Today I am busy over the dyepots. While working through my dying to do list I am also testing dyes on the new yarn I've got. Last weekend we were in Kellyville Oklahoma for the Fiber Christmas in July and it was awesome. We had so much fun. This weekend will see us in Franklin Grove Illinois for the Chaplin Creek festival and it's another one of my favorites. I am so looking forward to shopping and vending and getting to see Sarah of Yarn Geek fibers and hopefully get to do some trading!!

 Look at my pretty new lilies! We headed to the yearly lily sale last weekend and I picked up four new named varieties to go into the garden beds. We go to this one every year because I love to see the flowers in bloom and walk around the garden picking out which ones I like. Then I just find one of the diggers and show them what I want, and out of the ground it comes all ready to come home with me. I got one early bloomer (the pink one that is missing some petals) and the rest are mid range. Next year I think I'll focus on late bloomers. We had to get up super early to make it before the husband had to leave for work

 but it was totally worth it.

An Interview with Fluffington Farms!

I woke up this morning to the best news! Phat Fiber, Natural Obsessions, and I sat down with yarnspinners tales and did a super fun mini interview and chat. I was so excited to hear it, her podcast is perfect to listen to while spinning and that's exactly what I did. If you'd like to hear it you can find it here http://www.yarnspinnerstales.com/webpage/yst-episode-73-chatting-with-the-fiber-folks

New additions to the farm and a brand spankin new bunny love shack

 We've finally starting building the new bunny shed! It's got a ways to go, but we've got three walls and the floor done and I ran out to the store about brought home two new windows, paint for the exterior, insulation, a front door and screen door, and a few other things today.
While I was supervising the shed building activities our new turkeys had to come and say hello, they were born this spring and given to me just the other day. They're super friendly just like the ducks and chickens so they should fit right in here. We're so excited to get this new shed done and get our buns settled in. I'm dying to start painting it. As soon as we finish the shed and get everyone settled in we'll be starting on the new bunny play yard so that they will have more space to romp and yummy herbs to munch on.

So what have I been doing?

So much has been going on here! My poison ivy finally seems to be going away so I got back to wool stuff today along with the garden/yard stuff too. I took tons of pictures today as I worked around the yard going from project to project. First is wool, today I got three new fleeces into the tubs, first an awesome suri type llama fleece, then a jacob, and lastly a super crimpy wonderful merino. I managed to dry four other fleeces that I finished plus a bunch of dyed goodies.

Next, we worked on the baby retaining wall that we are building to stop our yard from pouring into our driveway every time it rains. Before we could start we had to dig up all of the bulbs that were there. This is what 1220 (mostly daffodil) bulbs looks like.

and the first layer of our wall. I think we'll probably only do the first layer this year and as soon as we get it down I'll be able to replant all of the bulbs, We're also planting lilacs and peony here this year, and next year it will get a little more attention.


















We're also working on our vegetable garden, we've got four raised beds built and we're in the process of filling them up with good dirt. Maggie and I are working on building a fence around the garden out of last years emergency plant stakes and scrap boards that were in the burn pile to keep the chickens and quackers out, since they are all now officially free range for the better part of every day.














We have six flower beds in various stages of progress at the moment, with plans for two more in the near future (and probably a good handful more after that)Right now we're adding gladiolus, iris, and a few other small things to fill in some of the bare spots later this summer. I'm still a few years away from being completely happy with any of them, but I am definitely happier with them this year than I was last year.

Such a busy time of year

Spring is such a busy time of year for us. We do spring cleaning, inside and out, which for seven people is a LOT needing done. We start on the yard goals which are large and many and include animal related tasks. And lastly, we start really focusing on fiber. New fleeces coming in, old fleeces sought out and used, inventory taken, rovings reordered, wonderful things dyed and carded, and everything packaged, labeled, and priced for the festivals. My workload triples in the spring and I am grateful for the extra hours of daylight.
This year is so promising. New blood coming into the rabbitry and definite progress with our english lines and our broken satins. I finally settled on a breed of chicken and right now we're hatching out black copper maran eggs and if all goes well we will stick with them and the olive egger crosses that will be produced with my americaunas. We added three lovely little khaki campbell ducks this year for the extra eggs too. The chicken coop will be relocated and expanded shortly and the rabbits are finally going to get the improved quarters that they deserve. I've already started building the fence around the garden and very soon the main fence will go up. We've gotten four raised beds built out of the ten I plan to have. The gardens are looking beautiful and we plan to add to them quite a bit this year. We've also started laying down the mulch for the pathways that we'd been planning. Most importantly, I believe we will finally be getting our addition this year! So it's busy, and good, and wonderful.
On another note, my girls are such amazing little people. Today while grocery shopping (me +5 kids) maggie, (who is 8) stopped multiple times without being asked to fix a malfunctioning sandal for cash (who is 2), to help herd the group in the right direction, to put things back on the shelf that the little ones tried to grab as they were walking by, ect. and Amadea who is 6, just blew me away tonight. Baby fell asleep on the couch and I really needed to get things done, so since they were all watching the movie they had earned I put her in charge of sitting next to him in case he woke up. When I came back in after folding laundry she had fallen asleep, but first she had put pillows above tarquinns head and at his feet and then she had curled up next to him with her blanket to make sure that he wouldn't fall. Amazing. We are not just raising children, we are raising extraordinary human beings. It is so good after all the destruction and noise and stress to see such responsible, awesome little people starting to form.
That's all for tonight, here's to a year of progress made and still enough time to sit on the porch and watch the kids play.

Another shopping adventure!

Today we had to run out for milk, and a quick visit to the little shop next door to the closest place around that sells hormone free milk. I love stuff n' more because they almost always have something small that makes me happy (and comes home with me).
Todays finds were both baskets. I paid $8.00 for the big one and only $1.00 for the small one (which is funny because just last week I said I wanted one just like that to hold all of our first aide stuff). I'm not exactly sure what I'll use the big one for yet. I wasn't looking for a basket of that size, but I'm sure I'll find a use for it.
I have actually been hunting for an old crock to put all of my cooking utensils in, but I'd started to give up hope, I'd been to nearly every junk shop within an hour of me in the last few weeks and I've had no luck, but my old neighbor came to visit the other day right after I'd gotten home from another trip with no luck and just so happens to have two of the type I am looking for in his shed! I think we'll be trading our old water heater for whichever one that I like best.

Duckies!

Spring Cleaning - yuck

The last week has found me cleaning every day. Twice a year I hit the house hard from top to bottom. It takes me about a month. Yes, a whole month, and it's not because my house is huge either. I don't like to clean. I feel like spending time with the kids and/or eeking out that 30 min. to myself every now and then is just more important than a spotless home. So on a good day it looks.... "lived in". There's 8 people in this little house plus various critters. So anyway, I've spent the last week in the kitchen. I always start with the kitchen because it's the worst. It gets the most use, it's got the most stuff, it takes the longest to finish, and when it's done I breathe a sigh of relief because it only gets easier from there.
When I start my spring (or fall) cleaning spree I start with the things I can't stand in a room. This year it was the kitchen floor. Tile painted white. Looked filthy no matter how much scrubbing you did. On the first day I ripped it up, got all adhesive off, then we wiped the ceiling, the light fixture was taken apart and cleaned, the tops of the cabinets wiped, and all the many things that go on top of the cabinets were taken down, cleaned, and re arranged. Anything that hadn't been used since the last cleaning and was not purely there just to make me smile was trashed or put in the goodwill box. We also took advantage of having the hutch/pantry pulled out (for the tile) and emptied and scrubbed it down, wiped down everything (each individual canned good ect.) and put it all back in and reaarranged/organized. Day two we wiped all the walls and emptied every one of the top cabinets wiping them down and everything that was inside of them wiped and put away nicely, discarding anything that didn't see use or have some purpose. Day three we pulled everything off of the counters scrubbed the tile w/ a toothbrush, scrubbed the stove top and switches, scrubbed the counter, sink, and dish strainer (yep that's right, going on year two and the dishwasher still hasn't been hooked up). Day four we did the inside of the stove and the microwave. Day five we emptied out all the lower cabinets and scrubbed them and their contents, even the cleaning supplies got a bath. Tomorrow is day six, we will scrub baseboards and floor and move into the kids bathroom. Other than the floor the kitchen looks amazing (for us). I found a new tile cleaning recipe that works wonders (neighbor walked in and actually asked if we'd always had that tile and it's the tile that's been here for more than 15 years. and the best part? I'm almost done with it!

p.s. the tile cleaning recipe is on my pinterest board http://pinterest.com/fluffington/life-made-easier/

Todays shopping adventure

I was starting to get sick of all this spring cleaning, so since miss maggie had a shooting sports meeting in the area tonight anyway we decided to leave a bit early and hit the junk shops (a.k.a. Antique shops) in Desoto. My favorite one was closed. At 3:00. So I went to the candle shop and bought some smelly goods and hit a couple of the smaller shops on the main strip. I got lucky. My main goals were pink glass and a crock for cooking utensils. At the first shop I found a neat little glass container w/ lid for $.50 and... a perfect cake stand w/ lid for $8.00. At the next shop I found a nice little pink plate for $2.00. I was pretty happy. Last stop was a shop that I don't usually go into because they are horribly overpriced and always have stuff that I want but I figured I'd do a quick walk through. In the very front on a table I saw my cake stands identical twin so I cruised over to look at the tag. This stand was identical, and the dome was marked $25 and the stand was marked $45. Made my day. So now I have new pretties. Oh, and we stopped by orchlens on the way home to look at incubator prices and I might have brought home some ducks. The husband just assumed they were chicks until he saw in the box. He's not nearly as pleased with me as I am right now. BUT I HAVE DUCKLINGS!! and they are soooo cute. Pictures of duckies coming soon.

It's Official!

Spring is here!!! For me, the arrival of spring is signified by one thing, and one thing only. The return of my owls. Every year without fail, for the ten years that this house has been a part of my life a pair of wonderful hootyowls have nested somewhere in the woods behind this house from spring until early fall. Last night I heard them talking to each other and I was so happy to have them back. I have spent so many nights outside in a comfy chair, or perched on the roof stargazing listening to those owls. I remember the first summer that I spent with my husband, and this house belonged to his dad at the time, sitting outside and hearing those owls and just falling in love with this house (and the husband too, of course).
On that note, I decided to let our new broken boy (who's official name is Floppenstien) have a visit with the girls and though he's young he appears to have done the job so we may have some beautiful broken Satin Angoras born next month.
I've been spinning like crazy lately, really enjoying myself, and I've ordered a bunch of little things so I can give my beloved babe a tune up so that I can keep it up.
So welcome to spring everyone, this year is going to wonderful, I can already tell.

There's a reason my back hurts!

After six hours in the hospital with xrays, blood tests, ultra sounds, and more - due to severe back/leg pain that has kept me mostly on the couch for over two weeks it turns out that I have a herniated disk! While it's not good news it means that I now have a stack of prescriptions that are keeping the pain at bay. I am up and moving around again and I never thought I'd be so happy just to be able to clean the house :) I'm still sore but hopefully after all the medications are in my system it will lessen a bit so that I can bear standing in one place for long enough to card up some new batts, I've got all kinds of ideas for pretty things I want to work on.
In other news the etsy shop has gotten an addy/name change, punkjordane at etsy will now be fluffingtonfarm at etsy and very soon there will be some listings in the shop for those of you who feel more secure making your purchases through a large website. If you see something on my destash page that is not in my etsy shop just send me a convo, I'll make you a listing and you can check out through etsy, no problem.
Still working on the fiber fair schedule. I'll admit, I'm a little intimidated after my year off :( but I'm looking at new display options and starting to get excited.

Contest Winner and other things

The winner is Sharon Steinhoff! Congratulations Sharon and thank you everyone for participating!
I really did enjoy hearing what everyone likes to spin.

On another note, I spent six hours in the emergency room yesterday. My hip/back/leg pain finally became overwhelming and since I have no insurance it was off to the hospital we went. After xrays, ultrasounds, blood tests, and other assorted things it turns out that I have a bulging/herniated disk! It's pressing on my sciatic nerve and making me HURT. So now I've got three presciptions and a list of dr's to try who will work with me and a referral to get an MRI, though due to the insurance thing that's probably not going to happen any time soon. So, that's my life. It's nice at least to know what's been causing all the pain.

A little Giveaway!

Want to win 4 oz. of yummy 60% Alpaca/40% Milk Roving?? The day after the fluffington farms facebook page hits 500 likes we will be picking a random lucky comment from that page to get some fiber goodness. How to enter? Like the facebook page https://www.facebook.com/pages/Fluffington-Farms/247749762029 and leave a comment about your favorite thing to spin, invite your fibery friends to like the page, for a 2nd entry you can join the ravelry group http://www.ravelry.com/groups/fluffington-farms and leave a 2nd comment on the facebook page letting me know.

Getting There and Surgery

Well I've gotten some things added to the destash page so don't forget to check it out! www.buymorefluff.blogspot.com

Now on to the surgery. I brought Cinna home in November. She is a beautiful loyal amazing little doxie who had the worst breath imaginable. I kinda figured that she was a super slick cat box raider. I was wrong. A few days ago she yelped when I touched her mouth, but she has a habit of yelping when a sudden movement or touch startles her so I didn't think anything of it but then the next day it happened again The kids were petting her and she yelped when someone touched around her mouth. Hmmm. Went and got the husband to hold her down so I could take a look and I see this. Not a very good picture but it's the inside of her mouth and that thing on the top is a stick. So we went and got our supplies, some antiseptic, tweezers, oragel, and a towel to wrap her in. I numbed it and went to work. It came out fairly easily but what surprised me (other than that the stick had obviously been in there for quite a while) is that the reason she was yelping was not the stick. Nope, one stick she could handle. But little miss jump in the chair to scout for leftovers must've snagged a hot wing at some point because behind the stick was a chicken bone wedged at a diagonal with one end stuck on the stick and the other sunk into her gums. The first picture shows the side of the stick that was stuck against the roof of her mouth and of course our bonus
item, the chicken bone. The second picture is the side of the stick that you could see when you opened her mouth and yes, the red stuff on the bone is where it had stabbed into her gums and lodged. So that was gross. But it's four days later and already her breath is better, she is more active, eating better, and all around happier.

How things change

It's funny, when I started this blog it was supposed to be about my rabbits, about my fiber, about shop happenings.. but really it's become much more personal than that and though it wasn't originally intended to be that way I'm glad it has.
There were periods of time that I haven't blogged, the strain of a growing family, financial woes, and the pure destruction that 5 or 6 kids bring with them have seemed too depressing to actually post about, especially on a blog intended to promote fiber-y goodness and such but I don't think that they are as separate as I'd once wished them to be. I am a fiber artist, I am a person struggling through life, a mom, a wife. I've made mistakes and grown through them. I've fallen down and had to pick up the pieces more than once. I am by no means perfect.
However, I'm still standing and though I've realized that while at this point in my life I just can't run a full blown fiber shop I just can't throw it all away either.
So. Where am I now? We're well settled into our house, the move did not go well but it we did make it through. We had a beautiful baby boy in July which brought our total up to 5 and now we are fostering an extra so currently we have 6. I still have my bunnies, even at the worst point I couldn't give them up, thought we are down to almost all satin angoras now, which I'm actually pretty pleased with, though I do sometimes miss my germans. Even at my worst I couldn't put away my wheel or carder so I've got an immense stash of yarn and batts and such that have been patiently waiting in their cedar lined closets to be loved. I've learned to really really knit, and kind of/sort of crochet. I've struggled with postpartum and the absolute crazy that has always come with the first three months of every single one of my pregnancies. And mostly I think we're all in a good place now. We still have bad days, the house is still in desperate need of an addition and it's horribly messy about five minutes after I finish cleaning it every day without fail but I think I'm finally getting to the point that I can deal with it. One benefit to being here in this house is that I can relax a little. It's a happy house. So this year is going to be about doing what I can with what I've got and putting the rest on a shelf to be dealt with at a later time. Here's hoping that this year will be better than the last.

It's almost here!

My fiber destash page is nearly ready! It will be here and I should have at least part of the list with pictures up by February.
I'm also hoping to be blogging more by then, I've missed it so much.