My awesome garden :) !

Guest post by Kylee!

                                                  I planted the garden!:)

Now I have to water it.

First let me take a selfe with the garden:)

Okay  so first we have the baby cabbage

Then we have the purple cabbage

Then we put mulch so weeds did not grow.

Now we have pics for when they are grown.

potatoes

peas

green beans

 He is not having a very good day ''i think''

''possessed''   hahahahahaha:)

Theses are really really big potatoes:)

Say bye garden :)  :)  :)  :)  :)   :)   Well that's it folks. See you next time.

May 216 Catch Up

I'm writing this post in December, but I want to catch up on this year's blog since I haven't blogged since June.  Here's a wrap-up post for the rest of May:

I built a brooder pen for the chicks in the barn.  It is 4 panels that come apart for easy storage.  

I did some fleece washing in the kitchen, doing smaller batches in the sinks and some plastic tubs.  David said hte kitchen smelled like sheep, like there is something wrong with that? Ha!

Different stages of washing, rinsing, and drying. 

I made a few dizzes out of polymer clay.  A diz is something used to take fiber off of a drum carder. You can see a video of one in use here.  

I came home from work one day and found a half dead raccoon in the yard.  I thought it was dead, until I poked it with a stick.  I figured it may be rabid, so I put an x-pen (wire panels to make a circle) around it to keep the other animals away.  I called the health department in our county, and they sent someone out to collect it.  Turns out it was rabid, so we had to get rabies boosters for all of our dogs and cats, even though they were up to date on their vaccinations, just in case they had any contact with it.

Buford knows how to get comfortable on the couch!

David built a clothesline for us.  Kylee got in on some photo bomb action.

Animal Update

In the top picture, there's a deer grazing in the yard in the background.  I forgot to post pictures of all of the chicks...some I hatched and some I bought from the feed store. There are some Blue COchins, Speckled Sussex, Welsummer, Ameraucana, and mixed Marans.

The five older lambs are in the barn now, weaned a few weeks ago.  The other sheep and goats are happy grazing.  Ida does crazy moves to reach any branches she can.

In the Shop

I listed 4 sheepskins in the Purl & June etsy shop.  These came from sheep born and raised here.  If you've never had a sheepskin as a rug or seat cushion, you're missing out!

Thanks to my friend Nancy for lending her house for the photos!

Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival 2016

Kylee and I went to the Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival a few weekends ago.  We were lucky that even though it had been very rainy leading up to the festival, it wasn't raining the day we went.

We got there pretty early and made a beeline for the fleece sale barn.  I was on a mission to find a fleece with curly locks that I could dye.  I wanted a Bluefaced Leicester fleece, because they typically have nice curly locks.  The sale barn was PACKED, with both people and fleeces.

We managed to find a fleece after looking through several dozen, and then we got in line. There were volunteers taking turns holding a sign up so people could find the end of the line.


We waited....and waited...and waited.  The line was moving fairly slowly, and we ended up waiting for over an hour to pay for the fleece.  We looked at lots of neat knitted items while we waited, because everyone wears their best knitting things to Sheep & Wool.  I saw this really great knitted then fulled (felted) bag.

Waiting-in-line selfie!

After we found a fleece, we started making our rounds.

We went by the Sarafina Fiber Art booth and saw some amazing felted animals.

We saw some alpacas.

Kylee picked out some roving so she can spin some custom yarn.

We took a rest and took a few more selfies. We were feeling pretty punch drunk by then.

On the way home, we stopped at my friend's house to meet her new baby boy.

Here's what we ended up bringing home. We got some roving, a t-shirt for Kylee, a Border Leicester fleece, some washed curls, a pound of wool batting for wet felting (a pound is a good bit), a pound of BFL roving, a pound of Merino roving, and some kettle corn.

Here's a picture of a sample lock from the fleece I bought.  The funniest part? There were fleeces there from flocks from all over the state, and the fleece I bought came from my neighbor's sheep!