Pure German angoras, buck and doe (siblings so not a breeding pair). DOB Dec. 12, 2011.
I will be traveling south soon so pick up along my route is possible. Contact me at woolybuns at german dash angoras dot com (or just click on the button up there on the right hand side bar) for more details.
Christmas knitting IOUs are convenient on Christmas day but then there is the pressure to convert
WIP to FO in a respectable time frame. So I've been sittin' n knittin' a lot lately. I made a simple watch cap for my son who buzzed off his longish hair just before the temperatures plunged. Then I knit the second of a pair of slipper socks for Son the Older and I hope to finish the second of Son the Younger's pair tonight. In between, I've been working on a silly little mini sock as part of Sock Scrimmage 2012, a Ravelry thing. All that knitting is a good excuse to ride out the cold temperatures but it's not so hot for muscles and joints. The old sacroilliac joint has been speaking up again and stretching hasn't made enough of a difference. All of which is a round
about way of saying I took a hike today. Yes, with the temperature struggling to hit 20* F, I hit the trail. Wool socks, wool sweater, wool scarf ... I went prepared, but I was still cold.
The hike was Land Trust properties. This time of year, not all that scenic, but ... no mosquitoes. :) I like the Land Trust hikes because the fella who leads them offers up a good mix of pace and professoring. On this trek, we checked out the welfare of some disease resistant Elm tree cultivars. We used to have such stately large Elms around but Dutch Elm disease attacked. According to the fella, Elms still propogate and grow but once they reach kind of a juvenile size, the disease kills them off. The hope is that by introducing disease resistant varieties along with the originals, there will be some cross pollination resulting in healthy full size Elms again. Given the size of that tree, I'm not sure I'll be around to find out if they succeed.
After that, we trooped over to a field bordered by a very tall stand of trees along the Connecticut River in hopes of photo ops with the bald eagles. Apparently it's too cold for the eagles, cause they weren't budging. A bit of a biting breeze picked up then, so we headed back to our cars after that. Now I'm going to feed the rabbits while I'm still cold, then I'm thinking a hot bubble bath is in order, followed by an evening by the fire place with a nice cuppa raspberry tea, a bit of a MASH marathon, and of course the knitting.
I hear the hawks often in the neighborhood, sometimes see them soaring far over head, but they don't often land near my deck. This one swooped in and
huddled in the tree for a bit yesterday. Normally, I'd be delighted but Honey was was having romp time when the hawk arrived. Perhaps that's why the hawk landed. I do keep hidey things on the deck for the rabbits just in case but I'd rather not test the safety. First I grabbed the photos, then I grabbed the rabbit and popped her back into the safety of her hutch. The hawk moved over to the pine trees on the property line. I'm not sure what kind of hawk this is so now I'm off to peruse photos of hawks.
ETA: Perhaps a Cooper's Hawk.
Before I went to spinning guild today, I decided to do something I haven't done in a long time. I played with fiber on my drum carder. By the time I remembered the gathering and got the bunnies fed and awwwwwed over, I only had time to produce two batts. But, oooh, I like. One is a pink and white blend of cormo, angora, tussah silk and glitz. I started with dyed cormo (pink and white) and silk, a 90/10 blend, added in half ounce of white angora and drizzled magenta glitz that has blue overtones to it. I ended up with 2 oz of this.
The other one is also 2 oz, but with sw merino, angora and glitz. Again, I started with dyed wool roving, shades of bright blue with areas of natural white, and blended in about half ounze of natural blue angora, then drizzled in purple glitz.
These two are for sale and I have enough of the fibers in the same dye lots to make up another 2 ounces of each for sale. Each 2 oz batt is $18 plus shipping. Email me if you are interested. I'll be making up a couple of these batts for me, too, cause I do love luxury fibers flowing through my fingers.
Oh, please, you really don't think I mean mine, right? Nope, it's Princess' house. With 3 1/2 week old babies and winter cold, I held off disturbing the nest as much as possible. But this morning, Princess is looking a bit dirty on her face and feet. And with the weather is cooperating nicely with a warm up, it was definitely time to clean things in there. That means bunnies and mom got romp time on the deck.
Oh, that evil mitt I struggled with? Frogged, cast on again, knit it up in time to give the pair to Mum for her birthday.
That's my knitting right now. I'm making Hugs n Kisses mitts version 2. The pattern calls for fingering weight yarn, but I wanted to knit with worsted weight, so adapted the pattern. The first version, intended as a present, has a wonky thumb fit because I goofed on placement of the increases. But they'll do for me around the house and in the rabbitry. So earlier this week, I started version 2 for gifting. (B'day present, not Christmas). I figured out the math this time to have the cable start at the beginning, as in the original pattern, instead of after the wrist as I did in version 1. And thumb placement was easy to figure. I put the WIP on to figure that (love Magic Loop!!). The rest of the knit was quick and pleasant. I finished it Wednesday night. Turns out it's the Good Twin. Mitt #2, however, is fighting for independence. It does not want to be a mirror twin. I knit an entire repeat of the cable before discovering the first problem and that required frogging the whole thing. After a nice cuppa raspberry tea, I cast on again. Only made it to round three before realizing that wasn't gonna work, either. Rrripit, cast on again. And then I studied the Good Twin. Ok, got the pattern in my head. Knit knit knit.... Sigh. That isn't working either. Tink tink tink... Except for the front cable, the pattern is a simple 2 x 2 rib all the way up. This is not complicated. In the middle of attempting to start again but correctly, I got a phone call and ended up spilling my tea all over my end table, with a couple patterns, some yarns and assorted papers on the table. Cussed Explained and ended the call, grabbed the skein of white merino before it drank too much tea, and plunked it into a bath. Did a damage check on the other items, and with the exception of one wet pattern, everything else seems fine. Mopped up the tea, put the kettle on for a replacement and decided Mitt #2 is the Evil Twin. Clearly, I need to arm myself with sleep and focus to tackle this challenge.
That whole squirrel in the attic episode. Yeah, you thought it ended when I slaughtered the small trees within a squirrel's jump of my house. Nope. But it got cuter. At 4:30 the afternoon I cut down the trees, the squirrel started it's commute home. I'm not sure where it starts from, but I've seen it tiptoe through the tree tops along the property line onto the now mutilated magnolia tree that used to be home base for the squirrel. From there, it hops onto my large azaelia bush where house meets deck, then it scampers across the deck railing and leaps to the arborvitae. That afternoon of the slaughter, the squirrel took that same route until it came to the stumps of arborvitae next to the house. It stopped, looked up at the hole in the house, looked at the stumps, looked at me, looked at the shed roof, jumped up there, looked back at the hole in the house, looked back at me... pretty much like this:
I. felt. Awful.
I don't know where it slept that night because it did not have time before dark to build a new nest. And then I didn't see the squirrel for a few days. While I don't want any squirrels living in my house, I do very much enjoy their antics in the yard. So when it finally showed up on the deck again, I smiled. And I had been snacking on some leftover walnut pieces.
I tossed a few walnuts out on the deck. Turns out walnuts are both a favorite of squirrels and one of the healthiest things it can eat. Much better than peanuts. The squirrel checked out what I had thrown, eagerly grabbed one and scampered off to the distant edge of the deck to eat it. Then came back looking for more. Now? Yeah, every morning, the squirrel shows up on the deck for a few walnut pieces. At first, I just tossed them out on the deck. Then I wanted to see how close the squirrel would come, so I dropped them right outside the sliding glass door. Squirrel cautiously came in and grabbed. After a couple days of that, just for kicks, I sat inside by the open door and held out a large piece of walnut. The squirrel considered for a bit, then crept up and eventually took the walnut from my hand. Now, when the squirrel shows up, if I don't notice right away, it hops up onto the runner for the sliding glass door, stands up against the glass, and knocks.
So Christmas day, I named the squirrel. Atticus. Or Attic us.
One of my favorites oh who am I kidding - they're all my favorites. Woolybuns Puffalump, 7 months old now. He's just about in full coat and it's looking yummy. He is my lilac chinchilla German English French cross. He is a wonderful blend of
good temperament, dense soft but pretty much non-matting coat, blocky head and good body structure. Crimpy coat, too, but perhaps not quite as much as I'd like. I think I will breed him to a pure German with excellent crimp at some point.
And of course, it's time for another look at the new babies. They hit 10 days old sometime tonight, and they are now looking like little rabbits. Since Princess is still in Monty Python protective mom mode, I pulled the babies out of her nest and put them in the shoebox nest so I could get a good photo of look at them. Princess is apparently peeing in the nest, which is why the babies have a dried yellowish look to them. I suspect does do that when they are trying to hide baby scent. In other words, that's another way Princess is telling me to Stay. Out. I try to respect her wishes as often as possible, but do need to check on the babes at least daily. They can tangle and die in the angora blanket mom gives them and that is something I can definitely protect them from. The next big milestone for them is eyes opening. That should happen tomorrow, and they'll be all squinty for a few days so I won't be bringing them out into the sun until they get used to seeing.
Ok, back to knitting.
Princess absolutely hates me. Even before I get to her hutch, she starts yelling at me. And when I go into her hutch, I do so Very. Carefully. She has and will attacked and tries to bite. But I don't blame her, not one little bit. I take her babies away from her. Someone taking my baby away from me without my permission would royally piss me off, too. Poor thing. She has no idea that I do so with the kindest of intentions. 19 degrees this morning when I woke up. As long as the babies stay in their angora lined and covered nest bowl, they are safe, but if they end up in other parts of the nest box where there is only hay, they will freeze. It's still arse freezing cold out there now, but the babies are in the nest with
nicely full bellies. We already lost one baby to wandering in the cold, so while they are out there, I will be checking quite frequently to catch any wanderers before it's too late. Princess' little runt also did not survive, so there are 5 now. But they are healthy chubby little porkers now at day 5. That one there on the bottom left, especially, is quite Augustus Gloopish. A couple of the others, by comparison, look almost runtish, but they aren't. Easy to tell who gets the biggest portion of the pie, though.
My lovely outspoken Princess is a first time mom as of last night sometime after 8:30 pm and before midnight. First time moms don't always get things right and litters can become heartbreakers. But Princess followed the text book in her preparations. She started building her nest about a week ago. I put a nest box in her hutch at the first sign of hay gathering but I put it in the wrong corner according to Princess. She ignored it. Once I moved it to the corner she chose as her birthing center, she checked it out and said ok. No fuss. And built a right nice nest over several
days. Last Friday night, she started pulling wool and lined the nest with it. Saturday night, she pulled a lot more wool and created a nest bowl in the center of the nest box, with a nicely crafted canopy of hay and wool curved up the back of the box and over the nest bowl. And last night, her due date, she deposited 7 fat healthy squigglers in there. Quite right.
Overnight temps are now below freezing. Princess put enough angora in the nest that the babies probably would stay warm. Angora is amazing stuff! But I just didn't want to take the chance, so risking her wrath, I gathered the babies into a shoebox nest I put together, using some of the angora she pulled and put in her nest, and they spent the night in the house. I hate doing that to my does. Hate it. Because they hate it. Most of them quite vigorously resist my efforts to take the babies. Princess reverted to her Beyotch ways as I tried. So I removed her from the hutch so I could gather safely. The does usually love their babies. Having gone through a time when hospital staff kept my brand new baby from me without telling me why (same reason - keeping him warm), I understand the anger and worry the does feel. I don't usually take the babies away. But baby, it's cold outside! Bringing mom inside would leave her much too hot after getting used to outside temps.
This is Dad. He is a pure German buck from a litter born here last May. I would have liked to keep him but I also want to maintain a small herd, not a big one. So he went to a new home the day after his date with Princess.
Most of the babies are for sale. It's too early to tell gender yet but I might be able to start guessing in a couple weeks.
