Web Page down.........

I'm in the process of changing my web host provider and so my website is down at the moment. Hopefully it will be back within 48 hours and then I can start and re-build it.

The Cull Ewes are back

Well the cull ewes went to the mart and came back. Pete who took them, was so disgusted with the price that he not only bought ours back but his also. It would appear that there was some sort of cartel bidding, or not as the case may be. This is not good for anybody, why these buyers do this is a mystery to me as before long no one will take sheep to the sales.
Hopefully prices will get better, meanwhile the 3 girls are merrily munching grass

Tour De Fleece starts and my Guild Fibre Day

Today was my own Guild's Fibre Day, so I took some of my Alpaca, sheep and camel fibre to sell, as well as my spinning wheel so that I could get some of the texal fleece spun, as my part of the Fleece de Tour.
The guild day went well, it was in conjunction with the Farming Museum where we hold our meetings. Some of the ladies were doing indigo dyeing, some felting and some spinning. It was an enjoyable day.
As to the spinning I managed to get two bobbins finished and put onto a niddy noddy

The texal is quite an interesting fleece to spin, whilst I was plying the yarn it has a sheen to it, that I was not expecting. Will be interesting to see how much I get spun over the next few weeks.

The Silence of the Lambs............

or not in our case, as on Saturday we gave the lambs their second Heptovac injection and at the same time separated them off from their mum's!!!! All was calm until we took the lambs out of the barn and into their own paddock on the common land. We kept Finn back and put him in the Alpaca's summer paddock along with missy's lad, Fluffy (as per Harry Potter) and Amy's lad, we've called him Fleecy as he has a really nice and soft grey fleece.
We also weighed and gave the ewes a mineral drench to help them recover from the rigours of raising lambs. There is a 5, 3, 4 month rule with ewes, 5 month pregnant, 3 months riasing lambs and 4 months to recover, which we try to follow. So as the lambs are now 12 weeks old, it's time to separate them from their mum's. Last night was a very noisy night, as well as very warm as all the windows in the house were closed to block out the bleating from the ewes and the lambs. Today it's a little quieter.
Weighing the ewes and lambs at weaning, means that we can monitor weight gain/loss to ensure we never have the worm problem we had last year. I have to say the lambs are looking really well, no "pooey bums" despite the long grass they are grazing.
In a months time we will have all the lambs in and decide which ewe lambs we are keeping, so they will go in with the rest of the ewes and the rest that are going to the mart into another field, so we can keep an eye on their weight and anything near the 30kg mark will be sent to the mart as light lambs.
Just spoken to Pete, he's going to borrow the our lamb scales, and cull ewes are a good price at the moment, so we will be up early to sort out the 3 ewes we've ear marked as culls. Such is life, you have to respond to the markets where possible.

Woolfest report and pictures

I left for Woolfest on Thursday morning, the truck packed to the gunnel's. At one point I did think that I was going to have use the small sheep trailer as well, I had so much fibre to take with me. I met up with Phillippa, as arranged, at Scotch Corner cafe lay by. From there it's the long drive along the A66 to Cockermouth, thankfully with no problems. We finally arrived at 3.30 to find the car park to the action site already full of stallholders busy unpacking.

We'd decided to get some tables, put them up with some boxes on and then go and get a cup of tea. Stop again at 6 for tea, by which time we hoped we would have not much more arranging to the stall(s) to do.
At 7 o'clock I was stood with bags of fibre all around me with my head on my hands, wondering what to do next, when a very kind lady from the stall behind us, went and got us all a cup of tea. It's amazing what an effect a good cup of tea can do for you and it seemed as if all the fibre finally had a home .
This is what my stall looked like at 9pm on Thursday night

This is what Phillippa's stall looked like. As you can see we both had very colourful stalls. We always have stalls next door to each other with the centre gate removed so we can create one big stall for everyone to come a browse and buy from.

One thing we hadn't bargained for this year was a girder, right at the front of the stall, in the middle. So we used it as best we could and hung all sorts of things around it that we had to sell. On the whole it seems to have worked.

As compensation for the girder, we were able to use the cattle crush that was in front of the stall as extra hanging space. I think we used it to the best effect. When you looked down isle H, where we were, it certainly drew your eye to our stall.

Woolfest it's self when the paying public arrived, what can I say apart from the fact that is was very hectic and very warm.

I'd signed up for a drop spindle workshop on the Friday afternoon, at a time which is usually quiet, just after lunch, no such look, it was busy and I

had to rush off and leave Phillippa and her mum to man the stall.

The workshop was very informative and gave me loads of hints and tips on how to use a drop spindle. The hour went so quickly, and so did the rest of the afternoon, so much so we were still selling at 6pm, an hour after Woolfest had closed for the day.
A photo showing both our stalls.
As I was sleeping on site, in the truck I spent a great evening with Freyalyn and Mark, sat out chatting and drinking tea, that was after a quick glass of wine with fellow Shetland Sheep Breeder, Lenice, as she restocked her stall, something we all had been doing throughout the day, re-stocking.

Saturday seemed to start a little slower, but it soon picked up, as well as the temperature, I ended up borrowing a t-shirt from Phillippa's mum, I was so warm in my thin long sleeved top. Again the day just flew past, I was hoping to catch up and visit a few stall, but I just didn't have any free time. Despite the really warm weather, I sold a couple of aran jumpers I knitted, along with an alpaca scarf.

As I had so much fibre, I offered some of my Shetland Sheep batts to the Shetland Sheep Breeders stall for them to sell for me. I took half a dozen round, along with a couple of hand knitted jumpers in Shetland wool and thought no more about. A couple of hours later Joy appeared, could she have some more batts for the stall they'd sold out, a bit later she was back again for more. In the end I had to give them some of my shetland x corridale batts to sell. When I finally managed to see Joy, late on Saturday afternoon, they had sold 19 sheep batts and my 2 jumpers for me. Yet on my own stall the batts had hardly moved, strange?
It was gone 5pm before we finally managed to start and pack up and I hit the road home at 6, to hear from Tim that it was thick fog on the A19 and at home he'd had to endure 3 days of sea frets. I got to within 20 miles from Scotch Corner when I drove into the mist and from there on to home it was rain and thick mist. Not what I wanted after two hectic days. I finally got home at 9.15, took my cash, spinning wheel and phone out of the car, locked it up and crashed on the sofa with a glass of wine.
I will be going to Woolfest next year with Phillippa. This year had been worth all the effort of night spent dyeing fibre, carding fleece batts etc. Though on Friday afternoon I did manage to text a friend saying that I didn't want to see another customer, and to make them all go away!!!! Well I had been on the go since 6am, that and the heat was getting to be too much. I understand that on the Friday nearly 3000 people came through the doors, a record, and I suspect the same number on the Saturday, if my takings are anything to go by.
But I can't put my feet up as on Sunday it's my own guild's fibre day!!!!!!!!!

Woolfest was.........

fantastic, hard work and very, very warm.
Photos and details tomorrow as I have to work out how to download the photos I took from my mobile phone

Only 4 more sleeps to Woolfest...

and I'm past panicking, not!!!! This weekend I got the Alpaca felt labeled and packed away as well as the jumpers, hats, gloves and scarves.
But on Friday my doctor rang up to say he had 3 Teeswater fleeces for me, which he duly delivered at lunch time leaving Tim having to carry 3 very heavy fleeces up into the fleece store. Today as the weather was fine and sunny, ideal to look and sort out the fleeces, which on the whole were not too bad, but did need some serious dagging out. I also looked as the 2 Jacob fleeces I'd been given, they needed no work at all and I'm looking forward to spinning these 2. The second half of the Texal fleece I washed last week, got washed and dried today. I've already started to put this fleece through my carder in readiness for the Tour de Fleece start on the 5th July.
In the allotment garden Tim and the Resident Vandal got the fence posts in, ready to put the fence up. A short stretch of wire has been put up along with the gate, so it won't be long before the rest of the allotment is finally fenced. Today I planted out the leek plants all 120 of them, the french beans I re-sowed are starting to come through, the sweetcorn is growing strongly and I've realised that the first lot of sprout plants that I planted out could possible be planted too close together. I may have to thin them out, seems a shame, but if I don't, we may not many sprouts.
Tomorrow is a Wool Fair at Goathland, and the Teeswater's Society 60th Anniversary. Should be a good day and it will be good to relax and meet up the friends.
This coming week up to Thursday, will see me dashing around, madly packing all the sundry bits and pieces I think I will need besides the fleece, like pens, stock list, hole punch, blu tac, sellotape, string, money, signs, camera, cloths to cover the sales tables, chair, spinning wheel, the list is endless...........