The story of Brian

Brian is our peacock. He is still young and hasn't grown his long tail yet - that will come in this spring (wow, can't wait!). He was given to us by some friends who had him and his 'wife' but they have a smaller place which is beside a road and so he had to stay in a large pen for most of the day. One evening they escaped, Brian came back but his companion didn't. So they thought it would be kinder if we had him as E had always said what our 'lawn' needed was a peacock strolling around. When we first brought him home, about May I think, we kept him in the barn. We were advised to keep him in for at least a month, and on one web site - 6 months! After 2 weeks we felt very sorry for him, he'd been watching the chickens wandering around all the time so one evening we let him out, and he just linked up with the chickens and roosts with them each night.



He displays to the hens, and his tail is coming on a treat, he can now rattle it when it's up. He makes a lot of lovely noises, from clucking to hooting like a goose when he flies. He only calls occassionally, but this will probably increase in the spring. It's only loud if you are standing next to him! I would love to get him a hen but they are very hard to some by, I'm hoping by the spring there may be some around.

His treat is dried cat food and he comes to the steps to get some. His only bad habit is sitting on the roof of our car -

Sorry my Flickr Badge has disappeared for a while, they seem to be having problems..

More Animal Pictures

I've made a new Flickr Badge with some pictures of my animals, but this is one of my favourites. Coppper and her mum eating the leaves from the huge pear tree which shades them in the summer.

Animals again

The day before I left for the UK I noticed Max was limping on his near hind foot. I got him into the stable and it looked like a superficial scrape so it got the purple spray treatment and E was instructed to watch carefully. I left for the ferry the following morning in the dark, so it was E who found Max limping quite badly and realised we needed the vet. When they came that afternoon they removed a lot of pus, gave him some shots and bandaged it up well with an iodine dressing which was supposed to come off last Saturday. Well, Max was walking better the next day and he seems to have recovered well, the bandage had removed itself as they do. I think he still very very slightly favours the foot so I am keeping a close eye on it, it seems the same size as it's neighbour but... The Vet's also trimmed his rear toenails - which made me feel bad but I've found as Marty McGee Bennet says they tend to snap off without interferrence from me, I only have one alpaca that I need to trim toenails for.

Betty goat and all the others were fine, their eye infections have cleared but Betty had some cloudiness left which I thought might remain. Then her eye looked mucky again on Sunday so we immediately began treating it again, it improved, but last night there were more signs of discharge although the eye wasn't red. It depends on how it looks this morning whether we take her to the vets again.

Oh, and for good measure, one of the cats, Misty has a urine infection - which required the vets to put her out to get a sample, the current veterinary bill is up to 175€s.

Passed the Winter Solstice!

This year fell on 22nd December at exactly 06.08 GMT so says Mid-Atlantic Geomancy. There is often a bit of arguing in the UK about whether it falls on the 21st or 22nd, now I can see why the confusion. But! From now on the days will be becoming a little longer, and a little longer until that wondrous day when THE CLOCKS GO FORWARD. Can you tell I don't like winter?

Some of my goat's have Pinkeye

At least I think that's what it is, Pinkeye

We have had 3 goats with eye infections. Betty’s eye was quite bad, it was completely cloudy, very red conjunctiva but only a watery discharge, not pus. It happened while I was away and E couldn’t treat her regularly as it takes two to do it, so when I returned we took her to the vets who said she may lose the sight in that eye. She had a couple of injections, one directly into the eye and ever since we’ve been putting ointment into it 4 times a day. This is not easy with a goat which hates to be handled. We asked if it was infectious and were told ‘no’. Then on the 8th day, another goat had a watery eye and it was half shut, no redness and the eye was clear but we got some fresh ointment from the vet as I am sure it would have progressed to the nasty infection Betty had. Then the following morning, another goat was showing signs so he was treated. Both of the latest infections looked fine again after 24 hours but we continued with the ointment. Today is the 10th and final day of Betty’s treatment and she can see out of her eye and it is almost clear, the other two are fine so I’ve stopped treating them, I think we nibbed it in the bud. It’s been quite a hassle, having to separate the goats, cajole the ‘sick’ ones into the goat house to catch them (they do not play ball if you have to do anything to them, food, fine, anything else, no) and keep the rest out of the way. And all in 4 inches of mud.

Then this afternoon, while collecting alpaca poo (it wasn’t raining and the sun was out so I made the most of the opportunity), I noticed that Max was slightly lame on his near hind leg, I couldn’t see any blood, or swelling and he was weight bearing, just limping a bit, so he can wait until tomorrow for catching and a really close look, I really really hope there’s nothing wrong. Meaning, I hope it's something that doesn't require a visit to the vet and treatment as I am off to the UK again for 3 days on Tuesday. I can't stand the stress!

Nothing for weeks then 3 come along at once

Pod Casts.

Discovered them about a month ago. Franklin Habit mentioned Brenda Dayne's Cast-On pod cast so I went to listen, and was hooked. Brenda talks about knitting, life, includes music, and essays from herself, friends and listeners who contribute. This weeks episode included a piece entitled "Grandma's Book", it was lovely, made me cry and wonder if I will leave anything behind that my grand daughters would treasure. I've caught up on all the previous episodes, and now there is another pod cast I subscribe to Weave Cast by Syne Mitchell. As part of her show, Syne interviews other weavers, and while I'm not a weaver, I do enjoy listening to others talk of their crafts. Both pod casts are produced to a very high standard using decent microphones so the sound quality is good, something which put me off the very first time I tried listening to one a year ago and I hadn't tried since. I didn't know what I'd been missing.

The weather here has been horrible for a month now. Not cold, but very wet, windy, very dull and grey most days, and mud mud mud in all the paddocks. Dark until nearly 9.0 am and lights on in the house nearly all day - I hate gloom.

Sunnier times in the south of France just 2 months ago.

Stash Reduction

After sorting my stash into proper colour groups - that is, trying to see whether the reds were more bluey or orangy, or the greens, bluey or yellowy - I wish I'd gone to art college and knew how to describe them properly! Is it hue? I was pleased with my efforts, and once packed neatly into zipped plastic bags maybe I would actually get around to using some of them. The biggest problem is I love spinning and I like dying, and sometimes I'm very pleased with the results, but I just want to keep these lovely bundles. Part of the problem for me is the fabric that they knit into doesn't look as lovely as the hank, the other obvious problem is I just have - a hank, I haven't kept records, always believing I will remember what I did, silly me. I'm toying with the idea of perhaps weaving some of it, maybe I would be happier with the result. The other idea I have is to use a varigated yarn as an enhancement to a plain one, say a black cardigan with gold/green/brown/yellow additions, either as edging, or up the front, they would be fairly small and smart! I have actually swatched this - shows promise. I just need to do it.




What I have started is this pattern Morning Surf it's a much chunkier version but I like the texture a lot.

It's not going to be a very long scarf - just look at the size of the ball that's left! But I won't rip it yet, it will fit into a coat neckline.

Crawls out from under a rock

I don't know if it's my fault (most likely) or Blogger, or Opera or Blogger/Opera/Beta/what-the-hell, but I had no indication of comments posted on here, even feeds failed to update. Plus it seemed to take hours to log on and so I haven't for about 2 weeks! Oh, and I've been to the UK on emergency child care again.

Anyhow, I've got the comments up and a big thank you Cledry,
Littlecritterkeeper and Julie

At the moment I'm working my way through 8 sacks of alpaca fleece. This year's shearing was a nightmare and now I'm having to deal with the results of frantic, stressed shearing. This means, bundles of fibre poorly sorted, loads of second cuts and they are sticking because of the excess of oil I used on the clippers. I am not stressing over it this year though. Now I don't feel I have to save every last scrap of fibre, I ditch anything heavily contamintated. I pull out what I can while pre-picking, before washing, I find using a flick carder helps break up any mud sticking the tips together. For the remaining bits of hay, seeds, dried up beetles, 99.9% of it drops out during sorting and carding, and while spinning you can pick the last out. All of the leg fibre, and rougher bits I reserve for felting. Felting what I don't know, but Cledry is an inspiration! The second cuts are more of a problem this year, and those that I haven't been able to pick off, I've just left very tiny lumps which again, disappear into the yarn and it just looks 'ethnic'.

Diane has been looking for a carder - that can be difficult. I ended up buying an Ashford because I couldn't get one second-hand that wasn't nearly 90% of the price of a new one. It had the 'fine' cloth, - actually not that fine. It was okay for fleece with a medium staple, but the 'licker-in' drum would get loads wound around it and I'd have to stop and pull it off regularly. And it couldn't cope with alpaca, even more wound onto the first drum and it didn't do a very good job at all. I search several fibrery forums and there was nothing but praise for the Strauch, so I got one. My only regret is not being able to afford one with a motor, I can only dream of a Pat Green!


The results

Almost Print O' the wave Shawl

I finally finished my Print O' the wave shawl and blocked it last week. It was almost completed 2 months ago - but 10" from completing the border I realised I wouldn't have enough yarn. Damn. I needed to find another lace edging that was narrower so searched my stitch files and books and finally settled on one from Interweave's "Knitters' Shawls and Scarves" - that's not quite the right title but I can't see it on my shelf at the moment - where the hell is it? It's the edging from (will fill in this space once I find the damn book). It's okay, but the proper edge pattern would make for a wider shawl. Now, when am I going to wear this thing? I don't have any clothes that it would go with! I would love to give it to one of my girls but I don't think they'd wear it for a moment. Neither of them are lacey people. My mum would put it in a drawer and not look at it again. My granddaughter would love it - to dress up in, no thanks. No, I want to wear it, when I lose the stone I need to I'll buy a little black number and E can take me out to dinner! So, a bit of a wait then.

What I've been doing

Well not posting here that's a fact. I've recently visited the UK to see my girls and parents, now E is over there doing the pre-Christmas visit with all 5 of his kids! I normally don't mind being on my own in this great big place but this time I'm not feeling very comfortable, rattling around and wishing it was smaller and I could feel the boundaries.

After a few rough months, emotionally and effortwise we have made the decision to sell-up next year and move back to England. However, this will not be accomplised quickly. We won't wait until the whole house is renovated, that would be another 2 years at the rate it's going, and E will be on his knees by then. This means yet another 'partially renovated' property on the market, so we will be very lucky to get a buyer for months, and they will want it for a knock-down price. I will add a caveat here, there is a slight possiblity that we will just buy something smaller, less land, less work, in France which was E's first suggestion. But, in my heart of hearts, I want to go home and E agrees, so I think that's what we must aim for. It won't be easy, property has continued rising in price at a silly rate and we will have to settle for something very small. But, I have far to much 'stuff' anyway, I'm ready to live more simply. As long as there's room for my bike, wheel, little loom, carder, knitting machine, stash, sewing machine, overlocker, Christ! I must make these things work for me or they should go, no, no good, can't.

I don't know if I can part with the animals though, but I can't stay here. It would be wonderful if we could find some land to rent in the UK and then buy a small house very nearby.

On a lighter note, I've discovered Cast On! It's a podcast hosted by Brenda Dayne. I can't belive it's being going for over a year and I didn't come across it before, I followed a link from The Panopticon I've resisted listen to podcasts after the first one I tried, wondering what all the fuss was about, was less than inspiring, sounding as if it had been recorded in the loo so I'm afraid I didn't give it much of a chance. Brenda's voice has one of those calm, gentle, earthy north american accent. She includes pod safe music along with interviews with a wide variety of people involved with yarn crafts, of course she does talk knitting sometimes. It's made me cry and laugh out loud - not at the same time, and I love it. It just makes me more and more homesick.

We left St Branchs on 25th September, cool, overcast but no wind - perfect for cycling!.

Good, clear road with 295 miles ahead.



Some places we stayed were lovely,


some were not...



But eventually, on 4th October we reached St Genies, just north of Beziers, and my friends Wendy and Jim and ate moules and frites to die for.

Off tomorrow and just a little scared.

Well, panniers are packed, I've reduced clothing to a minimum, no room for a hairdryer, hopefully the hotels will have one. Bike is ready, route planning done. If you want to look at France from the air IGN Maps Geo-Portal. There are options which let you fade between maps and the aerial photos, or, you can select relief. That's pretty scary, photos don't show up the gradients very well, and it's all lovely sunny weather and unfortunately the forecast is for showers and a southerly wind. WE don't care, we're made of stout stuff. I've warned Wendy to expect two grubby, tired and thirsty middleaged women on her doorstep in 11 days time.

Here goes, Geronimooooooooooo!!

Lace charts anyone?

Chart in Excel
Originally uploaded by Alpagalaine.

I was going crosseyed trying to keep my place while knitting Print O' the Wave recently, I'd read of lace knitters who transferred each line of lace to individual cards and just flipped them over. I thought I would give it a try - and it works, it's wonderful!

Here's how I did it.

First I re-create the chart in Excel - I do this anyway so that I can have a clearer chart on an individual piece of paper.

Line by line

Line by line
Originally uploaded by Alpagalaine.

This is printed onto A4 card..

fan-of-cards

fan-of-cards
Originally uploaded by Alpagalaine.

Cut along the dotted lines, punch a hole in the end and use something to link them together.

Marker move

Close-up-of-card
Originally uploaded by Alpagalaine.

Close up showing how I show the marker move - this has saved me hours of frustration.

A cycle ride

Annette and I will be on our way in less than two weeks. I've planned our route to take 10 stages, some shorter ones in the middle in the Dordogne and Perigord where it's pretty hilly, and longer when the terrain is more forgiving. This going by maps you understand, the only area I've actually cycled before is between Toulouse and the mediterranean.

Yesterday I was pouring over my IGNs 1cm to 1k, and adding up the mileage accurately, I have been using Via Michelin route planner to get an idea but this doesn't account for all the twists and turns of a cross country road. The second day between La Roche-Posay and Annette's brother's is 58 miles, and the day after, 60! And the end of that day is getting quite hilly. The contingency plan is; cut the stage short and find somewhere else to stay, we have 2 nights spare which we would spend with Wendy in Beziers but if required, we can take and extra 4 days to get to Toulouse and then put the bikes on the train straight to Montpellier and catch our flight back!! So, I must stop worrying, we can do it!

I've been feeling pretty flaky the last few days and so it does make you doubt your own stamina. I know Annette felt tired and unfit after a hard ride with her young and fit son - but the reality is, we know we can do 50 miles no problem, we have all day, the trick is to break it down to easier stages. So I thought I'd better get another long ride under my belt. I set off at 11 am

70k from home to the bar Le Brasserie. It's only about 43 miles, but included one long hard climb and a lot of smaller hills. I've been carrying panniers loaded with about 12lbs of water in containers to increase the work and so that there's no shock to the system when we set off in 9 DAYS TIME.


Open countryside



The Lac in the local town.



Lunch stop in the Fôret du Perseigne

This is the spectacular Convolvulus Hawk Moth which has been visiting us the last few evenings around 9.0pm, magic! Click on the image for a larger one.

er, um, shuffle, shuffle, I'm back

Okay okay. Pictures might have worked better but waiting 20 seconds between each page.... enough already.

I've copied the few post's I made after I ran off with Wordpress, headings in the side bar.




Here's what I'm working on at the moment....

It's Eunny Jang's Print O' the Wave shawl, in ownspun, Max, (seen here below, kushed down), 18 wpi, acid dyed magenta with a touch of blue. The colour is darker than it looks here, I've tried to tweak it but it's close enough.

Just a couple of things from yesterday

1) It was late on a lovely balmy evening with a full moon, there was the most enormous hawk moth with a really really long proboscious dipping into the huge nicotianas beside the bit of concrete we eat al fresco on patio. It was 4 times the size of the humming bird hawk moths which we see loads of.

2) The goats broke into the patch of sunflowers outside of their house, just trampled the fence down.
I tied the fence up with string and E will repair it in the morning.

3) I was sitting indoors later when a baby toad hopped across the floor. It was very hoppy and took me a while to corner it, and when I did catch it, I couldn't hold onto it as it squeezed out between my fingers - I didn't want to squash it. Got it outside on the second attempt.

4) For the second night running, one of the cats had left the entrails of a rodent in the middle of the dining room floor, just where people walk first thing in the morning half awake. In bare feet.

My bike is being révisioned

Took my bike into Alençon yesterday for a service and any work that might need doing. Monsieur Josselin did a brief check, hubs, no play; bottom bracket, ditto, chain, slack; cassette, worn. I really hope that the changing will be better, I had shorter cranks fitted 7 (can it really be 7?) years ago and they've been tricky since, but mainly on the smallest ring which I don't use much, smirk. No, I do use my stump puller for groveling up steeper hills or when I'm carrying stuff, there's no shame in twiddling. One of the benefits of being older, no-one bats an eyelid that you are slow, which translates into, I don't care anymore. I pick it up tomorrow late pm and then voilà! I'm in business again.

This August has been dreadful weatherwise, similar to the UK, and the mornings have felt Autumnal for weeks. Today there was mist with a clear blue sky above, it's now cleared and the air is very warm and still, wonderful cycling weather. What's the betting by Friday it will be raining again?

Aren't kids just wonderful?

I've this year old female alpaca, Copper, who I've been slowly working with to get her used to handling but as yet she still moves away when touched. Yesterday my 5 year old grand daughter, Molly was helping me with feeding and she approached Copper, "Careful!" I said,

A bit of a cycle...

Four weeks tomorrow Annette and I are cycling to Beziers, near the French mediterranean coast from Tours, about two thirds of the way up France, west of the middle. No, I can actually read a map, I just can't think of a better way to describe it at the moment. But, I have a map to show you.

Our route is represented by the red line if you can see it. Our trip consists of 10 stages, only cycling 30 miles per day or so in the Dordonge as it's hilly, and a) Annette's never toured before or even carried panniers - but she's been in training since April, and b) we want to enjoy ourselves and not feel knackered at the end of the day.

Bye bye blogger

After yet another frustrating time trying to upload images, I've given up and moved to wordpress. It's a wheel thing
Took me exactly 5 minutes to sign up and publish my first post with an image. Ha!

Huh

I'm using this as my own personal diary. No-one reads it, it's not publised anywhere, so what the heck. Our broadband, wireless modem got zapped by lightning, and it has take 2 weeks to get back online with an old one. why didn't we do it before? You tell me. Anyways, I belong to Weight Loss Resources online. It's a brilliant site, I've been a paid up member for 3 months or more now and have only just discovered it's true potential. Like, what is your 'favourite' food, ie, what have you stuffed yourself with most over the last week, or two weeks or month? What do you think! Wine came third, over milk and bananas, taken daily. I thought that was pretty bad, and seeing how I was losing weight at the staggering rate of less than 8ozs a week I took the pledge and drink didn't touch my lips for a week. I counted every last dang thing, grams of this, mils of that, calculated my exercise using a heart rate monitor, and stayed under my weekly allowance by around 200 calories, the result was I lost a lb and a half! Then the lightening struck, blasted the modem and with it my access to WLR - and I lost the plot, felt shaky, panicky and couldn't cope, how sad is that? How will I do if I ever get to goal (9st stone) and stop subscribing, I can't really afford to go on indefinately? Anyhow, we are in business again, I will start properly on Sunday as tomorrow we are eating out and I don't intend to count calories then, life is for living anyhow. And now I can have another glass of wine.

Planning a bit of a cycle

This year I decided I would like a long bike ride, I haven't done one since Land's end to John O'Groats 8 years ago. Was it really that long ago, crikey. I began by thinking of a trip from the English Channel to the Med, but it would mean E on his own for about 3 weeks - I'm a lot slower now- and that means the cost would be steep too. I have a friend Wendy who has a holiday home in Beziers and has often suggested we visit, so that seemed a good destination point, And by making the starting point Tours, on the Loire, then I would be in unfamiliar territory straight away and save 3 or four nights accomodation into the bargain. Normally a solitary cyclist by preference, this time I decided I would like some company so asked Annette who, with her husband Graham, have been really good friends since we came to France 2 and half years ago. Annette said "yes!" and prompty began training, she hadn't got quite the mileage in her legs as I have then, but she's worked hard and gained a lot of fitness in the last few months. We will start on 25th of September, we will be deposited by hubbies hopefully well before lunchtime at a little place called Sorigny, next to the motorway peage just south of Tours.

We plan to do between 60 and 80k per day, quite modest mileage (Kilometage?) but there is a world of difference doing 70k one day only and stringing several together. So, it was about time we tested ourselves to see how much more work we need to do in the next 12 weeks. Doing a 40+ mile round trip with lunch included seemed a good idea! Annette cycled to me, then we left for Le Perrier to meet Graham at the bar for lunch, only to find it closed - on a Thursday!! Typical France! But the proprietor came out and offered us a 'sandwich' - also typically French to help where they can. He brought us the most enormous ham baguettes with some beers, delicous and very welcome. The sun came out as we were eating and so we cycled the longest leg back to Annettes via Mortagne au Perche in temperatures of 30C or more. Another break for tea and cake, quite a bit later I made my way home with my left hip and thigh complaining. I don't find long stops helpful when on a lengthy trip, it takes me ages to get going again. Thirty minutes maximum and save the rest for the evening. I made sure I stretched and massaged my legs when I got home, took 200mgs of ibuprofen and the discomfort disappeared and no after effects the next day, in fact I felt full of energy. The round trip was a total of 68K. The aim is to be able to do 70k 3 days on the trot carrying panniers, and not die, I'm quite hopeful.

Shearing Stress 2 down, 6 to go.

Guess what, replacement shears work!! They are going twice as fast. Now it's trying to get the alpacas done as soon as possible as the temperature is soaring.

It's so hard with just the two of us, and trying to get the 'pacas down and secured, stresses them and me. I've been studying Marty McGee's methods, but haven't had the time to get them halter trained (only two young born here are - but not Copper) and trusting me. Now, any trust I built up has evaporated as we wrestle them to the ground. Without being able to guide them to the shearing blanket, it's a fight and I hate it, I feel they are never going to trust me if this is how I have to treat them. More help makes it quicker and therefore safer and better for them.
We are off to lunch today with some people we met and A is trained in agriculture and offered to help once, so I will ask and hope they can oblige. Unlike the UK, there are very few alpaca owners so none near enough to help. We have other friends who have helped, but this is busy visitor time now and the one day we organised was abandoned when the bloody shears didn't work. I am so cross, last year was hyper stressful as we couldn't get them sheared, the pregnant girls and crias where getting close to heat stress. So we bought shears, a "How to shear" DVD and did it ourselves with friends staying at the time to help, it worked well, so this year I didn't expect any problems.

We got up early (well, I've been awake since 04.00 as I have been every other morning for a week) and did Margo this morning, she kushes down so we pushed her around to get her in posistion and away we went. Her fleece is full of guard hairs now, and slow growing so it all just get's dumped in the same bin, I don't have to worry about sorting it. But after that I was feeling to stressed to tackle another one as I didn't want to tackle any of the others without at least one extra pair of hands.

They need to be shorn and then the girls need to get pregnant - it's a month over due!!!

NEXT YEAR WILL BE DIFFERENT.

Those that would be shorn ...

Copper,10 months old.













Her dad, Max.












Enjoying pear leaves.

What else?!!

No the shears didn't work. They've gone back to Germany and we should get a replacement motor/machine soon. My query about the combs and cutters not cutting was met with "all alpaca owners are having trouble this year, it's because the hard winter has affected the fibre" Oh yeah - alpacas come from the Andes mate. I suppose it's possible, but I can't see how. I think it more likely their griding machine or the operatives were different. I've ordered some new ones so we will see how those work. Luckily the temperatures are hot but bearable with a cooling breeze and the girls seem a lot more comfortable anyhow as they aren't pregnant.

As well as new combs and cutters, spent loads of €s on getting computer sorted, lawn mower mended, dentist, new tyres for the car and 200 lightweight concrete blocks. But, surprise, we were presented with a voucher for 78€s at Brico Depot as we'd spent so much money there! It really cheered us up.

Shearing

Yesterday Lissie was shorn, but the shears really acted up, they wouldn't cut and yet I had the combs and cutters professionally sharpened. It took 2 hours and we got through 3 changes of combs and 4 cutters. Last year - when all the kit was new, a comb lasted 6 of them and one cutter did one alpaca. I felt so sorry for poor Lissie, she had a barrel cut with hand shears last summer as we hadn't got our shearing organised the weather was very very hot and she was pregnant, so she looked quite shaggy. Three weeks ago we started to shear her and the motor in the machine kept stopping so it went back to Peasridge to be checked. I had taken one cut along her belly and we had to let her go. But she was a star, apart from the struggle of getting her down and secured, once there she just lay quietly. When finally released she stayed around so she got a few extra nuts as compensation. Then she wandered off and just stood in the middle of the field on her own, eyes half closed, resting a hind leg, just soaking up the sun, she loves to sunbathe so I think it must have felt good.

If I had a brain ....

I'd be dangerous. A nice comment left by Critterkeeper made me realise that
a) my "Practice" blog was public
b) you should select "no" for "Add your blog to our public listings?"
if you don't want your trial and error efforts displayed.

I feel very silly, and ashamed that I missed a comment.

Blogging brings responsibility.

Just a bit of decorating

We bought our farm in France some 30 months ago, we were looking for an old property with about 5 to 10 hectares of land, and 'some work to do' for E to occupy himself, and given our budget we knew we couldn't afford a fully up-together and renovated property. We found Le Pommier, it was 25 hectares and needed a lot of work on the house and two barns. There is also a pair of cottages but they have no roof at all and nearly past saving. But it's set in a beautiful spot so we persueded ourselves it was okay, we could do it, it would just take longer than planned, the money would stretch.


Ha!

We are getting there, E does all of the work himself, and it gets him down when progress is so slow. But we do have a comfortable living room now, two decorated bedrooms, central heating and a new fosse septique. As well as renovation the animals needed paddocks and field shelters, the big barn's roof leaked badly (or well?) anyway, during the summer E spends several weeks up scaffolding replacing battens tiles and beams where they're needed and now 2/3rds of the roof is done. The 3rd bedroom is nearly complete and family bathroom is next. Then, I think it will be the turn of the kitchen and family room before our bedroom and en suite. But, that may not happen until this winter, or even later. And to add injury to disaster, the small barn which wasn't too bad, suddenly parted company with some its wall. There was already a gaping hole and part of the roof had fallen in, so, this summer every job inside the house will stop while E works on the barn so that it doesn't fall down altogther.

Hoo bloody ray

It's taken me an hour and a half to get the photo in the previous entry. I tried to sign up with Type Pad as they have a month free, but they say my address doesn't match the details for my card ?!

'tis just turned Wednesday, time for bed.

Gettin' a grippe

Having my own party tonight, on my third glass of Chateau Ferret (honest) not honest it's my third glass but that's really what its called. I like minervois. The Dixie Chicks are on really L O U D, the benefits of your nearest neighbours being half a mile away. The dog's sheltering between my knees, serves her right for spending the last half-a-hour outside down in the valley barking her her head off at deer/foxes/whatever.

Some things that have happened.

Grippe Avaire struck France with the inevitable knee-jerk response. Our poulets have been shut in since mid February. We are over 500 miles from the outbreak, the Spanish border is half that distance and as far as I know they haven't any restrictions. I see chickens out all the time around here, so I let them out for a ramble yesterday but only because E was in the UK, he is worried about the 800€s fine. The restriction finishes at the end of May, no parole.

Three times since Christmas I've put something on the gas to boil only to forget it. It takes about a week of soaking and scraping to get a useable saucepan again.

It takes about 48 hours for the smell to leave the house.

My dear dad was 80 in April, he cried at his surprise party.

After a long, cold grey winter, spring suddenly arrived with the swallows on 26th March, they were late.

Cowslips fill the ditches and banks, then come the purple orchids and self-heal. Good use of the colour wheel.

I persuaded E to take the car to the UK, I get around on my scooter. I buzzed into Alençon this morning and happened to glance down at the front of my white jacket, it was covered in dead insects. Now I know why bikers wear black and grey. Then I had to shop.

It was very warm last week so we decided to start shearing, we took Lissie first, I made the first cut, and the shears packed up. She now has a gap along her left side. What if I'd done the whole of her side before they stopped?

As E would be leaving for the UK the following day he rang Peasridge who were brilliant, Mr P said he doesn't normally work on a Saturday but would be in so to drop them off, he was going to Germany the following week so would take them with him for Heiniger's engineers to look at them and they would be shipped directly back to us!

Notes for 2007.

April- Check shears are working

Black Dog Attack

Not posted for a while, been feeling pretty low, maybe it's SAD, but I've been like this before at other times of the year, and I know I'll come out of it eventually.

I'm trying to count my blessings....

Fuck blessings.

Not there yet then.

Do you know where your merino roving came from?

I had an email from my daughter, Sam, this morning with a link to PETA. This describes the barbaric practice of "mulesing" young merino sheep in order to avoid fly-strike. Basically, merino's have been breed to have large folds of skin in order to maximise the amount of fleece they carry.

Unfortunately this predisposes the animal to fly-strike, and mulesing is the Australian sheep industries way of preventing it. Now, while I find the practice sickening as any abuse of animals, when I read sites such as PETA's and find statements like "The market for alpaca exploded in the 1980s, when South American alpacas and llamas were marketed worldwide to entrepreneurs who bought into the vision of a ground-floor investment in a luxury fiber market. The craze subsided but breeding continues, and unwanted animals are now routinely put up for auction. Llama sanctuaries and rescue operations have sprung up in the wake of the breeding craze to handle the growing number of abused, neglected animals." I wonder how much of their argument is exaggerated, in the end, it will not help their cause to give their opponents any amunition for counter attack. Which is just what the Australian wool industry is doing. Unfortunately their efforts to justify the practice of mulesing are pretty pathetic, they belive it's better than the animal suffering from fly-strike! They even report that the "new method of clipping" will avoid mulesing, so instead of skin being cut away, they will put clips on the skin which will restrict the blood supply, the flesh will die and drop off - end of problem!!

Hand spinners probably only account for a very small percentage of end use of merino wool, it's the major manufacturers that need to join the demand for welfare friendly fleece. But although in the past I have bought merino rovings from UK vendors who probably are unaware of the welfare issues, until such a time when that is possible, I won't be buying any more merino roving.

"New" dyeing technique!

This is some nameless white roving I found in my stash which has been 'hidden' for over 2 years. It feels a little harsh as it was cheap, 'white' wool, I think the intention when I first bought it was to practice dyeing with natural dyestuffs.

Which I haven't done.
Yet.

I spun and plyed the yarn and used acid dyes to paint the skeins. I only have primary colours and add some stock solution directly onto the skeins, wrap them in clingfilm, squish them about a bit to mix and blend the colours and then microwave them. I didn't really like the effect, I thought the red/blue/s and yellows were to strong, so I simmered them in the pre-soaking water which allowed some of the non-fixed dye to mix and I got the autumnal mix seen here.
I am very happy with the result and will use the technique again.