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Miss Lynne saw (probably this) one a few months ago and we recently found a skin by a hole underneath this pathway, Yesterday I spotted our resident Rat Snake and he was nice enough to pose for me.

Moving to a new area is made all the better by all the new creatures to be seen. This little fella was quite happy to pose for me. It’s a Snowberry Clearwing caterpillar

Sadly our new little chick did not survive very long. Mama hen was in mourning and after over 35 days sat on her clutch of eggs, no more chicks hatched.

Poor girl. I’m sure she’ll get another chance.

About 3 weeks ago one of the chickens was broody so we decided to let her sit on some eggs, not really expecting anything to happen. Today I was up in the barn and i could hear the cheep cheep of a baby bird. Cant believe that we actually had one hatch. Ran back down to the house to tell Mr Rob and then quickly onto the internet to find out what we should do.

Best suggestion was to separate Mother, eggs and chick from the rest of the flock. We set up the dog crate ready for them, managed to move the eggs and the chick but it took mother a while to realize she needed to move, much to the consternation of the little chick who was leaping up and down calling to her mum. I now wonder how many more of the eggs are going to hatch. You can just see the little head sticking out from under the mum. Good girl little Ameraucana..

 

I have been trying to make the two newcomers as welcome as possible. They still need to be segregated from the rest of the herd until we are sure they are used to each other. Magic is clearly led by his stomach so as long as I have food in my hand he is happy.

At last the weather has warned back up a bit and there has been a break in the rain.so I went out to the barn to give the alpacas a spray down on their legs and bellies.  I am always pretty popular when I do that,  but I was pleased to see it was also the way to Kloud’s heart. She was blowing kisses onto my cheek all the time I was spraying her.

Finally finished spinning and plying the fiber from Sally, and here it is all washed and dried. I just need to decide what to knit with it know, I can’t wait.

 

On our Tuesday morning walk to the barn we were greeted with lots of tiny white buttons on the ground. By the afternoon we had a full scale invasion.

By Wednesday, the early risers were already withering.

All change again by Thursday morning

 

 

Saturday I went to the community center for a sewing class with the ladies from Cherokee quilt guild. Linda Cunningham was the instructor and she was teaching the Sharon Schamber applique method.

It uses a particular interface ( Sharon’s own brand) that goes to fiber when washed and puffs up to give a slight trapunto effect. It also uses Elmer school glue, so takes you back to your childhood. It was a very relaxing day and we all came away with a complete sampler. Linda also brought some of her show quilts. All had been done using this method and they were amazing.

On Wednesday we drove up to walnut knoll farm in Canon to collect the first two of our new additions. Luckily the weather played nice and stayed dry for us so the journey took about 2 hours. We got there about 6 and got so involved in catching up with George and Judy that instead of taking them out for dinner we ended up with takeout, Subway foot longs. Not to much of an issue for us as its our favorite fast food.

Before it got too dark we loaded Magic and Kloud into the back of the trailer. They were a little skittish at first but quickly settled and cushed down. By the time we got home it was 11.30 and they were glad to get out of the trailer and into their new home. We will keep them separate from the rest of the herd for a while but as they are in the middle field both male and females were very interested to see the new guys arrive.

Kloud is obviously as attractive to other alpacas as she is to us and I am not sure who is the more enamored with her, our girls or our boys. Or maybe it is Magic that that they are lusting after.

We will have just enough time to get these two settled before the other nine arrive.

Better pictures to follow

I decided to enter one of my alpacas into the Georgia alpaca show in November. I thought the spin off would be a good place to start, basically you take 2 ounces of fiber, clean out the debris, you are not allowed to wash, card or comb it. How hard can that be says the voice of inexperience?

Let me tell you how hard, I spent must have been 8 hours altogether going through the fiber with a pair of tweezers and my reading glasses trying to pick out every last bit of dirt and grass. I think next year I am going to wrap all of the alpacas in cling film after they get sheared as I can’t think of any other way to keep them clean, especially the boys.

Fingers crossed that I get good marks. I will let you know.

I thought I would stop putting it off and have a go at dyeing some of my alpaca batts. I had bought some Cushing dyes from an online auction but had no idea what the colors were going to come out like.

I mixed a teaspoon of the powder in some boiling water in a canning jar added salt, the fiber, some more water and a half cup of white vinegar. I then let them stand for 30 minutes and then stood them in my canning pan and filed the pan with water and brought it to a rolling boil for about an hour.

I am pretty pleased with the results. They will need to dry and then I will re-card them