Old Fashioned Sponge Curlers

I found these curlers at the dollar store and couldn't resist.  I loved having curls when I was little.

We've had them in her hair several times since I bought them.

The Idea was rather fascinating for Duncan.

He said "are you really going to sleep in those???"

"Yup!  Mommy bought them for me!"

Wow!  Much curlier than I remember my hair becoming. (sleepy morning picture)

  But then I suppose she inherited some of Daddy's curls as well as his color....I just love that!

New books and a gift

It is hard to find a good middle of the road book for rabbits and goats and sheep.  Many of the "Insert Name Here Guide to Critters" do a good job giving you the basic facts about the critters we care about.  Many of them, however, don't give all the information I would like to have and find useful.  For instance, one of my rabbit books tells me that it is best to cull the animal with said medical issue...okay for meat rabbits maybe but what about animals we have a lot of emotional attachment, time or money invested in?  I was looking for books that give me some technical information- enough to make a decision about wether or not I need to get to the vets office or if I can do something about the issue myself.  Or how to spy a problem in the making.

The Completely Angora book was a find at a library book sale that a friend found.  It is incredible!  I think he paid 82 cents or something for it, and he still gave it to me after he found out it is worth a bunch more (true mark of a friend).  Unfortunately it is out of print.  Not too technical and very in depth. I can't imagine what else I might need to know about angora rabbits that isn't in there.

The Sheep and Goat medicine book is very good as well.  It has an appendix with common goat and sheep medicines (including off label) and their dosages.  It is written primarily for vet students (with a biology background I still needed to look up a few words) but it isn't too hard to follow.  It retails for $105.00 but I found it at http://www.jefferslivestock.com/ for $89.00.  I feel happy to have found both of these resources.

When I came home on Valentines Day, this surprise was waiting for me!  It is modeled after a really interesting display that we saw at the Portsmouth Children's Museum (they had a whole hands of textile section for kids).  Will says it is a mock up only and that the frame will be finished etc... I love it.  It looks even prettier in person and away from my messy counter... Since it isn't completely finished we may add a really big weaving shuttle that I bought in NH last year that is from a mill and a larger mill bobbin as well.  I'm thinking it might be nice to wind some other yarn on some of the naked bobbins too...yarn spun from our woolies might be nice.

February- the Longest Month of the Year

MIA from the blogosphere; Mother of Three, Professional series State worker (in a state budget crisis), self imposed shepherd/farmer and wife of model train obsessed Scotsman buries herself in wool to wait out the long cold month.

Ya….something like that.

February has been the month of extra activities. Will and I are taking Yoga classes on two separate nights of the week, Lila has after school music and knitting classes, the boys have boy scouts, work has been busy and we are re-organizing at work. Add on to that the fact that the furnace blower refused to blow, the vacuum cleaner was merely redistributing the dirt instead of picking it up, and the muffler and tailpipe on the truck decided they no longer wanted a conjugal relationship and you have a personal budget crisis is in the making. I’ve been overwhelmed with reality….

So. We have a new vacuum cleaner bought with a 30% off coupon at Kohl’s that will hopefully last for more than a year. We are rough on vacuum cleaners with three dogs, two cats and lots of sand to track in, not to mention stray bits of bunny fuzz from grooming sessions. The furnace blower was replaced, no brainer. The truck can wait a week- I’m downstate for three days next week in the work truck anyway and quite frankly, I don’t think the truck is any louder with the disconnect.

On a more pleasant notes…Lila and I are taking a Mother-Daughter knitting class and I can now officially say that I can knit! I tackled two dish cloths, a scarf for Duncan (which is already lost) and I’m working on a scarf/sampler. I’ve knitted thirteen different knit/purl combinations and it feels good. I’m going to start some of the YO and other mysterious initials the end of the week and I’m feeling brave enough to tackle a simple cable! Lila is working on a garter stitch scarf with stripes. She doesn’t feel comfortable with purling which is fine…now that I can do it I can teach her later! I’ve got half a pound left of pygora/Shetland to spin for a yarn CSA which will be wrapped up very soon…then I can spin myself some yarn and knit up a hat…just in time for spring!

Our local spinning group, the Eweper Spinners and Weavers will be sponsoring a fiber festival this summer- July 9th in Curtis. I’m very excited and will be a vendor- my first ever fiber festival. We are in the planning stages now and will be busy setting this baby up.

Our shearer is booked to come the last week of May…YAHOO!!! I’m so stoked to have him back again this year- he was awesome. Nary a nick on our animals and he was good company too. I’ll be washing wool like mad so I can get it down to Zeilenger’s for processing to get it back in time for the fiber festival and our CSA shares. I’ve been peaking under those sheep suits and LOVE what I’m seeing under there…all that VM free wool!

On the bunny front, I need to decide who will be paired up with whom. I’m going to breed three bunnies this year; Buffy, our VM marked tort, will have her last litter and then go into retirement. She will be paired up with the new handsome chocolate pearl buck I bought from Zodiac Ranch- Butterbur. I’m hoping for some more torts from this breeding. Dalilah (black English angora) and Mocha (Chocolate) will also be bred but I haven’t decided on the pairing yet. The bucks are Chocolate pearl, Black and Agouti in color.

Sheep will need to be caught to trim toes, worm, and change coats as necessary in the next couple of weeks. Amey, the skinny sheep, has been coming into the people part of the barn every other day or so for extra oats. As soon as I come into the barn she waits in front of the doors to be let in. Then after cleaning up her oats, she tries to scam bunny food from the three stack of angoras in the barn. They are not impressed and don’t share!

Winter Woolies

We have had a BRIEF warmup and now back to weather not above twenty again for the rest of the week.  We are being spared the snowstorm everyone is talking about in the midwest because we are far north of it.  Some of those southern Michigan folks do not deal well with extra snow!

This past weekend I spent a bit of time outside with the woolies.  Everyone was happy to be social on a semi-warm sunny day!

Twizzler says "hey boy, scratch my head or I'll eat your sleeve!"  Tea, behind, is certain the small black box I hold up in front of my face has food in it.  Liz and Amey are ready to run in case I drop it.

Tea quickly realizes she's getting nowhere with trying to mesmerize me so solicits head scratches from Lila.  I had no idea these ladies would be so much a pain in the rear  persistent.  I'm annoyed when they run off the sheep to have all the pats for themselves.  It's a good thing they are cute!

Even though the day is beautiful, the llamas prefer to stay in the barn.  Igraine is looking for stray bits on Sam's face (knowing that there are probably some there).  Igraine also decided Sunday night to pull my hair as I was switching frozen bunny bottles.  I dropped the wire bail that holds the bottle on (GRRRR!) and  since it was dusk-ish I couldn't find it and had to get another one from the garage.  Igraine is a bit of a pest.  Somewhat like the goats who also prefer to hang out in the barn.

The sheep, on the other hand, like to hang outdoors.  Elle and her daughter Gaia figured out they could get into the hay feeder because the other crosspiece on the end fell off.  They spend a lot of time there.

Liz thinks they are silly.  She is going to have to go into a size F sheep suit.  I can't wait to see all that fiber!

The whole sheepish gang.  Fallon, the wild one, stands slighty apart, unsuited to suits, on the right.  "Hey Nala, if you turn around we can play follow the leader!"

Nala- "Um, okay...where are we going?"

It amuses me that they use only this tiny well trod pathway unless spooked or otherwise excited.

"Geez guys!  Kick up your heels in the snow....live a little!"  Says the only boy in the barnyard.  Beltane is without the full assemblage of equipment however.

"Equipment?  What equipment?

Wee little Amey is the black sheep on the far left.  She is still too skinny even after worming and sneaking her grain.  She fits fine into a D coat width wise, though she will have to go to an E for length.   She is such a sweetie and I worry about her.

It was a good day to be a black dog soaking up sunshine.  Harbour Grace had a good day and she has been limping less on her bad knee.

CeCe always looks like she could use a hug.  She always gets them .

Waters, the lab mix, stayed inside.  He says his coat is too thin and he is too old to be outside for too long. 

Hedwig says she is too.  She'll lay on the fine literature, thank you very much, and stay warm.

Holy Wah!

Holy Wah! = Yooper Expletive meaning, "Holy S_ _ t!"  Click HERE for a Yooper dictionary to interpret the natives.

Ya Hey- it was 18 below Zero this morning when we woke up!  Not much warmer when we did chores either exchanging popsicles for water bottles so the bunnies could drink.  Cold days like this you can almost see the ice forming a skim on the surface of the water before it even hits the bowl....this means bunnies get a bit more attention having their water changed more often.  Grups and kids alike haven't spent much quality time outside other than chores.  Fortunately the sun has decided to shine on us the past couple of days which helps a bit.  The furnace is going full bore, and this drafty log house only warms up to 63 degrees.  Thank goodness for the wood furnace- we'd never be able to afford to heat this beast with propane.  Weather forecast is for up to a foot of Lake Effect snow tonight.  Did I do my timekeeping before I left work on Friday??? No.

Spent part of yesterday carding and spinning some white Shetland/mohair  mix.  Lovely stuff.  Also boxed up the last of the gray Shetland and Angora roving- happy to have sold every ounce but a little sad it isn't in my stash anymore!  I had planned to spin some up for myself and weave a triangle shawl but alas...not to be this spring!  This year after shearing I think I'll commit both Fancy and Chunk's fleece to be combined with angora- that will give me about ten pounds of roving instead of five.  If I ever get back my llama from Zeilengers (Three months to dehair?) I think I'll make some spinning batts of Shetland brown (Liz and Beltane) and Igraine's lovely soft fiber.  Her fiber feels as soft as alpaca, just longer and with less crimp.  What to do with white this year?  I could have roving made with angora, pygora or Pikachu's lovely llama fiber....so many decisions!  :) Happy ones...Yoo Betcha.

Shetland Combed Top!

Another exciting happening around the Holidays was that while we were downstate we passed by Frankenmuth....and Zeilenger's had finished the Shetland Combed Top!!!!  I delivered them 18 pounds of VM contaminated wool and received back 8 pounds of top, and a bag of noils in batt form.  I don't know how much the bag of noils weighs as I had to leave it there since there wasn't room in the car for two big bags of wool, three dogs, three kids, Christmas gifts, etc...  It will get picked up when our llama is done being dehaired.

The wool was from all of our sheep- neck bits, patches with too much VM in them to be practical to use, and whole fleeces in some cases.  I primarily did this to save my sanity...that much VM would have driven anyone insane!  It was expensive, but worth it in the long run.  I won't probably be doing this every year as most of the sheep with open fleeces have been coated and I plan to keep them that way, but I'll save up the icky bits to send down when I have enough.

Close up- you can see some individual fibers.  The sheep ranged in color from white, grey, three different shades of brown, shaela (silvery black) and black.

It ended up being a beautiful silvery dark brown and it is REALLY soft.

I was particularly excited by the way it came...in this big beehive of overlapping coils that was hollow in the middle.  It was really neat!

I put a listing for some on my Etsy site.   I hope to get a chance soon to spin some myself!

Assorted December Bits

Since I was so slack in posting these past two weeks here are the highlights of our Holiday Vacation.

Christmas at Grandma's-

My brother and two of my neices...dressed to the nine's as usual!

I had a hard time getting all three of them together for a picture.  Their attention was diverted elsewhere.

Lila got a cool hat and socks with toes from Grandma and Granpa.  That is my Dad's nose and arm in the picture.

There was sledding....

...with dogs.

Lila, Olivia and Uncle Tommy

Sam and cousin Blake wiped out under spruce trees.

Most just wiped out at the bottom of the hill or the fence at the bottom of the hill.

They wore us out and we had to go home.

Then Lila turned TEN.  She celebrated with Christmas Crunch.

She has lots of new, good reading to do!

And a new friend to love.

The traditional birthday nightgown.

Then it was Christmas Eve!  After Christmas Eve dinner at Dougettes (where Rachel read aloud her short story that included us) we traipsed home rather late and rather tired.  We put out cookies and milk for the Old Guy and Will read a "Cajun Night Before Christmas" as he does every year.  Uncle Dan gave Lila that book a few days after she was born and it has been read ever since.

We kept them out too late.

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care...under the supervision of Hedwig.  (* note- for the more sensitive home decor readers I realize that the ugly green chair does not match our decor.  However, it belonged to my Grandmother and I have photos of myself as a baby sitting in that same chair (with different, albeit still ugly upholstery). It is still somewhat comfortable, with some broken springs, and perhaps someday we will have it re-upholstered.  It is still my favorite piece of furniture.)

Santa overloaded the Beautiful Fir tree.

Duncan was up at 5:00 am.  I gave him a blanket and he fell asleep next to the tree on the warm heat register.

Ghost Pirates!

A fiddle bow!

A box!!!

A family computer!

From then on it was all about trying to re-organize the house to accomodate all the new goodies.  They don't call the day after Christmas boxing day for no reason!  I managed to rearrange our bedroom/studio space so there is more space for spinning and weaving (and using the bedroom) and my sewing and doll making equipment went into the finished basement where I carved out a corner to call my own.  It looks quite homey.  Will rearranged space down there to set up a train table for the, ahem, kids.  He has spent a bit of time cleaning up track and trains.  They have been having lots of fun.

I was able to spend some quality time with the woolies and cleaning rabbit hutches and plucking bunnies.  I also made a hard cheese for the first time (Farmhouse Cheddar) and attempted to weave a shawl on the triangle loom.  It didn't happen.  It was a good learning session though (after I got over the swearing bit) and I will start anew with thicker yarn spun with more twist (when I get around to spinning it).  I did get some spinning in as well and figured out how to use the Ashford Scholar I have.

Ten is a big responsibility

Lila turned 10 on December 23rd!

She had a hoard of gifts that she opened prior to her friends coming over for her dinner party.  She wanted to open them before they got there because she felt bad that she received so many gifts and her friends may not have had so many.  I thought that was rather sweet and it took me a while catch my breath.  I'm glad that she recognizes that not everyone is as well off as others and that she is concerned about it.

After the girls arrived, we had dinner- Pizza, crab rangoons and fresh veggies and dip.  This was Lila's meal request!  Then Lila opened her presents from her friends.

Afterwards, as is traditional, we made gingerbread creations. Each child gets a blog of mollasses cookie dough and they make what they want with it.  Out come the imaginations and the sprinkles!  Of course, as parents showed up I was still pulling cookies out of the oven so some came in and had cake.  This was the beginning of the holiday chaos.  Now I am late getting home for lunch so alas, have to leave the high speed internet connection at the library....more another day.