If you haven’t received your sock club shipment yet and want January’s colorway to be a surprise, don’t read any further. Go do something boring because I’m about to show you some pretty yarn!
This January brought with it the so-called Polar Vortex – icy winds that typically cyclone over the north pole headed south into much of the Eastern US, breaking record low-temps – including in Virginia. Although we’re grateful that the morning’s chores did not include this, like it did when the farm was in NY…
The underground hose still was frozen, even after the temps rose above freezing. Amy started to drive water down to the flock in the tractor twice a day.
Even last week when the temps were above freezing, the section of the hose that was buried underground to protect it from being run over by the tractor was still frozen. (Amy dug it out, and after some time in the sun it started working again.)
So it’s no wonder that for January I saw icy blue and white yarn. And it’s why I named January’s colorway Polar Vortex.
As people who had to be out in the cold we were a bit miserable, but as farmers, we’re thrilled that it got so cold. Why? Because a hard freeze kills off parasites that lie dormant in the pasture during the cold months and that we have to work so hard to fight against in the summer months. This freezing, deeply-penetrating cold is going to leave us with a cleaner pasture – with fewer parasites – for the spring, when we’re due to have lambs and new mothers who are immune-compromised and would have a more difficult time fighting off parasites.
So these ice cold winds are a blessing, even if it means driving water down or digging up frozen hoses. I’d take it any day over losing animals to parasites. (Of course that’s easy to say when Amy has to do the hard work of the water duty.)
Because we dyed some of the yarn in Virginia with Tanya and Cris’s help, but I was shipping it from Massachusetts, half of my suitcase looked like this:
The other half held February’s yarn, but you’ll have to wait a couple of weeks before you can see that. I don’t mind telling you how anxious I was waiting for the suitcase to come off the conveyor belt at the airport!
While Julie and my mom were putting labels on tags and then putting the tags on the yarn, my friend Rachel was hand-stamping each bag, carefully comparing it to the previous bag for quality control purposes…
Then each month was hand-written by yours truly…
And then the bag tops had to be folded, holes punched into the top, the yarn paced inside, and then the package was tied at the top.
Julie helped me package things up while I printed shipping labels:
It was a relief when all the packages were lined up and ready to go to the post office! It took five days, and about 7 people helping (we expanded the number of club members due to popular demand), but the yarn went out right on time.
Although I was happy to see it go, Polar Vortex holds a special place in my heart as a color. And as a parasite killer.
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