I finally got yarns and fiber ready to send to Kentucky!  They will be displayed in a farm store there.  I'm hopeful folks back there will like them more than they seem to here.  These two are hand painted, then carded with some glitz and glamour for your spinning pleasure :->  The blue one is a batt, and yellow is roving, both done on my little Strauch Petite carder.  It is time consuming to turn the crank by hand but the results are nice.

I'm working on more.  I hope to be able to spin up some of the batts I'm making.  I try to tie each bag with a sample of the yarn.  Its much better than feeling the product for sale, as hands have a certain amount of oil and dirt than eventually will make it off-color.  The spindles I use for teaching are perfect for sampling.  Take a spinning class from me and I will give you one with your fiber.

We are trying to get our wood in today.  The weather has turned much colder, with rain off and on for the last couple weeks.  This morning it was a brisk 33 degrees.  Brrrr!   But of course winter is just around the corner.  We usually have snow between Oct 31 and Thanksgiving.  Maybe this winter will be kinder to us and we won't have that much, although everything says we will have lots of snow again.  Oh well.  More time indoors to do fibery stuff, in addition to keeping the paths clear of snow and wood brought up to heat the house.  Love that woodstove!

Mom's 90th birthday is next Wed.  If you'd like to say Happy Birthday, give her a call on Oct 13th or email me for her phone number.  Happy Birthday (almost) mom.

An exciting day today.  We've seen a several acre fire behind our house.  We smelled smoke this afternoon but weren't sure where it was coming from.  Sure enough, it was just a couple acres over.  Fire engines were all parked down on the road but we couldn't see any up the hill from our farm.  Its not that steep, but completely covered with trees and brush.  Probably more than usual due to the long wet spring and early summer we had this year.

We tried to round up the alpacas for transporting in the stock trailer, but they wouldn't cooperate so we decided the pasture was a safe place to leave them.  Not much grass in the pasture this time of year so its as good as any place.  We did move the tractor over in the middle of the pasture as well as our stock trailer, just in case.  Its about 2 1/2 acres in size with no brush or grass, just a few trees now so isn't likely to burn.

Here are a couple pix of the helicopters that were doing water drops on the fire.  Its still smoky in the air but not as bad as an hour a go.  The water drops are still going on but I think they have a pretty good handle on the fire.  Last I heard it was about three acres in size, but I'm not sure now.

The first picture is a helicopter dropping water, you can see it just to the left of the big tree on the right.  Second picture is just some of the smoke coming up from the fire (see how close!) and third one is one of the helicopters with a full bucket getting ready to drop it not far from our property.

Our lost Great Pyrenees Dolly has been spotted around here.  We've received several calls this week she was down by the highway.  We finally saw her this morning and although we were very close to her couldn't catch her.  She has always been shy and afraid of cars, and ran into the woods when we would try to get to her.  She appeared to have on a collar with tags, but these are not our tags.  At least we could know where she's been.  Please pray God leads her home the rest of the way.  She's been gone since Feb 4 of this year.

The fiber blending has been going well.  I've been working nearly every day trying to get some rovings and batts ready to sell.  I will be sending some to friends in Kentucky who have a store to see if its something people there might like.  Here is a picture of the blue, carded and turned into roving.  So soft!

With the beautiful warm weather we've had the past few weeks I've been dyeing fiber again.  This time something new was tried.  I put the pre-soaked fiber into a couple of large plastic containers and poured leftover dye in different colors in the jar as I added the fiber.  Then into a black trash bag and sat it in the hot sun for a couple days.  

When I rinsed them afterwards there was a little more color in the water than normal, but they rinsed clean after a couple times.  I don't think any true color was washed away.  The colors were not as varied as I'd hoped.  They pretty much did their own thing together, but pretty anyway.  I think I will try carding them with some of the flash I got a couple months ago.  We'll see what turns out.  I do like the colors they both ended up ... fluorescent pink and electric blue, and a light lime green and soft royal blue.  The computer really doesn't do them justice.

We have a new family member!  Meet Emmy, my daughter's newest addition.  Emmy is about three days old in the picture and is a tiny little chihuahua puppy.  We will be receiving her when she's about 7 weeks old.  The longer little animals spend with mom, the better the start in life they usually have.  We can't wait!

Our kitty Petey that was missing for three days has returned home.  We found him up in a Very tall tree in the woods behind our house.  We had to get our tree cutter friend to climb up and get him.  He was so ready to come down, didn't fight at all.  I can't imagine why he would go so high unless something like a coyote or fox scared him.  We also have owls and hawks that have carried off at least one of our kitties in the past.

No spinning being done right now.  Its been very warm, 80's and 90's.  With no air conditioning in our house its a little uncomfortable to be handling such warm fibers.  Early morning is ok sometimes, but I'm just not organized enough that early.

Jury duty for me this month, I can't plan anything.  Fortunately I still have not had to go, but you just never know.  Each Friday night I call to see who is on their roster for the following week.  So far, so good.

It seems we have lost another kitty.  Petey, our much overweight orange boy has gone missing.  Only since yesterday, but he's always the first one at the food dish.  We are very worried and pray nothing has happened to him.  He is sooo sweet and we've raised him from a bottle baby.  He is a previous foster baby.

Yesterday the three pygora goats were sold to a nice lady from Plummer ID.  I went outside early this morning and didn't hear them calling me to come feed them!  I think I miss them (no!) already.  But they now have eight acres to eat, so should be really happy.

The yarn in the photo is the merino top / cashmere.  It is incredibly soft and spun with the little bits of cashmere making it look 'tweedy' or heathered.  Only four ounces of the merino so maybe I will have to buy a little more so there's enough to make a scarf or something.  I Love it!  These fibers came from Paradise Fibers in Spokane WA.

And I wish I knew how to take better photos, the yarns never show up as pretty as they are in person.

Summer is here, off and on.  One day 85 degrees, next day 69.  But a little rain once in a while keeps everything green and fresh.  I really don't mind.  My flower garden was looking so good but now is getting a little tired.  The purple flowers at the top of the page are Campanula, this pink one is called Poor Man's Orchid.  They are tiny, about the size of a 50 cent piece, the stalks grow to about 5 feet tall.  Anyone want any?  They are very prolific.


Finally got a picture of the black alpaca / green firestar, but its not a very good one.  It is hard to get a good picture of black anything.  I finally ended up putting it in a sunny window.  Haven't started spinning it yet and hope to get about another 3 ounces blended.  Maybe I can put in on the Etsy shop.

I did get some beautiful soft light beige merino and blended it with super soft cashmere.  Both these were through the fiber club I joined with Paradise Fibers.  It is incredibly soft and spun thick and thin.  The cashmere made the merino top just a little bumpy, so not too much variation.   It would make a wonderful scarf, mittens, socks ... just about anything next to the skin.  I will post a picture next time.

Spring is here and I hope it stays a while.  Beautiful flowers everywhere.  Along with the flowers we have an over abundance of dandelions to deal with.  So much yard work! 

The green flash I have has been blended with black alpaca.  Wow!  That really makes it flashy, lol.  Also blended with about 10 different colors of wool I had used for a 6th grade class demo that was done last week.  There were only bits and pieces of different things, not enough to do anything with, so they were all blended together with the green flash.  Very nice.

Yard sale days are finally here.  One of our favorite things in the summer.  We are cleaning out our own closets and storage areas in the hopes of getting rid of a lot of unneeded stuff.  We've got several big tent-like tarps to set up in the yard but probably most of the stuff will go into the garage, just in case it rains.  Memorial weekend is coming up so that seems like a good time to start.

Our Blanchard Spinners went to Paradise Fibers yesterday.  Not all of us could go, but those of us that did had a great time and found some yummy fibers to put on our wish list.  I bought some green flash fibers that I want to try blending with my alpaca to give it some bling as well as being soft.

The yard is coming together again.  Everything is so green and fresh.  Lots and lots of weeds.  That's the next project for me I guess.  I love gardening, but on this farm there's just so much of it.  Anyone want to have a garden?  C'mon over!

My beautiful, sweet Dolly is still gone ... Since Feb 4, 2011.  In the last couple days I've received several calls about big white dogs who apparently were hit on the road and died.  Funny, these dogs were all quite a few miles from us and all in different areas.

I refuse to give up looking for her.  I just have the feeling she is close by, possibly being cared for by well-meaning folks.  If she is, knowing Dolly she will find a way to ecape again.  Praying God will lead her home.

In the meantime, I have my two beautiful other companions, Bella and Jessie.  We love these huge, gentle beasts.  They love playing together and with my niece.  Its so comical to watch the two of them rolling around all over each other.  Maybe I can get a video going on soon.

Our Blanchard Spinners group is heading off to Paradise Fibers in Spokane Sat morning.  Most everyone hasn't been to the new store, so we will all go together in a couple vehicles and I will show them where it is.  I Love the new store.  So many fun things to look at!  Better leave my checkbook at home, I'm always so tempted.

Shearing Day!  Alpacas usually are sheared once a year, our goats twice a year.  Its always a hard day, pretty dirty too!  I just had knee surgery on Wed, so had a very good friend come over to help my daughter and my niece.  Also my niece had a friend from school there and the two little girls did a super job.  Our wonderful shearer Clint did a great job and was able to get everyone done is a fairly short time.

I got to sit in my chair and be the picture taker for the day.  So much easier than bending over to gather the fiber off the tarp. 

I will be selling the 2nds right out of the bag, if anyone is interested.  Probably around $2 oz, unwashed but since it doesn't have lanolin like a sheep fleece, it may be dusty or have a little VM still in it.  Let me know if any of you would like some, its extremely soft.  There is a lot of white, a good amount of brown, and one bag of black.  Oso is a true black and has no white at all in him. 

All in all a very good day.  The weather was good, a little windy at times, but warm (finally) and it didn't rain.  Woohoo.  We're done.

Paradise Fibers Fiber Club Subscription

Paradise Fibers Fiber Club Subscription
What a great idea!  For $35 or less per month you can try out three new fibers from Paradise Fibers in Spokane WA.  Made a quick phone call to them this morning and (of course) it depends on the cost of the fiber as to how much you get.  But, the total amount should usually be between 12-16 oz for the three.  Increase your stash or try out something new! 

I bought some Punta fiber a while back ... WOW.  My new favorite.  Never would have considered it if a friend hadn't recommended it to me or I had been sent a sample to try.  Thanks Paradise!