Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Yikes - less than 2 weeks to go until Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival!  Am I ready?  Well, what do you think??  Dyeing tussah top right now, bold, jewel-y colors.  And a pot of mohair in almost the same colors; they always turn out different on the different fibers.  I love the way mohair just shines and glistens back at you, reflecting the color and those wonderful purl-y curls.

The chicks are growing like weeds.  It is so much fun to watch as they go through the many color stages towards what their final coloring will be.  This year I added some red laced blue wyandottes - how pretty! - and a couple of Speckled Sussex, a breed which I had a hen and rooster from years ago.  Someone in the group sings like a song bird and it is absolutely wonderful!

Back to the dyeing.  If I'm lucky, I'll post some photos for you all to savor along with me!

Thursday, March 28, 2013

Lambing is done, with 12 lambs total.  The smallest ewe, Bitty Bits, had the tiniest ram lamb.  This little boy was a throwback to Bits' Lincoln ancestry, with a very Lincoln face and blocky body - but oh, so tiny!!  And the last ewe to lamb, Mooch (can you guess why she got that name?) had a set of ram twins: one is Leicester-y white, the other the chunky throwback red!  They were almost as big as Bits' lamb when they were born!  The 3 of them are penned with their moms, and have a grand time running lamb races.

Tuesday was the arrival of the new chicks, an assortment of breeds!  My current favorite, Cuckoo Marans, and Americanas, Golden Lace Wyandottes, Blue Laced Red Wyandottes, Columbian Wyandottes, and Speckled Sussex!  They'll add a lot of plumage color to the barnyard, as well as the assortment of egg colors.  And since some are straight run, the roosters will go into the freezer.

And I realized this past week that the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival is a little over a month away.  Time to really get cracking with the dyeing and some carding that needs to be done so it will all be ready. 

Somewhere in there over the next month, I need to get the garden ready and cold tolerant plants planted and overall get organized - someday!  And work on fencing, too - a never ending task....

Friday, March 1, 2013

Time certainly DOES fly here - and the lambs are slowly arriving.  We're up to 8 lambs on the ground, with another one that died.  And it is a year of ewe lambs so far, and all but one of those black!  One has the hairier coat that is a throwback to a ram I used to get a red color, with wool that is coarser and in waves.  Her brother is white with a typical Border Leicester coat, little purl-y curls and a bit of luster.  The lambs delight in laying on their mom's backs - or even the back of another mom - and it's causing some pulled wool from the ewe's backs.....I'm looking forward to the arrival of the chicks on March 25 - love those little peeps!

Been working in the studio getting wool sorted.  Some will go for yarn and some for insoles and some dyed and put through my Duncan carder, maybe with mohair or silk.  I'll be visiting the Fiber Factory in western NY next week to drop off fiber for more insoles and talk with Wendy about getting some sheets of felt made for a new idea I have for jackets or vests - we'll see how that plays out!  And I've been knitting up swatch/guage samples for the last run of gray yarn that was done at Zeilingers - more ideas trying to find their way out of my head!  And I'm using this same gray yarn in winding a warp, interspersed with dyed alpaca, for scarves.... just too many ideas!

And I am finally learning to play my beautiful lacewood dulcimer that arrived in December - if only my hand and fingers would cooperate!


Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Another morning, another lamb, this one a cute ewe lamb with Border Leicester type wool.  Of course, getting to the barn early first thing in the morning is always a trip after Bill let me know there was a new lamb.........

Get CD/T and BoSE shots ready, get extra "barn" towels, getting all suited up for the barn, then walk out to barn, check new ewe lamb who is dry and walking around with a full tummy, so didn't really need towels, realize that - oh, rats, forgot the iodine - walk back to the house for iodine, walk back out to barn, give CD/T shot to Mom, give BoSE shot to lamb and iodine her navel, realize that Bill took Moms' water bucket out and they need it back in pen and need water, get water pail and get water for Moms, realize placenta is out and sort of buried and frozen in pen, so go get the pitch fork and then go back into pen and get the placenta, but - oops! it sort of slides off fork but catch end of it and wrap around fork tines, go out to the cart full of manure/hay and try to get placenta off pitch fork - it's frozen onto tines by then, and then back to double check all is OK in Mom pen and give the ram lamb born 2 days ago hugs and cuddles before heading back to house, leaving towels in feed room for future use.  And all of this before 6:30 am!

2 ewes have lambed, 15 more ewes to go; this will seem old hat by then!

Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Where does the time go?  It seems like it was just summer and here it is the start of a new year!  Time flew by with summer shows and then Nancy at the New York State Fair as the Superintendent of the Agricultural Museum.  And then being hit by the nasty barber pole worm and losing more old friends in the barn....... and then fall shows and the holidays sneaking up on all of us.

We're looking forward to the birth of lambs in the next few months.  We made the decision last year to not have any, and I think we missed having them and watching their antics as they grow..... we're still using Gonzo, our colored Border Leicester ram, although I think he will need to be retired after this year!  He gives us lambs that have that wonderful kinky curly wool when they are born, and many ewes who retain the curled locks and luster we want.

And we're also working on a list of late winter classes here at the farm.  Once those have been decided, they will be published here on the blog.  And we'll be updating our website over the winter so that on-line ordering will be a reality!


Friday, July 6, 2012

Too many weeks have passed - time seems to slip by!  The CNY Fiber Festival in June was rainy on Saturday and HOT on Sunday, but a great visit with friends old and new.  Then on to cleaning the barn to prepare for haying.....and now this week it is so good to smell the sweet bales waiting til winter use.

Classes will be coming up soon for the summer.  I'll post them within a couple of days - after the next round of hay is put in the barn!

Friday, May 25, 2012

A few weeks have passed during this crazy spring!  I've spent many hours looking for my beloved (indoor) cat who went through the screen to chase something on the deck, and he still has not been found.......

There are still some openings in the dyeing classes next weekend; contact me to sign up for either at shadeyside@citlink.net.  Saturday, June 2, is the Unraveling the Sock class from 9 am to 12:30 pm, and Sunday, June 3 is the Rainbow Dyeing class from 1 to 4:30 pm.  Both will be a lot of fun and some of my favorite things to do - turn natural colored fiber or yarn into a riot of colors!  You do not need to know anything about dyeing to take either class, and there will be lots of hands on time to experiment!

For any of you who live in the area, the 2nd Annual Central New York Fiber Festival is June 9 and 10 in Bouckville.  Stop at our booth to say hello!