Skirt Work

Best. Birthday. Gift. Ever.

Over the weekend Saint Tim cleaned out the first bent of the barn (also known as and easily recognized as "the trash area").  He moved my wool shelves down from the middle of the barn (aka "the dungeon"), added a set of shelves to the side, leveled the floor, put down rubber mats, installed two shop lights and moved my skirting table in from the previous locations of the barn aisle, driveway, utility trailer, wool house yard...

And now I have a permanent skirting area, out of the way, with plenty of light, no wind or rain, cushy rubber mats, supplies always at hand and everything easily accessed and not "out of sight, out of mind".

Monday and Tuesday Miss B and Miss L came over and help design and build a set of shelves (that are way bigger than they look in these pictures) to hold all the freshly shorn fleeces next spring.  I'll be able to pull out a fleece, toss it on the table, skirt it, discard the trash, roll it up, grab a bag and label from the shelf and move it to the back wall.

Yes, I realize I have a lot of work to do before next spring ;-).

 The barn swallow nest remains and as long as I get the top shelf of fleeces skirted pretty quickly (which I'll now be able to!), they'll have a clear flight path in and out.

I just love this.

I really love this :-).

We Are All Over The Migration Map

I looked out the other day and saw at least 15 barn swallows swooping around the front of the barn. Since I knew we only had the two parents and three babies old enough to fly, I knew we had visitors. Sure enough, barn swallows migrate too.  We have another tour group stopping in today.

Dive bombing me and Kate.

See the bug in the closest bird's mouth?  I hadn't even seen any bugs flying around and swoop, another one gone.  We are in really good shape bug-wise around here this summer.  I credit the barn swallows, purple martins and bats.

And now we have four new barn swallows!  I've been watching the "bebbies" grow for the last few weeks - a second group in the same nest - and knew they were close to fledging.  Today was the day. When I first approached the barn this afternoon I saw six sitting on the swing and loft.  Two flew out and started yelling at me, so these four are the babies.

And one brave parent flew back in to keep watch.  Good job, everybody!

We've kept a steady stream of around 20 martins flying in every day or so and then they pretty much stopped last week.  But now some new groups are passing through.  I think it's so neat that they found us or remember seeing us last year or somehow got the word that this is a good stopping point.  

They don't stay long.

Well, most of them don't ;-).

"Hey, where'd everybody go?"

Everyone's Flying The Coop...Or Nest

"What do you think?"

"Looks pretty far down there."

"You go first."

"No, YOU go first!"

"Ain't nobody going nowhere just yet, so y'all just pipe it back down."

They are close though!  This is the first year we've had barn swallows.  I have to say, between the martins, the bats and the swallows, we are pretty happy with our (lack of) bug situation.