Nationals...

Hello everyone! Or should I say, "Howdy ya'll"? I am very pleased to announce that there is only two more days before traveling to the great state of Texas! "Why am I going?" you might ask yourself. ARBA nationals! ARBA stands for the American Rabbit Breeders Association.  ARBA is a huge show that is held in the fall of every year.  I have been a part of this wonderful journey since 2008 and so far I have visited the following states: Minnesota, Indiana, Kansas, Last year it was here in Harrisburg, and now Texas.  We have usually over 22,500 animals at the convention.  Wow, that is a lot of rabbits!  There are 48 different breeds of rabbits and each breed has there own standard.  There are also 13 different breeds of cavies.  You might be thinking to yourself, "What are cavies now?" but the answer is simple.  They are guinea pigs, but in the rabbit world, we call them cavies. 

Now for the really exciting part... What rabbits I am taking?  Well, when you are preparing for this big of a show, you must choose your rabbits wisely.  I am taking a total of nine rabbits and I am excited for each one.  Keep in mind that I have those big, fluffy rabbits that love to chew their coats when in stress, so do the math.  A 25 hour drive + A big, fluffy angora + A small cage = A chewed coat.  How do you stop that?  Simple, just put them in a bigger pen.  It still is very stressful for you and the rabbit because you spent eight months to grow this coat on this rabbit for this show; you don't want to lose it now! 

I am also going to participate in the royalty contest and the educational display.  I had to pre-enter the educational projects and the applications and let me just say that they are very lengthy.  I am in the Duchess category and a lot of girls are usually in that category as well.  What I entered for the education display was a pair of fingerless mittens (the pair I made the pattern for) and a woven scarf.  What I did was warped the loom for two scarfs and then wove them both in one day!  It was very good practice for Farm Show(you will be reading a blog on that soon...) One of the scarfs I am keeping and I am donating the other scarf to the NARBC. NARBC stands for the National Angora Rabbit Breeders Club.  Hope they like it!

I will be writing a blog as soon as I get home to update you on our adventure...

My English Angora jr. doe is ready!

My French Angora buck...



My Satin Angora doe...

 

The scarfs that I am entering and donating... (I am keeping the blue one)

 

Make It With Wool....

 Hello everyone!  I am very excited to report about this past Saturday.  I went to a very fun event called The Make It With Wool Contest.  To be a part of this contest, you must make a garment that has a minimum percentage of wool or wool blend (minimum of 60% wool or specialty fiber is required) for each fashion fabric or yarn used. Specialty wool fibers include mohair, cashmere, alpaca, camel, and llama in the garment or garments.  

For my outfit, I knit a sweater with cables that is held together in the front with a button that I made out of modeling clay.  I also knit a hat out of the same yarn that I used for the sweater with except I hand dyed that yarn.  I used more of this hand-dyed yarn to weave fabric which I used to construct a pair of shorts and then lined the shorts with satin.  The best part is, the fact that all of the yarn was made in our fiber mill and it all came off of my very own Leicester Longwool sheep named Boo!  After my brother and I sheared Boo, I skirted his fleece, and then washed it.  I made roving out of it and my sister Ashley and my mom helped to finish it into yarn on the spinning frame.  The yarn I used to weave the fabric and the yarn I used to knit my hat was hand dyed with a lighter shade of purple and a mint green.  I had a great time at the contest!  I was in the junior category with other girls who had beautiful garments!  I didn't know what to expect.  After the fashion show, they announced the winners and little did I know, I WON!  Now, I get the opportunity to represent Pennsylvania and go to nationals!  Guess where... Nevada!  I am more than excited now.

Boo was excited to hear to news that his fleece is going to Nevada!

Waiting to hear the winners....

My outfit....

All of the winners and runner-ups... Congrats everyone!

We Are Up and Running!!!!

Hello everyone!  I know it is a little delayed, but we had the Grand Opening!  It was a great success!  We even had a welcoming committee consisting of: Eclipse and Meteor.  Every time someone came up the driveway, Eclipse and Meteor were on it!  We did learn that Eclipse likes kids (probably because he is one himself) and Meteor does not. It made for a good story... 

That wasn't all, we had a lot going on. Tyler, Papa, and my dad were stirring the soup in the kettle, mom was here there and everywhere and enjoying every minute of it, Nana, Deb, and Linda were in the shop, Ashley and Megan were in charge of the fiber mill tours, Cami and I were with the welcoming committee and doing Rabbit tours, and Uncle Randy kept all of us company when needed.  We had a pretty great Blue Mountain Farms group, if I must say so myself. We even wore T-shirts, Blue Mountain Farms T-shirts and we all looked great!  It was a beautiful fall day and we couldn't have ask for any more of it.  If you are ever around us make a trip up here; Eclipse and I would love to show you around!

Great Group!

Tyler, Papa, and Randy with the soup...



Our snack table! It was delicious!

Cami an I with the welcoming committee! No Hands!

The Fiber Mill...



See, I told you Eclipse likes kids....



Madi's Mitts!

Well, I finally did it!  I wrote my own knitting pattern using my very own fiber from my very own rabbits.  Now that we have our mill, we've been having a lot of fun, in between jobs for others, making our own yarns using our own fiber.  Last week, we used a lot of our rabbit fiber to blend it with a dyed merino top.  Merino top is a fiber that has been processed into a wonderfully soft roving.  After washing, piking, carding, and pin-drafting, we were finally ready to spin.  Once the roving was ready, we spun it into a beautiful yarn!  The one we named Wizzywig Wild and I decided to make a pair of fingerless mitts with the yarn, but I wanted to make my own pair with my own pattern, so I did.  

It took a lot of math and thinking, but I finished with two adorable mitts!  Not to mention the fact that that the yarn was made from our own rabbits, made in our own mill, and the mitts were made right here were the yarn was made!  How about that?

One of the nicest things about angora yarn, not to mention the warmth and softness it provides, is the lovely "halo" that garments made from it will actually start to produce.  Here are just a few of the pictures from the fun we had last week:

Yummy angora roving

Yarn on the skein winder

Yarn in different colors & weights

One of my bunnies being groomed just before shearing time!

Here are my finished mitts! 

Fall Fever

It is that time of the year again.  The Carhartts get dusted off, everyone is doing school work, the temperature drops drastically, pools get closed, pumpkins are placed on front porches, apple cider is a drink of choice, all of the animals get their winter coats on, knitted scarves are a fashionable statement, and the leaves start changing color.  Well, it's officially fall folks!  

This morning, I walked out to feed all of the animals, and to my surprise, it was colder this morning than it was last night!  Let's just say I was happy to have a sweatshirt near-by.  My goats looked like they needed a sweatshirt as well, so I went out with some old T-shirts and put them on my goats.  They are stylish now!  Hopefully it doesn't start snowing soon because I really don't have enough time to knit them all a wool sweater!

I also noticed while I was out with the "girls" Peek-A-Boo and Cocoa were in heat.  My buck, Spidey, even noticed too.  Well, everyone will just have to wait because if I breed them now, I'll definitely have to make some wool sweaters because the kids would be due the end of January beginning of February.  I will be waiting until the next cycle which will bring the kids closer to March.

Luna and her shirt!

Peek-A-Boo enjoying the day and the sheep just resting!

Esther Ella posing

  

Murphy's Law.....

Murphy's Law is an interesting adage.  You've heard it, or maybe you haven't.  Basically Murphy's Law states that if it can possibly  go wrong, eventually it will.  Well, that was my case with my current litter of Giant Angora rabbits.  First, you must understand, my sister has been raising and breeding quality Giant Angoras for over ten years now.  She has worked really hard on her line and it hasn't been easy.  So, I had a great place to get started.  

There are very few Giant Angoras in the country and I thought it would be good to start raising them so that other youth might become interested in them too.  I began raising Giant Angoras about 2 1/2 years ago.  I started with a doe and used a buck of my sisters to breed her.  The doe soon had a healthy litter of six and was a wonderful mom.  In fact, I weaned all six of the babies.  I sold four of them and kept two does.  The two does I kept went with me to ARBA Nationals that year and the one won breed.  When I returned home, I bred them, but in that process, one of the does died.  The other doe never had kits.  I tried two more times to breed her, Ruby I called her, but it still didn't work.  It was very frustrating.  Finally, after trying one more time to breed her, it seemed as though it worked.  Ruby made it to day 28, I put in her nest box, and then, just before having the babies, she died.  I was very sad and discouraged.

I could have given up, but I didn't.  I still wanted very much to begin raising those wonderful Giant Angoras.  So, a very dear friend of ours offered me another doe.  I named her Amy and she came from Kelly at Hopping Acres.  In fact, I now have two does from Kelly.  The first one and now a second named Abbytude.  Can you guess why I call her that?

So, back to my story with Murphy's Law...  The time came for me to breed Amy.  My sister offered her buck named Oz, the breed winner at ARBA Nationals in Kansas.  After all my experiences so far, I was very nervous to try, but I did.  On day 28, Amy wasn't showing any signs of any impending birthing.  You know, the usual, pull hair, build a nest, stop eating, and other signs.  So I thought the breeding didn't take.  Imagine my surprise when on day 31, Amy began having kits.  Remember though, if it can possibly go wrong, eventually, it does.  Out of 9 kits born, only two were alive and those two were born on the wire, getting cold, and about to die.  I had a choice to make.  Try to work hard to preserve the two kits, or let them go and try breeding again.  If you know me, you probably know the choice I made.  I tried to save the kits.  

First, and most important, I had to warm them up.  Everyday, at least twice a day, I had to bring Amy to her kits to nurse them.  Now, understand, you can't just bring in the mom and expect her to willingly do this.  First, the kits have to be warm.  If they aren't warm, they won't eat.  If they don't get milk from mom soon after they are born, they become weak, and they won't live.  So in other words, it's really important for them to be warm and eat.  There is another important step here.  Since they won't be with the mom after eating, I had to try to get them to go to the bathroom.  I did this by using a warm cloth and softly rubbed their genital area.  Sounds like fun, doesn't it?  Just so you know, if I didn't do that, the toxins in their body would have killed them if they don't go potty.

Well, it was a lot of work and unfortunately one of the kits didn't make it, but the other did.  I'm proud to say that little guy is now 7 weeks old, soon ready to be weaned from mom, and he is eating and drinking on his own!  Murphy visited his ugly head here way too many times with this litter of Giant Angoras and I hope he doesn't come back again any time soon.  I am, however, proud to say that I have this little guy and he is now doing quite well.   

Zo says "Hello!"

Even getting ear furnishings!

Zo in all his cuteness!

It's Official, I'm a Nerd!

So, just the other day, I dyed some yarn!  It wasn't just any yarn, it was yarn from my very own Leicester Longwool Ram named Boo.  You remember him.  He's the ram that hurt his back earlier this summer.  I'm proud to report that he is doing well now and is back with all his friends taking his role at the top of the pecking order.  

I am working with this yarn to prepare for the Pennsylvania Make It With Wool Contest.  In that contest, you need to construct garments made from wool.  Since our fiber mill is now fully functional, I decided that I would work with Boo's fleece to raise awareness for the Leicester Longwool breed of sheep for my project.  There are very few of them in the country and they are amazing sheep.  To prepare for my project, my brother sheared Boo.  I then washed his fleece, ran it through our picker in the mill, and then carded the wool into roving.  Our pin drafter then prepared the wool for the spinning frame.  I chose to make a two-ply and a three-ply yarn.  I am using a two ply yarn to hand knit a cabled sweater and the three ply yarn to weave fabric I am using to make lined dress shorts.  I hope to also finish a matching knit slouch hat too.  

Before I put the yarn onto the loom, I hand dyed it.  I was very happy with how it turned out.  I then chose my pattern to use on the loom, but I'm going to save pictures of that until after the contest.  Wish me luck.  I can't wait to see and model the finished product in October.

Off to heat set my yarn!

Check that out!  Boo makes wonderful yarn!