Nekkid Sheep!

There's something in the air... and it feels just like spring!  Around here, spring equals cleaning, tilling, running outside, projects that were put off for nice weather, and... shearing!  Yesterday was shearing day for the little sheepies, and since I'm new at all this and I don't own a shearing kit, I found a shearer about 30 minutes from here that would shear Bonnie and Brownie for a more-than reasonable price.  Here's how it went down.

Fully clothed sheep, in the crate.  This was, fyi, a most entertaining task.  I had to get Brownie first, because he always knows when something is up. The little bugger, I think, can sense my heart beating faster as I try to catch him.  I had to bait him with oats, wait until he got his head in the coffee can, grab him with my free hand and hang on until he settled down and let me pick him up.  Bonnie was the same way, but she's more trusting so it wasn't quite as traumatic. 

Sheepies in the pickup at Casey's in Dallas Center.  There was a lot of baa-ing from Bonnie.  She was not amused.   

The shears.  Kinda medieval, huh? 

Bonnie is first, and she was actually very patient and didn't thrash around too much.

She's pink under all that!

'But Moooom! I'm laying on my head!'

Bonnie's fleece... who knew she was pure white under all that dirt?

Brownie's turn!  He was pretty good... there was some struggling, but he's always been a little skitterish. 

Uhm... Brownie?  You're not really.. uh.. brown.  You're more of a black sheep.  (Maggie pointed this out to me, which I thought was pretty funny.  Newbie farm girls shouldn't be allowed to name animals)  ;) 

Ian and Brownie.  Such a good little sheepie.  Ian was pretty awesome.  Not only did he shear the sheep, but he taught us a little about shears (clippers) and different kinds of heads for the shears (13 tooth, 9 tooth etc).  Ian also buys fleeces, and for any of you fiber folks out there, he currently has 117 pounds of cotsworth fleece (right, Maggie?) and a black alpaca fleece for sale.  If you're interested, contact me or Maggie. :)

Aww.. nekkid and wet (it rained some on the way home).  

All is right in the world again.  The first 10 minutes or so back in the pen with the llamas was interesting.  The little sheepies got a lot of snuffling from the llamas.  Specifically, Starr (white llama in the center) was *snorting* Brownie on the back.  I think they were as shocked as I was at how small the sheep are under their fleeces. ;)

Benny's first haircut

Benny, the angora rabbit Becky gave me, recently had his first haircut! Angora rabbits are known as "apartment sheep" because they are fiber-producing animals that can live in any urban setting :)

He didn't particularly enjoy his first haircut, but he sure feels
Good now! He's extra friendly and playful.... I think it must feel good to get rid of that mop of hair.

I think it would be fun to mix his first "shearing" with fiber from Bonnie and Carlos - the colors will blend beautifully, and it should make a luxurious fiber blend....whaddayasay, Becky? :)

DIY Flooring!

Guess what?!  The living room floor is done!  You'll remember back in August we ripped out the 20+ year old carpet that was in the living room of our dome.  Click HERE to see that post.  Then we got busy...  selling pots, driving truck for harvest, the holiday season and then *finally* I got the motivation to do the living room floor.  Here's a photo montage of the process.

Cleaning the sub floor with canine helper. 

So. Much. Floor. 

I filled the cracks and deep gouges with a paintable adhesive caulk that dries quickly.  It came in a tube, which was *very* handy.  I would not recommend the stuff that you have to mix and put on with a putty knife... it is hugely messy and comes up with the paint!

Asti, checking out the primer.

Paint and one coat of polyurethane!  I ended up only putting down two coats (two very thick coats) because the stuff I got was very, very solid.  It was thicker than stain, but thinner than paint and went on so very easily.  The problem was my knees weren't up for another coat. 

So close to being done... 

DONE!  Just this morning, Brian got the rest of the quarter round trim on.  When the builders put the wall trim on in 1983, they put it at the height for carpet which left a big gap between the floor and the trim.  Our fix for this was to put quarter round trim around the base of the walls, which works out great.  Brian put a coat of polyurethane on each piece, then we cut them to fit and nailed them down. Easy! 

My husband loves power tools.... and posing for funny photos. ;) 

A close-up of the finished floor!  You can still see the grain, and the lines between the plywood pieces, and a lot of texture, but it's super smooth!  No more will cat buffalos roam and stick to my floor (what Maggie and I call dust bunnies, because they are MUCH bigger than bunnies)!  :)

Ok, a cost estimate!

Two tubes of adhesive caulk (only used 1 1/2): $14 (about $10 used)

Two gallons primer (only used 1 1/2): $44 (about $33 used)

One quart stain cover primer, for the pet stains on the plywood: $8

Two gallons floor paint, mixed to the color I was after, but only used one gallon!: $50 ($25 used)

Two gallons polyurethane (again, only used one!): $86 ($43 used)

130 feet of quarter round oak trim: $51

Brushes: $10

Poly applicator thingie: $7

      Total cost: $187!  Seriously... that is *WAY* cheaper than carpet, snap together flooring, tile, cork flooring or pretty much any other kind of flooring you can buy.  I covered, I think, approximately 6-700 square feet of space with $187.  It's hard to figure the square footage exactly because the living room is round on one side, but based on the total square footage for this level of the house (from the blueprints), I'm guessing 6-700 sqft is pretty close.  That's a whoppin' .26-.31 per square foot.  :) 

So... that's the new floor!  We need to get a few rugs, and move some furniture around and finish up some little projects, otherwise that's it for the living room. Next up, our bedroom and the dog/office.  Painted floors all around! 

The fleecy motherload

What do hippie homesteaders do when offered an insane number of free wool fleeces of unknown quality?

Say yes, of course :) because crazy gets sh*t done!

Beckys friend Leroy offered her all the fleeces, because he knew she had fiber animals and thought she might be interested. So she called me. Originally Leroy said they would fit in a large car, so we planned to take farmwagon up to the farm to look at the fleeces and take them home.

Then he said, never mind... There's too many, and he would bring them to Beckys on a flatbed truck.

That's when things began to get crazy.

The picture above is of Becky sitting on the giant tube-bags of fleece the night they were delivered.

As soon as we got a chance, we inspected the fleece in daylight. These are Suffolk fleeces, from breeding stock. Suffolk sheep are meat sheep, and in the US their wool is often considered to be useless. But early in my spinning lessons, a friend taught me that all wool has a use. It's not all for the finest softest garments...but it doesnt need to be, nor should it. Tough coarse wool is invaluable for rugs, loom warp, rope etc.; soft merino is a delight for next to the skin wear, but merino socks are not sturdy and wear holes almost immediately. Suffolk wool has a short staple, but makes a nice "bouncy" yarn that wears beautifully -ideal for socks, mittens, hats, etc. Furthermore, it resists felting.... Think of it - machine washable wool!!

I know very little about preparing raw fleeces, but we did our best. These were raw -straight off the animal, unskirted. "skirting" fleece means removing all the unusable, extra dirty and ultra gross bits. We started piles.... One pile of skirtings, a pile of short-staple wool that was probably best used for making quilt batting, wool comforters, pillows etc, a pile of spinnable wool. Eventually we also had a couple of piles of nice colored fleeces, and a few that were really extra nice.

We did this over several days, and ended up with 43 large trash bags crammed full of wool, each labelled.

Thankfully Becky's husband Brian let us use his work shed for this project - it would have been miserably cold to do this outdoors!!

Suffolk are big sheep; some of the fleeces are HUGE! we found out later that we probably had about 110 fleeces.

We cram-jammed farmwagon full of fleeces three times to get them all to Maggie's house. About 1/4 of the wool was "mulch" quality. Those went to Prairieland Herbs, where they will enrich the soil next summer. Several bags of "short" wool will be used as insulation and bedding for the crew of rescued feral barn cats at Prairieland Herbs, and the other bags of short wool will be sent off and made into quilt batting, comforters, mattress pads, and pillows. The longer wool will be sent away for processing, in several batches, to be washed and carded into roving. This will be used as-is to make rugs, or spun unto yarn. The process takes a while, but I'll update later in the year!

It's been a while.

The holiday season is always crazy.  Not only for me, but for Brian (he's a FedEx man) and just about every other person out there, no matter if you're self employed or not.  This season has been especially busy for me with shows, making pots, firing pots, and now... the livestock. :)

During harvest this year, I paid a visit to a llama farm north of Fort Dodge.  There I had my pick of at least 65 llamas and 30+ sheep.  After much internal debate, I choose a white suri female llama, a black silky female llama, and a big while silky llama.  I put my deposit down and waited for our shed to be built, the fence to go up, and the right day to transport them.  That was last Monday.

Maggie and I left earlyish Monday morning.  It's a 2 1/2 hour drive to the llama farm.  We helped corral the llamas, give them shots and wormers, watched them get their toenails trimmed and coats brushed, and pick out two little yearling sheepies. Maggie also dug through and purchased 5 (or 6? 7?) bags of CVM, Shetland and Wensleydale fiber. Score!

Here are some pics from the trip that Maggie took as well as some photos I've taken at home since the herd has been here.  Today was the first day they got let out into the pasture, which I wish I had my camera for (dead battery!) because they thought a big pasture was the bees knees. :)

Carlos

Carlos with me 'leading' him (or me pulling and him protesting). 

Starr being smoochy. 

Starr is a nice llama, especially if you have treats. 

Bonnie and Clyde. Blaaa!

Bonnie

Clyde

Carlos with the casa in the background. 

Carlos with ears back, trying to snerffle the camera. 

Foo!

The camelids. 

Fluffy sheepies. 

Aren't they adorable?  I know, I know.. they're livestock.  I'm not convinced and neither is Brian.  To us, they're pets, just like dogs and cats and chickens and ducks. :) 

A Collection...

... of interesting blogs!  I've been collecting interesting homesteading blogs over the past two years, and I thought maybe this would be a good place to put a blogroll.  I have several on the sidebar of my pottery blog, but I guess I don't know what homesteading blogs YOU read, so let's start collecting!  I'll put a few of my favorites on the blogroll to start... and let the blog suggesting begin! :)

Why I Don't Garden Anymore...

Hello Folks!

    Today's post is brought to you by your friendly neighborhood urban Hippie Homesteader! See, while Maggie and have all of the advantages of living in the country, this crazy urbanite (yes, me), is busy running around. So, not as much homesteading as I would like going on.

However, besides beekeeping, sewing, knitting and wrangling city people on my days out (yes, some of them are animals!), there is the garden! Believe it or not, there is a resurgence in gardening in the city, and we've been lucky enough to have a bit of space to garden. In years past, I can say we've grown dozens of eggplant, zucchini, TONS of tomatoes (enough for me to can tomato sauce, year after year), peppers of every color and hotness factor (my favorite is still chocolate pepper), and tons of herbs: parsley, basil, peppermint, rosemary, thyme. One time, we even accidentally grew a pumpkin back there, when one of the composted pumpkin seeds apparently sprouted!  Of course, the landlady's dog got to it before anyone could fully enjoy it.

Speaking of the dog...she figures well into this story. See, she used to come out of the dog door  from her owner's end of the apt building (the basement apartment), scaring off varmints from the garden, so it worked out great.  But now, not so much.

See, I don't garden anymore. The dog's been retired and...well, there's no use in gardening.  What could keep me from growing my own food and grand self sufficiency?  From the satisfaction of growing your own food, and from tasty tomatoes and even CINNAMON BASIL and Hungarian yellow peppers?? Well...stuff...started...disappearing...

Oh, alright already! HERE's the DEFINITIVE PROOF:

By the way: the man's voice in this film--my fiance's.

And James? He's our landlord.

Nuff said!