the baby is teeny tiny and they look precious together.

I [...]

I think my foals might be boyfriend/girlfriend.   I’ve been catching them being friendly.  I guess Lily likes redheads after all.

“Hey Lily, whatcha doin?”

“Oh cool! You’re scratchin!”

“I can help!”

“I can scratch where you can’t reach! See?”
So there’s lots of kissing and hugging, lots of sleeping, and lots of PLAYING!

In the Cherry Grove house, I tore out [...]

The babies are getting frisky, it’s a lot of fun to watch.  They both like to run and play.  Roanan comes up and Lily will touch noses with him for a second, then she kicks him.  She likes to play by herself and with her mother, not with dorky red haired boys

Today was [...]

Here’s Joey’s Foal at a week and a half old. I think I’m going to name her Lily May Ledford after the famous banjo picker, since her mother’s name is banjo.

I’ll update the little boy in a few days, I haven’t cropped the new pictures or anything yet. I might name him Ronan, [...]

For the last few weeks I’ve been working to get a family house on Cherry Grove road fit for human habitation.  I’m planning on moving myself and the girls out there in a few months and there’s much to be done.  I primed over the kerosine and nicotine stains in the living room and have [...]

While I was away at Cowan Creek Music School this weekend, Rain had an early colt.  He looks like a red roan, we’ll see how he turns out!

Joey’s filly grew a ton while I was gone, she looks about ready to pull a wagon!