A story with a raffle at the end

My Uncle Jan is married to my mom's sister Shirley. He is a surgeon and my aunt is a surgical nurse. They worked together for years, had a practice in Radford, VA, and when I was growing up, they lived in a lovely house on the lake. Their house was where we went for huge family Thanksgivings and cookouts. Between them, Shirley and Jan have seven kids and there was always something doing over there.

When my sister Carrie and I were kids Shirley and Jan would put together medical kits for us with stuff like rubber gloves (they make great water balloons), tongue depressors and surgical masks. My sister went through a phase where she thought she wanted to be a doctor and Jan took her with him on rounds. In other words, they were everything you could ask for in an Aunt and Uncle.

Jan and Shirley are deeply religious and about 15 years ago they started going on medical missions to war zones and third world countries. At first they would go for a couple of weeks at a  time, allowing the staff surgeon and nurse to take a vacation. But they fell in love with the work and soon there trips stretched for several months.

Before Jan and Shirley started taking these trips I didn't realize that medical missionaries are responsible for paying for the majority of their own expense, including travel to and from their posting. It's mad expensive but they were so dedicated to their work that Jan and Shirley sold their home and moved into much smaller quarters so they could retire and continue to bring medical care to people who wouldn't otherwise receive it.

Together they have traveled to Sudan, Afghanistan, Nepal and all over Africa. I have heard some of their stories and they are pretty harrowing. The have been caught in the middle of fire fights and bombings on a couple of occasions. I remember hearing that they once did surgery on a man who had stepped on a land mine and walked ten miles holding his intestines in to get to their hospital. 

In some countries they visited, my Aunt wasn't allowed to do much more than sterilize the surgical tools because she is a woman. I know these trips were very hard on Shirley because she always left feeling like they didn't do enough, could have done more.

Here is a picture of my Aunt and Uncle taken earlier this year.

In addition to his medical missionary work, my Uncle Jan is one of those guys who's good at everything he does. He recently started woodworking, making beautiful bowls and rolling pins. He sings in his church choir, ran a Sunday school class, and took it upon himself to trim the dead branches in the trees at his church when he noticed they needed it.

That's what he was doing last month when he fell 15 feet out of the tree and broke his neck and spine. It took a while for someone to find him laying there and somehow he managed to remain conscious until the ambulance arrived so he could tell the EMTs which vertebrae he had crushed! 

My Uncle Jan, Dr. Levy as he is known to his patients, is now partially paralyzed. He has spent the last month at the Shepherd Center, a catastrophic care hospital in Atlanta , where he is receiving rehab and learning how to perform life's most basic functions all over again. Although he is lucky he has regained a tiny amount of movement in his left hand- lucky to be alive for that matter- he will most likely spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair and his days performing surgery are most definitely behind him.

My Aunt Shirley has been by his side throughout this ordeal and is learning how to care for Jan, how to move him from his wheelchair to the bed without injuring herself, stuff like that. 

Why am I telling you all of this? Because this couple that have done so much for so many people are going to need help. As I said, they sold their house years ago and used the profits to fund their medical missionary trips.  Luckily they had good medical insurance, but the out-of-pocket expenses will quickly wipe out their retirement savings. 

I'd like to try to raise some money to help purchase the wheelchair Jan will need when he returns home to Virginia next month. So I am raffling off my entire stash of yarn (that didn't come from my sheep and goats) along with some other swell prizes.

What's in the stash? Lots and lots of good stuff.









Here are some examples:

16 skeins of Frog Tree Alpaca in 4 colors

7 skeins Manos del Uruguay in goldenrod

25 skeins of mohair in three colorways

15 skeins of Plymouth baby alpaca

8 skeins Tahki Yarns 100% Merino Baby Print in two colors 

and a whole lot more!

Each ticket is $10 and you can buy as many raffle tickets as you want. Grand prize it my entire yarn stash. Other prizes include: Six skeins of Martha's Vineyard Fiber Farm yarn in the colorway of your choice:

My dear friend Maggie has generously donated two skeins of her amazing Little Grey Cat handspun yarn to the prize list.

"Bouquet"

"Lagoon"

Susan has given us an amazing prize! Five of her absolutely beautiful patterns: 

Forest Canopy Shoulder Shawl, Spring Things Shawl, Elysian Mitts, Mountain Stream Scarf, and Lily of the Valley Smoke Ring. Any one of these patterns would be a treasure to knit up. Some lucky raffle winner will be getting all five patterns as PDFs.

Shareholder Sue Matthews is donating one of her babyslings (winner's choice of fabric) as a prize and a handmade Waldorf style doll.
The photo below is the actual doll that she made just for the raffle. Her name is Lucie.

Trish from Frog Tree Yarns just called me to donate two bags (10 skeins each) of yarn to the raffle! Frog Tree make some beautiful alpaca yarns. I know their beautiful because you will find many of them in my own stash (see photos above). Frog Tree is a nonprofit and they do some amazing work. It turns out that Trish's son and daughter-in-law are missionaries and she really connected with Jan's story. I will post pics as soon as the yarn comes.

Sara Wilson is an amazing spinner with a shop on esty called theytoldmesew. Sara is donating your choice of either one skein of her handspun yarn or two hand-dyed rovings or two hand-dyed skeins of sock yarn from her shop. Postage is included on all three. I took a quick peek at her shop and was so taken with her beautiful yarns that I ordered some for myself.

astrahlgems has donated three set of her stitch markers- a silver set, a gold set and a bronze set. 

My friend Colleen, the amazing dyer behind Spiffy Knits, has donated a skein of her hand-dyed yarn as a prize. The winner can choose a skein of sock yarn, some spinning, or a skein of worsted. Check them out here and here. Colleen has been dyeing yarn for MVFF and everyone loves it.

Painty from The Unique Sheep is donating a her Todos Scarf Kit in Sangria. 

Blog reader Nelly Ortiz has donated a set of her handmade stitch markers.

Carla, thispiggyknits on rav, emailed me to tell me she is making a prayer shawl for my Aunt Shirley. I can't even begin to say thank you for a such a heart-felt gift.

Shareholder Janelle G. has donated a "flat feet" in the pink/orange/yellow colorway and a skein of alpaca sock yarn in a rainbow colorway.

RubyShaphire yarns has donated the winners choice of FOUR (!) skeins of their lovely handpainted yarns as a prize. How on earth anyone is going to choose just four is a mystery to me.

Kay Meadors, Naturalstateknit on rav, has made a donation to add to the grand prize stash. Those of you on ravelry can see her donation here. It includes:
3 skeins of hand painted lace weight mohair yarn, approx. 1200 yards
950 yards of hand painted lace weight 100purewool
420 yards of hand painted sock weight yarn
2 small skeins of hand painted sock weight wool for baby socks.
My SockSack sock knitting tote and 2 sets of double pointed needles size 2; one set is 8” and the other is 5” for making baby socks.
And 2 of Kay's patterns: Baby socks from the toe up and Rectangular Leaf Shawl.

Megan, a.k.a notmartha, has donated one of her handmade, portable DPN cases, winner's choice of fabric. These are so amazingly cool! I'll be ordering one for myself as soon as the raffle winner picks which one they want. I have blogged before about the fact that I start every morning with notmartha.org and I am tickled pink to have a prize donated by Megan.

My mom, Carol Gibbs, has donate one share in the Martha's Vineyard Fiber Farm Spring 2009 Yarn CSA. (Yes. She actually went on etsy and bought a share. Because she is just that supportive of her daughter's business. I might have the best mom in the whole world.)  The winner can choose to take their share in yarn, roving or raw fleece.

Crystal from baby-hugs has donated a set of knitting looms as a prize.

Thatotherredhead has donated a beautiful handmade shaw pin.

Marcey from Babydoll Acres has donated a great prize- 11 ozs of her super-fine babydoll southdown roving (undyed) and two 12oz honey bears filled with honey from their own bee hives.

Nannyb has donated two stunning skeins of yarn for prizes: Wollmeise in Sultan and Sundara in Basil over Buttercup.

Sue Roth has donated her own mini-stash as a prize.

EDITOR'S NOTE: I was having a lot of anxiety about giving up my entire stash but I'm over it. The generosity of the fiber community, much of it from people who are complete strangers to me, has lead me to a whole bunch of amazing new yarn suppliers. I don't think it's going to take long to refill the sea captain's chest that houses my current stash when it departs.

MVFF hats and t-shirts (two of each will be given away), and a few surprises. All the prizes are spectacular and valued at way more than $10. 

Best of all, you can feel good about the fact that you are helping someone who really needs it and who would give you the shirt off his back if you needed it. Literally.

To enter raffle, just click the Donate button below. You can enter as many times as you like.

I can't seem to get the second Paypal button to work. To enter the raffle more than once you can either click on the Donate button multiple times or send me your donation via Paypal in $10 increments to susanlgibbs at hotmail dot com and put Jan Levy Wheelchair Fund in the memo. Thanks so much.

If you'd like to donate any raffle prizes to help make this fundraiser a success I'd be super-grateful. Just shoot me an email at susangibbs1 at mac dot com.

The drawing will be held on Sunday, July 13th at 6:00 p.m. 
If you'd like to send some words of encouragement to my Uncle Jan and Aunt Shirley please leave a comment on this post. I will make sure they get them all.

Big news!

Martha's Vineyard Fiber Farm is featured in an article in this week's Women's World Magazine! The article is all about Martha's Vineyard and we are one of their 7 must-sees on the Island. The article is somewhat inaccurate but it's very positive and we are thrilled. 

If you're at the grocery store this week you might want to pick up a copy.

When it rains it pours...

Well the suck week from hell continues. 

Saturday morning while Patrick and I were getting ready for the Farmer's Market we got a call from a volunteer at Felix Neck. All the sheep and goats were out. Out of their new fence. The one I had just paid $1500 for.

We rushed up to there and found that he was right, they were out. Patrick used grain to lure them back to the pen but when we got there we found Nanny McPhee all tangled up in the new fence. It was wrapped around her neck multiple times and it was a miracle that she hadn't choked to death in the night. It took about 20 minutes to free her from the fence (a section of which was all but destroyed BTW) and the whole time I kept thinking that something wasn't right. Nanny McPhee had been trained to the fence for more than a year. Sometimes a new animal will challenge the fence but it just seemed really odd that an animal familiar with it would. 

We got her loose and she was fine. And then I noticed that all the clips that run from the electric fence charger to the fence were uncliped. All four of them

There wasn't much time to think because by then we were running massively late for the Farmer's Market. But on the way out we ran into Suzan Bellicampi, Sanctuary Director at Felix Neck.  Long story short, it turns out that someone, probably kids, broke into Felix Neck the night before, did doughnuts in the parking lot, chased our flock and left. 

I can't begin to tell you how angry this makes me. Just writing about it makes me see red.  Okay, I get it, they were probably teenagers and didn't think they were hurting anyone. But Nanny McPhee easily could have died, either by having her air cut off by the fence or from the stress.  

So the gate at Felix Neck is now locked at night.  I am comfortable that my flock is safe. But I really didn't need the added stress...

The next couple of days were blessedly uneventful. We moved the sheep and goats to a new area to eat. They are in a very brushy, overgrown area right now, which makes moving the fence a big project. It took Patrick and I almost two hours to set up the new fence, trim all the vines and branches around the fenceline and get the flock in, but it was totally worth it. 

Patrick  pretending to  be annoyed about all the work.

He goes first, crushing down the brush with his giant feet and dropping a fence post every 8 feet. I follow behind setting the posts and making sure there are no gaps for the escape-minded goats to sneak though.

The bittersweet vines make great eating for the flock but making fencing a pain.

Ta Da! Here is our beautiful, virgin fenced area. All we need to do now is add sheep and goats.

Remember that scene in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory when the kids get their first look at the room with the chocolate river running through it? I'm talking about the old school Willy Wonka, the Gene Wilder version.  Everything in the giant room is eatable- the trees, the giant mushrooms, everything, and all the kids spread out and start eating. That's exactly what it's like when we let the flock into a new fence.

No matter how long a day it's been or how late it is, Patrick and I always stay for a while and watch them eat. They are just so happy. 

The day after a major move is really easy. All we have to do in the evening is feed the dogs, feed the bottle babies and give the flock a little hay to keep their rumens functioning properly. Last night when we gave them hay everybody came running over to the hay feeder and were quietly munching away when I heard a baby goat crying. I figured one of the kids had gotten left behind when their mama came to get hay. I went looking for her and found Rosemary laying on her side with a broken leg. 

We called our vet but his answering  service said he was off Island and had the on-call vet meet us at the animal hospital. We brought Bay Leaf along for companionship. Goats get very stressed when they are away from the rest of the flock and we wanted to minimize her discomfort.  

Dr. Atwood was great. He took x-rays and confirmed that Rosemary did indeed have a broken leg. The break was clean through just below the growth plate.

Dr. Atwood decided that the best course of action was to keep Rosemary and Bay Leaf overnight and set the leg in the morning when he has a vet tech on hand to help him with the anesthesia . 

Rosemary came through the ordeal just fine. Because she is growing so quickly I will have to bring her in to get a new cast once  week until it heals, but Dr Atwood thinks she will recover completely. But she can't rejoin the flock until her cast is off in six weeks since it will dissolve if it gets wet. "What you have here," Dr. Atwood said, "is a house pet." 

Rosemary seems to agree. She is sleeping on Gulliver's dog bed as I type and she has taken to a bottle like she's been doing it since the day she was born. You'll notice that in addition to a cast Rosemary is sporting a diaper. That is my concession to Patrick, who doesn't really like having a dog in the house, let alone a farm animal. 

Dr. Atwood thinks Rosemary got her leg stuck in a hole or a tangle of vines and panicked, breaking her leg in the process. Their bones apparently aren't that strong because they are still growing. He is a great vet and even helped us by keeping the bill under $500. Still, most farms probably wouldn't spend that kind of money on a kid, so I keep reminding myself how lucky we truly are. If it weren't for the shareholders we would have had to make a very tough decision last night. 

I hope you all know how grateful I am to you for investing in our farm. Sincerely and deeply grateful.

If you are a current shareholder and haven't yet emailed me about purchasing a Spring 2009 share (and you want one) please let me know ASAP. There is supposed to be a big magazine article coming out about the farm this weekend and I am listing some of the remaining Spring 09 shares on etsy. I've saved a few for shareholders but I need to know who you are.

Also, I'm told that the video that was shot when Salina gave birth to Truman will be posted on etsy a week from Friday. I'll post a link as soon as it's up.

In other news, I am going to be holding a raffle this weekend to raise money for a super-worthy cause. The grand prize winner will be receiving my entire stash of non-MVFF yarn. Yup, the whole kit and caboodle. I'll explain all  in my next post but I promise you won't want to miss this one.

Keep your fingers crossed that the rest of the week is uninteresting please!