Monday, June 11, 2012

Sorting Alpaca Fleeces and Planting the Garden

What have I been up to?? Not Blogging that is for sure, too much to do!! I have been sorting alpaca fleeces, washing the fleeces..picking the fleece...carding the fleece and pulling it into rovings...white fleece!! Thought I would never get it clean, but after picking crud out of it and washing it and putting it through the picker and carder it was so beautiful (thank-goodness!!) I had not used a picker before and was talked into buying a Patrick Green picker by Paula Simmons when I bought the triple carder, then we moved shortly after and the picker was still in the box and I kept hearing how dangerous a picker was....I went on youtube and watched some videos of people using a picker and them talking about how dangerous it was....thinking why did I get this thing!! But here I was with this soft and fine white fleece with all the crud in it...and Paula had said it was used for Alpaca...O.K. I thought...I will try it and I got it out of the box...read the instructions....took a handfull of fleece and slowly pushed the picker back and forth....wow!! I was getting all this fluff and most of the debris was falling out!! So there I was picking then carding and it was turning out so beautiful. I had an order for two pounds of roving...so that was a lot of carding and pulling into roving but got it finished and delivered, really hated it go...but there are more fleeces to process. So I worked on processing fleece when I could not work outside as we were getting rain and when we could work outside we got some raised beds built, filled with dirt and I got my vegetables planted and strawberries planted in a small raised bed, we put hoops of pvc pipe over the beds and put some garden mesh over them to keep the birds and deer from getting in the beds. I checked today and the lettuce, beets, carrots and spinach is coming up, RH had planted potatoes a while ago in the ground and they have been up for a bit. Then I got all the flowerpots planted for..........the imaginary deck....it is not built yet but I am ready!! We finally got the landscaper to come and push the big pile of dirt up around the house and now all the llamas and alpacas have been sheared and it drys up we we can get at the deck building..meanwhile here are the pots of flowers waiting. I also got carried away and bought some rose bushes, started some dahlia, lily and gladiolus bulbs...to go around the imaginary deck...so have planted them in the ground in behind the raised beds and will move them later...plus...my Aunt sent me some tomato seeds which I started under lights and they will be ready to plant outside soon...where...I have not decided yet...and so it goes.....