It's done. All the shearing is done and the fleeces are bagged for cleaning. Ahhhhhhhh. Give me a minute while I enjoy some major shepherd relief. Nothing could have gone any better, from surviving the rain on sheep shearing day, to me learning how to successfully drag a trailer.
And the fiber is, easily, our best ever. Here's Joseph without his amazing technicolor dream coat. Cute spots, eh?
Here's his coat coming off in velvety waves. Every bit as yummy as we had hoped.
The pasture is now populated with pipe cleaner animals. They look like cartoon characters to me, freshly shorn.
And they match the nekkid sheep at the other end of the property. Everyone is ready for the 80+ degree temperatures we're supposed to see, beginning tomorrow. Whew. Just in time.
Now, comes the big job of getting the fiber clean and ready to send to the mill. We've been streamlining and perfecting our systems, so as soon as the last of last year's fiber is finished, we'll bang this stuff out. And enjoy every minute.
It's done. All the shearing is done and the fleeces are bagged for cleaning. Ahhhhhhhh. Give me a minute while I enjoy some major shepherd relief. Nothing could have gone any better, from surviving the rain on sheep shearing day, to me learning how to successfully drag a trailer.
And the fiber is, easily, our best ever. Here's Joseph without his amazing technicolor dream coat. Cute spots, eh?
Here's his coat coming off in velvety waves. Every bit as yummy as we had hoped.
The pasture is now populated with pipe cleaner animals. They look like cartoon characters to me, freshly shorn.
And they match the nekkid sheep at the other end of the property. Everyone is ready for the 80+ degree temperatures we're supposed to see, beginning tomorrow. Whew. Just in time.
Now, comes the big job of getting the fiber clean and ready to send to the mill. We've been streamlining and perfecting our systems, so as soon as the last of last year's fiber is finished, we'll bang this stuff out. And enjoy every minute.
This was my Dappled Nishiki willow on the 11th, just ready to pop,
and today it is totally leafed out and looking great.
Because I love befores and afters, and because I can't stop myself from doing the same tediousspring postsevery year, I have compiled a selection of pictures from the 11th of this month, and from today (the 24th), to show how happy our plants are here this very early spring.
One section of the daylilies on the 11th,
and today.
Star magnolia on the 11th:
Today:
White bleeding heart on the 11th:
Today:
Japanese maple on the 11th:
Today:
Yarrow on the 11th:
Today:
Irises coming up on the 11th:
Today:
Honeysuckle on the 11th:
Today:
Columbine on the 11th:
Today:
Blueberries on the 11th:
Today:
And a few random things too...
Strawberries survived the mild winter in the rapidly disintegrating coir hanging baskets. I guess they can just stay there another season, huh?
Weeeeeeeeeee little grape leaves,
teeeeeensy tiny lilacs,
raspberries and blackberries,
lots o' lamium and my favorite bleeding heart (shhhh, don't tell the white one in the other bed),
daylilies and mint in pots that never even got put away for the sorry excuse of a winter we had,
and new guy!
I wanted something special for the space behind the composter and this is it: a "Blue Muffin" viburnum. I am hoping I get an okay yield on the amazing sounding berries it is supposed to get later in the season, but I do not have a cross-pollinator on my property, so we'll see. I'm sure I could be persuaded to plant another viburnum somewhere else in the yard...
In other news, I have started converting the tiny crawly hole in one of the bedroom closets into a walk-up attic (pictures soon), I am still sporadically adding to my wonderful little log cabin blanket,
the boys just keep getting bigger,
and we are now only two months away from Miss Lydia's arrival!
to say THANK YOU for the overwhelming success of our Kickstarter Campaign! We couldn’t have done it without your help. Thank you for contributing. Thank you for spreading the world. Thank you for all the words of encouragement and for your excitement about the magazine.
By Hand is going to be an amazing magazine that we all can be proud of!
I’m off to Farmingdale, NJ for a trunk show from 1-4 p.m. at A Stitch in Time. If you live nearby, come out and say hi. I’ll have all the garments from the three new lines and will sign books. I would love to see your lovely faces there.
Since it only comes once a year, it sure feels like Christmas. We trailer our boys up to my friends Amy and Arlin McCrosky's amazing ranch in Greenville, and we get to be part of a couple of days of assembly line shearing magic.
Everyone has a job, and the collective works like a Swiss watch. After four years, I've finally found my place in the machine, collecting the fiber into bags - one for the prime blanket fiber and the other bag for the leg and neck fiber. The bags are labeled with the animal's name, date of birth and other background information. We twist the two bags for each animal together and set them aside. The floor mats are swept and blown off with an air compressor between each animal to keep the fibers from mixing.
After several hours, we take a break. This is Mark Loffhagen, the shearer with the golden blades. I've talked about Mark before... he's the same as ever, an Americanized Kiwi with a rye sense of humor.
We were all ready to take a load off for a bit after about a third of our animals were sheared. Our lunch break came after about another third of the 'pacas were done. All told, I think I heard that we did 74 animals. Tomorrow we'll probably do about that many again.
Fun sights around the barn - this is a female boarding at Amy's place who has the cutest face ever. Can you believe that silly smile? And her dark eyes, and black snip on her nose! She is a doll.
This is part of the group of ladies that occupy the barn where the shearing takes place. It's quite a crowd - very good looking...
And then here came Amy's star herd sire: Abundance. Wow - he is really amazing. So much fleece coverage on his face that he can barely see. The rest of his body is just packed with fiber as well. They don't call him Abundance for nothing.
Hi buddy!
...And... the "after" shot. He's still a big guy without it, but the fleece is just enormous.
Every time I go there, I am amazed at Amy's fabulous barn. This much hay would last me for years! But with all the mouths she feeds, it lasts significantly less time.
She has a cool way of keeping her fleeces contained - we toss them into a big dog run. They stack high, rather than taking up all the floor space. Nice.
So, we got home without incident (and me pulling my very first trailer all by myself!) and the three shorn boys had to make friends all over with the still-fluffy boys. They literally don't recognize each other without their fleeces, just like the sheep a couple of weeks ago. Here's Boaz - a mere shadow of his former self.
And Moonstruck and Levi, together for comparison. Not a fair comparison - Moonie is a big piggy boy, and Levi is the tiniest thing we have in the pasture. But you get the idea.
And the payoff for the day's work: pretty, pretty fleece. This is Boaz's fleece. We made an interesting discovery. He's not a white alpaca with an apricot cast, he's a bona fide FAWN alpaca. Amy says our good herd nutrition did that for his fleece, and that it's a very good thing. Yay!
Levi's huacaya fleece is really, really soft and white, but what you can't see in this shot of the butt ends of the fibers is the outside of his fleece, which is a MESS. Mud, spit, and who knows what else, got all over him, and it's going to be a job to get it clean.
And then our little Suri superstar, Micah. Again Amy drooled over his fleece, which we have noticed has a lovely light silver cast to it. We're considering whether Micah may have a new career path ahead of him, besides growing the softest, densest fleece we've had here to date. (That may change once we get Joseph sheared.) More news if it develops.
It was a really great day, and I learned more cool things about alpacas, shearing, fiber, and our own boys. And the news is all good. We have some really nice fiber on our farm. Hallelujah!
And now I have an ice pack on my back and I've taken some Ibuprophen, so I'll be able to do all this again tomorrow, when I trailer the Boys of Color (black, fawn and gray) back up to Greenville for another day of shearing fun.
To wrap up, here's a video about how Amy "harvests" fleeces she may use later in competition. "Show fleeces" get special attention, and must be handled differently from your regular, run of the mill amazing fleece. The process is called "noodling," though no noodles are used. Crazy. Enjoy:
In the midst of throwing pots (boy do I owe ya'll a pottery post!), sorting unmovable-by-movers stuff, weaving commissions, driving back and forth to Fredericksburg and the general stress of limbo I decided a break was in order! Pat from the Fredericksburg Spinning and Weaving Guild arranged for members to visit Misty Mountain and Solitude Wool. Since I am crazy for Solitude Wool's Karakul wool and had limited time I opted for a quick trip to Solitude.
I love what they do. Suzanne raises Karakul sheep at her farm Red Gate Farm, shops for other local breed fleece and is the washer of fleece and the dyer.....Gretchen raises Romney at Solitude and weaves and seems to be the master of their internet presence (though that is my own observation.....) Together they are Solitude Wool. While they each have their own farms, they have finally found a warehouse location between their locations to centralize all their woolly products. It's an amazing space.
Sue discussing "skirting". When you lay out a fleece and sort out the short cuts and unusable wool.
The Tunis (the type of sheep grazing at Mount Vernon during George Washington's life time) fleece on the skirting table.
Just LOOK at that crimp! This is what handspinners are looking for.
Sue and Gretchen sell mostly breed specific yarns and rovings. Each is well labeled with a picture of the sheep.....
This basket of Karakul was somewhat depleted after my visit.....
Solitude Wool's product is available on their website. But if you are lucky enough to live in the DC area they are regulars at the DC Farmers Market!
It's been difficult to remind myself over these last few days that it's really only March! Sometimes we'll get one randomly warm day in the very early spring, but a week of 80-degree temperatures? Unheard of! I wore sleeveless dresses to work these last two days....something I usually only do during July and August. Crazy.
We didn't have much of a winter, truly. I mean, yes, there was the giant storm at the end of October, but that was pretty much it. We only had one real snowfall to speak of, in mid-January -- the day my grandmother came home from the hospital for the last time. The good thing was that since we were all gathered for that, our nephew Thomas was here -- which meant that he got to introduce Ian to playing in the snow. Who better to do it?
Ian LOVED the snow. He seems to enjoy the cold -- even last winter when we went to Vermont when he was about nine months old, we noticed that he was all smiles whenever we went outside into the frigid temperatures. Jim is beside himself with anticipation for next winter (or maybe the winter after that, if I get my way) -- he's been looking forward to teaching Ian to ski since, well, since before I even was pregnant with him. :-) I, however, am less thrilled about the prospect. I'm no fun.
Sadly, this was pretty much it for snow play this year. We had a couple of other light dustings which he got to toddle around in, but there wasn't really another snowfall that lent itself to playing.
While we didn't get much snow, it was just chilly enough for a nice warm hat -- and luckily, Ian loved the one I knit for him.
Pattern: Child's Hat with Pompom, from 101 Designer One-Skein Wonders Yarn: Malabrigo Seleccion Privada Needles: US7, I think? I didn't write it down! Time: December 26, 2011 - January 5, 2012 Ravelry project page
(These pictures were taken outside in early January. You can see how not-wintry it was! Note that Ian's only wearing a fleece, not even a real winter coat.)
This was a quick knit, obviously, being a tiny little hat. It only took me so long because I ripped it out and restarted it at least three or four times -- it took quite a while to find a combination of size, fabric, and pooling that I found satisfactory. I'd like the pooling, but the hat would be way too big. I'd like the size, but the pooling was funny. Different needle size led to a good size, but the fabric was way too stiff....you get the idea. I finally found a combination I was happy with, though. I neglected to mark down which needle size finally worked, but I wound up casting on 84 stitches and working the pattern in multiples of 6 stitches instead of 8. And, obviously, I left off the pompom. Other than that, though, I followed the pattern. Ian LOVED this hat, insisted on wearing it everywhere, and I think it will still fit him next year, too. Hopefully he'll still like it!
I didn't really set out to knit my one-year-old a hat out of a $25 skein of Malabrigo (I'm generally all about the easy-care yarn for kid knits), but when I saw these colors I just couldn't resist. What a perfect, bright, happy colorway for a little kid....and, of course, it's super-soft for his noggin.
I had woolly things I kind of wanted to get to this winter, but now it's time to think ahead to spring and summer knits. Of course, I'm certain we'll get one more snowstorm before we're truly 100% into spring. Maybe over Easter -- it would be an appropriate counterpoint to the Halloween storm!
On a whim this morning, I decided to put a little product in my hair to fluff it up. I am typically a wash and air dry type of person, and hair products are way out of my norm. The Big Boy noticed.
Big Boy: Momma, what is that? What are you putting in your hair?
Me: It is some hair wax to help it fluff up and look pretty.
Big Boy: People are going to think you are so beautiful.
Me: You think I look beautiful?
Big Boy: No. Not me. The people at your work will think you look beautiful.
