Processing Wool & Mohair Fleeces

Sarah, Laura, Kaitlin, and Belinda are learning how to process fleeces.

First you have to pick the fleeces and get out the largest pieces of hay and dirty wool/mohair. Then you soak them in hot soapy water and rinse, rinse, rinse, until the water runs clean. Then we take them and laty them out in drying racks so the sun and summer breezes can gently dry them.

Then we get to card the wool into bats....here is Kaitlin learning how to card with some Jacob fleece a friend gave her when she visited her farm a couple of weeks ago....

And here are some of the finished bats, while carding the fibers are all combed so they lay the same direction and make it easier for the spinner to spin into yarn.

Mama Chicken and 13 baby chicks!

Mama Chicken suprized us with a batch of 13 chicks last Sunday! Had no idea she was hiding a nest let alone so many!! She's proving to be an eggcellent mom and takes after anyone who dares get too close to her babies!

They are just too cute!!!

Milking The Goats!

We have helpers here to learn how to milk goats! Belinda, Kaitlin, and Sarah took turns milking the girls. They have never milked a goat before and had a great time learning how!!

Bringing in the hay!!

OK! Lets make hay!!!

July is the month for local hay around Western Washington. My BIL has about 7 acres in hay that we buy from him every year and this is what we've been up to for the last few weeks! What you see here is the loading of the shed at BIL's place with all the kids and neighbor kids to help out!