My travel project is packed.
Ooooh. What could it be?
Yep, and oldie but a goodie.
Coast to Coast Colorwork Cap in some new color blends, fresh off the wheel.
Leaving the critters in the capable hands of The Man for a few days.
Take care, and have a good weekend, folks.
Earlier in the week I noticed that Esther’s poops had gone runny. That, coupled with recent weight loss, a mysteriously enlarged udder, and general uncomfortableness caused me to have the vet come out on Tues.
I gave him a stool sample, and he prescribed Meloxicam for her arthritis, Priobios to hopefully get her digestion back on track, and gave her a shot of Exceed because she had a bit of an elevated temperature.
Fecal results showed that she didn’t have coccidiosis, or a heavy parasite load.
Things were looking up Wed and Thurs, though her diarrhea hadn’t abated, so I was trying to keep her rear cleaned up. In retrospect, what I should have done was clip off all fleece anywhere near her hind end to keep it as dry as possible.
I discovered last evening that she had developed fly strike. I feel awful. I spent about two hours last night clipping and treating the area, removing fly larvae (maggots), cleaning her inflamed skin, and treating with Ivermectin. This morning as soon as the farm store opened I went out and got a pyrethin fly repellant.
Today she is up and about. Eating and drinking, so that’s good, as far as it goes. I really hope that she’s got the strength to come back from this. I’m going to be watching her carefully to try and ensure that it doesn’t recur and that she heals up.
No pictures this week. Noone wants to see a flystricken sheep butt.
Still trying to get the diarrhea resolved. Really not sure what is going on there. First time I’ve dealt with that with any of my gang. Perhaps it would have been sorted by now but for the stress of the flystrike?
Anyway, it’s been a tough week for my sweet girl, and I’m kind of wrung out.
Keep a good thought for Esther.
In the garden- poppies- putting on quite a show this year-
beautiful purple cabbages!
German chamomile harvested and drying
Calendulas need picking
Agastache, chamomile, anise hyssop melange for my pollinator friends
(not) Pink (yet) German
Jaune Flamme
Unconsciously mirrored in wool this week-
Funny how that works out 😉
Also did a little bit of felting, and wanted to share that I’ve identified yet another re-use for feed bags. They make great storage for wool in the pre-felting stage. For a lightweight felt sheet I lay down four very fine layers of carded wool in opposing directions on top of one section the opened bag, then fold over the remaining material and roll it into a tube.
Then I slip a rubber band around the roll, and my wool stays organized and easy to store until I’m ready to get out my high tech felting setup (yoga mat, bubble wrap, chiffon fabric, PVC, shoelace) and do the hot water and rolling routine. I find that it’s much more manageable in stages.
Something so satisfying about farm fresh felt 🙂
Having finished up my experimental stranded vest, I needed to get another little something on the needles. I had on hand a ziplock of various leftover bits of yarn- and decided to pull them together into a Coast to Coast Beanie (my go-to hat pattern).
I really enjoy working this way- figuring out how to use what’s on hand to best effect. Here is in-progress hat
And speaking of pulling together bits- I did a reorg on the wool room this weekend!
This year’s washed wool got incorporated into the vacuum packed bags, sorted by sheep.
Scrunched down like that, it almost looks like a reasonable amount of wool, no?
The already-been-carded wool resides in bins in the opposite corner
Everything in it’s place. Nice while it lasts!
Have a good week folks-