Phat Fiber Contribution

The July PhatFiber Sample box will go out in the middle of July so I got my contribution in the mail today. This has been a fun activity to be involved in and, frankly, an inexpensive advertising.

Every month has a theme that we all vote on. July is nonwool. Even though in my mind alpaca fiber is considered wool, the rest of the Phatties don't and many of them are contributing alpaca to the box. I decided that I would send 20 of my sachets ↑ that I include with all purchases. The ingredients are: lavendar buds, patchouli leaf, cedar leaf, orange peel, and pennyroyal. I love the way these herbs smell and really hope that moths hate it and stay away from the fiber.
I also sent along 10 coupons for 20% off all yarn in my Etsy store......and 2 skeins of this yarn that I just got back from Stonehedge.


This yarn turned out beautiful! It's 70% alpaca from Ariana plus the seconds from my crias, and 30% merino from Genopalette. I have 65 skeins!!! Can you imagine how much yarn that is? I'm planning on using some for my dyeing adventures. This picture ↑ is just to show you how it looks from the mill. I'm washing all the skeins, 4 or 5 at a time. The fiber fluffs up and becomes a bright white like the picture with the flowers.

Morning Fence Construction

I've been wanting to fence in my whole back yard for Cord ↑, but have had all kinds of hold ups. There was a sinky hole back there that I thought I could just fill in with dirt, but when son, Rob. was home, he stuck his hand down it (oh, yucky, yuck). He discovered the pipe from the house to the septic tank was broken.
Last week I had the local plumbing place come and patch the pipe. The young man asked me when the septic tank was last pumped. Well, ah, never..... Yesterday Jason came and pumped out the tank. I could only take one quick glance down there. Oh, my, double yucky, yuck. I appreciate folks who can do nasty jobs like that.
Soooo, this a.m., I finished chores at 8 and fenced in the back for Cord. He's a happy feller. It's 90 degrees out already, but the trees keep this area very comfortable. And, surprisingly enough, I didn't see one mosquito the whole time that I was out there. Happy Horsey!
Cord belongs to Beth who I mention frequently here. He's a retired, senior citizen although he looks like a young whipper snapper in that picture, doesn't he?
Oh, I almost forgot to tell you - I took this picture looking down from my bedroom window.

Strawberry Breakfast and Wildflowers (maybe)

After chores I stopped at the strawberry patch and picked the first strawberries of this year. I just had to show you how big they are. That's ↓ a regular sized plum with them. Three strawberries filled me up.
BTW - I've lost 10 pounds since I started the NutriSystem 4 weeks ago, and still eating frequently. I will for sure stay on it another month.





I have never really enjoyed gardening. I want the garden spotless - no weeds - but don't have the stick-to-itive-ness to do the weeding so have always left the garden work to Smitty. He didn't seem to mind the weeds. Last fall after harvest, I had folks take his berry bushes, most of the strawberry plants, and bulbs, and then tilled it up. I thought I would just seed it to grass. But then this spring I got to thinking how awesome it would be if it were wild flowers. It would be beautiful and sort of a memorial/tribute to Smitty. I've sown lots of seeds but am afraid the weeds may take over. Is hard to tell the difference. Now I'm thinking maybe I should buy some plants to put out there. At least I could tell them from the weeds.

Having a Hay Day - no, A Hay Night

When I open the barn door in the morning, I'm always very cautious because I've been surprised with finding horses, sheep, and alpacas standing in the aisle. Below is what I'm hoping for - everyone cushed down and waiting for their breakfast. Yesterday there were no surprises when I slid the door over but lots of suspicious looking alpaca foot prints on the cement aisle. I quickly closed the door behind me and went in to the indoor arena. Yep, there were the girls wandering around. They must have been out all night because they made a real mess of the stacked hay bales, and had enough time to establish a new poop pile. They shooed right in through the OPEN door very easily. Damn! I must have not latched that door. I remember being in a hurry. Usually I check all doors before I come in.
No harm was done except my extra cleaning time, but can't you just imagine what chaos 10 loose horses would have created?
♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ Yes, I do love these gentle critters ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

BabyDoll SouthDown Sheep

A year ago we were raising BabyDoll SouthDown Sheep. I say we, but really there were Smitty's project. He would sit for hours and watch the lambs play. Even before we realized he was sick, he had decided that he would sell them. It's rather strange that the last of them left about two hours before he died last August. A piece of me thinks he was waiting until he knew that they would be loved and taken care of.

This was one of the sheep pens in front of the barn. Boards were along the bottom to keep the little ones in......and this is where I'm removing those bottom boards. Kelly, my blind pony, lives out there now and she will do a good job trimming along the bottom, saving me more mowing/trimming work.

Weighing, Worming, and Knitting

This morning Beth, John (Beth's son), and I finished weighing and worming the alpacas. They are rather stoic critters and sometimes the only way that you can find health problems is noticing a weight loss.....or if some management is needed. Like these two girls below, brown Sonata and black Chinella are in need of weight stabilization. Chinny will no longer have access to the baby pen for constant access to hay. This picture is proof that these two DO enjoy eating. If you look behind us, everyone else is running to the fence because they spotted a fox crossing the bean field. Not these two....

After we finished our weighing and worming, we came up to the house to prepare Chin's fleece for the show in September. We spread it out and removed lots of VM (vegetable matter) and anything that wasn't consistent with her blanket. Every little fleck of "stuff" shows up on the black and we finally just quit after an hour. Beth was actually using tweezers. We did leave some junk behind. The fleece of huacaya alpacas is folded so that the cut side is on the outside and then put into a plastic bag until the show.

I want to show you this cute hat that I just finished. (That's Beth's horse, Cord, in the background) The pattern was free from SmokyMountainFibers on Etsy. AnnMarie and I are sort of old friends over there.....and we have been following each others blog for it seems like forever. You can get the pattern on her blog for yourself. Her blog is: Here

Blog Neglect Recovery

I have certainly had a bad case of blog neglect for the last week or so. Thanks, Mac, and the rest of you who contacted me to be sure that I was ok. Have been really busy inside and out. Here's some yarn that I just had to spin up from the roving that I dyed. Actually, I dyed up about a pound of that yummy white alpaca/merino top that I picked up a few weeks ago. ▼ That's what it looks like before spinning.

Lucky me, Son Rob was here from Pennsylvania (he teaches at Scranton U). I tried not to have him work the whole time. We did get a permanent fence around the lagoon and some new gates in place. He's out mowing the yard right now.

My two daughters and the two grandgirls came over to spend the day with us on Friday. I love that now we are all friends and can laugh and drink beer and eat pizza together.

Here's a JR update to all his fans who have sent good energy his way as he was struggling to make it in this world. He's the little brown guy in the middle, white Snickers (two days older) is on the left, and gray, herd sire Tribute is on the right. To answer a question from Meg in the comments - no, the vets never figured out why he was so small and grew so slowly. Except for some early lack of immunities, his blood work was normal. I think he is just going to be a little guy but do believe now that he is going to live.

Rob suggested we should use him for breeding when he is older and try to produce a line of miniture alpacas. ☺ Wouldn't that be cute? They would be very easy to potty train, of course, you would have to have two.

NutriSystem update - I've lost 8 pounds now - in 2 1/2 weeks - eating all the time.