The Life of a Karaoke Diva

Yesterday was Waterloo's Homecoming Celebration and I was on the Route 3 Bar and Grille's karaoke float in the Homecoming Parade. We were about in the middle of the parade in slot 82. Yes, the parades are big in this part of the world! As you can see, the whole town turns out to see it. We threw out candy for the kids and handed out coupons for the adults. It is great advertising. For me, too. I got to sing "You Ain't Woman Enough To Take My Man" (Loretta Lynn), "Jackson" (June and Johnny) duet with Lonnie, and "When God Fearin' Women Get The Blues" (Martina McBride). It was a great day!

 

Talk to you soon, Tammy

Wild World of Feltballs

In case you don't know, I'm teaching two workshops at The World Sheep Festival in Bethel, Missouri over ther Labor Day weekend this year. (which is coming up in a couple of weeks!) One of the classes I am teaching is a beginning felting class. In the class, I plan to teach beginning felting techniques while we will be making a bracelet. So, the last couple of weeks have been about feltballs for me.I have been attempting to make the perfect feltball! If you are now asking yourself, "what kind of jewelery can you make out of those?" Well, you'll just have to come and take my class! The festival has a website where you can download info about registering for classes. Hope to see you there!

Talk to you soon, Tammy   

Computer Woes

I have had some computer woes and its been in the shop since the last post. But now I have it back. It is a humbling experience to be without now and then. It makes me appreciate the technology we have today. I felt so cut off from the rest of the world! Very isolated. I do not want to visit there again for a long time! I have been working on the classes I will be teaching at Bethel at the World Sheep Festival. I will be blogging on them very soon. Today, we have to replace a corner post in the boys' pasture that was knocked over by a neighbor's tractor. At least the boys weren't in it when it happened! Or we would still be looking for boys in the next county! lol (oh, honestly, probably not. they would run right over to the girls pasture because they don't like to be out of eyeshot of them) The temperatures are moderating this week (upper 80's) and I should get out into the vegetable garden that is over run with weeds but I probably won't do that either. I will spend the extra time with the alpacas. I have 6 girls due to have their babies in the next month and I will be keeping extra tabs on them. If you don't know what the normal behavior of your girl is, how can you tell if she's 'off'? I still have my Canela this year because she went into labor last fall and it wasn't easily recognizable but I knew she wasn't acting normally. After two more hours, I cancelled afternoon plans to stay home with her. An hour after I was supposed to leave, I had to go in (for the first time) and pull out her cria. Both survived with no ill effects. But if I hadn't stayed home, I would have lost both Canela and Eureka because the cria's front legs were butterflied in the birth canal and she couldn't deliver naturally. So....I will be spending some quality time with my girls until their deliveries. I'll keep you updated.

Talk to you soon,  Tammy

(Picture is Canela.)

The Lacey Cube

In between going outside to spray off alpacas (it will hit 99 again today), I have been able to finish a project I started at the Midwest Felting Symposium last month. It was a class taught by German felter, Charlotte Sehmisch. I loved taking her class! I enjoyed her felting techniques and admired her work. It took awhile to get the cube shaped as square. The pictures distort it a bit because it really is square! It is seamless and layed out in one piece, at one time. I used an acrylic to harden the felt and help it keep its shape. The cube really is magic! I hope to be able to do it again without the watchful eye of Charlotte.

Have a great day!  Tammy

It's Hot!

"So--just when ARE you coming out to hose us off?"

It seems like yesterday when I made my last post and it has been over a week since I actually have.

I have been spending the majority of my days outside in the heat trying to take care of animals. They

need fresh water each day and the alpacas love to be sprayed by the hose. The top picture is of

Allegra, our newest addition to the herd. She has taken to putting her whole head in the sprayer.

I gave Allegra a bit of a home-done funky haircut on her belly trying to allow water to penetrate

there to help cool her off. She is growing rapidly and she is already eating grain out of her own

feeder at 2 1/2 months old. The heat is a challenge here as it will hit 99 today. Several of the

girls are due with crias next month and I'm taking the extra time to try to make them as comfortable as I can. They seem to alternate between the hose and the fans. Me, too. Have a good one! Talk with you soon.  Tammy