Yarn and Construction

I've finished the first batch of yarn from Jimmy.   This is the first "from scratch" attempt for us.  The fleece was straight off the animal.  Chet picked it clean of vegetable matter, then I ran it through the Fancicard twice (to blend in some of the white) and pulled it off into roving.  After that, I spun it (my favorite part) and voila - yarn!  It took about a week of working a couple hours each evening.

We have a building on the property that has a brand new roof on it that we are converting into an office/workspace for me.  It didn't have a floor, so they are lifting it off the ground to pour concrete.  When they lifted it, a corner of it collapsed.  Glad I wasn't home to see it.

After the floor, inside walls will need to go in as well as doors and windows, then electricity.  Maybe by this time next year it will be ready to use.

It's Roving!

My second batch of roving off the Fancicard!  I couldn't wait to spin the first one, so the photo had to wait for this one.  I pulled it right off the carder through a diz.  This fleece is from our boy, Mulligan James (below), from last year's shearing.  It's incredibly soft and spun up like a dream.

Leftovers

While prepping the fleece for the carder, a lot of smaller pieces must be discarded.  Hating to waste any part of the fiber, I wanted to find some way to use the leftovers.  Spring will hopefully be coming soon and the birds are always picking up things to make their nests.  When Chet grew cotton in Arizona, I'd find that the birds would pick at the cotton and take away to the trees to make their spring nests.   Alpaca fleece would work well too. 

In the back are 6" balls made from cut grapevines.  In the front are empty suet containers.  I'm getting an Etsy shop set up and will be selling them there:  http://www.fleecefurandfeathers.etsy.com/.  I hope the birds here will like them and I find some designer birds nests this summer. 

We're on our way to getting 7 inches of snow today.  It's heavy wet snow that I haven't seen since I lived back east 10 years ago.

Everyone says that we should have had some 70-80 degree days here by now.  I guess El Nino is in full force this year.

The Fancicard has arrived

My Pat Green Fancicard motorized carder came yesterday from Canada.  The Greens had to get it across the US border before the Olympics started up there.  Otherwise, I would have been waiting until after the games were over.

This is about all I've been able to do with it so far - unpack and read the directions.  I don't have a workspace yet for it, but hopefully will be able to do something about that this weekend.  I was a little disappointed the booklet didn't mention too much about alpaca fleece, but I'm sure there lots of places on the internet and YouTube to get some tips.  I've got lots of fleece right now to work with and I'm hoping to be able to make some nice batts and roving.  Stay tuned.

Choke

We had quite a scare the Friday night.  Chip, our favorite boy whose picture is at the top right of this page, started choking on his food pellets.  The question was - what do we do?  One book said to massage the neck; another reference said to give him space because trying to "help" him would only make him more stressed and the throat would close up even more.  We couldn't just stand by and watch, so we massaged the neck off and on for about 20 minutes and it seemed to help.  After about 45 minutes, he was back to normal. 

The after effects of choke can be worse than the event itself.  If any of the food gets into the lungs, pneumonia can result.  As a precaution, we took him to the vet Saturday and got antibiotics, which have to be given in a shot every day.  That turned out to be a wrestling match for all 3 of us today.  We finally got the shot in him, but we've got to find a better way to do it. 

To prevent future choke episodes, we bought shallow pans so that each boy will have his own dish and won't have to try and gobble the pellets before someone else noses in.

What I did over Christmas Vacation

I started and finished a couple of projects while I was off over Christmas.  The first was an alpaca cap for my stepson, Gregg, who likes to snowboard.  The fleece came from Regina Dale at the Song and Dance Ranch.  Regina is a fabulous lady who I've learned a lot from.  She is the owner of Howling Wolf Herbs - http://www.howlingwolfherbs.com/ - and a talented fiber artist.

My cube neighbor at work is the proud father of a newborn girl who arrived just before Christmas.  Since I've never made socks or booties before, I looked for (and found) a really simple pattern.  I spun this yarn that came from roving I got in Tucson at Kathy Withers ranch shop.  Kathy taught me to spin.  If you want to check out some gorgeous yarns and creations, visit her website at http://www.uniquedesignsbykathy.com/.

Fleeced

I'm really excited about having some raw fleece, straight off an alpaca, to work with.  I'm on vacation this week and I've started about 3 new fiber projects here at home.  This particular project - starting with the raw fleece - will end up being a dog bed if all goes according to plan.

Chet made me a sorting/drying rack.  It's PVC with plastic netting; which I think is really some kind of fencing.  Dirt and loose vegetable matter fall through as the fleece is layed out.  On the table is 2 washed batches of second cuts from an alpaca.  Second cuts are from the legs and neck of the animal.

I put a blanket underneath to catch the debris, but my plan didn't work out so well when the dogs decided it would be a great place to camp. 

So, everything that fell to the blanket is attached to the underside of the Husky, which means it's all over my house now. Oh well.  With 4 dogs and wet alpaca fleece in the house, I wasn't going to win any good housekeeping awards this week anyway.

New Farm Logo

We officially have a registered name and a logo for our farm business now - C&B Fleece Fur and Feathers.  We'll be selling products from our alpacas (raw fleece, roving, yarn and possibly finished products); spinning dog hair into yarn for customers who want to have a keepsake of their companion; and selling eggs from our free range hens.

Saturday on the Farm

If you scroll down in the blog to older posts and find Aug 19, you'll see the photos of Luke and Leia, our Anatolian puppies, being held by Gregg.  That was just 3 months ago.  Look at them now.  I think Chet actually has to help Gregg hold Leia up.

These guys are not quite 5 months old.  Luke is close to 60 pounds and Leia isn't far behind.  They are going to be very big dogs.  Luke has a big serious bark already, but only barks when something unusual comes into sight. We really haven't heard Leia bark much, she kind of hangs back and lets Luke scare the intruder away.

Gregg and his friend, Jay, are here from Ohio for a few days and Chet's putting them to work doing some fixin' up around the place.

The chickens are thinking about climbing to new heights while the alpacas just enjoy the grass.

And...we think we have a young rooster.  This chicken is starting to get curved tail feathers and a couple of them are shiny and green.  We haven't heard any crowing yet, but it won't surprise me when we do. 

Spinning Husky

This is Nikki.  Nikki is a 10 year old Siberian Husky. 

Nikki hasn't had much formal training.  She's been a natural "teacher" dog for lots of fosters and puppies that have boarded with us.  The thing Nikki is best at, though, is shedding.  She's a natural at that, too.

She's got a beautiful reddish coat and she leaves it behind wherever she goes.

Since I don't have carpeting here in the new house, Husky-fur dust bunnies blow around everywhere.  I guess in the old house, the carpeting caught it all.

I've been itching to spin something directly off of an animal and my alpacas won't be sheared until springtime.  So, I'm spinning dog hair.

This box from one brushing session that lasted about 10 minutes.  That's all she would put up with.  The fur is about 6 inches deep in the box.

Before it can be spun, it has to be hand carded to get the fibers to go all the same way.

These are my brand new hand carders.  I've never worked with carders before and there's been a definite learning curve. They almost look like dog slicker brushes.  Next to the carders are the finished "rolags" of Nikki's fur.  These are what come off the carders after you've run the fur through a few times.

Once I got some rolags ready, I couldn't wait to start spinning.

So, here's what it looks like on the spinning wheel.  It almost comes out looking like twine.  I'm not sure what I'm going to make out of it yet.  Hopefully I'll have a better idea when I get a couple of bobbins of yarn spun up.