A slow and interesting start to Spring

 

The farm next door to us was sold recently.  It had an old bank barn which looked to be in really good condition, all the barn board siding was there and everything. .  I think this was true because they started pulling it down and you could see that it was structurally in good shape.  They then hacked away at fencing, pulling it down.  They had a little bob cat thing with a pincer end which pulled down any branches over hanging the fields.   They put all this debris right behind the old barn.  

Today someone put a controlled burn sign on our property.  They almost knocked our mailbox down in the process :(.  For most of the morning, it was fine.  The wind was blowing away from us and there wasn't a huge amount of smoke.  Then, just after lunch the sirens started.  In the end, the "controlled" burn had 6 fire trucks respond.   I'm thinking all the old hay in the barn and that dry barn wood and fencing probably just went up in a flash.   We have a couple of factory farms in the area.  They rent and buy up fields to feed their cattle.   Sometimes I think change in agriculture is not necessarily a good thing.  A small family farm is gone to a large corporation or a developer looking ahead to sell it off as housing lots in the future.

New on the loom. I took a gradient yarn and divided it up into its various colours.  They were dyed in uneven amounts, so I  warped the loom accordingly.   I think perhaps I should have threaded  the left and right sides oppositely, but once it was on the loom, I wasn't changing it.   I'm using the leftover greys and dark blues as the weft.   

The yarn is an acrylic blend from an English company.   A nearby yarn and craft shop has a huge tent sale in the summer and they have some really good deals on yarns we don't normally find stocked in shops here.    It's a lovely yarn and was something like $5 a 550 yd cake, so you can't go wrong with that.

This afternoon, while I was outside gawking at the fire, I started picking dandelion flowers.   The Weavers guild is having a dye day and we're going to do some nature dyes as well as acid dyes in between, so there is no waiting around.  Because we're planning it early enough, I've set people to collecting dandelions.  Dandelions make a lovely yellow, which is quite bright and cheery.  It does fade, but it takes a while and it's stays a decent yellow, although not quite as bright. 

I only got 167 g of them because most of they had lady bugs feeding?  on them.  Some of the flower heads had multiple bugs.  I'll go out tomorrow at a different time to see if I can get more.   While people seem to think dandelions grow all year, they generally have a fairly short time period when they are available in quantity.  Because there is no shortage of them, or risk of them being at risk of extinction, you can pick lots of them with no issues.  Nobody seems to care if you take them from in front of their farms either! 

The guild is participating in a small sale.  We've done this one before and only sell small items.  Generally though, we don't do this to sell things, we do it for community exposure.  Having small items  brings people into our booth for interesting conversations.   I made a bunch of these little yarn horse ornaments to sell.  I used some thrums and leftover yarn, and possibly an old warp I cut off from so long ago I don't remember it.   I almost forgot to put ears on the horses, and wondered why they looked a little off.   Tiny felt ears though, made them look perfect.   

The weather has been quite cool.  The other day we had to have both wood stoves going and that is very odd in May.   My son did put up the sunshade roof though, which he usually does for Mother's Day, if the weather is nice.  Despite it being a bit cool and wildly windy the other day, I took my lunch outside to enjoy the gazebo and some fresh air.  It was lovely.