Happy Spring !

To celebrate, I took some pictures of the lambs this afternoon. We let the mums out of the pasture for a nice fresh grass munch and the lambs stayed in the orchard.

Here is Rose who came up to the camera.

And Lily relaxing in the sun.

A curious Primrose.
And bookends Primrose and Lily.

We let the Buns out for a bit of a scamper and they got to meet the lambs.

The Buns quite enjoyed the spring weather.

Hope the first day of Spring was a good one for you too !

Dust

Things have been so busy around here in the house-of-drywall-dust that I haven't been able to concentrate on any crafting lately.

All I could come up with is this one very small shoe.

I know a few girls having babies at the moment so hopefully I will be able to summon up the willpower to actually complete it's mate and they will end up on a pair of small feet.

Tomorrow though, (despite the weather forecast for snow), our fine arts group are undertaking a natural dyeing workshop. We are guiding ourselves using this book. I am really looking forward to it. On Tuesday we all got together and mordanted all the skeins. Tonight I just have to soak my 12 and get together some other supplies. The cards are for putting small pieces of everybody's skeins which should all be different colours.

I'm also posting a picture of Mr Cinnamon Buns. His story can be found here, (if you haven't seen it already). Isn't he cute !

An Early Primrose

I know it's a bit early for spring flowers, but here is a lovely Primrose who arrived early Thursday morning. (4am to be precise, I know that 'coz we were there ) Doesn't she have a lovely Babydoll smile !

There is something really magical about watching a lamb being born a helpless, vulnerable, tiny creature that within minutes, (hopefully) is up staggering around looking for it's first meal.

Her Mum is Humbug. I'm so glad she had a nice lamb this year. Last year Humbug's lamb was stillborn, and, call me daft, I felt really sorry for her as she seemed left out as the others all had their lambs.

Here are the three musketeers hurtling up the field.........

........So they could have a meeting.

Only one ewe left to lamb, our Babyrom Cashew,

so how about it Cashew ?

Spring Snowdrops

Here are some little snowdrop flowers peeking out in the garden.


And here is our other Snowdrop, Pompom's lamb that was born on Monday.

She had a tough and arduous journey into the world. Our poor little Pompom struggled bravely but Simon had to be "Vitinry" and help her out. Snowdrop was stuck and it took quite a while to extricate her. I was scared for all 3 of them but eventually she was out, weak, with fluid in her lungs but a strong heartbeat. This one is a fighter. She is also a VERY good sized lamb. She weighed more when she was born than Rose at 3 days old !

So after a few days recovery they are out and about in the meadow.

Here she is enjoying the sunshine.

I thought I'd show you this colourful marmalade I made while I was home today. I made it with organic oranges, lemons and grapefruits from Sunshine Organics.

It's been nice to be around today to keep an eye on the sheep. I've been keeping a particular eye on Humbug who is looking very uncomfortable and keeping apart from the others.

Hmmmm, will she be next I wonder ? Stay tuned for the latest Periwinkle News !!

Say Hi to Rosie

Here she is, the second lamb of the year.

She arrived on Valentine's Day so naming her was easy.

She is our Valentine's Rose.

Her Mum is Dandelion, (who was quite relieved not to have twins this year).

And just for a bit of colour on the blog here is some pink yarn I spun up.

That's all for now, but watch this space, I'll have a story to tell you about Pompom's lamb.

First Lamb of '09

This little one arrived on Wednesday morning.

Isn't she sweet ! Marmite is the proud mother. Here they are on her first trip out of the barn.

Which was just way too exciting for her so she flaked out for a nap in the sun.

That's all for now.....

Hopefully more to follow !

Things I didn't do today

I was all set, a nice, quiet day to myself at home, when all of a sudden we get the call....

The electrical inspector is on his way to go over the wiring in our basement reno!

As it turned out it was not as nerve wracking as we expected and all is well.

That means we can get the insulation in and that should make life a little warmer.

Yay !

But it meant I didn't dye this lovely mixed batch of angora.

or finish these, (which have been in the construction stage for a VERY long time).

These are Mowat Mukluks from Interweave Knits Winter 2005, (that is embarassingly long ago) They should look something like this when they are finished and felted.

So enough of what I didn't do, here's some stuff that happened over the last few days instead.

I have been experimenting with core spinning,

And turned these 2 bobbins into this skein.

And here is some more of the buffalo yarn that I dyed.

And this is the cactus you can't kill that I made for Fern.