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This morning I spent a little time just hanging in the hoophouse- drinking my coffee, finishing up a hat, and picking veggies.

Also, noticed that the first of my sheepnose peps is turning red! Can’t wait to taste test those guys.

And The Man is busy canning the roma tomatoes that are coming on fast.

Today, over on the pasture side, we’ve been busy planning ahead for winter weather.

This year we’re trying a new scheme for keeping rain and snow out of the sheep and chicken shed- utilizing materials leftover from the hoophouse build in 2020

Should be a significant improvement over the tarps we’ve used in the past, and make keeping the place dry and comfy easier over the winter months.

Hopefully we’ll get a few more warms days yet to get my melons across the finish line, but cool and foggy mornings are a clear sign that wool weather is coming.

Here is that new hat just washed up and sun-dried. This hat is actually an audition for these two yarns- the silver gray is Dottie- and the black might be Chone, but I’m not quite sure.

I’m really happy with the feel of the fabric, and i think that the gauge is pretty close, so looks like I’ll be moving forward with these two in a new sweater project! Marjolaine, by Elenor Mortsensen

Super excited to get a sweater project on the needles!

5 weeks since the eagle attack, and my survivor girl is making progress.

There were some setbacks early on that made me wonder if she’d come through it. But her fighting spirit never flagged. So I’m still at it, dressing her wounds daily and keeping the faith that her little chicken body will find a way to close up the remaining holes.

Here she is, at the first aid station, after a wound check and bandage re-wrap.

I’ve got gauze pad, covered with face mask (one elastic around the neck and one over the tail), then wrapped in an ace bandage to keep everything in place. She’s not thrilled about it, but relatively cooperative.

For the first couple weeks I had her in a dog crate fulltime, so she could rest and heal, but found that after a while giving her some walk-around time in a controlled environment (the shop) really boosted her spirits.

And now that she’s making steady progress, and I feel like I’ve got her pretty well protected, I’ve been letting her range around the yard. It’s clear that she wants to be back in the pasture with the rest of the chickens, which I’m taking as a good sign. Maybe in a few more weeks that will be a possibility.

Was a lovely day at the Alger Market- a few hats and skeins found new homes, and I acquired a small collection of lovely ceramic vessels from Jeanne the potter

They coordinate so beautifully with my late summer reblooms from Jude the Obscure and St Cecelia. 🙂

I also made quite a bit of progress on a scarf I’m knitting (free pattern Free Spirit by Aistė Butkevičienė)

I don’t often knit scarves, but this was a request from the person who whose sheep provide both this gray and the white fleece featured in last weeks post). It’s a really fun pattern to knit- a little knit, a little purl, a little cabling without a cable needle, and easy to memorize.

And in the garden- a couple of exciting developments

First Ananas Noir tomato to ripen. From the top-

and the bottom

But check out this interior!

And I am really excited about this big pumpkin I’ve got going in the new garden bed. About 16″ in diameter now and growing so fast!

I put him on a bed of washed wool for good measure, to hopefully keep him safe and happy.

And I wanted to give a shoutout to the zinnias in the hoophouse, who are overperforming like crazy

They are over 4 feer tall now, and just keep on branching and blooming. The bees and all my other pollinator friends love them. I had no idea zinnia plants got this big.

So that’s it folks. I’ll sign off with a short clip of hanging in a spot of shade with Yellow Chig and Boo Kitten as the weekend winds down

Have a good week folks!

A couple weeks ago I was gifted a fleece.

Said fleece was enormous. 2 years worth of growth (apparently sheep would not accede to being sheared last year). And embedded with a fair volume of wood shavings.

A fair bit of it went into the compost straight away. Perhaps more of it should have. But underneath it looked fairly fine and crimpy, and since it was a two-year fleece, there was a lot of staple length. It seemed like it might be worth putting some time and energy into.

The only thing I could do with it right away was to throw it in a couple bins and let it soak. I was hoping that might get rid of some of the dirt and loosen it up a bit so I could get a better sense of how felted up it was.

It seemed like it was working ok at first, but then the weather got really warm and the fleece got quite stinky.

This was a major setback, as The Man forbade me from bringing it into the house to wash.

So I let it soak for another week or so, changing the water a couple of times.

The smell was better, but I didn’t want to push my luck, so I setup my propane burner and dyepot to wash it outdoors.

THis is what it looked like post-soak, awaiting a hot bath

and after it’s bath

After the wash, it was time for phase 2 de-crudding

Here’s what stayed

and what was trimmed and tossed

The real transformation, however, happened on the combs

After that, it was smooth sailing. Mighty Red is making quick and pleasant work of spinning the combed top

which I’m then chain plying on Moto

I do so love a fleece redemption story 🙂

And as promised last week, update on Cherokee Purple tomatoes

We’ve harvested a few so far, but I think they were more productive last year when they grew in cages, rather than trellised.

And Blot Peppers are starting to show interesting colors, but I think that they are still a ways off from being ripe.

Alrighty, I probably ought to go out and do some watering.

Have a good week!