Crazy Weather!!

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

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!!

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

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!!

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

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!!

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!!

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!!