Homemade and very simple

Part of our quest for 2009 and was live a bit simpler - spend less, recycle more, and introduce fewer chemicals into our home and yard. Looking back on the year, we have not been perfect, but have made some gains on our goals for living better.

One particular win was to use our conventional cleaning products and begin making our own. I am very much a fan of the homemade disinfectant with tea tree oil. It has a very clean scent that is not overpowering and everything I have read about tea tree oil leads me to believe it a safe alternative to disinfecting with bleach.

This website has been really helpful for inspiration: http://www.mormonchic.com/dealdiva/homemade_cleaners.asp

Enjoy!

Farm life

I am still answering the question, "what do you want to be when you grow up?" A couple of weeks ago, I might have gotten a little closer to the answer.

We hosted several families in Jeremy's track club for an end of the year picnic. After a wonderful potluck meal, the adult types held their annual meeting and the yard was swarmed with kids.

At one point, we had a group walking the paths in the garden, one group interacting with the alpacas, and another group in the chicken house collecting eggs. Stewart was pretty proud of his find.

My favorite aspect of the whole night was hearing the kids ask questions about the animals and their purpose. One young guy collected a bantam egg and after considering that it was much smaller than Stewart's version asked me in a very serious voice, "Is this going to get any bigger?" I explained that the little eggs came from the little chickens and they would not get any bigger. It was also funny to think about putting the egg in water to see if it would grow like the spongy animals my nieces get from time to time. There is not way of knowing if that was my egg collector's idea, but it might have been close.

We also had a kid pick some cherry tomatoes in the garden. He came up to me and asked, "Can I keep these? I found them." He was invited to keep them, but we found them later that night in a safe place in the barn. He set them down to feed alpacas and forgot to retrieve them before heading home.

So, when I grow up, I want to help people, especially young people, learn about farm life. Some of my best and most natural lessons about the world - my future and my past - have been with my family weeding a garden, gathering eggs, doctoring an animal, canning garden bounty, checking cows in the pasture, moving farm equipment from field to field, having a farmhand lunch at my grandma's table, and sitting outside with ice tea after a long day's work listening to crickets. Surely, there is a need to understand our connection to the earth.

New alpaca yarn is here!

We were really excited to get our lastest batch of yarn back from the mill in Phillipsburg. The Shepherd's Mill again provided expert processing for our alpaca fiber. We sent the blankets to Sally and her staff soon after the shearing in April. We got the call just before July 4 that the yarn and roving was finished. The mill does a lot of business and the spring has the highest volume of all types of fiber being sent from all over the country to little Phillipsburg, Kansas. The mill is a great tour - interesting and educational. Plus, you will not meet nicer people than Sally and her husband.

The yarn is really beautiful. Manny, Rugar, Scout, and Wes all contributed blankets. The disappointing return (though expected) was Wes. We only ended up with one skein! He had an interesting coat since he had been sheared in the "llama style" with extremely long fiber on the front and hindquarters with a shorter blanket in the middle. We hope that both he and Magellan will produce well for next year. Wes and Magellan are the two black alpacas that were gifts from a couple in the area.

Carl's blanket was processed into roving and half of Manny's blanket was also processed into roving. Carl's roving is a beautiful puffy white cloud in my living room. Manny is a light brown/dark fawn color. We will need to weigh and package the roving in the coming weekend. My favorite roving is the "ends" that includes all the colors of our alpacas in strands of roving that were the "ends" in the yarn processing.

Scout, our best seller, was processed into yarn. He has sold well at the farm and in the yarn shop in Wamego.

We look forward to having an open house in the fall to show off the yarn, roving, and blankets. We also may have socks from the fiber cooperative by the fall. The fiber cooperative took all of our second (neck and leg fiber, mostly). In return for a contribution, you earn credits that can be used to purchase finished products like socks, blankets, shawls, hats, gloves, etc.

The Great Sunflower Project

A few months ago, I blogged about The Great Sunflower Project. A San Francisco State University professor is sponsoring the project and provides Lemon Queen sunflower seeds to participants around the country. Study participants agree to plant the seeds, collect data on bee activity twice a month, and report the data by mail or website.

This weekend was my first observation. We had five bees in less than 10 minutes! The Lemon Queen sunflowers have been an excellent variety for our garden. We had four plants take off and support several buds and blooms at once. I love how the bright yellow plays off our barn wood red garden fence and the weathered white siding of the chicken house.

Looking forward to the next bee observation!

Another finished project

I am 100% sold on taking classes to learn new hobbies. It was so great to have an expert at the ready to offer instruction, encouragement, and motivation to complete two - count them - two projects in four weeks. Behold the hat.

While I am far from an expert knitter (more like novice-beginner-prone-to-mistakes knitter, surely there is a class for that group?), I am developing confidence. My new resource to help me navigate my inevitable errors is Debbie Stoller's Stitch 'n Bitch. The title was good for a laugh from my husband, and I have found the book to be most helpful in fixing my mistakes and offering inspiration for future projects.

We are also really happy to have our newest batch of yarn and roving back from the mill. Sally at The Shepherd's Mill did such a great job in cleaning and processing our alpaca fiber into beautiful skeins and yards and yards of roving. I am so excited to share our new arrivals with my knitting friends.

A finished project

My first knitted project is complete - behold the headband. It has a few holes and some lovely imperfections. It was a good first attempt at knitting.

I am most proud of starting a project and finishing it! I have a quilt that has slowly been inching towards finished - just a few hours of binding left. There is the scrapbook that needs some journaling, page protectors, and bound. Let's see...the pile of stuff that needs to be sold or donated. And, boxes and piles of supplies for aspirational projects, like the zipper flowers I saw on an episode of Martha Stewart. But, one project is finished!

I am on my second week of making a hat. Stay tuned!

I am learning to knit - finally!

My first knitting class was on Tuesday night at Wildflower Yarns and Knitwear in Manhattan. Kennita was a very patient teacher, as promised!

Our first project was a garter stitch head band (10.5 needles and a bulky weight yarn). I love the yarn - a pistachio 85% wool, 15%mohair.

I began as all thumbs and revealed myself as the class perfectionist - surprised, right? I started over a couple of times in class and pulled out several rows at home. Last night, I got on a roll and now I am stiching a row in the morning and a row at night for practice. I may have the longest headband in history!

Our next project will be a hat (8 needles and worsted weight yarn). I am so excited to have a finished project! We will finish our headband at the next class and start on the hat. Stay tuned!