And the winner is...

Huffleduck with Jemima Puddleduck! Thank you all entrants this was fun and Ms. Puddleduck appreciates not being called "girl duck" anymore!


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There's a monster in my garden!

But I slayed it!



Weighing in at a full 2lbs, meet lunch!

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Ducks are cool.

The female duck was having a hard time getting into the feed dish so Ping scooped out food for her, waited for her to finish, and THEN he ate. Wow.


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New friends and a contest!

This is a testimony to the law of attraction! Yesterday I was looking through the Meyer Hatchery catalog and dreaming of ducks when someone popped up on freecycle giving away a pair of ducks! So I nabbed them up and brought them home. It's a boy and a girl (eee ducklings??). The girl was attacked when younger and has a pretty gimpy leg but seems to get around and the boy looks after her. I gave them the dog house and free run of the sheep pen for now. Unfortunately they won't be able to truly free range with that bad leg but the sheep pen is pretty big for just two ducks.

On to the contest! I'm bamong the boy Ping after my favorite childhood book. Please leave suggestions for the girls name in the comments below, or tweet it And leave a link in the comments. Winner will achieve the glory of naming my duck, and a handmade needle felted duck to play with or display as you see fit. Name will be chosen at midnight the 31st.
Go!







Sheep says, "WTF is that?"



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I'm on to you chickens!

Now that I know where you nest during the day- lay me some dang eggs!!!



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I'm ROASTING here!

I figured Peter wouldn't want us to languish away in grief so we decided to have a bonfire and marshmallow roast to lighten things up. Nothing fixes a bad mood like sugar and chocolate.



























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No funny tales today

Peter Cottontail, my beloved red satin angora bunny died today of unknown causes. I buried him under a tree near one of our beautiful wooded trails. May he hop through the meadows in bunny summerland. He will be missed.


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Nougat Shawl

It's finally done! I've decided to list it since it's so elegant and I just don't party LOL
Over 42" long and one naked satin angora! Little Nougat has achieved twitter fame by winning the alpaca-bunny-smackdown for softness. I love this little guy so much.
Anyhow check out the shawl:













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What have I been up to?

Let's see, a lot of the same old stuff. Working on my shrug and a pair of socks. Just spin up a ton of peach merino/silk and planning to start my white batch of merino/silk for coachella.



The garden has been giving forth plenty of cucumbers and I'm thinking about making pickles.
I've bee harness training the sheep. It's getting easier but I can't say they like it. But since I'm the only one in charge of the sheep a harness makes like an extra pair of hands.



The ewe I was planning to get was exposed to parasites so we will be getting a black ewe, bred. Lambies this spring!!!!



I've been baking tons of sprouted grain bread. It is awesome.
Etsy is open but I haven't loaded anything new this week due to verizon doing what they do best and delaying the wifi hookup. Look for new items Monday. Should be a ton of destash fabric.
The boys start school the 26th. I'm less than pleased but what can you do. I have very little information about the place and I don't like that. Guess we will take it day by day.

Off to go knead more bread dough!
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Thank you friend!

Pollinate those squash blossoms!



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Cloverbud interview at the fair

Jacob got to show his chicken, Sparkle, at the fair yesterday. Sparkle is a three month old golden buff hen and he was very excited to share her with the judge and his 4H friends. He is incredibly proud of his medal and has it hung on his wall!
It wound up being a crazy long day. I had to run home, drop off the chicken, run back, pick up husband and kids to drop hubby off, then run back to the fair again so the boys could walk in the 4H parade. Then a few rides with friends and finally babyman said enough already so we came home. Phew!






















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New addition

One more bunny coming to join us tomorrow! She is a black French angora and I'm getting a fantastic deal on her diego the owners relocating. Pedigreed and show quality. I wasn't going to get more rabbits but I figure she will be a good investment because: I can blend her with Nibbler for a nice grey/black wool, it will give me a darker angora to offer, the cage I'm getting with her will be a good size for breeding usage, and she has a nice coat ready for the rabbit demo I'm doing the end of this month (my other rabbits are bald).
Any ideas on a name for her?



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The alpaca bunny smackdown

It all began innocently enough. One day on twitter I was speaking with Alpacamundo and mentioned that I've worked with angora for so long now that alpaca almost feels coarse. She felt those were fightin' words and I said, a little competition perhaps? After much deliberation we decided to trade samples along with neutral third party spinner, vtknitboy.
I sent along a bit of my best from Nougat, my chocolate agouti (shawl finished pictures coming soon!). In return I received a half ounce of peachish tan alpaca. Admittedy it is a very fine fiber and I spun it light and thin to see what it could do. It did have quite a bit of VM which I struggled with but the fiber itself is quite nice.
In comparison to Nougat however, on softness factor only, I feel the bunny still wins. I do however think the alpaca is a stronger fiber than the angora, and I do love me a blended angora/alpaca spinning batt for the best of both worlds. Since the bunny goes a long way, a 10% angora to alpaca blend can make for arctic quality finished goods.
This has been really fun so far and I'm delighted to see how others have jumped in. I'm anxiously awaiting verdict from Alpacamundo and Vtknitboy.


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Babyman's hat

For whatever reason my son hands me the same ball of yarn everytime we visit our local yarn store. I decided finally to buy it and make him something. He has requested a hat and socks. Here is the finished hat. It's a bit short but since it's crochet I may lengthen it come winter. For now it makes a nice summer skull cap. The yarn is lambs pride superwash in true green.










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