Anyone Want to Win Some Yarn?

I have a cold, and it's late, so no long blog post tonight, no pretty pictures. But I would like to refer you to another blog - Yarn On The House. Ve has a really nice blog over there and she features indie dyers and knit designers. And the really nice thing about her blog is that she gives stuff away. All you have to do is comment on her blog (and maybe follow her blog - not sure about that, but I follow her). And this time around, the yarn she is giving away is ours! Hearthside Fibers "BaaBoo" yarn (our bamboo blend fingering weight yarn). Three skeins, one to each of three winners. Two in "Purple Haze" and one in "Annie's Snowy Mountain". Please pop over there and have a look. And maybe you'll be lucky enough to win a skein of our yarn!

Yes, I'm Still Here!

I know I haven't posted in a couple of months. I don't know why. I've taken pictures, intending to get them here on the blog. I could have posted more about the end of lambing. Or getting ready for Midwest Fiber and Folk Art Fair. Or the dreadful heat that we have had on certain days (we are about to get hit again with heat and humidity and I am not looking forward to it). But I guess I just haven't been very talkative.

Here is our booth at Midwest Fiber and Folk Art Fair. The weekend was disappointing. And I know we weren't alone, as in talking to other vendors, they were saying the same thing. Several don't plan on going back next year. Larry has family living in that area, though, so for us it is a good excuse to get together with them, even if we hardly cover the cost of getting into the show in the first place.

And since I don't have a lot of good things to say about that show, here are some goat pics. We haven't decided yet who is for sale and who is staying, but I think I would like to keep this little doe here on the farm. She is just adorable.

The kids fit through the fence and help themselves to whatever they like in the yard.

At least they are grazing clean "pasture"!

Below, you can see the mommas in the background, in the barnyard where they belong. And the kids are out climbing on the old hay bales, having the time of their lives.

We have started weaning the oldest lambs. The kids will be weaned soon. We are downsizing the flock drastically this year, so many of the ewes are going to market as soon as their lambs are weaned. The Shetlands have to be photographed and those that we decide are for sale need to be posted on the web site. But very little will be done in the next few days - I think I mentioned we are in for an extended period of heat and humidity? I could really go for a couple of inches of snow right about now!

Just Checking In

Not a lot to blog about lately, although we have been very busy. We are almost daily dyeing yarn and roving, in preparation for our first fiber show - Wisconsin Spin-In - Pewaukee, WI at the Country Springs Hotel - April 7 - 9 - click the link for more information. We are Hearthside Fibers - look for us if you are there. We're on schedule for product, I think we have just about everything we THINK we need - of course, that list could be different than what we find we actually DO need, come the weekend of the show! Just so you have something to look at in this post, here are some of our yarns - I think these are the fingering weight highland wool that we will be selling.

Yep, after studying the closer shot, I have identified these correctly.

In other news, we sheared the sheep (or rather, Roger sheared the sheep) last Wednesday. Only a few glitches this year, starting with the day we moved the half of the sheep that weren't already in our barn. The majority of the sheep and goats moved fairly easily - three of our Jacobs, though decided they were not coming with us. We tried enticing them into the barn with grain - not successful. In fact, one of them leaped over the fence, ran around the goat pasture, then decided it did not, in fact, want to run away to the neighbor's. So she leaped in with the goats, decided that wasn't right, leaped back out and finally made her way back to her Jacob buddies and leaped back in with them. At that point, we decided they could stay put and we left them where they were. I am again trying to train them to the grain bucket, so maybe, if they are bred, we can reunite them with the rest of their flock here in our barn, where we are equipped for lambing. But, as I said, the rest of the sheep and goats were fairly cooperative and the rest of the move went fairly well, in spite of the fact that the farm is a sea of mud and a fairly large pickup truck pulling a good sized livestock trailer filled with many animals does have a tendency to get stuck in said mud. But, in the end, all of the animals got into the barn and, although the truck and trailer are very muddy, they are not stuck. Must see the glass as half full. (By the way, our Nigerian dwarf goats were the easiest to move - they did not come over for shearing, but after, in preparation for kidding in a few weeks - they followed the grain bucket right onto the trailer and hopped right off when they got to their destination - I sure wish the sheep would behave that well.)

The day of shearing went smoothly - except for the two Shetlands that managed to squeeze through the fence and escape - I'm not mentioning any names, but Lavender and Maia still look awfully woolly! I will most likely throw (well, not literally) them up on the fitting stand and shear them with the hand shears in a few weeks. Maybe if I wait long enough, they'll roo for me. By the way, to my customers - the reserved fleeces have been skirted and those customers have been notified. The remaining fleeces will most likely not be skirted for a bit, as we prepare for Spin-In - but as soon as I get the new web site up and running and fleeces skirted and made ready for sale, those of you on our customer email list will be getting an email.

Lambing/kidding does not start here until mid-April - many new ewes and does this year, so it could get interesting. Fortunately, the "veterans" are all good moms and, barring any unforeseen circumstances, shouldn't cause us any headaches. I hope the new girls all do a good job, too.

And, for a parting shot - our washer died quite awhile ago - and our dryer was making an unearthly screeching noise every time we turned it on, so we finally took the time to replace them. Fuzzball thinks the new dryer is grand!