Gardening Lessons Learned

My foray into vegetable gardening has not been a total bust this year.  We ate quite a lot of lettuce, and are currently eating purple beans.  I had a few cucumbers before the plants got run over by the squash plants.  I have several promising squash and an abundance of tomatoes...although they haven't turned red yet.  The little ones in the picture were ripened on my windowsill.  I'm not sure if the big ones will ripen, but they had pretty well overburdened their stalks and were sitting on the ground when I found them.  We'll see.

I've learned some lessons about vegetable gardening this year.

1.  It is possible to humanely evict a family of groundhogs that have made your garden their home, with the help of this neat battery-powered stake apparatus that chatters everytime the ground moves.

2.  It is best not to tell your neighbour where that new family of groundhogs in her garden came from all of a sudden and why.

                          

3.  Plant half of the lettuce that you think you will need and plan for salads every night.

                          

4.  Don't plant squash in your little 10 x 6 garden...you will end up with a jungle of squash plants.  Next year I will throw some seeds in the old manure pile and let them grow wild.

                          

5.  Pick the beans sooner than later or they get tough.

                          

6.  Pick the runner branches off of the tomatoe plants so that the stalks bearing flowers will grow big enough to support the tomatoes. (Who knew?  Now I do!).

Today, I baked a Blueberry Cake.  Delicious!

I rinsed out the alpaca fibre that I dyed yesterday.

I rinsed out the alpaca\merino blend lopi yarn that I dyed yesterday and then dyed some more.

And best of all...
I had a gentleman caller for lunch. (He brought his own).

Too cute, isn't he!

Chickens Gone Bad

Somehow in college, while studying and working, I had the time to follow a soap opera. My drug of poison was 'Days of Our Lives'. Twenty-some years later, I've flipped the channels and found that series...many of the names are the same. I bet that if I watched it for 3 days, I'd recognize the same plots being played out.

We have our own daily production here. Today's title is "Chickens Gone Bad".

While I was supposed to be catching up on some handpainting in my sunroom....

I spotted Big Red outside the pasture fence. Apparently, he and a couple of the Elsies struck out on their own. I kept an eye on them hoping that they would decide to go home on their own.

They really can't get in much trouble unless they go mess on the neighbour's deck or they venture over to our house where the dogs are sleeping on the deck.
I'm sure Big Red had big plans of starting his own coop without any male competition.

I could hear some pretty sad rooster sounds. I don't know if it was Bates back at the coop trying to figure out where his missing two hens went. Maybe it was Big Red, now regretting his idea and realizing that the two Elsies weren't the ticket to hedonistic freedom he thought they were.

Well, after a while, I couldn't see them anymore so I headed over to the barnyard to find them and herd them home. It wasn't hard.
Sometimes the grass just looks greener on the other side. Their little outing complete, Big Red and the two Elsies were happy to rejoin the flock and resume exploring the thawing fields in search of the first worm.

Yep, it's been a slow day on the farm ;)

A few bellies are starting to show. Here's Makushla.
She should be having her first cria in early June. "Cria" (pronounced cr-ee-ah) is what alpaca babies are called. I often get asked in public if I am having any babies this year. Since I don't like having the people from Guiness World Book of Records calling me about my own reproduction status, I answer clearly and loudly "Well, not me, but I have three alpacas expecting cria in June."

I've finished weaving my heron and black alpaca scarves. Hand twisting the fringe is not my favorite task. I find it boring and have to be in the mood to basically sit and roll my thumbs...
It's a good feeling when it's done, though. I'm happy with the first one that I've finished. I brushed the textile to make it even softer.
This one will be going in my shop.

I've also been busy skirting and sorting fleece that I bought from my friend and alpaca farmer, Sally. I know Sally from the shows and association happenings, but I've never seen her herd as she lives many hours away. I was very pleased with the fleeces that I bought from her sight unseen. It takes beautiful fleeces to make beautiful yarn, and this batch of yarn should be wonderful.

It feels like we've been living in spring for weeks now. Apparently, tomorrow is the first official day of spring. I think we are expecting cold weather and snow. Go figure...

Friday the 13th!

Not only is this day remarkable, being Friday the 13th...but it is also the birthday of my sister Sue. Being 2 years apart in a big family, Sue and I, at one time shared a room, a bed and even bathwater! We may not be as present in each others lives now, but we share some similar memories of where we came from and who we once were. Happy Birthday, Sue.

Here in Corbeil, we are still enjoying a very mild and sunny November, although it is frosty in the morning. This is a picture of Benecio in the barn this morning...notice the frost on his head and back.

Velma, the silkie chicken, is very eager to sit on her egg. Perhaps, she's the smartest chicken...it's a whole lot warmer in the hen house than out on the ground outside. Isn't she pretty? She won't move when you go to get the egg, she's quite protective.








I did some yarn dyeing today. I have some white alpaca\merino blend that was spun at the mill into thick singles. It wasn't what I expected to get back as it's a bit overtwisted, but, that just gives it some other possibilities. I am having fun with the dyeing though. This is what I dyed in the crock-pot last week.


Today, I tried a bit different method of crock-pot dyeing with the 3 primary colours. It's still cooking. I'm not sure if it will be to 'clownish'. I layered the skeins and the ones on the bottom got kind of muddy...but perhaps a nice muddy? We'll see when it is done.

I also did some immersion dyeing with just purple. It's still cooling in the pot, but it looks like the purple took differently at different places. This is probably because I soaked all the white yarn in vinegar, instead of soaking the immersion batch in a soap bath. The vinegar made some areas take the dye too quickly. That's my theory, anyway. I'm still learning...always learning.