Tag: Frank

Tidying Up

denisemor 3 May 28, 2018October 7, 2021

Finally got a hold of Frank and Felix today, and managed to get their haircuts finished up (Yay!)

Frank wasn’t thrilled to be the subject of my fussing, but was a good boy once I got the halter on him

Felix was another story. He resisted right to the end.
So no pictures on that one.
Man am I pooped.

But they both look fairly respectable now, so I’m calling it good.

In other wool news, I did a little bit of dyeing this weekend!

Trying out Abundant Earth Wool Tinctures

Each packet dyes 7 oz of wool

Since I was dyeing fleece rather than yarn, I decided to go with my big pot, just so that the fleece would be able to move freely in the bath (yes, that is Gus commandeering my chair 🙂 )

Here are the Blood Orange “teabags” dissolving in the pot

And the fleece fresh out of the bath

Fleece in the pot taking up Deep Water in batch #2.

The colors are fabulous. I had a little issue with the Deep Water breaking into bright blue and hunter green- and I’m not sure what I might have done to cause that. Perhaps I screwed up the addition of the citric acid. But once dried and carded together, it all came together nicely- here is a sample skein

Frank and Felix Come Clean

denisemor 4 April 29, 2018

Thanks to the rain on Saturday morning I was able to get a hold of Frank and Felix and start to help them out of their messy, felted winter coats.

Frank was a tough job. Most of his neck and upper back was felted all the way down to the skin. I think that he feels a lot better now that he’s free of it, even though he wasn’t too pleased about me fussing over him for so long. I found it interesting though that his chest and sides were starting to shed on their own- I don’t remember him doing that before. At least it made that part of the job go much more smoothly.

Felix’s neck was pretty felted too, but was easier to get away from his skin, so it went a little faster.

Most of the fleece from both boys was not really worth saving, but I was able to salvage some nice chest wool (after trimming away about and inch and a half of felted tips off it all). It was all damp from the rain, so I washed it right away, and was pleasantly surprised at how white it came out (really should have taken a “before” photo)

Both of them have such beautiful wool. It’s a shame that so much of it ends up unusable. I think I’m going to try the fall shearing again this year and see if that helps.

In other wool news, I finally spun up a skein of my saved up Sadie undercoat blended with Edgar’s 2017 fleece.

Now I just have to find the right way to use it.

And I also wanted to share a photo of a little post-sweater project I worked up out of my first skein of Bambam Too 2017 (Schoonover Farm)

Between the rich brown color, soft hand & squooshy crimp I enjoyed every minute of this little cowl!

Pretending it’s Spring

denisemor 2 February 11, 2018

The sun is shining, the air is fresh, and spirits are high out in the pasture today.

Frank even came out of his shell a bit

Amazing what some sunshine and “falfers” (alfalfa pellets) can do 🙂

For as wet as it’s been, I was pleasantly surprised that Dottie doesn’t seem too felted

I got a little bit of quality time with her and Chone , who is sporting a mighty nice-looking fleece himself

Esther’s fleece looks kind of messy on the outside (tips are pretty weathered, and some chicken keeps pooping on her!)

but I think it’s still really nice underneath. One thing’s for certain, there is lots of it!

I’m still not officially done with the argyle socks, but I’ve given in to the the green and cast on my cabled sweater-

I know it doesn’t look like much yet, but I’m really excited about how it’s coming along. The fabric feels great, and it’s fun to work on. I’d almost forgotten how satisfying this kind of textured work is.

Here’s a better look at how the cable panel on the back is shaping up.

Rockin’ in the Pasture

denisemor 6 October 16, 2011

Literally.

Yeah, this week we had a bunch more rock delivered.

I think it’s pea gravel.

So, today we had the tractor out and were truckin’ gravel around to the edges of the pasture where my sweet sheeps tend to wear down paths and expose the bottom edge of the fence. Gotta keep that fenceline tight!

Re-rocked right around the boys’ shed and playground (rockpile), too. Hopefully that will prevent it from getting muddy once the rains start.

Also picked the last of the apples off our big King apple tree today-

It wasn’t a great year for apples here, but we managed to pull in about 7 boxes-
Any that hit the ground got pitched into the pasture, to see if the boys would give them a try.

They are a little slow to try new things, but it appears there has been some nibbling…

We were scheduled to give the guys a pedicure this weekend, but I couldn’t manage to get any more than three of them in the shed at one time, so we eventually gave up and decided to reschedule.

Frank was being a big scared-y sheep. He had everybody all worked up and suspicious.
This is about as close as I got to the crazy bugger all day long

I’m so excited about my quinces! They’re not quite ready yet, but maybe in a couple of weeks-

Did you know grow straight out of the ends of the tree branches?

Neat, eh?

Sweater progress continues apace,

And I even managed to get some spinning done this week!

That’s Frank/Felix on the left, and Spike to the right.

Whew, I’m beat.