Alpaca Field Trip

Today we went on a little field trip, I got my fiber fix for the week and some alpaca love too! Just 15 minutes down the road from me in Dittmer, Mo Big River Alpacas has alpacas of every size and color. We had so much fun, they are so beautiful and exotic, my girls got to pet them and they were very sweet and well behaved. Nothing that I love more than to not only get my fiber locally, but to also see how well cared for and loved the creatures providing my fiber are. My mind is made up, I must have alpacas! Not right now but , but as soon as we get a bigger chunk of property. I can only hope that Lisa will still be around when I am ready to bring

home a few of these sweeties. I took pictures and petted to my hearts content and then I got to bring home some more fiber, this time more suited to needle felting which is the next thing I am going to teach myself to do. I was once again impressed with the size and good temperaments of LGD's. They have both Great Pyrenees and Maremma and they are such wonderful dogs! All and all I would definitely recommend getting your alpaca fiber here and if you are close enough make time to go pick it up and visit for a while, you'll fall in love.

Alpaca and other things

I got some alpaca from a really wonderful woman in dittmer the other day, very pleased with both the alpaca and the price! I love alpaca! Anyway, I've gotten everyone plucked or sheared except for two of the babies and they are getting done as soon as I get the chance, I've been so addicted to etsy lately I haven't been doing much else, I even have it as my start up page! I have been busy in the garden though. Picking peas and lettuce and spinach, using herbs with everything, anxiously watching the beans and peppers and tomatoes for ripeness, pulling weeds, and showing the trees in my flower beds who's the boss! Oh, yeah I was featured on someones blog!!!! So excited! here's the link http://sockpr0n.blogspot.com/2008/06/etsy-friday.html

The New and Improved Bunny Love Shack!!!!!

I'm so excited! The new bunny shed is here and all of the buns are safe and snug inside. Here is a picture of the new shed, I would show a picture of the old one but it was such an embarrassment i'd rather not! I have been really sick with a sinus thing and i'm still a little dizzy today, but much better overall. I've been very busy I've sheared 5 buns in the last two days because even with air conditioning the shed isn't fully insulated yet and they looked hot so I figured I would shave them all and this october when they are ready again whoever doesn't produce up to my expectations is going to be sold as pet quality and I will get to buy some better stock to replace them. I am making some huge cuts right now in the herd as it is so if you see someone you ike now is the time to let me know, I will do package deals and everyone's price is discounted. I have been busy dying wool like crazy (even doing the angora)and listing it to my shop, I figure I'll dye up everything that I have washed and then when it's all done and posted I will start washing some more. I am sooo busy, spinning and dyeing and knitting on the loom, I am stockpiling stuff for fall soft angora winter wear and lots of other stuff. oh well, I am tired. more later.

The Fiber Fair

Well we made it to the fiber fair, in spite of multiple issues and our van leaking fluids halfway there. It was a nice day though it was so windy I ended up putting alot of my things back in the van so that they wouldn't blow away. The vendors were great! So many and selling tons of great stuff! I forgot my wallet in the rush to get out of the house, so I didn't get shop as much as I would have liked but I did pick up a nice french doe. All in all in was a pretty good day, but I do have to say, Where were all the people?!? a great turn out of vendors and products, but fiber people? not very many, most of the people who stopped to talk to me were from right in town and had no real interst in fiber related things at all! They had just wanted to see what was going on. Did people just not know about the fair? Is the cost of gas the reason? I don't know but either way it would've been nice to have some more of the people that the fair was for actually show up. But on a lighter note, I have new spindles posted in my etsy shop, and new fiber will be up as soon as my camera batteries are done charging.

Beaded Headstalls

It has finaly stopped raining, I got some time in on my boy, the picture is of him last year, he's still a bit shaggy in spots now but he is starting to look good. I am working on hand beading a nice wide browband for his bridle because I just found out that we might be in a parade this year. I rode in it last year too but I ended up riding sunny instead of buddy because buddy is a bit of a fruit cake when it comes to crowds. So anyway I am making this beaded headstall, if it goes well I may be offering a few others on Etsy. I still haven't decided what other color to use, I am doing the black parts right now but by june he will have shed out to a not quite black bay color and I can't decide what color would really go well with that, if anyone has any color suggestions I would love to hear them, I need to buy him new ribbons for his mane also and I don't want to buy them until I figure out the perfect color. I was thinking maybe gold, or burgandy.... It's so hard i have tried every darkening shampoo and stuff on the market, he is just never going to be black!




Here is a picture of me on sonny last year, I did burgandy ribbons with him. Either way I am so excited about this summers riding possiblities, last year we tackled the water, at the beginning of summer bud was so scared of puddles he would do a dance as soon as you started to get close to one, and by the end of summer I actually had him swimming neck deep in the big river. This summer, well, there is a very large pasture full of unsuspecting cows and now that the last of the longhorns are safely in the freezer they are looking a lot less intimidating. Last year before the big pasture was finished we had to ride past the cows every day to get to the trails and buddy was so scared he almost tossed me a couple of times. Now we can ride into the cows with no issues, so I am thinking, how hard would it be to teach him to work the cows? Now, I really know nothing about teaching a horse to work cattle but it's just too tempting, I think that we could do it, the bull is the tamest of the group, none of them have horns, and I spent alot of time last year riding among them to get buddy over his fear that the cows were going to eat him. I am still doing research online but I think that this might be this years project.

Rain.... uck

All this rain is killing me, though I did have fun teaching my daughter to throw mud balls yesterday. We saw some of the neighborhood boys starting up a mudfight and just had to join in, though I was probably the only parent who was laughing about it. We had so much fun! I haven't had a mud fight since I was little! But it's been three days straight of on and off rain and while I should be geting things done around the house, I've done little but browse etsy and dye wool.... which has come to a temporary halt because it's too wet outside to dry it. On a better note my lilah b. is looking about ready to pluck, hopefully in the next few days and then maybe carmella will be ready before the marshfield fiber fest, call me greedy but I would really like to get the wool off of her before she goes.

Standing over the dyepot

I hvae been standing over a dyepot for the better part of two days now I've got a huge amount of roving, some corriedale cross, and an unknown but really nice wool that I have been using to perfect my color recipes. I am mostly working on getting that really awesome look with tons of different shades of the same color. I think my favorite is the moss green, though the salmon color is my 2nd favorite, it just doesn't have as many different shades. These two and many more will soon be available at my etsy shop and I am even considering selling some of my preblended dye (in powder form) so that you can do this at home. I've got a really nice purpleish color in the dyepot right now, it's more of a solid color though if it comes out how I want it to it will have a slightly darker shade in spots. The girls and I are having so much fun, we are even considering doing up a bit of angora, I just can't decide what color to do it!