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.

Chip's Skein

I'm very proud of this! It's pure alpaca, dyed with acid dyes from Fibrecrafts. The fibre is from Chip, an older whether (castrated male) whose fibre is white but on the course side now, I wouldn't want it next to my skin. But it took the dye well and combed out into beautiful rovings, which felt softer and looked brighter than the raw fibre. Okay, it was a lot cleaner as well. I will keep it as singles, plying would muddy up the colours. I've never knit with singles before, I've been reluctant to try it, I keep hearing dire warnings in my head from seasoned spinners about "twisted knitting". But I reckon if you don't put too much twist in to start with and set it well, it should be okay. It was spun at 8:1 and the twist set by putting the bobbin in scalding water until it had cooled (don't panic, plastic bobbins). It's nice and relaxed now - soft, but holds together well.

Need more colours

So, I want to make myself a waistcoat - in something like a kaffe fassett
design. I have several different colours, but probably not nearly enough. You know the problem, they're all nice, but you need more shades and tones. He uses up to 50 different ones in a garment. One good reason why you can't have too large a stash. I thought I could sample and test out the colours by making a simple tube, sewing up one end, felting it and calling it a spectacle case. If nice enough my Mum will probably get it in her stocking. I am knitting it in the round to avoid carrying colours when purling which I hate, so I'm using the 2 circulars method, and it's driving me crazy as the cirs are v-e-r-y long and the tube is quite small. It might be a small project but that's no reason to drive yourself insane is it? I'll try 4 DPs first before I frog it.

Some of said stash has some of my dyeing efforts where I rainbow dyed small balls of wool, by squirting a few colours into the wet ball and letting them bleed together and then steaming them - or did I microwave them? I wish I would make notes.

Lest we forget

For the Fallen
.......

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

.........

Laurence Binyon (1869-1943)

Found! Fibre!

It came to me the other evening that there might be more fibre out in the barn, stored in a chest that we don't yet have space for. So I went and looked, said chest was full to overflowing with all sorts of goodies I'd forgotton about in the 2 years since we've moved. Christmas as come early!

The trouble is I'd been tearing my hair out wondering what to make next, now I'm even more confused. So ignoring the 'new' fibre, I've started spinning up some of Chips fleece that I'd dyed, it's quite coarse, not what you'd want next to your skin, but it might make a smart bag if I felt it, or, I could make a farisle vest aka Kaffe Fasset using Lissie's black? What to do what to do? I should be thinking christmas pressies.

The Start.

Okay, I've started my blog. Not an auspicious begining as I managed to delete all the pics on the camera when I thought it was just the 6 I took yesterday, still have to work out how that happened.





Here's my wheel, it's a Majacraft Rose and I love it. I can choose between 8 ratios from 4:1 to 19:1 so for the majority of my spinning I can draft and treadle at the same rate but get a different amount of twist by choosing the appropriate ratio. Don't get the impression I'm that scientific about it though, I tend to play about with the fibre and go with what feels right. I love spinning and trying different fibres so I end up with a variety of one-hank samples. In four years I've only managed 2 complete projects, but I've re-kindled my interest in knitting, (sort of had to if I want to do something with my every increasing yarn stash)and expect to actually complete more whole things this winter.


These are the clogs I felted using Fibre Crafts pattern AC 33X. Unfortunately they're unwearable because they are different sizes and two small. The first clog I knitted in the round but I hated fighting with the large needles and stong cord so knit the sole on straights for the second. Plus, I felted them twice, the first time being not enough and the second..... I think they will have to hang on the wall in the fashion of Dutch wooden clogs - then grow trailing plants?