The Scottish Lamb

All About Fair Isle

How long do you think I can milk these photos for? lol

Obviously, the highlight of our Shetland trip was our visit to Fair Isle.  I knew the plane would be small, but holy cow!  Where's it's mother?  When you have to flip the seat up, like getting into the back of a car... well.... I'm just sayin'... it was small.

I could reach out and tap the pilot, John (who was very friendly...  very young, but friendly), on the shoulder... and I was in the 2nd seat. I was just glad Joe didn't keep asking, "Are we there yet?" like he usually does.  It would have caused John great angst and we couldn't have that.  To tell you the truth, we didn't talk much because you couldn't hear over the engine anyway.  For the first time in my life I was nervous in a plane.  I love to fly.  In real planes.

I forgot all about it the second we landed though.  As I was getting off the plane a woman approached me, "Jean?" I assumed it was, Florrie, the woman we were renting a car from (the island is small and walkable but with two kids and unpredictable weather we wanted to be sure to see the whole island).  Nope.  It was a Kathy Coull whom I met online through the group that I went to Mull with a couple of years ago.  I hadn't emailed with her in months.  She handed me a map of the island (don't laugh - it actually came in handy for the two roads) and invited us to lunch!  She'd spoken with Liz Lovick (one of the Mull group) in Orkney the day before and Liz had reminded her that we were coming in.  I was very pleasantly surprised.  She put out a very nice spread of breads, cheeses and tomato soup which was perfect for a misty, windy day.  If you get the chance to go to Fair Isle, she does run the only B&B on the island so if you google her name and Fair Isle you can contact her.  She'd just moved into the house she's in now from another one on the island.  There were a couple of nice young men staying at her B&B who had lunch with us.  They were doing research on the social aspects of living in such a small community.  I'd love to read the paper when it's finished. The boys fell in love with Kathy's dog.  Another picture I forgot to take.  I need to send her a thank you gift for her kindness.

I love this little photo from the war.  It's was meant to show how the soldiers built relationships with the islanders.  Sappy, but cute.  For such a tiny place, it actually saw a bit of action.  The South Lighthouse was actually bombed a couple of times in WWII. You can read about it here.

What I can't seem to get my head around is that this teensy little speck in the sea is known the world over for it's knitting of all things.  It's incredible.  They have a little museum that was open during the afternoon we were there.  If you click on the thumbnail of the knitting display, you'll get a bigger view.

If you look up in the right-hand corner of the museum photo and squint really hard, you can see a long knitted sampler.  I'm a dork.  I forgot to take a picture of it.  I didn't even get it in the video.  But you can stop squinting.  I tried cropping down to it from the museum picture for you:

You can also see part of a sign off of one of the older Good Shepherds. That's the boat that brings mail and supplies to the island from Shetland.  We thought about going this way instead of the plane but we heard it's a very rough ride and it's longer.  We didn't have the time this trip.  I'd like to try it next time though and actually stay on Fair Isle for at least a week.

Here are more croppings from that museum photo:

I forgot one of the sheep pictures in the last post.  We always try to hit Science Centers in cities we visit because the boys love them.  This special sheep was at the Science Center in Aberdeen.  You push a button and watch as the sheep eats some hay and then it either poops or pees.   Sometimes you get lucky and it does both! :-)  You could hear people yell, "Jackpot!" when that happened.  Okay.  I'm lying.  Would have been funny though.

Don't forget to check out the stash sale!  I lowered the prices a little and will continue to do so until it moves. I have to get rid of some of this stuff before we move next Spring! Click here to go directly to the photos.

Don't Cry Over Spilt Milk

Some of you may read tea leaves or tarot cards but in our house we read milk spills.  Okay... that'd be ridiculous but....  one morning a few months ago I poured the boys' cereal.  When I was putting the milk back in the fridge Joseph got all excited saying we had our own lamb.  ????  I turned around and saw what he was talking about.  Turns out that I spill milk in shapes.  You be the judge:

In keeping with the theme here are some of the gazillion many sheep pics I took in in Shetland:

This shot was taken on Fair Isle.  That's one of the two little churches.  They are really close to each other and apparently the islanders use both.

I watched a dog for some friends at church this past weekend.  Her name is Charley, she's old, very sweet but she does not like Aggie very much.  Charley doesn't get that the young whipper snapper just wants to play... really bad.  And Aggie doesn't get why the old woman snaps at her whenever she tries to get to know her better.  I think they finally came to an agreement though because I found them somewhat close together for the first time in three days:

Aggie has that innocent "What?" look on her face and Charley just wishes she'd go away.

The Tooth Fairy visited our house Sunday night.  We took this picture for Dan because the tooth was quite the topic most of the time he was home for R&R. 

At bedtime it went something like this:

Joe:  Mom... do you put the money under my pillow?

Me:  WHAT?! Who told you *that*?  I wouldn't say that too loud, you'll offend the Tooth Fairy.

Joe:  Okay.  I was just asking.

Santa, Tooth Fairy and Easter Bunny all exist in our house until the day I'm pushin' up daisies.  If you don't believe, you don't receive.  Daniel's known for quite a while but he won't admit it.  Not to me anyway.  I think he thinks I actually believe or he's just smart enough to not want to ruin my fun.  I'm pretty sure he's had a talk with Joe, "Mom still believes in them so don't tell her".

So the Tooth Fairy must have heard Joe because she left him a note telling him how great the tooth looked and how if he brushed really well, he'd get more money because the better the teeth look, the more she pays.  Yeesh.   She never left me a note.  Joe is one lucky kid.  He's also easily bought off so I'm hoping the promise of extra cash will get him to brush better.

A Lass With Too Much Stash

I've come into a little a ridiculously mongo-huge amount of stash.  By accident... sort of.  Quit grinning. It's the truth. There was an Irish woman that went to church with us.  She and her German husband moved back to Ireland at the beginning of Summer after about nine years here in Germany.  Unfortunately, rheumatism makes it impossible for her to knit or weave any longer.  I could see how much it hurt for her to let go of all this gorgeous wool.  She knew my love of wool and offered to sell all of her stash to me.  She was a weaver and knitter, by trade, for years.  She even wove a jacket for Nancy Reagan!  When I went to pick up the wool there was a photo of Nancy Reagan in one of Mary's jackets and a thank you note for the beautiful work.  Way cool.

I had no idea what I'd gotten myself into until I went down in her basement and realized I was going to have to make a few trips in our SUV to pick up the boxes.... and boxes.... and boxes wool.  Beautiful, mill-spun Irish wool that I'd bet my right arm is from the Kerry Mill.  She's from the Shannon area of Ireland so it would make sense.  I didn't think to ask until I started doing some research on the net and saw the information about the Kerry Mill.  There's also quite a bit of silk and a ton of ribbons.  Evidently Offray toyed with the idea of making knitting ribbon.  Mary had quite a bit of it and now I do.

There is absolutely no way that I could ever knit up all of this yarn, even if I didn't already have a sizable stash, so I'll be having a stash sale.  Quite a bit of it is for weaving and I have that earmarked to give to someone when I get back to the States.

So if you're interested, check out the Stash Sale Photo Album in my left sidebar.  First come, first serve and to make life easier on me, it's all going to be shipped via US Priority Mail so I can use their packaging.  Send me an email (email link is up in the top of the right sidebar) and let me know what you'd like and your address.  I'll send back a total with shipping.  Please do not leave your request in the comments.  I need an email.  I prefer a Paypal payment but can wait for a money order via snail mail if you wish.  I really wish I could keep it all but there's A LOT of purple.  I'll be adding more as I can.

Wooly Paradise

One of my favorite things from both of our trips to Shetland was the Jamieson's Spinning Mill in Sandness on the West side of the main island.  You can just walk around and watch the tons and tons of wool become yarn,

sweaters:

and woven fabric:

I love how cleverly they can weave several different color ways on one warp.  This is only three of the several color ways of scarves that were on this particular loom.  They just slightly felt the fabric and then cut along the yellow lines in strips and then cut the strips into scarves.  Amazing how the weft works through all the warp colors.  They had bolts of warps ready to go onto the looms.  I was sad that the weaver(s) weren't there when we visited.  I did get to watch the women doing the joining on the knitwear though.  Very cool.

The staff are very kind and don't seem to mind visitors.  Even small, curious boys who make the knitting machines stop by accident.  :-O 

When we went there in '97 Daniel was only three but he loved it and cried when it was time to go.  On this visit we gave the boys their choice of where to go on the last day.  Even though we'd spent about three hours at the mill the day before, that's where they chose to go back to.  The staff greeted us with smiles and ran the boys around showing them different things that we'd missed... somehow... the day before.

Well, tonight's the big night.   First school night of the year.  Good thing next weekend is already a long one.   I think we'll need it.  Both boys are really excited.  I'm actually not ready yet.  The last month has been a blur so it kind of snuck up on me.   

It's All Downhill From Here

We made it through the halfway point of the deployment!  The rough patch is behind us and everything is looking up now.  The boys and I took Dan back to the airport on Wednesday morning for his flight back to Afghanistan.  There were lots of tears but we're back to "normal" deployment routine and ready for the next five months or so to fly by.  This picture was taken last week on Fair Isle.  One of the local dogs greeted us as we walked North from the South Lighthouse. 

School starts on Monday.  Joe starts soccer practice the same day and Daniel starts Tae Kwon Do in a month.  It'll start looking like Fall in a couple of weeks, the Holidays will soon be upon us and before you know it, Dan will be home again.

The new Agent taking Dan's place here at the office has finally arrived.  He and Dan were in Warrant Officer school together and have been good friends since.  I met his wife at their graduation but didn't really remember her.  She's terrific.  So are their three boys who are all around Daniel and Joe's ages.  Their oldest and Daniel will be in class together.  Yes, things are definitely looking up.  I'm in much better spirits than I was a few months ago when I had the wind knocked out of me and my self confidence took a nose dive. Dan sat me down when he got home and made me remember who I am.  He tried over the phone but it was a lot different and much more convincing with his arms around me.  No wonder I like that guy.  ;-)

I have so much to catch up on that I don't know where to start.  What a summer.  I already told you about the trip to Belgium and England.  My brother, SIL and nephew came for a visit at the end of August.  The boys and I took them to Garmisch where Aggie got into something and got very sick.  I had to take her to the vet twice for an IV.  It lasted about a week and I was really scared we were going to lose her for the first few days but she's back to her normal sweet and sassy self.

Dan came home five days after the family left.  He was a day late because he got held up in Kuwait but they extended his leave by a day so that was okay.  He was home for a few days before we left for Shetland.   What a great trip that was.  I'll share pictures bit by bit.  I took about 300 of them so it's going to be tough choosing.  Fair Isle was magical.  We just flew in for the day on an itty bitty eight-seater plane.  You could see the whole island as we approached the tiny little runway.  I'll fill you in on everything as I share the pictures.  Here are a few to keep you in suspense for a couple of days:

Me and the boys - Fair Isle

Fair Isle as we flew in.  The big white spot on the tip closest to us is the North Lighthouse:

Here you can see the houses on the southern part of the island, the South Lighthouse and the big rock in the foreground is Sheep Rock: