Author: denisemor

Today a fellow vendor at the Alger Sunday Market offered me a mystery fleece.

Been a while since I’ve taken in a stray, but you know me- always willing to give fleece a chance 🙂

It came to me straight off the sheep, and stuffed in a black plastic garbage bag.

Was really heavy, so I figured it might either be damp, or have a lot of dung tags. But after a bit of skirting and sorting, there was still a whole lot of it. A mountain of greasy fleece.

Didn’t weigh it, but I’m thinking 8-10 pounds? Lots of dirt and grease in there.

But it looks quite promising. Nice staple length, shades of gray, and a Romney-ish crimp

Seemed like it might be a little damp, so didn’t want to delay in getting it cleaned up.

For now the newcomer is relaxing in a cool bath.

Hopefully will have a chance to hot wash a batch tomorrow. I do love to sample new fiber.

Was nice to see so many folks come out for the market today despite the rain.

And thank goodness there was interest in eggs- the girls are laying over a dozen a day right now!

Have a good week everyone 🙂

I participated in three events this week

Freestyle vest knitting

Felt puppet prelims

And the batt carding compulsories

And what did I win? Garlic! – In addition to everything else that is coming out of the garden right now 🙂

So much good stuff.

Oh- and just in case you missed this: Olympian Knitting in the stands at diving final. Make sure you scroll down to see his cool knitted medal cozy.

Thanks to everyone who came out to the market today in Alger. And special thanks to those of you who took home some of cucumbers. The cukes are coming on lots faster than we can eat them!

Back home in the hoophouse this evening I picked some little tomatoes- honeycomb hybrid are in full swing, with just the smallest of the Principe Borghese starting to ripen.

And Brad’s Atomic Grape are starting to show their outrageous colors

A couple of rows over, Petite Gris de Renne melons are chillaxing in their newly rigged up melon hammocks

So much good stuff coming out of the garden right now.

The only thing that really didn’t work out that well is the potatoes in feed sacks. Those guys started to die back in the last few weeks so I emptied them out and terminated the experiment. Got some taters, but not nearly the production I’d hoped for.

You win some, you lose some.

Little things that are making me happy right now

Not the best photo of the sheepers (afternoon light is pretty harsh), but am glad to see Felix feeling happy and relaxed. Combo of Meloxicam and Gabapentin seems to be helping with his arthritis.

And if the sheeps are happy, I’m happy. Have a good week folks-