French Angora Bunnies available

Well my rabbits have been busy and produced some very lovely babies, including rare red colored ones. All my bunnies are pedigreed and most are show quality. I will be at the middle Tennessee fiber festival as a vendor. I hope you might stop by and say hi. I will have these bunnies available there. You may contact me if you see one you just have to have!


This is Elaine's litter, born 3-23-10, out of a red doe and a red buck. They are: cream doe, cream buck, red doe, red buck, fawn doe, and fawn buck.



This is Esther's litter, born 3-23-10, out of a golden steel doe and lynx buck. They are: Chestnut buck and opal buck.



This is Lauren's litter, born 3-25-10, out of a black doe and a white buck. They are: Broken chestnut buck, broken chocolate chinchilla buck, broken black doe, black doe, broken blue doe, broken blue doe, and opal doe.



This is a red buck that was born 12-19-09.



This is Bianca's litter, born 4-11-10, out of a white doe and a red buck. They are:fawn buck, fawn buck, red buck, red doe, red doe, and red doe.



This is Calista's litter, born 4-20-10 out of a smoke pearl doe and lynx buck. They are: Squirrel buck, opal buck, blue buck, blue doe, squirrel? doe.

Canola Field Painting

I did go back to paint the canola field. Standing in that field of yellow felt electrifying it was so bright. It was fun to use my yellowist yellow!

Flood

This past weekend, we had terrible rains in middle Tennessee. Some places had up to 15 inches over two days. This caused widespread flooding, road closings, bridges, cars, and homes destroyed. Even though we have a creek that runs in front of our house and it got higher than I have ever seen it, we had no significant damage. I give Many thanks to the Lord for keeping us safe.

A Beautiful Field

On my way to Triune to get animal feed, I passed a breathtaking sight. It was a field of yellow flowers that I thought might be mustard. I stopped by the road and while cars were rushing by, I did a ten-minute pastel. As I finished, the owner stopped to get her mail and I spoke to her. When I told her I was an artist and asked if I could paint on her farm, she graciously agreed. She told me the farm had belonged to her grandparents and the field was planted in canola (for canola oil).
A few days later, I went to paint. I got to stand in the field of yellow and it felt electrifying it was so bright.
This is the initial pastel that I did from the road.

Getting the Garden Ready

With a working lawnmower and my tiller, I finally got to work in the garden. I tilled most of it just enough to get the grass and weeds, planted a few things like some lettuce and a hill of squash and cucumbers. I cleaned out the barn where the hay was and brought a bunch of chaff down for mulch. I left a spot where the sweet corn will be. I will till it later. I'm pretty pleased to have some of this wrapped up. I hope to better use my garden space to get more plants in. I also have been bringing my baby tomato plants outside during the day to harden them off. I usually don't get to that soon enough and have rather spindly plants.

Shetland lambs born!

It's been busy here on the lamb front. (goats, too, but this time only photos of lambs) I had nine ewes bred and all but one has had hers. Out of 13 lambs so far, there are 4 ewe lambs and 9 ram lambs. It is disappointing to not get more ewes, but, they are all beautiful and healthy, and colorful. I couldn't have asked for a lovlier rainbow of lambs!

Combing Cashmere Goats

Since it is just now the beginning of Spring, it is time to harvest cashmere. Cashmere comes from goats. Almost all goats have an undercoat that they grow for the winter. Cashmere goats are simply goats that have been bred to have long enough fiber to spin. The goats may be sheared, but then you also have all the hair I prefer to comb the cashmere while it is shedding out and before the hair starts coming out, too. I use a variety of rakes and combs and may comb the goat 2 or 3 times until I get most of it. You see the photo of the combs and a bag of cashmere, the process of combing and in the third photo how the goat looks with one side combed and the other side not yet combed. This is a labor intensive process with a fairly small harvest. That is why real cashmere is valuable. Much of the cashmere made into sweaters these days has an amount of fine sheep's wool in it. That is why you may be able to get a "cashmere" sweater for cheap.