I spindle spun the blend of fawn and dark brown alpaca fiber. My consistency is decent when I am paying attention. If I am watching my youngest play Zelda Breath of the Wind, however, the yarn goes thin then thick pretty quickly. Oops.
The fawn color really disappeared quickly into the brown. I’m not sure I’m going to get the gradient I was hoping for when I make something with this. We will see!
The bumble foot occurrence has brought to light a puzzling error. Somehow we had two hens marked with a green and yellow band on the left foot. Wha? We don’t have two Sunrises, what the heck happened? To solve the mystery, we did a chicken health check, because that is a time when we separate the checked from the unchecked and handle each bird separately. The health check also revealed that we had another hen with no bands. We weighed, checked under wings for parasites (all clear), checked vents (two with dirty bums, which is down from last check), and checked feet. We found two more hens with bumble foot, and two that we soaked their feet in epsom salts to make sure it was mud and not bumble foot. Both “Sunrises” have bumble foot, but based on weight and temperament, we figured out that one was Magic, and took her extra yellow band off (still no clue why she had it). The bandless hen was Cockatrice. We soaked and removed the bumbles and wrapped up the treated feet. Navi still has a large crop, but it is not squishy. Chickens that showed weight loss last time have gained again. It was certainly the most intense health check we’ve done to date! Whew!
The hen with bumble foot still has swelling, so we set up an epson salt and warm water foot bath. My chickens really like foot baths, so this was not a hardship or scary for her! (Next time I find bumblefoot, this a soak will be the first step.)
We set up the foot bath (which is a large plant pot tray) inside the isolation ward (cupboard with screen) so we could keep her from drinking the water. My eldest gave her some mealworms, which she appreciated! We had her hang out there for several minutes before taking her out. I couldn’t get anymore out of the wound, so we wrapped it up again and let her be on her merry way.
I blended Donnabella and Aimee’s fleece! The color difference is greater between the fawn and dark brown, and it didn’t take much brown to make a significant difference in the blend color.
After blending, I color sorted the rolags before spinning.
I am finding differences in fiber in the fleeces. I’m not sure if I selected raw fiber from different parts of each blanket (the fiber sheared from the back of the alpaca), or if there are differences in fiber diameter between animals (which makes sense), or both. I am pleased that I am learning and noticing the differences!
Last spring I planted arugula. Turns out that I am not a fan of arugula; I think it smells like rubber. So rather than harvest it, I just let it go to seed. Oops. I now have arugula growing everywhere.
Maybe the wild rabbits will like it. Or not. At least the flowers are pretty.
