Bunny Love

Well, I'm not sure it is completely bunny love...perhaps bunny lust!  We have three pairs of english angoras mated; Buffy and Blackberry Jellybean have a litter due on May 19th.  I didn't take any vicarious photos of the two together but Buffy is a fawn vienna marked tort and Blackberry a solid black. Their photos are in the column on the right hand side.  I'm hoping to get another fawn from this mating...Buffy is getting up there in years and I'd like to have another like her around. Her fiber is a pretty cream color.

Clover, a fine fibered blue eyed white (BEW), was paired with Iccarus the new boy from the rescue.  He is a german/english angora hybrid who also has BEW in his background and is a carrier for the gene (expressed by the white mark on his nose).  He has a really dense coat and it is the prettiest pale blue/gray so as to almost be white.  We will definately get some more BEW bunnies from this pair, if all goes well. Clover is due to kindle on May 31st.

Delilah (also from the rescue) is a solid black doe with a very sweet temperament.  She is paired with Bigwig Taffy who also is a sweetheart and a lovely chestnut agouti.  He has very abundant fiber, though you can't tell from this photo as he was plucked right down to the guard hairs last week!  They should produce some nice bunnies with excellent temperaments. Delilah is also due to kindle on May 31st.


We haven't had three litters at once before so I'll be building another nest box for the babies one of these weekends soon.  If anyone is interested in owning a pedigreed English angora from quality blood lines please give me a shout.  I price the bunnies so they are affordable to hand-spinners and 4H kids.  They take a fair amount of work to maintain so aren't for everyone, but if you have an interest or questions let me know.

Rescued Rabbits

Last Friday I received an email from the breeder I bought my English angoras from two years ago.  She saw two of her rabbits listed on an internet classified ad that were being given away because the person could no longer take care of them and they lived in the same general area as we do.  I picked them up the same day and brought them home...which meant a total re-arrangement of rabbit living quarters!

Iccarus, above, needed some serious help.  His hair was so matted to his legs and chest that I couldn't feel his bones beneath the hair.  He had to be shaved from his feet across his chest and down his other leg.  He took it all pretty well and is a very sweet boy. (I had to buff up on my Greek mythology to figure out his name)

Dalilah is a very sweet english doe, who looks much like our buck Blackberry Jellybean. Her fur wasn't in bad shape at all.  Both of them appear to be in very good health and are well socialized...they just didn't get groomed much.  Lila is thrilled that the name she came with is so similar to hers....  Both of thee pictures were taken when they were younger and no so, ahem, bald as they are now....

Small wheel for smallish people

In March Lila accompanied me to the Eweper's Spinners and Weavers meeting.  My friend Roberta brought her Ashford Joy Travelling wheel for us to try out.  It worked great for Lila...it was the right height and she could keep the wheel going while drafting and she created some singles that look better than some first time adults turn at the wheel.  I was very proud of her.  This spurred my interest in the Joy and an internet search.  I found this wheel at the Spinners and Weavers and Knitters housecleaning pages http://www.kbbspin.org/
Very cool site.

The wheel that Lila tried was a double treadle, but I couldn't fine on that was "reasonably" priced so after doing some research opted for the single wheel because one of the reviews I read said that the double treadle was overkill on the joy since the wheel diameter was so small in the first place.  We haven't had an opportunity yet to show it to Lila, but Sam took a turn on it while she was at quilting class- he was pretty good too!  It will also come in handy for me to take to work and other places to work on projects...

Easter Egg Hunt

This is the crew that hunted for Easter Eggs at Grandma's house on Saturday.  Grandma looks the most excited I think!

Little Marilyn found some eggs....

Sam found some with help from Harbour Grace....

Here they are opening their booty.

Charlotte

Duncan has chocolate on his face already!

 

Uncle Tommy and Olivia...I cannot get this picture to rotate!

The Easter Bunny hid eggs and baskets at our house while we were gone also.

TOO MUCH CANDY!!!!

A visit to Great Lakes Pygora goat farm

Thursday we took a side trip on the way downstate to visit the Great Lakes Pygora goat farm.  That morning all the goats were to be shorn, but Allison graciously left Tea in fiber so we could see what her coat looked like. 

Poor Tea...it was 85 degrees and she had on this warm silky coat and she still hadn't had her goatlings yet.  She looked fat, uncomfortable and miserable but she let us scratch her head anyway... a little bit.

There were all of these cute little things bouncing around and climbing on their mothers....

Aren't they just adorable????

The boys thought they were fun to pat, but they kept calling them lambs.

This blue eyed bottle fed Nigerian dwarf stole the show and thier hearts...she was super friendly.

"Hey, don't just sit there girly!  Give me some pats!!!"

What I didn't know was how far West Olive is from the Eastern Upper Peninsula.  I thought we'd be there in about 5 or 6 hours.  No.  Make that EIGHT hours.  Allison was very gracious about us being late.

Pygora Goats

This is Tea. She is a Pygora goat and lives at Great Lakes Pygora Farm in West Olive Michigan. We will be heading down to see her on Thursday on "our way" to visit Grandma and Grandpa.

Her fiber was spun into the pink yarn from a previous post and it has tons of luster and softness. I am in love with this goat. Doesn't she look sweet? Evidently her left side is the most photogenic as she apparently posed for most of these."No, I'm not fat...I'm pregnant!" She is due to kid any day now...I was hoping to see babies on Thursday but she so far is not cooperating. Everyone else at Allison's farm has given birth, but not Tea....

"I'm holding out! And since you asked, here is the right side of my body too".

"Look, someone is getting a pedicure! I'm waiting in line to go next. See my pretty beard?"

"This is my incredible fiber...those ringlets are actually white!"

All of these photos are courtesy of Allison. I will be taking more while we are down there....

Making Pierogis

I admit that I am not Polish. I probably have no business trying to replicate the wonderful Polish food that exists on the planet. BUT.... I love Pierogi! I spent my early 20's in the city of Flint and there was a nice sized Polish population there, which meant that at least during Lent, one could purchase hand made pierogi from a variety of sources. They were wonderful...especially the cabbage ones.

While at the grocery store last week I picked up the latest Martha Stewart Living magazine to flip through while waiting. There was a three page spread on making pierogi...be still my heart! No doubt that I was going to buy the magazine and give it a whirl. Well, it was a success hands down! The dough was easy to make, roll and cut out with my 3 inch biscuit cutter. Martha tells you to put the finished little dumplings on a cookie sheet lined with a linen towel (I love any excuse to use linen) and sprinkle corn meal on it before plumping down the pierogi so they don't stick. The purple stuff on the lovely linen towel above is corn meal, honest. I had bought the blue corn meal at the farmers market in Lansing on a visit down there from a local small mill.

I made both potato and cabbage pierogi. Above is the filling for the cabbage. I thought it would be impossible to close the dough around that much filling, but no problem! If you look close you'll see that they aren't in any way perfect but they tasted so good...even better warmed up the next day. The recipe made about 40, so some went into the freezer (though I just wanted to eat them all right then and not save ANY!).I didn't re-roll any of the scrap dough (at Martha's insistence) so the kids had a ball playing with it. We'll definately make it again!

Finished Project

This is the finished doll I was working on that has the mohair and pygora handspun and koolaid dyed yarn highlights in her hair. I think she turned out pretty cute!

The colored strands just give a hint of highlights and don't overly dominate her look.

Work in Progress

I'm working on a waldorf doll for a lady who is putting it in her daughters Easter basket and she requested some pink and green strands of wool in her hair (which will be blonde). I didn't have any pink or green mohair on hand and finding those colors would have necessitated a long trip to a more upscale yarn shop (and more expense). So I thought "why not spin my own?!" I had purchased some mohair so I put that through the drum carder and spun it up...that is the green skein. The pink skein is a sample of Pygora that Allison from Great Lakes Pygora sent me...more about that later! ;) It spun up very smooth and was easy to work with. Out came the Kool-aid....Lemon-Lime for the green and Pink Lemonade for the Pygora.

These are the clothes- the hair color will match the dress colors pretty well I think!

I'm excited to put her all together and see how she turns out with the color in her hair...I'm sure she'll be cute! The doll will be assembled in the next two days in order to go out in Friday's mail.

Weekend snaps

Ta Da! This is Goldy. He is a Buff Orpington Rooster that we traded our Barred Rock rooster "Rosey stripes" for. Rosey decided that we had bad JuJu and that I needed to be destroyed at all costs. He would sneak up on me while my back was turned and forcefully lunge himself at my body, going for the soft parts in the back of the knees. He would attack me while gathering up his girls eggs, putting water and food in the coop, and he even came out of the coop to give me a good whack. I had been feeling bad about thinking about getting rid of him but I finally had enough! He did cut a fine figure with the ladies and I miss his robust authoritative crowing. The girls really liked him too and he treated them very nicely (okay, now I'm feeling sad about this again). The folks that took Rosey were quite glad to get him and they had a few extra Buff Orpington Roos. So, I went over and selected this dandy fellow. He seems to be doing quite well so far. He is partial to the Buff Orpington hens (we have three) and the little bantam hens hang around him which they didn't do with Rosey. Little Grey (a bantam dark Brahma) roosted next to him his first night in the coop and she sticks pretty close to him. He has the most hilarious crow...there is a tremalo on the "doodle" part, and at the end he trills the "dooooooo" out quite a bit and sounds like a barred owl...not as proper as Rosey but very entertaining.

The girls have been working hard at eggs...today they laid 20! We have 9 nest boxes for them to use, and all 20 were in three boxes. One box held 10 eggs...and the chickens were all waiting in queue complaining about how long everyone else took at full volume. It was loud in there today! They are really enjoying the good weather we've been having...the past two days have been 60 degrees!!! All of our snow is GONE except for the plow piles. Not natural for the EUP at this time of year...the fire gods will be active this spring if this keeps up... :)
The sheep are looking wild and wooly and starting to rise here and there. We have a "date" booked with the shearer! He will be coming sometime in the last two weeks of May from WI. He sounds like a really cool person and I'm looking forward to meeting him. He can do all our sheep in the space of time it takes Will and I to do one (while ignoring the dogs, phone, kids etc...).
Igraine was happy to see humans sharing her space and passed out many kisses today.
Pikachu just doesn't get as excited and was happy to soak up some sunshine. The weather has been great for the spirits, but bad for maple sugaring...the sap is just not running. The nights haven't been below freezing for a few days now but we are hoping to get another run in the next week or so. Good thing last year was so good for us- we still have a stash that could get us through if this year is a bust.

I don't know what is going on with blogger but I can't change the bloody font on that first paragraph...someone is doing some editing for me apparently as I didn't do the underline either!