Spring is Bursting Out!

Look how green it is!  And pretty purple weed/wildflowers are coming up everywhere.  It gets greener outside by the day.  

I have had so much going on since last I posted.  I started by heading over to Dayton to do a demonstration on spinning for a group my mother belongs to.  It is a type of guild consisting of mostly retired home-economists.  My mother is a retired registered dietition/college professor and only recently became involved with this group.  When they found out I was a spinner/alpaca farmer, they requested a demo.  There were a LOT of people present, I would say at least 25 to 30 women and it was held in someone's house.  I think, judging by the responses I got, that it went very well.  I know I talked til I was hoarse, though since I was coming down with a cold, that was inevitable.

Later that night I had a very nice dinner with 3 of my high school friends at a Bonefish Grill  which incidentally happens to be located in a huge shopping plaza only about 2 miles from where I lived from 1971 until I graduated high school.  When we moved there, there was a Stuckey's (anyone remember those?) and a gas station.  That's it.  It is now unrecognizable.  I guess a lot happens in 40 years.  Can it have been that long????

Once I got home Friday, my cold really hit me and I was not too active Friday or Saturday.  Though Saturday and Sunday were alpaca moving days and I managed to get all the alpacas moved who needed moving, with Sam's help.  First, I am selling 4 females, 3 of whom have never been bred and I told the buyer I would put them all in with one of my males until he is ready to come get them in the hopes that one or more will become pregnant.  So, I moved those 4 and Eclipse into the pasture next to the garage so I can kind of monitor things.

 Next, the 3 crias born in the fall are now all over 6 months old and so their mamas are ready for a break.  So Peg, Tunita and Miracle got to move down the road to the pasture across from the guest house.  I find that there is less whining from the crias if the mamas just disappear instead of physically relocating the babies.  There was a little angst on the part of the crias for a day or so, but they seem to be fine now.  

And now I have less alpacas per acre since the garage pasture was unoccupied all winter and the green grass is growing.  And I still have hay in the barn!

On Sunday, I spent a lot of time cleaning out an old fence that was between our yard and the creek.  While my old friend Apache was alive, this fence allowed him to wander up the creek and kept him out of the yard.  It was really not much of a fence and was old barb wire and rusty and the posts were mostly falling down, so now that he is gone, there is no need for it.  In the photo, you can see where the yard ended and the weedy stuff on the other side of the fence began.  Hopefully it will eventually be lawn from the deck right to the creek.  Kind of a sad chore, but we had been planning to do it once Apache was no longer with us, so it was time.

 

One of the reasons for all the greening up is that we got some much needed rain on Tuesday.  Unfortunately, it came in the form of a torrent instead of a steady gentle day-long soaking that I would prefer, but we got rain!

The tulips and the peonies are coming up, as are the weeds.  Last year my tulips came up extremely early and got frost-killed so they never bloomed.  I think this year they will bloom.

 I think I mentioned I had knitted an infinity scarf from some of my hand-dyed alpaca as  sample for the show I went to earlier this month.  I finally had Sam take a picture of me wearing it.  It is wrapped twice around my neck here.  I am wearing it today, though probably not for long since they are forecasting 80 degree temps for today.

I have been knitting a lacey beaded shawl from some yellow wool yarn.  I started a mystery knit along last summer with this yarn and beads and just did not like the resulting shawl at all, so I "frogged" it (rip it, rip it) and am much happier with this little shawlette.  It is almost done and needs the magic of blocking to bring out its true beauty.  It is called Heaven Scent and is a pattern I purchased through Ravlery.com

 Last night I started to spin the purple gradient polworth (wool)/silk roving I purchased from Fibernymph Dyeworks at the Knitter's Fantasy.  Very nice to spin.  I plan to spin it fine, fine and then do a Navajo ply 3-plied yarn from it.  It will take time to spin.  Spinning it on my beautiful 24" Reeves Saxony wheel, which is my preferred wheel for fine spinning.

 As I said, I've been busy.  Next week, I am getting a new package of bees to install in the top bar hive, which you may remember did not survive the winter.  So this weekend, we need to get that all ready for new occupants.  We are making some changes to the hive and have relocated it into the garage pasture at the far end of the garden.  I also really need to get into the Langstroth hive and see how those girls are doing.  I'm hoping for a honey harvest in June!




Had some beautifully dramatic clouds this morning!

 

It's Warm Outside!

Yes, the warm weather finally arrived.  Actually I think it is around 80 today.  It went from winter to summer in a matter of days, but there is a cooler weekend ahead, I think.  Now what we really need is some rain.  We've had nice warm sunshine and now we need the rain to make the grass grow.  The alpacas say "please"  because I am not letting them out on the pasture until we get a good soaking rain.

I was looking at my blog entry from April 5th last year and the photo at the top of the page was of Rowdy sitting amongst bright yellow wildflowers with redbuds blooming behind him.  We are so far behind this year, there is almost no color in the woods yet, but it's coming!

I have mostly fibery stuff to write about this week.  I attended the Knitter's Fantasy Show in Youngstown Ohio on Saturday.  It was a nicely done show and well attended.  Here is my booth all set up.  My sales were good, but not fabulous.  I sold some syrup, some yarn, some roving and some alpaca bears.   So many people oohed and aahed over my rugs, but no one bought any.  I guess I would have to say I would attend this show again.  I even talked to one nice lady (whose name I neglected to get) who says she follows my blog and purchased a black alpaca fleece from me on ravelry a couple years back and she even brought along some of the beautiful yarn she had spun from the fleece.  Gorgeous.

It is always wise to take an easy project along when one is going to be sitting at a festival all day.  I finished up a pair of fingerless mitts from some of my handspun alpaca/wool roving.  I basically knit the entire second mitt while I talked to people  who came through at the show.



 The pattern is a freebie on ravlery.com called Bainbridge Mitts.  They used about 100 yards of yarn and are incredibly simple.  I have enough of this yarn left that I plan to make a matching hat.  I need a new hat, but I guess there is no rush now, right?

I also have to brag about my Spanish Armada Shawl, which I think I posted about finishing last month as I was boiling sap into syrup.  Our county artists' group has an art show every April and this year I decided to enter some photographs and also my Spanish Armada Shawl.  I dropped everything off last Monday and on Sunday I was able to go into town and see how my entries had done.  My photos did not take any prizes, but my shawl took first in the "Fabric" category.  It scored 50 out of 50 possible points.  The judge was a former art professor at Ohio University.  My mother-in-law also got a first place for a batik watercolor and my father-in-law took a first place in the sculpture category, so the Moores were well-represented.

 This is a short week at home for me since tomorrow I leave to go to Dayton to do a fiber demonstration for a group that my mother has gotten involved with.  She said most of the group are retired home-ec teachers and once they found out I was a spinner, they were anxious to have me come and visit.  So I drive to Mom's tomorrow afternoon and will do a demo on Thursday morning, then have dinner with some high school friends while Mom has her book club and I will come home Friday.    I need to get a lot of things together for this demo, various types of fibers, hand cards, my wheel, prepped fiber, finished items, etc. so that is tonight's project.

I have also finally washed up a fleece I have been hoarding until I had time to work with it.  it is a beautiful LONG staple, super fine alpaca in white with fabulous crimp.  It is too long to send to a processor, over 6", so I plan to do it all myself.  The plan is to blend it with silk and I will probably dye part of the fleece as well as the silk before carding it into batts to spin.  Here is is on my drying rack in the ever-so-useful mudroom!  3 1/2 pounds of fiber looks like a lot, doesn't it?

 

April's Here.......C'mon Warm Weather!

Chasing squirrels makes dogs tired!

I believe today the warmup is supposed to start.  Yesterday my thermometer read 17 degrees when I got up and while it warmed up to the 40's and was bright and sunny, there was a sharp wind blowing.  Brrrrrr!  This morning, it was 22 when I got up and it is forecast to be in the mid-50's today and 60's by the weekend.  I am so ready!

 




Speaking of ready, I have been working to get ready for the Knitter's Fantasy show this Saturday.  I already have my large display items in the car and have all my yarns labeled.  There are about 45 skeins of yarn in here.  I am so pleased with how they all came out.  

 There are 6 "colorways" and I did 8 skeins of each or about 2 pounds of each.  I made an "infinity scarf" out of 1 skein of the purple/green color, but I didn't take a picture of it yet.  I washed and blocked it last night.  I will probably wear it to the event and it will give people an idea of what the yarn looks like knitted up.

 
I also had to finish spinning a 2 oz sample of the wonderful roving I got back a couple weeks ago.  It is superfine baby alpaca blended with a Blue-faced leicester lamb fleece.  It is a light fawn color and it came out gorgeous.  I'll post the photo next week.  I also washed it last night and hung it to dry.  The blend is about 80% baby alpaca to 20% BFL.  I am very pleased with how it spun. I still have to weigh out and package the roving for sale.

My 3 rugs have been cut off the loom and cut apart and the fringes have been tied.  Very pleased with them as well.  They each measure 26" X 36" not including the fringes.

So I have a few things to get ready tonight and I plan to be off tomorrow around 1:30  to drive to Youngstown and set up.  The show opens Saturday morning at 8 am.  I'm looking forward to it.
Plus, I have a friend who helped me learn to spin about 13 years ago who since moved to the Youngstown area and she and I are planning to go to dinner together tomorrow night. we have a lot to catch up on.

 We are thinking of changing insurance providers for the farm and if we do, we have to reduce the size of our alpaca herd by about 10, so I have some great deals on alpacas right now.  I have decided to sell 2 of my 3 female crias from this past fall.  This is "Mayhem" to the left.  Her sire is an awesome rose grey color and her dam is our own Miracle.  We don't really breed for color, but I had bought this breeding a couple years ago at a silent "herdsire auction" at the Ohio alpaca show.  It's hard to let these little fuzzballs go.  But I can't keep them all.  Plus, one fleece this color does not make a batch of yarn!

This one is "Piper".  Yes, she is white and fits into the program, but her sire is here on the farm so I can't use him with her when she is old enough to breed.  She has great genetics and will make someone a great production female.  Plus, her fleece is wonderful.

I have decided to keep Peg's cria, Caley.  There was no question there since Peg will be 14 this summer and I do not have a daughter of hers on the farm.  Caley is also white, but I did not get a good photo of her the other day.  Maybe next week.  As the weather warms up it will be easier to sit around in the pasture waiting for good shots.

 

 I spied these daffodils  yesterday poking out of the weeds over where the old house used to be on Wayne National Forest behind our place.  I guess spring really is coming.

 

Done Dyein' (For Now)

 

Ha, look at Grover squinting in the bright sun.  This photo was obviously NOT taken this past week!  The sun has been elsewhere along with the warmth.  It has been a good week to do indoor things, though the outside work must get done as well.

So, yeah, I dyed up my last 2 batches of yarn.  The Knitter's Fantasy show that I will be vending at is a little over a week away.  And while the dyeing is done, there is still a lot to do.  All yarn needs to be reskeined and labeled for sale, rugs (3 lovely new ones) must be cut apart and fringes must be tied.  There is baby alpaca/blue-faced leicester (wool) roving to be weighed out and packaged and a sample spun.  I need to go through all my retail paraphernalia and make sure I have everything I need, like business cards, etc.

This is batch 5.  My personal favorite so far.  I love it.  It reminds me of comfy old jeans.

 

And here is the last batch, which actually was meant to use up leftover dyes from other batches. I really wanted red reds, but after washing the yarn, it is more toward the purple-red side, which while still nice, is somewhat disappointing.  But it will be loved by someone!

A nice thing about being done dyeing, is that I can finally have the mess out of my mud room.  I used to dye in the kitchen, but the space was limited and I don't like having the dyes around food, so I moved into the mud room, which has everything the kitchen has with the addition of more space (once I moved in a 6' table) and better lighting.  There is water.  There is electricity.  And the added benefit that I do not need to put everything away between dye sessions, just tidy up.  And I think Rowdy really liked having a cave under the table he could occupy while I was occupied.

So, you can see my huge mess.  I have a small microwave dedicated only to dyeing since the dyes need heat to actually "set".  The 6' table is much more spacious than my kitchen counter and is plastic and cleans more easily.  There is a lot of natural light plus a big fluorescent light fixture overhead.  So this is now all put away and I have this:

                                                              

  That's quite a basket of yarn! (and yes, that is Bridal Veil Falls at Yosemite in the background)

As for knitting, I am working on a sample of some of my hand-dyed yarn to show prospective customers what the yarn looks like in a finished project.

 I am making a simple "cowl" using a drop-stitch pattern.  I will knit it like a scarf and when it is about 45" long, I will graft the 2 ends together so it makes a loop, which can be worn wrapped either once or twice around your neck, depending on how much warmth you want to add.  I am about 1/2 finished and it is knit on large needles for an open look so it will go quickly.  I don't foresee any problem with it being finished in time.

So that's pretty much what I have been up to on the farm.  Everyone is just waiting for sunshine and warm breezes.  It seems to be past due. 

I have to admit this was from last week, too.  See the sunshine?

 

 

 

Waiting for Spring!

Grover has been signed up for obedience classes.  Hopefully we will start in May

It's kind of like when I was a kid, waiting for Christmas, only the difference is the calendar SAYS it's spring, but it ain't.  18 degrees here this morning and it hasn't warmed up much as of yet.  The poor little peepers were singing their hearts out a few days ago and hopefully haven't frozen!  I am looking around the farm while I do my chores all bundled up in my coveralls and thinking about projects I will start once the weather decrees spending days outside instead of inside.  I will have to make a list because otherwise, many of those projects will never happen.  Good intentions and all that.....

 

















I did get another batch or 2 of yarn dyed up this past week.  I think 2.  I'm up to 4, which means 2 more to go.   The yarn to the right is more orange than the photo shows.

Here are the 4 together .

 I got a nice shot of Chiquita Margarita this morning.  Chiquita is one of our original alpacas and came to live with us as a 6 month old back in 1999.  She will turn 15 this year and has had 12 crias for us.  2012 was the first year she did not have a cria and we did not try to breed her for a 2013 cria.    She has earned her retirement and life of leisure.








I finished up the hat I was knitting to donate to our Humane Society fundraiser, which is this weekend.  It is not alpaca, but wool and made from leftover yarn from last year's project.  I think the hat came out very nice, though it is much too large for my head.  

So now I am knitting what will be an "infinity" scarf with the purple yarn above for a sample for the show I am doing in a couple weeks.  Once I get that done I can move on to  more fun things.  Just in time for outdoor weather to start.

My rugs are not yet off the loom.  I have had limited time due to work and things like dental appointments.  But I am running short on time, so maybe I can get them done this afternoon.

 

Finished with Syrup Season!

I think they want to come inside.  

I don't think I'd like March very much if it did not eventually bring spring.  This past weekend, as we were doing our last sap boils, we had sunshine and 60+ degree weather.  It was glorious.  Everyone loved it.  Today, 32 and snowy outside my window.  By this weekend, it should be back into the 50's with rain.  I am so ready for spring!

It doesn't help that my back deck is loaded with sap buckets, taps, tubing and pans that all need to be sanitized and stored away until next year.  It is a messy job that is best done outside with a hose and some bleach water.  I was able to get about half the buckets done on Monday, but then it got too cold to think about getting wet outside.  Which is inevitable.  

Sunset from the sugar house Saturday night

So we boiled off almost 30 buckets of sap Saturday and Sunday. That is approximately 105 gallons of sap.  Resulting in almost 2 1/2 gallons of darker maple syrup.  Due to chemical changes, the syrup gets darker and stronger in flavor later in the season.  Personally, I prefer the darker syrup to the light amber syrups of early season, but the light amber seems to be what most producers are looking for. This year I started a syrup journal as opposed to just writing numbers in on our wall calendar.  I kept track of morning temperature and high temperature each day, along with # of gallons of sap collected, # of gallons of sap boiled and total time along with the amount of finished syrup.  We set 28 taps on February 9th and did 12 boils starting Feb. 11 and ending March10.  Our total production was 41.25 quarts or just over 10 gallons.  I won't bore you with temperatures and how much sap was actually collected, but since it is about 40 gallons of sap to 1 gallon finished syrup, it would be about 400 gallons we hauled from the sugarbush to the evaporator.  My goal was to have 6 gallons to sell. I think I have made my goal!  Next year, we hope to have a new sugarhouse and bigger evaporator pan that will handle more sap in less time.  Then we can put out even more taps!

While it was nice on Sunday, I had Sam check on the bees.  I was surprised when he told me there were bees coming and going from BOTH hives, even the dead top bar hive.  But this made me think that maybe  that hive had been dead longer than I thought and that it could be that hive #2 had robbed the top bar hive and caused the hive to die out.  Bees will go into other hives and steal their honey and take it back to their own hive if they can.  So it is a good thing we are planning to relocate the top bar hive before installing a new colony in it.  More on that next month.
 
Having wonderful warm weather over the weekend allowed me to finally finish up the shawl I have been working on off and on since October.  I knitted it out of my hand/dyed/blended/spun alpaca/bamboo laceweight yarn I spent a lot of time creating last winter.  It blocked out to almost 4' square and used a little less than 5 oz of yarn.  I wish the color was better represented in the photo, but I had to stand far away to get the whole shawl in.  It is beautiful.  I am very pleased with it.  This is a free pattern on Ravlery, the Spanish Armada shawl  http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/spanish-armada



 
So then, I started on my next knitting project, which is a hat to donate to our Humane Society fundraiser later this month.  It has a dog theme and I am using a wool yarn that I had leftover from last year's fundraiser knitting.  I  love when that works out!  This pattern is in a book called Shear Spirit that I got from the library and it is called the Wolf Pack Hat
http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/wolf-pack-hat





 


I was unable to find time this week to dye more yarn, but here is my second batch that I dyed a week ago Monday and had not yet photographed at last week's posting.  Tomorrow I have nothing on the schedule except my spinning guild meeting in the evening, so I hope to dye up another batch.  I already have my colorway planned.

I do have rugs in progress on my loom here at the office and I really should get busy on those.  Here is the first of 3.  It is about 75% done.

So that's about it for this week.  I often wonder where my time goes.  


I will end with this link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zes6WaUWi9o

I think it's funny :)

 

March Comes in Like?

Ok, who can resist that face?  Buck does not mind the snow at all!

 

Wow, Mother Nature has sure thrown us for a loop or 2 this past week.  Last Friday and Saturday we had snow on the ground.  Not a lot, but it was snow covered.  This was my kitchen thermometer on Sunday morning when I came down to start the coffee:

 

 And it looked like this outside.

By the time I took the dogs for their walk on Monday afternoon, it looked like this and was a comfortable 50-ish. 


Last night, we had yet another winter storm come through, and while it did not produce the snow they said it could (mainly I think because the temperature was hovering right around freeze/thaw)  here are some photos from chore time this morning.

Our 5 adult male alpacas

                                     



                                      Our hayfield

A stormy early morning sky.

Sam and I also had to cut a tree off the fence in the alpaca field before I left for work this morning and he started the sap boiling.  It had come down in the night and taken out a section of fence with it.  It was nice it came down right where 2 rolls of fence were joined or it would have taken out way more than 1 section.  I knew the alpacas would not get out, but the dogs could have.  I'm not sure they are smart enough or motivated enough, but did not want to chance it.


So Monday has been the best day of the week.  We did cook down sap  on Sunday.   We topped 6 gallons of finished syrup.  The cold weather put a temporary stop to the sap run, so we did not run any Monday or Tuesday, but Sam is boiling again today and it looks as though I will be doing likewise tomorrow.  This weekend might see the end of it though, as it is forecast to go up into the 50's.  I'm ready for a break!  Next year, we hope to have a better system which will allow us to boil off more sap in less time.

On Monday, I decided I needed to check on my bees and start feeding them to boost their population increase to prepare for spring nectar runs.  I was very sad to find that I had waited too long on my top bar hive and it was full of dead bees with no honey left.  They were flying in the warm weather we had had in late January, but must have run out of stored honey in the last couple of weeks.  My newer hive, started last year, still had capped honey in their frames and were rather cranky at my attempts to help them, so I think they will be ok.  I will be in there checking their progress on a regular basis though.  I have ordered another package of bees to arrive in April and in the meantime we will relocate the top bar hive closer to the house and get it cleaned up and modified and get it ready for a new colony.  

I have also started dyeing the 12 pounds of yarn I picked up from the processor in January.  Here is the first batch I did on Sunday drying in the Monday afternoon sunshine.  Batch number 2 is at home waiting to be washed and hung up to dry.  I will have 4 more batches to do.  The color to the right is one I did up last year and sold out of.  I tried to make it as close as possible to last year's from the notes I made.  It is not exact, but close enough.  I need to have all of this done by the first week of April for the Knitter's Fantasy show in Youngstown, OH.  

Things are much different now than in January when it seemed there was little going on.  I really don't expect that it will slow down now until June, but even then once shearing is over we will have the garden and mowing and all that fun stuff to do.  It really never is dull around here.  One grows to appreciate the quiet days.

The chicks are ready for spring and lots of bugs!