Solstice Blessings come in many different ways!

 

As we enter into Winter, we must look at our blessings in ways that remind us of what is important. This year was a rough year for so many, so for us, for the first time ever our chickens are still laying at a rate that we can't believe. What has changed? What makes this year different than other years? I have pondered and pondered this to no end. 

Then it occurred that maybe it has to do with the turkeys? no, the chickens could care less. Could it be weather related? no, it's still cold and dark. Could it be the grain? no, they are eating the same food. Or could it be the new breeds we added this year? That is surely a possibility! We added Barnevelders and Noir Marans to our flock and when I look at the eggs being laid sure enough, that's it!

So, it just may be a much-needed blessing! At this point we will take what we can get. The winter is here, lets rest and enjoy the coming of the sun! As for the chickens, if they keep laying, that's not such a bad thing!

Black Friday Weekend Sale: Item if the Week: Vanilla Making Kit

 Black Friday Weekend Sale!!! We will be posting great gift items through the weekend!!! This wonderful vanilla making kit is unique for that baker in your life. Kit includes: 4 oz bottle, tag, vanilla beans, complete instruction card, made for you sticker in a great window gift bag. It makes a great grab bag kit too! Each kit is $12!!!

Farewell Pru

 Sadly we have sad farewell to our angora goat, Pru. She came to us with another goat some years back that me and my mom drove across state to rescue. Their ear tags were removed but we were aware they were already up in age. The woman knew nothing about them at all. Even in her old age she produced some nice mohair. We will miss her shy personality. Maddie is wondering where her friend went. We were never sure if they were mother and daughter or sisters, but we do know they were close. This has been a recurring thing around here as our animals are all very old, the saddest part of having them is saying goodbye.

Item of the Week: Homemade Vanilla

It's Back! Item of the Week!

For the next few weeks we will have Vanilla available.

We have 3 sizes to choose from, 8 oz, for $18, 4 oz for $10 and 2 oz for $5.

 These have cured for a year and are amazing. 

Just in time for baking or for the baker on your gift list!

This will be pick only here at the farm. 

You can email us @ CoonHollowFarm@aol.com, contact us on our Facebook or Instagram pages 

or call the farm line @ 203-881-1986.

 

Fiber Festival of New England 2021

It was so amazing to be back! To be among the vendors, those that visited our booth and the parade of fashion. Happy folks just enjoying their time.  We had the most successful festival we have ever had! 

The kids who were in attendance had the task to help us name our not so little boy. We had suggestions like, Fluffy, Cricket, Vladimir, Toby, and Tim's favorite, Cloudy! 

Some beautiful Teeswater sheep that were across from us that Naomi was swearing was giving her the stink eye!

Our alpaca neighbors and I especially loved the rose grey in the foreground. That is my number one favorite color in alpacas!

Yarns, yarns and more yarns!

Fluffy Alpaca ornaments! 

This was the most amazing thing we saw this weekend! A work of  art! Each piece was hand knitted and layered to perfection!

This display of rainbow yarns was so inspiring!

But the most amazing tool we had was our sweet little trailer! We were able to pack ahead of time and not have to rush to unpack when we got home. Tim was a wreck hauling it for his first time and he did amazing! This weekend could not have been possible without Tim, Naomi and Aaron! Naomi my booth partner and my ride or die! Tim who set up, drove me up, helped break down and drove me back! And to Aaron who also helped set up! I will hold this weekend close for a long time!

 

Packed up and ready to go!

The trailer is packed and ready to go! I can't even contain how excited I am about this weekend! It has been 2 years since we last did this show. It has been a hard and long time being out of commission due to Covid, but getting back to normal is all we can hope for.  Tim is a bit nervous about hauling the trailer but he will do just fine!

 To say we are packed is an understatement! There is no more room to put anything. I have been very busy for the past two years. In the past few days, I've been bagging, tagging, spinning and packing up all those last minute items! We will be at booth #143/44 North! Come by and say hi!

Getting ready for the show!

 

It's busy, busy , busy around here getting ready for The New England Fiber Festival! Above is a Halloween inspired yarn of black and purple! It is 100% pure mohair and is unbelievably soft! The black is darker than the picture picked it up. 

This yarn of eggplant and green is drying on the swift. Previously a dyeing mistake but it works! The combination of color is just stunning. These yarns will be available at the Fiber Festival along with a ton of other things. This past weekend we attended our first show in almost 2 years and did very well! I have been very busy during the Covid lockdown and will have lots of inventory to show for it!

It's a load of Fibery Goodness!

This morning we picked up 2 years worth of accumulated fiber just from the Alpacas! It filled the back of the truck. We had first, which is the prime fiber made into various items and the seconds made into sheets of felt. 

Just some of the felt sheets which has all our boys represented in there!

Stacks of felt in all the boys! I especially got sad when I saw Teddy's in there. I miss that sweet soul so much. 

Quite a few skeins of some worsted weight yarn. I need to get busy knitting I guess but what?

Hats off to Twist of Fate Spinnery for a job well done!

 

The Pain of the Molt

The pain of the molt this time of year is quite evident with naked chickens throughout the yard! Here our poor "Chester" is as naked as a jay bird! This tie of year, with the daylight reducing, birds loose their summer feathers and bring in their winter feathers as well as down to keep them warm. It can be a painful process with decreased eating and laying as they are using their energy to pop new feathers through their skin. Eating can decrease and they become down right cranky. Just today we only collected about a half a dozen eggs! We normally get about 2-3 a day with 60 chickens!

This girl was getting a sip out of the birdbath and shook as her feathers went everywhere.

Oh sweety, the pain!

Our blind chicken "Helen" is just a naked mess! "Helen" get some clothes on will ya!

Our oldest rooster, "Henry" is just a mess! Henry is an old man at 7 years of age. He still rules the roost though. The other roosters seem him coming and they run! Henry is getting some new growth on his chest. You have a bit of empathy as they all just look so horrible. 

 

A Dye Mistake or Not?

A couple of days ago I set out to dye some mohair that was gifted to me by a friend. On the left is some white and on the right is some black. My goal was to dye and white and over dye the black a deeper black, but there was just one thing...

The choice of dye! This result was from some black mohair that I was attempting to dye. My mistake was the dye I grabbed. Not looking completely at the label, I grabbed the black, the black reactive dye not the fast acid dye. There is a big difference! This fleece was meant to be a deep black but instead I got an eggplant color, a very dark eggplant color!

This fleece I got exactly what I was going for. This was a dye called Iris, a fast acid dye.

On the next attempt at black I used a black fast acid dye. My results were exactly what I was going for.

.

Acid dyes work well and are stable in hot water while reactive dyes are unstable in hot water. So the moral of the story here is, look at your labels to make sure you have the right dye, purchase the correct dye, but even the worse mistake equals a fleece that you can use anytime! I think the eggplant fleece will look good but I need to look at some colorways to match it up with a complimentary color! So the question is: A Dye mistake or not? Never! You can always use what you create in some way or another!

 

Our new Soap Line!

 

With the last batch made, completing 24 scents of our Homemade Soap! Getting back to one of my true loves, soap making! 

Each bar contains Olive, Coconut, Palm and Soybean Oils! They are soft and high in lather as well. Each smells amazing but not too over powering. Each bar is weighed at over 4 ounces at the cut to allow for drying. 

All kinds of designs, colors and scents. This is Witches Brew just in time for the season! We have holiday scents as well. 

Like little soldiers they have been lined up curing and getting ready to go.

(Pictured Amber in front and Candy Cane in back)

Each batch is 8 pounds so you can imagine that we have a lot of soap on hand!

(Pictured from bottom up, Witches Brew, Confetti, Rainbow, Cafe Latte and Lemon Poppyseed at the top)

We also have pre-packaged Soap Balls to fill a soap dish or a great gift idea as we get ready for Holiday Shopping! These are available in the scents listed below or in assorted packages too! This year give a purposeful gift from a small business!
 

 Available Soap Scents

Amber                                     Lavender Fields         

Bergamot Black Tea                       Lavender Mint

Beach                                      Lemon Poppyseed

Café Latte                                  Oatmeal, Milk & Honey

Candy Cane (Peppermint)                 Pumpkin Spice                                                        

Cardamom Chai                            Rain  

Christmas Spice                            Rainbow

Coconut Paradise                           Rose Garden

Confetti                                      Sage & Lemongrass

Cranberry Pomegranate                    Strawberry Fields

Dragon’s Blood                             Vanilla Swirl

Honeysuckle Citrus                         Witches Brew

**************************************************************

Soap Bars (4 oz)                       $6.00 each or 2 for $10.00

Soap Balls (pack of 10 - 1 oz balls)   $12.00

Felted Soap (asst scents)              $8.00 each

These can be purchased from here at the farm or check our upcoming events. You can also give us a call on our farm line @ 203-881-1986 or email us@ CoonHollowFarm@aol.com. We can provide shipping too!

 

Making Rainbow Soap!!!

I have been wanting to make Rainbow Soap for a long time. I just love rainbow's with 6 colors or 7 colors, it doesn't matter. After the past year that we all have had, we can use some rainbows in our lives. 

I have stalked Youtube videos, soap groups just to figure out how I was going to do this. I wanted straight bands and was worried about each color blending. The secret was to mix each color separately of course but it was all in the trace. Blending it to a very thick trace was the trick. What is a trace you must be asking yourself? It is bringing just blended soap to a thick consistently,  I marked each mold a half and inch times 6. I would have loved to do the actual 7 colors of a true rainbow but it was hard to divide 3 inches by 7 and easier to do it by 6. The soap was beyond what it should be as far as thickness without seizing to a solid blob. I gave this so much thought before attempting it. I ran it through my head over and over again, and then went for it starting with purple and working my up through the rainbow.

Even the clean up after the process was a cheery rainbow over colors. 

Coming up with a scent was given a lot of thought until I saw a soap company that had a scent called "Rainbow". I ordered it and was amazed that someone actually made a scent that was cheery and fun. The soap set really quickly and I was worried, however each color pour didn't seem to blend and I knew I was close as far as success goes. Every process is a learning curve and then once in a while you just nail it and I did!

The 24 hours waiting for it to saponify was hard. I was full of anticipation and couldn't wait. Luckily I had to go to work for a few hours but when I came home I went right to it! I was so pleased when I took it out of the molds and then when I made the first cut, my results were perfect!
 

Just like little rainbow soldiers in a row! Now to put them away for a couple of weeks to cure and be ready to go! We have 24 different scents of soap and will be available at different shows that we will be at listed on our side bar!

 

How does that chicken color the egg?

I borrowed this picture from online just to show just a few of the different colors of eggs produced by different breeds of hens.  

 

Egg colors come in a variety of colors as seen on this wheel of eggs that I took of some of the colors our hens produce. 

The eggs we sell are always a selection from different breeds.

So how does the chicken make their eggs a certain color? As the egg moves down the oviduct a few things can happen depending on the breed. The egg moves down and squeezes against glands. These glands then produce the color. If the egg stays stationary for too long it will be spotted. The pigment can permeate the shell in some cases, but in other cases like the Black copper Maran chicken, it simply coats the outer part of the shell in the deep rich brownish red color. Chickens have been bred and cross bred for years to get these effects in color. White eggs will be white all the way through, browns are white inside, blues are all the way through and green are blue on the inside but green on the outer part of the shell! So all in all, it depends on the breed, the pigment the chicken produces and the age of a chicken can also be a factor. A chicken could loose her "tint" as she gets older. 

 This egg is interesting, at first I thought she ran out of color but under quick inspection, there is a build up of calcium around part of it and can be easily chipped off. This could be from her getting too much calcium but who knows. 

Playing the Tom or Hen game!

I have fallen completely in love with the Royal Palm breed! They are a passive, gentle breed and pleasing beautiful to look at and just watch which is what I find myself doing constantly! This fine fellow who we are calling "Strutter", because we see him often displaying his tom strutting routine and gobbling. You can also tell by the snood which is that flap of skin on the top of the upper mandible of the beak. As he grows this skin will change colors with his mood. His feet are also about twice the size of the others. 

Raising these birds has been a learning experience for sure.

I have also learned to never put the camera away too quick because right after I took this picture, "Strutter" displayed his beautiful tail feathers and puffed up, but by the time I got my phone back out it was all over!

This one I have most definitely confirmed is a hen. "Strutter" likes to show off for her. What I am finding interesting is she has more black in her feathers than he does. She's not a plain jane at all.

 They have discovered this piece of fencing that we separate the young birds from the older one as they grow out. This is a fun congregation spot for the turkeys but the chickens have discovered it as well. We did have another piece of fencing above it but took it down as we were often finding the turkeys trying to climb it. So at this point we have either 2 toms and 2 hens or 1 tom and 3 hens. That 4th bird is giving me some trouble trying to determine exactly what it is, but when it's ready to reveal itself as to if it's a tom or a hen I will know at that time!