Monday, April 21, 2008

There IS more to life than lambs...

...although you can't tell it from my first photo! (Notice DH bought and installed a heat lamp in the lambing jug? What a guy!) Dinah's little boy is the friendly one in this set of twins. He has a name now, too: Browning. It looks more dignified than "Brownie," but sounds basically the same and sticks with the color theme for Dinah's babies this year (along with Blanche). I think he'll stay solid, too, as there isn't a single white hair in his ears.

While it didn't warm up much yesterday, it did stay mostly dry, so we managed to get our hay field - uh, lawn - mowed and raked. Jackson's legs were a sight when he came into the garage for a snack; even today they have a faint green glow, giving him the aura of an alien.
Everyone but Braveheart, Dinah and her twins got out for some fresh grass; I put them in their "dry lot" after 30 minutes rather than risking grass tetani. Rapidly growing early spring grass is so low in magnesium that it can suck magnesium out of the sheep, causing hypo-magnesium. Because hypo-magnesium can cause sheep to stagger and go down with rigid limbs, it got the name "grass tetani." Having seen it once, I don't ever want to experience it again!

The daphne bushes on the south and east sides of the house are starting to open their sweet little blossoms. While not as big and fragrant as the daphne odora, I love them still.

This chilly spring weekend would have been perfect for wearing my new sari silk Sonnet. Alas, I haven't gotten the seams sewn up. I think the sari silk yarn will be difficult to use for sewing, uneven as it is, but I don't have any other yarn that matches enough to use for the job. So one of these evenings after Brian goes to bed (to reduce the frustration factor), I just need to tackle it.

I HAVE finished my spinning tutorial! Last night I finished up the white angora bunny fiber, which actually was relatively easy after spinning the sea island cotton (you can see the ecru cotton peeking through the bright white bunny). That's one full bobbin! Now I'm going to wind off each type of fiber into a center pull ball and ply it on itself, joining each fiber together in the plying process. With this "yarn of many fibers," I intend to knit myself a big scarf, continuing my learning process about each type of fiber.

Now, what to spin next? (A fiberholic is always dreaming of her next "hit," don'tcha know!) Tammy sent me three kinds of fiber from her flock as a prize for the most accurate guess in her lambing contest, so I think I'll start on one of those. There's more of the wonderfully springy Dorset from Gracie, some lightly dyed merino from her ram Blue, and some fiber from the offspring of Blue and Gracie. I'm also going to be receiving this really fun, fancy roving from Allena (click on the link and scroll down to see) for winning her lambing contest; sometimes life is almost too good to be true!

That's it for now from . . .

4 comments:

~~Sittin.n.Spinnin said...

Is there more to life than sheep? I hadn't noticed.
I'm so happy for you that your babies are coming, its always so exciting :)

Anonymous said...

Sweet pictures. I enjoyed catching up on previous posts. Yes, Valentine needs to produce a ewe lamb!

I take it you didn't get snow yesterday? (Sunday) It snowed here for almost 2 hours. Did you see that even the beach was snow covered? Incredible.

It'll be fun to see how the various yarns knit up.

Sharon said...

I have pasture envy.

p.s. The sweater looks terrific!

Alaska Shetland Shepherd said...

Love the green legs! HAHAHA!

Are the fruit tree blossoms ok after the cold front moved through??