You Spin Me Right Round

As you may know from reading the great wool fiasco, I have a great store of lovely rovings to be spun into yarn. So, I obtained a spinning wheel a few weeks ago, and now I have a new obsession. I hated trying to spin with a drop spindle, but where it was clumsy, tedious, and mind numbingly slow, the little wheel is efficient, easy, and fun! Yeah, it really is fun, but perhaps I am easily entertained. I find myself trying to sneak in a little spinning time whenever I can, taking procrastination to a new level.

The quality of my yarn still leaves something to be desired, but practice, practice! It is gradually improving. Now that I have a pretty good stash going, I thought I would experiment with some overdying.

On the far left here, is the pink that I so strongly objected to initially, since it was supposed to be "scarlet". I confess, it has really grown on me, it has sort of a nice warm, coral tone to it. So, I am letting it be. The other two colors just seem dull and washed out though, blah-boring.

I had heard of dying natural fibers with koolaid, so I did a little research. Everyone seems to like the effect, and it has enough acid that you do not need to add anything else to it to set the color. In fact, the first ingredient is citric acid. So, I tried dying these two skeins with similar colors to see if I could brighten them up a bit.

Here's the procedure, it couldn't be simpler. Presoak the skein in cool water for a couple of minutes:

Meanwhile, hotten up about 3 liters of water in a big pot, and stir in a couple packs of koolaid. The water should be smoking hot, but not boiling, I set the eye on the lowest setting.

Toss your skein in there. I am using Tropical Punch here, good ole red dye # 40!

Then wait for the wool to suck all the color out of the water. Neat, huh?

Next, I just squeezed out the excess water, and hung up the skeins in this elegant fashion-ha. I have given them a bit of weight in the form of a rolling pin wrapped in a towel. This will help gently straighten the yarn as it dries, so it doesn't get all kinked up and weird.

I must say, I really like the end result. The colors are definitely deeper and more intense. Unfortunately, it's a bit hard to see the difference in the photo below, because this wool has such a nice luster to it-it really reflects light. You'll have to take my word for it. I especially like the blue-the Blue Raspberry Lemonade turned it a pretty robin's egg color. Yes, koolaid is the dye for me. It seems to be colorfast-the wet wool left no stain on the white towel. It does make your house smell a little fruity, but I'll take fruity over sheepy.

Meanwhile, in the kitchen..

Wow- it has been an incredible year for tomatoes! I can't remember another season when they have done so well, it's a real blessing. So, we have been working on getting a goodly amount canned and put up for winter. It's hot and sweaty work, but a nice change of pace, really. It's a chance to put some good tunes on the stereo, roll up your sleeves, and make a godawful mess of the kitchen.

I am especially pleased with the yield on my favorite heirlooms this year, these Golden Sunrays:

Normally, they make great sauce, but this year the best I've been able to do is soup. That works, too. They are the prettiest color, too, they remind me of mangos.



Yes, the sipping of beer is an essential element of the canning procedure. Ta da. On to the next batch-salsa, this time?

Oh! The horrors of vegetation

The bane of my existence, wiregrass is taking over everything here at the farm. It got a foothold in our yard and in our pastures, and now it threatens to consume all. Why is it so bad? Well, first of all, it can grow anywhere.

In the sandy driveway:

In pure pine shavings:

In the water! Anywhere..

It is extremely competitive with other plants for water and nutrients, and it spreads by both stolons and seed. So in the pastures we are seeing the change from a nice diverse mix of grasses and legumes:

To here, you can see the hazy line of an intruding mat of wiregrass:

To this-wiregrass monoculture:

So, secondly, what can you do to control it? In the pastures, we have tried many things.

1. Harrowing it when it is already stressed from drought

2. Spraying with roundup (I am sorry) when it is already stressed from drought

3. Harrowing it when it is dormant, then overseeding with smothering crops that grow at a time of year it doesn't, hoping they would out compete it

4. Mowing before it can go to seed

Result? It's worse than ever.

Four years ago, I had a vision of a beautiful, no-till, permanent raised bed garden. I mulched like crazy with composted manure, leaves and grass clippings. I amended with wood ash for potassium, calcium, and trace minerals. I mowed the weeds before they could set seed, I spent hours, whole days, pulling weeds. It was once an incredibly productive space. I felt pretty good when we got our soil test results and the "cottage garden" was juuust right!

Then the wiregrass started creeping in from the pasture, first in little clumps, then in rapidly spreading mats.

In my no chemical zealotry, I tried pulling it by hand first. Then I tried pulling it, and smother mulching it with cardboard or paper feed bags and hay or straw. Then, more desperate now, I tried spraying it with roundup. Then, I tried pulling it, spraying it, and mulching it. All to no avail.

Totally desperate now, I got some geese. I hatched these beautiful, amazing creatures about a year and a half ago.

I had read that if you feed them a certain weed as babies, they will seek out that particular weed to eat as adults. I had also read that geese will really grub down in the soil to get to roots they are after (they certainly did a number on my celeriac (: ), so I thought it might just work. I fed them chopped up wiregrass with their baby ration, then they graduated to a fenced area in our wiregrass yard. Now, I prepared the beds in the cottage garden before I sent them out there, I weeded once again, in the hopes that they could control the baby shoots just coming up.

Their first action upon being introduced to the garden was to devour my watermelons, growing on hay bales, in entirety, leaves, vines, and all. After that, sure they ate the wiregrass, but there was no way they could keep it under control. It just grows way too fast, and there is too much of it! Also, it thrives in the blasting heat of summer, when it is too hot much of the day for the little guys to work.

So, despite my best efforts, the cottage garden has become mostly an expanse of wiregrass. With geese in it.

What else can be done? This truly terrifying weed is starting to creep in everywhere on the farm. The only other option it seems, would be to spray absolutely everything with something so toxic it would kill absolutely everything. We would never do that, of course, and I honestly don't think it would work anyway. The only solution seems to be to run away! Run away, before it eats us, too!!!