February 16 - March 11, 2015

beautiful colors

Spring has caught us all off guard this year- it's about a month early and nobody is ready!  We aren't complaining, though, as our wood pile was dwindling fast.  We've gone 2 days in a row without building a fire in the wood stove.  I spent a couple of days working outside in a t-shirt.  It was so satisfying to get the garden cleaned up from last Fall.  I even found some garlics that I had missed and was able to transplant them into a new bed.  It's only been a few days, but they look like they will make it.  The main issue now is how to keep the chickens out of the garden.  Every time I get a bed cleaned up and smoothed over, they dig it up and make a mess.  We are going to get the fence repaired soon, so that is a good excuse for me to hold off until then.  


Speaking of chickens, I am sad to report that we had a skunk get into the coop a few nights ago and kill two hens.  It dug underneath the wall and got inside.  I plugged the hole with rocks and bricks, and hopefully it won't happen again.  So frustrating!  We still have 15 hens who are doing a great job.  Our egg count is about 8-11 per day, so we are giving them away as fast as we can, and eating lots of egg salad.


Most of my time has been devoted to dyeing, and I am so excited about the results.  I sent off the first batch and got it back in a record 9 days!!  I was using indigo and lichen in various strengths to get lovely shades of blues and turquoise and lime green.  The photo here is a poor representation, but you can get the idea.  My friends from Bellingham came over last week and helped with the next batch, which is purple/pink/lavender (cochineal, logwood and indigo).  I can hardly wait to get this yarn back- it will be delicious…

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I also had some smaller batches of colored fleece that was not enough for yarn, so I had it made into roving.  Those are fabulous, too.  

shearing platform almost done

In addition to dyeing, my friends helped out at the ranch one day and built a new shearing platform.  It's just in time, as we will be shearing on April 4th.  And Mary got the rest of the wood sealer on the door lumber so I can finish building the last two doors.  I got one done just yesterday, and will hopefully finish up the last one on Friday.  We are realizing that we just don't have enough time to do everything ourselves, so this year we're hiring a couple of guys to help build fence.  They will start later this week, which is much earlier than we thought.  And the local Feed Store is giving us a nice discount on materials, so we should be in good shape.

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Squirrel leftovers

As the snow melts and the tender green grass makes it's appearance, we are able to see what was living under the snow all winter.  Lots of mice trails in the dry grass, and some evidence that something was living in the old burned up plastic pipe that we left up by the irrigation box.  There was a big pile of pine cone pieces at both ends.  Probably a squirrel.  


That's all for now- every day brings new growth and surprises, so stay tuned for the next installment in a few weeks.  Happy Spring everyone!

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