Sheep for Sale

Those of you who attended the Gagetown Fibre Fest in June of this year will remember the fabulous Elvis, the four horned Jacobs Sheep ram and his family. He and his flock are for sale, along with their longtime companion and guardian donkey.

Jacobs Sheep are a very ancient breed and are classed as a small to medium sheep. They are easy care and known for being hardy. The cool thing about them, besides their horns (both ewes and rams can have up to 6), is the fact that they are spotted, giving you both white and black wool that is quite nice for handspinning.

If you are interested in the flock, you should get in touch with Barb and Roy Telford via e-mail at woodsmke@nbnet.nb.ca. Or I can always pass on a message!

Long time no write

Okay so I haven't updated my blog for quite a while. I know what you're saying: Join the club. Or maybe not. Actually, I don't really know what you're saying. Let me know...

The biggest news Tangled Flocks has to ofer is the arrival of our very first, home-grown cashmere goat, Maverick, or Mavi for short. He was born at 8 pm on Friday June 11, a very civilized hour. We were having a farewell dinner at the farm for the aunts and uncles, down from Upper Canada, and had just finished dessert and were having a little sing-along with Sadie, when we were alerted to the fact that Legacy was making odd noises.

"I think she's having a baby," we were told, by the aunt who had gone out to take a few more photos of the horses on the lawn before dark.

We all tumbled out to the barn, and sure enough, the baby's front feet were already out. Within a quarter hour, and with an audience of sixteen, out slid a little silver buckling - the spitting image of his Mom. He was born without incident - the only catch was we were missing a towel in all the excitement so we dried him off with the hem of my skirt.





Mavi is the first offspring of Lakota and Legacy, last year's bottle babies from Cornerstone Farm in River John, Nova Scotia. It seems like just yesterday that these two were hanging out in our living rooms and beds, needing warm milk every four hours. Now they are starting a whole new generation.



Mavi was a big pile of jello, wobbly as could be for the first few hours, but, now, at two weeks, he is a sturdy little fellow who loves to chase chickens and already has well sprouted charcoal grey horns.

Fast Friends

When we brought Gabe to live at the farm, we were a little worried. He is an angora wether, and, by all accounts, these goats are somewhat atypical in that they're not very hardy, nor are they as outgoing and boisterous as many of the goat breeds. We very quickly learned that he is, in fact, a special goat. While quite fond of people, as a former bottle baby, he nevertheless is extremely cautious and emits a definite aura of quiet wisdom as he seems to evaluate every situation from the back of the crowd. Gabe is almost always the lone goat, quietly sunning himself on a rock, and he is also the greatest escape artist, wiggling through holes and under fences with raccoon-like skill, soundlessly achieving freedom while the other goats jump, batter and climb the barriers with varying degrees of success and a great deal of wasted energy.

Generally he has done well. He isn't terribly sociable with the other critters, but he has carved himself out a niche, all the while growing his gorgeous, soft and shining mohair. He hasn't pined away from loneliness, as he has managed to get a good deal of human attention with his gentle manners and quiet determination.

This past winter, we came across another young angora wether looking for a home. Alvin had been kept as a pet, and had been living with an aging gelding for a while longer than he had ever lived with goat kind. His owner had had a change of circumstances and couldn't spend much time with him anymore, so she was looking for a good forever home.

Goat politics are an interesting thing. Sometimes they remind me of people, but most often, they make me think of cats. Every one of them is fiercely individualistic, and yet, they do form alliances, and friendships between them seem to be very strong, as are the bonds they forge with certain people. We had concerns about introducing Alvin to a goat world which he had never known, and we wondered whether he would be able to cope.

Only having had one angora goat, we had no way of knowing whether Gabe was in fact typical of the breed, despite what we had been told. Alvin seems to be the proof, as, despite being a little older and a little heavier, he pretty much mirrors Gabe's behaviour in every way, except for the escape artist bit, which seeing as there is nothing much to eat beyond the pasture fence, and there is certainly lots of tasty hay to be had within, no-one has much aspired to anyway. We will see, later in the summer.

Meanwhile, the two of them have settled into a steady friendship and go pretty much everywhere together. While they can't be brothers, I wonder sometimes if perhaps they are cousins somehow. I don't exactly know Alvin's pedigree, but it's possible that he comes from the same line as Gabe, seeing as there aren't really that many of his kiind in the province. More likely though, they get along so well because angora goats just like to do certain things in certain ways and having company is a wonderful bonus. At any rate, while Gabe was always a special goat with his loner habits, it is heartwarming to see him with a buddy: two loners, together.

Not Invited

My researches have led me to discover someone who loves wool and natural fibre even more than I do. Normally, I would be thrilled to have someone like this over for a cup of tea and a chat, but this someone is definitely NOT INVITED.

This wool lover is known as the case making clothes moth. These little nasties are none too fussy, and will feast on grain as well as pretty much any natural fibre, including the wool felt inside the piano, dog hair hiding under baseboards, and dessicated dead mice or old bird nests in the walls and attic. The moths are nondescript and shy, preferring dark corners. They themselves are not really the problem . It is , of course, their offspring that do the damage. From their microscopic eggs, little hungry larvae emerge. These make themselves protective silken cases, in which they hide, and which they drag around with them as they feed. The case can apparently take on the colouration of dyed fibre they are munching too, which can make them hard to spot.

Just like their cousins, the webbing clothes moth, they prefer things which are less than clean, and they thrive in dark corners. They dislike extremes of cold or heat, nor do they like overly dry conditions.

Knowing more about these miniature monsters has not made me happy, but I am trying to maintain perspective. It seems that the best way to avoid them is to keep wool and other fibres clean, dry and well aired, preferably in the light, or sealed up in impenetrable plastic or possibly cedar chests when they have to be stored. Frequent vacuuming to avoid build up of tasty deposits of woolly lint is also recommended. Apparently lavender is one of the scents that they dislike, so sachets may help deter them as well.

Temperamentally, I will admit that I am not suited to the job of housekeeper. I am not especially bothered by clutter and I'd rather draw than dust. But in the interest of preserving a year's worth of hand raised, hand shorn and plucked, hand processed yarn and fibre, I will happily deploy my vacuum cleaner and hone my cleaning skills. Unlike the clothing moth, I actually like a clean, well-lighted, dust-free and lavender scented house. I just never had such a compelling excuse to keep it up.

I would love to hear from anyone who has any tips or pointers on how to keep these pests at bay, especially non-toxic deterrents and practices.

An article about managing clothes moths can be found here. More information on the case making clothes moth, which is also a grain pest, can be found at the Government of Canada Grain Commission website here.

Jago and Sage in the blue morning light or why here?

One of the nice things about living here is seeing the horses playing in the snow from my living room window. Back in Dartmouth, the equivalent would have been watching the neighbourhood kids throwing their "friends'" gym shoes over the telephone wire. Jago and Sage are at about the same stage of their development, but somehow, watching them kick up their heels and race around on a warmish snowy day that turns the dawn sunrise blue is just more aesthetically pleasing.



This was what the start of my favourite dog walk looked like back in Dartmouth:




And this is what it looks like here:



Well, it works for me.

Legacy, how we love you

In a small barn in Gagetown near the creek so deep

Lived eight little goats and four little sheep
The smallest one was Legacy

While it was true that she was wee
She had an awesome pedigree
Caprine aristocracy


The softest cashmere was probably hers
But this little goat was covered in burrs
For though she was a princess goat
She never cared much for her coat
And given half a chance would rather
Hang out where the sheep would gather
In amongst the apple trees
And burdocks, coincidally.

So now that it is harvest time
For cashmere she is shocked to find
Her combing is a tiresome grind

There is a tiny compensation
And that is how her daily ration
Has increased in straight proportion
To the time spent in the stanchion.

Cashmere Dreams Part Two

Spring is a ridiculous thing. You can't feel it. You can't smell it. You can't see it. You certainly can't rely on any calendar to tell you that it is here. It plays peekaboo with your senses, convinces you to leave your jacket behind and then sticks an icy hand up your shirt back. it's here nonetheless, and the animals on the farm don't seem to need a thermometer to tell them what's going on. We are putting extra sweaters on under our barn jackets to go out to comb, because, above zero or below, sleet or snow or balmy sun, the goats are losing it big time. Their cashmere that is. It must be in the light, the couple of minutes the earth's movement is tacking on to the beginning and end of each day, because, like a magic boon from our goddess of the pantry, the hens have decided that it is now time to lay as well.

Kashew is the cashmere all-star this year, with a harvest so far that fills a zip lock bag that is about the same size as the carry-on bag I took on my last plane trip. It's a big bag, but we're afraid to weigh it. A volume that would cover a table top might only weigh an ounce or two. It's a kind of cashmere miracle, but it's still hard to get over that discrepancy between volume and weight.

Kashew's success with cashmere production is probably partially due to our new stanchion. Last year we were more or less free combing, and Kashew, sensitive soul that he is, decided that being combed was just too restrictive iof his goat-ly freedom. He'd do almost anything not to be combed. Kilo would be lying across our laps like a contented dog, soaking up all the attention, and even Gabe, the angora goat with the tangled dreads would let us pick away at burrs in his forelock, but Kashew would be hiding under the car or hightailing it for the barn the second he even suspected there were combs about. So we didn't get a lot of his cashmere.

It's a bit of a race, trying to get the undercoat collected before it just floats away on the breeze or becomes so loaded with the overcoat's coarser hair as it sheds out that it's unuseable, but hey, it's a race in the right direction. Longer days, warmer temperatures, more eggs from our underworked and overpaid hens, a good crop of luxurious cashmere - what a life!

Water Woes

The hose is froze.

Ungrammatical, perhaps, but it has a ring to it. Kind of a death knell.

Anyway. Water. Back in the city, I hardly ever thought about it, except when it was leaking into the basement or through the roof. Here, in the country, it's a pretty big deal. We practically live in one of the biggest rivers in the Maritimes, and yet we are slaves to modern technology's solution to fetching water, the electric pump. It's a heck of a long walk to the river, and toilets consume water like thirsty horses.

By the way, if I seem to be rambling it's only because I've just come off a two and a half day pump replacement nightmare/marathon. It happened right in the middle of helping to wrestle with the now expected winter freezing of the water supply line to the barn. So I've been letting myself get dehydrated, re-visiting Frank Hebert's Dune, while wondering how it is that we've let ourselves come to this.

Getting water to the barn at this time of year can be done by one woman, but it's hard. My sister manages it, even with a seven month old daughter, but it's no wonder that it sometimes gets left to the end of the day. I try my best to help - two women and a baby can do it pretty easily. The problem is that, no matter what we try,the hose freezes. It inevitably needs to be hauled in through the basement window to thaw, and, because it's frozen, it really doesn't want to bend, so it's somewhat like trying to force the Angus L. MacDonald Bridge into a boxcar. At this point, the window is pretty much ice welded into position, so you end up push-pulling the unwieldy thing through a slit just wide enough to accommodate it.

Of course this is not the way water is supposed to get to the barn. It's supposed to travel through an underground line to a handy faucet next to the bunny room. But that froze a month ago. There are plans afoot to get that fixed, but that is a summertime job. Remember summer? Oh yeah, that's when the mosquitoes are biting.... In the meantime, thirsty animals are waiting for a drink, so it's either one bucket at a time, or the jury rigged garden hose express.



Meanwhile, I decided it was time to replace the jet pump that has been caterwauling in the basement corner right under my favourite sunny perch in the living room. It has always been loud, but just lately it has been screeching like a banshee. It was an unknown number of years old, completely covered in rust, and looked kind of like it was on loan from some portion of a sunken ocean liner to begin with.



My sister had an old jet pump that was reputed to still be in working condition, so we liberated it from its shelf in the mouse museum of useful bits and bobs (aka the garden shed) and my Dad took it back to his shop to have a look at it. He got the motor running and acquired an arsenal of fittings and hoses to make it fit into the old pump's place.

Feeling cocky and spend-thrifty, we assembled early on Tuesday morning for the surgical procedure. Getting the old pump out was nasty. My son took most of the wetting, being down on the floor with the hacksaw and the wrench. The relatively dry gravel floor was soon a muddy swamp, and of course none of the hoses wanted to come off the old pump or go onto the new one, but, after a certain amount of wrestling with it and a few choice words, we got it installed. It was noon. We filled it with water, turned it on, and nothing much happened. The motor ran, but it didn't seem to be delivering water to the pressure tank. We turned it off, re-primed, and started it again. And gain. Until the motor seized up again.

Well, we decided that water was more important at this point than spendthriftiness, so we loaded up the family into the trusty Subaru wagon and headed for town. At Roblyn's Home Hardware in Oromocto, I reluctantly left yet another portion of my hard earned cash (about 40 pairs of earrings worth, I reckon, or 12 skeins of angora/mohair yarn), but I had the promise of water in a box, and an instruction manual to guide us through.

Turns out I was naive. It was another day and a half, and a visit from Oromocto Plumbers with a pump that actually worked before we were able to, somewhat tentatively at first, run the water again. Thanks to Mr. P, our family ombud/godfather, Home Hardware was happy to recompense us for some of this, in addition to a refund for the pump that didn't work. We are a little poorer but wiser these days, and truly appreciative of clean, relatively quiet, water on tap.

Cashmere dreams

Kilo is starting to let go of his coat. Good thing we got the stanchion built. I made a little donation to Fias Co Farm in thanks for the plans they posted on line, which we managed to adapt to the materials we had available, such as a helpful chocolate Lab.


This year, we're going to tackle this cashmere harvesting thing in an organized and methodical way. Yes sirree Bob. Those goats won't know what hit them. Wait - what am I talking about? We are about to set them up on a comfortable, dedicated stand, provide them with a personal serving of healthy and tasty treats, and lavish them with love and attention for a half hour at a time. Peace and love, my brothers. I mean like - wow - do I ever want to be a goat.

Meanwhile, we are plowing through last year's cashmere a microgram at a time, removing the nasty guard hairs that got in there partly because we waited a little too long to collect the last of this precious fibre. Check out the before and after photos of cashmere as we "de-hair" it. You can see the guard hairs in the un-dehaired sample.



What you can't tell from the photo of the finished bag is that, when you put your hand in there, you can't feel anything, just a warm sensation and an immense sense of cosmic well-being.



I'm telling you, forget chicken soup - you need a goat for your soul.

Indigo Days

It was time to give my wish for blue a whet. Winter has brought us some kind and some brilliant days this time around, but colour has been in short supply. Blue is almost always the exception, with skies that "present in sheets the solid hue" (Robert Frost, Fragmentary Blue) . But still, it is the first colour I go to when I think about capturing something in the dye pot.

This is thanks to indigo. It's hard to recall how frightened I was of this natural dye, the first time Helene. my dye mentor and inspiration, explained the process to me. I couldn't get my mind around "thiurea dioxide", let alone pronounce it, and as she spoke of stock solutions, reducing, vats and oxidizing, I had a brief and uncomfortable flashback to chemistry 101, and then decided that more likely she was involved in some kind of witchcraft that was best left alone by a novice like me. So I put away the little baggie of powdered indigo she gave me to try, along with the mysterious white powder that came with it and the sheet of instructions that were so fetchingly printed in indigo blue on natural coloured paper, and instead played with dyestuffs that were more or less straightforward. Simmering tree bark in a pot until it gives colour is not that different from making soup, really - just a little bit smellier. Usually.

Now, indigo is one of my favourite ways to colour wool. I'm even growing my own Japanese Indigo, in the hope that I might coax a little bit of blue out of my northern garden. In the interim, Maiwa Handprints (www.maiwa.com) has been an invaluable source of both natural and synthetic indigo, and all the trimmings to make it work. They send instructions with your purchase, but you can also revisit their website and print out the instruction sheets if, like me, it takes you a while to remember to put that stuff in your binder and stop leaving it on the kitchen counter, or beside the bed.

Indigo dyeing can be messy. The thiurea dioxide has a smell which is reminiscent of - well - farts. And indigo seems to like to stick to just about everything. If you can't work outside, which is my favourite, you really need a place with water handy and where you can either protect your surfaces or a little bit of blue won't bother you. In the winter I am lucky to have access to a laundry sink in a basement area. I try to keep everything contained, but I always find a splash or two of blue that I've missed. Tools, jars, bucket and everything turn blue, and I always end up with blue tinted fingers, despite the rubber gloves.

All this is worth it, as there is nothing quite so satisfying as pulling the wool out of the vat and watching the initially disappointing yellowish green colour turn slowly and surely to blue. It is the best kind of magic - for one thing it works every time. For another, you can to some extent control the depth of shade you get. You can re-dip your fibre several times, allowing the colour to develop for 30 minutes or so between dips, and it will get darker as you go. Indigo likes to take its time, so leave yourself a whole day to get your fibre to the depth of shade you want.

I did one section of my recycled wool in a light blue, like faded denim jeans, by taking it out of the first vat and washing it as soon as the colour had developed. The second pieces I redipped 3 times - waiting between each dip and then leaving the sections overnight before washing them. The result is a very dark blue, close to new denim. I'll be cutting these pieces up for rug hooking.