Happy Halloween and a Blessed Samhain!!!

Wishing everyone a very Happy and safe Halloween and a Blessed Samhain!!!

Catching up and getting ready

Yesterday was about catching up around here! October sure is a busy month between birthdays, events, work and other fun things to do. We took the top hive box off this hive finally. We won't get any honey to sell this year as our hives are rebounding from last year's bear attack that wiped out everything forcing us to start all over again.

The chicken coops were cleaned well. This girl is coming in for an inspection. She's checking to see if it meets her standards.

Finally an egg! Our girls have been molting and have not laid much lately, hopefully we are turning a corner on this, our egg customers are getting ancy!!!!

Packing and organizing the bins for the Fiber Festival of New England next weekend, hope to see you there!

There is no such thing as a dyeing mistake!

With clean and dried Border Leicester on hand I set out to dye some colorways I had in mind. I had 3 pounds of wool and set out to get it dyed!

I filled the pot with some warm water and added my dyes. My goal here was to do a blue, green
and dark rose fractured blend. I added a small amount of blue and green and dominated the rose color leaving space between for it to bleed over. I've done this before and it worked!!! Well this time the rose was completely over come by the blue and green.

This pound was supposed to be black!!! I got beautiful tips of black but the dark rose color I set out to dye in the previous fleece.

Just look how this set up!!! I love it. Maybe not enough vinegar? Too much water but something didn't go right here or did it?

This is the fleece that was supposed to have have rose in it!!! 

So when combined I got the exact results I set out for, just in a different process. There are no dyeing mistakes, if the pot gives you lemons or so you think, look again, it is more than likely beautiful in someone else's eyes!! 

Yarning on!!!

I am so behind in posts! October tends to be a very busy time. So much going on and not a lot of time for other things. I got the Lincoln wool spun. Three pounds netted 360 yards of gorgeous yarn. I got this one  my yarn weasel. This weasel has a perfect 2 yard circumference and was hand made by my friends brother in law.

The colors on this is so beautiful.  I was going for colors of the sea.
I must say I am quite pleased!
Now onto more dyeing and spinning, great things to get done on a cool Autumn day! N

Morning Spinning

With just 24 days until the New England Fiber Festival, my feet have been busy spinning with projects on  couple of wheels. I am spinning Mohair, Lincoln Longwool, Border Leicester and in the picture above is some beautiful Merino!!! All these yarns as well as lots of other items will be at my booth. Come visit me, Naomi and PJ our English Angora rabbit!!!

Still going strong...

Offering a little extra food as things should be winding down...

With the end of beekeeping season closing in, it appears our bees did not get the memo. The last of the flowers are the asters which they are all over.

We lost 2 out of 4 hives in our attempt to rebound since last year's bear devastation. Our hives are filled with capped honey for them to eat through the winter.

Each hive looked like this...

A couple of baby bees peaking through and waiting to be capped. I am still seeing drones in the hives so they are not ready to say when quite yet.