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One final taste of Avocados

Saturday, March 7th, 2009

Life has taken a busier turn for us. As a result, the latest news has now become a little old. We completed our avocado dyeing project quite a while ago. An account of the results were temporarily pushed aside by preparations for the annual shearing of the sheep, followed closely by shearing itself. Let’s turn first to dyeing and then switch to shearing on another day.

We have been asked by a number of people for further information about avocado dyeing, as it seems to be described very little elsewhere. Our major source is an article  “Dyeing with Avocados, Food for my Dyepot” by Carol Lee, which appeared in the Fall 2002 issue of Spin-Off Magazine. Now…on to business!

The second dye bath using the re-ground pits and peels produced mixed results. We had been disappointed with the intensity of the colors with the first dyeing. This second time we tried leaving the yarn in the dye bath for an extra day after the day it spent cooking. We also used alum and copper sulfate as mordants. The presence of the copper sulfate was immediately evident; both the pit bath and peel bath produced very nice green shades. The skein of yarn in the peel solution was, however, not very consistently  dyed. dsc_0019-2The photo shows, from left to right, the first dyeing of pits and peels, undyed white, and the second dyeing of pits and peels. Below the skeins are small balls of  avocado dyeing from a year previous, in which we used unfrozen pits and peels. At this point we feel we had better results with our first attempts, perhaps due to the pits and peels  not being frozen. For the moment we will have to wait until summer for another try; perhaps another guacamole extravaganza awaits us!

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Introducing Hope

Sunday, February 22nd, 2009

It is snowing and blowing again outside. Since the wind is coming from the east, we have a few mini drifts inside the barn doors. Nonetheless, we are staying warm and dry. Yep, it is me again, Nanoo Nanoo. I have managed to log into the blog.

The grumpy old bearded guy and the nice lady are up in their private barn. I think they may be playing around with avocados, trying to dye our already perfectly beautiful wool some strange color. There is also a rumor going round the barn that they may be getting ready for the shearer. We look forward to getting rid of these heavy coats, but shearing days are a lot of work for all of us, especially with our lambs due to arrive soon. We have been discussing shearing over the last few years. As always, the old timers have so much to tell about what we have not yet experienced. These discussions remind me that I had promised to introduce everyone to the other members of our flock. Perhaps it is only fitting that I start out with Hope.

Hope is now the oldest member of our group, in less than two weeks she will celebrate her 13th birthday. For someone that old she is spry and sharp as a tack. All of us greatly admire Hope; no one else in the flock has experienced life as she has. We never fail to enjoy the tales that she has to tell. Somehow the shepherds (the old bearded guy and the nice lady) seem to admire her too. She is special!

Her mother was Candice and she was one of the very first lambs ever born on this farm. Candice was a very good mom. However, she became sick when she was pregnant with Hope. Hope was born a triplet, but sadly her two brothers were dead at birth. Her mom never got better and died a couple of days after Hope’s arrival. As a result, Hope was raised by the shepherds (and that was back in the days when they did not know much at all)! Because she was an orphan Hope got to spend the first couple of weeks of her life in the barn that the shepherds call “The House”. To this day she is the only sheep in the flock who has been there for any long space of time. (There are a few of us who have been there for a couple of minutes, but only because we were not feeling well. As a result the others who were there briefly do not remember much about “The House”.) Hope knows what goes on up there. Her knowledge makes her special. Sometimes we even think that she believes that she might be one of those “people”. When the weather is good and we go out to pasture she is almost always the last out the door. I think she feels sorry for the old bearded guy and wants to make sure that he does not get lost on the way to breakfast.

Hope in the middle of breakfast. You can see why they make us wear coats!

Hope in the middle of breakfast. You can see why they make us wear coats!

Hope is not a very large sheep compared to most of us. I think she may have even shrunk a little in recent years. She has white wool (like my mom, Mindy) but her dad was the famous Cimarron (apparently a bit of a rogue). He was the first colored ram in our flock. So when Hope has lambs she can have either white or colored. She seems to love them all just as well. It has been a few years since the shepherds asked Hope to have any lambs. She is now retired, which means she gets to graze, eat and snooze as much as she likes. She was supposed to be retired earlier, but she decided to have one last fling in the spring of 2005. Unbeknownst to the shepherds, she and a few of her retired girlfriends invited the rams over for a party one evening in April. Much to everyone’s surprise she had a couple of lambs, Shucks and Serendipity, that September. Now she has decided that was enough. Hope has outlived all of her children, but there are many grandchildren in the flock, one of whom is that friendly ram, Nicely Nicely.

I think you can see that Hope is indeed special. She makes sure the shepherds know how to get out to pasture every day. After many, many years she still gets to taste-test all the hay before the shepherds feed us, everyday during the winter. She gets treats every evening. (I think she gets even more than I do!  How she does that I do not know, because she is very calm about it and not pushy at all.) Even the grumpy old bearded guy gives here extra grain! I think you can see that we all love and admire Hope.

Posted in Farm, Fleeces & Wool, Sheep | 1 Comment »

Avocados revisited

Monday, February 9th, 2009

A good piece of time has passed since we wrote about our avocado dying project. In the interim, lots has been happening at the farm. After going for much of December and all of January with temperatures that never reached above 32°F (0°C) and which often bottomed out below -10°F (-23°C), we have spent the last three days above freezing during daylight hours. It is amazing to see how much of our once deep snow cover has already disappeared.

Life is more comfortable outside. We have had a White-throated Sparrow spending the winter at the farm. He seems to have a minor wing injury, but at least seems to be able to fly short distances quite well. dsc_0004-1He obviously was not able to migrate south with the rest of his buddies. Despite the extreme cold he has been  first at the feeder each morning and last to leave each evening. “Poor Sam Peabody” seems to be a bit relieved with these last few days of warmer temperatures. We continue to wish him well and hope that he makes it into spring.

In the barn, life is toasty warm; all of a sudden shearing cannot seem to come too quickly (and it will come in three weeks time)! The warmer temperatures and longer days have inspired the chickens to start laying, all of a sudden with seemingly great enthusiasm. As they spend the winter housed in the barn extension with the rams, it is pleasant to once again hear their happy conversations after a relatively quiet winter.

We finished our first dye bath with our avocado collection. The yarn is now dried and skeined. We were a bit surprised and a little disappointed that the solutions from both the pits and the skins did not produce  darker yarns. It had been our hope that the large volume of pits and skins would have resulted in more intense shades than they did. In each case we dyed two skeins (each about 4 ounces in weight) the bath. When we were finished there seemed to be a significant amount of color remaining in the bath, as if the yarn had been saturated.

Avocado pits (left), undyed white, avocado skins(right)

Avocado pits (left), undyed white, avocado skins(right)

As can be seen in the photo, the shades are light. Nonetheless they are both lovely colors. Compared to a comparable dying we did a year ago, with a lesser volume of avocados, the shades are about the same. We only used alum as a mordant, which generally will result in less intense shades than other mordants. We since have found one source which suggests that a much longer time is necessary in the dye bath for the yarn to fully accept the avocado dyes.

Ground avocado pits (left), peels (right)

Ground avocado pits (left), peels (right)

Once we had drained the dye solution from the pits and from the skins we were able to grind up each group much more finely than we were able to originally. The re-ground materials again have been soaking in a water solution for a couple of weeks. If anything, the solutions again seem to be as intense as the first go-round. So we are going to have another go at it, with some modifications. We will again dye two skeins in each solution, but this time we will only remove one skein after the first day and leave the second in for a longer period of days. Secondly we will be using alum and copper sulfate as our mordants. We tend to shy away from using the other, more toxic mordants; it is unfortunate that there are not a greater choice of environmentally and health friendly mordants! As time allows we will report back with the results.

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A few words from the Big Barn

Monday, January 19th, 2009

Nanoo Nanoo here.

868c

Yes, it does look as if I finally have gotten into this blog! So, you may be asking, who the heck is writing this? Let me give you some background and then perhaps you will better understand. I am not that old, bearded shepherd guy who usually writes here. He and his wife, the nice lady, live up at the other barn. (He calls the place “The House”…kind of a strange name, but we try to humor the guy.) I am one of the sheep who live at Whitefish Bay Farm. It being the dead of winter, I currently am spending my time in the big barn with my family and my buddies. When we heard that there was going to be a blog coming from the farm, we figured that it was time that we had some direct, unedited input. We need to make absolutely sure that our side is being fairly and honestly represented.

In order to achieve our goal we had to hack into the old guy’s computer. It was not easy, but then we are a lot smarter than humans give us credit. How’d we do it? Every year when lambing time rolls around the old guy sets up the baby monitor in the barn so that they can listen in on us without spending all their time down here. For a few evenings, when the people were sleeping, one of my geeky cousins and I re-wired the monitor so that it also acts as a Wi Fi antenna and terminal. With that installed and a bit of educated sleuthing we managed to hack into the old guy’s computer. So here we are with online access. Once we were successful, the bunch of us set out to keep the world up to date with the truth about how this place really operates.

In the past, the old guy had enlisted my help in writing a few newsletters. A few years ago I even wrote the Christmas letter from the farm. After agreeing to wear this hooky Santa hat, I even got my picture published with that holiday greeting. Since I now have some literary background, the rest of the girls here in the barn elected me to write the blog entries. Over the coming weeks I will endeavor to introduce you to as many of the members of the flock as possible. If I can find them on the old guy’s computer I will also include a picture or two of each of us, since we still have not been able to scrounge up our own digital camera. (Queso has been trying to work out an exchange for such a camera with the old guy’s brother, but that is still in the works.)

I suppose that I should start by formally introducing myself. The name they gave me is Nanoo Nanoo. That means that I was born in the “N” year, which most of you know as 2002. Each year the shepherds use a different letter of the alphabet to name all the lambs. They claim it makes it easier for them to remember how old we all are. I think it is just because they are numerically challenged. My mom is Mindy (she had a cousin named Mork) and my dad was Mercury. I was pretty cute when I was born. rcrThis picture is of me with the old guy when I was just a few weeks old. (Notice how he tries to hog the center of the picture!) Back then my fleece was a lovely light, variegated gray color. Now that I am older, I have become a much lighter gray. A couple of years ago the nice lady kept my fleece for spinning, rather than sell it. I think she is still spinning and knitting with it. The old guy may even be weaving with some of the yarn from my fleece. Over the last six years I have given birth to seven lambs. The shepherds tell me I do a very good job in labor and delivery. I know that I am an excellent mother. All of my daughters have remained with the flock, they are Pookie, Toodles and VaVaVoom. In just about two months I will be lambing again. However, I am not telling whether I am going to have a single or twins! I tend to be very friendly when B&B guests come around to visit and I have taught my daughters to behave that way too. We figure we need to help the shepherds out any way we can with public relations. I will admit that they take pretty good care of us.

And by the way…I managed to get this nice service set up on the blog. If you want to receive e-mail alerts whenever I write something just click on the phrase “Subscribe to Ewe Turn by E-mail” and tell these guys where you wish the alert mailed.

That should wrap up my first independent venture into cyberspace. I should be back in a while with some interesting stuff about some of the other members of the flock.

Posted in Fleeces & Wool, Sheep | 9 Comments »

Six Months of Avocados

Saturday, January 17th, 2009

The “summer shades” blanket is almost complete. There are only about two inches left to weave and after that there is the finishing work (tying the fringes, trimming, pressing and the like). It should be a good day for that type of activity. While it is bright,  sunny and warm at the loom, it is cold outside. A couple of nights ago the temperature got down to -12.5 F (24.7C) and today is not getting much warmer. We are coping well, as are the sheep. It is relatively warm in the barn (20F) with no major drafts. The sheep are fully fleeced and are quite comfortable as long as they have plenty of clean bedding, they stay dry and have a bit more than usual to eat.

While it is cold, there is plenty of good snow for cross country skiing and snow shoeing. More snow and more moderate temperatures are also on the way. Four of the state parks in the county have groomed cross country ski trails. In late January and through February there will be special candle-lit trails for night skiing in the parks. The first evening is schedule for the 31st of January at Whitefish Dunes State Park, just down the road from us. Check on the park’s website for details and current ski conditions. In addition, here is a general list for snow and trail conditions at all of the county’s park with trails.

With an emphasis for us on indoor activity, it is time to think about the next project for the loom. Gretchen has dyed a good collection of wool in blue, red and violet shades using natural dyes from indigo, cochineal and logwood. Those dyed yarns plus some of our naturally colored gray yarns will most likely be the source for the next blanket.

Just down the road is another dye project. Over the last six months we have saved and frozen all of the peels and pits from the avocados which we have consumed. A couple of weeks ago it was time to make room in the freezer and thus time to make use of the avocado remnants. The peels and pits were rinsed and dried. Once dry, we ran them through a food processor. The resulting small chunks have now been “fermenting” in water in large glass jars, one each for pits and peels. Every couple of days we have brought the solution close to a boil to stop any mold from developing. The resulting liquids are currently a lovely, intense shade of red (from the pits) and a more subdued red/brown (form the peels).

avocado-dye

Sometime this coming week we will get a couple of skeins of white yarn dyed using each of the two solutions. We also will probably dye some light gray raw wool. Once the first dying is complete for each set of yarn and the wool we will assess the remaining liquid and perhaps do a second set of skeins in the diluted solutions. The result should be light shades of the same colors. Interestingly the color of the solution does not always translate into the same color that is permanently dyed into the fiber. We will post an update and photos once the yarn has been dyed.

Once we have separated the dye bath from the solids, we will try grinding the chunks of peel and pits down to a finer consistency. At that point we will try replicating the “fermentation” process again to see if we can extract any further dyes.

Lastly, we have again started saving peels and pits for another session either next summer or winter.

Posted in Fiber Projects, Fleeces & Wool, Gallery, What's New | 5 Comments »

Summer Shades in the Dead of Winter

Saturday, January 10th, 2009

It is the time of year in our part of the world when winter seems to have us firmly in its grasp. Fall is ancient history and springtime, green grass and frolicking lambs are still so far away. And, by the way, it does not help that it is also cold! Nonetheless the first week of January can also be a wonderful time. Even more predictable than the return of Bluebirds in March, the seed and garden catalogs all seem to arrive. They are like a warm breeze out of nowhere. It is time to plan and dream of next spring’s and summer’s vegetables and flowers. Our favorite catalog is often from Johnny’s Selected Seeds in Winslow, Maine. Like most seed catalogs available today, Johnny’s is available online. Yet somehow, having a printed catalog in front of you is akin to reading a good book, which you can pick up, read for a time and come back to later. The cover of Johnny’s catalog this year is especially “warming”: strings of red and orange hot peppers.

The arrival of the seed catalogs also has complemented the project that is nearing completion on the large Glimåkra loom in our studio. It is the fourth in a series of blankets which will be for sale in the Gallery. They are woven in blocks of warp-faced and weft-faced twill. The original blanket utilized various shades of our natural colored wool in the warp and white in the weft. The subsequent blankets have substituted various naturally dyed yarn for some of the gray shades. The dyes for the last two blankets have come from plants from either our vegetable and flower gardens, or from plants which grow wild somewhere on the farm. The current blanket includes yarn dyed from artichokes (three different shades), purple bearded iris blossoms, carrot peels and the berries from buckthorn (two shades).

blkt01-092

Weaving the current blanket is a gentle reminder of last year’s gardens. In the case of each of the vegetables that we used for dying the materials were merely left-overs. We had great success growing artichokes in 2008; the dye stuff was merely the juices that remained after cooking the artichokes. The iris blossoms were collected after a strong wind storm knocked most of them over. We thought for sure that the dye color would be in the purple range, but surprisingly came out a bright yellow-green. The buck thorn is an alien shrub/tree, the spread of which we are trying to control. We can collect their berries without fear of endangering a native plant. In fact collecting the berries will, in a small way slow down the spread of the buck thorn. Their purple berries yielded lovely shades of brown, a pleasant reward for trying to control an alien plant. One of the wonderful characteristics of natural dyes is that their colors always seem to compliment each other (unlike many chemical dyes which can clash). As a result, the blanket is a warm mix of colors which, in its totality, is a pleasant reminder of summer.

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