Pancake2

Pancake2, a photo by Shepherd_Carole on Flickr.

Our first lamb of 2012, she is a little Tunis ewe lamb and we have called her pancake as in England yesterday was Shrove Tuesday, better known as pancake day. They are not like the American pancakes they are crepes. Rust (mum) had to have a helping hand,but mother and baby are both doing well.

Morning exercise and a little helper

I don't know about you but I am one of those people who like to ease in to the morning, unlike this morning. Just after 6am, I was laid thinking about the day ahead and some of the jobs that need doing and what I may just enjoy doing today when I heard a noise and so did Giz (the dog) who started barking. Telling him to shut up and listen and the door bell rang which set him off again and I jumped out of bed to answer the door.
David our neighbor from across the road had come to tell us that we had sheep out on the road, I shouted at Dave and thanked our neighbor and we both scrabbled into our clothes. Dave shot down to the barn for a bucket of food (bribery works very well on our sheep) I shot off down our drive, as I neared the end I heard a vehicle coming up the hill and I waved my hands franticly still not know exactly where and how many sheep where out. He came to a slow halt and as I ran to his window he looked at me and said " got critters out" yes I replied and ran off  as I spotted a movement further down the road next to our fence in the beam of his lights.

It was the Rams that had got out and I started calling Silver as I knew he would come to his name, they where a little scared and confused but started to slowly come to me, Then Dave arrived with the bucket and they turn and started moving away, scared by his movement. Slowly I said to Dave they are confused and scared. He then climbed over our fence so he could get round them while I shouted and rattled the bucket of corn, they started towards me and we headed back to the paddock, waving my thanks to the driver of the vehicle as we came near. Then made our way down the drive getting the escapes back to where they belong shutting the gate firmly behind them.

They obviously had liked there trip out as later in the morning the dogs started barking and I looked out to see 5 of them sniffing round the front of the house, What, How did they get out again! I grabbed my coat, boots and an empty bucket that I use for gardening and shot out, they trotted up to see what I had for them in the bucket and we walked back to the paddock, where we found little Ben bleating his head of as he had been left behind and sheep don't like being on there own. Once again back in the paddock I checked the gate lock, but found it secure when closed, I went and got some bail twine and fastened the gate. then went back to the house to get a padlock (get out now).

Little Helper
Dave was skeining up some yarn last night and he had a little helper.

DYEING TIME

We have been busy skeining up the new yarn and I have been itching to see how it would dye, so Sunday I gathered up 10 skeins of wool and went to work.
The first thing is to wash the skeins, as they have the milling oils on them and the dye will not be successful if the oil is left in.

 After the washing I put two skeins to dry in the natural color.

 I went to work with the dye, I use Cushing Acid dyes.
 With the weight of the skeins recorded in my dying diary, I decided to use the full amount of dye and on this batch of blue I got my calculations a little wrong and put extra dye in.
It is not the look I wanted, but I love the color and I don't think it would have come out as nice on pure white wool.

 Now the green, the brain is still not in gear and I use the same amount of dye as before only this green is very pale so it has not over powered the color of the yarn as much as the blue and  I can see some of the heather look that I was after.







Now I realize what I have been doing and drop the amount of dye to the right amount for the weight of wool the Rose color has come out very well and it is showing some of the heather color I want to see, but it still isn't quite what I was looking for.

Last batch and I decided to use the amount of dye that I would use on the plain white sports 2ply Romney and this is the look I was after you can still see the color of the original wool coming through the dye making that lovely heather color.
I can see that I have a little more experimenting to do but I think I am nearly there.
I now hope everyone will like it, these first skiens will be going up on the website soon.

New Yarn

I am so excited, I have got my first batch of colored Romney yarn yesterday. I only have a few colored romneys and I have had to save the wool from a couple of shearing's. I sent the wash wool to the mill in July, I was hoping to have it back in November, but the mill had a few problems. I have done my first skeins, I am very pleased with it, now I want to dye some of it and see how it knits.
Keep you posted as I do the dying and knitting and when it will be available on the website.

Busy weekend

We have had a very busy weekend, the Wisconsin weather has co operated and we have managed to get half way down the fence line cleared, 400ft. I am so pleased, but I think we will both need the rest of the week for our aching bodies to recover.

Window of opportunity

Hi and happy new year, sorry it has been a while since I blogged but his is the quite time for the ewes they are all hopefully pregnant and I have only had one health issue and that was with Spot one of the Rambouillet's last Saturday as I was filling the water butts I noticed that she had a mark on her butt that I had not seen before and the weekend before we had trimmed them out ready for lambing ( that means trimming away all the long wool from around there butts and back legs). I got Dave to help me catch her ( not hard she is one of the more friendliest ewes) and I found she had a large abscess, we cleaned it up gave her an antibiotic shot and I am pleased to report that she is doing well.
WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY
Today with the nice weather in Wisconsin (NO SNOW) Dave took the day of work so we could do some work on our 18 acre field, we need to clean out our fence lines so we can put in new fencing for the sheep. We don't want to take away all the tree's etc as this will take away the shade the ewes need in the summer but we do have to make a path through for the fence and take away any unwanted under growth like briers and low limbs on trees.

The first two pics are before we started and the one above is as we finished, you can see Dave at the end where the fence line will go. We didn't get as far as we wanted as we had a problem with the chain saw, Dave swooped the gas for the oil and the oil for the gas and chain saws don't run well on oil. Ha! well the day ended well the chain saw is up and running and tomorrow is another good day in Wisconsin.

3 Scarf, 3 different yarns, 3 different sheep

I thought it would be good to share the 3 projects I have been working on for Christmas presents for 3 friends I have had a few difficulties getting them posted as I used my cell phone to take the pics and it has given me a few headaches on how to get them posted with a little explanation with each pic. I have managed it apart from one and Lambie's little write up did not appear.