Summer is Here!!

Well we finally have summer and sunshine......and all the work that that brings....but I am not complaining. A lot of the perennials are starting to bloom, birds are singing and my little frog came back to live in the flower bed....I think it is the same one....but how do you tell. of course there is also a gopher living under the front step that has been munching on some of my plants...have to figure out how to get him out of there. Have not done much knitting the last while with all the outside work, am still knitting on the headache hat but am almost finished. Did take some time to do a couple of dye pots. I have the grey and light brown colored yarn I had processed at the mill this spring and I thought I would try some over dying and it turned out great!! Love the colors!! Have to get a couple more pots on the go. The last week we have been shearing the llamas and shearing alpacas for the first time, we sheared twenty-four llamas and three alpacas. Some spitting, some screaming, some jumping over panels and having to shear some laying down. We still have seven alpacas to shear but are going to see if we can get the guy that shears in the area to do them. RH had got the blades and combs sharpened for our clipper but who ever did it did not do a great job so it was a real pain getting the clipper to work properly and with the alpacas with their denser fibre it was not doing a good job. I know the guy that shears in our area is so behind because of the rain, and if he can not fit us in we will just have to shear them ourselves. The farmers markets have started for the season, we go to two of them,one Thursday afternoon and the other one Saturday morning so that keeps us busy too. RH does the markets and I stay home and tend to the animals. We have three female llamas we are waiting to have their baby's, they are overdue so am keeping a watch on them plus the three pygmy girls are due any day. I had entered six llama fleeces in a fleece show and because of the rain and not getting them sheared before the deadline to enter them I just had to wing it, now that we have sheared them I think I am going to have to substitute some of the entry's if they will let me, as some I entered have too much trash in them. So I am off to sort through fleece and decide what to do, plus I better go down to the garden and see what the gophers have been up to!!