Happy 2013!

What does 2013 have in store for our little farm? Self reliance is the goal we're working towards this year. The ultimate goal of self sufficiency/ reliance is a step by step process and will take time to implement.

We're starting small with additions of things like rain barrels to water our garden and expanding our garden to avoid the grocery stores as much as possible. We plan on canning, dehydrating, and/or freezing any excess garden goodies. I've already made a big dent in cleaning out our huge chest freezer by canning everything from hotdogs (OMG they are so good!) to bacon and other meats to make room for more.

We're cutting back on our use of electricity this year in the hopes of someday adding solar power. Adding solar is pretty expensive so if we can reduce our electrical use dramatically we can accomplish several goals. It would cut our current electric bill and reduce the amount of solar power needed which reduces the cost of installing it. Slowly making our house more energy efficient by replacing windows, insulating better, etc are also on the "to do" list. The goal for the fiber studio building this year is adding insulation and solar heat.

Another small step we have just started using is composting. Since we're an alpaca farm we've always removed the poop from their immediate area and allowed it to slow compost. We've never attempted to speed up that compost time but that's in the works now. We have reduced the kitchen garbage bags headed to the local dump by filling a bucket headed to the compost pile instead. It is amazing how much stuff makes it to the compost bucket instead of the garbage bag now!

As you can imagine, self reliance/sustainable living takes time and hard work but the rewards are limitless. I will keep you posted on our slow progress and if you'd like to see/hear about some of the things we're doing in more detail make sure to comment below. I'd also love to hear any of your ideas (especially low cost ones) on how to be more self reliant in 2013.

Happy New Year!
Dawn

Continuous Strand Weaving Videos

I make and sell triangle looms so naturally customers want to know how to USE them. Written directions are great but I learn best by watching someone which is why I started this video series. There's 3parts to this series. Here's the links:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOqr7fCtFQ



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-05kOsTSPQ



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnMtnVVP2lQ

Enjoy and happy weaving!

Dawn

For SALE: Commercial Wet Felting Machine

I've decided I need more room in my fiber studio so I'm selling my commercial mini-mill wet felting machine. This thing is awesome but I don't have room for it. It makes a 3x4 wet felted sheet of fiber in a very short period of time and it's way too easy to do it... just lay out the fiber, add soapy water, shut the lid, and turn on the timer. It really is that easy.

Here's a few pics of it:

This is NOT an item that can be shipped. It must be picked up in Axton, VA (an hour south of Roanoke, VA and an hour north of Greensboro, NC). Price is $3,500. You can see some of the items you can make with it besides felted sheets in my album on facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.115758885163564.18806.100001883600456&type=3

For more info please email me.

Sad News

Sad news to report. We found Zap's cria (36 hours old) dead from unknown causes. This is the first cria born on our farm we've lost in the 10 years we've been raising alpacas. It's definitely a sad day here on the farm.

Zap's New Baby

May 20th we FINALLY got our special delivery... Zap had her baby on day 356 and he's a dark silver grey! Here's a few pics of the new cria running around. He's less than 24 hours in these pics.

This is the latest cria who doesn't have a name yet and he's being checked out by Amerikhan All Star.

Right side

The white-ish coloring you see on this cria is actually very light silver grey with tiny little black spots in it. His front lower legs are spotted with black spots and light silver grey fiber.

This is Zap (mom) on the left, the new cria in the front and in the back is Amerikhan All Star.

Now let me explain the story behind WHY this cria is important. Zap, the mother, is a BEW (Blue Eyed White) out of two tuxedo grey alpacas. From what I've read and gathered over the years this is a big deal because it's thought that there are no known BEWs out of two tux greys because of something called the lethal grey gene. Zap is the exception and possibly the only known BEW out of two tux greys. The short version of what this means is that she would be something called homozygous grey which up until now was as mythical as a unicorn. IF Zap really is a homozygous grey it would mean that no matter who she's bred to she will ALWAYS produce a grey offspring. She's 2 for 2 so far. It's going to be interesting to see what crias she gives us over the next few years and I'm still looking into how we can definitively prove she's really the mythical homozygous grey the genetic gurus in the alpaca world have always talked about.

I'd love to hear your comments on the cria or the genetics of the cria. In the meantime... baby needs a name. It has to be an "electric" name. His mother is Zap (she eats electrical cords) and his full brother is High Voltage. His father is Dynomite. So far we've come up with Dynomite's Short Circuit. If you've got any suggestions we'll take them.

Carolina Fiber Fest 2012

Plyed and Dyed booth at the Carolina Fiber Fest 2012

 

I spent all day Friday, Saturday, and Sunday having an absolute blast in Raleigh, NC at the Carolina Fiber Fest. I did lots of spinning and finished up a few skeins of yarn.

In this pic I'm spinning some super yummy watermelon colored baby cormo that I ended up plying with lime green. I finished this skein as we closed up the booth on Saturday and Sunday I spent knitting this skein with some lovely kid mohair boucle. I'm making a summer shrug and I'll post pics when it's done.

Hopefully I'll spend the next few days relaxing then I'll reopen the Etsy store with a ton of updates. Next month is the Charlotte Fiber Fest which means no rest for the weary.

New May Yarns

I wanted to show you a quick look at some of the yarns I've spun up in the last week. This is 14 of the 24 skeins I've spun in the last 9 days. These won't be listed in the Etsy shop because they are headed with me to the Carolina Fiber Fest http://www.carolinafiberfest.org/ next weekend.

That fuzzy beige one is a yummy super soft alpaca cria fleece! One the left of it is the darker blue mohair I dyed the other day and on the right is the light blue wensleydale.