Author: denisemor

In reverse order-

Last week we lost one of our older chicken ladies, a Partridge Rock.

While she never had a proper name, she was a solid citizen, who had earned her retirement here through her early years of steady egg production.

Sadly, she developed some sort of ailment that I wasn’t able to nurse her through, and passed away last weekend. She was the last of the Partridge/Barred Rock cohort that we raised up in the spring of 2015. Here was their chick nursery class photo-

With this loss of one of the older crowd, it seemed an opportune time to inject a little more youth into the chicken flock. So yesterday I arranged to take delivery of three sweet little Amberlink pullets (3 months old).

I didn’t get them home until after dark last night, and the weather was awful, so they spent their first night here in a comfy dog crate.

This morning they got to meet the gang out in the shed-

It’s always a bit stressful for newcomers, but the girls seem to be learning pretty quickly and sticking together- and I’ll be keeping a pretty close eye on them for the next few days. Welcome chicken babies!

Was off this week on a bit of a pre-Christmas break- and while I didn’t get a lot of wool work done, I did make some progress on my lockerhooking sample-

the plan is to fill in the rest of the open areas with white roving loops. I think that it will make a nice cushion for my home-office chair with a fabric back and fleece stuffing.

Spent a fair bit of time baking Christmas cookies for sending as gifts (and some for local consumption, of course 🙂 )

Also still making incremental progress on the hoophouse- the south end framing is coming along-

And that was enough for one week.

Oh- and I also wanted to share a little wool-on-the-hoof excitement. This morning when I was out in the shed trimming hooves, I got a good look at Felix’s fleece.

It’s so fine and crimpy. And it looks nice all the way back to his rump. Amazing- we seem to have beaten the itchy/felty problem! And his hooves didn’t look too bad either. Good boy Felix!

Got a little sampler started this week-

I’m trying out a couple different textures- white is roving, black is a heavy worsted two-ply. The roving is a little trickier to handle, as it is kind of delicate, but I I like how thick and cushy it is.

And I have another knitting project in the queue that I’m pretty excited about- a new outfit for my good friend Dolores (remember Dolores?)

Well, she’s gone judicial!! In honor of the Notorious RBG-

The kit, complete with earrings and pocket Constitution arrived this past week. Can’t hardly wait to cast on 🙂

Have a good week everyone-

Unspun fun continues this week. Same material, different application!

I have a locker hook (or two) that I acquired a couple years ago at the Jonasson Farm fall fleece sale (back in the pre-Covid days when people actually got together for things like that). Linda Jonasson was making really gorgeous rugs from their roving, and I thought that I might want to give it a try sometime.

So here we are in “sometime”. (Guess the idea had to percolate for a while)

I really love the springy, cushy texture of the loops, and the idea of being able to draft patterns and create unique designs on the fly. So I set about finding myself some backing material,

In a very short time I was able to find someone nearby who had a stash of burlap bags they were willing to trade for wool-

So now I’m all set on that front! Hope to make a start this week. Perhaps with something small first, like a chair pad or something.

And in hoophouse news-we had some really good weather this long weekend, and were able to get a fair bit of building done- hiprails, baseboards, purlins and peak braces are now in place.

I’m so excited- It’s really coming together. Next up, endwall framing-