It has been a Spring and Summer of machinery trials here.
First it seemed no end of electrical issues to set the card up including installing a single phase to 3 phase adaptor. Next came sizing a motor to run the workers and then getting all the timing set up!
Never did so much math before in my life!
Seemed all was well and we got under way only to now have a cog, as I call them, break.
So we sit again waiting for parts.
Eventually I know we will look back on this as a part of the learning curve and talk fondly of how far we have come. For now though we can only see how far we have yet to go.
But we keep going. The washer is fine so we keep washing and drying fibre.
The picker is fine so we keep picking as things are ready for that stage.
We are even doing some dyeing in the fleece on our own fibres and on ecru yarns and fibres from Ashland Bay awaiting the big card going again.
If the fibre Gods smile on us we will have the part and the millwright here in early August.
Other areas are singing right along though.
Been a good year for colour in the Icelandic Lambs. After starting with all white ewes, we added a coloured ram who had the potential for moorit 2 years ago, still we got white lambs. Last year we added a Moorit spotted horned ram and this year we have spotted moorit and spotted black lambs as well as more white.
Ready to go this month are 3 registerable ram lambs.
Ram Lamb #1
White with strong phaeomelanin factor
His tail and legs are very reddish looking
Ram Lamb #2
Black spotted Badgerface full brother to ram #1
Ram #3
White,
his full sister is staying here.
All of this year's ( 2012) lambs are at least half Icelandic as I ran all of our ewes with the Moorit spotted Icelandic ram. All were born between March 31st and April 24th.
Here are the half breds that are also ready to go:
Half bred Rams
Truffles ram #1
Half Icelandic and a mix of Coloured Lincoln/Columbian/Dorset and Suffolk.
Large ram lamb, but a suck up.
I am 5 foot 6 tall and he is 3 inches taller then my knee now.
Truffles ram #2
White with scurs.
Full brother to black above.
Just as big and even more of a suck up.
Half bred ewes:
Anahiem Ewe #1
Grey with horns and strong phaeomelanin factor
Mom is half Romney and half coloured Lincoln/Columbia
Anahiem Ewe #2
White, polled, full sister to grey above.
All of the above lambs are ready to go to new homes anytime.
And then there are the lambs that will be staying.
This year we will add two ewe lambs to our little flock.
This one is Missy Adventure.
Her mom( first timer) could not produce enough milk for her and added injury to insult by stepping on her and injuring her shoulder. Missy is now walking on all four legs but has a limp.
And last, but not least we have the latest daughter of our founding ewe.
White, horned ewe. Full sister to Ram #3 above.
And here is everybodies' Dad, our very proud Gerard.
The meat rabbits are doing well. We have second litters from everyone in the nestboxes now.
The turkeys, ducks, guinea hens and easter egger chickens have all increased their numbers too.
Funny watching mixed broods of ducks, turkeys and guinea hens all figure out who is what :)
Finally got some barn cats. Was given a pair of female cats that turned out to have 4 kittens amoung them. Yes, I was lucky it was only four kittens, more lucky that all are hanging around so far. Barn is very much more rodent free then it was 2 months ago.
Here is the only male kitten in the bunch:
We call him Figaro, after Pinocchio's Cat.
On the beading front things are always busy.
Seems to be the year of the floral bead.
Ones such as these:
But in ever shape imaginable going all over the world.
I have been on a bent wire kick lately with lots of different chainmailles and other all metal designs like this Byzantine Link bracelet:
This one happens to be in Sterling Silver, but same design looks good in copper, brass and even coloured niobium wires.
Next big event here is the Sheepdog Trials in Kingston on August 10-12th at Grass creek park.
Than end of August/ start of September we move my daughter to Barrie so she can start her 3 year college career in Fine Arts.
Later in September on the 29th Fire and Fluff will be back in Barrie for the Central Region Spinner's Seminar at the Simcoe County Museum.
Of Course I will stop to visit the daughter and see how her world is going while in town.
And this is where July 2012 finds us at.
Some successes, some setbacks and lots of things to look forward to.































