Christmas Spinning

The last days before Christmas have me busy wrapping gifts, baking and planning the menu for Christmas Eve. I took some time out this afternoon to spin up some space dyed wool top and listen to Garrison Keillor's "Prairie Home Companion". Of course, with two kittens in the house, spinning is a little more difficult. They kittens learned not to go near the wheel, but they love to grab the roving and fight it. Knitting is downright frustrating with them biting the yarn and the circular needle. So I have to wait until they're sleeping to be able to knit in peace. I started a pair of socks, using KnitPicks Simple Stripes.
Our black kitten, Spector, will be leaving after Christmas, hopefully that will reduce the carnage around here.
Speaking of carnage, my wonderful mioget ram, Boggart, managed to butt the chain link fence enough to flip the latch and he, Donder, and Bombarde, were over checking out the ewes this afternoon. I think Cordelia may be cycling, because this morning she and the BFL ram were being very friendly through the fence. She was with Donder for over two weeks and then with Boggart for three weeks so I thought she'd be bred. But it sure seems she's not. I would love to put Cordelia in with the BFL ram and get a few more crossbred lambs. I'm hoping to some nice sized market lambs next year.
Thankfully all my wayward boys are good on halters and all I had to do was walk them back to their pen one at a time. I've tied the gate this time and just hope it holds up if he decides to bash it some more. Those darn rams!
Oh yes, back to the spaced dyed top. I got these four colorways from Louet and couldn't wait to try them out. I have "violets" on the Traveller now. It's a corriedale type wool and very easy to spin. I can't wait to see how it looks when plied.
Well, I'd better get back to the Christmas preparations. I'm making that great pretzel recipe that Nancy Larson of Sheepy Hollow Shetlands shared on the Shetlands list last summer. It calls for one bottle of Orville Redenbacher's popcorn oil, one package of Ranch dressing mix, and two tablespoons of garlic pepper. You mix those ingredients and pour them over two bags of small pretzels. Stir for 20 minutes and then let dry for 20 minutes. Very easy and they are so addicitive!

And then there were two/Dyeing Fiber

Apparently this is a good time of year to find homes for indoor kittens. We have only two left and we wanted to keep them both, but the black one is now spoken for too. In a few weeks, momma kitty will be spayed. She's been a great mom, but 7 kittens was plenty to bring into this world.

I've been dyeing fiber like crazy the past three days. First I did handpainted roving in the microwave and then two days of stove top batches. And there is still plenty of dye in the water, so I guess I will keep on until the dye exhausts and the water is clear.

I wanted the colored wool for felting, but now I'm thinking of making a Fair Isle sweater from it. I dyed all of Hetty's roving, thinking it wasn't the best stuff. But it turned out so pretty, now I think a final tribute to poor old Hetty would be nice. Maybe I can incorporate some her daughters' fleece too. She was my only ewe to produce twin ewe lambs last spring.

I finished up a pair of felted slippers last night, they were so easy! I plan to make some more as Christmas gifts. The pair in the photo is made of dyed black iset Shetland fiber, it looks so cool when felted because the iset fibers fuzz out so much. And they're warm too.

The sheep are all back in their own paddocks. The rams are getting along quite well after their exciting reniting on Sunday. The ewes are calm and hopefully pregnant. And the BFL's have their own paddock too. Life is much easier with fewer pens to feed and water twice a day. The 11 hens are laying like crazy and now we're getting green eggs too. It's hard to remember this is December, the weather has been so warm! I'm just relieved to have gotten my frozen electronet out of the ground.

Oh and today is Stan's birthday, I just took his cake out of the oven. That means I'd better start thinking about the Christmas cards...

A few more Kitten photos, 6-7 weeks old

Here are a few more shots of the kittens. They are ready to go to new homes now that they are 7 weeks old.

I broke up the ram's breeding groups this morning and the ewes were so happy to be back together. The ewe lambs were hopping and having races. The boys on the other hand, were busy establishing dominance with each other. So far no serious injuries, but there was some nasty headbutting between Donder and Boggart. Donder won out, but Boggie knows he's still up there and is letting all the others know it too.
Thankfully we had some warm weather today and yesterday. I was finally able to get my electronet taken down with the help of lots of buckets of HOT water. Oh what a relief that is! Memo to self, don't use electronet in breeding groups next year. And don't have four breeding groups again!

Kitten photos

Here are the photos I couldn't upload yesterday. I thought I had more, but I can only find these...better fix that!

Updated my website

Yumm, that farm fresh turkey was SO good! We had a great Thanksgiving visiting both sides of the family and I didn't have to cook or clean. However, since we had that homegrown turkey on hand, I cooked it up on Saturday and it was so tender and delicious! I'm going to see if I can get more of those turkeys next year...
Breeding season is well underway and I've had to resort to electronet to keep Donder out of Bombarde's group. Bombarde has turned into quite a nice ram and is so good with his ewe lambs. Boggart's hanging in there, but he's been bashing at the woven wire when I come around with their rations for the day.
Dougal scoured quite badly for two days. At first I thought it was due to the pumpkin I gave them after Thanksgiving, but I wormed him just in case. And I'm doing a coccidiosis water treatment too.
I wanted to post photos of the kittens, but I guess I didn't transfer them onto the hard drive yet. I can't get up because I have a lap full of sleeping kittens. They are just adorable, especially when they're sleeping.
I worked all day yesterday revamping my website, I wanted to include our BFL's on it and the fact that I'm now a Louet dealer. My first order arrives on Wednesday! I'm so excited. I ordered the new Victoria, but they were sold out until January, so that's when mine will arrive. Now I hear the January shipment is sold out too and the next batch won't be available until March. Just think, that will be close to lambing!

Happy Thanksgiving

We've been busy around here getting ready for Thanksgiving. The turkeys were processed yesterday and they weighed 12 and 10 1/2 pounds which was pretty good for being only 12 weeks old. The rams are in their breeding pens and the girls have adjusted to being in their company. Boggart, shown here with Elsa, did not like his ewe lambs, so they went to Bombarde instead. Bombarde now has six ewe lambs. Boggart had 4 ewes left, but now has 7 ewes. Donder's ewes have been added to Boggart's group after Donder broke a basement window last week. He was actually squeezing out under the chain link fence - amazing because he's a bit of a chunk these days. It wasn't so bad to have him grazing the backyard -- until he saw his reflection in the basement window and decided to bash it....

The kittens are four weeks old already but I don't have any current photos and my batteries are dead. We lost the calico kitten a couple weeks ago. The photos show them at two weeks and then at three weeks. Mama kitty didn't care for them crawling all over, so she moved them down to the basement in a corner contained by the base of a floor fan. It was so cold down there that we moved them back upstairs and I'll get more photos soon. They are very mobile and very cute. I'm trying to introduce kitten chow now. They will be ready for their new homes in about 2-4 weeks. Anyone interested, please let me know. I can only imagine how they will react to the Christmas tree!

The Pole Barn is Finally Repaired

Stan finally finished repairing the pole shed. It's so nice to have it enclosed again! It felt like a big open wound everytime I drove by and saw it burned and wide open on one end. Even though you can still see the tell-tale signs of the fire from the outside, and it's eight feet shorter than before, it looks SO much better and we can close it up again.

I'm really proud of Stan for getting it done. It was a LOT work and he did almost all of it himself. He had help with placing the new posts and installing new trusses, but he did the rest of it pretty much on his own. I offered to help and I didn't like the idea of him up on that roof all by himself, but he prefers to do things like that himself.

So today Stan is off deer hunting and I went out shopping at the area craft sales. Tomorrow four of our rams go in their breeding groups. They are definitely READY. I hope the girls don't get too stressed, but it's all in the hope of some fabulous lambs for spring.

The kittens have finally gotten their eyes open. I'll take photos and post them tomorrow. What a bunch of cuties they are! Poor mama cat has her paws full with seven babies to care for.