Kung Fu Chicken

E was playing in the chicken yard with her friend C. They were giving the chickens Kung Fu lessons...

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Daylight saving sundial in Santa Cruz

Depending on the month you stand on one of the blue boxes or one of the red boxes and your shadow tells the time on a circle. Beautiful sundial on the pavement at Santa Cruz harbor.

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Santa Cruz harbor on the first weekend in fall.

T is doing "Sons of the Beach" ukulele and I'm letting the kids play on the beach. Waves, warm gently wafting seabreezes, boats, birds, lighthouse... Blissful!

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Birthday party at the neighbors

Sapphire (German shepherd) grabs the tennis ball if you even half flinch towards it. What's the point, you silly dog!

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Piece of "art" at the library

I had to tell J&E what this piece of art used to be! How did we ever function without computers...

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"Sheep or rabbit?"

E drew a picture of Cloudy Day comparing her to a sheep. Fluffy wool!

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Welcome Cloudy Day! Our new angora rabbit.

Today we got an English Angora rabbit! Her name is "Cloudy Day". I'm happy to see she has a nice coat of wool to spin! We are borrowing a chicken kennel for a couple days until we get a hutch for her.

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J&E with Gene visiting Don in Watsonville to pick apples.

They had two gorgeous pitbulls that were as friendly as could be.

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Morning on the beach - Santa Cruz ukulele (Sons of the Beach)

We spent a pleasant morning on the beach and now we are headed to Gene's for the afternoon.

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Company picnic getting warmed up! Grillin and chillin in Belmont

Crazy good BBQ and waterslide!

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A morning with the wool picker

A wool picker looks like a medieval torture device (center). It is made from nails in wood, spaced about 1/2" apart, on the top and bottom of the picker. The style here is a box or bench picker. The angle of the nails causes the raw wool to pass through the picker in roughly one direction when sliding the top back and forth over the bottom, pulling apart the clumps and fluffing the wool.

The four wools on the left of the picker are unpicked (raw off animal). The corresponding piles on the right are what happens to the wool after a few minutes of back-and-forth through the picker. Not shown: a few grams of sand and debris that dropped down after picking.

The bags behind the table are the raw wools sold directly from two farmers.

Grey wool: Jacob's sheep
Top right white: unknown cross breed
Bottom left white: Wensleydale cross
Dark brown: alpaca

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