It has been way to long since I blogged. I  am just now catching my breath from last summer and fall. We are having the coldest winter in years.  I finish up my seed orders and garden plans last week on a cold and sunny day.

 
          So far all the animals are doing well. The fiber flock all have their own warm coats and are  getting extra hay and grain every day. The last few days even the sheep have been returning to the barns after their breakfast.  Cheyenne the alpaca who joined the flock last fall seems to not feel the cold at all. All the sheep have beautify fleeces. Milo and Ebony's fleeces are extra nice and once again remind me of the wisdom of keeping the best weathers on the farm.
           The hens are even laying very well inspire of this weather. I take then out a warm high protein meal on the coldest days. This is a great way to clean out the freezer and keep them healthy.  All those out of date things hiding in the corners of the freezer are coming out, going in the crock pot,  being chopped up and mixed with warm powdered milk for hot meals for the hens. They rush to meet me every afternoon.
    This weather is great for chucking wood in the stove, spinning and weaving. I have been having fun working on a Ashford ridged heddle loom I recently added to my fleet of looms.  This loom is part of my summer plan to attend  the Iowa City Farmers Market with my weaving,  herbal body products,  natural dyed silk scarves and woolie babies.  I just ordered a pound of cochineal bugs for  wonderful pinks and reds this  year.  I spent part of yesterday spinning up some  designer yarn in hemp and cotton  that will go in one of my next projects.

There are a couple of classes coming up at the farm I wanted to list here. I hope to have  more classes listed soon so keep checking.         Beginning Drop Spindle Class

 $15.00  Sunday February  9th  1:00 to 4:00

In this class I will guide student  trough the basics of creating your own yarn on a drop spindle.  spindles and fiber will be available for purchase after the class.   This class has only one or two slots left so call Janette to register. 

                            319-643-5873

  

                  Spinning for Lace 

  Gail McPike from Davenport will share her passion for lace as she teaches this class at Fae Ridge Farm.

In this class students will learn how to set up a wheel for
spinning a fine lace weight yarn and different techniques
that will produce the results we want. This class is for students with  a good amount of spinning experience. Students will be supplied with a variety of fibers and fiber preparations to experience the diversity of lace we can make. We will also learn how to “wrap” lace weight singles with silk thread in the Orenburg tradition. Spinning for lace is easy when you know the tricks!

MARCH 30th  FROM 9:00 TO 4:00  in the Fae Ridge Farm Studio STUDENTS BRING: Students should bring a spinning wheel in good working order.   (Let me know at registration what wheel you will be bringing to the class. Gail needs to prepare and study adjusting all the student wheels.)
CLASS FEE: $60.00

Material fee $10.00

*Note* Material Fees are in addition to Class Fee and are to be paid to instructor at time of class

Instructor Biography

Gail McPike, Davenport, IA
Last summer Gail won Best of Show in Knitting at the Iowa State Fair with her hand combed, handspun, Cormo Estonian Lace Shawl. In September, her work was judged Best of Show at Wisconsin Sheep and Wool; this time for a hand combed, home spun lace weight Cormo skein. She has developed a passion for combing wool to spin for lace and is currently working on spinning wool for projects in the Estonian, Shetland, and Orenburg lace traditions.

         It is Dangerously hot out today and I am inside for a few hours. Pete the angora bunny is happy inside with the AC on. The goats and sheep are hiding in the woods, thank god we do have a bit of a breeze. I have two new additions to the fiber flock here at the farm. Sage is the white guy and Cheyenne is the dark brown guy.They are adjusting well and settling in very well.I have both of their fleeces in the studio and plan to put them in blend in the near future. The whole flock is once again spending their saturdays in the pasture behind the store so  anyone stoping by on Saturdays  can meet the flock.

               I have been getting up early to do the outside work and spending the heat of the day inside.I spent the last week dyeing fiber for the two new fiber blends ready to go to the carder.
         This past weekend was the annual natural dye retreat here at the farm. We had a great weekend creating over well over 100  dye samples, plus some amazing eco steam prints.

Greg brought  several of his hand spun skeins and they dyed up beautifully. I can't wait to see the socks he plans to knit with them. This shot shows a couple of Greg's skein and a few eco prints. This next shot shows the cloths line hung with a table cloth I am custom dyeing for a friend and shirts I had mordanted ahead of the retreat. The shirt line up is Goldenrod with onion skin eco prints, dyers coreopsis, red onion skin, and red onion skin with an indigo dip.

I have a steamer filled with project bags and dye pots simmering so I am signing off.

       Lot of news at the farm. Last week was filled with lots of fiber and farm work. The blue blend I made in May is all but gone, so the dye kitchen was filled with endless dye pots of  blues, purple and a bit of yellow.  I hope this one turns out as beautiful as the last one.  I got a great box of spindles from Elizabeth Daily at Green Sleeve Spindles.  The Damsel Monique's  and Mjilnor's are especially stunning in this batch,and I am once again amazed by how these spindles love to make yarn.
     

 
              I spent part of the week getting ready for the natural dye retreat on August 24th and 25th.  I spent time at the grocery sorting through onion displays to get nice big bags of red and yellow onion skins.  I started soaking the avocado skins and am already seeing the color in the gallon jar sitting on the window sill. I harvested the Aronia berries and saved a big bag back for dyeing. The two small jars in this picture are both Aronia berries, one has a bit of vinegar and one has a tiny spit of ammonia. This should one again be a fun weekend at the farm. We will pick from the dye garden and watch the magic of indigo. We have a nice group for the class but  I could squeeze two more people in,so be sure to call if you want to join us for a weekend of  natural dyeing.

        The leeks are weeded and I will put on another nice thick layer of mulch this week.They are looking great, nice and big with long tall blue green leaves. My big bales of straw got delivered on Thursday so I am feeling good with mulch security for next year.
                   The big news at the farm is I am buying two alpacas! It seems the time is right for an addition to the fiber flock.   Two boys will be delivered on Saturday. They are coming from over west of Des Moines. One is white and one is chestnut brown.  I am getting their last fleeces with them and can't wait to add them to my blends. I am heading out later today to work on a bit of fencing, so they can  have their own pasture for the first few days, as they adjust to a new life here on the farm.

Just a quick post today. Hot here on the farm but I have been watering and the gardens look good. I am a big fan of summer planting. Many of the bugs have come and gone so midsummer plantings make great late summer crops. I am still planting basil and planted beans a week ago. Beans and basil both look great I swear these beans are growing 1/2 inch a day.

The summer is heating up and the gardens are booming.  This year's green manure crop has been a huge success.  I got it planted right before the spring rains and had great germination on the field peas, oats, and buckwheat.  The weed suppression was amazing. Now the oat and buckwheat seeds are attracting a great variety of birds.

This past week I have been harvesting the blossoms of dyers coreopsis  every morning, and drying them. I have not grown this wonderful dye plant for over a decade. Yesterday I decided to do a small sample. The dark yarn was in the dye pot for over half an hour  and the gold one was in for just a few minutes. I can't wait for the dye retreat in August. I am planning to start the avocado skins soaking this next week so they will give us some wonderful reds.  

I am off to put a fleece in to soak and make a batch of chamomile soap  for the store while the fleece soaks. 

            Up at 4:00 with the latest round of thunderstorms.The cats are joining me for a glass of wine and blogging as we wait the passing of this round of weather..  Ruby dog is in for the night since she is growing more and more terrified of thunder as she ages. She and  I woke up about 3:00 with a pounding rain, and I with a wet dog nose to my cheek. As I laid in bed I heard a tiny bit of the distinct tick tick  tick of hail and gave up on sleep. Thank goodness it stopped and I am not out checking basil with a flash light in a panic. We have made it through the last two weeks of storms unscathed. So far not even a small tree down on the fences, or gully washers enough to take out the latest basil seedings. The fist light of morning will let me know if we have once again dodged a weather bullet. I will see what direction this latest has come from and check the fence lines.  I have several rows of  tiny basil seedling to check on.  I am sure my  nearly perfect stand of green manure crop  will be laying flat in the morning, but that is a very minor consolation for  thunder rain filled with nitrogen.
         Most of my neighbors got their first cutting of hay safely in the barns in the last two weeks of dry weather.  My winters hay is sitting high an dry in Dave Hahn's pole barn on hay racks awaiting delivery over here in the next week or so.
      I am of to work on the heal turn of a sock. The perfect thing to work as the last  claps of thunder pass overhead and I wait for quiet and a return to sleep.

Summer solstice is just a few days away, and I am not at all sure where the time has gone.  The weather has finally settled into summer. I am struggling to keep up with weeding, but all the amazing shades of  greens,  backed by perfect blue skies make almost every inch of the farm look wonderful.
 I spent the first weekend of June at the Iowa Sheep and Wool Festival. Once again it was a fun weekend  with other fiber  folks. I entered Ebony's fleece in the fleece contest and was happy to get third place with lots of other nice colored fleeces in the running.  I took the two new blends I just had carded up and almost ran out of the Sparkling Sapphire but brought a few home to the store.  I  also brought home three very nice Blueface fleeces, and a  beautiful chocolate colored Cormo lamb.  He has adjusted very well becoming fast friends with Bonnie and Teddy. After several days of playing with names I think I have settled on Onyx.  I like they way Ony sounds in the list of  sheep and goats names when I am calling the flock up for their evening grain. grain.

It seems to be a good year for Poison Ivy, along with lots of other  nasty weeds. I have extra lavender oatmeal soap on hand  and  lots of friends keep telling me it is their favorite  helper in the annual battle with poison ivy. Speaking of summer battles, I was out early this morning fully dressed from head to toe  pulling wild Parsnip from  the road ditch . Tomorrow I start on the prairie. I carefully bag it up to move to the burn pile. I am posting a picture of it  to help people identify this nasty and dangerous  weed. This plant has juice that has a  photo synthetic reaction on skin. If you or your poor puppy dogs get the juice on you and then go out in the sun it raises huge painful welts that often leave scars. It is relatively easy to pull right now when it  is flowering. Be careful  keep all your skin covered and wear gloves. I take a shower as soon as I am done  pulling it just to be extra careful.  

  I  harvested and packaged lots of herbs for the co-op today and the whole house smells great.The thyme is showing is  tiny pink blossoms, and sage is the most beautiful green in it's burst  of new growth. This is the first day the dill has been big enough to harvest, and it looks like  the first basil harvest will be thursday.  Basil loves this hot humid weather. With a good watering once or twice a week it is  totally convinced it is living  in a tropical paradise. Let the sumer begin!