Life Happens, and It's All Good!

A ridiculous amount of life happened between early June and the present, and it has left me short of breath and unmotivated to talk about every little thing on the blog. So let's recap the big events, and move forward with important projects, like knitting, in greater depth later.

First of all, I celebrated a Landmark Birthday, for which my mother and I baked a total of nine cakes. There was a very random approach to invitations, but the turnout was good and about half of the cake was eaten. The rest lives in the freezer and we are slowly nibbling our way through it.

From right front, counterclockwise: Mulberry Jam Cake with pecans, Traditional Family Birthday Bundt Cake, Sachertorte, Streusel Cake, Waves of the Danube, English Cake, Egg-Heavy Cake, Mulberry Jam Cake w/o nuts, Hazelnut Macaroon Torte.

 Gardening has been late but steady. I did get a head start on potatoes and onions, and we have had several meals with our own potatoes. So delicious!

First potatoes, mid-June!

Young onions

Getting ready for harvesting

Spindly tomato starts...

Become this WALL of tomato plants. Note to self: don't plant so close together next time, no matter how tiny.

Bean explosion, but no edibles yet.

New project: Buckwheat!

In between feasting on sweet baked goods and putting in a garden, I spent an absurd number of vacation hours at school, cleaning out my room. The first impulse was due to the custodians threatening to throw everything not cleared off surfaces or still lying on the floor into the trash. Then I applied for a new job at a local high school. Then I got offered the job, and then the clean out became even more necessary. I did not realize how much stuff I took down there... It's time to toss some things in earnest. And move into my new office!

In the middle of job interviews, we went on a scheduled Landmark Birthday Trip to Lexington, VA, where we rented a cabin just outside of town and then enjoyed driving and hiking in the landscapes, sightseeing, local farms and breweries, and excellent restaurant dining.

We learned about polyface farming techniques at Broadview Ranch. The farmers fence their cows and pigs into really small fenced spaces, and move them almost daily. Then they bring in the chickens behind them. The chickens scratch the manure which spreads it for fertilizing, and also eat the bugs that inhabit the cow piles.

"Coop-estoga wagon" houses 175 chickens!

 Yarn stores were located, visited, and lightened of merchandise...

A delightful view from the Blue Ridge Parkway.

This is the bell tower of the Robert E. Lee chapel, which is on the campus of Washington & Lee University in Lexington. I had no idea that he was the president of this college for many years after the Civil War ended. His final resting place is in this chapel.

A must-eat location, The Red Hen prides itself on its locally sourced food. We ate here twice and it was well worth it. Everything was fresh and in season. We did chuckle about the "local" cheese plate. Its contents were purchased at a local shop, which basically got cheeses shipped to it from the entire world. I guess being a locavore has its limits.

We took the tour of Stonewall Jackson's house, but I was particularly enamored by his gardens. Someone took a great deal of time and effort to re-establish what was grown there and label everything in great detail.

The Jackson's had COLD FRAMES!!! These are newly built, of course.

 After our week in Lexington, we met my husband's family at Deep Creek Lake in Maryland, for our traditional family reunion vacation. Several nieces and nephews "took some lessons" with Auntie E on the violin. They performed the D-A-D song, the Ant Song, and Mississippi Hot Dog Rhythm with the bow at a very informal concert the night before we left. Nothing is more wonderful than sharing music with young family members!

And finally, today is a big day on the farm. Cassidy turns ONE already! She is a beautiful animal and so full of love and curiosity. Today she just followed me around the pen like a dog while I was taking pictures.

Happy Birthday Cassidy!

 A little while after I crouched down to her level, she just sat down next to me and let me pet her for a good 15 minutes. These were some of the resulting pictures:

Snuggle bug

Silly friends!

As I mentioned earlier, there is important knitting content in production. I will not clutter this post up any more, and leave you to wonder about it until I get another opportunity to post.

Till then, Happy Summer!

Fuzzy? Oh, WAS he!

For the third time already , it was shearing day at Shady Grove Alpacas, and high time for it. The temperature was in the 80's and all creatures were hot. These lyrics inspired the title of this blog post, and I often wondered if there might have been a shearing team involved with the product. Our adolescent Darkstar had such a giant, 21 month-old coat on, that it was a job and a half to extract him from it.

After spending 30 minutes cleaning his coat this morning, Darkstar proceeds to take another roll in the hay.

Last minute brush work gets most of hay off the top layer.

Lovely locks on the shearing mat.

Neck: so much fiber we can't remove it without shaving the rest of the area.

Neck is emerging.

Almost finished...

Truly a camel's neck, long and thin.

Post shave, Darkstar was having difficulty getting his show look back together, but his fiber is sooo lustrous and truly perfectly black!

Darkstar, left; 'Leven, right - two boys looking for some fun!

However, our other show hopeful, Cassidy, has the look perfected. She is also amazingly lustrous and I can't wait to see how her fiber re-grows.

Shorn Lady's Tea-time.

The Shady Grove Alpaca herd, ready for beach weather!

Knitting pattern available from The Fuzzy Mitten: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/alpaca-with-bikini

And now the true work begins: fiber processing... Here are the numbers that need to be added to the 30 pounds of fiber already waiting on me. Our scale is not quite accurate. It measured the total at 32 pounds of fleece with all bags on the platform, but you will come up with a different sum when you add these numbers together:

The Eleven (at 8 months of growth): 3.6 pounds

'Greta: 4.1 pounds

Bella: 4.2 pounds

Cassidy (at 10 months of growth): 4.5 pounds

Moon Star, the perennial fiber queen: 7.3 pounds

Darkstar: 12 POUNDS!!! of fleece. We vowed NEVER to keep another alpaca in this much fuzz ever again. We'll just show in re-growth in the Spring if it is necessary and convenient.

Did you say you were coming to help? Your shift begins on June 1st. And Thank You in advance!

A Peck on a Chicken's Cheek

You may recall this event from a few years ago... 

This evening the grad students were raising money for charity once again. Students paid money to vote on which fellow student would kiss Heinrich the chicken.

A spectacle is developing....

Heinrich is following her long-legged master at warp speed!!!

The grad student is not so sure about this dubious opportunity...
Protective eyewear: CHECK
H7N9 protective mask: MISSING, slight oversight here...

Fastest peck of a kiss in history.
The shutter of my camera was NOT fast enough to capture the moment.
 Great relief floods all parties!

A good time was had by all! Heinrich loved every minute of the attention!

Alpaca Fiber Processing: Getting Started at Last

Yesterday The Farmer and I headed down to Hoosier Heartland Alpacas again for a fiber processing clinic.

It was a beautiful day, though chilly and a little windy. Everything was set up outside on a long table.

They had a new "toy," a fiber tumbler that gets out some of the dirt, dust and vegetable matter from a raw fleece. You run it for a half hour or so before starting the picking process.

The next step is the tedious one that I have been afraid of. On a hardware cloth rack, you can shake out the fleece a little more and let any other loose veggie matter and second cuts fall through the wire. It is suggested to have the shorn side facing up toward you. Then you separate the fibers enough to get the rest of the non-fleece items out of it. That's it.

Next, the cleaned fleece gets a little bath. Use warm water with some dish soap incorporated first, then add the fleece and make sure it doesn't just float on the top. Let it soak for a 15-30 minutes, then put it on top of the grate (looks like a cooling rack to me) and press the water out. The key is to not agitate the fleece in this step so that it does not felt. Repeat the washing one more time in the same temperature water.

Next is the rinse step. It needs to be rinsed twice as well in water that is the same temperature. Add a little vinegar to the second rinse to help get the soap suds out. Again, not agitating the fibers is key.

Next is the drying. They have these great racks with hardware cloth bottoms that they made for this step. It looks like a drying rack. Fluffing the fibers throughout the day helps dry them quicker.

Finally, the drum carder lines up all the fibers to create roving. Since Suri fiber is so long, it gets added to the top of the drum so it winds more easily around the larger wheel. This process is repeated three times to create a clean and smooth batt. You can blend different fibers at this point as well.

Now you are all ready to spin! It will take a while, but the processing no longer seems quite as daunting. Unless I think about the 30 pounds of fiber upstairs...

It Isn't Easy Being Green

Since I was very young, I have always claimed "green" as my favorite color. But it was always a very specific color that I was after, like the green from the crayon box. However, I really appreciated seeing all the greens while surrounded by Nature, in the woods, on drives, around the cabin we vacationed in. 

Blocking the feather and fan pattern

When presented with various specific and different shades of green however, I was extremely particular. Not one was good enough for me to love and claim as part of the palette of color that was supposedly my favorite. 

Blocking

A quick review of my Ravelry page shows that I have knit one dark blue-green and red shawl, a Slytherin scarf for a brother-in-law, a hat that contained remnants, and an Ariel scarf for a friend. 73 projects, only four of them green. And green is listed as my favorite color on my profile here too...

So when my swap package showed up at the end of February with a green skein of Malabrigo Rios (Colorway 128 Fresco y Seco), I definitely said, hummmmmmmm...

 I looked around for a pattern on Ravelry, searching "Malabrigo Rios, one skein" and found link to a memory that this color evoked.

Action shot: windy day!

In 2011, I took a hiking vacation in the Pacific Northwest. Not to be missed were the amazing waterfalls along the Columbia River Gorge. Multnomah Falls was the mightiest. The pattern that turned up was named Multnomah. The colors in the yarn reminded me of the great scenery that I saw on my hikes.

Upper half of Multnomah Falls, OR, taken from the famous footbridge

 I began knitting immediately and lo and behold, fell for all these amazing colors coming off the skein. I couldn't stop, and soon was running out of yarn. I ordered another skein from the same shop that my swap buddy had bought my skein from, but alas, the kettle dyed yarn was wildly different.

 A visit to my own local yarn shop revealed that they had the Sock yarn of my colorway in stock. It was similar enough that I decided to use it instead of the yarn I ordered. The ladies at the shop advised me to double the amount of stitches as I added the new yarn.

 It took me another full week of knitting to get those 500+ stitches per row all knit up 40 times! I was rather fatigued by the process, but I think the result is well worth the effort!

 And I decided that I truly do love green to knit with. Even if all the shades aren't exactly perfect, the combination, just like Nature are really exactly right!

(PS Happy Easter!)

Late March Snowshoeing

Spring Break began cold, white, and snowy. Sunday and Monday we had a 100 year record-breaking snow-fall for this time of year. Tuesday the weather already started getting a little warmer and melting the snow. I made a quick decision to head out to Mounds State Park with my snowshoes. Showshoeing in Mounds has been on my to-do list for nearly 10 years, and the two hour hike was magnificent and well-worth the wait. I just hope I don't have to wait so long for the next opportunity. In the mean time, here's looking forward to a slightly belated Spring.

SWAP!

This past month I signed up to be part of a swap on the Whole Latte Chocolate Love group on Ravelry. It's for knitters who enjoy chocolate, coffee, and knitting, of course. We put together packages that contain chocolate, coffee, yarn, and little special things that would go well with those items. Below is a partial view of what things I had in my buddy's box: Squish Me hat pattern from Knitspot, matching Bare Naked Wool DK weight wool in colorway cocoa, some Malabrigo sock yarn, truffles from Concannon's Bakery, other dark chocolates, and Main Street coffee, which recently got bought by Concannon's. I also finished some handmade quilted note cards.My goody box was right up my alley! My swap partner lives in Omaha, NE, and got me all kinds of things from her home town: Scooter'coffee (founded in Bellevue, NE, in 1998), a large bag of Baker's Candies' famous meltaway dark chocolates (family-owned factory in Greenwood, NE), and a skein of Malabrigo Rios yarn from the local yarn store, Personal Threads Boutique. She also thoughtfully supplied reading material on each of these places. I love learning something about other places and supporting local business. To top the box off with the chocolate theme was a little shower kit that included shower gels in cocoa velvet truffle scent and buttercream delight scent. Till next time... I'll be wide awake and knitting!