Happy Temperatures

October 25, 2013 by WoolyMama

It’s been downright chilly here for October in Virginia. We had a frost last night and are expecting another tonight!

The fireplace is in use full time now, the handknits are out, the apple cider is being consumed hot. There’s a lovely nip in the air, which is heavily scented with woodsmoke lately.

The flock is in weather nirvana!

Georgia

Georgia and Nanny McPhee

Alabama thinks I have food, so he is willing to let me take his picture.

Willoughby and Bennett, making a rare appearance (they are pretty wary of people).

Thomas.

Caramel

I’m going to curl up by the fire with some spicy gingerale and work on my Shepherd Sweater now. Stay cozy!

What To Do On Drizzly Fall Days

October 15, 2013 by WoolyMama

Cold, rainy days in the fall used to be my favorite weather, but since I’ve got livestock to care for I am less inclined to enjoy rain. This year especially! A nice overcast (but DRY) day is still nice, when you can build a fire and drink tea and do some knitting or reading.

This week has been quite a mix of cold and overcast, and cold and downpours. While going outside to feed the flock and check on everyone has been an exercise in misery and wetness, inside has been nice and cozy.

The fireplace saw its first use of the year, and we’ve been putting the apples to good use.

I’ve been peeling giant bowls full of them every day and throwing them in a giant pot with some fresh cider, plenty of cinnamon, brown sugar and cloves.

I let it cook slowly all day into a nice, dark, spicy applesauce. I don’t can it, though, because at the very end I throw in a stick of butter. It ends up tasting like pie. The kids love it, and I can never keep enough of it ready! When there does happen to be an excess, I freeze it.

Speaking of pie, there’s plenty of that going on as well.

It’s also the season for roasted chickens and homemade stock. I like to keep a pot of that simmering all day when it’s crappy out.

And of the house isn’t full enough of wonderful aromas and things to tempt the tastebuds, why not whip up some butter cookies with frosting?

I got the crow cookie cutter from King Arthur Flour, which is, incidentally, where I got the cookie recipe from as well ( I used vanilla instead of the fiori di sicilia).

Add some frosting and sprinkles (black sugar sprinkles!) and they’re festive for Halloween!

I used some mini cookie cutters to make some plain Halloween cookies for snacking as well.

The weather might not be great, but the house smells of chicken stock, cinnamon, apple and butter cookies. It’s warm by the fire and I’ve got some lovely yarn to play with. Time to put on Hocus Pocus and settle in.

Yarn Washing

October 10, 2013 by WoolyMama

Monday’s weather was exceptionally lovely, so I thought I’d take advantage and wash out my share yarn.

I’m glad I did, too, because it has been rainy and nasty every day since.

Normally I don’t wash my yarn before using it; but since this is share yarn from Juniper Moon sheep, it was milled with a lot of lanolin left in it. It feels heavenly on your skin (and smells wonderful as well) but you have to account for how much your yarn will change after washing if you don’t do it before you knit. It’s easier to wash your yarn first, so you know exactly how much the wool will bloom for your finished object.

First I let it soak in a bath of tepid water and Eucalan. It’s a very mild soap that won’t harm the wool or cause it to felt. I only very gently squeeze the yarn while it soaks.

I left it there for a little over an hour while I took care of some other things, and then gently and lightly rinsed it with clean water (some people also use a mix of water and vinegar). Then, on to the laundry spinner!

This uses only centrifugal force to spin out extra water. It does a phenomenal job of getting the yarn almost completely dry.

A LOT of water came out.

This is what the soak water looked like. That’s a lot of lanolin!

And just look at that beautiful wool! This is what all the colored fleeces from the flock look like once they’ve been processed.

Luscious!

Fall Farm Prep

October 6, 2013 by WoolyMama

Although summer seems to have been hiding out here in October, the work of prepping the farm for winter has to continue.

We’ll soon be cleaning out all the chicken coops, spraying them down with cleaners and such and filling them full of fresh bedding.

The sweet potatoes will hopefully have survived the cruel summer and be harvested before long, after which time the pigs will be moved into the big back garden to till it all up and fertilize it for next spring.

The water tanks will be emptied and scrubbed of algae build-up and the tank heaters will be inspected to be sure they are in proper working order.

The front gardens will be tilled under and mulched.

The front and back decks will be scrubbed and re-stained, since the summer’s humidity and hard rains have brought on a nasty case of mildew.

The flock will be moved to a small paddock while the field gets seeded for spring.

And the flock itself……..well, that part’s already been done. The angora goats and black Border Leicesters have been sheared.

Emily came last weekend and took care of them for us while her little one frolicked with mine.

I love how worried they always look.

Emily also trims down their hooves for us.

The sun-bleached outer coat of wool falls away, revealing a much different color underneath.

Little Mr. Bates, awaiting his turn.

Roquefort, the handsome rapscallion.

Patmore and Darby snuggled afterwards.

All the black sheep look shiny and new after their haircuts; the white sheep are unsure what to make of them (they won’t get sheared until spring).

Hopefully we’ll be returning to more hospitable temperatures soon and we can resume the business of readying for winter.

You can’t ever be too prepared!

Yesterday Evening in Pictures

October 4, 2013 by WoolyMama

Scenes From the Craziest Week EVER

September 29, 2013 by WoolyMama

This week we played host to “Yarn Share” prep with Susan and Lauria to get out the latest yarn shares and The Shepherd and The Shearer shares.

This involved dyeing some yarn, packaging some yarn, and just a smidge of tagging yarn. And by “smidge” I mean something like 7,500.

Yup. We took turns stringing twine through product tags and tying them onto hanks of yarn to be packaged and shipped out.

Fortunately Maddie had a ready supply of friends willing to help out while Lauria got the dyeing and labeling of packages accomplished. It took nearly two weeks. But friends, let me tell you. Our hands felt divine after handling all that wool with its soothing lanolin still intact!

I even got to try my hand at dyeing yarn for the first time!

I didn’t dye any of the share yarn – I was waaaay too nervous I’d mess that up! But I had some farm yarn (Cormo/Mohair) kicking around that I threw in the pot.

Isn’t it gorgeous? It’s exactly what I was hoping for.

My friend Tanya threw two of my skeins into a batch of the cranberry dye as well, and it is AMAZING. But I don’t have any pictures of it at the moment. Sorry!

Luscious wool.

Our house was overrun with it!

There were times where every one of us was tempted to lose hope that it would ever get done and sent out, but thankfully we had some of the most hardworking and fun people on the job.

Now we are done and our Tibetan mountain range of wool has become a mere Catskills.

Time to relax, recoup, and get back to routine.

Scenes From Around the House

September 19, 2013 by WoolyMama

YARNSPLOSION!!!! Yes. Every box you see in the garage is packed full of yarn.

Lauria has been here hard at work sorting through yarn and hand dyeing large batches of it. By hand. In pots over hot burners. And it’s next to impossible to make every batch come out exactly the same. It’s times like these I am glad I don’t do this for a living; it’s a lot to keep track of, and it’s a lot of work. And I am starting to think Susan doesn’t charge enough for it!

Weed Patrol

September 15, 2013 by WoolyMama

The weeds are out of hand this year. I know I say that every year, but I had truthfully done ZERO outside to control them since spring. For one, the weed whacker is broken. Two, it’s either been mad rainy or mad hot.

This weekend, however, it has been clear and sunny and relatively cool, with a high of around 80. Time for some weeding!

But wait!

The weed whacker is still broken!

And my pinky toe that I broke a few weeks ago (stupid, stupid. Misjudged the bottom of the stairs around 2 in the morning and landed on my pinky toe. It made a nice “crunch”) is still not quite healed.

How on earth to manage those pesky weeds??

Duh.

I brought up four goats: Milkshakes, Roquefort, Bertie and Sam. We’re calling it their “work release” program.

🙂

They all love munching down those virginia creeper vines that make me so crazy. In one weekend these four will rip out and eat all of that overgrowth that has been plaguing the front garden for months, and I won’t have to get sliced up by prickers or assaulted by spiders.

As for the back garden: there are still sweet potato vines that look like they may produce fruit, so I don’t want to throw goats or pigs in there quite yet. For now I have put the ducks out there. There’s plenty of forage in there for them and bugs and they shouldn’t be able to damage the sweet potatoes too much.

Win!

School Kids

September 10, 2013 by WoolyMama

We have officially started school again and are working to settle into our routine. I’m still driving Maddie to her classes at the community college (I know! College student! It was a really, really hard year to get her caught back up to speed, but I’m proud to have gotten her to where she is), so it’s a bit hectic these days, but we’ll get it figured out. Maddie is waiting on some paperwork so she can get her license and then we’ll breathe a little easier. The good news is that we have Susan completely moved out of her old house, so soon our days (though they will shorten daylight-wise) will get simpler, quieter, cozier, school-i-er. Just the way I like them.

Oona is reading chapter books on her own now, which both amazes and delights me. I can’t believe how once the idea of reading “clicked” with her she really took off with it. Though she’s technically in first grade, last year we zoomed through the first half of her first grade books and are now working on the second half of them. (And thanks to Mad Libs she already knows the basic parts of speech). It really helps having big sisters to try and catch to!

We’ve written everyone’s duties on chalkboards so there’s no more “confusion” as to who is doing what every day. The only thing that changes is who dies the dishes from day to day.

Neve and Maddie help out with feeding the flock every day (I usually do mornings since I am up before everyone else, and I don’t like letting too much time pass without laying hands on everyone). Oona’s getting better at dishes, though there’s still some cleanup to be done after her just to be sure.

We’re ready for crisp days and chill nights, fires in the fireplace, applepicking and cozy sweaters. I hope it lingers this year; our favorite season always seems too short.