Author: denisemor

Spring Chickens

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Are here!

5 Amerucanas and 5 Speckled Sussex came home Friday afternoon from our local farm store

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They are so cute and perky and cheep-y. I could sit and watch them for hours.
But I do have other stuff to get done, so I try to just keep it to 10-15 minutes or so at a time 🙂

Some of that other stuff is wool-related.
I’ve been working on clearing up my fleece processing backlog.

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I hope to dye this Felix/Frank yarn with madder sometime later this spring-
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And after much waffling, I’ve decided to move ahead with the Chone-Burr sweater project. With this skein I should have almost enough yardage to complete it!

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This weekend Edgar started casually inquiring about shearing dates. I think the recent balmy weather is making him anxious to get out of that heavy coat.
And the fleece looks really nice this year. I want to get it off him while it’s still in good shape!

Preppin’ for Spring

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It’s mighty soggy outside.
But I’m taking the groundhog at his word.

Spring is right around the corner.

Mid February means a lot of things:
rosebush maintenance
fruit tree pruning
garden planning
baby chickens?

Things start moving fast.

and then it’s shearing time!

Probably within a month I’ll have five new fleeces!
So I thought I should probably get a handle on the remaining unwashed wool that I still had in the queue from last spring (yeah, I’m a little behind).

I washed up the last of Griff and Edgar on Friday.

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Did some spinning on Saturday

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And I got about a pound of wool carded today

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That’s a pretty good wool weekend!

I’ve really got an itch to do some dyeing, and I was putting together a plan to do a madder dyebath, but I’d have to do that outside, so I’ll have to wait until the weather is more cooperative.

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Mmmmm. Madder.

For the Sheepy Booklist

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I keep meaning to tell y’all about a book that I read over the holidays.

Picked it up at the Cannon Beach Book Company when we were down there in mid-December.

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The Shepherd’s Life- Modern Dispatches from an Ancient Landscape

Up in the fells of the Lake District in northern England folks like James Rebanks raise Herdwick sheep, a heritage breed of sheep that is amazing hardy and awfully cute

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But the book is about more than the sheep. It’s about community, and family, and belonging to a place.
It’s not romantic, and not sentimental, but full of love for the landscape and the lifestyle.
I thoroughly enjoyed it, and might even read it again.

And if you want some cutie Herdy merchandise, check out http://www.herdy.co.uk/about/about-us