We had a dynamite Dye Day at the Farm today when 10 of us gathered together with our silk, bamboo, wool roving, sock blanks, and dyes and put some color into our fiber.  It was like having rainbows in all shades and hues laying out on the tables for us. The color combinations and mix of fibers was exhilerating!

We started early so the bunnies could spend some time outside in the world. I don’t think they were particularly impressed, but they tolerated our intrusion into their space.

To keep the heat down, we also put the roasters outside. Thank goodness for extension cords and plenty of plugs!

With every single color of Acid Dye and Procion MX at our disposal, we mixed a standard 2% solution into quart jars then painted and squirted and squished and blended those beautiful colors onto our soaked fibers.

Spinning buddy Liz brought shared foam brushes she had brought.  They worked wonderfully, and I will definitely have these on hand before our next Dye Day!

Liz also brought sock blanks that she had made on one of her wonderful knitting machines, and it was really neat to watch her and Kay straighten them out with blocking wires and paint them in various patterns.

Ravelry friend Laura painted two rovings in beautiful blues and lilac. She’s promised to post pictures of how they spin up. This was her first adventure in dyeing, and she did a beautiful job! She has an eye for complimentary colors.

Because we started super early, we also had all the fiber in the roasting pots fairly early, and friends Laurie and Laura helped me to the hard manual labor of moving the bunnies back into the building.  They were so grateful to be back in the air conditioning!

We also worked in a little spinning and knitting, and a couple of barn tours, before everyone had to go their separate ways.

Edee became close friends with Stanley, one of the barn cats that keep the Bunny Barn free of unwanted visitors!

It was a super fun day, full of creative energy, laughter, coffee and donuts , and Dairy Queen treats for the wicked, and veggies and fruit for the healthy-minded among us! I’ve made everyone promise to post or send pictures of their finished fibers!

And the greatest thing about Dye Days ….. There are different possibilities every time! Hope to see YOU mixing it up with dye really soon!

At 10:00 p.m. on Monday night, Ken had to tell Daniel and Paul to quit working so that he (Ken) could get some sleep!  These two end-of-year high school seniors, with some help from Daniel’s home-from-college brother James, had been hard at work over here all afternoon.  Add in what Greg had accomplished in the days prior, and it *finally* looks like we’re getting somewhere around here!

The ditch has been dug for my permanent water line out to the Bunny Barn.

The feed containers have been moved to a secure stall in the barn. Notice the cattle panel and extra boards that Daniel put up so the goats can’t get in there with me when I’m trying to dish out the feed.  I was getting pretty tired of fighting with Blackie and his long pointed horns!  Daniel and his crew also repaired the makeshift table the prior owner had constructed and that Blackie had destroyed (trying to get to the feed barrels).

The floor is clean in the main barn, and the old, thrown-together stall dividers and hay feeder have been torn out. All they were was in the way!  A bare smattering of straw graces the barn floor now because my husband is convinced that the animals don’t like to lay on bare dirt.

The floor of the loafing shed is also back down to the dirt (or wood) with the same light covering of straw.

The area where the new fence will go has been mowed. Once The Welder finishes his current building project, he will measure and mark off the locations for the new pipe posts and H braces.  The man with the tractor and auger will be here at 0800 Saturday morning to drill the holes!

Han Solo continues to entertain us, and is getting along well enough that we don’t have to keep him penned up with his mother during the day while we’re gone.  He’s gaining weight and has the cutest little pointed devil-like horns sprouting out of the top of his head.  I dare say I won’t think they’re very cute when they get bigger!

The newest group of goats has discovered the pasture and are fairly well tolerating being thrust into a new environment.  They still don’t like the dogs, but MudBud in particular has gotten really good at avoiding being head butted!

All in all, here at the farm, things are right with the world….

On Saturday morning, May 1st, ten of us gathered together in the Bunny Barn to learn about Nuno Felting and make our own small nuno felting piece. Suzanne Morgan was our guide and instructor. She brought along her own beautiful work to inspire us, and let each class member choose a kit that contained all the bits and pieces necessary to create a beautiful piece. (The picture is of my finished piece after it dried.)

First Suzanne gave us some background on the art of Nuno Felting and some information on how to combine our pieces. (“The wool is the glue!”).

The she walked us through the creation of the piece step by step. Layer. Design. Soapy cool water. Rolling. Warm water. Throwing. Scrunching. Straightening. Checking. Flipping. Repeat some of the above. You get the picture.  It was fun and very freeing. I’m just glad I wasn’t the person Faye was thinking about during the throwing phase! 

In the end, everyone walked away with a beautiful piece of artistic expression in felted cloth. The rabbits enjoyed their day in the breeze outside under the big white canopy, and the rest of the animals enjoyed looking at the visitors who embarked on farm tours before they left.

What FUN!

There are some real benefits to having a building with a concrete floor, particularly if you want to keep animals in said building.  When you track mud in, it’s no big deal. When you drop hay or feed on the floor, it can be swept up. Even splashing some water onto the floor when you’re filling up water bottles is nothing to be concerned about.

But our Bunny Barn can be a dusty place, what with the screen door letting in a steady cool country breeze, and there’s only so much sweeping I’m willing to do. Today, it was time to bring out the power equipment: The Shop Vac.

This little darlin’ was a recent purchase and proved incredibly useful to suck up water as part of our plumbing repair.  But The Welder told me that it would also do a great job vacuming the fine powder dust off my concrete floor, something a regular house vacumn cleaner can’t do. The HEPA filter would keep the dust in the canister and not blow it back out as part of the exhaust.

 Today I decided to give it a try! Let me just say that this Bad Boy gives a Whole.New.Meaning to the word “suction.”  Yes it absolutely sucked up the dust off my floor — and the hay — and the feed — and one of the cat toys — well, you get the idea. Look at the difference!

 With no beater bar in the way, anything 2″ or less in size was in danger of disappearing.  Just for fun, I even  used it to lift my little wooden stool 6 inches off the ground! 

After all that, I had to do something fibery!

On the dryer today was some “Harley” mohair dyed in a beautiful violet!  Gorgeous color!

Cleaner floors and beautiful fiber — who could ask for anything more!

We have Water!!!!          HOT and COLD running water in the Bunny Barn!!!!       PAR-TAY!!

When The Welder isn’t welding, sometimes I can twist his arm into doing other types of work for me. This last round — which has dragged on longer than we had both hoped — was running water into the Bunny Barn and hooking up my new tankless water heater.

Once he conquered the leak-that-wouldn’t-quit-leaking, and we temporarily set aside the idea of burying the line (that can be done later), it was just a matter of Setting the sink, replacing the strainer, hooking up the sink, hooking up the drain line, installing the water heater, and hooking up a bunch of other stuff that required plumbing goo, flex lines, putty, and a collection of brass fittings. 

Frankly, I don’t have a clue what all he had to do. My involvement in the entire process was limited to buying exactly what he told me to at Home Depot, and holding the flashlight.

But, what I DO know is that we’ll have plenty of water for our Nuno Felting workshop with Suzanne Morgan on May 1st and for our continuing monthly Dye Days the 1st Saturday of every month!

Even better, I won’t have to haul water from the house for the bunnies any more!

Woo Hoo!