Spinning Wheel Repair

I am doing more with spinning wheels lately. Below is a photo of a completely new bobbin I made for this19th c. wheel made by Heinrich Zuber. She will be going to her new home soon, along with three more bobbins I will make for her.

Here is the wheel with all it's new parts. She spins beautifully! I hope her new owner loves her.

Della

One morning last week when I went out to feed I fed Clementine in her pen with her two lambs, went outside to feed the other ewes and lambs and did a double take. I couldn't figure out how Clementine's ram lamb got outside so fast. When I picked up the lamb it was wet! Della had her lamb and never made a peep. She was eating away happily with her ewe pals while her lamb was wandering around. Into a jug went Della and her beautiful little all black lamb, a ewe! She'll be staying in our flock!

We think we'll call her Delia.

Clementine

Clementine was the first of our yearlings to lamb this year. She is daughter to Chloe and sister of Clara. And like her mom and her sister she is an easy lamber and had twins as a yearling!

I knew she carried color genetics but I am super happy to have two more black lambs, and one is a ewe lamb. Clementine is half Royal White hair sheep and half Coopworth and her fleece was pretty nice considering. Her lambs are 75% Coopworth and the ewe lamb's fleece feels like a nice Coopworth fleece. The ram lamb's fleece feels more like our mixed lamb fleece. I was hoping to get at least one ewe lamb from this year's crop to keep. Hopefully this little ewe lamb will continue to grow into a good replacement sheep for us. We'll see what the last two yearlings give us in the coming weeks.

The Flax Plot

Thursday was spent in the garden. The pound of "Lisette" flax seeds I bought from Landis Valley Farm went into the approx 150 square foot plot.

Since it is hard to weed flax once it gets more than a few inches tall I wanted to reduce the weed seed load as much as possible in this area. Over the last two weeks I hoed it four times in hopes that a large number of weed seeds would germinate and then be butchered. This is my first planting of flax and it will be interesting to see how this progresses.

Steel City Fiber Festival

I set up a booth at a local (30 min away) fiber festival last weekend. I took yarn, roving and three spinning wheels. Two of the wheels sold and I sold a decent amount of yarn and roving. All in all a pretty good weekend. And I am pleased with how the booth turned out.

I demonstrated spinning on a great wheel (that I then sold) even though I am still learning myself. The public was great to talk with. And the other vendors were very interesting. I let a few vendors try out the great wheel; amazing how many people have a hidden desire to try one. Next up, MD Sheep and Wool with the American Coopworth Registry booth.

Learning to Flock

Basement Floor

The contractor came today and set up to pour the basement floor today. They framed out the area for the stone section for the root cellar and leveled off the dirt floor, then installed plastic. Tomorrow they are back to pour the concrete. It's been a long time coming and we will be very happy to say good-bye to the old dirt floor in that section of the basement.

The cats aren't too happy about the work going on in the basement. They get fed in the basement and their litter boxes are down there. Their little kitty door is blocked off and their bowls and one litter box is upstairs. They caught on to using the litter box but were more upset about getting fed upstairs. Well kitties, only one more day.