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Chicken Playpen

denisemor 0 March 20, 2016

This weekend the little chigs graduated from their box in the shop to a playpen under the eaves of our big old dilapidated chicken house.

It’s a pretty sweet little setup, with lot of room for them to run around and flap and hop, all securely closed up with chicken wire, and bedded with pine shavings.

They still have a big box with their heat lamp to come home to and stay toasty, and it seems that they are getting acclimated to the new surroundings pretty quickly. And when it gets dark, it looks like there’s a party going on in there! (I put a big chunk of gnarly wood there on the left, just because they like jumping on top of stuff)

In sheepy news, I got a little more Edgar shearing done- I’m back to his hips now 🙂

The rest of the boys seemed kind of curious about getting sheared, milling about at the entrance to the shed-

But of the remaining four, I was only able to convince Chone to let me clean up around his neck a little.

Now he can get good neck rubs. That’s all he really cares about

Have a great week!

One more time, with feeling!

denisemor 2 March 13, 2016

The Chone Burr sweater is back on track, and rolling along smoothly this time.

(I frogged the first attempt, after screwing up some “at the same time” instructions in the pattern.)

I think my row gauge is slightly off from the pattern specs, but I should be able to compensate for that without too much trouble.

It doesn’t look like much yet, but I’m really excited about the project, and I’m really, really enjoying the yarn. It’s like getting to hang out with and pet my little black sheep on the couch, at work..anywhere I want to take him 🙂

He’s got a heck of a fleece on him this year, too. There is a tiny little bugger under all that wool!

I was hoping to do some more shearing this weekend, but the weather hasn’t cooperated. It’s gone back into cold and stormy mode- a step back, despite having just “sprung forward” for daylight savings time.

But I’m getting a garden plan together- got my potatoes (Russian Banana and Rose Finn) and seeds for the other garden staples from the farm store this weekend. I know it’s early, but it always seems like things start moving so fast this time of year!

Walk-ins Welcome

denisemor 0 March 6, 2016

Scenes from the beautyshop

Shearing Edgar is always fun.
I sit on a rock, and he casually saunters over.
I let him sniff the shears and ask him if he wants a little off the top.
I usually start right behind the ears, carefully opening up a pathway through his lovely lanolin-y wool.

Once I’ve got the back of his neck uncovered, I give him a little massage.
I think the massage is why he likes getting sheared so much- that and feeling the spring air on his skin for the first time in many months.

I slowly work my way back over his shoulders and down around his chest. (more massage)
He occasionally gets fidgety and needs to take a little break, so I try to not have too much wool hanging off of him at any point. I pull it off and collect it in my muck-bucket as I go.

We always and up doing the haircut in stages. Stage one is the Mullet.
Business in the front, Party in the back.
His nicest wool is on the front end, so I’m fine with letting him hang out for a while in Mullet Mode.

None of the other guys are quite so eager for me to take the shears to them, so they’ll need to be haltered.
But it’s always nice kick off shearing season with my buddy Edgar.

I also wanted to mention the the ChickieCam is back!
Chicks are just over a week old now and getting some of their big-girl feathers in. Super cute.

Spring Chickens

denisemor 0 February 28, 2016

Are here!

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

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.

I hope to dye this Felix/Frank yarn with madder sometime later this spring-

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!

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!