I Gave Up

I'd hoped for the last two years that I'd be able to pick up a neighborhood swarm and feel pretty sure that I had at least some descendants from Stella's bees.  That didn't work out and I finally decided to just start over.  Of course, now that I've gone to all this trouble and expense, I'll probably find a swarm next week.  

I've never installed a package of bees before.  I've had lots of experience handling bees in general and am comfortable working with nucs (a small box of established bees with a queen), but dealing with a queen in a cage in a package of bees she doesn't know was a little daunting.  

I wanted a particular strain (Buckfast) bees though and a package was my only option.  That's okay.  Stella and I loved learning new things about beekeeping.  She'd have enjoyed the whole day, from going to pick them up to getting them settled.  She'd especially have liked the new inside feeder I'm using.

While a friend and I were waiting for the stragglers to move from the package into the hive box, we were able to watch some of the bees start to fan and talk to each other and then saw some take  orientation flights circling over the hive box.  A few even started exploring whatever these flowers are.

By nightfall, all but a few were tucked into the box and I was able to pick up the last 10 or so and deposit them at the entrance.  Hopefully they'll be happy here.  They've had a long couple of days I'd guess being packaged up and moved.  I promised them that tomorrow will be a better day.

March

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March was jam packed...but pretty darn good :-).

Under The Burled Arch

The 2026 Iknitarod is in the books.  The trail was pretty clear the whole way and about halfway to Nome I picked up a couple of Iknitariders who saw all the purple yarns and couldn't resist joining the fun.

"I wonder what this is for?"

"This purple matches my sweater!"

"And this one matches my whole outfit!"

There was a bit of clean up, but nothing the team couldn't handle and from there it was smooth sailing.

The front or "right" side.

The back, which is actually the side you are looking at while you are working.  This is technically the "wrong" side, but I always kind of like the back sides better.

As always, I learned a lot as I punched along.  I also learned a lot after I finished.  There are some colors here that are too close to each other, but I didn't notice how too close until I took these pictures.  I'm not sure if I'll take anything out and change things around or just leave it as is as a reminder to watch for that and a couple other nitpicky things that I wouldn't do again.

All in all it was very fun and I'm looking forward to my next project.  And it was nice to hang out with one of my all time favorite sheep for a bit :-).

Speaking Of Cats

I just added a cute picture of Bullseye to yesterday's post.  I'd saved it...and then promptly forgot about it.

On a crazy note, a video of Possum and Archie with a little bit of Bea went viral on Instagram last week.  Not millions of views viral (thank goodness), but as of this morning, 230,000 views.  

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Leave it to Possum, the Murphy of the cat world here.

I think part of why this happened was a short poem by Carl Sandburg that begins "The fog comes on little cat feet."  I wasn't aware of that, so am happy I got something of value from the 318 (!) comments that the post received...most of which I don't believe were bots.  

A Deep Dive

Does anyone remember Henrietta?  She came here with Heidi back in 2006, before the blog even started.  She was a grand old sheep.  A friendly Jacob who enjoyed a good back scratch and didn't need to be bribed with cookies.  She was a farm favorite.

I'd saved a bag of her roving from 2013 and in that bag was a big ball of yarn.  I'm not sure why I stopped spinning it, but I'd saved it for years thinking I really should finish it and a couple of weeks ago, when I was looking for my next Thursday spinning project, I pulled it down out of the loft.

I reviewed the thickness and twist from back in the day and did my best to try to match it.  I was shocked at how much VM (vegetable matter) was in it, but decided maybe I didn't know any better back then?  I thought I did, but there it was.  I didn't care.  It was Henri and I could pick it out.

I weighed the spun ball (a little over 6 ounces) and weighed out the same amount of roving.  I didn't get it spot on, matching yardage between old and new, but the yarn is nice and I now have almost 700 yards of one of my favorite sheep of all time.  

Now what to do with it... :-)

Here's something fun and interesting about wool and handspun yarn.  The ball of old yarn had been sitting for years.  The twist in that yarn was "dead".  The twist in the newly spun yarn was fresh.  When you ply the two together you get ramen noodles as the dead twist is taken for a ride by the fresh twist.

Not to worry.  When you wash (or steam) the yarn to "set the twist", the hot water wakes the dead twist up so it matches the fresh twist and you end up with a balanced skein of yarn.  That's the same skein, before and after. 

As I started working on this post I looked back to see if there were any good Henrietta posts to include and found this one.  Turns out she was just a mess in general and all that VM...was just Henrietta.  Apparently I'd tossed the previous fleece because it was just. too. messy.  I remembered that about Boudreaux, but had forgotten about Henri.  

That's okay.  Now that I remember the story, those bits make me kind of happy.  It's easily identified as her and that beats a "Walmart" fleece any day :-).

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Updated to add this cute picture of Bullseye while I was spinning this yarn last week.  I'd saved the picture...and then forgot about it.  Sigh...