Nicole’s Niche Blog

Winter Solstice

Sun, 21 Dec 2008 19:34:46 -0700

Karyn was giving me a friendly hard time at one of our knitting gatherings recently for having not updated my blog in months and months. Since I have a few minutes to actually breathe tonight (the first time in weeks), I thought I’d put up an actual blog entry.

First, an FO to share, as seen in the picture above. This is my most recent triumph in my ongoing quest to clothe all of Gavin’s family in hand-knit scarves. The attempt started a few years ago, before Gavin and I were married, when I knit his father a soft wool scarf for Christmas. Since then, I’ve knit scarves for his mom, aunt, and two brothers. His brother-in-law shyly requested one that I’ve had fun knitting this year.

Project Specs:

Pattern: The Corrugator, by Paula Smith. I used this pattern for the scarf for one of Gavin’s brothers last year as well. It’s a very easy stitch pattern that’s mindless to knit (perfect group knitting), and makes a lovely smooshy fabric. It also works well with a variety of yarns.

Yarn: 3 skeins Manos Silk Blend colorway 3119 “Adobe” purchased from the Needlepoint Joint. It’s a lovely blend of denim blues, khakis, and off-whites. I used the entire three skeins and loved the yarn! Just now I’m thinking I should have measured the finished dimensions--whoops. Seeing as I gave the scarf to Tom last night, that’s no longer possible.

Needles: #7 (4.5mm) bamboo needles 8” long (part of a set of double points). I like knitting scarfs with double points (I put point protectors on one end to turn them into more typical straights) because they tend to be just the right length. I no longer like knitting with normal sets of straight needles because I find them too long.

Time to Knit: Started in April. Finished knitting mid-November. My first start attempt had to be frogged because the yarn was pooling quite unattractively. There was a big blue stripe up one side of the scarf, that I decided I just couldn’t live with after I got about 6” into the scarf. Adding two pattern repeats completely eliminated the pooling problem and made the scarf a nicer width as well. As usual, the caveats about my not being a monogamous knitter and that being the reason that it took me 7 months to knit a scarf apply.

Verdict: I love it!

Today, since I finally had time to breathe (did I mention that above--we’ve been so incredibly busy at work the past few weeks that I feel like I’ve been running around like a chicken with it’s head cut off), I actually decorated the living room for Christmas. Those decorations included this piece that my mom gave me a few years ago:

Sorry for the crappy photo--it’s quite dark, being the shortest day of the year, and the flash didn’t work to improve the pic at all. This is a Snowbabies with the title “Hooked on Knitting.” The scarf and yarn are actually made from a real chenille yarn. I love it and love that my mom gave it to me.

We put up Christmas trees, yes plural since there are two small ones, and had the great fun of talking about what ornaments came from whom when. It’s a sentimental trip down memory lane. I have a number of ornaments that my parents lent to me a few years ago when they had a small tree that couldn’t fit all the ornaments they had. So, there are ornaments on my tree that have family stories attached going back to when I was a very young girl. It’s fun. Here are the trees, complete with some of my birthday presents from yesterday underneath:

Yes, that is a very cool book on sheep under the tree. It’s was a birthday present from my mom and dad. They know my obsession with knitting well, don’t they?

Happy Winter’s Solstice, All! Just think, the days get longer again from here on out.

Bridges Galore

Wed, 20 Feb 2008 10:06:11 -0700

As a structural engineer, bridges hold a special fascination for me. I always wonder what made the engineer decide to use that configuration or material or alignment. And, I often marvel at what previous engineers have accomplished without all the modern tools and research that I have access to today. This trip has been full of fascinating bridges.

The first set of bridges that was blog-worthy was the Navajo Bridges over Marble Canyon. We drove over it on Saturday afternoon. Marble Canyon is close to the official start of the Grand Canyon National Park, just a few miles downstream of Lee’s Ferry, so the bridge spans over the Colorado River. I didn’t get any pictures of the bridges on Saturday, but I took some great pictures last October when we rafted under them on our first day of our 16 day trip down the Grand Canyon. Here’s my favorite picture:

This picture has been the background on my laptop computer on and off since I got back from the rafting trip. If you look really closely, you can see one of the rafts from our trip in the river below the bridge.

There are two bridges in the picture above. The farthest one in the picture was the original bridge, completed and opened in 1929. It’s now a pedestrian bridge. The closer bridge was completed and opened in 1995. It was built to accommodate the modern increase in traffic, including the much bigger semis on the road today, and meets the more modern design codes. I think it’s wonderful that the new bridge utilized the same geometry and general style as the original, giving the set a sense of harmony.

Here’s a picture of the two bridges at their abutments at the canyon wall. The newer bridge is on the left, and the older on the right. You can see the difference in road-way widths more clearly in this picture.

The second bridge that I marveled at was the Midgley Bridge, located near the end of Oak Creek Canyon (almost to Sedona). We went over it on Sunday morning. Here’s one of the many pictures that I took of it:

And, from the other side:

Finally, the third blog-worthy bridge:

OK, so this one isn’t some great and notable feat of engineering. But, it does hold some significance on this trip. You see, I often like to offer one morning or afternoon of my attendance at the Scottsdale Show as a volunteer, helping the show run more smoothly in some way. My favorite job is Bridge Traffic Control at Wendell Arena. As you can see in the picture above, the bridge crosses the entry/exit gate for the arena. When the horses are entering and leaving the arena, it can freak them out if there are people up on the bridge, and they’ll balk at going under it. So, while the gate is open for entries and exits, I’m the mean person that tells you that you’ll have to wait until the horses are all through before I’ll let you up on the bridge to cross. Kinda like the troll from the Three Billy Goats Gruff nursery tale. In the picture above, you can see horses in the ring for the class that was going on at that time, and you can see the two volunteers for that afternoon hanging out at one end of the bridge (no, neither one of them is me--I took the picture). The great thing about this volunteer job is that you still get to watch all the classes for that morning or afternoon. So, I usually pick a morning or afternoon that I’d be at Wendell Arena anyway, watching classes that interest me, and then I just have to devote a small amount of my time (while the gate is open) to actually doing the volunteer job. And, in return, I get a t-shirt and a lapel pin that gets me into the entire show for free. Really, I think I get the better end of the deal, so I can’t take credit for some great act of philanthropy in my volunteer work at the show. This year I volunteered on Monday morning and watched some beautiful yearling colt halter classes.

I’ll keep my eyes open for more blog-worthy bridges in the future.

Travel Days - Part II

Tue, 19 Feb 2008 07:34:44 -0700

We started out early Sunday morning from our snowy hotel in Flagstaff. Here’s a pic of the parking lot from our hotel room window:

That’s my dad walking across the parking lot to load some bags in the car. Notice the piles of snow and the snow on the freeway embankment.

At my aunt’s request, we drove through Sedona on the way down to Scottsdale. It was a another very scenic drive on Hwy 89. We drove through Oak Creek Canyon in the Coconino National Forest.

In this last picture, Sedona is almost visible in the center at the end of the canyon.

Again, as we dropped in elevation, we left the snow behind.

Although we didn’t spend much time there, Sedona seems like a great vacation place--I understand it’s popularity as a get-away. I’d also highly recommend that scenic drive through the canyon!

Driving south from Sedona, we finally made it to interstate again (not nearly as scenic, but much faster). This time it was I-17 going south. It didn’t take us long to get to Scottsdale at that point.

There was one thing that marred my day. At one point during our drive through the canyon we got out of the car to take pictures. I opened the trunk of the mini-van to get my coat out, so I thought. At that point it hit me that I had left my coat hanging in the closet of our hotel in Flagstaff. I hadn’t put my coat on when we loaded the van up with our luggage at our hotel that morning (I braved the cold sans coat), and I had just assumed that I had left it in the van the night before. Nope. There was much swearing then. And, as I continued to think about it, I realized that one of my hand-knit scarves was with the coat, as well as my van key in the coat pocket. I felt SO STUPID! When we got within cell phone coverage, I called the hotel and started playing phone-tag with the house-keeping/lost-and-found department. Finally, early in the afternoon, I connected with someone who could help me and I arranged to have the coat, scarf, and keys sent to me via UPS to my hotel here in Scottsdale. Hopefully they’ll arrive in the next day or two. I’ve been lucky in the mean time that the weather here in Scottsdale has been so warm that I haven’t needed the coat at all.

I’ll leave you with a picture of the evening sky in Scottsdale as seen from the outdoor hallway of our hotel on Sunday night.

Travel Days

Sun, 17 Feb 2008 17:45:33 -0700

It’s that time of year. Time for our annual pilgrimage down to Scottsdale, Arizona, to attend the Scottsdale Arabian Horse Show. It’s a wonderful time of year to escape from the winter weather in Northern Utah and get a little early taste of spring in the Arizona desert. It’s something my dad and I look forward to throughout the dark and cold days of winter.

This year, because I have a little time off before I start my new job at the beginning of March, I decided to attend the show for the whole week. In the past, I’ve flown down for only the last 4 days, being limited in the amount of vacation time I could take. With the extra time this year, we were able to drive down instead of fly.

We set out from Ogden yesterday morning, with an outdoor temperature of about 15 degrees and still lots of snow on the ground. We followed I-15 south down to just south of Beaver, where we cut east along Hwy 20 to meet Hwy 89 going south. It was a beautiful sunny day, although it remained cold and there was snow on the ground for much of the way. We had lunch in Panguitch, at a Subway located in a gas station (very fine dining). Our next stop south on 89 was in Kanab, on the border of Utah/Arizona. I insisted that we stop at Charlie’s store (notice the remaining snow in this picture as well):

Charlie was one of my fellow travelers on the rafting trip through the Grand Canyon I was lucky enough to take last October. His coffee shop/book store/outfitting shop is a great place to spend time browsing and buying. Unfortunately, Charlie was out-of-town, so I didn’t get to say hi. But, I did buy Gavin a baseball hat with the store logo on the front.

From Kanab, we pushed on south across the Arizona border through Fredonia and into some of the most scenic part of our day. We continued on Hwy 89 up over the plateau in the Kaibab National Forest. Although the road was clear and dry, there was lots of snow among the pine trees that abound in that area. Then, we dropped down into the Vermillion Cliffs area:

...and drove on to Lee’s Ferry. The snow disappeared as we dropped in elevation. I made sure we drove into Lee’s Ferry so I could show my dad and aunt where we had launched our boats for the rafting trip. Here’s a picture of the launch ramp:

We headed on from the Marble Canyon area, driving over the Navajo Bridges (pictures to follow another day). And, then down through the Navajo Reservation all the way down to Flagstaff. As we gained in elevation climbing up the mountain into Flagstaff, we drove back into the snow once again (we can’t get away from it!).

We checked into the hotel in Flagstaff just before dark. It felt like it had been a long day in the car, but the scenery had been amazing.

More tomorrow on the rest of our drive and more later this week on my experiences at the horse show. Stay tuned...

Blueberry Socks

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 11:56:27 -0700

I have a just-finished pair of socks to show off today!

Project Specs:

Pattern: As usual, I drew from a number of sources. They were knitted two at a time on two circular needles from the toe up. I followed Wendy’s generic toe-up pattern with a provisional cast-on toe and short-row heel. I used 64 stitches total. The lace pattern is the “Oblique Openwork” stitch pattern from Sensational Knitted Socks. It has an 8-stitch repeat. The top 1 inch of the leg was knit in simple k1 p1 rib. Cast off using the sewn cast off from Elizabeth Zimmerman’s Knitting Without Tears.

Yarn: 2 skeins Koigu KPPPM in colorway P426, Lot 14 purchased long ago as a sock kit from the Needlepoint Joint. I used up practically every last yard of each skein (one of the things possible when knitting toe-up socks).

Needles: Two 24” Knit Picks nickel-plated circulars in the smaller size 2 (2.75 mm). I love using these needles to knit socks!

Time to Knit: Started July 24th (the holiday here in Utah). Finished yesterday. They were put on hold for quite awhile when I was knitting Christmas gifts. And, the knitting has been finished on them for a few weeks, just waiting for me to finally weave in all the ends (one of my least favorite parts of knitting as I mentioned in my last post.)

Verdict: Very nice. I hope the Koigu holds up well, because I put too much work into them to have them looking bad quickly. We’ll see. I did use reinforcing thread in the heels, so hopefully that helps. The Koigu was wonderful to knit with--one of my favorite yarns.

One of the things that I am most proud of on these socks is this (sorry for the blurry picture on the right):

These are close-ups of the lace on the two legs. I wanted to have the socks be mirror images of one-another, so I flipped the lace pattern on the second sock so it would go the opposite direction of the first. It took a small bit of thinking on my part as how to do that, since the pattern is only shown one direction in the book. You just have to turn the SSKs into K2togs and basically work the chart backwards. Yeah, it’s the little things that I get a kick out of.

I’ll leave you with a picture of Sydney, who wanted to get in on my sock photo-shoot:

FO’s at the Fair

Thu, 7 Feb 2008 08:39:28 -0700

Old news, but un-blogged news, so I’m still inclined to share it. I finished the two WIPs described in this post from last summer in time to enter them in the local Weber County Fair. I had finished the socks with plenty of time to spare, but the wrap was a different story. I was scrambling to put the fringe on the wrap and finish it in time to take it over to the fairgrounds. (Actually, I made Gavin drive home from work that day and I spent the commute madly trying to finish the fringe so I could take it over before the 5pm entry deadline. Nothing like a deadline to provoke a last minute finishing frenzy.) Why add fringe, especially when it’s not generally my favorite? Because every one of the color stripes in the wrap has two yarn ends (rather than carrying the yarn up one side, I cut it at the end of each stripe). I hate weaving in ends, more than I dislike fringe. If I had had to weave in all those ends, the wrap would still be sitting in my knitting closet along with other almost-finished objects that only need ends woven in. And, I actually think the fringe adds something to this project.

Here’s the wrap in it’s finished state:

I had entered two knitting projects at the fair in previous years. The first was my very first real project, an afghan. (Yup, I was crazy. First scarf? No way! I’m gonna make an afghan as my first project!) It won a blue ribbon. A few years later, I entered a vest I had knitted and it also won a blue. So, my experience had led me to expect blue ribbons.

True to my expectations, the Macintosh socks won a blue ribbon, as seen in the top picture of this post. What I wasn’t expecting was this:

Yup, my wrap won the “Judges Choice” award. It’s given for the best “original work designed by the person making the entry.” And, it comes with a $50 prize.

As a side story, one of my very nice co-workers at the time said, when he heard that I’d won a $50 prize, “Boy, that’ll buy a lot of yarn!” Um...not exactly. Maybe a lot of Red Heart, but for us yarn snobs $50 isn’t all that much. Not that $50 isn’t greatly appreciated and does definitely help in yarn purchases, but it’s not going to keep me knitting for years and years as he seemed to imply.

So, I was quite thrilled with my success at the fair.

I’ve worn the wrap and socks numerous times since it’s gotten cold enough to make such items practical. I love them both. I get so many compliments on the wrap every time I wear it. My parents bought me a beautiful shawl pin from Designs by Romi for Christmas, and I love to wear the wrap pinned in front.

Finally, here’s a close-up picture of the leg of the blue-ribbon-winning socks:

Blog News

Mon, 4 Feb 2008 10:00:21 -0700

My younger brother, Matthew, sent me an e-mail yesterday telling me that I needed to update my blog so that it would not suck. I think it already passed the sucking threshold. I do have a pseudo-excuse. For the past few months I’ve been pondering the future location and format of my blog, and thus haven’t been inclined to post anything in the mean time.

I create this blog on my beloved MacBook Pro laptop, using Apple’s iWeb program. For the most part, iWeb is pretty cool--it’s generally easy to figure out and doesn’t require much technical knowledge to use. But, I have two complaints about it. The first is that I haven’t figured out a way to have it notify me when I have new comments. I think with many blog programs, the new comments are e-mailed to the blog owner. The only way I can tell if I have comments is to actually have iWeb running and to hit the “Check for Comments” command. So, essentially I have to babysit the blog to tell if anyone has taken the time to comment on what I’ve written.

My second complaint was that, if you used Bloglines you couldn’t subscribe to my blog. You see, the way I, and many knit blog readers, keep track of what blogs to read is by using subscriptions on Bloglines. Bloglines keeps track of when a blog has a new post up, so you don’t have to keep checking the blog directly. So, every morning I check my Bloglines and read all the blogs that are highlighted as having a new entry posted. Usually, you just type in a blog URL to subscribe. But, if you tried typing in my blog URL “http://web.mac.com/nmfitzsimmons”, Bloglines couldn’t find a feed to monitor. So, many of my knitting/blogging friends and potential readers didn’t read my blog because it’s a pain to have to check it regularly rather than just letting Bloglines do the work.

Because of these two complaints (mainly because of the second one), I’ve been pondering moving my blog to a different venue/program for the past few months. One that I’ve heard nothing but good things about is Typepad. A number of my friends have typepad blogs and say that it’s very easy to use. But, you have to pay for it. It’s only a nominal fee for a small blog, like $4.99/month (about the price of one meal out at a fast food restaurant), but for some reason I’ve balked at paying it. And, I’ve not wanted to spend the time trying to figure out how to make the move.

So, because I’ve been in limbo with these issues, I’ve not posted anything IN FOREVER! One of my favorite things about having a blog is the interactive part with readers. I love to receive comments (hint, hint)! They can start whole e-mail conversations and lead to friendships, as well as just letting you know that someone is paying attention to what you’re writing and working on. As I said in my very first post, part of what attracted me to knit blogging was the sense of community I felt existed among knit bloggers. Without a bloglines feed, I felt like I wasn’t available to all of my intended audience and couldn’t fully participate in the community.

I’ve been talking about these issues with some of my friends in the NPJ knitting group. They were asking why I hadn’t posted in so long. Then, Andrea came to the rescue this weekend. She sent me an e-mail telling my how you could subscribe to my blog on bloglines. You have to type in the entire address of my RSS feed which is http://web.mac.com/nmfitzsimmons/Nicoles_Niche/Nicoles_Niche_Blog/rss.xml. Andrea rocks! She’s a mac lover, like I am, and is quite tech savvy. So, for the time being the blog will stay at this address.

And, hopefully there will be many more posts to come in the near future.

I’ll leave you with a picture of my other cat, Gus. She (yes, despite her name and color, she is a she) thought that the clean laundry that I had dumped out onto the bed to fold was the perfect thing to lay on.

It’s a Good Thing...

Sun, 23 Sep 2007 19:33:18 -0600

...clothes moths aren’t this size:

For scale, this guy was about 3 inches wide from wing-tip to wing-tip just sitting there on the carpet. I mean, seriously, if you knew that something this size ate wool and other natural fibers, can you imagine how scared you’d be to find one of these on your favorite sweater or, heaven forbid, in your yarn stash?

So, yes, I am a nerd and when I saw this thing land on the stairs at the horse farm I was visiting in Texas this weekend (more on that soon, I promise), I pulled out my camera and snapped a few pictures. How could I resist? He’s got the coolest camouflage thing going on his wings--they look just like someone painted them to look like tree twigs. Texas has some gnarly insects, for sure!

Weekend Fun

Sun, 16 Sep 2007 19:59:34 -0600

It’s been a thoroughly fun weekend, here. On Saturday, I spent the whole day down at Wheeler Farm in Salt Lake, enjoying the Great Basin Fiber Arts Fair. Unfortunately, I was a dork in that I had my camera with me but didn’t manage to take any pictures to include in a blog post. So, you’ll just have to make do with my text description.

I spent the day in Anne’s booth, trying to make myself useful (or at least trying not to be in the way too much). Anne has such beautiful stuff that she’s selling--it’s hard not to want to buy the whole booth for myself. With such pretty roving and hand-made spindles, I don’t know how much longer I can resist becoming a spinner. I know that if I do start spinning, I’ll have plenty of support and enabling from many local Utah women. I did watch the tutorial that Anne gave some starting spinners, and watched Miriam spinning at one point Saturday afternoon. I can see how it would be very addicting.

We were very busy Saturday morning--it seemed like there was a pretty continuous stream of people in the booth. I had fun enabling other people to buy. Here--I’ll enable my readers to buy as well--go check out Anne’s online store Wooly Wonka Fibers.

As I was driving home from work on Friday afternoon, I realized just how much I was looking forward to Saturday. I knew that some of the Needlepoint Joint Thursday Knitters were planning on driving down and that there would be a number of SLC knit bloggers as well as out-of-town knit bloggers who were making a pilgrimage here for the fair. I was excited just like Christmas Eve! And it didn’t disappoint. Krista, Melissa, and Nanci from the NPJ group all stopped in to say hi and buy at some point during the day (sadly, all are blogless, so I can’t give any links). Margene, Susan, and Miriam, all superstar SLC bloggers in my book, were there for most of the day and stopped by numerous times. Laurie was selling her wonderful soaps, so I had to stop by her booth when things were a little quieter in the afternoon to buy some and introduce myself as one of the people that keeps leaving comments on her blog. And I met out-of-towners Kim, Carole, Teresa, and Kim. I find it funny that when bloggers meet one another they often have to give the name of their blogs for people to make the connection. “Oh, you’re the author of that blog that I read! I know you!” It truly was a fun social event to see all these people. And, when it quieted down a little in the afternoon I had so much fun chatting with Anne and her husband, D.

The weather wasn’t too bad for the event. It was slightly overcast, which kept the sun from beating down relentlessly and kept the temps below the hot range. I did get a bit of a sunburn (stupid me for not putting on sun block), but it has faded quickly and hasn’t hurt at all. The one bad thing was the winds, which had some pretty strong gusts in the early afternoon. Our tent tried to blow all the way over at one point and we’re lucky that we didn’t lose any patterns.

Sunday was a much-enjoyed quiet, lazy day. Gavin and I did go out for a bike ride Sunday evening. Fall is in the air. The sun set at about 7:30pm and after it went down there was a definite chill to the air. It’s a very welcome change after what has officially been labeled the hottest summer on record for Northern Utah.

Here’s a picture of Gavin on our ride, way out west in Weber County. The mountain behind him is Ben Lomand.

Return to Blogging -- Yellowstone Trip

Fri, 14 Sep 2007 21:34:12 -0600

I apologize for my recent long break from blogging. I have plenty of stored-up post topics, as well as a packed schedule in the next week of blog-worthy events, so hopefully the hiatus is at an end.

Last weekend Gavin and I travelled up to Yellowstone National Park. The company we work for had arranged for the trip as our annual summer party. Thus, most of the people that work for our small company headed up there for the weekend. We all stayed in the cabins associated with the Lake Lodge. Below is a picture of our cabin with Gavin on the porch:

We had an enjoyable and relaxing weekend, complete with a few beautiful hikes. We walked along the shore of Yellowstone lake on Friday evening:

That’s my Clapotis shawl that I’m modeling while perched on the rock. It’s an object that was finished pre-blog. It’s knit out of alpaca and is lightweight but plenty warm. I had to take it on this trip because the last time I stayed in the Lake area of Yellowstone, in June 2005, I had just started knitting it.

We walked the geyser basin at Old Faithful on Saturday afternoon.

We drove through our favorite place, Grand Teton National Park and had lunch at Jackson Lake Lodge both on our way up on Friday and our way home on Sunday. The Tetons and the willow flats below the lodge both look quite different in September than they did in June.

And, we saw plenty of wildlife, one of my favorite parts of traveling in Yellowstone. A coyote, plenty of bison, and a cute chipmunk (a great picture that Gavin took):

My favorite picture from the trip, though, is this one:

Note to self: when taking a self-portrait, make sure that the camera is zoomed all the way out first.

Mega Java

Wed, 8 Aug 2007 16:35:12 -0600

I’ve been meaning to write another introduction to one of our farm critters for awhile. I’ve been meaning to write this specific post for about three weeks. But it’s kinda a sad one, seeing as the reason for the post is that he’s no longer with us, so I’ve been putting it off. I want to memorialize him on the blog, though, so here goes...

My dad first ventured into the land of llama ownership in the spring of 1995. It was the first year my parents lived in rural Weber County in northern Utah. They lived on some property that had a little barn which was suitable for farm animals. So, two llamas came to live with them after my dad purchased them at an auction. They were a young female, named Coffee Nip-Nip and an older male, who we call Joe. Nip-Nip was about of breeding age, and we decided to try breeding her to one of the llama studs that was standing at a large llama farm (that we called “llama heaven”) up in Huntsville, Utah. Her first baby was sick and only lived for a few days.

The second attempt for a llama baby was more successful. As a side note, llama breeding is interesting in that it doesn’t follow the normal pattern of mammal breeding that I’m familiar with. Unlike people and horses, llamas don’t have set ovulation cycles, where they’re only fertile for a short time period within a longer cycle (28 days for “normal” humans and about 21 days for “normal” horses). Female llamas are brought into heat (induced to ovulate) by the act of breeding, which means that you can breed them anytime. Anyway, we bred Nip-Nip that second time to a large black llama stud by the name of “Gorilla”.

Normal llama gestation is about 350 days. When Nip-Nip was at 365 days, we were starting to get worried. So, one Sunday morning at the beginning of June 1998, we drove up to the llama farm in Huntsville to talk to some experts about our concerns. They assured us we were still within the time range they considered normal. As soon as we got home, I went out to the barn to check on Nip-Nip. She was showing signs of impending delivery. Llamas deliver their babies standing up, so one way for a human to assist is to catch the baby before it hits the ground, to prevent a totally rude introduction into the world. I was lucky enough to be the one to catch the cria (baby llama) right after he was born. Just call me the llama midwife...

We like to name our animals something which gives a clue as to their parents or bloodlines. For this cria, we decided on the name “Mega Java.” Mega as a recognition of the size of his father, Gorilla, and Java because of the “Coffee” in him mommy’s name and because of his color.

Below is a picture of Mega Java as a baby:He started out a much darker color than his mommy. But, over time his color mellowed until it was just like hers.

We tried to handle little Mega Java quite a bit as a baby, hoping that he’d be less skittish than the other two who hate to be touched. But, we weren’t very successful on that front. He always put up quite a fight as a baby and wasn’t much more receptive to touching than the others when full grown. We finally gave up, deciding that our llamas just weren’t like horses--they don’t like body contact with humans, so no unnecessary petting or touching (and even no necessary touching if they can avoid it).

Mega Java filled an important role in our little llama herd. Ok, I’m going to anthropomorphize my llamas here for a minute, so you’ll just have to bear with me. Nip-Nip and Joe always seemed like somewhat reluctant room-mates. They obviously bonded with one another, because llamas are very social creatures and the herd structure is important. But, it seemed to be more like they put up with one another rather than there being any affection between them. Mega Java was a nice little bridge between Nip-Nip and Joe. Nip-Nip adored him. He remained her baby long after he was full grown and she was always protective of him. Joe liked Mega Java, too. It seemed to me that he was happy to have another guy to hang around with, to do guy llama things with (like play fight and neck wrestle), and to have someone to back him up against that bossy female. So, Mega Java was special to both the other members of his herd.

Mega Java had a very sweet personality. He was my favorite llama because he was friendly in his llama way (although NO TOUCHING). He wasn’t as high strung as his mommy is, and he seemed to like me, unlike Joe who has this bad habit of trying to spit at me. I used to get “llama kisses” from him. If I put my face up by the fence, with my hands safely behind my back, he’d come over and lean in until his nose was mere inches from mine. He was just sniffing me, but it seemed like a sweet gesture. Matthew dubbed him “Kisser” because he’d do this.

Although he was the youngest in our little llama herd, Mega Java hadn’t seemed healthy for awhile now. He had something wrong with his legs and seemed to be in pain when he walked. Thus he spent quite a bit of time just “cushed” (a type of sitting position). We had to trim his toe-nails each spring because he didn’t wear them down like the other two do naturally.

Mega Java died sometime in the afternoon or early evening on Friday, July 13, 2007. He seemed normal when my dad went out to feed the horses in the early afternoon, but was dead when he went out in the late evening. We have no idea what caused it, but it wasn’t exactly surprising given the health problems mentioned above. It was terribly sad, though. Especially when his mommy got really upset when we removed his body from the llama pen. His mommy was quite vocal, humming a lot and looking for him all weekend, which nearly broke my heart.

Mega Java was a very likable llama to have as part of our little herd. I have been missing him these past three weeks and will continue to miss him. The barn just isn’t the same without him.

Busy Weekend

Wed, 27 Jun 2007 20:44:48 -0600

You’ll have to excuse this picture-less post. I was so busy, I didn’t get a chance to snap many photos!

It’s been a very busy week here chez Gavin and Nicole--especially last weekend. It started on Thursday night when we hung out with some of our friends at our favorite pool hall/restaurant, Fats, in Sugarhouse. We didn’t get home until 11:30pm that night. Then, on Friday, after work, we attended a barbecue at Gavin’s dad’s house with all of Gavin’s siblings. It was a beautiful evening with lots of good food and conversation. And, it was another later night--we didn’t get home until 11pm.

Then, Saturday was a whirlwind day of activities and fun. I drove down to South Jordan to the Salt Lake County Equestrian Center to watch part of a Missouri Fox Trotter horse show with Anne and her friend, Pam. And, then I got the grand tour from Anne and Pam. They took me to Pam’s house where I met all of her horses, including the new little one, Cisco, who’s a doll. I love petting foals--they have the softest baby hair! After that, we went to Anne’s house where I met some of her critters, including the dogs Sydney and Rowan, the kitty Emma, and the horses Happy and Digger. It was fun to meet the critters after reading about them on Anne’s blog!

After lunch with Anne, I had to drive back up to Gavin’s dad’s house in SLC, where I rendezvoused with Gavin and his family so we could all drive out to Wendover, Nevada. (For you non-Utahns, Wendover is just across Utah’s western border and is home to many casinos and other places of sin, all with parking lots full of cars with Utah license plates). Gavin’s Aunt Janet was staying there with one of her close friends. I understand that she got a very affordable package deal for the trip, including round-trip airfare from Topeka, KS. So, the whole family went out to Wendover to have dinner with Aunt Janet. After dinner, we had to partake of the Casino activities. It was fun to see most of the family seated around the black-jack table. As you can imagine, it was a third late night in a row--I didn’t get back home to Ogden until 12:30am that night.

By Sunday it felt like I’d been on vacation and gone for days. I had to run some errands Sunday morning, but got a good long nap in on Sunday afternoon. Then, we celebrated my dad’s birthday with the family on Sunday evening.

Whew, by the time Monday came around I was ready for a weekend to recover from my weekend. Good thing it was back to work that day.