October Colors

Sumac Trees

Arborvitae in the back yard.

Sydney the munchkin Halloween kitty with the flaming eyes!

Some Blue Face Leicester/silk roving dyed in my favorite colors. Each color shows four ounces of the roving before and after it is drafted out and braided.

"Kenick" a black katmoget ewe lamb. One of four beautiful ewe lambs I kept from Duncan, Hazel is her dam.

Her fleece surprised me. At birth she started out with an almost white fleece and her black, black face and legs. She has just started to get the half moon markings under her eyes. Under the white her fleece fades from a darker gray to a light gray.

"Morgan" a moorit katmoget ewe lamb by Duncan and Siskin.

Batts of wool from my Shetland ewe Yeesha.

Simon is now six months old. He will have to stand in for Halloween's Black Cat!

"Ya if you say so!"

February

February has been loaded with work, fun and excitement! The most thrilling thing is our new fence! You know the saying if life throws you lemons make lemonade, well here is my lemonade! 3000 feet of five foot no-climb horse fence. This encloses our 10 acre parcel next to us and the 4-5 acres at the top of our property we live on that was never fenced.

A big Thank You goes to Juan Padilla of "Juan's Lawn Service" for a job well done. We would have never done this, but when our Livestock Guardian Dog Jake was "arrested" for being a dangerous dog we went looking for money to hire a lawyer. When Bob's Mom passed away about 8 years ago and we sold her house bought this land and had a small annuity. Well "Wall Street" was spending the annuity for us so we took the money and invested in our own economy and built a fence. Jake has 21 acres to run and the peanut JoBeth can't even get out.

This property has loads of grasses brush and perennial plants to feed my flock all summer! There are also large Poplar trees on the land for shade in the summer and leaves to eat in the fall. The picture below is my new gate from the sheep pen to their new acreage.

Speaking of sheep on February 28, last Saturday there was a large flock reduction happening! David Armer sheared my shetland flock, reducing their size to about half! With the help of my friend Jeannette the three of us spent from 9 AM to 7 PM shearing 28 shetlands. David is a student at UNR and has been involved with llamas most of his young life. Jeannette raises alpaca so I was the only sheep person. We sheared them on a stand. It was slow going but no major cuts happened and they look wonderful.

These picture were taken today, one week later and the temperature is 25 degrees. We got a foot and a half of snow the other day and the sheep are all doing very well. They have straw in the barn and the sun is a blessing in the mornings.

Their little bodies are so darling!

Hattie, below, is just the cutest thing! She does stand square and her shoulders and butt are so broad. She is a coming two year old and should have a lamb or two in there somewhere.

Oma's straight top line broad stance and full of babies. She will be three and this is her second lambing.

This is Pepper like in Pepper Potts "Iron Man's" girl Friday. She is not bred and will be one year old this April.

Now meet Hazel. Also a yearly this April. I completely lost her hogget fleece. Well almost all. What happened? Poor David could not get his clippers threw most of the fleece so he sheared above this tangled mess. There is what looks like about a half inch of fleece that is stuck down to her body. If I sit and pull on it the fleece puffs up to about two inches. Now it is loosening up on its own somewhat. This is her hogget fleece and very soft. We don't get much rain and she was not coated. There is one other ewe, Kess a dark moorit, I have that had a bit of this happen. This is her second shearing.

When the weather warms up I'll need to give them a bath and re-cut their fleeces.

I have some new pullets. They came to live here about three weeks ago. Jeannette traded some of her Egyptian Geese for these young just starting to lay pullets. Five Barred Rocks and one black hen maybe a Black Australorp?

We've been getting two to four eggs per day, I share with Jeannette, and Sally the emu is still making a showing every third day!

Lastly I've been dyeing roving to sell on my new Etsy Store and I must say it is selling very well.

The "Feed the Flock Fund" paid for the shearing. Now with the new land to graze I'd like to be able to save enough money with the sales of my roving for next winters hay.

Heart Of Gold

I started dyeing some merino roving Wednesday and was looking at some paint chips from Lowe's paint department, I collect then for color ideas. Cantaloupe orange type color is a favorite of mine so I gave it a try. Now that I keep recipes of my color ways I want to give them names. Can't name the color cantaloupe or melon every color like this is named melon. That's when "Heart of Gold" came to mind. Close to Reno just east on Hwy 395 is Fallon. You could say Fallon is the banana belt of Northern Nevada. The area is very agricultural with a longer growing season then over by Reno and in the summer a bunch of farms in Fallon grow cantaloupe. The main variety is called "Heart Of Gold" and these farms sell them, I believe, world wide. Or at least all over the US to fine restaurants. They are a wonderful sweet cantaloupe.

The top roving is "Heart Of Gold" and my other color isn't named yet. The roving at each end is painted then the center four have the same colors only they had just drops of color on the them. The roving above is all 19.5 micron merino I ordered from Ashland Bay.
This all reminded me of another Heart Of Gold by Neil Young a favorite song from long ago! And I'm getting old!

The Dye Days of Summer

This was a big week for dyeing. First Wednesday with Sharon and Linda Lou. What a nice day to visit and dye all that white fiber. Because there was more visit and less dye on my part I did some more at home on Friday. My first fiber that was dyed at Sharon's is Brown Sheep fiber dyed in braids painted and steamed. I have a picture of algae or fungus that is growing next to "Old Faithful" the colors are beautiful and this is how my interpretation of the color came out. I believe it's more like "Love Bird in the Andie's" so bright and colorful. The algae is more subtle so I even added black to the colors to sadden them. Not so sad!

Another fiber dyed at Sharon's is 8 oz of corriedale X from Ashland Bay. The roving was laid out on plastic wrap and painted or poured on really then wrapped and steamed. After the fiber dries I like to draft it out and braid it to keep the fiber from getting messed up. More 8 oz wheels of corriedale X. I dyed these at home. Both dyed with the same colors the one on the left is cold pour or painted on plastic wrap and the one on the left was done with the hot pour method. Hot pour: put large pot on stove with water and vinegar add fiber heat to 190 degrees pour dye over fiber and keep hot for 10 minutes more let cool. If your looking for a good book about dyeing get "The Twisted Sisters Sock Workbook". Even if you never knit a pair of socks this book is a must for dyeing. There is information about mixing colors, different ways to dye the fiber and how to spin your fiber to make the color ways you like to use. I love it and use it to get good ideas on mixing and matching colors.

I did a little silk also. White and honey tussah on the right dyed with the same colors the white is drafted out and the honey colored tussah is just dried and ready to draft.

The picture below is silk. On the right is honey colored dyed with the same colors as the white silk in the middle. I did not like the middle color so took half of the roving and over dyed it in some red dye. ( As Laura would say "If you don't like the color over dye":o) The yellow turned a copper color and the turquoise turned purple with some of the original color under the purple and violet. I like the looks in person better than the picture. It should spin up awesome!

Landscape Views and Fiber

A few mornings ago I was trying to capture the morning sunrise. I like this picture but if you want to see a great sunset by Dana, our son the photographer, check his Flickr pictures out from the links on the right. His sunset pictures are right after the new Reno Rodeo action shots!
The smoke around Reno has been hard at times to deal with, cough, cough and also good for all camera buffs. At times the smoke will cover the mountains from view. This shot is looking north/east off our front porch. Looking to the vegetable garden on the north side of our house from the front porch.

The next picture is some of my most beautiful shetland wool! ;o) It's last years wool from K.G. my big handsome wether. I have two pounds carded from my Pat Green supercard to felt some curtains for the front and back doors. Humm I've never done this before so it still has me spooked. Not quite sure how to add design so... I've blended some of his fleece with some of Shays, she has more brown in her fleece, it gives his almost white fleece some more depth and we like brown. So I'll felt a sampler of this blend with some color from my dyed BFL roving and see what happens.