Category: Blog

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-

I took the past week off work, and enjoyed just having some unstructured time around the homestead to read, garden, and play with wool (not necessarily in that order).

No real agenda or specific goals. Just being outside, hangin’ with the critters, and reveling in the arrival of summer.

I did, however, get a few things done-

Wool washing- that’s the last of this year’s clip (left to right: Daphne, Fiona, Dottie). All washed and sweet-smelling!

Time behind the wheel- (the Spindle Cycle wheel- focus on Dottie wool with the new larger whorl)

Finishing up my experimental stranded vest-

The vest just came together yesterday. Put some binding along the shoulder seams and back neck for structure, and finished the reverse stockinette edgings. And it’s a good fit! Not bad for a project that started out as a cowl 🙂

A nice little side-benefit I discovered to doing a steek on the full length of an object is that by changing colors at the site that you plan to cut, you can avoid having millions of loose yarns to weave in at the end! Nice, eh? I’m pretty pleased with how that whole thing worked out. I might even make another one soon, this time on purpose, with steek stitches built in to the plan from the start.

And just today I got around to doing some dyeing. I had hopes of maybe doing an indigo vat this week, but hadn’t planned ahead, and didn’t have all the necessary materials. So i dove into the stash and found a few old packets of Gaywool dyes in various shades of green to play with

In the hoophouse, things are starting to come along- picked my first little cukes yesterday, seeing some baby ‘maters coming on, but it feels like we’re a little behind compared with the last couple years.

The borage and calendulas are going nuts, tho- so the bees are happy. And I expect that if the bees are happy, then I will be happy eventually. I just need to be patient. And so far, everything looks really healthy- not seeing any indications of that fungus that plagued me last summer, knock on wood.

And my favorite roses are blooming

St. Cecilia and Emma Hamilton are making a strong showing, but Jude the Obscure suffered a lot of die-back this winter. Hoping he’ll recover as the season progresses. Keep a good thought!