Crazy Lady with purple fingers

Happy New Year 2012

2012-01-03T19:03:00.000-08:00

Here goes, hoping between blogger and my laptop I will be able to post, We have had such warm weather and that means wind and more wind, we had a couple bad days with the wind over 140 klm, lost some shingles on the new house and half of a large evergreen broke off. The shingles are only covered on insurance if the wind is under 120 klm. We had quite a strong wind last night but did not hear any shingles taking off so am hoping the guy tarred them down. now are supposed to get bad wind again tomorrow. It is getting so warm am worried about my perennials I brought from the other place. the people that lived here before us had planted trees all around the house but left an opening to the west because of the view and that is where the wind has been coming from.
I was so busy with Christmas markets and knitting orders of socks it was taking ages to get the house straightened out and we seemed to be living out of boxes, and knitting had to get finished before Christmas as they were gifts, plus my mother has been has been in the hospital which is over two hours away from where we live, managed to get down and see her a couple of times. Then the friday before Christmas I woke up with a bad tooth ache, managed to get a dentist appointment and had an abscessed back tooth so was on meds and could not chew anything, am now scheduled next week for a root canal. RH had put the tree up. last year we had bought an artificial tree so he just had to take it out of the box and it was a tree the lights were on, so there it sat until Christmas eve, we finally dug out a few boxes with ornaments in them and we had a decorated tree for Christmas day, the bottom was a bit scarce on decorations but next year all the boxes should be sorted out and I will know where things are. Keep saying to myself....this time next year....things will be better. Here was our tree.

Don't know whether I have ever posted the pictures of some of the needle felted items my daughter M.J. had made and gifted to me, they are beautiful. Am always afraid the cats will think they were made for them.

Blogger is trying my patience, it is only letting me download one picture at a time and does not want me to move them around, am giving up and leaving them where they are. Son T is coming out tomorrow to help sort out our computers and routers etc. so hopefully things will go better after that. Slowly am getting the furniture in it's place, this house is so much smaller so is a challenge fitting things in, once we get one of the bedrooms organized for a computer T.V. room things will start to get into shape, one thing about having the tree up and it seeming so crowded, when I took it down it looked like we had more room. This time next year....this is what I keep telling myself......Now this picture is not an ornament...it is Sheba supervising the taking down of the tree....do you see the halo around her head.....she did not take anything off the tree this year and destroy it......I hope she is not thinking....,next year at this time....I will have more energy.....

Hope everyone had a great Christmas and wishing everyone a healthy New Year!! And here is hoping blogger will be nice and let me post this........

Finally in the new House!!

2011-11-20T23:40:00.000-08:00

Well we are in the house finally and so glad as the weather has really turned cold, it was getting a little uncomfortable in the little holiday trailer. They had scheduled the basement to be finished and the new house moved out the end of September.......well that did not happen...we discovered we had the contractor from hell...do not know where he found some of the guys he sent out to do the work, when they came to work, when they ever finished anything...this is the fourth house we have built and this was the simplest basement and I have never seen such a mess...the only way we finally got it finished so the house could be moved on was to not pay him any more money until things were done. I could write a book on the problems we had with him. This is the house arriving in the yard.

And here it is being moved onto the foundation

And here it sits, will look better when we get the deck built and the stone down around the basement windows but now winter is here that will have to wait until spring, RH built a temporary step up to the back door and that is what we will use for the winter. Right now we are finishing the barn for the llama and alpaca girls and have to pull the shelter we had for them over for the males.

Here we are putting the trusses on the barn, son Tom and Grandson Zach came out to help on a weekend.

I will have to get out and get some new pictures as we have it all sheeted in and ready to put the metal roofing and siding on it. Hoping we get some nice weather so we can finish it, the girls have already moved in, we should have had it finished but spent so much time trying to get the house stuff finished. Now we are in the house we are moving our furniture home from storage...we moved from a large house to this little house and we are trying to fit things in..not easy. Plus...where are all my plants going to live...right now they are crowded into the rooms we were going to use as a spare bedroom and a T.V. computer room. Will work it out somehow!! Well am off to bed, blogger is not co-operating tonight and I am getting tired of fighting with it.

WELL...WE PACKED.....WEMOVED...WE STARTED UNPACKING....THEN WE PACKED UP AGAIN.......

2011-09-01T17:42:00.000-07:00

I has been a while since I posted, we got everything packed up and moved from our old place and moved down the smaller place and started to unpack....but then looked around and this house which was a modular without a basement needed a lot of work and we had to make a decision whether to spend the money doing all the repairs and still having a modular house that is thirty years old and we would have the problem the previous owners had of trying to sell it later on down the road. At the time we got a flyer advertizing our local RTM (ready to move houses) houses that we had already been looking at when we were looking at places to move put all their last years show homes on sale. So......we purchased one of their houses.....we are great recyclers so we recycled the modular home, a young couple who are just starting out took the modular for just the cost of moving it, they had land but no house.

The big problem we had to give a lot of thought to, we had the guy that moves the old house off and the guy that moves the new house come and see how we could manage to do all this moving on and off with out taking down too many trees. The trees when they were young were planted too close together so there were some of the trees that were really suffering, so we managed to take out a few of the bad one's and not feel too bad and hopefully the other trees will enjoy the extra space, when I counted just around the house there were more than fifty, fifty foot evergreen trees, so they were really crowded. The trees were put on the back of the property and they will also be recycled into firewood.

So we moved out to a small holiday trailer..........two of us...two cats and a dog.....litter pan in the tub....cat scratching thing under the table..dog kennel squeezed in between the bed and the wall...laptop...T.V. etc. etc. and all our stuff stored in storage...seacan...garage..most of my plants are in the small room on the side of the garage and are doing surprisingly well!! The african violets were in the holiday trailer but when we had to move into it they moved out to a friends house that is empty at the moment, most of them are doing not bad considering.....RH thought he was doing me a favor and watered them for me......he thinks when you water things you drown them......so there are a few that are struggling.

As the people that lived here before us were moving into a condo they left their outside cat here, well I was more than concerned what would happen when our Jack Russell Maxx met him for the first time plus our inside cat girls like to go out in the morning for a few minutes, what were we going to do.....the resident cat was this big black cat with big yellow eyes. So the first morning we were here out went the dog and here came the cat.......Black Cat looked at the dog and the dog looked at him....then Black cat said "Hi Dog...do you want to be my friend?....and Maxx the dog looked at him and said"O.K." What a relief I tell you. Here they are waiting for Dad to come home. We could not find out what the Black Cats name was so I gave him a new name......Batman!! He keeps the yard and garage free of mice and gophers, what a hunter he is, we are so grateful as we have so much stuff in the garage, so he gets special treats and pats.

At first the house cats would run inside and spit at him through the screen, and then they got braver and would walk up to him and spit in his face...and he would just walk away. And then...Sheba who has a bit of Siamese in her background has started chasing him out of the yard and then strutting back to the house as smart as can be. I have never seen such a mild mannered cat, specially when we were the ones that moved into his space, for some reason he was happy to have animal friends.

Then here is the picture of the house leaving the property, with me holding my breath as I was sure it was going to tumble off the truck but it made it safe and sound, the picture I did not get was the face of poor Maxx, poor little dog as he watched the only house on the place leaving. have promised him we will not move again in his lifetime.
Now they have the basement dug and the footings poured and hopefully if the weather stays nice they will have the forms up for the walls and the cement poured, and when that is all finished it will be time for them to move the new house on. If everything goes good we could be in the house before the end of September. Meanwhile we are starting to build the llama barn.
Now I have been trying to write this post for days but was having trouble with the internet, it would be up then would disappear...now I should not be surprised as RH took the internet thingy off the house just before they put the house on the truck and had to cut the line where it went into the house and then he spiced all the little wires together and taped them good and the internet thingy if now sitting on a lawn chair so we forgive it for being so temperamental. Only thing I have been doing fibre wise is knitting a few socks and fingerless handwarmers. Just got the fibre I carded and pulled into roving before we moved, from the storage place, have to get it weighed out and bagged next week ready for the fall sales. We are hoping for a long warm fall.

Only Nine Days Left!! Almost Finished Packing!!

2011-06-18T00:14:00.000-07:00

I am still here but have been busy packing up the house for the big move. Only have nine more days to get everything ready to go. The weather has helped the packing as it has been raining steady so am not tempted to be outside at all. Have not been that well so it is pack a bit and rest a bit, trying to pace myself. Have been having trouble with my Gall Bladder, why were humans blessed with such a thing if all it does is cause you grief. Ended up in emergency one Sunday and spent the afternoon on a drip getting re-hydrated, now have an appointment with the surgeon this coming Wednesday. Just kept hoping to hold off surgery until we got moved and looks like I will make it. So far so good. Another couple of days and everything will be all boxed up and then I can start doing some cleaning. We have moved a lot of stuff into storage so will not have that much to move on moving day, the hardest thing was to move all my fibre stuff out of my sight, still have not been able to move my spinning wheels and carder......I am afraid it will be in the car with me as I go....same with my sewing machines......is my car large enough......two spinning wheels...my big carder.....four sewing machines.....two cats....one dog.....All my houseplants??........ maybe I should be taking the truck and stock trailer. I think it will take more than one trip. The other problem....moving from a large house to a smaller house....will have to work it out. Good thing is the outside animals can stay here until we get the fences and a barn up.
I have been doing a bit of knitting. Loved this sweater pattern and it only came as a kit with acrylic yarn which I am using. Would like to make it in a natural fibre.

Got the back finished and part of a front, just get the pattern going in my head and then have to set it aside for a bit,

Also have been knitting fingerless gloves, when I knit them for sale I like to just use the rib as it fits more sizes being so stretchy, just finished my fourth pair, in my packing I found a few balls of Kroy sock wool so thought I would knit it up into the fingerless mitts, don't need to follow a pattern so are an easy knit.

Here is one of the flowers on my large Hoya plant, it was just covered with flowers the other day, was so busy with the packing almost missed them, sneaky plant.
Well better get myself off to bed, RH is off to the market tomorrow, yup we are trying to fit the markets into the moving etc. We are really getting too old for all this!!

Another month almost gone!! Have been carding Alpaca fibre and digging in the dirt!!

2011-05-18T23:34:00.000-07:00

I can not believe it has almost been a month since I have posted!! Where has the time gone.....packing up the house to move that is what...how can I have so much stuff!! I am beginning to think that in my life time there is no way I can use all this stuff. I see a lot of garage sales in the future and.......large gift bags for Christmas....and do not say I did not warn you!! Besides sorting and packing things up I have been carding my alpaca fibre like crazy as you know...I just might run out of roving to spin and yarn to knit with and that would be a disaster I tell you. I have got all the white alpaca and llama fibre carded and pulled into roving. Jody wanted to see the process so I took a few pictures and it was hard to take pictures while I took the roving off the drum but here it is

The drum full of fibre

Starting at one side pulling some of the fibre through the diz creating the roving

Almost finished pulling the roving off the drum

And here is my roving ready to spin!! Love the Patrick Green Supercard! now to find the time to get the tan colored alpaca carded with some merino and silk, found I had a bag of tan cashmere (found all sorts of goodies while packing) and I might card a bit of that with the tan alpaca and see how it turns out. Don't know how long it will be before I get my workroom set up so am trying to get as much as I can carded before we move. Plus we will start shearing the llamas and alpacas next week so would be nice to get last years carded, shearing should have been done but with selling this place and finding somewhere else to live and packing time has gotten away from us.
And finally the snow has disappeared and green grass is showing up!! Look what I found in the pasture!! I think this means spring is here finally!!

I could not believe it...Crocus's!! One day they are not there and the next day the fields are full of them! It just amazes me, they are so beautiful, when the sun was just going down when you looked down the hill the crocus were sparkling like jewels. Beautiful!! I spent today potting up the plants I am going to take with me, I have been storing them in one spot in the garden. When I look at my raised beds it is all I can do not to plant them but have to keep reminding myself the people that move in can plant them.
Well am off to bed, had an enjoyable day digging in the dirt in the sun all day today even though knees are aching and feet hurt right now.

Where does the time go!!

2011-04-22T10:41:00.000-07:00

I can not believe that it is already the 22nd of April!! I have lost a couple of weeks somewhere!! But we have been busy, we have had our farm for sale for the last year and never had one call from anyone, we were not in a hurry but wanted to downsize in the future. Well a couple of weeks ago we had a couple of out of province call and were coming to see our place and the same weekend we had another couple phone and want to come out. The second couple wanted to buy so that is what we have been doing, we have been back and forth to the lawyer getting everything signed etc. and then have been madly looking around for somewhere for us to move to. The places we had liked were already sold and the couple we liked the area and the houses as presented on the web but when we went to look at them( pictures are deceiving)....one I think will have to be demolished and the other one had a disaster of a floor plan. We kept coming back to this other place but hesitating as the house had no basement and the question was...can we downsize that much.... but the good thing was there are no neighbors right next door except for the ones in the cemetery across the road from us and I am sure we are not going to have a problem with them because of our animals, might have to make a little suit for our Jack Russell Maxx if he insists on attending funerals. We will have to build barns and put up safe fences but the people that have bought our place have no problem with us keeping our Llamas and Alpacas here until we get fences up. It is going to take some time until I get the garage set up for my work room so this month I will be busy sorting fibre and carding fibre to carry me over until I get a work space.
Meanwhile back on the ranch this is what my garden area still looks like!!! We have had eight inches of wet snow twice lately and the temps have not been that warm so it is not disappearing that fast.

We have never had this much snow out here in April, when we get down off the hill the snow is almost gone but we must have our own weather up here. The little birds have been fighting over the nesting boxes, hope they wait until warmer weather to lay their eggs. have been putting out seed bells for them as they are so hungry, with all the snow cover is hard for them to find food.
As I can not get out in the yard I have been busy carding my Llama and Alpaca fibre, mixing it with different wools. Cleaned up the carder so I could get some white carded, is a job getting all the black and grey fibres out of the carder, so while I have the white run going am going to try to card most of it then work my way down the other colors.

The grey I carded before starting on the white and I mixed some superwash Merino wool with it, the white I wanted to mix superwash Merino and silk with it but I had the Alpaca fibre washed and dehaired at a mill and the alpaca was so soft and fine it broke it down a bit so have carded it with a longer staple wool and it is working out great. mixed some with some BFL I had and then some with some Corriedale wool roving I had, wanted to get the white all carded up but think I am going to run out of wool to mix with it. Although I have some cream colored llama fibre that mixes well with the merino/silk. And...we still have to try to get our animals sheared before we move.......we have a lot of challenges ahead of us......we have done it before but we are a bit older now.

For some reason my Christmas Cactus are still blooming...maybe it could be the snow they see out the windows???

Love this plant as it is the original plant of my Grandmother's and must be well over fifty years old, I better start some new ones from it just incase. The flowers are so beautiful. The other problem when we move is where am I going to put all my plants!!

I also have about twenty-five African Violet plants too, they need to be repotted which means when I am done there will be more, some have formed extra plants in their pots, so glad it is going to be warm when we move.
Have not even had time to wash and block my sweater. Everything should be final of the sale of the place next week so will hopefully get back to the fibre thing as it is going to take some time to dry up for me to get in the flowerbeds and then I better start packing!!!

Here she is.......almost finished...with my Sanity intact...I think??

2011-04-04T16:50:00.000-07:00

Well we had another big snow storm, lots of snow and blowing snow to replace the snow drifts RH had just cleared away so he is at it again but this time the temps are up so snow is wet and heavy. Hopefully this is our last big snowfall!! Am more than ready for green grass and my flowers!!

On the weekend when the snow was coming down and wind howling I decided to just ignore the weather and get the sweater finished no matter what, what a knitting adventure I tell you!! As the gauge they had for the sweater did not work I had to figure out how many inches they got with their gauge and add extra rows as I went along hoping I would have a wearable sweater for someone, is really hard when you are working on so many stitches but I got it finished up to the shoulders and then picked up the stitches to knit all the way around the sweater opening to make the shawl collar and finish down the fronts and cast off and could not believe it almost fit, right now is a bit snug around the hip area but we will see after I get it washed and blocked, I did make it a bit longer than the pattern said so that could be the problem. The pattern was designed to be open with a tie belt but I am going to put a zipper in up to where the shawl collar starts. love the shawl collar. What a great feeling to finish it and see that it all came together!! Just have to get all the ends woven in and get it blocked.I just noticed the picture looks a bit out of proportion at the angle I took it, will have to get a better picture when it is blocked.

At one of the Christmas markets I ordered a yarn pot from a potter who had his table there and I just picked it up the other day and I love it! It works so great, now am not having my ball of yarn rolling all over the place. Used it when I was finishing the sweater. Pot is heavy enough it will not move unless you move it, he put two holes in it so I could put two small balls of wool in it if I was knitting with two colors.....I think...will have to try it.

No flowers outside right now but the African violets in the house are making up for it, could not believe the bloom on this plant, does this mean spring flowers are just around the corner......but then the Christmas cactus also have blooms on them.......who can I believe??????

Sanity Hanging by a Thread!!

2011-03-29T11:16:00.000-07:00

Finally after over a week of can not see in front of your face fog we have sunshine and warmer temps, hope this is a sign spring is just around the corner. When we have fog that thick we have very week internet service or none at all, yesterday we had the sun come out for a bit but our power was off and on so much we had no internet. Now today hopefully everything is working again.
Now to the Gallatin Sweater...........this is where I am now.

I had knit the sleeve without pattern but then decided it was too plain so I ripped it back and put a pattern in then knit what tan wool I had waiting for more that I had ordered, when the yarn came it was a different dye lot so I knit one row of dark brown just incase it would show the difference and now I am ready to knit the white with some pattern in it, now it has pattern in the back and on each front....................I am going to be juggling eight balls of yarn ...............yup....trying hard to keep my sanity!! plus have to figure out how many rows to knit as I am not getting gauge, so I have counted all the rows they knit on the pattern and figured out how many inches they got with their rows per inch etc. etc. hoping I am on the right track, if this sweater fits it is going to be a miracle. If I make this again it will be in pieces, if I had knit this one in pieces I could have completed a front and seen whether it was going to fit rather than do the whole sweater and then find it does not fit. Will be so glad to get it finished!!

Meanwhile have been carding some alpaca fibre and llama fibre and pulling it into roving. The grey is the alpaca and I carded it with some grey superwash merino and the brown is the llama carded with the same grey superwash merino, it is so soft, can not wait to spin it up. Have lots of fibre to card up, love my Patrick Green Supercard!!

This is my kitty T.V. I hung a seed bell right outside the window so the cats can sit and watch the birds, the cats are so brave when they have the glass between them, they sit there chattering at the birds but if I let them outside they are afraid of the birds which is o.k. by me.
Well here is hoping I can post this as I have been having a terrible time getting the pictures onto the site which means my internet is not that fast yet. Hopefully this is goodbye snow and hello spring!!

Spinning and Knitting!!

2011-03-09T13:21:00.000-08:00

The weather has warmed up a bit so have been out in the garage sorting some white llama fibre to wash before sending it to the processors. Fingers were frozen by the time I had enough fibre in the wash bags but got it done as it is soaking in the washer. I wanted to card some fibre down in the workroom but it is so dry down there the fibre is flying all over so thought if I wash some fibre and have it on the rack it will give me enough humidity.
Meanwhile I plyed the singles I finished spinning last night from the roving I got for Christmas from daughter M.J. For the first bobbin I spun I had just divided the roving into two but was getting long stretches of white so the next bobbin I divided the other half of the roving into two before I spun it and the colors worked better, but who knows what it will look like knit up. She has been washed and is now drying. Out of the 220/4oz roving I have 290 yds of yarn, now to look at a few patterns and decide what to knit out of it....thinking of a lacey scarf....will see.

Now onto the Gallatin Sweater..............I managed to find a size six small round needle to knit the sleeves in the round, had to borrow it from something else I was knitting, so got the sleeve knit putting the same pattern as on the bottom of the sweater on the bottom of the sleeve, I had decided to knit the sleeves in the tan color with no more pattern but when I went to wind another ball of tan into a ball found I only had one ball left, not enough tan color to finish the sweater but had a lot of the natural color so knit the remainder of the sleeve in the natural......am deciding whether I like that or not.........finally I went onto Raverly to check and see if anyone else was knitting this sweater and if it was only me that was having problems........17 people knitting the sweater........

Ravelry: Project Gallery for Gallatin Coat pattern by Nina Isaacson everyone is having problems and unless they had ordered more yarn they were short too......so have decided that I will knit up what tan yarn I have and have ordered more of the tan yarn to finish the sweater. It can have a little time out while I am waiting for more yarn. I am also having gauge issues with the rows per inch...and so are other people. I had increased a few rows in the length as I went along for the body but have been concerned with the arm length. I have been making notes as I go along as I really like this sweater and the yarn they used in the kit so would like to knit another one......who knows who this one will fit when I am finished.
I know this is crazy...........but I did control myself...........when the workmen came to replace the shingles on the house yesterday (that the wild wind blew off a couple weeks ago) one of the workmen was wearing a sweater knit with the heavy yarn with neat patterns on it...........I don't know whether it was that it was so cold out.........or I quickly regained sanity...........but I put down my pencil and graft paper and went into the other room............I really wanted to go out and quickly copy the patterns he had on his sweater............What can I say........there are enough stories going around about the crazy lady who lives on the hill...........but you know.....if it had not been so cold out.........

Does this look like Spring to you??

2011-03-05T11:11:00.000-08:00

It looks like Christmas to me!! All my Christmas cactus are in bloom. It is -20 here right now but the sun is shining so you can fool yourself into believing it is warmer. We were supposed to get a warm day during the last week but do not know who got it as we didn't. Hurry up Spring!!

I have the Gallatin Coat from KnitPicks knit up to where the sleeves are supposed to join and then you finish the sleeves as you knit the yokes. The owl chart knit up fast as it was a non-directional pattern, it is just really heavy when you are knitting the back and fronts together, hard on the back. I started a sleeve which is knit in the round on four double points, got the cuff finished and just realized I have to change to size 6mm needles and do not have any in the house (that I can find) so do I continue with the 5.5mm needles or wait until I can get somewhere to buy some 6mm needles, trying to think of somewhere near that would have needles that I do not have to drive over an hour to buy them.......what would happen.....if I just increased a few more stitches to make the gauge....am off to measure the difference in my knit gauge between the 5.5mm and the 6mm needles. I changed the pattern in the sleeves as I think the original pattern is just too busy for me, makes just too much going on in the sweater, so will match the sleeves to the bottom of the sweater past the first pattern knit and then knit in plain stocking stitch in the dark tan. Anyway....that is the plan...will see as I knit along. Off to measure the gauge difference between 5.5mm needles and 6mm needles.

Do I need this stress....isn't the weather enough stress!!

2011-02-27T16:46:00.000-08:00

One more day and then it is the month of March....please let the weather get warmer...hopefully spring is not far away. It has been so cold, we had a warm day last week...or was it the week before?...I am hanging onto my sanity by a thread!! O.K....the warm day...the wind arrived...not a breeze...nope could not have a nice breeze...hurricane force winds!! First we heard something whopping on the north side of the house.......soffiting is loose on the peak of the roof....then the noise on the roof and there go the shingles...into the siding on the back of the garage...damaging the siding...well we better phone and leave a message with the insurance agent so we will be first in line to have the appraiser out. He came out and now we have to wait until warmer weather so we get the repairs done. We went to town the next day and there were trucks and trailers in the ditches all along the highway.

I had purchased this sweater kit from Knitpicks before Christmas and decided to get it out and knit on it taking a break from the colorwork hats. I do not know if it is just me but I have a terrible time with their patterns. The sweater, they call the Gallatin Coat has a cute shawl type collar which I loved when I seen it, the sweater is knit all in one, no side seams which is O.K. but with the heavy yarn it is really heavy to manage while you are knitting. They had a chart with a deer to knit around the body and as I wanted to use some of my Alpaca yarn to knit another sweater later I thought I would chart out a llama and knit it into this sweater. so charted out the llama and knit a swatch and could see where a couple stitches should be changed. . O.K this is great and away I went with my knitting............the first llama faces the front.....then the second llama is reversed to face center back........and then the next llama is knit facing the llama on the back...and then the next llama in the pattern is turned around again to face the front.........now is it my brain or what...this is bloody hard to keep track of!!!!!! Now if the fronts and back were knit separately this would not be that bad but when you have 146 stitches on your needle in thick heavy yarn.... and you are trying to manage four separate small balls of yarn for each pattern along each row......now I do not give up very often but after knitting and ripping back I have finally decided my life is too short and my back is aching....so have decided I love owls and they have a chart for an owl that is not directional so that is what is going on the sweater!! And I knit the first two rows without a problem. I am not giving up on the llamas and am plotting out how I will knit them into a sweater as I work on knitting the owls into this one. One solution would be to knit the sweater body in three pieces or another thought just came to me...maybe the solution would be to put llamas on the front and another non-directional pattern on the back. I also had a problem with the chart for the band across the bottom and I finally added one more row to the chart and charted out my own pattern. now I read ahead to the directions on how they knit the sleeves......the sleeves are knit in the round....and then are attached and knit up with the front and back yokes.......we will see when I get to that point. I normally do not have a problem following a pattern...so is it the pattern.....or is it the senior moment of my life...I am blaming it on the winter weather we have had this year....that is my story and I am sticking to it!!

There she is Finished...we will say good bye to her!!

2011-02-10T16:19:00.000-08:00

O.K. here she is all finished and blocked!! Before I washed and blocked her "Majesty" Miss Andean Chullo Hat she just seemed too long and bulky but when washed and blocked she settled down a bit and hung down nicely at the back, before that she could not decide what she wanted to do and ended up just sticking half way inbetween, but still am thinking I might take a pattern out, but love them all the way they are....we will see on the next one, but for sure will not make the I-cord so long on the top of the hat before the tassel is put on. The thing I will change is the ear flaps, they are too long so will just shorten them up by one pattern. have already started another hat and have been trying to tighten up the stitches around the outside of edge of the ear flap as it was hard to attach the i-cord properly. This time I will organize the pattern instructions a bit and hopefully not have to do so much ripping back with this one. I had so much trouble with

matching the yarn to the colors on the chart.....the color for the deep purple looked navy on the chart, think I have it sorted out. so she has had enough time on the blog so will get at something else!! But this stranded knitting is addicting so will keep a project on the go taking residence on the end of the table ready to suck me in. I also got the yarn in the natural shades of brown, tan and creams to knit the hat and I better get organized on that one I tell you, if I thought all these colors were a problem....the natural shades could be a nightmare.

Now to sorting fibre to go to the mill to be made into roving, this is Black Mommy Alpacas fleece and it did not matter what light I took a picture under it turned out this grey color and it is black! black! I was trying to get a picture of the crimp in it but was hard, she has the softest crimpy fibre, now the decision is what male to bred her to this spring so her baby has this same great fibre. All her fibre is washed and cleaned of debris and in a bag ready to go. now onto the white llama fibre. Warm weather has moved in so I can get out to the workshop and do some sorting and get it washed up too. I am sure I washed up some llama fibre last fall ready to ship....or was I just dreaming I did?? Will have to go have a look. should have had this all done and ready to go but with all our super cold weather there was no way to work out in the shop. Hoping this is the beginning of spring...I am dreaming aren't I???

Almost finished my Alpaca Hat!!

2011-02-05T11:00:00.000-08:00

We had a few nice days and are now back to overcast and snow, spring can not come soon enough, although spring means working outside and I do not have all my fleece sorted to go to the mill to be processed. Did get a large bag of Alpaca away to the local mill in between snowstorms but have to get the rest ready to go, this mill likes to have it washed once so better get the washer full this morning of some black alpaca from Black Mommy, she has beautiful fibre with a nice crimp to it. Now baby Bella, am wondering is my life is long enough to get her fibre ready to be processed it is so full of stuff (nice way of saying crap). It will be shearing season again before I know it so better get last years tended to.

Now the "Hat" almost finished, am just knitting the I-cord finish around the bottom which is sucking up a large portion of my time right now, I think a person has to figure out how to do a more stable edge for the bottom as this yarn is a bit fragile, will have to think on that for the next hat. now this hat is really long....I mean really long....I think it is meant to flop over and hang down at the back, the ear flaps also seem too long. Someone on Ravelery has made this hat and she said she would take some charts out when she knit it again as she found it way too big and I agree with her but for my first one I thought I would follow the pattern as it was and then make changes when I knit the next. now my views on how the pattern was written, they give you pattern choices to put in each section, love the chart patterns but....and this might be just me...the pattern is so fragmented...there is a bit on one page... then you have to go searching to find what comes next and then find you have missed some directions and have to rip back, plus I would cut little snippets from the yarn and tape them next to the color squares as you are always getting mixed up. I have a hard time knitting when I am in a state of confusion on what comes next and have to search for it...so will be writing the pattern out the way I want to knit it for the next hat. I know I keep saying the next hat but I will be knitting another one because I love knitting stranded knit and really if I had kept track of the time I spent actually knitting it was not that long, could not really knit at night as it was hard to see the color changes but I think if I organized it properly with the color snippets that would not be a problem. This is the first time I have knitted I-cord right onto an item and they have you knit the I-cord for three inches for the tassel on the earflap then you increase a few stitches and leave half the stitches on a holder and continue around knitting the I-cord along the bottom and then when you get to the end you graft the stitches to the stitches on the holder. (Hope you understand this) what I was a bit miffed at was they did not say anything in the instructions about how to proceed when you got to the second earflap (or maybe I have not found it yet) but I just knit off to a I-cord to match the one on the other earflap after I had increased and left half the stitches to be picked up to continue around. So that is where I am now and hopefully will finish it today. Am actually looking forward to starting on another one.if this one is just too large for me to wear.....I will stuff it and use it as a decorative cushion!! While I was knitting the "hat" I also knit five pair of slipper socks and another hat I had started a bit ago. Well am off to finish the I-cord and get the directions organized for another one.

O.K. Finally got the heads on the Alpacas!!

2011-01-25T23:47:00.000-08:00

I have been sorting fleece to take to the mill so have not knit much on the hat, it just kept sitting there on the table tempting me. Have the fleece sorted and bagged ready to go so could knit a bit tonight. Finally knit the heads on the Alpacas after they sat headless for days, they really are strange looking Alpacas...but they have heads. Then I am knitting on another pattern, they give you choices of different pattern charts to use so chose this one but now am thinking it is almost too dark......although if the bottom was not rolled up it is dark too...soooo....the decision is....should I rip it out and put in a different chart or use the same chart and use different colors...or this would be the better choice....just continue on.....I think there is enough yarn included in the kit to be able to make three hats by changing the colors around so...I think I am going to continue on and not rip out. In a way I wish they had not had all these different patterns for a person to chose from, if they just gave you a pattern to knit for the first hat....of course this is assuming that a person will knit more than one hat......and then had patterns you could use if you did not like what they had chosen. Hopefully you are following all my giberish...it is after midnight and my brain is starting to shut down. When I finish the last two rows on this pattern (assuming after I have slept on it I have not decided to rip it out) I only have one small pattern to go and then I start decreasing while I am doing the crown pattern. I am enjoying knitting this hat and think I will be starting another one as soon as this one is completed. I did get the yarn in natural colors to knit some hats from this pattern too, and if I thought some of the colors were close together on this hat......can only imagine how confusing it is going to be in the natural shades. Next time in the colors and natural colors I will really make sure I organize my colors better before I start...and I will also read the pattern instructions this time...almost finished the hat and when I read all the instructions I noticed that I was supposed to knit two rows of color "A" between patterns. Well better figure out who is color "A" before I start the next hat......am off to bed...will be making decisions in my sleep I am sure.

I am still working at the hat!!

2011-01-21T23:15:00.000-08:00

I am still knitting at the hat, actually looking at the picture now I have knit quite a bit, once I get the big alpacas knit I only have two small patterns to knit and then I start on the crown which is in pattern while I am decreasing, there has been a fair bit of ripping back which takes as long to rip as it does to knit, not because of stitches being wrong it is mainly because I get carried away and forget to change the back ground color which would not be bad and I could leave it but the back ground for the larger Alpacas each color is four rows and if I have two many or too few it really shows up. one thing I should have done and will do with the next hat (did you hear the phase...next hat...someone please lock me up) is cut pieces off the yarns and match them to the colors before I start as they do not match the colors on the charts and a few in the ball are really close in color and it isn't until you have knit a row or two you realize it was not the color you should have used. so there has been a bit of ripping back. Don't you love those little pink Alpacas!! They are so cute. can only knit so long on it or my eyes go crossed. So in between I have been knitting socks. I find the cleaning and cooking etc. just takes too much time away from my knitting!! Am off to bed. Thanks everyone for the great comments.

What Have I been doing??

2011-01-20T10:52:00.000-08:00

Can not believe it has been that long since I have posted....what have I been doing...besides suffering from this sinus thing left over from the cold I had at Christmas. We are finally getting some warmer temperatures but with it wind and blowing snow, we have had a couple days of welcome sun. RH had just dug a path for the female llamas and alpacas to get from the barn out to pasture and after today will have to do it again, although it is warm enough he can maybe get the bobcat going and not have to do it by hand, girls were sure happy to out sunning themselves. O.K. this is what I have been up to

I did get some of the roving spun, I had separated it into two lengthwise but after spinning for a while am thinking I should have split it a couple more times as I am getting long stretches of white but will keep spinning this bobbin the same, had weighted out the roving so I hopefully will have close to the same on yardage on both bobbins and am thinking of splitting the other length for the second bobbin a couple more times before I spin it and see whether it gives me a bit more color. We will see. Should have had it all spun but got carried away knitting other things......

Made up a couple of kids hats and a few kids mitts, am not a mitt knitter but decided to just get at it and become a mitt knitter, there are so many other more interesting things to knit, maybe if I put some pattern or colorwork in the mitt knitting it would become more interesting....hmmmm we will see, made up one of the sheep hats but yarn was a little thicker than I usually use so might have to rip it back a bit on the top and shorten it a bit, had not made one for ages as the last session of doing a couple large orders of these hats I could not even look at the pattern for a while. I found a pattern for crocheted hats so crocheted a few to see how they turned out, had planned on making a childs hat but it turned out larger than they said so fits an adult so will have to do a bit of adjusting. Also crocheted a few flowers, trying to decide whether to put flowers on the hats. Then I got at what I have been wanting to knit........

Have not knit this much colorwork for years but loved this hat, some of the colors are so close I end up knitting along not seeing that the color has changed, took me ages to knit the ear flaps, don't know how many times I ripped out and started again. I ordered the kit from Knit Picks and the yarn in the kit was Palette which is a fingering weight and is very loosely spun which at first I did not like but now am realizing why it is loosely spun as when you are knitting

with the yarn and moving it around to change colors you put more twist into it. Now if I was a picker when I knit and not a thrower it would go a lot faster....that is another thing I am going to learn to do, colorwork would knit a lot faster. Right now have to rip a bit back as I should not knit at night when I need to change colors, knit a couple of rows before I noticed there was a color change, some of the colors are so close at night it is hard to see when they change....now I had considered just leaving it as the color is really my choice.....right??.....but after sleeping on it have decided I will rip the rows back and reknit it and smack myself a couple of times to remind self to check the color before starting a row. I find the hardest part is starting a new pattern, once I make sure the first row of pattern is correct you can follow it and it goes fast. It is addicting, I have it on the end of the kitchen table so I do not have any cat help and I keep getting sucked over to it when I should be doing something else....pots are boiling over on the stove...dogs are left on the step wanting to come in etc. etc.......and I really have to get the fibre together to take to the mill or I will not get it in to the alpaca run they do and I will have to wait until fall. Well off to get at the rest of the day...........will try not to spend the whole day knitting on the hat.

Finished my socks!!

2011-01-06T23:51:00.000-08:00

Here are the finished socks, I love them, they are my favorite colors!! Almost hate to wear them...maybe I will frame them and hang them on the wall........no I will wear them and have toasty feet, weatherman says cold weather arriving again. Meanwhile have started another project, one of my little sheep hats but I think I have sockitis as I have knit so many of these hats and here I am making mistakes and then ripping out, but it has been a while, I think the problem is I should enlarge the pattern a bit so I can read it while knitting and" of course" my problem could not be this cat that insists on sitting on me while I am knitting.....and the angrier I get at her the suckier she looks at me all the time purring, she has made me a little crazy tonight.

Now my next project is going to be spinning this roving my daughter M.J. gave me for Christmas and it also from The Yummy Yarn Studio. Love it, can not wait to see what it looks like spun up. Spent the day yesterday putting all the Christmas stuff away and sorting shelves in the storage room, now have things piled in the middle of the floor to sort and deal with before I can get at the spinning. Have to discipline myself. No spinning until things are cleaned up. Well am off to bed, this day is done!! And the cat is not coming with me!!

First Post of the New Year!! 2011!!

2011-01-03T01:09:00.000-08:00

Wishing everyone a great New Year! Managed to get all the knitting finished for customers before 2011!! Was a challenge as I came down with a nasty cold just before Christmas Day. Still having some sinus problems but am on the mend. This year we decided to get an artificial Christmas tree which was another challenge, I have never seen such ugly things posing as trees in my life, had about given up when we came upon this decorated tree in the store they were using as a prop and it was just the one I wanted, I was getting ready to start taking the decorations off and claiming the tree as mine when a clerk came along and said they had others exactly the same for sale and still had a couple in stock. Boy I sure checked it out good to make sure it was the same before we brought it home and the best part is they sold it to us for a fraction of the reg. price.............so we have a forever Christmas tree. It has the lights on it so did not have to do the light stringing, only thing we have always had colored lights and these lights were clear but next year we will replace the bulbs. Even the cats had a look at it and said......poo...not real...so can not make a mess with pulling the needles off...so they left it alone. That was really good news!! so tomorrow I will take it down and get everything put away for another year. Turn all the battery powered automated things on for the last time, then out with their batteries and tuck them away.

Daughter Marijane made this beautiful pin felted character for her father for Christmas, I love it!! Look at the facial expression!

Look what we found when we looked out the window Christmas morning, is this our partridge in the pear tree sitting on the roof of the truck????? It just sat there calmly looking around.
What did I do New years Eve...besides watching a couple of movies....started knitting on a pair of socks for myself, of all the socks I have knit over the last few years I have never knit a pair for myself, so am starting the year out right...I am going to have socks!! I bought this skein of yarn at the guild sale, dyed by The Yummy Yarn Studio, loved the color!! Just finished the first sock tonight....I have a hand knit sock!! Now to get another one knit!

Now am off to bed,,,it is 2:00 A,M. but was determined to finish the sock!!

Almost Finished knitting Orders!!

2010-12-20T15:31:00.000-08:00

Well have finished all the knitting orders I had to have done in time for Christmas, have two pair of socks to knit and would like to have them finished too but no panic over them, almost have one pair finished and they should have been finished but my right wrist is giving me grief, can not use it today and can not find my brace, it has been at least ten years since I needed it so who knows where it is, so knitting is on hold for a bit. Did some carding of alpaca fibre adding some merino silk to it

And got some soft fluff, which I spun into yarn

And then knit into a pair of fingerless mitts

which completed the order for fingerless mitts

Also had a last minute order for a pair of slipper socks with a leather heel sewn on for an elderly fellow for his wife, he has been a good customer, he loves my socks so got them knit up and off to him. Forgot to get a picture before they left the house. Now to some house cleaning, it gets scary when the dust bunnies are big enough you mistake them for a cat, have had to corral them with the dust mop until I had time to get at vacuuming. Have to get the baking done for the kids and grandsons goody bags, also have to make some plum jam for them, put the plums in the deepfreeze this summer, now to get the jam made up. Sister Jean has been baking up a storm and gave us some of her baking for Christmas which is the best gift ever, have hidden it away from the other person in the house, keep telling him it is a Christmas gift so he can not have it until Christmas Day. Still have not sent my Christmas cards or even written my Christmas letter but then people are used to getting it late, they would be too shocked to get them early, has never happened. We have really had winter here, cold...cold...everything looks so white and clean out there, weatherman says it is supposed to warm up a bit starting tomorrow....hope he is right. Well off to vacuum and decide what to have for supper, had made up a big pot of soup but it is almost done.

Markets Done!! But Still Knitting!!

2010-12-08T23:38:00.000-08:00

All our markets are over for this year although I am still finishing up orders, hopefully by the end of this week I will be finished them. Last market was not the greatest, we were so crowded together in the area we were in it was hard to even move...even the customers. My allergies to dust and all the perfumed items almost did me in, Friday was bad as they were open until 9 pm as they had a Santa Parade and it was so cold out and having to drive home in a cold car.....not good!! I had finally decided on what decoration to put on my felt hats and managed to get flowers crochet and sewn on four of the hats, took them really not knowing if customers would be interested in them. Well the four sold right away and people wanted to buy the flowers I had made, of course I had not made any flowers for sale that were not on the hats. Sat. I took the other three hats and yarn to make the flowers and as fast as I made and sew the flowers on the hats they were sold. A person just never knows what will appeal to customers, for some reason the way the hats were made they pretty well suited everyone, people would say they did not look good in hats and then they would try them on and never want to take them off, I really liked the pink hat and thought I might keep it......well it was the first one to sell. Will have to make some more after Christmas.

So it is just knit...knit...knit around here and my right wrist is swollen and sore which I am trying to ignore. I know I am knitting too fast but it is hard to slow down as I want to get everything finished and off to customers so I can get my baking and house cleaning done up and get organized for Christmas around here. Well off to bed, we have had nice sunny weather for the last few days but is to get colder tomorrow. Cats had been sleeping but right now are running around doing something.......good grief... they have pulled the stuffing out of their toy and it is all over the floor....now Grey Kitty is carrying around the stuffing-less toy talking to it like it was her baby. Better go clean things up and hope they also realize it is bedtime!!!

Knitting and Knitting and Knitting.................

2010-12-02T00:02:00.000-08:00

Am late in posting, our market on the weekend was so successful I do not have many knitted items left so that is what I have been doing is knitting and then some more knitting. So far have a pair of socks and a pair and a half of fingerless mitts, hopefully will finish the other pair tomorrow. Have a Dr. appointment tomorrow but RH has to go into town too so he can drive and I will knit while he drives. Did not get the hats decorated to put on the table last week so will have them done for the coming market, the market this coming weekend is two days, thank-goodness I have enough yarn and fibre to cover the table. Friend and partner Gaby is also at home knitting up a storm, she knits the mitts for our tables and she sold many of them. Took a picture of our table while it was well stocked, Gaby is behind the table.

Had dyed up a few pots of wool for the market and of course forgot to take pictures until I had everything packaged up ready to go. Took a picture of what I had left after the market, I dyed enough to cover the coming market thank-goodness. Should have dyed a couple more pots but this will have to do.
I have been working on a website and hopefully in the new year I can get the fibre page up, just have not had time lately, am really looking forward to January when things slow down a bit. Well my website such as it is is out there on the web but I have not advertised it as yet so it was a surprise when this lady came over and said she had been on my website and read my blog!! That was so super. They had the tables across from us, she had beautiful scarves on her table and her husband creates beautiful pottery . Evaneseenee Gallery and Art Studio    I am getting him to make me a special pot...which I will share with you later.
     Well it is after midnight here and I think my eyes are saying it is bedtime!! And so is my brain!!

Spinning and Dyeing and Admiring the Cactus!!

2010-11-25T00:16:00.000-08:00

Stayed up late last night and finished spinning and plying some more of the llama/merino/soy silk and here she is ready to be washed and hung to dry. Am having problems with my electric spinning wheel and suspect it could the fluctuation in the power with the cold weather, have not had a problem before so my spinning is not what it should be but it will look rustic and handspun....right. Is really hard to keep an even twist when it slows down and then speeds up. It is warming up right now so hopefully will not have to worry about it, should really do some spinning when it is warmer and see if that is the problem........hmmm....while I am writing this another thought has come to mind....could it be the electric cord I am using is too long.......all the cords were taken for use at the Christmas market a few weeks ago and do not know what happened to them so in desperation I brought this really long cord in to plug the spinning wheel in....and it is really long. RH did buy a couple new short cords the other day so will try replacing the long one tomorrow, that might solve the problem.

Washed up some of the Alpaca sock yarn I had spun at the mill to get the spinning oil out of it, have to get that reskeined tomorrow . Am slowly...slowly...getting things ready for Sat. Although I really did not feel like it I managed to get some yarn dyed tonight, will try to get a few more skeins dyed tomorrow, did not help that the other person in the house wanted help with the computer when I was in the middle of it, I prefer not to have any humans in the house when I am dyeing, is enough to have the demands of the house animals, to them I can just say go! go!

I am so busy with all this market stuff I am missing the blooming of the Christmas cactus, the sun was out today so opened the blinds to give them some sun, the way they are blooming they will be finished by Christmas.

The white Christmas cactus is my Grandmother's, when she moved to the lodge it moved to my house, this plant has to be at least forty years old or older, can not remember when she got it, it is a very large plant.

Now this Cactus was gifted to me by my Son and Daughter-in-law because it was not happy at their house and it was always all pink...look at it...now it has some white blooms..and they are on the same branches as the pink blooms, it is like Grandmothers cactus is moving in on the other cactus.

Now this Cactus was my mother-in-laws and it came to me when she passed away, it looked like I was going to lose it, it was all wilted so I repotted it about a week ago and has it ever perked up, I don't think the soil was holding the water anymore...and look at it...it was all pink too... and now it has white blossoms on it. When I find a minute will have to read up on Christmas Cactus and see if I can find out why this is happening. The cactus are so beautiful but sooooo messy. The temperature is getting warmer outside and with it the wind is coming up, now they are warning us of blowing snow, hope it does not get too bad as the feed truck is supposed to arrive and we are scraping the bottom of the barrel so need it bad. Well off to bed!! Tomorrow is another day!!

We are in a Deep Freeze!!

2010-11-22T23:31:00.000-08:00

Knit a pair of fingerless mitts from the llama..merino..soy silk and almost have another mitt knit, have to get spinning so I have enough yarn, will wash and block this pair tomorrow. Washed up twenty skeins of yarn today and have them hanging drying. I like to wash the spinning oils out of the yarn I get spun at the mill, makes it so much nicer to knit with.

Had knit and felted these hats a while ago but was not happy with the shape of them so put them in mesh bags and put them back through a short wash and rinse in the washer. Then tugged and stretched and finally got them into shape, they turned out pretty good, will let them dry and then crochet some flowers or something to decorate them, have seven of them.

Went through all my balls of yarn trying to find some colors that would go well with the hat colors, might try a few pin felted flowers, will see, I better get myself organized or am not going to get everything finished. Christmas market is this Saturday. Tomorrow really should get a couple of dye pots going, only have one skein left from the last market, can not leave it too late or they will not be dry in time. Do not think frozen yarn will sell too well. Right now the temperature is -30.8 and it is cold out there, thank-goodness no wind. Weatherman says it should warm up a bit by the end of the week and hope he is right. When it is this cold you do not want to go far, specially when you live up in the hills like we do, is a real trek to get down to where you have cell phone reception, not good if you have car trouble. Well off to bed, dog actually went out to do his business...mainly because he knows that is the only way he will get a biscuit.

Another Pair of Socks Finished and Yarn Ready to Go!!

2010-11-20T10:42:00.000-08:00

Well here is how the llama yarn turned out, not plyed as tight as I like but after her ordeal she is looking not too bad, should make a pair or two of rustic looking fingerless mitts, when I was spinning this roving up I did not know whether I was going to like it but after I plyed it and set the twist I love it, it is sooo soft.......which is surprising after all it went through at my hands I tell you!! Each ply spun on different spinning wheels...then getting into a tangled mess when the bobbin on the spinning wheel fell apart......she is looking pretty good!

Finished another pair of socks last night and got little miss llama roving wound into a ball and although I could barely keep my eyes open (won't mention what time this was) I cast on and got started on the fingerless mitts, could not wait to see how she was going to knit up and am not disappointed, although I only have a few inches knit it is looking good. Have already started spinning some more of the llama/merino/soy silk roving and will see how it looks done properly....well I hope done properly...who knows...!!
Well have a loaf of bread on the go in the bread maker, I enjoy making it by hand, you can start your day out right by taking any frustrations out on dough kneading but have decided to use my bread kneading time knitting. RH just informed me last night his wool gloves I knit him last year are toast and he needs a new pair...it never ends......better get a new pair started.....but want to knit on the fingerless mitts a bit first..then maybe I will cast on for the gloves.......It is -22 outside with a breeze so who knows what the chill factor is....the animals have not come out of the barns.....so is a good day to stay inside and knit!!

Poor Little Rosebud and the Spinning Mess!!

2010-11-19T00:00:00.000-08:00

Here is what poor little rosebud looks like this morning, snow and blowing snow all night until noon today, drifts all over the place. finally the sky cleared and the sun came out for a bit but tonight it is -22.6. It just got too cold too fast.

Last night as I was spinning all of a sudden my electric spinning wheel just did not seem to have much power.....I thought maybe the power was low....hoping that was the problem and not the motor!! Off I went to make some supper and this morning I went down to see if I could see what the problem was, I had oiled the shaft but maybe that was the problem and I would oil it again.......while I was trying to take the bobbin off......there was my problem...the end had come off the bobbin!! O.K. breathing a sigh of relief that it was not the motor I took the bobbin off and started to wind the yarn onto a paper roll on my yarn winder.....and ended up with a real mess!! I finally had to cut the mess out and managed to get the rest of the yarn wound off the bobbin, RH came in from doing chores just as I was wishing I had a few more hands and lent a hand in getting things under control. Now I had a bobbin spun on my lendrum of this llama...merino...soy silk mixture and thought I would spin a bobbin on the electric spinner and then ply them together, hoping that it would ply up reasonally......now throw this messing about in the mix!! HopefullyI would end up with something I could use!!

Well got it plyed up and here is the result, did not look too bad after all this poor yarn had gone through. She has had her bath and is hanging on the shower rod drying. Tomorrow will tell the tale but I think it will turn out O.K. I will make some fingerless mitts with it. Will spin some more of the roving tomorrow and hopefully get it to the plying stage without all the drama. Got the bobbin ends all glued on and hope they hold. Well the day is done and am off to bed.....tomorrow is another day!!

Well...winter has hit with a Bang!!

2010-11-17T23:59:00.000-08:00

We went from a nice warm day to instant winter in a few hours and the really bad part was it rained first. I took this picture just before dark yesterday and it has snowed all day today, so we have quite a bit of snow and also had some wild wind and power outage overnight. Temps also dropped so it has been cold, animals were out grazing yesterday but did not see anyone out today, they stayed in the barn and munched hay. RH had a dentist appointment in the city yesterday but canceled it thank-goodness. I just stayed tucked in the house knitting socks and spinning some yarn for fingerless mitts hopefully will finish spinning and get get it plied, ready to start knitting tomorrow .

Since I took the picture of these socks I have finished them and knit one more sock and started its mate, hope to have at least four pair knit for the first market. Can not believe it is Thursday tomorrow........week is going to be gone before I know it!! Well.......time to put the needles away and off to bed, weatherman just said snow ending tomorrow but it is staying cold..............not used to this!! Little Miss Rosebud was wrong about us skipping winter....she is sitting out there with a covering of snow......trying to be brave.......

Slowly making Progress!!

2010-11-13T10:39:00.000-08:00

I bought this scratching thing for the cats, Was hoping Grey Kitty would use it instead of a post on the oak railing and it has worked...she has claimed it as you can see. It came with a pkg of catnip which she loves, if I forget to put a bit of catnip on it before I go to bed at night you should hear the howling. Now I thought both cats could use it but Sheba thinks it is beneath her to use it or even like the catnip and if Grey Kitty plays with the feather thing which has a bell on it, it annoys Sheba and she has to go smack Grey Kitty. They are just like human children.....

Finally have the sock order finished, all washed blocked and ready to go. Hopefully I can manage to get a few more pair knit in time for the next craft market, people have been complaining as I have no socks on my table......I am knitting as fast as I can!! Have to get some more fleece sorted and off to the mill to get some more sock yarn spun up before I run out. Quite nice out today so will try to get out to the garage and get some sorting fibre done. Took time to vacuum the house and repot one of the Christmas cactus that was looking pretty sad, don't think the soil in her pot was absorbing the water anymore, even though she looked like she was on her last legs she had flower buds coming out. I have four big plants and the other three are starting to bloom, can not get over how long a Christmas cactus lives, the one I got that was my Grandmothers must be thirty years old or more, the one that I inherited when my mother-in-law passed away has been around for ages. Keep thinking I should start some new plants off the old plants just incase but....do I really have room for more plants??

As soon as I finished the sock orders I started on the fingerless mitts order, think I have five pair to do....better check on that. I had spun up some black Alpaca fibre a bit ago from our boy Blackberry, it is so silky and shiny you would think it was silk. Is hard to get a good picture so you can see the sheen on it, don't know whether all black alpaca is so silky but we have three animals that have the black silky fibre. Had some spun up at the mill in the spring mixed with merino and bamboo............I think it was bamboo....and it turned out so nice, have not knit with it yet. As soon as I finish this pair I will knit some of it up. Have to also get some llama fibre carded up and spun to knit the rest of the fingerless mitts ordered, they are for the same lady that ordered five pair from me a couple months ago and took them with her when she went to New york and gave them as gifts.

I finally figured out how to separate my pictures with text......sort of...instead of having to just pile my pictures in at the beginning of the post, I finally noticed that they had updated blogger with all sorts of new options so I updated......and then had a bit of a panic attack on how to use everything.....will not know if it worked until I post...will I?? Have been trying to get a website up and running and talk about using every brain cell I own!! but I am determined to do it. I keep telling myself that I am exercising my brain. Well off to knit a bit!! It has been great with no distractions the last few days, RH is off helping son Tom lay stone tile on some of his floors and it has kept him so busy he has not had time to even phone me.

Miss Rosebud is still hanging in there!!

2010-11-06T22:11:00.000-07:00

Here is little Miss Rosebud looking so cute, will have to call her November Rose. Should I make her a little shelter when the cold weather arrives which they are saying is Monday, there is another little bud sitting beside her.
I knit and then felted some wool hats a bit ago but thought they needed some decoration on them, have been crocheting flowers to put on them but I think I need to get some finer yarn, trying to decide if these flowers are too large for the hats. I had bought some fancy buttons a while ago to use in the centers but now can not find them, I should have some multicolored silk roving tucked away some where, will maybe spin up a bit of that tomorrow and see how that works for flowers. I am trying to curb my imagination as I have been thinking of crocheting small butterflies.....maybe some little lady bug buttons....to put with the flowers.....think anyone would wear them?? a few of the hats are quite large so should toss them back in the washing machine to shrink them a bit more.
Tomorrow is the last day of the market, fingerless mitts are all sold and have one pair of socks left. Am almost finished the order for the five pair of socks and then have an order for five pair of fingerless mitts. Have two more Christmas markets before Christmas so will hopefully get something knit for them. Have a couple of neat items to knit after Christmas when it slows down a bit, am excited to start them!! Off to knit a bit on a sock and then off to bed............after I change all the clocks....better not forget to do that!!

Still Knitting.......with Help!!

2010-11-03T23:38:00.000-07:00

Finished a couple more pair of wristwarmers and started on another pair of socks....is really hard with my knitting partner.....every time I knit a stitch I lift her with my arm. Hard on the shoulder. But am slowly making progress. Tomorrow R.H. will go get the tent set up and everything ready for Friday morning. Weather has been so nice the last few days, we are hoping the wind stays away, last year it was warm but the wind was so bad they could not set anything up on the Thursday, people that did get their tents up came back in the morning and everything had blown away so hoping it is not a rerun this year. Well have put down the knitting needles for the night and off to bed, up early tomorrow and reskein some yarn I washed and get everything tagged and packed to go

Does this mean we are skipping winter this year??

2010-11-02T12:06:00.000-07:00

Well here I am again, just can not seem to get my blog updated regularly, could this be a senior problem or just too much going on. when I looked out the window the other day I noticed my rose bush who said good-bye, see you in the spring and popped out rose hips all of a sudden has a couple of rose buds, just read in the local paper that the crocus's have come out.....does this mean spring is on the way and we are not having winter this year, sounds good to me. Weather has been sunny and warm the last few days, still have a few flowers struggling along giving some color out there.
What have I been doing??.....knitting...what else, can not seem to get caught up, just had a lady phone ordering five more pair of alpaca socks and I have an order for at least five pair of wristwarmers before Christmas. The Christmas markets start this weekend and I do not have much to put on the tables as I sold all summer at the farmers markets, thank goodness friend Gabie and daughter M.J. will have items to fill the table. Better get a couple of dye pots going today so yarn will be dry enough for the market and get the carder going for some more roving. When I hear people complaining they are bored and have nothing to do am tempted to hand them some knitting needles and some yarn. Also have been trying to get a website up and going, always running into road blocks, next time I have a question on how to do something I will have to remind them to answer in language understandable by a senior citizen. This website is really using up brain cells fast I tell you, had a ahha moment a few minutes ago on a couple things I was having problems with and fixed it up, will get there eventually. Have to get some fibre pictures on this blog next time, keep forgetting to take pictures.

The Sun is out!!

2010-09-26T09:48:00.000-07:00

After many days of rain and fog and yes even a day of snow we have had sun and the temps into the double digits. Thought I would run out and do a sun dance then quickly changed my mind....what if I stumble and accidentally do a rain dance.....Wonder if the weather would stay nice long enough to put some stain on the back deck. We have had such a long wet spring and summer if we can call it summer, maybe now we will get our summer. Usually I do not sell my knitted items and yarn at the market over the summer, I spend the time getting stock ready for the Christmas markets but this year RH decided maybe if he had some of my knitted items and yarn on his table it would draw more people.....well it did and I have sold all of my things I had knitted plus he is coming home with all these orders, so that is what I have been doing steady, knitting...knitting...and I have warned him not to say I will knit anymore gloves for anyone!! he came home and said that this man had lost a finger in an accident and could I make him a pair of gloves......so I made him the pair of gloves but.....RH came home and said the guy said he had asked for two pair of gloves at the time....so have been knitting the other pair and it is not going smoothly to say the least, it is black yarn and I am doing most of my knitting at night these days, thought I was going great and almost finished the other night but when I started the last finger.....not enough stitches....so put it down carefully (was tempted to take the scissors to it) and went to bed. Had a look at it in the morning and found the dropped stitches so rip...rip...now it is done except for working in the ends but I will tell the world...I am not even knitting another pair. Have not been able to keep up with the wristwarmers and do not mind knitting them. Finally spun up some of the llama roving I had processed at the mill, had it blended with merino wool and one batch has bamboo mixed with it and the other has soy silk, while I was spinning it I kept thinking that it did not feel that soft, am used to mixing merino and reg silk with my llama, but when I plyed it it turned out beautifully, have knit a pair of wristwarmers out of the llama-merino-soysilk and love them. Have to spin another bobbin and get it plyed and see how the llama-merino-bamboo turns out. Did not take any pictures as yet, think about it as I am working with the fibre but never get it done. Have an order for a small pair of lady's mitts...notice I am saying mitts and not gloves...out of alpaca and I have to spin the yarn first, then yesterday RH came home with an order for two pair of socks. How am I going to get anything knit for the Christmas markets, hopefully the girls I share a table with have been working hard this summer.
Well better get outside while the sun is out, I run on solar power and my batteries are almost dead, have to get the carrots and potatoes out of the ground as soon as it is dry enough. The frost we had did not do my sunflowers in so hope they can finish blooming, the little birds will love the seeds this winter. Love the little song birds, the baby bluebirds came up to play in the rock garden but then had a couple big hawks arrive and decide they were going to live on the back deck, screaming and flying around the house, scared off all the songbirds and poor Sheba, one of the resident housecats who only ventures out to the front flowerbed terrified to go out at all. Now after the snow and rain we had a few weeks ago have not seen them around and hopefully they have moved on.

Hot!! Hot Day!!

2010-07-25T22:43:00.000-07:00

It was hot today, I think the hottest day this summer.....I think it is summer now...hard to tell as we have had more cool days then hot days, so went out and gave all the plants a drink and then we waited until we got enough shade on the north side of the garage so we could get the dog run up....yup finally have a proper dog run, after all these years of my complaining we have a dog run. RH phoned from the city the other day and said he found a dog run on sale...should he get it.....well....yes!! So that is what we did today with the resident dog supervising. Wonder if he realizes that it is for him.
Tried to fix the mistake in the fingerless mitts I was knitting but finally had to pull all out and start over....that is what I get for sleep knitting. Have a good three inches knit and so far so good, should be able to finish them tomorrow. Then the dye pots have got to come out as most of my dyed yarn sold at the market on Sat. Well off to bed, the thing I love about living up here in the hills is no matter how hot it is during the day it always cools down at night.

I am back...hopefully!!

2010-07-24T08:41:00.000-07:00

Have to get back to blogging, where has the time gone and I can say that the snow has disappeared and things have been growing, slowly but getting there. We have a couple of warm days and then we are back to cool and rainy. so excited to see pods forming on the peas in the garden and had our first salad of fresh lettuce. Just love the colors of the lettuce....hate to pick it. Am so glad to have the raised beds as the weeds have just gone crazy with all the rain we have had, I think I should have a machete to whack a path to my garden every morning.
We have listed our place for sale so all we have been doing is finishing up everything around the house and yard and now it is clean...clean...just in case someone wants to come and look at it. I just finish vacuuming and the cats have a tussle and there go the fur balls rolling around. Have been having health issues, had a bad reaction to some medication which brought the arthritis out full force so I can barely get around some days so other then trying to keep the dust out of the house and the weeds out of the garden have not accomplished much in the fibre department, but have to get the dye pots out and get busy, RH has hooked up a stove in the garage so I can dye out there, it will be so great as the burners are farther apart then the burners on my cooktop in the house so I can put two of my big pots on at once. Am just on my way out to get my sorting table up and get some llama and alpaca fibre sorted. Got the fibre back from the mill, they spun the black alpaca into yarn but said the llama I sent was a bit too long for them to spin so sent it back in roving, have almost got one bobbin spun up of the roving, can not wait to get another bobbin spun and get it plyed. In knitting I have a few pair of slipper sox knit and have been busy knitting wrist warmers out of llama, was supposed to have another pair finished for RH to take to the market this morning but eyes and fingers gave out last night, noticed a mistake way back and did not have the energy to fix it so just went to bed. The days of working all night are long gone. Have been enjoying my flowers, the iris I thought the mice had done in for me year before last appeared and made up for the lost year, my pink rose had died back as the snow appeared in Oct. last year while it was blooming so it is not that tall this year but has really been blooming. Well I better get out and give all my plants a drink before they think I have forgotten them, going to be a beautiful warm day today so better get out and enjoy it.

I Think it is Finally Spring!!

2010-06-07T23:18:00.000-07:00

I think it is spring as we have had a couple of nice days...oh no...did I actually say that!! Probably tomorrow will be another snow day!! I went to the greenhouse today and picked up some plants for in my pots for on the railing and some fillers for my pots of geraniums, I am hoping that the geraniums can finally go out, but we did have a couple of thunder storms with a bit of rain, hail and wind. Thank-goodness it was just the edge of it. Good news is the garden is coming up, slow but is coming, no mouse damage so far, hoping I did most of them in, although a few little trees were chewed on during the winter. A little apple tree that I started from a apple seed and had got to be four feet high last year and I was so excited as it has grown almost two feet a year....has died to the ground...:(..good news is it is coming back. If the rodents do not do damage and the deer that was in the garden last year does not come back and the hail does not get it.....I should have a good garden. I wish I had not written that last sentence....it makes me wonder....why did I plant a garden if I have all these strikes against me?? Because I do not give up..I will have a garden!! yes I will!!
Not too much on the fibre front, we have our place listed for sale so that means cleaning and sorting etc etc, I really have too much stuff I tell you, no one needs that much stuff, so doing that plus gardening and helping with the shearing...which still is not finished because of the weather. I had to send my entry's in for the fleece show without knowing whose fleece it will be, the longer we leave the shearing of the llamas the more trash will be in them, not a happy thought. Still have not taken any pictures of the fibre I had processed at the mill, have to make a note to do that. When RH left the big tractor down by the garden I said you should not have done that as next time you want to use it the birds will have made a nest in it and sure enough when he went to move it days later this is what he found, thank goodness the bird had just finished laying the eggs so had not been sitting on them. So he took the nest out and gave it to me, it was so beautiful with four little eggs, I really wanted to keep the nest as you can see they had put a bit of llama fibre in it but did not want to bring it in the house as who knows what could be in it so I left the nest outside and brought the eggs in, I will coat the eggs with a clear varnish and hope I can save them. The next morning I remembered something I had read about saving a nest.....I think I have it right.....they had said to put the nest (without the eggs in it) in the oven at a low temp. for a bit and then it would be safe to keep in the house, if there were any bugs in it they would be gone. So I went outside to find the nest and it was gone...either the wind blew it away...or I could dream that the little birds came back and took it piece by piece...and made a new nest somewhere safe. I am going to believe they recycled their nest. it is after midnight and I think the computer is telling me it wants to go to bed as it is doing weird things with my text, have to keep going back and fixing it.

Why Did I say The Snow was Off the Tulips!!

2010-05-28T09:58:00.000-07:00

Well the snow came back this week, this is what it looked like out the kitchen window yesterday, today the ground is covered with snow but it has stopped snowing. It got to below zero with a good breeze so brought my little greenhouse in with all my little plants in it just in case, have all the garden planted and only the beets and the spinach was up and they should be o.k. Last year our last big snow fall was June the sixth and my peas and beans were up and even though I covered them I lost a lot of them, so here is hoping this is the last of the snow for this spring. We really needed the moisture but could we not have a nice warm rain but should not complain as other countries have worse problems with their weather.
The biggest problem with the wet snow is we had just sheared the alpacas and a few of the llamas, most of them can get into barns and shelters except the males because with them one will go into the barn and will not let the others in so RH was out moving animals around to get them all in, he had to take panels in and separate the bad boys who were chasing everyone out into their own little space and managed to get everyone in out of the wet and cold. So please Mother Nature....no more cold and snow!!
I have been doing a bit of knitting and crocheting, made another scarf out of the same one row pattern I had made the other scarves, took me a while to find what pattern I had used until it came to me I had not used the patterns I had....I had made up my own pattern...why do I not make notes of what I do. Then I had dyed up some more of that very fine llama yarn and decided to crochet a large scarf or mini shawl thing and when I got it long enough decided to crochet a curve on the end....and it turned out so great but.....when I had started the scarf I had a square end and I went back to add a curved end to it....and can not remember how I did the curve....another problem with not writing down how I did something.....grrrr....put it aside for a bit and have been knitting on a scarf, will go back to it on a nice sunny day when I am not stressed out about all the snow on the ground...and on my tulips!!
I just got my order back from the llama and alpaca fleece I had sent to be processed, the llama was too long for them to spin into yarn so they made it up in roving, I had them mix the llama with some merino and bamboo and it is so soft, can not wait to spin a sample and the black alpaca they spun into yarn was mixed with merino and soy silk. Did not get any pictures of it as yet. Well off to transplant some herb plants I still have under the lights, hopefully it will warm up enough they can go into the little greenhouse in a day or two, wondering whether I should put the greenhouse back out or leave it inside for another day.......

The Snow is off the Tulip!!

2010-05-13T09:05:00.000-07:00

Well the snow is off the tulip but we still have a couple snow drifts still remaining in the yard. Sun has been out but is not that warm and today the wind is swirling around the house....and the smell of smoke...is there a forest fire out there somewhere?? Am going to go out and blow down to the garden area in a bit and see if it has dried out enough to plant some seeds (if the wind goes down....don't want to plant the neighbors garden....) I can not believe the perennials have survived all the snow days we have had lately, they are tough little guys. Knit a couple of scarves, love this pattern, it is so easy to knit, is called a one row pattern. I had picked up this sparkly yarn a year ago but could not find a pattern I wanted to use until I found this pattern I had scribbled on a scrap of paper, can not wait to knit the pattern up in some of my handspun. Then wanted to knit something different and always loved this little sheep pattern...for some reason I keep calling it a bear...it had some cabling on the tummy but I did not care for it so did seed st. and I love it, looks more like fur.....see I did it again....I think I am going to say it is a bear. Just pinned some felt on for eyes and nose for now, trying to decide whether to use the felt or just emb.the eyes and nose on. Just heard from the mill they have my fibre processed and it is on it's way, wanted to have it all spun into yarn but the llama fibre was too long so they put it into roving but could spin the black alpaca into yarn. The black alpaca is from our Blackberry Boy, it was so silky so it should turn out great. Now hopefully the weather will warm up so we can get the llamas and alpacas sheared for this year. Meanwhile I am off to the garden to see what is going on down there!!

HAPPY MOTHERS DAY!!

2010-05-09T11:35:00.000-07:00

This is what we woke to today!! my poor little tulip trying to bloom, I keep telling my perennials to hang in there as this can not last forever. Hope everyone has a great mothers day today, this is usually the day I go to the plant places to get some new plants.......but if you can not put them outside.....need a greenhouse of my own again..maybe a greenhouse big enough to just live it with all my plants!! Can always dream!!

Did I say Spring was here......silly me!!

2010-05-08T16:00:00.000-07:00

I really did think that spring had come, got all the raised beds ready to plant, admired all my perennials coming up and then.....this is what we got....this is what it looked like a week ago. Snow and blowing snow with hurricane force winds, our power was out for fourteen hours one day. usually we can just go out and hook up the generator for a bit but RH had been doing some work in the barn and did not have it hooked up, he finally went out and got it going just before the power came back on. We have the wind fence and our winds usually come from the southwest but this time the winds and snow came from the northwest and really whopped us. Younger son Ryan had a few days off work so he came down from northern Alberta and brought his holiday trailer to leave, we always put it down on this side of the windfence so it has a bit of protection. When the wind and snow were coming from the northwest I suggested he maybe should sleep in the house, he said no he would be o.k. in the trailer....well...when I looked out the window when I got up in the morning the trailer had blown off the front support and was sitting at an angle, we were just going go down and see how he was doing when he came out of the trailer and blew up to the house. He said he felt it go down and was sleeping with his head lower than his feet. Later in the day when he came in from outside I asked him if it was still blowing so hard and he said he did not think so as he could keep his hat on. The drifts are slowly disappearing as the temp has not been that high. The llamas could even walk on the drifts without falling in, when I went out to take some pictures it was so icy it was all I could do to stay upright. We thought we had it bad but south of us they had more snow and the ranchers lost a lot of baby calves as they got buried under the snow, people we know who have llamas managed to get out to their pasture and could see the cows but could not find their llamas, finally they seen a couple of heads barely above the snow, they called neighbors and with everyone working shoveled them out, thank-goodness they were o.k. Sure glad we did not have the llamas and alpacas sheared as yet but shearing is going to be so late, fleece shows are coming up soon and entry forms have to be sent in, but we will not know what fleeces to put in until we shear and see what condition they are in after all this wet weather. Today we started out with sun but has turned into rain-snow. Planted a couple of dahlias and lilies in pots in the house thinking I would put them out during the day and bring them in at night until it warmed up, now they are going to get too tall. I am going to take them out to the garage and put them in the window, won't be so warm out there, hopefully it does not get cold enough to freeze. I am having a terrible time writing this post as I keep getting booted off, thank-goodness it keeps saving!! Hope I can post next week that we finally have spring....or maybe not...look what happened before when I said it was spring!!

Spring has arrived....hopefully!!

2010-04-22T10:08:00.000-07:00

Now the snow has finally disappeared and spring has arrived we are now complaining about everything being so dry, need a good rain soooo bad. Other areas around us received so much snow a bit ago that roads were closed but we just got enough to cover the ground and it was gone the next day, the winds we are having right now are not helping. But on the good side I did get down to the garden and put some compost on the raised beds and got them all dug up and ready to plant, thought the mice had done in some of the little poppy plants I had started from seed last year but they are slowly popping up. We got some trees planted so had to water them in good and got a few trees pruned. Now have to get at the front flowerbeds.....that is the only place we have lots of green grass these days. Took a few pictures of our other barnyard children the other day, little Bella the baby alpaca has the funniest little face, pretty soon she will have the funniest little body too...shearing time!! The llamas we just do a poodle cut and they look so cute but the alpacas get the full haircut so look pretty naked for a bit. The boys Paxton and Cusco are really growing up but all their tussling around has left a lot of debris in their fibre so they are not going to be happy campers when it comes to getting cleaned up for their first shearing. Just heard from the mill I sent my llama and alpaca fibre to a bit ago and they are just getting ready to spin it up so will not be that long before I get it back, am pretty excited about that!! Had the carpenter in yesterday to finish up the oak railing going downstairs, it had so many funny curves but he did a beautiful job. Well better go and vacuum up the bit of sawdust he left. So glad to have that finished!! Hope everyone is enjoying that spring has arrived!!

Where does the time go!!

2010-04-09T23:25:00.000-07:00

Time is going by so fast and it has been so long since I have written a blog post!! Bad Blogger!! But what can you say about painting trim and cleaning. Have to think back and see if anything else is new. I did get some alpaca fibre sorted and sent to the local mill to have some mattress covers and duvets made and have them back already, I put one of the mattress covers on my bed and love it, is so comfortable for the arthritic bones I tell you. Also sent some alpaca fibre to the mill to have socks made, do not have them back yet. Then sorted some of my better llama and alpaca fibre and washed it up and sent it to a mill down east to be spun into yarn, can not wait until I get it back, the mill owner said they could process it right away before the fibre arrives from the spring shearing, so it should not be that long. In a week or so depending on the weather we have to start shearing our llamas and alpacas, we do it ourselves so it takes a while. This year we have four young animals that it will be their first shearing and their fleece is such a mess so will have to clean them up first, much easier to clean the fleece on the animal than stand at the sorting table picking all the debris out. Last night north of us had a snow storm blow in but all we got was the wild wind, we are so dry here the ground is still brown so hope some moisture is on the way, have been trying to get a few small trees moved around in the yard hoping the moisture will come or we will be watering, I had to water the front flowerbeds as they were so dry, had the water going last night and when I went out to turn it off there was ice forming on the fence so it is not that warm yet. Got a few pictures of Blossom and Posy the other day, Blossom was the one that never wanted her picture taken and Posy was always wanting hers taken, now it is Blossom coming to see what I am doing and Posy saying no way she wants me to take pictures, funny girls. Have to get out to the other paddock and try to get a new picture of Bella the little alpaca, I seen her the other day chasing the gophers in the pasture, wish I had been close enough for pictures, it was too cute.

Is Spring Here Yet???

2010-03-03T23:23:00.000-08:00

I really have to get my act together, time is running away from me but am really glad it is March already....what happened to February.....Oh...now I remember....the Olympics, thank-goodness for the Olympics, I think we need it every year to make February go so fast. Do not know what happened to us this year that we went so crazy keeping up with everything that was going on, usually we have our favorites and make sure we watch them but no this year we were totally addicted. Every morning I would say to myself....I am not turning the T.V. on until noon but...it was just like a magnet.....the T.V. would just suck me over to turn it on. I did get quite a bit of knitting done, I knit up some wool hats to felt and got them felted, now just have to decide if I want to put some decoration on them, have to think on that a bit. Have been knitting a couple scarf/hat sets out of a cotton acrylic yarn plus doing some house cleaning, the living room has seven windows with venetian blinds on them, have cleaned six of them and hopefully will get the last one cleaned tomorrow, RH was repairing a crack above that window. Have also been painting all the window frames and baseboards, they only had the undercoat on them. So everything is pushed into the middle of the room and it is getting to me, have decided everything will be back into place tomorrow. Weather has warmed up a bit and most of our snow has disappeared, usually when it warms up we get these terrible winds.....I am whispering this.....(we have not had any wind lately) The weather is changing all over the world....so is someone else getting our wind? The weather getting warmer is getting me in a panic to order my garden seeds. Snow has melted back from my flower beds and so far I do not see any mouse damage. Vegetable garden is still under snow and hopefully everything is good down there too, last year all the little fruit trees were munched off and came from the ground up, so here is hoping they are o.k. today we had so many little birds fluttering around, hopefully that means spring is just around the corner.

I am still here!!

2010-02-09T09:27:00.002-08:00

A friend just e-mailed me this morning to say I had not posted for a month.....have I been hibernating for a month? Is it spring yet? I was not going to crawl out of my cave until spring arrived, we have had so many days of fog so bad up here on the hill you could not see six inches in front of your face but this morning the sun is out and I broke my hibernation as I was sure it was spring and had a panic attack as I have not ordered my seeds yet. Plus when Feb. arrives I get this urge to spring clean and have been trying to suppress it. After two months of suffering with my sore foot I can finally say I can feel that it is a bit better and last week just spent two hours in the dentist chair getting seven fillings redone, you are really getting old when you out live your fillings. Now my biggest problem is getting the computers straightened out, finally got my new laptop and for a while it was so great, son Tom hooked up a router so I could use the laptop where ever in the house......then.....one day a blue screen came up saying windows had problems and I could not open anything up.....it took me a week but I finally got windows up and running but can not get it to communicate with the router so have to come into the computer room and unhook the net from the computer in here to hook mine up. As the weather has been so bad RH has been on the computer steady with getting his income tax all ready for the accountant and all the Llama Canada business attended to. Do not know about this windows 7 I tell you, now all our other programs are not compatible with windows 7!!!!!! We had just got a new printer fax scanner not that long ago......it is not recognized by windows seven!!! have finally got the printer to work but not the scanner or fax. Is going to take a while to sort all this out, really did not need this headache. Was just wondering the other day.....after I had been working at sorting out computers for half a day.....can a person claim temporary insanity if they commit a terrible act after fighting with a computer for hours??.....just wondering...When the weather and roads clear up son Tom will be out to get me back on the computer track.
Meanwhile thank-goodness I have my knitting to hold on to my sanity! Have not counted how many socks and slippers I have knit while in hibernation,just keep piling them up. Finally got off the sock run and knit a hat to felt, actually it was knit twice, I hate it when you buy a pattern for something.....the picture they show is so great but what you knit from the instructions they give you is not!! My goodness do not know what this hat would have fit, it was so big there was no way it would felt down enough for a human to wear!! So ripped it out and worked with another pattern, still looked really big but after I put it through the washer a couple of times it turned out great. Decided to knit swatches of the wool I wanted to make felted hats out of and try to figure out how much each color would felt before I started knitting which is what I should have done to begin with. What a difference in the felting of the different colors.....note to self....always do a felt swatch to find out if the item you are making is really going to felt or not. Making the swatches showed me that there was no way I should be using the dark brown to felt something, it felted very little and the green really felted in length as compared to the rest. Now will see if I can put all this knowledge into practice....right?? We will see!! Well better go get at the day and enjoy the sunshine we have not seen for weeks. Posting a picture of my jade plant, of all the years I have owned a jade plant I have never had it bloom!! This one had bloomed twice.....do you think with all the dark and dreary days we have had it thought the end of the world was coming so it decided it better do something spectacular??

Is it too Late to Say Happy New Year???

2010-01-11T09:37:00.000-08:00

Trying to get my act together and do something besides knitting socks, got all my Christmas knitting finished in time...can not believe that but I did, but can not stop knitting, have knitted a pair of socks for RH and five more pair of slipper socks since Christmas. Have been under the weather since before Christmas, asked the Dr. if they had any new feet or a new head around as I really needed new one's but she said they had no spares so I better work with what I had, have got Plantar Fasciitis in my right foot, Dr. gave me some information on the ailment, reading it I see it is a common foot problem in sports participants....????...when was knitting declared a sports activity?? Have to get busy and finish sorting alpaca fibre to get to the mill, missed the alpaca run in August and they have another one in February but should have had the fibre there already. Bought some soft foamy type tile to put around my sorting table to stand on so hope it helps. Most of my fibre in in the garage and it has been so cold and windy with blowing snow have not wanted to go out there. Has warmed up a bit the last few days so after the last load of laundry is finished that is where I am going and see what more needs to be sorted so it can be taken to the mill and then should sort some llama fibre and get it sent off to another mill that has a dehairer. Before I know it it will be shearing time again, so better make some room.
Llamas and Alpacas are sure enjoying getting out of the barn to soak up some sun the last few days, was a long cold miserable stretch of weather, this is the first time we have been snowed in this bad since we moved up here in the hills.

Still Working away...almost finished!!

2009-12-18T23:44:00.000-08:00

Can not believe it...almost finished...knitting..only one gift left to knit, Baking....just a couple more things to bake, got the plum jam made today. RH was away for the day so no interruptions so managed to accomplish a few things. Weather has been so nice lately, was above zero today and had really planned to get out and visit the animals but ran out of time. Now I hear the wind blowing again and they say more snow. Hope it does not amount to much, we have enough snow on the ground for Christmas. RH just got all the snow pushed away from in front of the feed bin the other day and the feed truck came today so that is done.
I have four big Christmas Cactus and they have been blooming like crazy, took all the dead flowers off of them yesterday and there are a lot of buds coming so hope they are out for Christmas. Well off to bed and hopefully finish up the knitting tomorrow. We do not have our tree up yet...we do not even have a tree yet. RH went down to the tree lot in town, he had bought a beautiful tree there last year and wanted to get the same type for this year......this year the tree was eighty dollars.......who would pay eighty dollars for a tree you only have up for a couple of days!!!!! Now I could see it if it had roots and could be planted!! Needless to say...we still do not have a tree.

Baking and knitting and Baking some more!!

2009-12-12T15:05:00.000-08:00

It is thirty below at our place right now and will probably get colder as it gets dark...why are we living here in the winter!! Grey kitty says she is not coming out from under the afghan until spring, she is a house cat...what about the poor barn cats!!I should be knitting them hats as Little Grey froze one of her ears a bit last winter and they are in the barn with a stack of hay bales to snuggle in.
Just finished baking eight dozen chocolate chip cookies and have all the dishes washed up, did the gingersnaps a couple of days ago and yesterday did some chocolate noodle whatevers, tomorrow is the make jam day, all to go into Christmas bags for kids and grandkids and grandkids girl friends. Few more days of baking and will have that ready. There are twelve of them this year. I also do up little bags of goodies for all the nieces and nephews on my side of the family, twenty bags to do there. pretty well have the stuff ready to go into them, just have one more thing to put in, I take some paper sandwich bags and stamp llamas all over them and tie a ribbon around the top with their names on them, do not see them that often and by doing this I remember their names and they remember me...the "Llama Aunty". Am also trying to get some Christmas knitting finished.....might be some I.O.U's there. Still have to do up my Christmas letter.......think I will make it?? Is it better if I just ignore how many days I have left and just keep plugging away.....or should I get all organized and figure out how many days are left and figure out what I can do???...I think I will just live dangerously and wing it, leave the stress to the last day. Well off to knit......sure hope it warms up around here!!

2009-12-06T09:36:00.000-08:00

Well have we got snow...and cold...and snow....can not keep the snowdrift shoveled off the front step, good thing the wind keeps the snow away from the door downstairs or we would be jumping off the back deck to get out of here. For the last two days we have had very...and I mean very high winds but was not bad as it was warmer but last night the temps went to twenty below and the wind is still blowing from the north...do not even want to know what the chill factor is. We did not get to either day of the Christmas market, have only seen one truck go by the last two days and it was yesterday someone got through to try to get a large bale of hay into their cattle up in the hills, watched them snaking in and out of pastures where wind had blown the snow off the ground to miss the big drifts on the road and then seen them get to the pasture but do not know if they found their cows to give them the hay. Now this morning a snowplow went through so roads will be open for a short while. RH moved animals around all day yesterday to try to get them all into barns or shelters, the shelters keep getting blown full of snow so he has to shovel them out, the llama females we have no trouble with them staying tucked in the barn but the two alpaca females just will not go into their shelters, which is usually o.k. but this year they forget they have baby Bella to take care of, so RH moved goats around and got them into the big barn where he can lock them in until the weather clears, Mummy alpaca is not a happy camper but Bella will be safe. And then because Mummy Alpaca is a fence jumper when we try to put her somewhere she does not want to be RH had to drag panels over to the paddock where she is to discourage her from jumping out where we do not want her as there are males on the other side of the fence. Yesterday he said the males outside had ice hanging off their eyes and mouths so he got them up and got the ice off their faces and got them eating and moving around. The male llamas are so hard to house as one will go into the barn and keep all the others out so we have high slab fences they can tuck behind to get out of the weather. Which could be another problem as the winds get so strong they blow sections of the slab fence down...so far no one has been hurt. What would we do with ourselves if we did not have all these animals to take care of. It is survival of the fittest I tell you!!

Storming and then Storming!!

2009-12-05T00:02:00.000-08:00

Was supposed to be our last market of the year today and tomorrow but woke up to wild wind and blowing snow, could not even see the barn so no market today and it has stormed all day. The wind was coming from the northwest all day so the windfence was protecting the house a bit but now tonight it changed to straight north so no protection from the windfence, house is creaking and moaning. The snow was piled up on the front step halfway up the door and RH cleaned it off when he came back from the barn tonight, I had taken Maxx out to do his business and could hardly stand up in the wind. Now I just looked out the door and the step is covered again and snow half way up the door again, if we open the door it will all fall into the house.I do not think there will be any getting on the roads tomorrow either unless the wind quits during the night and we see someone cleaning the road early tomorrow morning...chances of that happening are nil. Roads have been closed all around us.
On the happy side I love the colors of the yarn I dyed the other day, not the best picture with the poor light in here but it is not bad, just does not show the shine of the yarn. The color of the yarn was just a bit darker than the cone sitting with the skeins. It is llama that a fellow had spun up at a mill from his llamas a few years ago and he donated it to the llama club for a fund raiser, I bought the two cones and have been dyeing it up and making scarves with it, it is very fine, makes beautiful lacy scarves. Will tuck it away until after Christmas. Well here is hoping this bad weather goes away in the next day, the wind is making me a little crazy I tell you, is supposed to turn really cold for next week.

Crazy Weather!!

2009-11-30T23:23:00.001-08:00

This morning the sun was out and at noon when I went out I was surprised at how warm it was, the snow we had got the day before was melting......two hours later the snow and wild wind moved in and we had a real snow storm, first it came from the north then turned around and hit us from the west. It is now clearing up and it is supposed to get cold. For a snow picture...just look at the one in my previous post, did not feel like taking any more snow pictures today. Instead I will give you some Llama and Alpaca baby pictures. Blossom is really growing and is such a busy little Bee, is never with her mother always visiting around, as you can see Cusco is one of the herd and then finally I got a picture of the baby Alpaca Bella, her mother does not want us taking pictures of her baby, the picture of Bella looking over her mothers back is so cute, her mother Venus had just put herself between me and Bella so I could not get a picture...or so she thought. But Bella is so curious she has to come and see what I want.
We have our last market this coming weekend, it is Friday and Saturday and then we are finished for this year thank-goodness. Then we can think about Christmas. Dyed up some llama yarn than I had, it was given to the Llama Club by a llama owner, I bought a couple of cones sight unseen as they said it was the lightest colors but it is still a dark tan color so dyed it two colors in the kettle and it turned out not bad, and I washed up some of the sock yarn I had spun at the mill, it has so much spinning oil in it, it looks and feels so much nicer when washed. Will wash up some more tomorrow. Knit a pair of fingerless mitts and started on another pair tonight, am almost knit out!! Next week will start on Christmas baking and Jam making for Christmas presents. plus want to get to the tree lot and get the same type of tree we got last year, we have never had a tree like that, I can not remember the name of the tree but I think I saved the tag that was on it, hope I can find it, it was so beautiful. Well am off to bed, sounds like the wind has gone down a bit. Hope for better weather tomorrow!!

Snow Day

2009-11-27T08:51:00.000-08:00

Just read my post from last night, it should have read that it was weird having a Christmas Party in November......nothing weird about having one in Dec. Woke up this morning to snow on the ground....guess it will look more like Christmas for the party if the snow stays around for Sunday. Llamas have decided to brave the snow and go down to pasture, usually do not stay long, will see them all coming back up in a minute. Is not that cold out...maybe they have gone down to build a snowman...who knows. Off to get at the day!!

2009-11-27T00:15:00.000-08:00

For some reason my colors are not coming out on my yarn, it looks so blah in the pictures. Even Muggles tried to save the day, it was a bit better but still not the correct colors so you will have to use your imagination, the pink is actually a deep burgundy with lighter tones, the blue greens are a lot brighter. Winter light just does not bring out colors like spring and summer light So this is a few of the color runs I did the last couple of weeks. Spent the afternoon skeining yarn, finished a pair of socks and put a fringe on a scarf I had knit and now it is already one-thirty in the morning so better get myself to bed. have a Dr. appointment tomorrow plus my new glasses are ready so can pick them up. Then Saturday we have a Christmas Market that goes from ten in the morning to eight at night and Sunday is our Llama Clubs Christmas party, for me having a Christmas Party in Dec. is a little weird (specially with no snow on the ground) but I guess all facilities are booked up for December. Then next weekend is our last market of the year. Has been a busy year.

Finally Back to the Dyepots

2009-11-23T09:30:00.002-08:00

Finally got the dye pot going again the other day. Thought I would try the dip dyeing where you dye one half of the skein one color and then turn it around and dye the the other half. It would have been faster to use two pots and put half the skein in one pot and the other half in another pot but I wanted to do more than one skein at a time, this way I did four skeins, I think I could do eight skeins if I had something I could put above the pot so the skeins could just hang down instead of hanging over the side of the pot. I found that leaving them hang over the side of the pot dried out the undyed half of the skein so when the blue half was ready to take out I had to squeeze the water out and blot the dyed end so it would not drip onto the stove top and rewet the undyed half. I really need to rig up something to hang the skeins from over the pot......but then I would have to still squeeze out the water from the dyed end and blot it......hmmm......have to think more on this, might be easier to do the two pot thing, if I can fit two big pots side by side on the stove. Wanted the colors to be darker so mixed some black in with the red and blue dye but it did not get as dark as I wanted so next time will have to add a bit more black. O.K. am off to give this another try.....Wish me luck!!

Vote For Suzanne!!

2009-11-21T09:14:00.000-08:00

If you have never read Suzanne's blog "Chickens in the Road" pop over and check it out, meet all her barnyard animals and her adventures on her farm and her recipes!! You have to try her recipes, she does not just give you the ingredients, she shows you step by step with beautiful pictures. Just made her pepperoni rolls and they are the greatest. Suzanne is in a contest for a writing job and she needs our votes!

Goodbye to our Beautiful Asia

2009-11-20T22:56:00.000-08:00

We had just moved out to this property we live on now, we were living in a fifth-wheel until our house was built, no power...no gas...and thank-goodness for cell phones...we ran the generator every night to pump water to the hundred Llamas and hundred and fifty goats and charge the cell phone. We got a call from a neighbor from our other place to say another neighbor had sold his farm and his sheep thinking the people taking the sheep would take his dog.....but they did not want her and he was on his way to take her to the vet clinic to have her put down and could we please take her. What to do!! We phoned back to say we would take her and her daughter answered to say her mother had already gone over to say we would take the dog {she knew us well} we said it would be a few days before we could get her and they said they would look after her until we could get there. We knew she had been tied all her life in the sheep pasture, when we would drive by she would be sitting on top of her house. Asia was not a young dog when we got her, we knew nothing about Pyrenees dogs. We tied her up in the goat paddock until she could get used to goats and us, and every night RH would take her out on the lead so she could know her boundaries and she marked them well. Finally we could let her free in the paddocks. She had had a few litters of pups over the years and she was not spayed when we got her and before we could get her spayed she had a visitor...the biggest male Pyrenees I have ever seen, RH said it is o.k. as it is the Pyrenees from next door and he is neutered.....well one day he was petting him and discovered he was not the dog from next door as this dog was not neutered!!So we were going to have puppies!! I found a picture of her puppies, only five in the picture...she had six but have you ever tried to get six puppies lined up. They had to be the cutest puppies. The last year we could see Asia was slowing down and we hated to think of life without her, we think she was about thirteen years old, Asia died a few days ago. Goodbye to our Beautiful Asia, I miss hearing her bark at night as she warned the coyotes she was on duty.

I am finally figuring it out!!

2009-11-17T23:05:00.000-08:00

Can you imagine..... a rainbow in November, I almost missed it, looked out the window and by the time I got my camera it was fading away.
Well I got my new laptop and son Tom came out on Saturday and we got it set up and moved a lot of my stuff over from the other computer and he brought out a router and installed it so I can use the laptop where ever I want in the house so that has been great. Then tried to write a post the other night and first could not find my pictures....then lost the post and gave up and went to bed. The next morning was thinking about it...and thought...good grief I did not install my camera disk!! Actually we just moved stuff off the other computer over here.....forgot about installing my other programs. is taking a while but am getting there. Then my latest pictures were not moved over....so thought about that for a while....they are still on the camera so downloaded them and I am good to go. With the new windows program things are done a bit different so have to learning as I go...is using a lot of brain power.
I asked the powers that for winter not to start until Feb., forgetting that if it is warm around here at this time of year we get the bad winds, the last couple of days have been terrible, today they said down on the highway the wind was 100 k so up here on the hill it was probably stronger, it blew all night and all day, even with the wind fence I thought the house was going down. Looked out at noon and here were the big sliding doors on the goat barn open, now these doors are hard to slide open and the wind was so strong it had opened them. RH went out to close them and said the one big door was right out of the track on the bottom. So I have changed my mind...bring on the snow and cold, youngest son Ryan who works up in northern Canada said they just got a foot of snow...wanted to trade him but he said no just keep your wind. They said big trucks were pushed off the road down on the highway this afternoon.
Well here goes...hopefully I can get this posted on my blog and it does not disappear. wind has gone down right now so here is hoping it stays that way!!

Still Knitting...Running out of time!!

2009-11-02T22:42:00.000-08:00

Am still knitting, redid the pattern for the hats with ear flaps and think I finally got it, did another one with the same stitches but a smaller needle and it was still too big!! So revamped the stitches and I think I got it...but forgot to take pictures, will do that tomorrow. Got four small ones finished. Then I just finished a scarf out of an acrylic loopy yarn, already made two red ones and now have to put the fringe on them, just started another scarf out of a cotton mix. Have an eye appointment for new glasses tomorrow and some groc. shopping so will take my knitting and knit every spare moment...can I push the groc. cart and knit at the same time?? The Christmas sale is three days this coming weekend.
Then RH took a load of goats to the auction, we are not going to bred anymore I will just keep a few of my pygmy pets, last Sat. and you will not believe this...he has been giving me flack about all these extra llamas and alpacas that have arrived at our house.....and what did he do...he phoned me as soon as he got to the auction...there was this little four month old llama someone brought in and he was all by himself....he was really cute and friendly and was well cared for and looked really healthy....should he buy him to put with our boy Paxton when we wean him so he has a friend his own age, well he is living at our house now, he came with his name Cusco ( do not know if I am spelling that correctly---remember the llama in movie) he is one of the herd now. Am so glad the weather has been nice lately. Well am off to knit a few more rows and then off to bed. Posting a picture of the flowers on my Mum plant, such a pretty pink....but I could swear it had purple flowers when I got it last spring... hmmm...wonder if I took a picture? And I almost forgot....I ordered my new laptop with windows seven!! Can not wait!!

Hats!! Hats and more hats!!

2009-10-29T23:03:00.000-07:00

We still have snow all over the ground, first it rained and then it snowed, thank-goodness it was not that cold but the roof and the siding of the house was coated with ice and snow and when it warmed up it slid off. What a racket!! It took me a while to figure out what was going on....I kept jumping and the cats kept running and hiding. Now tomorrow they say it is supposed to start warming up and we have wind warnings. I see already the mice have started digging in the front flowerbed all around my bulbs!! What to do?? I have to figure something out or I will not have any plants left, these are not ordinary small mice these are monster mice, we have put out those live mouse traps but they are too large to get into them.
But I can not worry about the mice at the moment, have to knit...knit...knit for the upcoming Christmas market next weekend. Am stuck on hats at the moment. had dyed up some knitted tubes or what they call sock blanks and knit four hats, they are all bright and sunny looking, then decided I would knit a childs hat with earflaps that you felt after you have knit it....good grief!! Look how big it was but o.k. I was following the pattern for once and it should turn out o.k. but was worried as it really looked too wide and I know it shrinks a lot more up and down than it does around. So in the washer it went hot wash cold rinse twice and it did shrink up and down o.k. but was way too wide around like I suspected and it no way fit a child, it is too big, will fit an adult. I think I should have spaced the stitches between the earflaps different, they have the same amount of stitches in the front as the back and it would fit better with less stitches in the back. Here I thought going with a pattern would be so much faster. Will have to think what to do with it...could I do something to ease the extra fullness in the back or should I turn it upside down and stick a flowerpot in it....hmmm...better sleep on it. Will try another one tomorrow and use smaller needles.

Never enough time in a day...or a week!!

2009-10-27T17:06:00.000-07:00

Trying to remember where I was last post, time just keeps getting away from me and it does not help that RH volunteered to be President of Llama Canada after we discussed he was not going to be!! So he is on the computer whenever he can, returning e-mails..skype calls etc. I said to him that I was going to order myself a laptop...he said good idea...then he could take it with him when he goes to the conference...I said EXCUSE ME it will be MINE, why in the hell did he think I was getting my own computer!! Things are being accidentally erased etc. etc. He is not that great on the computer and I seem to be always rescuing him.
I think I was knitting on the scarf that was a cream color llama yarn and had spun the silk to knit with it to perk it up...well it was not working so ripped it out. The llama skein was spun so loose at the mill that it just had no life to it so I replyed it and set it and I think it is going to look better. had to set it aside to get my stuff ready for the guild sale last Sat. Finished another llama scarf in a natural brown color and then got the dye pots out and got twenty skeins of Merino wool dyed up and a few of the knitted tubes that you unravel to knit something from. Took my stuff in Friday night as they were setting things up, was such a beautiful balmy calm evening that you hated to go inside. Then it was up early Sat. morning to get in to the sale, it takes me over an hour to get there from where I live here in the hills. Well when I got up it was windy and some snow was coming down and I thought as the weatherman had said we would just get a few showers on the weekend we were probably just having our own weather thing like we usually do and away I went, the snow had stopped when I got down to town so that was good and I decided to take the back roads instead of the highway.....well!! all of a sudden I was in a snowstorm, heavy wet snow!! but I was not turning back, I was going to be at the sale and kept going, glad I was on the back road and not the highway with slush flying all over, got to the highway down into B.D. and then onto the back road to the hall where the sale was thinking all the time, everyone went to so much work and there will not be anyone at the sale, well I could not believe my eyes when I drove up....I could not even park near the hall as there were so many cars there all ready!! They do not open the doors until ten but had all these people standing out in the snow at nine-thirty so they let them in, when I got in the hall it was wall to wall people. I sat and knit and talked..and then talked some more, this last year I have not been able to get to any of the meetings so it was so great to see old friends and meet some new ones. By the time it was ready to pack up and leave for home the snow had stopped and the roads were clear again. we had a couple of days of dry weather and I did manage to get a couple pictures of the baby llama...I think I am going to call her Blossom, at first she did not want her picture taken, was not co-operating at all, I took a few pictures and then the camera said the memory card was full!! I was so upset!! It was if she knew as there she was standing cute as could be. When I downloaded the pictures I found that a couple I had taken were not too bad. Now have to get busy on items for the Christmas sale in a week and a half, have been knitting off a couple of tubes I had dyed and made four hats so far, forgot to take pictures, will do that tomorrow. Last night we had another storm blow in and the ground is covered with snow again, thank-goodness it is not that cold, I am still hoping for a stretch of Indian summer...do you think there is a chance?? I can always hope....right??

Snow and More Snow!!

2009-10-14T23:25:00.000-07:00

The snow has never left and I am tired of winter already!!! Mr weatherman says it is supposed to warm up and the snow disappear and I sure hope he is right. We have not had anymore llama babies, either they are not preg. and are just fat and grumpy or are waiting until warm weather. Got a picture of the little baby alpaca down in the field with her Mom, snow does not seem to bother her at all, she races around the field having a great time. The little white llama races around too but could not find her in the field as she blends in with the snow. I brought my Mum plant in as it was full of buds and it is living under my light I use when I am knitting and the buds are starting to open up, it was a plant my husband brought home for me in April not noticing that all the flowers were bent over and dying (he does not notice these things) so I trimmed it up and put it outside when the weather warmed up, what a surprise for it to flower, hopefully all the buds will bloom.
We had our Thanksgiving on Sunday and all the kids and Grandsons were out for dinner, only one missing was youngest son who works and lives in northern Alberta, he will be home this weekend for a visit.
Guild sale coming up so have been spinning and knitting, started the scarf with the silk I spun knit with the llama yarn, really is not knitting up like I thought it would but am not going to rip it back, it is the one row scarf pattern and I remember thinking the same thing when I knit the red scarf and when I finished it and blocked it, it turned out great. The llama yarn was some a friend had spun at a mill and it does not have much twist in it, I should have put it through the spinning wheel and put a bit more twist in it. I find the mills often do not put enough twist in llama yarn. Have been cleaning and carding more of the llama like I spun for the conference so I have enough to make a scarf, have a bit more to clean and card and then can get it spun up. Am going to run out of time as I also wanted to card some of the llama and alpaca fibre I had washed and dehaired at the mill this spring and better get the dye pots going. Never enough time and this snow does not help...had to take some time out to be depressed.....need some sun to get motivated.....right??

This is unbelievable!!

2009-10-06T22:27:00.000-07:00

This picture says it all, look at my poor rose!! Thank-goodness we got all the vegetables out of the garden when we did, and the forecast for this week is not good either although some of the snow melted as the sun came out for a bit but now the wind has been blowing like crazy and I do not know whether it was rain or snow hitting the windows. Just took the dog out and it must have been rain as I do not see any new snow, who knows by morning what we will have. please let us get some warmer weather before winter really sets in as there still is yard work to get done. We also had a baby llama born just before the snow and the rest of the girls are still waiting, probably for better weather....I hope. Got a picture of the new baby in the barn this afternoon, and by the look of her ears and her curly fibre her father just might be the Suri Alpaca boy...hmmmmm I see we will have to have her blood typed to make sure...forgot to say it was another girl!! Am really hoping for all girls this year. The little alpaca baby is running races with her mother these days, does not take them long to get going. Have to think of some names pretty soon. Got the cold room all sorted out so I have room for the potatoes but did not get them brought in...ran out of day as usual. I got the silk I spun plied and steamed and it turned out great, so hopefully it works with the llama/bamboo yarn for the knitted scarf. Well am off to bed and hope I do not wake up to more snow in the morning!!

Doing a bit of everything!!

2009-10-06T10:13:00.000-07:00

What have I been busy with?? Have to think and try to catch up with myself. I had entered five things in the conference fibre show but only got four finished, the skein of handspun llama yarn was still damp as I tossed it into the bag as RH went out the door. Spent the weekend feeding and hugging my goats and watching for llama babies. Could not believe it when I got a first on all four items I entered, I did them in such a rush. I had also entered a couple of fleeces that had also been at two other shows, had not had much time to clean them up for the first shows so tossed them out on the sorting table and resorted them (could not believe what a terrible job I had done before) plus I brought back three fleeces from a friend to enter and resorted them too, they were from animals we had sold them. They got first and second and I got a third for one of mine, I lost points as this year they made a new rule about weight of a fleece and I had only put half of a fleece in because I did not have time to clean the whole thing up, never enough time!!
This llama baby watch thing is making me crazy as they are all overdue now, one llama had a still born baby, do not know what happened. Then old mummy alpaca had her baby, now I don't think she has ever had anything but boys but this year she gave us a little dark brown girl, got a picture of her but the wind was blowing so hard that day she could not even hold her ears up, she is so cute.
Got all the potatoes dug and at the moment they are spread out on the garage floor, job for today is to get them bagged and into the cold room. I took the carrots and beets out of the garden and have the carrots all washed up and bagged and in the fridge, that took a whole day as there must be forty pounds of them, now just have to get the beets made into pickles. RH brought home a case of plums from the market this weekend so have them pitted and in the freezer waiting for jam making day. Fall sales are coming up so in spare moments am knitting and spinning, was going to make a scarf out of a skein of llama/bamboo in a cream color but it just looked so blah, I had a small pkg of silk in fall colors so have spun that up and just plyed it and will knit that in with the cream color skein and that will brighten it up....I hope...anyway that is the plan. Well am off to get at the day, first thing on the list is getting the potatoes into the cold room...but where am I going to put the fleece that is stored in there.........

This and That!!

2009-09-26T07:36:00.000-07:00

Will try to get a quick post in this morning before the day begins. Finally finished all the items I had entered in the fibre section at the Llama Conference and got RH on the road to the Conference. He phoned after he got there and said one of the fleeces I sent they could not find.....I said it went out to the truck in your hands...now they were all in the same bag for goodness sake...so whatever happened to it it happened after it went into the truck. Have not heard from him since so it could have been a mix-up somewhere. Got the donated scarves finished, got a picture of the red one finished but forgot to get one of the last scarf. I am here at home llama watching, we have about ten llamas and a couple alpacas that are all due to have their babies any day, so far nothing. We had two days of record breaking heat and thought for sure the babies would all arrive at once. Finally got a good picture of the little boy llama a few days ago, he now has a name..."Paxton" and thanks to Valli and her suggestion that I name the little girl "Posie" she also has a name. Yesterday it cooled off a bit, they are doing a controlled burn in the mountains and we are getting the smoke around here so was glad for the breeze yesterday but the wind went down last night and smoke moved back in so woke up with a foggy head and sore throat, is supposed to be windy again this afternoon so hopefully it will blow away. when it was so hot I went downstairs and sorted some more llama fleece to card and spin, I spun a skein to enter in the fibre show and want another skein to go with it to have enough for a scarf, but did not get back at it yesterday. My little rose bush just keeps blooming, I bought it thinking it was one of those miniature roses but it just keeps growing and blooming, now the problem is to manage to keep it over the winter, I have been putting out mouse seed to get rid of the mice but I do not think it is doing any good as they are still running around and I think they are undermining some of my flowerbed...grrrrr!! What to do...what to do!! The garden is shutting down slowly, we had a bit of frost so things are just touched. The potatoes are great this year, will have to get the fibre out of the cold room so we have someplace to put them...and we better get them out of the ground pretty soon or I will not have to worry as I see the moles have moved into that area. Just can not win around here with the predators, is a constant battle to keep my animals and gardens safe. Well I can hear I am being paged from the barnyard so better get moving, have the window open and the goats are calling me...also the resident rooster is doing his thing too...lots of crowing going on for one rooster. He is probably hungry too!!
Well!!!! After I wrote this post this morning I tried to send it and it would not go, tried a couple more times today...would not go....I just tried again... and all of a sudden I noticed the the little box was not checked beside do you except etc. I checked it and everything is ready to go.....now if I could just figure out how to move the pictures around and not just dump them all in.........someday.

Some Knitting and some Cuteness

2009-09-14T23:03:00.000-07:00

We are actually having fall this year after last year when we went from summer to winter overnight, hope it stays around for a while as the chores never end. Watered the garden good today as it was getting so dry, still enjoying some of the veggies, can not believe I still have edible lettuce. I see the mice are also enjoying the carrots, some of the tops were munched and the last week we have had a deer visiting, lots of footprints but the only thing that got tasted was the top of a few berry bushes. We moved the females llamas over to the pasture by the garden so will probably not have trouble with the deer anymore. Llama babies should start arriving toward the end of the month so I wanted them closer to the house so I could keep an eye on them. Really enjoying the gift babies, have to take the time to name the poor things, keep calling them girl baby and boy baby. The little girl loves to get her picture taken and is always posing but the boy just says get away with that camera, but I did get a couple of pictures of him.
The fleece sorting is on going when I get a minute but have been trying to get my knitting for the conference finished, everyone is knitting scarves out of llama fibre and donating them to the conference, I have three made and want to do one more but also entered a couple skeins of yarn in too so I better get them done, only have a week and a half left. Washed and blocked all the socks today that I have been knitting all summer, had blocked some before and today I had thirteen pair to block. Will have to dig them all out and do a count. I took a picture of the red scarf partly finished but got it finished today and blocked it, wanted it to be about sixty inches....after it was blocked...it was over seventy inches....I thought it would probably block a bit larger.....but ten inches!! The pattern I used was the one row scarf, was worried as I knit that it would be too loose but after it was blocked it was o.k. Will try to get a picture tomorrow.

Look What Came To Live At Our House!!

2009-09-02T23:03:00.000-07:00

I know I said the door was closed, the inn was full.....but...I guess I left it open a crack...and look who came to live with us...more gift llamas...but they have to be the cutest gifts we have ever gotten, the little boy is the largest and the little girl is the smaller, they have different fathers but they look like twins. Now have to think of names for them!! In a couple of weeks some of our llamas and one alpaca should be having their babies....there is going to be a whole lot of cute running around in the barnyard.
I have been busy resorting my llama fleeces and a friends that have already been in two shows and getting them ready for the conference show at the end of Sept. Trying to decide whether I will put another fleece in the show but it is so soft and so full of trash have been picking it all afternoon, also have bags of alpaca fibre sorted and ready to go to the mill. The entry's for the Handspinners choice class I was judging and spinning up an oz each of nineteen different entry's is finished and ready to go. Now to decide whether I will enter any of the other classes.
Have almost finished knitting another pair of socks, just going to start decreasing for the toe on the last sock, have been happily knitting socks all summer but all of a sudden do not even want to see another sock. Have to get something different on the needles. We have had some really hot days lately and usually we always have a breeze blow in in the evening to cool things off but not the last couple of days so the house has been so hot, has finally cooled off here at midnight so am off to bed. Tomorrow is another day of picking debris out of llama fleece......

Where does the time go?

2009-08-28T16:15:00.000-07:00

What have I been doing....a little bit of everything...living outside in the garden enjoying all the little birds flipping around...not enjoying...the mice eating the peas, they crawl up the plant and shell the peas leaving the pods hanging there. Also have had some Deer visiting but the only damage from them is they nipped off the top of one of the Saskatoon bushes. Have also been sorting Alpaca fibre to send to the Mill but had to leave that a bit as the local Fair was coming up and as we are directors for the Llama Show we had to get that organized plus I had entered a few things in the bench show. Thought I had entered some baking...good thing I had made a copy of what I entered and checked it out before I started baking!! as I had forgot to send that form in, had entered a couple of llama fleeces in the Fleece Show, something knit from handspun, something made from hand dyed yarn, a knit pair of socks and a skein of handspun yarn.....I think that was all. Because of living outside in the garden all summer I had not made anything new so just pulled some articles that were made from the sales bin but thought I would spin a skein of yarn, I had some wool roving so spun it up but......when I was plying it....the cat decided to help and I got her tail plied into the yarn a couple of times....then got the tassels of the afghan on my chair plied into it....good grief!! And this was to be entered in the fair!! I had a skein of yarn I had spun from llama and it did not weigh as much as they wanted but decided to take that. Won ribbons for everything but the pair of socks, everyone else had knit patterned socks...have to remember that next time. I did wash up a sheep fleece, it is a beautiful brown with super crimp, am posting a picture of some of it before I washed it.
I had said I would spin and judge the Handspinner's Choice competition for the Fibre Show at the Llama Conference in Sept. so all the fleece samples were delivered right after the fair, so that is what I have been doing. Now it says in the book that two oz. of unwashed llama fleece ""with all guard hair and debris removed"" is to be entered.....wellllll!! That is all I am going to say!! Also in the Suri Llama class...one entry....the fibre was twenty inches long....like is this a joke or what!! Yup...I spun it...feels like string. So that is done!! Just finished hemming grandson #4's pants for school so that is done. Hopefully will be able to get back to the fleece sorting......there was some beautiful fleece samples that I spun and judged.......should I see whether the fleeces are for sale at the conference....I have just smacked myself twice!! I can not even get the fleece I have sorted!!

I am still around !!!

2009-07-26T20:55:00.000-07:00

Where does the time go?? After the terrible cold winter we had I have decided to really enjoy the summer when we finally got it this year so have been working in the garden everyday until noon, pulling and hoeing weeds and hilling up the monster potato patch, What are we going to do with all these potatoes?? Food bank here we come!! Maybe have to put a you dig it sign at the road. Am so enjoying the lettuce, love my lettuce, almost too beautiful to eat and the other day I thought I would thin the carrots out a bit...could not believe how big the carrots were already!! They did not last long. And the peas pods are filling up nicely, makes my mouth water.
And I have been doing a bit of fibre stuff, finally finished spinning the llama/merino/silk that I had carded up, spun it very fine so it seemed to take ages, wanted to spin about a thousand yards and when I was finished it was just short of a thousand yards. I want to dye it so one of these days will have to get the dye pots out but it has been so hot here who wants to be heating anything up, we usually only have one plus thirty day here in the hills all summer but this year we had quite a few days, thank-goodness it cools off at night. Also have six pair of socks knit up, have to get them washed and blocked this week and do a count on how many pairs I have so far, am always short for the fall sales and end up knitting crazy to fill orders so thought if I could knit four pair a month I would be ahead...will have to see...think I am behind. Then the garage floor is finished and I have my sorting table up so have been sorting fibre to go to the mill, is so hard as I come across fibre and I think...maybe I should wash some and see how it spins...but I can not get side tracked!! have too much to sort through. The cement guys are supposed to be back tomorrow to pour the pad in front of the garage and the backhole guy is supposed to dig the trench from the house to the barn to bury the power line tomorrow so will be a busy day but things are finally getting finished up. Well Maxx and I are off to do our midnight run in the fresh air and then off to bed.

Rain Day Today

2009-07-09T08:47:00.000-07:00

After it being so dry we have been having rain, actually some wild rain and a bit of hail, just as my big white poppy was going to bloom, Glad I took the picture of the first flower even though the wind was blowing as the flowers are pretty ragged right now. The lily did its blooming of all the flowers, was so pretty but does not last long.Usually the plants on the front step are safe from the weather but for some reason the hail storm came from the wrong direction so there was a fast move of all the pot plants into the house. I did paint the front railing the pinky brown color and I love it, think I will paint the railing around the back deck the same color. Got my planters on the top rail and they look great. The garden is doing great after the slow start, the beans are the only thing that suffered in the snow, they are slowly....too slowly coming back. The floor in the garage was poured yesterday and they were here all day troweling, glad it was them doing the troweling. Now to let it dry enough I can move my fibre stuff in. On the fibre front I am still carding llama fibre with some merino and silk and spinning it up...no pictures as it is white...so far...so is pretty boring. Have one bobbin full and another half full, had to card up a bit more fibre yesterday so hope I have enough carded to fill the bobbin. Trying to decide what colors I am going to dye it, spun it very fine so is taking ages. Also have knit three more pair of socks, have to do a count of how many I have, wanted to knit four pair a month this year as I never have enough when fall markets arrive but think I am running behind. and I do have to get the dye pots out and going. Well off I go to spin a bit and should do some baking while the weather is cool.

Beautiful Summer Day!!

2009-06-27T13:16:00.000-07:00

After a couple of days of wind we finally have a great day and look what is blooming, a new lily plant I bought to replace one the mice did in, I could not believe how big the flower buds were getting, thought the plant was going to topple over with the weight of them, then looked out the window yesterday morning and here it was...the first bloom!! The "Swoopers" must have found a new place for their nest as they have stopped trying to get into the house, I see them just flying by, thank-goodness, it was getting to be a chore to get in the front door without them coming in too. Have been trying to make a decision on what color to paint the wooden railing coming up to the front door. The safe and boring pick would have been white but I wanted something a bit different so decided on a pinky brown color, I know....it is hard to describe...painted a piece of board and sat it on top of the railing to look at for a few days....maybe the paint should have been a bit lighter...well I am going to go for it, if I think it is too dark I will get some more white paint to mix in the original color for the second coat (seems I am always doing that) I got a couple of planters that fit over the rail and have them planted...and there they set...waiting for the rail to be painted...so it is get out there and do some painting or forget about it until next year....I am getting a paint brush as we speak...also have a another problem, a spider has laid her eggs in her web against one end of the railing but I see they are hatching this morning so if I start at the other end hopefully they will be hatched and gone before I get to them. Well am on my way to paint....or put the planters up...and wait until next year to paint....

The weeds say...yup....summer is here!!

2009-06-25T08:14:00.000-07:00

What have I been up to?? As you notice...not blogging....It seems I have been doing nothing but trying to play catch-up since the weather finally decided to get with the season. Everything is so far behind. We finally have all the shearing of the animals finished and I got a couple fleeces ready for a fleece show but now to get at the rest of the fleece sorting. Remember the garage that was going to be my place to sort etc. etc.??....well is still at the stage it was last fall...my patience is wearing a bit thin...so Monday when it was raining RH was wondering what he should do...I asked him if it was raining in the garage...and if he had gas for the bobcat....no it was not raining in the garage and yes he had gas for the bobcat, so now the floor is leveled in the garage and we had a load of gravel delivered so now he is out putting that down on the floor and then comes the infloor heating whatever that was given to him when he helped build a chicken barn a few years ago. The cement man is supposed to be giving us a quote on the cement and finishing....what is taking so long on getting the quote???...his computer is not working properly...and he just might have to sit down and figure it out himself...I really feel bad for that poor man!! Meanwhile we were given one of those garage/tent things, the cover needed replacing and for a while I was getting so excited as a company said they could make me a plastic cover for it and I would use it for a greenhouse...but we got a replacement cover and moved all the fleece into it that was in the garage....there is so much stuff in it I can not set the sorting table up. The painting of trim in the house is on hold while I try to rescue my flowerbeds that the mice demolished during the winter. They did a lot of damage and I lost most of my bulbs so have been replacing them and have you ever noticed....it does not matter how bad the weather is...the weeds still grow...so have been trying to get them under control too. The good thing is the garden got planted and it is up, the only damage from the last snowfall is the bean plants had just come up and although we covered them most of the beans froze so have to plant some more. We had used evestroughing pieces to cover the rows of the peas and beans and when we took them off we lay them down beside the raised beds....and wow!! what great gopher traps they are!! have been teaching Maxx to go check the garden occasionally and when he goes down the gophers hide under the evestrough and he can turn the trough's over himself and get them so at the moment there have been no gophers in my raised beds, I hope they have got the message that the garden is not their grocery store!!I have also been spinning a bit each day as I am so behind on the fibre front, have been carding the llama fibre I had washed and dehaired at the mill with some merino and silk and so far have one spool spun up and will start a new one today, am spinning it very fine so takes a while and am slowly knitting on socks, had planned to knit four pair a month but at the moment am really behind and fall markets are going to be here before I know it. Still have not discovered what bird left the egg on my doorstep, am beginning to think a nasty bird robbed someones nest and dropped the egg on the step and was disturbed before it could eat it. The little birds that were looking for a nesting box....I thought they were looking for a box....but it turns out they were cliff or barn swallows and they do not nest in boxes, their cousins the tree swallows took over the nesting boxes, well the cliff swallows are back and have decided they should nest in my house and there has been discussion about that and my answer is no-way...and the sad looks are not going to change my mind...their names are The "Swoopers". Found them sitting so sadly on the evestrough by the front door during the rain the other day. Everytime we go out the door I am afraid they are going to swoop into the house. Well off I go to water the flowers and the garden and tend to a few more weeds.

What a difference a day makes!!

2009-06-07T08:48:00.000-07:00

This is what we woke up to this morning, same view from same window...please let it stay for a few months. I just lugged all the potted plants back outside so they could soak up some sun for a bit and we had put evestrough pieces over the rows of peas and beans when the snow and cold hit, I just went down and took them off and everything looks o.k. Then look what I found on the front step...someone left me a gift...but what do they want me to do with it?? Hatch it for them?? Should I run to the store and get one of those little incubators like they use in schools?? I could not believe it...I thought...that is a funny looking rock...it was not a rock...it was an egg...was she in a hurry and could not make it to her nest?? I do not need the stress!! Well better go soak up some sun before the clouds move in....and ask around and try to find out who is missing an egg....

Snow Days...in June!!

2009-06-06T08:53:00.000-07:00

What can I say.........this started last night and continues today!! Baa and humbug!! We have been shearing llamas and alpacas all week, we had started with the two male alpacas but then we did not have the right blades for the clipper so ordered some to be put on the bus for the next day and went on shearing the female llamas...thank-goodness as the females have a large barn to get into out of the weather. The boys do not, there is no sense having a barn for them as one would go in and stand in the doorway and not let anyone else in. we have the small brown male in with four llama geldings and one alpaca gelding, he is so timid and the black gelding is such a nasty boy, usual when they are gelded they calm down but not this thing, am so tired of the screaming and fighting. We went to see grandson #3's performance in the play Aladdin, when we left home it was raining hard and cold and on the way back home we ran into a snowstorm and roads were bad, worried all the way home about the two male alpacas, llamas are o.k. as we just shear their blanket...alpacas are naked. All the way home we were trying to figure out where to put the brown Alpaca so he could stay warm and dry, then remembered that we had a small shelter that we use for the goat weanlings and it was not in use at the moment so as soon as we got home RH managed to halter him and put him in the little shelter. I was worried he would be stressed in a new area...no he was happy as can be...he is a loner and so happy to be by himself. The black gelding was o.k., he was with the llama boys.
Now my poor garden, the peas and beans had just come up, they were late because it has been so cool out, what to do!! Finally I thought of the evestroughing we had not put up on the garage yet, the peas and beans are still small enough if we turned them upside down over the plants maybe it would save them so that is what we did, now hope it works. The trees we do have are loaded down with the wet snow and almost flat with the grown, will their be any hope for my berry bushes that were just flowering. Had finally planted the daisies out in the flowerbed, they were getting so rootbound in their pots, the bed is at the front of the house and there is not much snow there so hopefully they will be o.k. Thank-goodness the rest are still in their pots and I could lug them all back into the house. Is this ever going to end!! It went below zero last night, we needed the moisture but could it not be a warm rain??
Now on the happy front...I finally have the crochet scarf blocked and took it's picture before the bad weather started. I am still working on the thin as sewing thread llama yarn I bought on cones, still have lots left, is so much easier to crochet it, knitting takes forever and is hard to knit as the yarn splits so easy. I wanted to do something different with the ends of the scarf so made up an edge....reminder to self...if you are making something up.....and have to repeat it.......WRITE DOWN WHAT YOU HAVE DONE!!! The first edge went great....the second one longer as I had to figure out what I had done on the first one. Well might as well go snuggle down with a cup of tea and knit a bit.

Gone to the birds!!

2009-06-01T10:04:00.000-07:00

I can not believe the month of May went by that fast!! What have I been doing?? Trying to kill myself off...that is what!! I am still doing the house cleaning, painting trim around windows and doors and let us not even mention cleaning all the venetian blinds on the twenty-one large windows in this house....and there are not blinds on all the windows.In the laundry room I had to stand balancing on the corners of the dryer to reach the window to first paint the trim then wash the blind and then the window and the screen....at one point I had thought maybe I should have hooked a water bottle...some pain killers...and my cell phone to my belt just incase I fell off the dryer. Well got that all done but when I went to use the dryer...somehow...and who knows how it happened.....when I turned the dryer on the drum inside was hitting the top of the dryer lid...have to work at getting these extra pounds off I guess. RH said he would have a look at it....a few days later when he ran out of clean clothes he finally got at it and with the help of a 2x4 he managed to pop the top back up so yesterday was spent washing clothes. Got the garden all planted and things are starting to come up and the trees are leafing out and the grass is finally green, I have to go to the greenhouse and get some more lillys etc. to replace the ones the mice did in on me. What a mess they made, have been waiting to see what I have left. We have taken pieces of pvc pipe and put mouse seed in them and placed them in the flowerbeds and the raised veg beds and so far they are under control. When I said sister Jeannie that I had the garden all planted and got the mouse seed out...she said what!! now you are growing mice!! I said it is not that type of seed... Then I had that beautiful white poppy last year with the purple center, when I bought it at the plant store the poor little thing was sitting there with no label on it and wow!! it was the best buy I made. I sent a picture of it to my Aunt in Washington and she sent me a seed cat. from down there that had seeds I could buy to grow them. So I ordered a pk of the white and a pk of the pink and red. When it came time to plant them and I opened the pk thinking I would find...like..poppy seeds...and I would just plant a few...all there was in the pks was this bit of dust..so planted it all. I had them under my grow light and they came up and last week I potted them in their own pots....how many plants did I get???? I have sixty-one little poppies sitting under the grow light...what can I say, a few will not make it as they were pretty small but it looks like I will have a poppy farm. I had started some dahlias from seed under the light and they are complaining bitterly as it is so crowded, maybe I should get another light...but then you know what would happened...yup...been there done that...had a whole ping pong table full of plants one year...lights hanging from the ceiling...plastic sheets hanging from the ceiling around them...I will confine myself to one light.
Now today we were going to start shearing the llamas and alpacas but it rained last night so have to let them dry out first, good thing RH cut all the grass around the place the last couple of days. I don't know how it can be 25C one day and then drop down to the single digits the next day. RH took off with the recycling stuff so that will be out of the way. We did not get the floor in the garage last fall as we ran out of warm weather so we have to get that done but before we could get at it we had to find someplace to put everything that we had stored in the garage...mainly all my gift fibre. A friend gave us his tent/garage thingy but it needed a new canvas cover, we finally got the new cover and last week put it up beside the garage. RH got all the frame work up, I had said to him becareful of the little evergreen, he was the only tree on the whole quarter section and the cows had chewed him down all those years and we brought him up to the yard area and he has been so happy and grown so well, RH said he is o.k. I have left lots of room for him....wellll...I went out later to see if he needed help...he said he had to move the tent legs as he had them too far out....but....I said what about little tree..his branches are sticking into the tent!! So he had to move the legs again. so we put the canvas topper on...in the wind...we managed to get it up over the top all the time I was thinking we could be flying away in a hotair balloon with no basket any moment. Well when we got it over the top we realized we had it the wrong way around and had to take it back down turn it and put it back up...in the wind!! But it is up and we moved everything from the garage into it. Then Friday we went over to friends and RH sheared their five llamas and I helped them sort the fibre...that was our holiday, now onto ours.....we have forty plus animals.
One day these little birds arrived on the deck looking for a nesting box, so had to drop everything and get the nesting boxes up. It was so funny how excited they and their other little friends were about the boxes, the flying and flipping around, doing a happy dance in the sky. I was down at the garden watering when they were trying to make the decision which box to chose, we had put up four of them, grandsons had made them at scouts one year and I was gifted with them. I took some pictures of them. You know me...I wanted to run out and buy enough lumber to build more nesting boxes to put all around the yard. Controlled myself...so far...
Not too much on the fibre front going on, did get a scarf crocheted but have not taken a picture of it yet, it is blocking right now and of course the steady sock knitting in odd moments. Well better get back to the painting and hopefully the shearing if the weather clears up, have to get fleeces ready for the upcoming fleece shows!!

Please let it warm up!!

2009-05-13T10:55:00.000-07:00

Things are slowly greening up around here but we had some snow again last night and the temp got down below zero. The snow is melted this morning and the sun is out but it is not that warm out. I keep putting my plants out in the day and bringing them back in at night as it is too cool to plant them out permanently. Sunday Mothers Day was such a nice day we went to the local berry farm where they sell trees, plants etc. with the thought I was going to bring all these plants home......plant places should have have animals too...too distracting for me. First we found a potbelly pig in one of the greenhouse, RH said we are not getting a pig! (been there done that)I thought ...maybe if I said I was thinking about getting a pig and he would be so upset about it....and then ( I knew they they had bought some Baby Doll sheep) I could say....well I will get a sheep instead and he would be sooo relieved not to have the pig....that he would say yes to the sheep. All of a sudden here came four beautiful Bantam roosters marching through the greenhouse, they looked like someone had groomed them, I need a new rooster for the girls and these were so colorful. I did get a rhubarb plant, it is supposed to be the sweetest around but after I seen the animals the list of plants I had in my head disappeared. I could not find the sheep so asked the owners where they were, they said they were away at the farm having a holiday as they had just been sheared......you have already guessed what happened next....yup.....I asked what they did with the fleece..... they said do you know of anyone that spins and could use it.....well I now have two large bags of Baby Doll sheep fleece!! One bag of white and one bag of dark wool. I said I would spin them a skein of each color in exchange for the fleece. I have to go back with a list of what I wanted in plants....a list written down on paper....(and I am whispering this)......I also want to see the sheep, will try not to touch them.....as I have sticky fingers....and animals have been known to stick to me. Not much in the way of fibre stuff has been going on except the same old sock knitting, always have some on the needles. I did card some wool I had dyed purple at one time, had to take a picture of it coming off the carder as it looked so beautiful with the light from the windows shining through the fleece. What I have been doing is cleaning house, like really cleaning house...moving stuff to clean behind and under plus all the light fixtures. After all the working on the basement all winter there is dust all over. Have to stay at it while I am on a roll, as soon as the weather smartens up and decides to warm up it will garden work and fibre work. Well am off to clean some more....am finding all sorts of treasures hiding....like a large bag of cashmere roving....when did I buy that???? That is one good thing about getting older and forgetful.....you do not have to go to the store to shop.....just clean out the corners occasionally and find all the neat stuff you forgot you have!!

Snow is finally disappearing

2009-05-04T08:55:00.000-07:00

Am I right to assume that winter is finally gone and we have spring?? O.K.....I am assuming...so am going to plant some seeds today...and put out mouse bait at the same time as last year we had a fight over whether they were my seeds or food for mice....this year I am determined that they are my seeds and they are going to grow!! My tulips were up about four inches before the last snow covered them...snow finally melted off the flower beds a few days ago....and the #%$#$%&*&^%$ mice had chewed some of them off. I will have to wait a bit to see what damage is done to the rest of my perennials, at this time I am trying to stay calm...and not say anymore bad words. I stopped in at a greenhouse yesterday but controlled myself and only bought a geranium....now I probably have at least twenty-five geranium's living in my house already....but I did not have this color....I have to confess to a plant stash too.
Have not accomplished much in the fibre area as I have been trying to get the downstairs sorted out and cleaned up as the ceiling is finished and everything moved out of the center of the room, did card up and spin a bit of the white alpaca I got back from the mill but not really happy about the wool I mixed it with, it did not turn out as soft as I imagined it would, because they just washed, picked the alpaca and put it through the dehairer it is also full of static so is hard to handle, have mixed fabric softener with water and have sprayed it on the batt after I card it but I think maybe I should spray the alpaca fibre first with the softener and let it dry before I card it and see if it makes a difference. I did get four pet beds made up with the fibre that was too coarse for spinning, just have to put the two buttons on the casing to cover them and they will be ready for the market stash. Our farmers markets start the middle of June so are coming fast!! Well off to plant some seeds!!

Snow and more snow!!

2009-04-27T10:37:00.000-07:00

When is this ever going to end,I am not going to post anymore snow pictures as they look exactly like the pictures on the last post, this is our third day of snow and blowing snow and they are saying another storm tonight. The drifts are so high in around the barns that you can hardly walk. RH just came in from chores and was so tired he has gone for a nap. This has got to end sometime....right??
I finished the scarf I was knitting out of the llama yarn that was as thin as sewing thread, tried to get it to sixty inches and finally bound off at (Ithink) fifty-four inches and when I blocked it, it measured around seventy inches....I love it now...what a difference after it had been blocked. With the rest of the yarn from the knitted scarf I thought I would just use it up and try crocheting with it...wow it went a lot faster, scarf is not that long but liked the way it came out. I had dyed some more of that type of yarn so decided to crochet a scarf out of it so have it started. These are the socks I have stock piled so far, just finished another pair but have not washed and blocked them yet, was hoping to knit four pair a month but am behind not counting what I sold right after the new year.Better go put another sock on the needles. Have almost finished knitting the vest I am going to felt, have the back and fronts knit, now just to sew them together and finish the edges, they have you pick up stitches and knit a couple rows on the edges.
A few years ago I had spun up some brown wool I carded with some gold and purple sparkle and I thought I would knit up the Einstein Coat for myself like the baby Einstein coat I made, but when I knit up a swatch it felt too overtwisted so decided to put it back through the spinning wheel and take some of the twist out of it and see what happened, I washed it and hung it to dry but maybe should have weighted it with something, will do that with the other skeins. It knit up a lot better so I will be running the other skeins through the spinning and reset them too. It will be good to use the yarn up and I think it is perfect for this sweater coat.
The ceiling is finished and lights are up in my work area so have been cleaning up and sorting for the last few days and now I can get back to carding fibre and doing some sewing. I am finding fibre that I did not know I even had.... do not even remember buying.....a big bag of cashmere??.....when did I buy that....I won't even mention what other stuff I found.....I have to admit I have an addiction....does anyone know of a group called Fibre Pig Anonymous?? I can not buy anymore fibre....I have to keep repeating this to myself. I just found an acronym that fits me perfectly...."SABLE"...Stash Accumulated Beyond Life Expectancy...that is a bit scary. Now I better go start working on this fibre stash!!

We needed moisture...but isn't there another way!!!

2009-04-23T13:50:00.000-07:00

Woke up this morning to the wind howling and the snow blowing, looks like some drifts are four feet high. Maxx went out the bottom door with RH when he went out to do the chores and a minute later there was this thump at the front door...he wanted in bad...and it must have been bad as he came through the drift on the front steps...look how much snow was up against the door...and he brought some in with him. This what spring looks like around here. Am glad I got as much garden work done that I did, the mice had tunneled all through my front flowerbeds leaving roots and bulbs exposed, I had tossed some dirt over them but when I was raking off the old leaves etc. I found it was really bad in other areas so spent a day sifting soil over the whole area and watering it in, hope the mice did not kill the lilies, see no sign of them coming up yet but hope they come later, so far some iris, my favorite poppy which was the first thing up and now is probably flat, some tulips, the bleeding heart plant and the two columbine plants. I thing I like about spring is seeing everything come up. just before it snowed I went down to the garden area and noticed the crocus starting to bloom, it is so startling to see this bright blue in the dull brown grass. The snow should not last long, we had such hot dry winds for a few days and the other night there was smoke coming over the hills so something caught on fire, thank-goodness by the time we went to bed it was gone, so am thankful for the moisture even if it came in snow, things should green up now. Now back to trying to get my work area straightened out so I can get some more fibre carded.

Spring is coming slowly

2009-04-17T10:27:00.000-07:00

This morning the sun is out and the birds are flying around cheeping happily. The snow is finally off the front flowerbeds and the tulip leaves are showing, have to go out in a minute and do some scratching around. The mice had a hayday under the snow this winter, hope they did not do too much damage. A lot of my bulbs had the dirt dug away from them so as I was potting inside plants I covered them up with the old pot dirt so we will see. I ordered some new poppy seeds and they came in the mail yesterday so better get them planted and under the grow lights.
I finally got the fibre back that had been at the mill for a year, I had them just wash, pick and dehair and it turned out great.I only had one llama fleece and the rest was alpaca. The llama fleece was from a young male and he was white with small brown spots so the fibre is an off white but will look great dyed. I carded the llama with some merino/silk roving and it turned out sooo soft. I spun some up and although I thought I had put a lot of twist in it, I could have had more, I find llama needs a lot of twist in the singles. I plied most of it two ply and then what was left on one bobbin I navaho plyed and I think I like it better in the three ply so will try the next skein three ply. You would not believe how soft it is. I can not wait to card up the alpaca, the light reddish brown and white is so soft and the grey and black are nice too but is a bit coarser as it was from older animals. RH has been working downstairs tiling the floor, drywalling and now is finishing the suspended ceiling so everything is stacked all over and that is where my work area is so have not accomplished much except for knitting this winter. I have such bad allergies so have been battling runny eyes and sinus problems, almost done...will be so glad when everything is put back in its place and all the dust is cleaned up but it is going to be so nice, our house has a walkout basement with large windows to the floor and now with the light colored floor tile and white ceiling it is so bright down there. Had a great Easter with all the kids and grandkids out for dinner, only one missing was younger son as he works in the oil patch, he purchased a house up there last fall so cooked dinner for his buddies that could not make it home either. Well am off to plant my poppy seeds and then go out and scratch around "carefully"in my flower beds.

What am I knitting??

2009-03-26T23:23:00.000-07:00

I finished the baby sweater, just have to put the buttons on it, the pattern was from the Book 1: The Knit Stitch by Sally Melville and is called The Baby Albert Coat, I wanted to try the pattern out as they have a pattern for an adult sweater too, it is neat how you knit the bottom first then the back, then the sides by picking up stitches, then pick up stitches for the sleeves and knit them, the only sewing is the top of the sleeve and shoulder. There are instructions to make a bunting with a hood, it is so cute.
Then here is the scarf I started last fall with the very...very...like sewing thread llama yarn, knit with the feather and fan stitch, got so tired of it last fall I tucked it away. Found it a bit ago and decided even if it did me in I would finish it, so I knit...and I knit...and I measured...and I knit...every night I would say this is it!! I am going to cast off tomorrow but then would measure it and decide...well I will knit a bit more. Wanted to knit it to sixty inches...finally it was fifty-four and I could not knit another row...so I cast off, I think by the time it is washed and blocked it will be near the sixty inches. I have tons of this fine yarn so decided I would try crocheting it and it is working so much better, goes a lot faster.
Meanwhile I found a pattern for a vest that you knit and then full ( felt a bit) , there is a formula that you use, you knit up the swatch and then you wash it to full it and then you measure your swatch and figure out the percentage it felted and then multiply the length of the vest by the percentage of felting to get the proper length you need to knit. So I did all the figuring and almost have the back knit, the fulling gives a really nice weight for the vest. The funny thing is it only shrinks in length and not in width. Am excited to see how it turns out, love the fulled swatch.
Today I got my Creative Knitting magazine in the mail and it has some great patterns in it, I love the jacket on the cover!! Will have to decide what to make it out of and get spinning and swatching.
We have been having snow and blowing snow weather the last few days, now today although it was cool out the sun was shining...but the forecast is for some more snow....more snow....I really need warm and sun shine, specially sunshine...I am being to think I am solar powered and really need some sun to charge my battery up. Right now my battery is really run down and I should head for bed.

What Have I Been Doing???

2009-03-23T22:57:00.000-07:00

This is what has been keeping me busy lately, unexpected babies and most of them were born when it was at least -25. We had kept a little Boer Buck from last years kids and although he was a baby he got out and bred some of my pygmy girls and one of the dairy girls. RH kept saying it could not be the Boer buck it had to be one of the pygmy wethers that was not neutered properly (he was in denial) even after the first kids were born he claimed they were 100% pygmy...finally after the second twins were born he had to admit they were out of the Boer buck. The pygmies are so small I was so worried we would loose them all, the Boers are four times as big as the pygmies. It was not the train wreak I thought it was going to be, they were o.k. as long as they had twins but one doe who had trouble when she had pygmy kids and we were never going to bred her again only had the one kid and it was too big and we lost the doe and kid. It was a miracle we lost only one. Then the dairy girl has a bad utter and I thought last year was the last year we would bred her, HB was upset as he said she was a pig and was getting too fat etc...etc.., well one morning he went out and she had a beautiful little brown boy, as she only had the one her utter is not that big and baby has no trouble drinking. The baby pygmy/Boer kids have the funny airplane ears, a cross between the pygmies erect ears and the Boer's floppy ears...but they are so cute. Now in a few weeks the Boer girls we did bred will start kidding.
Now the weather!! We had a few warmer days and some of the snow melted and we were more than ready for spring but a couple of nights ago we got another dump of snow with winds and drifting snow and the weatherman says it is not over yet, still more snow on the way but we will not be having the -25 and lower temps anymore. We have had terrible winds, when we had the few nice days Mr Fix-it came out and replaced the shingles on the roof and that night the wind came up...and blew them off again.....now how many times did we tell him they had to be tarred down...when we phoned him to say they had blown off and asked if he tarred them....no he did not!! Well he guarantee's his work....so he will be back when it warms up again and hopefully before the rains start and the roof starts leaking.
I have been knitting but will post about that another day!!

Please let this be spring on the way!!!!!

2009-03-11T12:16:00.000-07:00

After I do not know how many days of -25 +or- it is now only -12..the sun is out...the birds are cheeping...Maxx and Grey Kitty are laying in a sunbeam...have not looked and seen what Mr. Gopher is up to, yesterday it was -25 and here he was out sitting in the cold snow on his butt eating something....what I do not know. Now that gopher has been there for a couple of years and this year I have declared war on rodents....but you know...he is kinda a cute little guy...and he has grown on me...no matter what nasty words I have spoken to him...but I can not put up with all his children (or hers...can decide whether it is a she or he)so I have been thinking.....as our powers that be at our Municipal Office already have me on the crazy list...do you think they would have a live catch rodent cage...so I could catch him/her and move him/her somewhere else...mmmmmm....have to think on that.
I had 100gms of fine NZ fine Romney and NZ Possum, it has been around for a couple of years, I think M.J. picked it up for me at a convention, I found it and thought I would spin it up, what horrid stuff, now the Romney looks like it was beautiful, light brown color and is so shiny but this possum stuff....do they put the whole possum in?? I am sure I am finding toenails and it is full of hair. I have one bobbin spun but now I wish I would have felted it into something. What I might do is put the rest through my carder (after picking out the toenails) and see what it looks like and either spin up another bobbin to ply with the other one or....will decide...sure am not enjoying spinning it like it is.
Finished up the baby sweater out of acrylic but did not take pictures yet, not really happy on the yarn, have to decide on buttons, knit a couple pair of socks and have been knitting on the feather and fan scarf I started last year, the yarn I am using is 100% llama and it is like sewing thread, is taking me forever to knit, I think it might be easier to crochet it, have to look at some patterns as I have two cones of it.
And the great news is the mill where I took some llama and alpaca....and I think some pygora...it has been over a year, has my stuff ready to pick up, I just had them wash pick and dehair it for me and then I can add whatever other fibre I want. I always make out a list of what I send but maybe I did not print myself a list off of the computer and it could have been lost in the fix computer thing or it could be floating around in cyber space. Anyway it will be a surprise right? Then I had this great idea...if the fibre I send to this mill takes a year of it sitting around there before they could get at it...why could they not just put my name on a list and two weeks before my name came up...they could call me...and I could get it there...am going to ask her when I talk to her. Can not wait to get it and please let the weather get warmer so I can get out to the garage and sort more fibre...spring!...spring!...we really need spring to arrive and soon!

Rain...Snow..and then Sunshine...all in one morning!!

2009-03-03T22:47:00.000-08:00

Finally got the llama fluff spun up, I had added about ten percent merino wool and love how it spun up...just wish there was more of it, only have about 48 gms.
Then I had some alpaca and merino spun up on a bobbin and some merino on another bobbin so decided to ply them together, the alpaca merino had been on the bobbin for a bit so did not have a lot of life to it but after it was plied and washed it came back to life, right now it is a striped yarn so have to decide whether to knit it up like it is or dye it....and you know me...I like color so it will probably be dyed. I have a lot of beautiful roving that has been admired and petted for a long while and I think I am going to spin them up. The local mill just phoned to say my fibre is ready to pick up....it has only been a month since I took it up, it was some coarser alpaca so I had some merino added and they made it into felting batts for me. And today the mill where my llama fibre has been for a year phoned to say they are starting on it tomorrow and it should be ready to go by the weekend, so things are looking up. I just got them to wash, pick and dehair the llama and then I can card whatever other fibre with it.
I had my window open a bit when I went to bed last night and woke up about three o'clock and could hear water dripping...it was poring rain...on the snow, when I got up and looked at the temp this morning it was zero but it is a worry if it gets colder and freezes and we have ice all over, then it was snowing...heavy wet snow...and then by noon the sun came out and we had monster water puddles all over...around the snow banks!! Weird...now they say the weather is getting colder. Thank-goodness the end of the ceramic tileing is in sight as my allergies are so bad I feel I am surviving without a brain these days. Will be glad to see the snow disappear and spring arrive!!

2009-02-24T13:35:00.000-08:00

O.K found the picture!! It was not filed where I thought it was, I have to take some time to get my pictures filed properly. The llama roving is so soft and fluffy!!

Snow Day Today

2009-02-24T12:35:00.000-08:00

<
We woke up this morning to snow on the ground again, everything white, but it was quiet snow, just slowly coming down and now the sun is trying to come out. Wonder what Mr (Mrs) Gopher is doing? I could not believe it... the other day I looked out the window and here was this fat gopher sitting their munching on some dried grass....does that mean spring is just around the corner?? do not know what he is eating....and no....I am not going to feed him. I better get my plans going on how I am going to protect my garden this spring...is a challenge every year....and I am determined to win.
The ceramic tiling is ongoing, is interesting trying to put down floor tile in a room full of stuff, it is a matter of tiling a space and when it is finished move stuff onto the finished tile and tile another spot...and on you go. My allergies from the dust etc are getting to me so am living on antihistamines so am not too sharp these days....the good thing sharp or not I can still knit, thank-goodness.
The llama and sheep hats were delivered and were a big hit and I have orders for more when I want to make them, I said let me have a bit of a break and I will get at them, so am having a sock knitting time until I get tired of them and then will do some more hats. Our Llama association is thinking of knitting scarves out of llama yarn to sell at the convention this fall so I whipped up a scarf to gauge about how much yarn it would take, I have been knitting a bit on the feather and fan scarf I started last year out of the very fine llama yarn, it is like knitting with sewing thread so is not fast and then found a ball of yarn so I can finish the childs sweater and I did a bit of spinning, I had carded up some llama with a bit of merino wool last year and it has been sitting there being admired, thought it was time I made it into something. Have got half of it spun and working on the next bobbin, it is soo soft. When I started gathering up all the projects I had sitting here and there around the house it was a bit scary, and that is not even thinking about ufo's sitting in drawers and closets. The good news is they are going to start processing the llama and alpaca fibre I sent to the mill a year ago, I had not heard from them so e-mailed to see where I was on the list, I have forgot what exactly I sent to be processed. Now the decision...should I get then to just wash and put it through the dehairer and then I can card it with what I want or should I get it processed into roving or yarn??
Well off to knit on a sock or vacuum.....hmmmm....big decision. For some reason the picture I was going to add is lost in the computer......off to recover it!!

We are cold again!!

2009-02-13T23:17:00.000-08:00

Well after a few warm sunny days we are back into the deepfreeze, woke up to fresh snow on the ground this morning. Cats are snuggling together to keep warm, they miss the sunbeam coming through the windows. I finished knitting the third scarf and hat set, will take pictures when I get them blocked, knitting three sets in a row was almost too much, started a little childs sweater and I think I am going to run out of yarn, it is an acrylic yarn, wanted to try out the pattern before I knit it out of something else, thought I had two balls but guess not, will have to pick another one up if I can not find some matching plain in my stash, we will see. The royal blue yarn was delivered to the customer so that is done. Finished writing the article on dyeing for the llama newsletter so can erase that off the list and tonight I started a sock out of some alpaca and wool, have it half finished. Have no socks in stock at all, so have to get busy at them, my carder has been calling me but can not get to my workroom as RH is still putting tile on the floor, pretty soon he will have the area where my workroom is finished and I can get at things again. My geranium's are blooming, have to cut them back and get some slips to root for the spring. My houseplants need potting sooooo bad, a jade plant and a aloe plant have tried to get my attention to their situation by throwing them selves out of their pots. I better give them some attention. Well off to bed....Have a Happy Valentine's Day everyone...wishing you lots of yummy chocolate.

Muggles loving the blue

2009-02-08T19:17:00.000-08:00

Finally found the picture of the royal blue yarn, having a terrible time finding some of the pictures when I down load with this program, they seem to go into never..never land and I have to rescue them!! This is Muggles loving the blue yarn.

Where does the time go?

2009-02-08T18:34:00.000-08:00

The weather has been warmer so am in muddy paw weather, after seeing all these videos on how smart Jack Russels are I said to Maxx if all those dogs can do what they do you can learn to wipe your own paws when you come in...and he is working at it but when it is mud I have to help out as sometimes it is legs and tummy too. It is nice to be able to open the windows for a while, have to watch the wind as when we get warm weather we also get the wind, left a message for our roof guy that some more shingles need replacing, windfence helps if that is the direction the wind is from but if it comes a different direction it is no help. Trying to think of what I have been doing....went to shop for groc. the first of the week and came home with an order for some wool yarn and she wanted royal blue so had to get the dye pots out, now she wanted five skeins which is a little crowded for the pots I have and have been wanting a larger one, so phoned the local hardware and I could not believe they had a large canning pot!!...I thought they only came in one size, it is exactly what I wanted, it is so large I have to put it on the stove before I put water in it and I have to remove the yarn and bail the water out as there is no way you could lift it, it does not even have handles to lift it, they probably thought if they put them on someone would try to lift it and hurt themselves. I have to find a rack to put in it to use it for a steamer, I can steam a lot of yarn at once in that pot. So have the yarn all dyed and ready to deliver, should dye some more while everything is sitting here. Finished the blue scarf with the multi-colors and made a hat to match and have started on the lighter blue one. Also finished an acrylic scarf out of a soft boucle'.
I managed to keep the poinsettia alive from last year, first time that has happened and I could not believe it the other day when I found that it was starting to bloom, now it's bloom is pretty pitiful compared to when I got it but I am so excited it has tried to bloom...I think that is a miracle.
Posting a picture of Grey Kitty.....you would not believe there is a heat vent under her....that is how she keeps warm....silly cat!! Well off to knit a bit before bed.

Finished the Hats!!

2009-02-01T23:22:00.000-08:00

Well the computer is fixed, the only thing is a lot of the programs were updated so have to figure out how to understand the changes and when I put the info for the new camera in the computer all the picture setting changed and am having a terrible time sorting out what is going on with my pictures when they get downloaded but good thing is I am not getting dumped every so often in the middle of doing something. Finally got all the little hats knit up and am now working on a hat to match the blue tone scarf I finished knitting. And we took the alpaca fibre up to the mill this week and had a great visit with everyone there. We acquired another gift llama this week, we were worried about him fitting in with the other geldings as he has been a sheep guard since he was young and has not been around another llama, so we kept him in the corral overnight and let him out with the others....and no problem...it was like he had been with them all his life, thank goodness I tell you after all the hassle we had with the other llamas that came to live with us a month ago, so far harmony exists in the barnyard but we do have a very large coyote coming too close to the buildings, Maxx the Jack Russel thinks he should be out there getting after it so is not happy when he has to stay in the house, he has to wait until the Pyrenees chases it away and then he can go out and sniff around the tracks. Our weather has warmed up enough for us to have to deal with muddy paws. We are supposed to have a warm week so hopefully I can get out to the garage and sort some llama fibre to send to the mill and get it processed, the mill I took some llama and alpaca fibre to last March still has not got it processed yet, will have call them again to see what the problem is. Now that the hats are finished I just have an article on dyeing fibre and yarn to write up for the llama newsletter and then I can get back to some carding and spinning but my mind is already in overdrive thinking about a great idea I have in weaving something with a wool blank I have already dyed. Also have to think about getting the dye pots out again...not enough time in the day...or the week...or the month, but it does make the cold months go by faster...right?

Back in the Deepfreeze

2009-01-23T23:05:00.000-08:00

Our warmer weather has left us and we are in the deepfreeze again, a couple of nights ago we had a bad wind in the night and it came from the north where we usually do not get a lot of wind so the windfence could not help us and now have shingles missing off the house on that side and the garage. It sounded like the roof was going at times, funny how some flapping shingles can sound so loud. No snow blew as it is covered in a layer of ice, thank-goodness. now I just looked at the temperature and it says it is twenty-nine below. Number one son was planning on coming out tomorrow morning to fix the computer, please let the weather be reasonable, trying to keep this computer going is really tiring, as it is behaving right now I will try to get a post sent.
I have been busy knitting the hats that I had orders for, have the two adult hats knit and delivered and now am working on the kids hats, have eight of them to do and have finished four and working on the fifth, my brain is getting tired of knitting the same thing over and over again, today I had the hat half finished when I noticed one of the llamas had three legs so had to rip it back, how could I have missed that?? The stitches are so crowded on the round needle it is hard to see the pattern but you would have thought I would have noticed a mistake like that. So ripped it back and rolled up the yarn and thought I would leave it until morning but when I was waiting for supper to finish cooking I got it back out and started knitting and have got it knit up to where I had to rip back, should be able to finish it tomorrow. Then got back to the alpaca fibre sorting to take to the mill, remember the fibre I could not find........I had already sorted it last fall right after it was sheared and it was bagged ready to go.......am I losing it or what!! I think everything is ready to go now so hope some warm weather shows up so we can take it up, you have to take some back roads to the mill after you leave the main road and sometimes they are not great. My sister Jeannie has been in Mexico for almost a month soaking up the sun and asking all the pigeons if they have seen Charlotte, if it does not warm up by the time they come off the plane they will get a shock I tell you!!
The llamas and alpacas were so happy when the weather was warmer and they could get out to pasture, took a picture of Emerson Rose looking pretty perky. Well so far so good, computer has not dumped me yet so better not press my luck, better get the post sent, hopefully weather will co-operate and it will be all fixed tomorrow!!

We have warmed up a bit

2009-01-13T22:56:00.000-08:00

We are finally out of the deepfreeze with warmer temperatures but are now dealing with icy snowbanks. The drifts were getting so high down by the back door/basement walkout we almost could not use the stairs to come up to ground level, no way can I get near the compost bin so worked my way down to the hedge and dumped the compost. RH has been moving snow steady for three days with the bobcat and has cleaned a path so he can get to the hay pen to move a large hay bale for the llama girls and he cleaned in front of the barn and now we have these big piles of snow, the good thing they are on the edge of the hill so when the snow melts the water will run and not stay in the yard. Last night we had a warm wind all night and it was amazing how it shrunk the drifts. The llamas are happy as they can get out to the fields where the wind blew the snow off the grass.
I have been sorting alpaca fibre to take to the mill and I can not find the fibre from when the shearer came and sheared the males %^&^%$%^ It was in the front of the llama barn and RH said he brought it down to the garage but I can not find it, will have one last search tomorrow and if I can't find it I will just work with what I have.....I keep telling myself not to get stressed.....not to get stressed. I should go have a look in the barn, have also looked in the storage room and it is not in with the fibre stored in there. My New Years resolution has to be to get all this raw fibre organized. As soon as the alpaca fibre is at the mill I have to get the llama together to send to another mill that has a dehairer.
Meanwhile on the knitting front I made three more pair of slipper socks, just washed and blocked them and have to put the suede on the heel and I have one pair to deliver to a customer. I had an order for two adult hats with the llamas on them and have knit one of those and started on another scarf using two rows of the rainbo dyed wool and two rows plain in the blue colors, the first few rows looked a little mixed up but as I went along I was finally getting the color swirl. Then I had a call from a lady yesterday and she ordered four baby hats with the llamas on them and two children's with sheep on the sides and two children's with llamas on the sides, so you know what I will be doing. I keep thinking about this bag of baby camel and silk roving that RH bought for me at the llama convention silent auction and I am itching to spin, I had it sitting there as a reward to spur on the fibre sorting.....now I have all these knitting orders....and the carder has been pouting as it feels neglected. Will have to spend a bit of time with them all. Really should get the other adult hat finished so RH can deliver it when he goes to the club meeting this weekend, then I can work at the kids hats.
Well I can not believe how well the computer is co-operating right now so better not press my luck. Now with the new camera I am doing great at taking the pictures and am getting them downloaded to the computer...but...am having a head banging on the desk time trying to get them organized once they are downloaded!! I will get it!! I will get it!! So who knows what pictures will get posted!! I forgot to show a picture of the pin felted ornaments daughter M.J. made us for Christmas so hopefully will be able to post them too, they are so cute!!

Darn Computer

2009-01-05T16:56:00.000-08:00

Computer would only let me put one picture up, it had a little moment and decided that was all it was going to do so did not want to push it and lose everything. So will try again!! Forgot about these cute little gift card holders my son and daughter-in -law gave us for Christmas, Jen finds the coolest things!! Well I think I am pushing my luck with the computer, it keeps trying to kick me off!!

First Post of the New Year

2009-01-05T16:13:00.000-08:00

I seem to have gone into a veg mode as I can not decide what I should do first....better make a list and prioritize. I have been doing things, when I really think about it besides laundry or cleaning and cooking, but of course a person does not count those things....do they? I had someone order a pair of alpaca/wool slipper socks so have them completed and RH dropped them off when he was in town just a bit ago and the guy just phoned and loved them, he got them made for his wife....and now he wants a pair for himself just a bit larger...then he says his daughter is coming to visit from down east and she will really like them....should I have asked her size too....better get a few pair made I guess. I had made some small quilted Christmas ornaments as gifts and as I still had the stuff out in the sewing area I thought I would make a few more to start next Christmas off. I did not want to prewash the fabric but I really should have as I am allergic to the sizing. Eye's were running so bad yesterday I finally put it all away until next year. I sent a couple to my sister and she said her husband could not figure out what they were???....could he not see it was an angel!! I have been knitting...mindless knitting of dishcloths...have eleven knit but better get onto more serious knitting. Started a adult hat with llamas on it last night but for some reason all the color changing was making me crazy, will try to get the color changing thing done tonight.
I think I have overtaxed my brain keeping the computer going, then the internet was down for a couple days grrrrrrr! I had a friend phone and ask me what my address was...and I could not remember it!! While I was madly looking for something that was addressed to me it popped into my head. It might be cabin fever too, it has been sooo cold and with the snow and blowing snow I have not got far from the house I tell you. RH keeps using the bobcat to move the snow from in front of the barn and the next day it is back, he got it cleaned up and the hay guy got in to deliver a load of hay for the goats thank-goodness as the next morning it was all blown back.
I also better get some llama and alpaca fibre sorted and off to the mills, the local mill does it's exotic run the first of Feb. so they want the fibre the middle of Jan. which is going to be pretty soon, so better get at it. I am off to make my list, wishing everyone a great New Year. Am so loving the poinsettia we got this year so have to post another picture, I have been practicing with the new camera.

Almost Christmas

2008-12-23T10:50:00.000-08:00

Well so far I still have the computer up and running, will be so happy when son #1 has time after New Years to fix it up for me. We have had such cold weather and blowing snow so have drifts all over the place, so far all animals have survived, you really wonder how at those temperatures. Have been busy baking goodies for the kids Christmas bags, I have to find time to bake something for myself as I can not have gluten.RH finally picked up a tree so will get it put up tonight and then I will be trying to keep the cats from dismantling it. We are going to be by ourselves for Christmas day as Son #1 is on call at work so has to be close enough in case of an emergency which always happens in the holidays, son#2 works in the oil patch so he is working over Christmas and daughter just phoned and said their van died and can not get it into the garage until after the holidays, the older grandson's have serious girlfriends this year so will be spending Christmas day with them so we will all get together later when everyone is free. So we are planning a quiet do whatever we want day with the animals, just hope it is a nice day and no one needs to be out shoveling snow.
I finished the scarf and hat and can not wait to make some more, love the way the colors swirl up on the scarf, the hat is a bit on the large side so might make the next one a bit smaller. Have been busy making small quilted Christmas ornaments for gifts, I sent them off and forgot to take pictures, have to remember to take pictures of the one's I am just finishing.
Son #1 had bought a digital camera last year that has settings galore but decided it was just too complicated for them and they bought another point and shot one so I said I needed a new camera so let me give it a trial run and I will see if it is what I want, the other day I got out the instruction book and it took me ages to even figure out how to turn it on....is that a good sign or what!! The book told you how to turn it off but there was nothing to say how to turn it on. I did get it turned on and took a couple of pictures and actually got them downloaded onto the computer. It has a great zoom factor and I noticed the neighbors cows on top of one of the hills quite far away so went out and took a picture.....wow it was like they were just across the road!! I think I am going to love this camera!!....if I ever get everything figured out...have to do some cheat cards to carry with me until I get the hang of it. I took a great picture of our poinsettia with it so will post it Well better run and get things finished up around here or maybe just lay in a sunbeam with the cats....it is still twenty-eight below but you would not know it with the sun coming through the windows, better enjoy it while we can!!

Ohhhhhh it is cold out there!!

2008-12-14T23:31:00.000-08:00

It has been so cold for the last couple of days, we had a snow storm with strong winds and have drifts all over the barnyard. We had sorted animals around trying to get them all some shelter, we had some of our gift llamas that had taken a dislike to some of ours and would not let them up for food or water, one nasty llama girl does not like the alpacas so she was chasing them and running them off in the female area so we moved goats out of the shelters into the barn and put them in there with a couple younger llamas and a couple of older llamas that the nasty llama was chasing around, the funny thing was the two older llamas were llamas that she came with!! So they had shelters but when RH went out the next morning the alpaca girls decided not to go into the shelters and were laying out by the fence almost covered with snow, he tried to herd them in and one of them jumped into a big drift and she could not get out so he had to dig a path for her to get out, so he closed them into the paddock and fed them in the shelter and last night they stayed in. Until now we have not had that much trouble mixing in different animals but this has been a big worry with the cold weather. The male that came with the herd is on the thin side and was sheared so is really suffering in the cold weather so we put a large animal coat on him and he is better. This is just too much stress!! I am amazed that the animals can survive weather that cold!!
Meanwhile I have been struggling along with my computer problems managing barely to read e-mails and send them but then the computer would not recognize the printer, so could not print anything!! Like what else for goodness sake....I am trying to get my Christmas letter printed and mailed. Oldest Son was coming out yesterday to help me get the computer back online in exchange for a haircut but the weather was too bad but he managed to get out today even though it was thirty below, he did not have time to clean up the computer but he got the printer working and identified some damage the virus did and I will be able to manage until after Christmas when he has a couple of weeks off work and can get out to fix things up and he got his hair cut and we had a good visit.
Now on the knitting front, on the Yarn Harlots blog she had been knitting those scarves with the two colors of yarn and it gave me an idea....that I would dye a solid color of yarn to go with my multicolored yarn and knit a similar type scarf, and I love the way it turned out, I have a picture of when I first started it and it is neat the way the colors swirl along. I just finished it tonight plus a hat to match and will get pictures tomorrow. I knit two rows of the multicolor and then two rows of the solid color in knit one, purl one. On the hat I did the knit one, purl one for five centimeters to start with then knit the rest in stocking stitch in two rows multi and two rows plain. Now can not wait to start the other colors....but I better get my Christmas letter written and mailed and finish shopping for Christmas. For all my nieces and nephews, nineteen of them at this point I make up a small bag of goodies each, I do not see them that often and I feel that doing this makes me remember their names and they remember mine...right..I just use brown sandwich bags and use a stamp of a llama and some cats and decorate them. I also better get baking this coming week as I do up bags for children and Grandchildren full of baked goodies and a jar of homemade jam. Jam is already made so just have to get the baking done up. I am running out of days so I better get a schedule so I can get everything done in time. And "Please" to the powers that be over computers.....keep mine going until my computer fixer son can get at it!!

Finally online again!!

2008-12-07T11:20:00.000-08:00

I think the computer having problems is too stressful!! A virus tried to get in one night through a chatline while RH was on the computer and he did not notice or tell me there was a problem so when I went to shut down the computer before going to bed here it was!! Although I blocked the line it was coming in on and hoped I was o.k. my internet was closed down....I worked for hours trying to get it working...would take a break and then get at it again, RH had some info to send to people before his conference call this coming week plus I live in the middle of nowhere and my computer is my lifeline, specially my daily online chat to sister Jean. Sent an S.O.S to older son who deals with my computer problems but without him being here he could not offer any quick fixes so I was on my own. Finally by going in the back door so to speak I managed to open my e-mail and read messages but could not send e-mails.....o.k. went to bed and tried again yesterday morning...managed to stop all the alerts that something was going to take over my computer and finally....could not believe it...I could finally send e-mails and access the internet. I can not believe I did this on my own!! RH managed to get his info sent!! It still is not great but I am managing so far so hopefully this post will go.
So now what else have I been up to....have to think...this computer thing has consumed me for four days so have to think.....oh..yes..I knit the little doll for my niece's youngest little girl, she was born the day after Christmas last year so is coming up a year old, knit some fingerless mitts out of some llama yarn, two pair....I am really having a mind blank I tell you...will have to go refresh my memory, I know I was knitting.
Meanwhile we have been trying to get the herd of llamas mixed into our herd which is not easy I tell you, the male had always been in his own paddock by himself and we run ours together now we have so much space as it is healthier than being confined in small paddocks, well when we first put him in the main male area he was getting beat on and not fighting back, so put him in the younger male pasture and they beat on him and he would not fight back, finally put him in a small pasture by himself and he went down to a corner and stayed and looked depressed so went down and brought him up and put him in with the geldings in their pasture and so far so good, we were afraid he would start beating on the geldings. Then I noticed one of the females from the new herd chasing my alpaca girls and not letting them up to the barn and the water, so now we are solving that problem by moving goats around so we can get the alpaca girls their own area with a few of the younger llama girls. We have had a bit of snow but any day we could really get dumped on and I would like to have everyone safe and comfy.
Well better get this posted while the going is good. Off to make some bread and dye up a couple skeins of yarn and get my dye stuff tucked away until after the holidays. RH is off to a Christmas party today so I better make the most of the time.

Where has the time gone??

2008-11-26T00:15:00.000-08:00

Although I have lost track of time I have been getting a few things completed. The socks are knit and mailed away. I had knit a little hat with the sheep on it and had it at the guild sale and someone wanted one just a bit smaller for a baby. So I knit one hat with sheep and made one with llamas on it, I think the llama one would have worked out better if I had used a different colored background....I don't know...will have to think about that one. So that is finished. I still had some dye solution mixed up so dyed up some of the mohair/merino roving I had processed up at the mill, I think it felted a bit in the dye pot so will have to see how it works out for spinning, I think if I split the roving it will work...or I will felt some hats with it. Want to dye some mohair locks and then will put all the dye pots away until the new year.
Finally had to get the sewing machine working this morning, RH had broken the zipper on his favorite jacket and it is getting too cold to walk around outside with his coat open so finally got all the stitching picked out (black on black) and then replaced the zipper, thinking to myself how did I do this for a living at one time, I haven't replaced one for years, then his down vest was leaving a trail of feathers as he walked by so mended the vest too and then washed jacket and vest, I am always so nervous about washing and drying down things in the machine...always have to keep checking as I am sure I am going to find the machine full of feathers. Then while I was on a roll I mended a couple pair of his jeans and a shirt so he is good for a while.
Then our llama herd grew again last week by nineteen, friends of ours that bought their first llamas from us years ago had to disperse as she has had cancer the last few years and it is not getting better and he just can not manage to take care of her and the llamas, his health has not been great the last few years either, they did not know what to do so we went and got the llamas and have been trying to fit them in our herd. I had said we would take a gelding llama for another lady as she has to move....and then there is going to be a sign on our gate...."no room in the Inn" we have been trying to cut the herd down for years but it keeps growing.
Our weather has been nice for November which is great, hope it lasts until after Christmas although it looks so brown and dull outside but we are getting outside things done up. Am off to knit a little doll for my youngest niece for Christmas, she was born the 26th. of December last year, she will have Christmas one day and then birthday party the next day!!

I am still here...in body if nothing else.

2008-11-14T14:44:00.000-08:00

Well fall markets are finished and I am trying to get the special orders finished and delivered...almost done...almost done. The two pair of child's wool socks are knit and ready to pop in the mail, I am just finishing putting the suede on the heels of three pair of men's slipper socks and then they are in the mail, so now just have a pair of thrum slippers and a little sheep or llama hat ordered for a baby. Then I can think about Christmas but before that I better think about some house cleaning, I am seriously thinking about giving two cats and one dog a crew cut.Want to dye some mohair roving before I put all the dye stuff away until the new year, did two pots of wool skeins just before the last market so have enough of that left until the new year. My poor carder is being neglected lately, is just sitting there with bags of fibre around it.
While it has been cold out we have only gotten a skiff of snow thank-goodness so outside work continues when we can, sun was shining today but when I went out it was not warm but supposed to be warmer tomorrow. Charlotte has not returned...do I resort to going around to the neighboring ranches and ask if I can check out their pigeons??? They already think I am the crazy lady on the hill so I do not think they would be surprised. My sister Jeannie says there is something to be said for arranged marriages, we should have found a guy pigeon for her before she had to go looking for one herself. Well am off to finish sewing suede onto bottoms of slipper socks, not my favorite thing to do, I think I have run out of gas lately. Should also put a pot of soup on the stove, made a pot of chicken with rice soup a few days ago and we inhaled it....it was so good. Nothing like a bowl of homemade soup!!

Attention to all blog friends!!

2008-11-11T09:35:00.000-08:00

Valwho lives in southern Australia with her pug friends Abraham and Happy has given me "Blogging Friends Forever Award" What a nice thing to do!! Thank-you Val!!

Now to keep the ball rolling I now pass the award to five other bloggers.

Maple I love the pictures of her Alpacas and what she creates with their fibre. I also admire her strength at this time in her life.

Val Love the pictures of her sheep....they are very photogenic and what she creates with their fibre. Val just had an accident which has slowed her down at the moment so we should see a lot of knitting etc. going on. Speedy recovery Val!!

M.J. my creative daughter, check out her beautiful needle felting creations, they are fantastic!!

Shelley enjoy reading about her adventures in sewing for herself and her daughter (the worlds cutest little girl) because I was a sewing maniac before I was a fibre maniac.

Eileen I recently came across Eileens blog and loved the pictures of her dyed yarn....thinking it looked just like some of my yarn I had just dyed and spun up!

Now pass the award on!!

(1) Only five people are allowed
(2) Four have to be followers of your blog
(3) One has to be someone new to your blog or live in another part of the world
(4) You must link back to whoever gave you the award.