highlights from the weekend

this is actually about 4 blog posts rolled into one, but as you may have noticed, i have not been very good about sitting down to my computer and getting things logged in. life happens around here faster than i can type, it seems! so in a whirlwind post, here are a few pictures and highlights from our weekend..

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i recently came in contact with a local alpaca breeder while trying to find a shearer for our alpaca. we had a nice visit about raising such interesting animals and i mentioned that since we lost our llama last year, i was concerned that she didn't have another friend of her own kind to hang around with. sheri remembered that comment and called me last week when she decided to sell her gelding. i had to do a bit of negotiating with mark, but i decided to bring him home. he has got the softest fluffiest fibers! isn't he cute?!

meet "Thorn".

i spotted this carding table at the alpaca farm and snapped a picture. it is a frame with a bottom of wide screen. it allows you to sort through your fleece and fibers while the dirt and vegetable matter fall out. i am hoping to convince someone to build one for me!

another opportunity came our way in the form of a free rabbit! an english spot rabbit to be precise. B is delighted with her new friend. she named her "Violet".

B learning some tips on raising english spot rabbits



a bunny farm

my new friend sheri, from the alpaca farm gave me these pumpkin blossoms with instructions to prepare them like morel mushrooms. that is to say, lightly breaded and sauteed in butter with a little salt and pepper. i love trying new things!

the weaving and spinning guild held a color/dye workshop this weekend with abi hutchison teaching and demonstrating some techniques for hand painting yarn, roving, and warp. what a really neat time we had experimenting with colors and working on ideas that will fit the theme of the aurora borealis. what an incredible inspiration in nature to use for a workshop on color, don't you think?

roxie's cheviot roving

dyed in a progression of colors: yellow sun, spruce, emerald, sky blue, and brilliant blue.

i am really looking forward to spinning this!

everyday gift: new friends

stopping by woods...

flocked trees

whose woods are these,

i think know,

his house is in the village though.

he will not see me stopping here

to watch his woods fill up with snow...

a view of the snowy landscape

on the heels of a long Christmas break from school, the kids got another day off last week because of snow. although i am already wishing for spring, i can not help but marvel in this winter wonderland. i love how quiet it is after the snowfall, the trees all trimmed in white, the pastures unmarked by footprints.

"you go first." "no, you go." "i'm not goin' out there!"

what are ya? chicken?!

a view of the back from the creek

the pasture gate

our little junco friend.

he comes frequently to our feeder along with his many friends.

everyday gift: a walk in the snow

scrambled eggs???

the coop at our old house, the fences removed. the girls were accidentally let out of the coop on the morning of the big move. so we had us a little chicken chasin' party to get them all back in the coop. what a fiasco!

the coop being loaded onto the trailer after the the stilts had been cut and the skis attached.

successfully loaded onto the trailer

the chickens takin' a joy ride! LOL!

the coop in its new, temporary location .

and i am happy to report that there was no noticeable decline in the egg count.

everyday gift: adventures in moving

wordless wednesday

everyday gift: a wake-up call

uninvited

the chickens have had a few unwelcome callers this month! after 4 years of keeping laying hens, this is the first intrusion we have encountered. so you can imagine mark's surprise when he tried to move a sitting hen out of the way to collect the eggs and found an opossum hissing at him instead! thankfully, he was not bitten and we are thankful that it was not B collecting the eggs as usual!

this one ventured into the garage and S snapped this picture. although i consider an opossum on the same level as a rat, they are rather fascinating. take a look at his interesting foot!

the barn

i wish we had an old fashioned barn raising where all the neighbors come. the men work like crazy and pull the barn up in a day, the women put out a potluck spread and visit while the children run and play... our barn raising was not quite so romantic, but none the less, we are excited to have our new barn.

stalls for animals

C with his dad by the new barn. this day they were planting our orchard at the future homestead site: 2 pear trees, 2 cherry trees, 10 apples trees (macintosh, red rome, jonathon, honey crisp, and gala) ...if you can call them trees, they look a little more like twigs. it might be awhile before we are baking those pies! i'll post pictures sometime of the new orchard.

rafters

everyday gift: a barn raising

miraculous answer to prayer?

well, we thought for a moment that B's prayers had been answered. we looked out back to see two beautiful paint horses grazing in our pasture. we did a double take. they seemed to appear out of nowhere! B was thrilled! "can we keep them???"

when we got over our shock, we realized they are our neighbor's horses who had escaped their own fence. we closed the gate on our pasture and called to let them know we had their horses corralled. but we chuckled all afternoon over them...

this isn't the first time i've glanced out the window to find a surprise in our pasture. there's the time i saw our new born crea standing on wobbly legs, born to a llama we had only owned a week! and the time we found twin lambs born when we actually thought our rams were fixed. and the time we looked out to see our chickens chasing a mama skunk and her babies into their burrow. and seeing an eagle soar over our farm...

everyday gift: no end to the surprises around here

autumn pleasures

a fall center piece

sugar baby pie pumpkin

making pumpkin puree and roasting seeds


"ewwww. this feels so cool, mom! are you sure you don't want to put your hands in here?!"
B really loved sorting the seeds from the pulp. we will let them dry before seasoning them and roasting them.

our autumn nature table. some of these items were collected recently on our nature walks, others are from our on-going nature collection. we have really been enjoying our fall nature study by jane claire lambert.

there is nothing quite like raking in the wind.

leaf impressions

just a quick 'thank you' to melinda from the fiar boards who inspired this project! :o)
you can check out her blog for instructions.

everyday gifts: enjoying the things that make each season special

harvest

our farmer neighbors are bringing in the corn harvest. we have had a summer with an abundance of rain and the corn grew well. it is now dried out and ready for the harvest.

sun rising on a harvest day

*
we are surrounded by fields and they mark off the seasons in such a profound way. watching the seasons pass on those farm fields is one of the things i love about living in the country. through out the winter the fields will be desolate and barren, with cold snowy winds making drifts across the open space. spring will bring a flurry of activity with plowing and planting. and then summertime we wait and watch the black tilled dirt sprout green, first just a tinge of color, and then seemingly overnight, the fields are overtaken with growth. now it is fall and the cold nights have brought the growth to a halt. the plants have done their job and their fruit is ready to be brought in. each season follows the other in perfect order.
*
and so do our lives have seasons. seasons of cold and loneliness, of new hope and budding faith, of growth and flourishing activity, and of fruitfulness. which season am i in? what lessons or work does God have for me in this particular season of my life? i pray that i would be sensitive to those seasons

"For the Lord your God will bless you in all your harvest and in all the work of your hands, and your joy will complete." Deuteronomy 16:15b

ancient fence line of petrified posts and rusty barbed wire,
marks off country borders



"A man reaps what he sows.
The one who sows to please his sinful nature,
from that nature will reap destruction;
the one who sows to please the Spirit,
from the Spirit will reap eternal life.
Let us not become weary in doing good,
for at the proper time we will reap

a harvest if we do not give up.
Therefore, as we have opportunity,

let us do good to all people,
especially to those who belong to the family of believers."
Galatians 6:7b-10

everyday gift: the season of harvest

farmer's daughter

everyday gifts: a ride on dad's tractor and the smell of freshly mowed grass

putting up the harvest

i usually grab a quick a bite of lunch as i make up a plate for B. that way i can sit at the lunch table with her and read another chapter in our book. right now we are reading Thimble Summer by elizabeth enright. she has such an enjoyable style of writing that makes you close your eyes and imagine that you are there. the timing of a chapter we read last week could not have been more perfect. the description of a country kitchen at canning time made me smile, as i was cutting corn off cobs and cutting beans for freezing, thanks to chris and her green thumb!

here is an excerpt from our reading:

The warm air rang with the sound of saw and hammer. While the men worked on the barn Garnet and her mother had their hands full with the house and garden; for now the garden was yielding in all its abundance. It was hard to keep up with it. When you had finished picking all the beans it was time to pick the yellow squashes, shaped like hunting horns. And when you got through with the squash it was time forthe beans again. And then you had to hurry, hurry and gather the bursting ripe tomatoes from the heavy vines, for canning. Then there were beets andcarrots to be attended to; and after that it was time for the beans again.

"Beans never know when to stop!" said Garnet's mother in annoyance.

Corn was picked everyday; and that was pleasant walking in the rustling good-smelling aisles between the stalks. And the watermelons! Big solid green ones that Garnet thumped with a finger to see if they sounded ripe. And every now and then she dropped one on purpose and it would burst open, cold as a glacier and rosy red. Then she would walk homeward dripping and drooling, spitting out black seeds and feeling fine.

And canning! Oh those weeks of harvesting and peeling and preparing apples, peaches, tomatoes, cucumbers, plums and beans. All day the kitchen smelled like heaven and was filled with steam. The stove was covered with kettles and vats, and upside down on the windowsill stood processions of mason jars full of bright color and hot to the touch.

beautiful beans from chris

i ended up freezing 6 quarts of beans. won't these taste good in the winter when the garden is covered in a blanket of snow?

a meager harvest of roma tomatoes this year, early blight did my tomatoes in. no sauce to can this year, but at least we got a few to enjoy.

everyday gift: the garden's bounty

thank you, chickens!

oh, i love these colors! i think i will take these eggs to the hardware store, have them mix up some paint to match, and redecorate my kitchen...no, really.

i. am. serious.

everyday gift: pale shades of blue, green, and tawny eggs

dad's apple trees

apples are such a wonderful sign of september, like warm sunny days giving way to evenings that have you reaching for a jacket. i have such fond memories of picking apples as a kid with my family. and i have tried to make it a tradition with our family as well. this year we are picking our own apples!

when we first bought our country property, before the barn was even built, my dad bought us some fruit trees: 2 apple trees, macintosh and red delicious, and 1 cherry tree. what a thoughtful gift! it was hard to know where to plant them then. we didn't have everything mapped out quite yet. but we ended up putting them on the back hill. the only problem is, it was just far enough away from the house to put them out of sight and out of mind, as the saying goes. but the little trees held their own against the tall grass that surrounded them and despite the neglect, they kept on growing.


after a few years we got a few apples. then we had a late spring frost when the apples trees were blossoming and so missed another year of apples. i am ashamed to say that we have not paid much attention to them.

but this year we have a wonderful harvest of apples! look at this bushel of macintosh apples! they are beautiful. the other night mark and B when out to pick, if only i had known, you know i would have been ready with my camera! but that's okay. i do love it that mark will spontaneously take one of the kids and have a special time with them.

i was so surprised when they came in with several large buckets full of apples! B was beaming! and i felt as though i had just received the gift all over again from my dad.

But blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord,

whose confidence is in him.

He will be like a tree planted by water

that sends out its roots by the stream.

It does not fear when heat comes;

It has no worries in a year of drought

and never fails to bear fruit.

Jeremiah 17:7-8

***

everyday gift: september apples from dad

recipe for a sweater ~ part 3

step three: scour the wool

gather your supplies.



today i am scouring jericho's fleece. he is a shetland with beautiful charcoal colored wool.

shetland wool has a very soft fiber, ideal for sweaters.

after sorting out the unusable portions of the fleece, i place the wool in laundry bags. this makes it easier to manage as it is moved from wash tub to wash tub.

the wool is submerged in piping hot water with dissolved soap, either orvus livestock soap, or original dawn dish washing detergent (other brands do not effectively cut through the wool's lanolin). the temperature of the water should allow you to put your hands in it, but hot enough that you won't leave them there for long. the wool should be submerged gently, without any agitation, and soaked for 10 minutes or so. it is then moved into a fresh tub of soapy water for another soaking. next it goes through several tubs of rinse, soaking about 10 minutes with each step. the water in each tub should be the same temperature. agitation and a quick change in temperature can cause felting.

after you drain and gently squeeze as much as water out of the wool as you can, put the wool, still in the laundry bag into the washing machine and turn it on the spin cycle. you really should do two at a time so you can balance it. then the final drying time on the rack is very short, especially if you have a warm dry day. i bought this nice big drying rack at a yard sale. mark bought the screens i am using at another yard sale after he caught me taking our screens out of our windows to use on my drying rack. he loves to help me out like that! :o)