Mr. Rodgers sweater, spitting snow and hot pink

If you ever wear an Angora sweater while turning wood on a lathe, that sweater will never be used for anything else, as it will be impregnated with a thousand little slivers and curls of wood. I usually start out with my denim "turning coat" over my sweater, get into the moment, get warm, and take the denim coat off...

So, having ruined two (already worn out) sweaters in the shop (slow learner?) I have adopted a new "Mr. Rodgers" technique. I leave the "turning sweaters" in the shop on a nice coat hook. I wear my normal farm sweater out to the shop, and upon arriving, I take off my farm sweater, neatly hang it on the hook, put on my turning sweater, my turning hat and my dust mask...for some reason, all this clothes changing at the beginning of the task makes me a bit like Mr. Rodgers.....all tidy and kind .

I can not say it has been a hard winter, no terrible cold waves, no mounds of snow, but it has been a dreary winter, lots of bitter winds and overcast days. We finally had a "real" snow recently...well, it stuck on surfaces anyway, first of the winter and not till March.

I took a walk to enjoy it and my little flock followed me around the pasture.

Here they are up the lane behind the wood shop, which you can see in the background.

And again, on up in the pasture, enjoying the view.

Finally! a little while back I finished the hot pink socks and have had plenty of opportunity to wear them this very cold late winter (not yet spring, though it aughta be)
These were completely spun and plied on the spindolyn (navajo three plied as I went, aka "ply on the fly") The fleece was pretty neppy, so are the socks, but that's all good, they are not for competition They are also a bit strange, as they are toe up, and I forgot which pattern I used for the first one, and so the heel is completely different on the second one, and sadly, I can't find the "recipe" for the first one, which I really liked better, as the heel was a bit rounder, and I can't even remember the how of it. Oh well, another thing to relearn, and learning is fun. ; )

Farming~ the romance and the reality

      Warning: this is a long, not informative, sorta personal reflective post, you can just skip down to the fun part (the video) if you prefer  : )
    I have never considered myself a "gentlewoman" farmer. Over the nearly 30 years that I have been raising sheep, goats mules, donkeys and angora rabbits, I have tried to put practicality first. If a critter didn't "lay eggs, make meat, grow hair or protect against predators" I have been disciplined about not bringing it home.
After all, the first goal is not to lose money. Especially when my children where young, that would have been like taking food out of their mouths. I think that is the definition of gentlemen or hobby farmer, you can afford to lose money, and farming is all about losing money.
             My second goal was to do the best by my animals, loving and caring for them to the best of my ability within my resources, and this has not always been easy, and I ended up sacrificing perfectly good knitting and spinning time trying to tend to the health and happiness of the animals.
         The third goal was to profit from this work and care in terms of feeding the family, enjoying the fiber, utizing the manure for the gardens, and if possible, maybe make a little money.
              Well, right off, let me just say I have just about broke even when it is all said and done, but I have learned a lot, had joys and disspointments and had to be ever vigilant and ever disciplined.  Sometimes the freedom of travel or the apartment life fleetingly is appealing, but it is gone with the first garden produce of the year, or the first lamb born.
            As I advance in years,I am finding that keeping up with making the spindles and tools, trying to make a living, trying to garden for food and find time to still knit and spin and weave (much less blog) just leaves less time for the animals. So this winter and spring I have downsized the livestock part of the farm considerably, and am enjoying the remaining sheep and rabbits more.
      Will I have more time to blog? not sure about that...I was up in the woods above the pasture yesterday on my way to the spindle shop and had the most interesting idea for a spindle base......you can't be on the computer when you have an idea burning a hole in your head....
Edwina had triplet lambs this year, so of course I had to make a lamb video.


 The three have such strikingly different personalities. Estella is the exuberient one in the video, she is even an exuberient eater. She has more white on her than the others, is more curious and the most bossy. Eloise is the somewhat shy lamb, when she is not playing with her sister, she stays close to her mother. Their brother Edward, the runt, was, from the beginning, a dreamer. He likes to spend quiet time alone, watching the wind blow in the trees, eating leisurely off away from the rest, exploring little areas. He had to have a bottle supplement for a while to get him up to speed, and he will probably always be a small whether, but his fleece is lovely and his health is good. Now that is more info than anyone wants to read, but there you have it!

making the best of it

Sometimes it's hard to stay positive.
The critters help some, 'specially the antics of little critters at play.
Our bottle lamb, Celery, is a fruitcake, for sure. A bummer lamb in a bummer world, making the best of it.
I put together this little video to cheer me up, and maybe you, too.

(its in HD, if you have slow connection, once you hit the play arrow, you can use the drop down menu (it's actually an upward arrow) at the side of the video slider to make 360p instead of 720p and it will play smoother, or pause it to load fully if you want full resolution)

Learning to Spin at an Early Age

This is Celery, she is in the house because she was one of twins, and her mother just wanted to keep the boy (who is much bigger and handsomer, with really lovely markings)

After several attempts at forcing sheep to lamb bonding, I brought her in and made her a place in the laundry room. She would prefer the run of the house.

Bottle babies take up valuable spinning and knitting time, but they make up for it in cuteness factor.

Celery is curious about everything, she enjoys bothering the dogs aand terrifying the cat. She can travel at very high speeds, jump down steps and is pretty proud of herself.

She is also interested in learning to spin, in particular, jacob fleece.

there comes a time

When you have to use up the wool you have, before you can aquire more….shearing season is fast approaching, so we better spin, spin, spin.

This is Edwina, she is looking forward to spring.

There comes a time, when you have to ~believe~ that no matter how crappy the weather is now, no matter how out of the ordinarily creepy the weather seems, on top of being damned inconvenient and hardship causing it is, you simply have to believe that spring will come.

Edwina believes in spring.

We had a teaser weekend. a 60 degree day, with partial sunshine. No wind, a good day to pluck bunnies. Wendy was here and helped me work a few of them over, and I asked her to pluck some greens from the yard to treat them, and that is when i realized that there is nothing green in the yard big enough to pull up. It is all smashed down from the ice and snow, all dormant still, crouching down, waiting, cowering, expecting the next big blow. That is so weird, thought I. Normally, by the third week of february, it is starting to green up, but somehow, the green knows that they are predicting nights in the teens this week.

So it is a time to hold off on the gardening and keep a spinning, and believe in spring.

Scrub a dub, fleece in a tub

Bath poufs, shower scrubbies, soap saver puffs, whatever you call them, these mesh wonders are useful for more than the bath. With one snip of the center cord I have used them for several years in garden applications, pond filters, yarn bra's, etc. But where they really shine is as mesh fleece washing bags. If you have never opened one, they deconstruct as a long, long tube of nylon mesh. Cut the sections longer than you think you need them, and you won't have to tie the ends shut when you place your locks (with tips aligned all in one direction, of course) into them for washing.

Here we see the jacob lamb fleece from a previous post, the locks being carefully packed into a section of the tube.

Here we see the adult jacob ewe from which this ultra soft fleece came. It appears that her adult fleece is going to be unusually soft for a jacob.

Her name is Rosie (not to be confused with the mule Rose, who was more than resentful when I brought home a dark and scary unfamiliar animal bearing her name, she is over that now, and her fear has turned to fascination, so she hangs near the sheep and goats and watches them as if she were judging then for an "american idol of farm animals" show.

Cross species fleece sniffing

I am washing a jacob lamb fleece right now, in small parcels to divide the colors, doesn't it smell great?