On the wing

The back door of the barn has been left open for my birdies to range. So far my remaining guinea is happily exploring the back pen, the rest of my chicken chickens are hanging out next to the door looking at it but not taking the leap.
In other news I recently attended the great lakes fiber show. It was quite nice and I hot some great prices on alpaca fiber. This new mom smiled for the camera!



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How to catch a guinea hen 101

So my guinea fowl are here. I think they are a boy/ girl pair. One has bigger cheeks and one makes different sounds than the other so here's hoping.
It doesn't bode well that everytime I get new animals at least one gets loose in my garage.



Notice her friend still neatly tucked in his cage. Silly me opened the cage up to get a better look at them.
Here's how you catch a guinea hen when you're in an enclosed space:
Wait till it gets dark. Turn off all the lights except for one, hung low. Put a box behind the light. When the bird runs towards the light, scoop it into the box and put the lid on fast. Tada! Wish I had figured that out BEFORE I chased it for two hours!
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Barn is clean!

That was hands down the grossest thing I've ever had to do, and I've done some pretty gross stuff. Dead mice, dirt, grease, poo, old tractor parts, old animal medicine, a desk, a broken dehumidifier, all of it covered in layers of mouse poo. Everything dumped and burned and the inside sprayed out with water and a little touch of bleach (I hate bleach but I'm not eating eggs from that place without a little sanitizing first, know what I mean?). I feel proud to now cover it in wood shavings and chicken poo heehee!


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Gardening and pest control

My gardening experiment, phase one, seems to have worked. When I brushed away the cedar chips to plant seeds I found no grubs, and lots of worms. Yay! I now have a long row each of yellow squash, zucchini, cataloupe, watermelon, and radishes. I also planted a sunflower house for the boys. While doing that I excitedly discovered a large patch of sorrel as well.

Operation pest control is complete. Sadly I wound up killing the snake. The repellant proved useless and despite my best efforts to coax it out gently it decided to bite my stick and I decided it needed to meet with the business end of a shovel.
I'm very sad, it's the first thing bigger than a spider I've ever killed. I understand I'll have to kill farm animals if we want meat but this seemed different.

Tomorrow I clean out the rest of the barn, hopefully with no more incident. The guineas come wednesday and my little chickies are all grown up. It's time to move them into their new home!


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Happy mothers day!

May your kisses be juicy and taste like watermelon!



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I've been dyeing to tell you...

I have two firsts! My first very own raised by me and my own fiber animals yarn. And, my first dye project! I got 106 yards of Princess, slightly over spun for texture. Soaked 3 hours in the crock pot with 1 cup vinegar, 3 cups water, and a pack of generic $0.15 black cherry powdered drink mix. I am amzed how well this works. It was so easy it makes me question the legality of it. The results were totally colorfast and not a bit leached out in the rinsing. Another interesting note- because of the over spin, when I plied it to 53 yards it gave it a tie dyed effect. The twisty parts didn't take the dye.
Results, and orangey red super soft two ply:












Coming soon- the Nougat shawl.

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Ah the joy of nature.

I smushed a brown recluse in my garage today. A BIG one. (sorry I didn't take the time to snap a picture of this one!)
I called pest control. I want to take care of our problems as organically as possible but now that there are carpenter bees, wasps, ants, ticks, snakes, AND giant poisonous spiders, I at least need some advice. I'm hoping the chickens will take care of the insect issues and if not I'm investigating guinea hens. The snake definitely needs out.
What I don't want is mass spraying- it is unhealthy and possibly deadly for my animals and all beneficial insects on the lot, pesticides affect me very badly, and frankly with six acres to cover i just don't think we can spray enough to get it all. So, off to find another way.


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