Getting Ready!

We are gearing up for the Arkansas Fiber Arts Extravaganza next weekend! You can check out the info on the fiber show at :

http://www.arfiberartsextravaganza.com/

The retreat is being held at Mount Magazine State Park in their beautiful lodge this year. There are lots of classes to take and people to meet. And don't forget to come see me in my booth if you attend! Registration starts at 4:00 on Friday, with vendors opening from 5-8. The fun begins again at 8:00 Saturday morning and lasts until 6:00 in the evening. Lots of folks come out of curiosity, and others to share time with people who have the same interests.

Here are just some of the things we have been hard at work on:

Hand Dyed Rovings

Hand Blended and Pulled Rovings

Natural Fleece
(I didn't work hard on this, Sweet Pea, the sheep did, though!)

And of course, the beautiful hand spun yarns!

Kate has also been working hard to create several skeins of handspun lace weight yarn, and she will have tiny lace spindles, as well as our gorgeous hand made batts. I am really excited to set up the booth and see it all out instead of stored away in boxes.

Farm News

It is going to be very difficult this spring to decide which fleece I can bear to part with. They are all so pretty and soft! It is hard to believe that just 6 months ago they were sheared. I think the cold weather that has finally arrived is helping the wool growth. We should have 27 fleeces in late March, which is when the shearer is supposed to be here. Hopefully within the next month after that, babies will be arriving.

I am also hoping for a few Boer goat babies early this spring, too. Rosie, our older nanny, looks like she could explode at any minute, but it is because she is part pig, not necessarily because she is expecting. I don't think we will have any Dorper sheep babies, as we did not have the Dorper ram very long before he escaped into the wool sheep pasture, and we found him a new home quickly. Hair sheep/wool sheep cross would be weird and hard to get rid of.

Speaking of escaping, the world's fattest sheep, named Big Mama for a reason, got out of a net wire fence twice last weekend. We could not figure it out! She is too heavy to jump, too fat to crawl under, so we sat on the front porch and watched after we put her up the second time. Low and behold she pulled what I thought was a David Copperfield and melt through the net wire! I thought we were going to be rich with our newly discovered "Magic Sheep", but when we got down to the spot, it turned out that we hadn't fastened the cross fence that creates their pasture to the longer pasture fence. She had learned she could lean against the long fence and squeeze between the two. Smart sheep, not so smart people. Oh well.

Hope everyone had a restful Thanksgiving!

~Lori