Felting fun

The weather has been kinder this week and early on I made the most of the warmer temperatures. The plants in the polytunnel had an outing from their fleece covers and I got digging holes and clearing grass around the holes ready for the arrival of some fruit trees. A spent this morning stocking up on horse manure. Our neighbours have horses and kindly let us have a ready supply. This all went well until the tractor refused to start with a full trailer of manure behind it and in the neighbours yard. Luckily some jump leads and the chickens electric fence batteries for a bit of a boost seemed to solve the problem. I have also been busy servicing skis ready to go away in a few weeks. I am finally down to finishing the last item. By the time the skis have been cleaned, filled, sharpened, waxed and polished it takes quite a lot of time.

Me removing barbed wire from the sheep's wool

harriett took these photos.

I passed my level 2 food hygene certificate. After several hours of training videos I then had to answer questions such as

Why are chopping boards in kitchens different colours?
a)So the kitchen looks bright
b)To make sure all kitchen staff are cheerful
c) To prevent cross contamination
d) So the kitchen looks smart for an inspection

Answers on a post card please.

I have been working on my felting by making a new phone case. I normally make all my felt from tops (a type of wool) I have suddenly discovered there are lots of other forms the wool can come in and some of them speed up the felting process substantially. So I tried three different phone cases, all went wrong. However on the forth attempt I'd solved all the problems and made a beautiful Jade phone case in well under an hour. I just have to make a couple more things and then I'll pop them all (the ones that went well) on ETSY to sell.

A frosty morning for the sheep

Just a reminder of how how small the pigs were when they arrived.

The pigs hour is nearly up. They will go on Monday. Zoe is working at home that day so that she can help me with getting pigs onto the trailer and the trailer out of the field if the pigs or trailer are feeling awkward. The pigs are pretty big and meaty now. They certainly won't fit in the dog crate they arrived in any more. It will be sad to see them go, but that's what they are for. The kids are coming to terms with them going. They are quite keen on replacing them with new piglets as soon as possible. I think we will wait until the spring and keep the next lot in the traditional time of buy them in spring and send them to slaughter in the autumn. Maybe after the next round we will think about breeding pigs. Now that will start to get entertaining.

Size for comparison (this is a few weeks ago and they are bigger now)