The Forest Path - August 2020
August, the most golden month of summer!
We started the month with a beautiful celebration of love. In this summer of canceled programs, it was a breath of fresh air to host a tiny wedding here on the very first day of the month. Beauty, joy, and laughter filled the day. Even Flint joined in the celebration and made an appearance in the photos. Silly sheep - he kept trying to taste the beautiful flower bouquet. We made him his own leafy bouquet made of maple and dock leaves to distract him from the flowers and thankfully he was satisfied with that.
(Wedding photos below are courtesy of Lauren Reber Photography. Find her on Instagram or her website.)
Aside from wedding bouquets, there is plenty for our flock of Shetland sheep to eat during these lush, summer months. The benefit to living in “rainy Oregon” is that the landscape is vibrant and green even well into late summer. This is our ram lamb, Eamon, next to his mom. They’re almost the same size and Eamon was just born at the end of March!
Our garden has really taken off this month and we can hardly keep up with eating peas and lettuce and cucumbers. The tomatoes are slow to ripen this year but we have been able to pick some and more and more every day are showing a blush of orange. I think we will have many ripe tomatoes soon!
August isn’t exempt from rain. The garden and forest plants alike benefited from August rain. It was nice to take a break from watering the garden and everything felt sparkling and clean.
Summer’s colors have shown up in my natural dye work this month. This latest palette of plant-dyed silk embroidery floss captures the colors of late summer. I hope some of my customers share photos of their work because I’d love to see what folks are making with it! Each color turns out so beautifully, even if it’s not exactly what I was planning on. There are often subtle variations that add depth to the colors and I love that no matter what, they always seem to coordinate with each other. Nature always matches itself.
My FAVORITE late summer dye to use is goldenrod! It is native to our area and I grow some in the front garden. Its golden blooms are so beautiful that it’s always a little bittersweet to cut them. Goldenrod dyed fabric nearly the same shade of its flowers so the dyed pieces are a beautiful memento of golden August. I’ve written a tutorial on my natural dye blog so you can try dyeing with goldenrod yourself. The variety I grow is Solidago canadensis but there are many varieties of goldenrod that can be found across the country. There’s probably some near you!
Our lambs have been growing quickly while eating all these summer plants. We had a great idea this month of using our wall of blackberries as a side of our mobile fencing for the sheep. This lets them get right up next to the backberries, which they love to eat. Serena isn’t eating them at the moment in this picture, but they have been working hard at eating the blackberry leaves and the edge of the blackberries has already moved back several feet. It’s so great having sheep that browse too!
The second photo below shows how they look in the morning, eager to be let out into the field with the blackberries.
There’s been plenty of time for relaxing this month too! The animals and we humans appreciate the shade of the big trees and the opportunity to rest in the heat of the day.
Here are a few more animal photos from this month. Peedie the cat spends most of his time on the classroom porch. I think he misses having kids in that space! Someone decided Waffle the bunny needed a bath so got one in the sink! He actually didn’t seem to mind at all. Maybe he even liked it?
We started the process of finding a new home for Eamon. We really like him but he’s related to 2 of our 3 ewes so he needs a new flock. His wool is so lovely! We’ll miss him but someone will be lucky to have him and his glorious wool.
Summer days are for line drying fabric in the forest-dappled sun. My indigo plants don’t look too different from last month. They had a rough start but I’m sure they will start to really grow soon. In the meantime, I have other indigo to dye with.
Sewing indigo dyed fabric with its varying patterns and shades of blue is so very satisfying. I’ve created some sewing kits this month, incorporating fabric dyed with indigo as well as other natural dyes. Kits include all supplies and instructions to hand stitch beautiful designs and create a functional needle book. You can see them all here.
The forest has some beautiful blues too! These berries come from our state flower - the Oregon grape - and are very, very tart. We collected basketfulls to make Oregon grape jelly. Their tartness is tempered with the addition of some sugar. The resulting jelly tastes similar to grape but still has a little tartness.
While foraging for berries we also found lots of usnea lichen and a feather from a barred owl.
Other signs of the wild animals we share the forest with showed up this month. Snakes are active and growing all summer and we’ve been finding a lot of shed skins lately.
We happened upon another bird nest in the forest. It’s always a wonder to look at these intricately constructed nests.
Even as we are enjoying this beautiful summer month, the approach of autumn can’t be ignored. We have a barn full of hay so the sheep can eat even when the grass and blackberries stop growing.
We are finding the first colorful leaves fluttering to the ground and the honeybees have fewer and fewer flowers to visit. Thank goodness the mint plants are late bloomers!
Hopefully next year we’ll be able to share photos of summer camp and natural dye workshops again!
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And, as always, catch up with us throughout the month on social media.
