Kentucky Wool Week

Normally this week would be spent frantically getting everything finished and set up for the Kentucky Wool Festival.  We lost both the spring and fall festivals this year :-(.   We are all not only missing the income those festivals would generate, but also the social aspects of it as well.  Most of us don't get out much.  Those festivals are a fun way to catch up with each other.

The Kentucky Sheep and Goat Development Office, Kentucky Natural Fiber Center, Kentucky Fiber Trail and Kentucky Wool Festival got together to create Kentucky Wool Week as a fun way for us all to socialize a little on social media and at the same time help promote Kentucky wool and our small businesses.

This year everything is based around a photography challenge. I'm hoping things will be settled down next year and we can expand Kentucky Wool Week to include some educational classes, competitions and fiber gatherings throughout the state.

Today's challenge prompt is Color.  You know, my favorite topic ;-).  Just to throw everyone, I'm going to actually post a picture of a color besides white or gray today!  There is, of course, more to the story. 

Back in August 2018 (yes, you read that correctly) Miss B and I dyed some wool with marigolds.  We had a big bag of yellow and orange blooms and a big bag of yellow and burgundy blooms.  We dyed some white Border Cheviot (PPPP) and some light gray Jacob (Billy Belly and Allie).

I think we used Alum as our mordant.  I'm sure I took a bunch of fun and pretty pictures that would probably remind me, but without a deep dive into the archives, all I have is the above picture...which has been sitting on my desktop as a reminder that I needed to write up a full blog post about this...since 2018. 

We dyed both white and light gray wool in both marigold pots.  I remember that the yellow and burgundy marigolds provided a slightly darker, almost greener, yellow.  You can sort of see that in the picture above.  

I know that I combed all of my share and I believe I spun the brighter of the two yellows.  It's kind of hard to say at this point though because I kept everything in a cute basket on my workbench so I could enjoy looking at it...which I thoroughly did...until I realized the dark rich yellows were fading and I then packed them away :-(.

The marigolds are in full bloom in the dye garden right now and that combined with the color prompt inspired me to pull the still mostly slightly colorful yarn out and finally share some pictures.  I'm now sort of toying with picking some of the flowers and tossing everything back into the dye pot and restoring the yarns to full color. 

It makes me sad to pick flowers though.  I've got plenty of poke weed berries right now though and it wouldn't make me too sad to boil those before they end up all over my car ;-).  Maybe I'll see if Miss B is up for a new natural dyeing adventure.  If we do, I promise I'll post the pictures much quicker.

Regardless, I can now take the yellow pictures off my desktop because I finally did a 'sort of' post about a fun thing we did...a couple of years ago.  I also cleaned out my refrigerator the other day, so look out!

If you are interested in joining in with the Kentucky Wool Week photo challenge, jump in!

Keeping Watch

Yarn Along - Better Late Than Never

I tried really pretty hard to get this posted yesterday for the Wednesday Yarn Along.  I've actually taken pictures all the way through this small project, but have managed to hit 10 p.m. on each Wednesday and just given up getting a post up.  

That seems to have been a theme for the summer.  Here it is, the first day of fall (not that summer in almost any way feels to be over :-o) and I'm working on the 2017 (how on earth did it get to by 2017?!?) calendar.  I feared I wouldn't have enough pictures to choose from.

Not only did I not blog very frequently, but I didn't take pictures the way I usually do.  I really don't know why except maybe the extreme heat of this summer just knocked me down.  I worked from sunrise to past sunset and mostly only got farm and animal work done.  

Or I should say I got the farm and animal work mostly done.  You never get it all done.  I made sure the important stuff was done.  Animal care first.  People care second.  Well, move mowing, weed eating and gardening to second and people third (just being honest ;-).  Then housework.  Then Punkin's Patch, followed by knitting.  

Those last two got less than 1% of my energy all summer.  Or maybe 1% for each.  Who the heck prioritizes housework over knitting?  And how do I support my wool family if I don't prioritize my business?  Housework??  Seriously???  A clean house never lasts and all I have to show for it is a half a pair of socks.  Seriously...

But the animals were well cared for during a challenging summer of Way Too Hot for old fat sheep. And the old fat people survived.  And the farm looked good and made us and the animals happy (up until it stopped raining while maintaining the upper 80s).  And surprisingly I have a good stash of calendar quality pictures to choose from.  And a half a pair of socks.  

And that half a pair of socks has actually been pretty fun.  As many know, I am not a sock knitter. And I'm not a color person.  So I'm going to knit colorful socks?  I got swept up in the sock fun on Susan B. Anderson's site.  Miss B set me up to knit them two at a time on a long circular needle so there will be no second sock syndrome here and it has been fun to learn something new.

I've listened to a couple really great books and even read two real books that I've dearly loved.  I mentioned the first Yorkshire Shepherdess book a couple months (!) ago.  The second book is every bit as good and I sure hope she's working on a third and a fourth and...

I listened to Laurence Anthony's The Elephant Whisperer last week and thoroughly enjoyed that.  I think I got prompted for it because I was searching to see if I'd missed any No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency books.  I normally wouldn't have been looking for elephant books.  Now I will.  Absolutely fascinating.

This week I am listening to another of his books, Babylon's Ark, about the effort to rescue the animals at the Baghdad Zoo after the invasion.  Some (well, mostly all) horrible stories so far, but the efforts made are inspiring for sure and the situations our soldiers were in, eye opening.  I'm not turned off though and can't wait to "turn the next page".

And even if it doesn't really feel like it, summer is over and now we all get to turn the next page into fall, re-evaluate our priorities and git to knittin'! :-)

Joining in with Ginny...

Sweet Spot

I'd like to take a nap in the dye garden, too :-).

This Place Sure Is A Lot Of Work

"First we started by weeding the lavender garden."

"This place is a mess!"

"Then we took out all the dead flowers from last year.  Kate helped too, but I think she just wanted to play with the branches."

"I'm having to eat dead flowers because my new mom won't give me enough babas even when I tell her I'm really hungry.  Says it would give me a tummy ache if I ate as much as I wanted to.  Fpppt!"

"Sometimes when I give her my super cute face she caves in ;-)"

"And then we take naps in the yard so I guess this place is okay."

Phenological Events

Phenology is the study of periodic plant and animal life cycle events and how these are influenced by seasonal and interannual variations in climate, as well as habitat factors (such as elevation)."  Wikipedia

Here at Equinox Farm, it's more of an observation than a study and pretty much only involves one plant and one season.  

This is one of my favorite goldenrods, Solidago rugosa or "Fireworks".

It can be used for dyeing, but is also good food for bees and butterflies and general enjoyment without harvest.

It spends much of the summer training for fall by bulking up with green foliage.  By the middle of August it's setting out buds and the first week of September?

Get ready for some gold fireworks!**

Our flag from last year was too tattered to fly...so I'm making a bold prediction.

Go Packers!

** Yes, it does look like it might be a couple days away from full fireworks, but how the heck is a plant supposed to know we'd get the season opening Thursday night game?  It's ready ;-).

Fiber In The Flower Garden

I was setting up a "photo shoot" and couldn't pass up a few more flower photos.  Guess who this is.

The dahlias are blooming now.

This one looking back towards the mighty purple loosestrife.

More prisoner plants.  Everything's behind bars around here.  The chickens love these poor blanket flowers. Or at least the dirt they're planted in.  Here's a fun blast from the past :-D. 

It's Complicated

A few leftover pictures from the other evening.

I wish the dye garden showed up more.  I could take down that black fence...but then I wouldn't have a dye garden any more ;-).

Woody looks pretty sweet and innocent in this picture, but he's the ring leader. For everything.

"Who me?"

I'm thinking about moving Hershey, Daniel and Chocula into the boy's pen to start slowly introducing them to the big kids.  I'd add Burrnie in too...but he'd miss Maisie.  Daniel doesn't like to be separated from the main flock though (babysitting Burrnie was hard on him)...but he wouldn't want to be separated from his brothers either.  Grahammy?  That's all Woody needs - some encouragement from the master of trouble.  Keebs. Doesn't. Babysit.

"Oh, Uncle WILL-ard..." ;-)

The Dye Garden

This has been an outstanding summer for flowers here. We've gotten several July rains that we normally wouldn't be getting and the gardens look the best they've ever.  In addition to the extra rain, we also added in some extra fencing this spring to keep little black lambies and marauding sheep from pillaging plumes on those occasions that I leave a gate open or someone big and fat leans on the gate and breaks the hook. Hmmm, wonder who'd be fat and cunning enough to figure out something like that... ;-)

The garden was designed mostly for decoration, featuring as many different colors and varieties of natural dye plants as possible, but not really producing enough to harvest for more than just small samples. Originally there were some wool protecting plants included, too, but they've all been pushed out or relocated.  Black-eyed Susan and fennel are two plants that are pretty...but very pushy.  

I can't remember what thetall purple plant on the left hand side is and my dye books are up in the Wool House.  Maybe someone can jump in?  Whatever the tall purple spikey flower is, that's a winner for sure as it blooms and bloom and blooms, year after year.  I'd put it somewhere bigger next time though.  It would like (and deserves) a little more room.

As far as the other plants, I'm going to do my best to label them correctly and hope that someone can correct me if I'm wrong.  Regarding what colors they make when used to dye wool, it depends on what part of the plant is used, what's used to mordant...  There are several really nice books on natural dyeing and a ton of information on the internet.  I just like looking at the pretty flowers ;-).

Some purple coneflower getting over shadowed by the mystery purple plant.  Normally they'd be much taller, but they're doing the best they can under the purple power house.  I'll move them down towards the other end this fall.

We've had almost more bumble type bees than honey bees this spring and summer.  I'm not sure why.  The honey bees are working the white clover now, but usually they'd be all over these flowers and the lavender as well and they're not.  Very curious.

Black-eyed Susan

Yarrow

Looky looky!  Do you see it?

I think this is cat mint.  It too has bloomed and bloomed all spring and summer.  I guess I put it in for the cats, but this hummer likes it as well.  Borage in the back.  Another plant good for bees that blooms and blooms.

Hopefully you can click to biggify.  I think he or she was turning around in flight, checking out the big sunflower off to the left, just out of view.  I love seeing the hummingbirds working flowers.  I keep two feeders filled all the time, but they have plenty to chose from around the yard. They like the blanket flowers out front, too.

Another full(ish) view.  You can see the borage down by the garden shed.  That's where I spotted the hummer.

Fennel.  Lovely smell (just like licorice), but holy moly it's invasive.  Or at least here it is.  I pull quite a bit and what gets left or keeps popping up adds some dark texture to the rest of the flowers...if you can keep it under control.

Marigolds.  Mine are late blooming this year, probably because I started them all from seeds rather than buying plants.  I think next year I'll set out some plants and add seeds around.  I never was a huge fan of marigolds until I started growing them.  What hard workers!

Tick seed?  It's tucked in by the water hydrant and it too blooms all summer even with Baaxter sticking his head through the fence and chomping them off when he was a baby.  Oh wait, he was chomping on the yellow coreopsis, but it too toughed it out and is still blooming and I missed getting a picture of them :-/. 

Zinnias.  Definitely a top five flower in my book.  If you look back at the first picture, the zinnias fill the entire raised bed on the right side of the brick walk way.  I'd put my whole yard in zinnias if I could.  Imagine, an entire yard full of bright colored blooms :-D.

Adjacent to the flower beds, the lavender.  I lost many many plants over the hard winter, but I've replanted and everything looks to be growing well.  I'm concerned that with the cool summer we are going to have another cold winter, so am trying to figure out a better way to over-winter everyone.  

Several of the losses were to be expected as they were "tender" varieties that had been gifted to me. Everything out there now is "hardy".  They are in raised beds and only lightly mulched with straw.  I've been told keeping the wind off them will be a big help.  Any thoughts?

And peering over the garden gate, my tomatoes and zucchini and off in the distance Julie's gladiolas :-).  The tomatoes on this side of the fence are the big ones and the single plant in the outside bed is a Coyote cherry tomato.  The tomatoes haven't loved this cool, wet weather.  I think the upcoming week will be more to their liking.

I missed a few plants and several are later in the summer bloomers, including the sunflowers, so I'll try to do an update in a few weeks.  I'm sure the grass won't still be spring green, but who knows.  Hard to believe it's the beginning of August already!  

Sunday Stills - Looking Through Windows

I've missed so many great Sunday Stills challenges this summer.  This one was extra fun - anything you see looking through a window.  I picked the Wool House because I have lots of great views from there!

The boys.  Baaxter is doing great.  He loves his "brothers" :-).

This purple flower in the Dye Garden blooms and bloom and blooms.

Horses and sheep on the outside, spinning wheel on the inside.

Baaxter and an odd view/angle of the lavender.  Everything looks small and crunched together and it's really not.  I did have to replace quite a few plants after the hard winter, but it really looks pretty nice in real life.

Another view of a couple of the boys.  I think Baaxter is behind the "bars" on the right.

For more Sunday Stills...