Felted Out

This is my last day here (wahh!) for awhile anyway. I'm flying back to Dancing Leaf Farm tomorrow to get ready for the April studio tour and the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival. I'll be back for 3 weeks and will cram every minute in with dyeing, printing, skeining, shearing, cleaning, yard work, gardening, biking, hiking, catching up with friends, seeing my boys, animals, sunsets and working by butt off. I am really looking forward to it too.
On the table are most of the felting that I've done here in Cambridge. I also almost finished 2 sweaters (will have to finish next week) a few hats and a sock. See, I haven't been a total slacker!








After I needle felt the balls, I put them in hot water, then remove and roll vigorously into a firm ball.


After drying, they get gussied up with seed beeds. These are the finished pendants.

Barrington Pub

Biked to this lovely pub about 10 miles away. Today was absolutely beautiful and I don't think anyone was indoors. Every place we went, folks were enjoying the weather (and beer!)

Boar House

Yeah, more thatch. But this one has a wild boar on top!

Mustard Field

Happy Biking

A perfect day for me is when I'm on my bike. If we're around Cambridge for the weekend, we hop on our bikes and pedal out to the countryside. There are charming villages about every 2 miles (and at least one pub in each village). The mustard is in full bloom right now. It looks just like our wild mustard but it's planted on purpose. It really is beautiful, but it smells bad when biking through it.

While Biking

Friends Visit

Our friends from Virginia visited Friday and Saturday. Steve and Karen lived in London a couple years ago for 2 years and are seeing their old friends back in London. With them is their friend, Jean, also from Virginia (now our friend too).

Beauty Day

Enjoying a nice day out with our friends on the River Cam outside of a pub. We watched the punters on the river, some pros and some total amateurs, but none of them fell into the water.

Smo, Karen and Jean at Breakfast

See King Henry peeking at us from the back?

Pub Crawl

We're at the end of our pub crawl. We met a Scottish gentleman who was at a wedding along the River Cam. He said the couple had just left in a punt boat up the river.

Camera Man Take 8

Saw this man on King's Parade, the main tourist street in Cambridge. He was alone so had to take his own pictures of himself. He'd look through the viewfinder, set the camera up on the tripod, then go stand in front of it (with beautiful King's College in the background), smile, pack up the tripod and camera, walk about 10 paces and repeat.

Flat 10 Living Room

This is our living room. That whacky thing above the chair is clips on spokes coming out of a center ball. It's supposed to hold photos but we don't have a printer so I got paint chip samples at the local DIY store and clipped them to it. I splashed color on 4 canvases to hang over the couch.

Shapes

More splashing of color on canvas.

Flat 10 Office and Dining Room

Flat 10 Kitchen

This is our kitchen which stays very clean because we don't cook in it. Unless you consider making coffee cooking. I actually use it for felting.

Flat 10 Jewelry Studio

Flat 10 Woodland View

This is our western view off the balcony to our woods and gardens below.

Flat 10 Patio and Garden

Flat 10 Garden

Who says you can't have a garden in a 5'x3' patio? In with the pansies is cress and the other holds salad greens. When I was 'planting' this garden, I saw the handyman and ran out to see about getting a shelf put in the closet. My hands were totally covered in dirt and he said, " Your hands sure are dirty". I told him I was planting a garden and he said "There's no garden in flat 10. " And I said, "There is now!"

Mom and kids

We see this cute family on our way to the market.
Someone said they're moors. I say they're birds.

Houston Went Too

Houston is hardly in any pics so thought you'd like proof that he was actually with me.

Plastered and Stoned

Call this number if you want to get plastered or stoned.

Shawl Sign

Wonder how many men say "Meet me for a beer at the Ould Plaid Shawl."

First Boats

We spent nearly all our time in Ireland hugging the coast and these were about the only boats we saw.

Off to Ireland

Houston and I went to Ireland over Easter weekend. Flew into Shannon and drove south to Killarney, then the Ring of Kerry, up to Doolin for the fabulous music scene, ferried out to an Aran island and just soaked up the culture. Heard plenty of Irish being spoken, which is very similar to Gaelic and is making a comeback. It's a beautiful language and the further out we traveled, the more prolific the language.

Aran Island

We took the ferry from Doolin, Ireland to Inisheer (East Island), one of the three Aran Islands. Inishmaan (Middle Island) and Inishmore (Big Island) make up the other two. This 2 x 2 mile island is covered with miles of stone fences. I was in awe of these fences, all dry stacked by hand. They went on and on and each area that was walled in was only about 50' across.
"This is the rapidly vanishing and hidden Ireland, of "boreens" or tiny roads often passable only on foot; of fishermen who go to sea in canvas and lathe "currachs"; and farmers whose fields often seem no bigger than a living room but produce potatoes from soil made from sand and seaweed."
Aran Island is really known for it Aran sweaters, or gansey. There were plenty of Aran sweaters in the shops in Doolin, but they are now made in China by 'Aran knitters'. The wool comes from Australia. They are warm, soft and very nice, just not from the Aran islands any longer.

Old Castle

A few castles still remain on this island.

Walk

The island has about 6 roads that splay out from the village and end at the sea. No circular route so one has to go back to the village to start down another path. We walked nearly the entire island in the afternoon.

Rocks Gone Wild

We saw so many different ways of laying rock. I particularly liked this one, helter skelter but built to last. Families have their own pattern. I just couldn't believe the miles and miles of walls on this tiny island. It must've taken decades to make all these walls. Each paddock was only about 50 feet across and the walls were usually 6' tall. This was to prevent the salt water from coming in and killing the grass. Rocks were used for so many purposes. Some of these walled areas had no gate but the farmer would move rocks aside, let the cattle in and rebuild the wall. Large, flat rocks were used for tables, smaller ones for benches or stools.

Rock On!

Looking back to the 'mainland' and the Cliffs of Moher.

Rocks Up Close

I love rocks and I just couldn't get over the multitude of them and how they were arranged.

"Firstly when the land was cleared by extreme physical labour, the rock pavements that had to be broken up and moved by hand became the walls around these 'fields'. Each farmer has his own method of dry stone wall building, and it is amazing that his handiwork can be distinguished from someone else's. This art is passed down generation to generation. The stone walls are also remarkable in their strength, given the high winds and storms that hit the islands - and this is taken into account during construction. remember no concrete or binding material is used. the structure is all important, and this allows wind to pass through the walls easily, giving them stability in gales.
The walls have no gates but will have one area in a lot of cases where some rounder stones are placed, that can be rolled to one side to let cattle in or out, and then easily rolled back.
There are over 1000 miles of stone walls on Inis Mor (not bad for an island that isn't even 10 miles long!)."

Rocks and More Rocks

Kid Rock

Even kids build rock walls! Not a very good tractor driver though. (pulled a Frawley!)

Stock Water

To water the livestock, they have either concrete or wood slabs, angled down to the trough.

Only Two Sheep

Even though there were hundreds of small stone walled field/paddocks, we saw only two sheep and about 30 cattle. Not so many animals anymore. We wondered what the islanders did for income and found out that if you are a long time resident of the islands, you get a stipend from the government to just live there. The government is trying to preserve the islands and its way of life, so supplements the income from fishing, farming or selling trinkets to tourists.

Inisheer Home

We saw only a couple of homes like this. Most of them either fell down or were taken down and more modern houses built. Too bad, because these are so charming and the others, not so much. But I can see where these would be very dark and damp and small.

Tractors Go to the Pub

Island folks got around on these tractors. Inisheer is only 2 x 2 miles and we saw a lot of tractors. They could've just shared a couple. As you can see, they make good transportation to the local pub.
Not only the locals partake of the deliciousness of the Guinness. We took the last ferry (5:00 p.m.) off the island and on board were many people that had clearly downed a few beers during their stay. There was one guy in this large group that got lulled by the rocking boat into a 'nap' (passed out). He was easy prey, so his friend got out her makeup kit and proceeded to paint his closed eyelids a bright lavender, his cheeks a rosy pink, his gaping lips a crimson red and his eyebrows a dark black that made him look like he was surprised. (He probably was when he later looked in a mirror!) All of us in this part of the ferry were cheering her on, "More, more"! He finally woke up (came to) 10 minutes later. There were a few kids in this group that really got a kick out of this. One little boy about five years old, pointed to his own eyes, his own cheeks, and his own lips, trying to hint to this guy what was on his face, while the rest of us were "ixnay on the ellingtay". But the painted fellow thought this was a game and just pointed to his own eyes, cheeks and lips. Clueless! It was great fun. I wish I had a picture but Houston and the camera were out on the deck.

Rusty Tractor

Pub-mobile and hay hauler.

Bareback Rider on Inisheer

Island Gardening

Came across this prepared garden. Deep furrows of rich dirt, then a layer of sand on top. Didn't find out what they'll be planting, (probably spuds) but whatever it is, it won't escape out of the stone walls!

Stoned

Many of the graves had this decorative stonework on top.

Below Ground Level Church

This ancient church has been nearly buried by the sand blowing in. The sand around it has been left and bodies buried in the sand.

Inside Church

Doorway

This entrance to the church was exactly 5' 3" tall.

Grave Bubbles

These 'bubbles' were on graves in the old churchyard. The two with Jesus and the other guy were in water. I don't know the significance of these, except to be bizarre.

Friends

Dalis made a friend. Whenever Houston would try to pet him, the donkey would move away, but would come to me. Likes girls I guess.

Horse Ears and Rocks

This guy cooperated with putting his ears up just like the rocks in the background so we could take his pic.

Gettin' Down in Doolin

Houston and Forrest had been to Doolin 3 years ago and Houston wanted to visit again. It has amazing music, a beautiful, if somewhat desolate landscape, a couple pubs and a few cute shops. It's just about a mile from the coast. We stayed a couple days and took the ferry from here to Inisheer. The people are so nice here. We met a lovely couple who are stained glass artists and make their living selling glass with Celtic designs and some custom work. Our host, Noel, at Twin Peaks B&B was very informative and we spent time over tea having him fill us in on the local politics.

Doolin Colors

Doolin has just a few businesses, three Aran sweater shops, two music stores, a small grocery and a couple knicky knacky shops. All very charming.