A trip to the Fiber Mill

Last Tuesday morning, I was scrambling to get my last two fleeces washed along with the Coopworth fleece I bought at the Michigan Fiber Festival. I had made an appointment to go down to Ohio Valley Natural Fiber … the other fiber mill I use … on Thursday and bring my fleeces to be processed while I wait. But they have to be washed and dried!

Amid wind and rain, I was able to get them washed on the back porch. But how was I going to get these dried with all this humidity and no sun?! I brought all three into my studio / office and laid them out on screens. I turned on the air conditioner on high, both ceiling fans on high, and ran two portable fans. Amazingly they were dry by Thursday morning.

So I put all 12 bags of fleece in the car and headed down to Sardinia around 7am. It took about and hour and 20 minutes and I actually arrived just ahead of the employees, but Kent, the owner, was there to greet me. Kent is one of the funniest, eccentric, unassuming characters I’ve ever met. So he’s always a joy to see while I’m there. He and his wife Ginny have owned the mill for 20 years and do an incredible business. He said their backlog is out to next April for delivery! Thus taking the time to go down there is worth it!

First step is to weigh in each of the fleeces and assign them a number. Then decide which ones need to be picked. I want to pick any fleeces that are multi-colored so the color is even throughout. I also want to pick the fleece with the mohair I purchased so it will be well blended.

Then the fleeces are divided into white only and any with color. They have one carding machine for white fiber only so they don’t get polluted with color fibers.

At the picking machine, the fleece is laid out on a belt ... you can see the darker mohair and the white wool.

... and it rolls through some pretty hefty teeth to separate the fibers a little bit … nothing too fine yet...

Then it comes out into a screened room with a blower that blows the fibers all around the room to mix them together. Then someone goes in and scoops it back up and re-bags it and moves it over to the carding machine.

The carding machines are huge … probably 6 feet high and 12 feet long with lots of rollers with all different size teeth of varying densities. The wool gets tossed into a hopper and ...

then is fed up a belt with teeth just grabbing a little at a time. The belt at the back of the picture actually broke when I had 3 fleeces left, so they had to hand feed the wool in on the other side. It was not going to be a fun task to replace according to Kent.

Then it comes around and is dropped out of another hopper which feeds it through more teeth along another belt. Ya, it looks dirty and the machines can't help it if you consider you have to keep the gears oiled and then wool is constantly flying through the air. In fact the show Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe (he's doing Ford commercials for his summer job) came to Kent's mill and filmed a show in April. He thinks it's going to air in October. If I get a head's up, I'll let you know.

Now the wool gets fed little by little into a series of rollers with teeth. They comb out and separate the fibers and will also pull out some of the remaining vegetation that didn’t get hand-picked out by me.

and more rollers ... see the wisps of fibers starting to grab onto all the rollers?

here you can see a lot of it grabbing on...
... and then down the other side

After going through all these rollers, it comes out the other side in a strip of roving … a small tube-shape of combed wool … it would fit through a paper towel roll. This is what spinners feed into a spinning wheel to make yarn. Someone has to hand feed it into a box ... this is the only step that requires human intervention.

They have one more carding machine that feeds into a spinning machine. They didn't have it running, but it was loaded with wool, so I could see the path it traveled. Truly amazing that someone invented these machines. The wool is spun onto a long roll about 4 feet long. This is one ply yarn. If someone wants it made into 2- or 3-ply yarn, it goes through this machine below. In the very top right, you can see about 4 spools of dark yarn hung from the top. It has to be hand fed into the machine to get it set up, but then it will ply the yarn onto cones auto-magically. This mill requires at least 25 pounds of wool to make yarn and I barely get that in one shearing. The other mill I'm using for my yarn only requires a 3 pound minimum.
It was about noon when the belt on the carding machine broke, so Kent invited me in for lunch while they hand-fed the rest of the fleeces. I got a tour of their finished addition to the house. The house itself is an interesting tour. He has added a lot of interesting features ... many of them energy saving. He also had much of the wood work, doors and furniture hand crafted by an Amish gentleman.

While eating lunch a big thunderstorm went through, so I enjoyed lunch, the tour and the stories until it passed. I left about 1:30 with my clouds of wool ready for the hands of eager spinners at A Wool Gathering next month.

A trip to the Michigan Fiber Festival

Last Friday we decided to take a last minute trip to Michigan. I wanted to attend the Michigan Fiber Festival and it is conveniently located in Allegan just a few minutes from Preston’s cousin’s house. This is a huge festival and I hadn’t attended it since I bought my sheep, so I was going with a new perspective. I also was going as a shopper and not a vendor, so I was able to browse at my leisure.

I knew that one of the fiber processors I use, The Wooly Knob, would be there, so I took 3 bags – 18 pounds total – of my wool with me for them to take back and process. The parents of one of the owners have a spinning mill where they will spin my roving into yarn for me. So I am having that done for the first time. To my surprise, he said they could have the yarn back to me when I see them at The Wool Gathering in September. I will have a booth there, so it will be great to have that for sale!

So after the wool drop, I meandered my way over to the animal barns. I spotted some beautiful Icelandics right away. Their farm was located nearby, so I may visit them next time I am up there. I saw some other Icelandics owned by another farm and I wasn’t as impressed. I guess I am developing a trained eye for quality.

There were other breeds of sheep, but none that stole my heart. So I went over to the other barn where the goats were… mostly Angora goats which were actually what I first intended to purchase when I started my flock, but something changed my mind at the time. I am still in love with these little creatures … they are just adorable.

Check out the horns on this buck (male goat)!!! Both does and bucks have horns, but these were amazing!

They come in different colors ... I think this one is considered black .. maybe gray.
This is a white one ... I think it was a kid (a baby). Oh! I walked up to one pen and there were two very small baby goats in with their mom. I was very surprised that an owner would bring a mom with babies so young ... much too stressful. Turns out she didn't know the doe was pregnant and the babies were born the night before! Surprise!!

This one is considered Red in color. This is the color I bought and mixed it with some white lamb's wool.

I met this young girl holding this goat on a leash. It was the most adorable of them all. So I think it's time I purchased a couple of them. I'll see what I can find when I go to The Wool Gathering next month!

I purchased a pound of mohair (Angora goat fleece) while I was there with the intention of combining it with some of my wool to make a wool-mohair blended roving. It will make it much softer.

On to the booths … I have been wanting to learn to felt, so I purchased a hat form and a needle felter to do needle felting. You basically lay the roving over the form in thin amounts in different directions and poke it with the 10-needle needle felter until the fibers intertwine and make felt. You keep adding layers until it is as thick as you want it.

I also met a lady who did something called nuno felting. It is a very, wispy thin layer of felting into a piece of fabric … something drape-y and loosely woven, silk for example. She had a stunning scarf that she had made unlike anything I’d ever seen. So I decided I needed to learn how to do that too. I found a book that taught all different types of “wet felting” … felting by using water and rubbing to make the wool felt. I experimented yesterday with a small piece of fabric to learn the process. I think it came out correctly; I just didn’t use an appropriate fabric. It wrinkled in the last step of the process, but I have other remnant pieces of fabric to play.

My last purchase was a Coopworth sheep fleece. I had never heard of them … they are a cross between a Romney ewe and a Border Leister ram. The fleece was beautiful and so clean (she puts coats on them) … so I had to have one.

It was a wonderful day and I’m so glad we decided to make the trip. I always learn a lot from my fellow shepherds and fiber crafters.

Gone Camping

Waiting (napping) while the pie irons cook.

When I told my neighbor we were going camping, she asked why we didn't camp on our own 30 acres. I told her we wanted something wooded and remote. She said, well then camp on my property. She owns 35 wooded acres. No, we were off to Hocking Hills, an area in south central Ohio that is a lot more wooded and mountainous than the flat farm land here in the Dayton area.

The boys and I packed up along with the dogs early Thursday morning and Preston came out on his motorcycle after work that evening. We pitched the tents. They boys each had their own (a good thing). Valur slept with Colton and Annie slept with Ben. They all thought that was pretty cool since the dogs aren't allowed upstairs in the house.

Camping for me is all about waking up in the morning to a chill in the air, a fire going and warming up some water for coffee. We make our camping coffee in a coffee press (too spoiled to make instant).

We made some "fun" food while we were camping. I brought some sweet corn and we grilled the corn in the husk for about 15-20 minutes. We didn't soak them as most people will tell you to do. It was amazingly good. You just pulled back the husk and used it for a handle and after thoroughly soaking it in butter and salt, just lean over into the weeds and chow down!

We used pie irons for a couple of meals. For breakfast, we brought pancake batter made at home and put it in the pie iron along with some fruit. If you've not seen a pie iron, it's two pieces of cast iron about the size of a piece of bread that hook together with a long handle and you cook it over a fire.

We also made pie iron pizzas. We made some with Italian bread and some with Pillsbury pizza dough. You put the sauce and toppings on one piece of bread and then top it with another and close it up. The key is NOT TO OVER FILL!!! I also took a hunk of dough and put it on a cast iron skillet ... it cooks very quickly. Then put the toppings on. That is oh so yummy. Try it at home!

You'll see from one of the pictures the view from our campsite and the big tree. Colton wanted to use a rope we brought along to make a swing. Well, the rope got caught in the crotch of a big branch and they spent the rest of the weekend thinking up ways to get the rope down. Just as we were finished packing to go home they freed the rope. It was such a great way to occupy their otherwise idle time and exercise their ingenuity that we think we'll throw a rope up in a tree next time just on account.

We did lots of camping when I was a kid and my parents always played cribbage at night after we went to bed. So of course there has to be a cribbage game in the camping gear. Ben challenged me first ... he lost by 2 points. Colton was next ... nope, not even close. Then Preston took a chance ... nope. As a kid, I heard 15-2, 15-4, pair is 6 ... as I was dozing off to sleep. When we got home, Sunday night we played partners ... me and Colton against Ben and Preston. Our team won that one.

Friday we went on a 7 mile / 4-hour canoe & kayaking trip. Preston and I along with the dogs took the canoe. The boys each had a kayak. I didn't think the dog thing was going to be a good idea at first ... dogs walking nervously around a boat ... not a good thing. But they finally settled down and slept for most of the trip.

They have a new zip line attraction in Hocking Hills. For a mere $85 you can ride in a harness for 3 hours (ouch! without a bathroom?) on a zip line thru the trees from platform to platform like a modern day Tarzan. We got to watch several people zipping thru the trees as we canoed. It does sound very cool ... but $85, not now.

Near the end of the trip, Preston and I wanted to try out the kayaks, so we switched with the boys. I'll just say this ... it was a good decision to spend most of the trip with the boys in separate vessels. I also learned that I could never do 4 hours of kayaking. You are much lower to the water than canoing so it's a whole different set of muscles. I also was feeling the pain from the twisting that Dudley did to my wrist during the sheep deliver.

So we ended the trip with me in the canoe with Ben and Colton back in a kayak.

We came back to the campsite exhausted and hungry. So we started a fire for dinner. When we arrived on a Thursday, there was only one other camper that we could see near us, so it was a very peaceful first day. As the evening progressed on Friday, the campsite was filling up quickly. Next to us was a group of adults who felt the need to blast their radios and started partying as soon as the tents were up.

Now I don't mean to be an old fuddy-duddy, but there is a place for loud music and drunken parties and there is a place for quiet sitting around a camp fire. Well, it turned out all of their friends had sites, too. And before we knew it there were dozens of people and several sites. It went on well into the morning and concluded with a woman vomiting very near our tent.

It was a disappointment to say the least and even my quiet morning was not to be. They somehow managed to get up at 7am and start again. We went hiking that day, but decided to eat an early dinner and not spend Saturday night there.

The hiking was fun. We went to Old Man's Cave ... you can see the pictures below. We took the dogs. Valur was overwhelmed with excitement ... you can tell he doesn't get out much. "So much to do! So much to sniff! So much to pee on!" Pour Annie was acting like an old lady, but Preston was more than happy to let her walk slowly. It was very pretty and very well done to make it accessible for people to hike without it being tacky.

Camping at home the last night turned out nicely even if I didn't wake to a fire. We had planned to go mini-golfing on Sunday near the campsite, so we did that here at Young's Dairy and got ice cream, too. We played cribbage and some other board games that evening and had corn on the grill again. So I guess we did end up camping on our own 30 acres after all.

Here are some pictures ... I hope the captions line up ok ... I was having trouble with that and couldn't rearrange the pictures so they sort of jump around.

Preston kayaking

Natural Bridge (see the rock formation above creates a bridge from one side to the other)


Looking down into Old Man's Cave


Inside Old Man's Cave



Valur checking out Ben's tent



Preston, Deb and the dogs at the Natural Bridge -- this was actually a stop along our canoe trip.


Colton kayaking



Colton on our hike to Old Man's Cave



The boys brushing their teeth (LOL! it was too funny to resist)



Ben and Colton in the canoe... sorry puppies!


Ben with all the food unpacked.


Ben kayaking


The Lower Falls


Colton's tent