Halloween at the Farm, Alpaca spin Turned into Hat and New Hats for Warmth Start

This was the Halloween celebration at the farm this past Saturday :). The first two pictures are some of his decorations, then there are several pictures of the alpacas wearing costumes, lol, some of them had trouble leaving them on! You can see the male behind the fence with a bow tie and little Apollo also has a tie on, some of the females were wearing hats. Libby the llama said, nope! They will be decked out at Christmas too :).

The next to the last picture is some sport weight hand spun I turned into a hat for my friend that gave me the smaller wheel that I use at the farm during alpaca days to show spinning to the people who come out to enjoy the alpacas as a thank you. It’s a paid for pattern, Husband Request Hat on Ravelry. I changed it a little so I made it a little longer and knit 4 purl 2 so it’s a little more stretchy, but I wasn’t sure of his head measurements and I am not a fan of the hats that fit skin tight so I thought this was the best way to go. Hope it fits him :P.

The last picture is the new hat I’m working on with the Hats for Warmth project I work on for our local homeless shelter. This will be hat number 5 this year, one more after this and I will send them off to the shelter. I am using a #6 16″ circular needle and I Love This Yarn in the print color #red tweed. It’s not really a tweed, it’s a darker red with black speckles on it, LOL, but it is pretty. I am enjoying knitting it.

New Cria at the Farm!

We had a birth this morning! A little boy (we were hoping for a little girl) but he is so cute and will be a rose grey like his mom, he’s so little! My son is watching to make sure he could latch on to nurse and the little one did, the colostrum is important. He will be weighed this evening and they will pick out a name for him so he can be registered. I told my son he should name the little one Ozzy Osborn, but he said, he doesn’t look like an Ozzy, and I thought, what does an Ozzy alpaca look like? LOL. Anyway a name will be forthcoming. He’s doing well so far, he was about an hr old in the right bottom picture. My son put one of his whippet’s sweaters on him because it started raining, so he wouldn’t get cold. The mom wasn’t real happy but she allowed it.

Update for Tour de Fleece 2025 2nd Bobbin

This was days 11, 12 and 13. the middle picture is day 13 where I spun the last of the roving for this fiber and also the two bobbins or singles are finished. Tomorrow I will ply these two singles together to get a 2 ply yarn :), and wash it and let it dry, and I will begin on Sunday with my next spin.

Picture #1 (you can click on the pictures to enlarge them), I put my bulky flyer and bobbin on my Kromski Polonaise spinning wheel so I can make sure the bobbin doesn’t run out of space as I ply these 2 bobbins of singles. You can see the difference of the bulky bobbin in the first picture against the regular size bobbins in the last picture. If you look hard you can also see the flyer difference in the 1st picture versus the 2nd picture. My regular bobbins in the last picture are different weights, two of them are 57 grams, and one is 53 grams, I use a magic marker and put the weight of each bobbin on the end. I weigh them after spinning and subtract the weight of the bobbin to get the spun singles weight. The fiber on one weighed 48 grams and the other weighed 49 grams. Pretty close. If I have left over singles on one, which I imagine I will, I will Navajo ply it (aka Andean plying) or practice chain plying and have a tiny skein to remember my spin :). I will put a picture up of my finished skein on Tuesday, so you don’t miss my Monday Funny post :P. I will be gifting this skien to my ophthalmologist (eye doctor) on Wednesday.

Yesterday was a beautiful day in the 70’s with very little humidity. Today was in the low 80’s but the dew pt was 71% and humidity 82% so it was a little muggy feeling. We have thunder storms coming in tomorrow through next Wed. Tuesday through Thursday will be in the lower 90’s, not sure how much the rain will affect the “feels like” temps, but I’m sure it will not be fun!

Stay safe and enjoy your gardening and/or crafting out there!

Monday Funny???

Oh dear, I watch shark week to remember why I don’t swim in the ocean, now I have one more reason to not swim in the ocean, salt water crocs in the water at the beaches where it’s warm enough for them to survive, sigh. This one thinks he’s hidden in a wave, sorry dude that’s a fail, lol.

Mother’s Day Gift

My daughter likes to give me living flowers for Mother’s Day. Last year it was the beautiful braided Hibiscus Tree, and this year it’s a beautiful aqua orchid. I’ve never seen one this color before, I love it!!! She also gave me a gift card :). Children are a blessing.

Spring Flowers!

As promised the blossom of the Agaparthus plant. It’s a little puny but probably because the plant is a little bit puny too :P. But the color is beautiful :). The next one is a flowering Magnolia tree. I love those, they are so pretty!

Spring is Here!!!!

It’s officially Spring when I see the first Robin! Two pictures because the first one that shows his red breast was blurry :(, and the 2nd picture was just his back, but there we go!! I had to pull over on the side of the road or into a driveway to get these pictures, hehe. Fortunately there were not any cars on the road at the time. The last several years I could not catch the first Robins returning for Spring so I was so excited to get them this year!!!

Accident, Snow and Time Change

Well a deer and I had an argument over who should have right of way on the road, tho he neglected to tell me he had an issue with it as he made his point. It was a road with fields and lots of open area and it was night (on my way home from a church meeting) and this was my first experience with a deer’s right to the road. I saw a brown blur out of the corner of my left eye and thought, is that a dog, “boom” no it was a deer. From the damage it looks like he may have been trying to stop and hit me sideways. He didn’t fall over the hood or windshield so they were undamaged, I pulled over to see the damage and didn’t see the deer on the road, hope he’s ok. I felt like I had received a tender mercy from the Lord because the deer could have been in front of me and I’d have hit him head on, or hitting and damaging my door breaking my window on me, and all the damage those two places would have done. Tho’ it’s a bit pricey to fix for body work and the guy who did the estimate said it was safe to drive as it was body damage wise, and I was not injured. I took my car in to my mechanic for an oil change and had them look it over for other things that might have been damaged other than the driver’s front wheel well. They put it up on the lift and said they did not see any undercarriage damage, they didn’t see any leaks and the level of the fluids of my car were all ok. My car is 15 years old and I did not have full coverage because at it’s age they would probably just have totaled it and the money I would have received from the insurance would not replace it with a car as good, as it only has 50K miles on it. So I’ll pay the little over 3K to have it fixed and be glad I still have a good and safe car, but I will be on the look out for those dang deer!

We did have snow last Wed (about 2 inches) and snow yesterday (about 1 inch). But I forgot to load them in my pictures so no pictures of that today. But we are supposed to be in the 60’s this next week before it gets cold again!!!

Ok just a little vent about the time change. From the picture I’m sure you know where I stand. I know people are excited for that extra hour of light right now, but there are consequences when we change things that the Lord set up when he created the world and time. Changing time back and forth is harder on you as you get older and the studies show that older people tend to have more heart attacks when this happens every year. Also now children will be walking to school when it’s dark, just before light. Yes there are children who live a mile or two away from school (1 mile for elementary and 2 miles for high school) who’s parents work and can’t drive them and they have to walk to school. Again I know some people are very excited for an extra hour of daylight in the early spring because (especially in the midwest and places north) it gets dark in the winter around Christmas around 5pm but now in March it’s 6:20 so see it’s already getting lighter after work. So just be patient for a few months and let the light get here normally and naturally so others will be safe. The federal government probably won’t change it, even tho they changed it to begin with. So I will contact my state congress to put a bug in their ear to change it fully back to standard time for my state anyway.