We had a new cria (baby alpacas are called a cria) born on the farm. Not named yet, but he looks like his dad and not his mom :P, I will get to see him tomorrow. Babies are always exciting, and there are 2 more due this month.
New Cria on the Farm!
Life
Catching Up!
Before I start, I have deleted the last Monday Funny post. Tho’ those of us who have raised teenagers will understand the humor, I thought maybe because of the criminal climate of our world right now with children being human trafficked this meme might not be appropriate right now, please save the children! A new one will be up next Monday :).
I knit the last sweater I posted for a friend’s daughter who had a son, saw his picture, he’s a cutie. She was pleased with it and surprised me with some stitch markers, so cute, they will definitely be used! Thanks Anna!
The next picture is a bridal bouquet I made for my daughter after her attempt to make it. We bought the silk flowers and all the things needed to make it and she tried to make it. I looked at it and shook my head and took it apart and redid it, she looked relieved hahaha. I made the boutonnieres for the guys too. Crafting is not her thing, but she’s a great daughter :). She gets married later this month.
Now to the last two pictures. My son’s farm helper has gone off to college and my son and his spouse asked if I would be of a mind to step in until Dec when they close their store and visitors for the winter. I thought it over for a day, I rarely just jump in with both feet into anything, there are always things to consider. This involved my Saturdays, so could I move things around to make my Saturdays free and then there was getting up early (I’m a night owl lol)? I decided I could and told them I would be happy to help out. My son puts them in a small pasture up front, next to the barn, where visitors can come see and feed and touch those that allow it. The first Saturday was a short one because of the extreme heat we were having (115 with the heat index), when it gets to hot for the alpacas to be outside instead of in the barn with a fan going, everything shuts down, they come first. This last Saturday was a full day and tho there is plenty of shade, it was humid so my son put out the splash pad he has for the alpaca girls. They love it, it has a place where the water spurts out of the top of the circle and he makes the water go up to belly hight. Some lay in the water, other like to stand around with the water hitting their bellies to keep cool and putting their faces in the water, you can see that in the 4th picture. I got a sunburn, lol, my face and arms and the back of my neck (I have long hair but I braid it and pull it to the side and that causes my neck show). My face was a bright red along with the back of my neck. My arms weren’t so bad. Fortunately I have a large aloe vera plant and when I got home I picked off one of the larger leaves and got the gooey jell stuff out and put it on my face and back of my neck. It felt better and about an hr later I also put lavender on it (lavender in fractionated coconut oil base – if you are allergic to nuts test to see if you can use the coconut oil, in a roller ball bottle). I put the lavender on again before bed and on Sunday morning, afternoon and evening and again on Monday morning. All the burn has turned into tan and no peeling, whew. Aloe Vera and Lavender are amazing for skin, lavender also works to quell itchy bug bites and ouchie scrapes and minor cuts. I call it the itchy/ouchie solution, the kids never mind having it put on because it doesn’t sting on the ouchies either :). I have to say I’m exhausted being out in the sun all day, but I sleep well :P. I did buy a bottle of sun screen so I won’t be burned again.
Hope everyone is doing well and enjoying the last of the summer before fall :).
Flax Baby Sweater Done :)
I’ve been working on this Flax baby sweater for a while, have been a bit unmotivated for a bit with my knitting and spinning, but working on that. The baby is born and my friend sent me a picture, he’s cute as a button. He will enjoy this this fall and winter. 🙂
I’ve started another baby sweater for a baby that has already arrived as well, but it’s too hot for a sweater so I try not to feel too bad that it’s not very far along at the moment, but she will enjoy it this fall and winter as well. I’ll post more about the pattern and yarn and my start on another day.
On the 1st of July starts the Tour de Fleece :). I will try to spin a little bit everyday that the bikers from the Tour de France ride. But I’m not gonna beat myself up if I miss a day or two, but gonna work on it. I’ll post on Saturday with some pictures of fiber I am going to spin :).
Hope everyone is doing well!
Hummingbird Feeder
I have been going to do this for 4 or 5 years. Last year I finally bought a feeder and some hummingbird food but didn’t get the hanging pole because it’s on my balcony and I needed to figure out how to attach it to my balcony railing and with the bird flu they were saying not to feed the birds, sigh, but I needed to figure out how to attach the pole anyway. Yeah took me a year lol. So here it is, and my neighbor’s flower pot hanging off her balcony makes a perfect background. It looks a little weird because I took it through my screen, oh well. I saw one hummingbird yesterday, so I hope more will come. The liquid is clear tho the bottle is red because they are attracted to red but I know we are not suppose to use red food coloring. I love Spring!!
Skirting Some Fleeces
Well the first picture isn’t a fleece :P. Try as I might each year to remember to get a photo of a Magnolia tree flowering, when I drive by there are cars behind me so I can’t stop to get a picture. I love Magnolias because they are generally the first to bloom before the rest of the trees are even budding their leaves, so they mean spring to me. However this year other trees bloomed or spouted leaves first, then yep we had two nights of freezing temps in a row. Guess the Magnolias aren’t fooled. 🙂
The second picture is a grey (kind of looks like a light black but I’m sure when it’s washed it will be a medium grey) Polypay fleece. I also have a white one to skirt also, which is picking out shorter pieces from the longer pieces (basically I’m separating the saddle fiber from the neck, belly and legs and second cuts fiber) and picking out as much of the vm (vegetable vegitation matter, I stand corrected :P) as I can, you can see a big piece of straw, and there are also lots more vm scattered in it, and lets not forget any sheep poop by the back end. I started skirting this a week ago but the weather wasn’t really warm enough and this table wasn’t quite doing the job because it has a bench that I had to bend over to reach the fleece and the wind was blowing more than I hoped, so that wasn’t doing it for me. So with less than a 1/3 done, I put it back in the bag and took it back in the house and will bring them both out when it warms up a bit and no wind (I don’t feel like chasing pieces of fleece all over, lol) so I can lay them out proper and skirt them. I don’t have to have them skirted and ready to ship until August, I just don’t want to do it in the heat of the summer. I’ve had these 3 years maybe 4 so the lanolin is pretty set into the fleeces, good luck to the mill that gets these beauties :P.
Hope everyone is having a good start to your spring and that you avoid the storms I am seeing coming on the weather reports.
New Knitting Jewelry :)
I treated myself to, what I have come to call my stitch markers and progress keeper, knitting jewelry :P. I order these from Adore Knit , she makes really cute stitch markers and progress keepers. I found some Snoopy things I didn’t have (big Peanuts fan) and she had some really nice tape measurers, I always misplace mine (even tho I should have one in all of my project bags). I really like these. I also splurged and bought a really cute knit/purl bracelet, you can see it on the back of and behind the dark tape measure, my photo skills lack some serious ability, but you can see them on her site, she shows them much better than I did. It is really pretty so now when I say knitting jewelry, it really is! She included a gift pin for my project bag and I had to show off the super cute netting bag with the hearts she put some of the stitch markers in. Thanks Steph!!
I was hoping for a little bit longer spring before summer temps came. We’ve been in the lower 80’s during the days and 60’s at night this week, tho the weather man says it should be back in the 50’s and 60’s during the days and 30’s and 40’s at night next week. The poor birds must be really mixed up!
Frustration?
Upsetness must be going around this week.
I had an argument on Thursday with an automated answering machine from UPS. I just wanted to talk to a real person to explain to them that the 2 deliveries they made to me this week were delivered to the apt building across the street and is there someway they could let their drivers know that the back door of the building they are delivering to has the front of their building on the next street over (it’s a short block and takes up the whole short block) and could they mark this street as a problem because several other people in my apt are having the same problem.
I had this problem with the post office (who should know better, but to the defense of my reg postman it wasn’t him, it was the subs) and after losing 2 packages and almost a 3rd, explanation below, I went to the post office to complain because the person they were delivering to never returned it to me (just across the street mind you, but for the 1st two I didn’t know that at the time) and that person never sent the packages back and a friend let me know she sent me a package did I get it, and I had not and it was Sunday so not a normal day to deliver, but I had seen the postman make a Sunday delivery to the apt across the street, so I went over there to see if it was my package but there wasn’t one outside the door and people did not answer my knock so I put a note on their door to let them know the post office had delivered the package to them by mistake and would be picking it up the next day if they would leave it out side their door when they left for work it would be fine. I called the post office first thing on Monday and yep they picked it up and brought it to me, I figured fixing your mistake will help you remember the next time and things have been good since but the post office put a pink slip in the deliverer’s mail pick up box to remind them to check the address when delivering to our apt building. So when the notice came both times this week that the package had been delivered but there was no package at my door, I went across the street and yep it was in front of the apt door that mirrored my address, except for the street part, across the street and I rescued them.
I thought maybe it would be just that easy to fix with UPS too, serves me right for thinking, sigh. This helpful AI answering machine had no idea what I was trying to tell it and so I politely said customer service, but it wanted to know more so it would get me to the right place, but my problem wasn’t in it’s vocabulary. So it offered to send me to claims, nope I’m sure the claims answering machine would be just as unhelpful. So I hung up and tried again, not sure why I thought it would end up any better and it didn’t, I was finally so frustrated that I just kept yelling, customer service, customer service and it kept saying it didn’t understand what I wanted. So I just hung up. Just know UPS has no intention of letting you talk to a real person and if I ever get any more packages from UPS I’ll be ready to go across the street and rescue those too. I’ve calmed down, repented for that little burst of frustration and determined I wouldn’t let that machine upset me anymore, will try anyway ;).
FO and a Little Gift from a Friend :)
I finished the Flax baby sweater for a church friend. Her baby was about 2 weeks early and weighed a little over 6 lbs. The sweaters I knit in the 6 month to 1 years size, so about Feb he should be able to wear it if they roll the sleeves up a bit and it will fit him next fall into next winter. 🙂 I like to make them a little large so they can wear them longer than a couple of months because sweaters are a little more time consuming than a hat or booties.
The next picture is a gift I received from a friend, whom I help with her mail packages when they go on vacation in the summer. I love this, it is my favorite mug!!! Yes, it has hot chocolate with marshmallows in it, what else?
I’m dealing with getting well from a rather ugly cold, at least it’s a head cold and not a chest cold (which drags on for 6 to 8 weeks of coughing). People tell me everyone is getting this so I’ll be thankful it was enough time before Christmas that I can enjoy Christmas instead of staying home and being sick.
Looks like we might be minus temps at night next week with wind chills and a little snow but not much they said. Should just be glad we didn’t get all the lake effect feet of snow they got by the lakes a little farther east a week or two ago! Hope you all are staying well and warm!
RIP Sundance (alpaca) :(
This is Sundance, one of my son’s alpacas. The little one, with her head on Sundance’s back, is Star Sundance’s last cria (picture taken 2 years ago). My son and his spouse called the vet because she was not feeling well, the vet said it would be kinder to let her go, there wasn’t much he could do to help her and she was suffering, so they let the vet put her down. She was 17 and had lived a good life. My son and his spouse are very sad at her loss, they look at them as pets, I know Heavenly Father is taking good care of her, He loves all of his creations. She was in the first flock he bought when he started to raise alpaca. She was very sweet and had a wonderful fleece. If I am correct she was a show alpaca back in the day (most of those in his first flock were).
Give your pets an extra hug tonight.
Monday Funny
Yep!
I am making apple butter today and that smell that wafts through the house is amazing.
LDSVenus-knits 