A recent walk through the woods unearthed more opossum bones. A jaw bone and scapula. They are pictured below with the top of the skull that I found last year. Maybe a fox got ‘em? Could have been a coyote. We’ve seen both on the trail cam!
I had a bit of a panic when I went to spin my alpaca fleece. I wanted to spin as consistently as I could, so I thought having similar spindles would make it so my singles were more consistent. My current favorite top whorl drop spindle is one that I made from a branch from our back woods (maybe post oak? Or cedar elm), but making three or four similar weight whorls from branch wood takes high skill and time, neither of which I have currently. (Home schooling is going OK, and spinning is something I can do inside while the kids are playing, and put down at a moments notice.) I had an epiphany. I don’t need four spindles, I just need four shafts! The whorl I made can be removed from the shaft and put on a different one. Much easier and faster!
I am looking for the best method (for me) to hold the shafts while I ply. I saw a box with slanted slits, and decided to try it first in cardboard. I don’t like it much. The angle the yarn comes off the box has to be just right and the shafts are squirrelly as I ply. I’ll have to try a different method next time!
I did manage to ply the singles (Aimee’s fleece, washed, carded), but my ply wasn’t as good. I think I don’t have enough twist. I did a fair job of evenly dividing the fiber, and when one of the three ran out, I chained plied the rest (there wasn’t much) onto the end of the three ply yarn.
After plying I did put the yarn on my PVC niddy noddy and wet it down. I made about 54 yards of three ply yarn.
Saw this guy on a walk. Doesn’t he look like he’s been through it all? Scratches on his shell, looks like a a bird picked him up and the drops scraped the top a couple times, impressive collection of coils on the shell. It is amazing the things we can observe when we stop and look. While we are social distancing it is a good time to observe the natural world, even if it is a micro environment. Take a break from screen time to chill outdoors if you can. Sit still and watch if you can. Sitting still is hard for me too.
So that explains why my honeysuckle is getting torn down from the arbor. Sophie the outdoor/indoor cat is trying to get to a nest. Last year we had cardinals that tried to nest there, then gave it up as a bad job. Apparently someone is trying again.
The sun has started to shine again. The spring rains aren’t done, but my eldest and I had some time to clean out the coop. Exercise and cleaning and out of the house! We put the chickens in a run with some scratch and some water, since they freak out when we mess with their coop. It worked well to have them not underfoot and not panicking.
We removed all the old pine shavings and droppings, washed down the roost and sprayed it with vinegar, swept up and dusted. Then we put the roost back in, put new straw and dried lavender in the nest boxes, dusted everything with diatomaceous earth, and spread out four and a half bags of pine shavings. We didn’t spread out one the bags to see how long it would take the chickens to disperse it themselves. They did a fair job and had a low hill by the end of the day. Oh were they happy to go back to their coop!
