My New Fiber Adventure, Needle Felting

   I have got back into needle felting animals, and am having a blast doing it!  For some reason I got it into me to start doing this again, and they are turning out waay better than the first time I did them a few years ago.  It's amazing!

  These are just two of the critters I've done so far.  A Boer goat and a Moose.  The moose is quite involved, there are a lot of interesting body parts on him.  After studying a lot of pictures online, I have come to the conclusion that there are no two moose that look the same, and even on the same moose, the antlers aren't symmetrical.  It took many hours to make him.  The goats don't take quite so long to do.  

    I am also in the middle of dehairing my cashmere fleeces.  I do have  some outstanding cashmere coming off my goats!  A smaller yield this year, I only have about half the number of goats that I had the year before, and they started shedding out a lot earlier this year, but didn't let loose of all of it, so there just isn't as much as I was anticipating.  When I went back to do the second combings on them, the cashmere wasn't  as good as the first combing, so I just threw most of it away.  I only want to sell and work with the very best of it, even for felting.  Luckily there wasn't very much that I needed to throw out.  Most of it did come off with the first combing. 

  The baby chicks and turkeys are all growing well.  The meat birds are almost big enough to process already.  I'm going to have a hard time doing them in, though.  They are somewhat friendly and are cute!  When I let them out of the "chicken tractor" to run around more, they just go bonkers at first, running around and flapping their wings.  Then they run over to me looking for their food, and I end up tripping over them trying to get to their feeder.  Good thing there are only 12 of them! 

  The 8 turklets are getting big.  There are 5 toms and three hens.  One of the hens gives new meaning to the term "bird brain".  She is always on the wrong side of the fence when the rest of them are going to new areas and can't seem to figure out how they got to where they are. ☺  I usually have to go herd her around the end of the gate, she gets within a foot of it when she's trying to join the others, then turns around and paces back the other way!  Going back and forth, so close, yet so far away...  Silly bird. 

  

 We have had record heat the beginning of the week, and then last night and today, it's cold enough I have the wood stove going!  Our usual June cold front is going through.  After this is gone, then I can plant the warm weather garden veggies.  At least we didn't get any snow this year!  There have been years when we got 8 inches of wet heavy snow that did quite a big of damage to trees and my flowers, etc.  

  All my peonies are blooming now, and the irises, too.  The yard looks rather pretty.    It smells quite nice out there with all the perfume from the flowers.  

  After the apple trees budded out way too early and froze in April, they are coming back with leaves now.  There isn't going to be much of a harvest this year, but at least the trees are still alive, and there is always next year.  

  The 5 kids are growing fast!  They are so cute, out there bouncing around and playing.  When I let the herd out into the woods to eat, they are tearing around out there jumping up and down on the stumps, logs and rocks.  There are two more Does that will have kids, one sometime this coming week, and one around the 10th of July. 

  I'm going to sell Spot, the white buck I have, pretty soon.  He's 5 years old, throws beautiful kids with excellent fleece, and he's related to too many of the does now.  Time for him to go to a new home and a new group of girls. I've got most of his doe kids, and they are some of the best looking ones out there.  

  Speaking of goats, I'd better get out there and let them out into the pasture/woods for the afternoon so I don't have to feed them any hay this evening.  

                                                            Have a great day!!