Bluejay Happenings

We are not the only ones that had a little blessing a couple of weeks ago (8th grand).  But the mama bluejay just had hers. 

I have been able to take some really close pic's of the progress and she has not attacked me yet.  She even stays close and I talk to her while I take pics of her and chicks.

Heres she is on her nest.  She started to fly away in the beginning but stayed on her nest for the photo shoot.

  Here she let me take a pic of her eggs

And also let me take a pic of her babies, awwwww , this was taken yesterday May,12

 

She stayed real close when I took the chick pic, I count 5

 

I talk real soft to her, thank her and walk away real slow.   My Dad use to call the Bluejays down and they would take pecans from our hands.   I'm not sure if that will happen again.   Last fall a Bluejay hit our window and I was able to get it before our cat did.  It was not happy but after it recovered it flew off.   I like to think this is the same bird and remembers the help : )  Or when these little babies get bigger I may just be hit with dive bombs from the mom.   I keep a watch out. I would like to get a couple of shots with all feathered out, well see : )

Have a good one
linda

A Bag of Fleece

My daughter brought over a couple of bags of fleece from her sheep for my Mothers Day gift.  I was  in the garden and all garden planting came to a stand still.  There was wool to tend to : ).  I'm hooked on this spinning adventure and have been a bit down cuz I ran out of wool to spin.   I almost thought of spinning dog hair, cat hair, dryer lint, anything to get back to spinning.  And today I'm a happy camper, I got bags of WOOL!

My first with raw wool, so heres what I did. I watched YouTube,  got the jest of what I needed to do and hit the bags. 

I started with the female sheep's wool , it was a bit more whiter.   Had some debris but not to bad.

Then came the cleaning, hot water, Dawn soap, dirty wool and you get a nice wool soup, yuck!

 This wash took the lanolin out and made some really white wool.   I had the wool dry out on my racks from the mini greenhouse.  Worked real good and was able to card and spin same day : )

Here I used cards that I have had forever, dreaming of this day to happen.  The left over debris falls out doing this and in the spinning.

 

My first roll.  Soooo soft.   This wool is from a Dorset hair mix.  Had some curly's and about a 4 or 5 inch staple.

 A basket full and I'm ready to spin!

I'm still not getting a consistent thin ply but I'm getting better, and with another bag and a half to practice , yeah!
I love this Ashford Joy 2, its was so enjoyable to sit out on the porch, listen to the thunderstorm and hope rain would hold back until I got a bobbin filled.    It did and I did 108 yards of yarn.  Put it on the Niddy Notty and will dye it up tomorrow.

Garden update:

Tomatoes and more tomatoes,  was a planting day until the wool came.  I did get a lot of things in and hoping there was not going to be a hail storm.  It passed and all was good.  I do have buckets to cover the plants just incase. 

Need to get the Winter Sowing in coffee cans planted. Just did a few cans today with more to plant out.  Altho a lot od plants in the WS, there was many that did not come up b/c of old seed.


Mothers Day:
Going out to see my Mom tomorrow, she is doing wonderful after her broken leg a couple of months ago.  Check out my sisters garden, have coffee on their porch and hear about how my BIL got to see a Bald Eagle swoop down and catch a fish at the pond he was fishing at.   How exciting to see that!  He had no camera : (

Have a great weekend, thanks for stopping by.

A very Happy Mothers Day to all the moms.
linda