Felting, Fibre, Turkeys and Eggs

Another rainy day on the farm!  Which is good and bad....good for the gardens...bad for haying!

Rovings for spinning or felting

Today is just an update day....we have been shearing, shearing and shearing...and are almost done.  We did something a little different this time,  I kept some Alpaca fibre separate for those of you that enjoy felting.  It is something that I am quite enjoying.  You can felt in many different ways, such as Nuno felting...adding layers of fibre such as merino to silk to create a wearable items, i.e. a scarf, Needle felting, where you can create free standing objects ..animals are very common..."statues" you would almost say, Wet felting where you take wool and create sheets of felt and Resist felting where you use cardboard or plastic to create a form.  So as you see fibre doesn't just have to be made into a yarn for knitting and crocheting but it can be used in it's raw state as well to create other items.  I have both yarns and fibres.  We have Alpaca, Llama, Mohair, Merino, Wool, and Cashgora here for sale plus a few other specialty bits and pieces.

Turkeys from 2013

In other news the baby turkeys have arrived and we have more coming this week.  And although it is only June we do start to take orders for Thanksgiving as much as we don't want to rush the seasons, if you want a turkey you need to book early.  Last year we couldn't meet the demand!  Something else I want to mention and for those of you who have been here you know our turkeys when old enough get to be outside in a secure area in the sun and locked away at night.  It's a good turkey life!

We also have farm fresh eggs!  Nothing compares to farm fresh eggs!  The colour is brighter and the taste richer...enhanced.

We still have kids for sale...the boys have been wethered now.  We have a Nigora, Jake who is all black, and two Pygora/Nigerian Dwarf crosses, Louie and Jerry as well as Mick our Olde English Babydoll.

As always the store is open Thursday thru Sunday 10-5 pm or by appointment.

And don't forget if you are interested in booking a farm tour...give me a call at 705-778-2070

Fibre Goats

DID YOU KNOW???

WE HAVE FIBRE GOATS!!!

Yes we have Alpacas which are recognized world wide for the soft fibre, and you know about Patrick 1 of our 4 Olde English Babydoll Southdowns, which provide us wool, but we also have a few different kinds of goats which also bare fibre for us!

We have 100% Angora and 100% Cashmere goats, along with a mix of the two!  Remember an angora sweater means it came from an Angora rabbit, the only animal that keeps the Angora name.  If it an "Angora" sweater from a goat it would be called a Mohair sweater!  Patrick might have given this lesson awhile back!

We have bred 2 of our girls a 100% Angora (Talli) and our Pygmy(Jill) to our 100% Angora male, Omar.  What that would give us is 100% Angora from Talli/Omar and a 50/50 blend with Jill and Omar.  Good Pygora is hard to find so we are taking a chance, but we are hoping it is worth it.  Lucy is a Pygora goat and she had been bred to 100% Angora male producing offspring with beautiful fibre, and they are pretty cute to boot!  If the girls are pregnant we would hope for kids in the early Spring.

 Mohair fibre is very shiny, warm and strong with lots of krimp. Mohair is known as an exotic fibre.

In the next few weeks we will post different pictures of our goats and their description.  Here is Omar, the grey Angora male and Talli the 100% registered Angora female.

If you are interested in buying Mohair yarn or product or even an animal gives us a call or email.  Oh and we hope to have lambs in the spring too....but that is for another day!

Summer

Well it was 7 out when we got up this morning.I'm in the middle of finishing up some wild apple butter in the slow cooker. After we pour some more cement this afternoon to try and get closer to finishing the stone wall that collapsed this spring,I think I'll spin this afternoon. There are some alpaca/cashgora batts that I want to finish and also a light fawn very fine alpaca fleece that when knit looks pink.
I'm finally catching up and getting all this year's fibre looked after. This fall I will have some awesome felt rugs and a good selection of batts,rovings and socks.
Come and visit us at the Norwood Fair on Thanksgiving weekend.