Fire and Fluff: May 2010

Well another month has flashed past!

Lots happening here.

On the farm

Babies! Babies! Everywhere!

The lambs started to arrive Easter weekend and the last set of twins was born May11th.

So grand total is 8 lambs from 5 ewes. Seven little rams and 1 ewe in all.

Have a pair of purebred icelandics, one of these is the little ewe and she is staying to add to the flock. Her little brother, white with horns, is looking for a new home.

Then there is a pair of half icelandics, a black almost badgerface marked ram and a white ram, both now wethered, are looking for new homes as well. Dad is the icelandic, Mom is a mixed breed, I suspect has Jacob in her because she has dark grey spots on her back in the skin. These babies have an interesting texture to their fleeces. Soft, but curly like the baby icelandics.

Then a pair of black, now wethered, ram lambs of mixed breeding, some Down and some Lincoln in the background. Fleece has a Down feel to it, lots of springiness.

And lastly another set of black rams with lots of Down/Loncoln in them as well. They have a stronger fleece then the black pair above.
All of the lambs, except the Icelandic ewe, are for sale.

The Icelandic ram can be registered. He is priced at $300 no papers or $400 with papers.

The other lambs are priced at $200 each, no papers with any of them. All lambs are ready for new homes late in July 2010.

The little turkeys, Narragansetts, are growing like crazy. they are still in the brooder unit, but are feathering up fast. Looking at keeping a trio of these as breeders. Now to finish their future home!

There are 2 Blue Eyed White (BEW) angoras, born in April, that will be looking for new homes soon, too. They are registerable ARBA. There will be 2 more litters of mixed colours to be born yet. Expect a mix of BEW, Vienna-marked (VM) and maybe a few showable solid coloured Angoras in those litters.

Bunny prices are $90 for BEW, $75 for solid colour showables and $50 for VM or unshowable wooler grade bunnies. Any shipping costs are the buyer's responsiblity.

Have the second of 3 planned litters of Meat rabbits growing out now.

Have started saving duck, guinea hen and chicken eggs to get into the incubator in the next week, too.

At the Torch
Worked on only a limited number of beads this past month, mainly Easter themed things. Little chicks, a duck, couple of egg shaped beads decorated for Easter.
Not alot going here, time is going into other things now...

With the Pliers

Still working on lots of chainmaille. Want a new lanyard for the day job, so that is getting picked at. Also making earring links to higlight future lampwork beads.

In the Mill
Now we have hit the hotspot of activity!!!
The card and picker are here. In fact I have run a few lots of my own fibres through them for personal use at the moment. Very pleased so far with the results.

Have the water system almost installed into the shop for washing the fleeces. Holding tank for wastewater is in, water heater is in, water lines are roughed in...we are waiting for the heated water line we need to avoid winter freeze ups for the supply line from the house to the shop to arrive and we have to pick up the wash tubs this weekend. Once those bits are here we can finish hooking up the water system, washers, water heater and then we can get serious about fleece processing. Yes, we will do custom pocessing once all is in place, till then, to get me started we picked up 200 pounds of fleece from the premium fleece division of the Wool Grower's Co-op, that will be processed into diz pulled roving and spinning batts. Some of the fibre will be left the natural white, grey or black colour of the fleece and some will be dyed or overdyed either by immersion or handpainting as the urge strikes me. I may offer custom dyeing eventually, but for now I am looking at just dyeing my own colour ranges for resale.

For more the details on this see the Custom Milling page on the website; http://www.fireandfluff.com/.

Eventually I will have lots of stuff up for sale on the website, through our Etsy store (wwwfireandfluffcom), an Artfire store and an Ebay account. The last 2 have yet to be created...only so many hours in the day!

I think that pretty much gets us up to where we are now...so here are some pictures to enjoy!