Hasselbring's Harmony Ranch visit

Our spring break "stay-cation" wrapped up with a small road trip to Hasselbring's Harmony Ranch in Concordia, Missouri. It is a little over an hour away from our current home in Shawnee and Thursday was really the last of the nice weather. So it was perfect for a farm visit.

In my quest to learn about alpacas I discovered there are two types: huacaya and suri. On our previous visits to alpaca ranches we have seen huacaya like these.

huacaya alpaca at Knoblock's Prairie Ranch - look like fluffy teddy bears

 Hasselbring's Harmony Ranch has only suri alpacas. They have long flowing, lustrous fiber; not soft and springy like the huacaya. Here's a picture of a suri alpaca.

This is the best close-up I had. You can see the definition in the fleece - and how adorable these creatures are!

These were a few "boys" showing some color variety.

Patty Hasselbring showed Brent, Skylr and me a basket of some of the yarn they had processed from these alpacas. We were quite impressed with the softness!

Being a novice hand spinner, I was curious about how difficult this fiber would be to spin. So Patty sent me home with a gift of some fleece from the light fawn fellow in the back of the picture above.

Now you can see that "lustre" in the fiber. It is heavy, silky and shiny.

That smaller-than-a-loaf-of-bread size bunch of fiber weighs more than one of the large pillow-sized bags of fiber from Knoblock's Prairie Ranch. I have really enjoyed processing the raw fiber that I have from the huacayas - and still have a bunch of it. But this was so different! So I wanted to give it a try right away. Here's how it worked:

I fill the stationary comb 1/2 full with fiber and start combing until all fiber is on moving comb.
I can't believe how long it is!

Remove the short pieces left on the stationary comb and switch combs.
Then comb again until the fiber is all clean and on the moving comb.

Now I have a smooth silky (and did I mention how long it is) bunch of fiber.

Next I pull from the center to form this long soft rope. It is very light and must be handled gently.

I loosely roll it into a ball for easy handling. And I'm ready to spin! This was two combs of fiber.

And here is the single ply yard. It wasn't hard to spin at all. But it was definitely slick. It feels very soft. 

I will comb more today to add to this batch. The next step, since this is a single-ply, will be to set the twist by soaking the yarn.

I've been adding these first attempts at spinning to a crochet hat. Everything so far has been huacaya. So I'm excited to add this suri yarn next to the huacaya. That way we can really feel the difference.

What I think so far is that it's super-soft! I'll post again when we can compare the two types of fiber in my hat :-)

P.S. Thanks so much to the Hasselbrings for the introduction to this beautiful fiber!

Gravel and drain tile

Yesterday was another nice day and the last day of vacation for Brent and me. Like last year, we had a "stay-cation" and visited some Kansas City and Lawrence attractions and restaurants with our son Skylr. Jeremy was visiting grandparents in Seattle and Logan was out of town, too. We decided we should take another look at the progress on the new house since we had a free day at the end of our week.

Rick (our builder) and his son Dave were out at the Farm working which gave us an opportunity to talk. They were busy and dusty - really dusty…in fact, they had been spreading the gravel that surrounds the new drain tile for the foundation. It was a lot of gravel!

Here's a tour around the foundation that shows their work:

We start on the West side where the parking area will be.
Hard to see it, but the "garage" foundation on the north is filled with gravel now - ready for the rebar and floor.

And here is my favorite view of the "front door". You can see the gravel that surrounds the drain tile.

Here is the view from the Southwest corner. The shiny metal stuff over the foundation
and insulation is the termite shield. The ground plumbing inside the foundation is now covered with gravel too.
There will be rebar, insulation and PEX tubing put in before the slab is poured here.

Here is the view of the South side of the house (with the beautiful mass walls).

This is the Southeast corner. This is the lowest corner of the grade around the house.
So this corner is where the drain tile will drain to and away from the house - and there
are the tubes that are the drain tile.
Those tubes were rolled up inside the foundation in previous posts.

This is the view from the North. It's easy to see why it took twice as much gravel as we anticipated.
Also easy to see why Rick and Dave were covered with dust!

You may notice in the last photo that there is a lot of foundation showing on the North side. That will actually be below grade when all is done. So we will be building some significant retaining walls and back filling as soon as the slabs are poured.

We spent a lot of our time yesterday discussing the placement of those retaining walls with Rick. Our hope is to use natural stone. There are several trees (most notably the maple on the west side of the house) that we are trying to preserve. The "rock guy" will help us determine the best way to place the walls. It's pretty hard to envision where they will be at this point.

All I know is it's going to be awesome - heck, it already is :-)

Spring sprung and ground plumbing appeared!

All it took was one warm day. We had just noticed the tips of the leaves after the snow finally melted and then, Wow!

crocus blooming next to our pots

Of course, we are in Kansas. So the next day we had snow. But this was one glorious day when I was actually home to enjoy the sporadic beauty this time of year give us. And I wasn't the only one that loved the opportunity to be in the sun...

Dora snoozing in the sunshine under the holly bushes

Our builder was busy taking advantage of the good weather too. The ground plumbing was installed. So we had to go and check that out. We took some detailed photos for reference - just in case we ever need to remember where it is once it's all under the concrete. Here's just one pic to give you a general idea.

drains and main plumbing installed for lower level

In addition, our foundation got it's layer (or two) of insulation as well as some stucco coating.

detail of the insulation around foundation

view of front door area showing where foundation insulation stops

We are going to have a very warm (and cool) house. I can't wait to be in this place on these sometimes warm, sometimes blustery and cold days as we wait for Spring to make it's official arrival.

But for now we, like Dora, will keep enjoying what we have whenever we can - and dream sunny day dreams ;-)

Nice weather and hurricane straps

We had really beautiful day today and our builder made it out to the property. He sent us a picture of his handiwork - hurricane straps :-)

Given our location on a little hill in Kansas, we are thinking this bit of insurance is a good idea.

Hurricane strap attached to foundation - attaches to panel later

Our panels and windows are ordered. In fact the windows should arrive in the next couple of weeks. So our current problem is where to put them until the SIPs panels arrive! They are pretty large but we are hoping we can clear enough space in the old garage on the property to store them.

It's a good thing we put in those chain gates and have a lock on the garage. You just don't think of all those things when you start. But we are certainly glad to have to think about things like this now. The next 2 months should be exciting.

Stay tuned!

Playing with fiber

Remember that bag of raw fiber I got at Knoblock's Prairie? I've been working on it…a little. It's a big bag. We weighed it today and it's close to 7 lbs!

My wonderful husband drove me over to the Yarn Barn in Lawrence just to get me wool combs last weekend. He had given me wool cards for Christmas, but I didn't want to wash the fiber before I processed it, so combs sounded like the thing to have for that. They were expensive!

But worth it.

So here is a series of photos of my first try at processing raw fiber for spinning.

Here is the fiber - right out of the bag

I've lashed the fiber onto the comb (we used a clamp to make it stationary)

Then you start combing until all of the fiber is on the moving comb.
Remove any short stuff left on the stationary comb, unclamp the stationary comb and replace it with the
moving comb that is now full of fiber. And comb again. Repeat until all the fibers are straight.

Here's the way it looks when it's fluffy and combed - a lot like the hair on a troll doll :-)

Now comes the fascinating part. You make a point and slowly pull until it feels it might pull loose.
Then grab again close to the fluff and pull again. It just keeps coming!

See? It turns into this long, silky, lighter-than-air snake of fiber.

Even rolled up it is about the softest stuff I've every felt.
It's really why I fell in love with alpacas.

Then I just spin. Today I've soaked the yarn to set the twist.

I continued combing several batches until I'd gone through about half of the black fiber Rose Ann Knoblock gave me. My drop spindle was over half full when I was finished spinning it all.

This will be a nice addition to the hat that I'm making with all my first tries at hand-spun alpaca fiber. 

I'll probably have to debut my novice creation next fall. Judging by today's weather Spring is here!

Invisible progress and Knoblock's Prairie Ranch visit

Okay...enough about flowers (never)...

But, really, we are making progress every day on building our home at Happy Apple's Farm. The weather has been awful and there is yet another snowstorm on the way. And still yesterday we approved the final plan to make the order of the SIPS panels, roof trusses and floor joists eminent and today we saw and approved the layout of the PEX tubing for the radiant heating in the floor.

Once ordered, the panels could arrive in as little as 4 weeks. Given the weather, the builder may be hard-pressed to get the flat work done in time. We will keep our fingers crossed. Until now things have moved a little slower than planned. It would be a real shame to have to keep the panels waiting.

Meanwhile, Brent and I have made a visit to another alpaca farm: Knoblock's Prairie Ranch. That was a lot of fun and what a wonderful family and a wealth of experience and knowledge! This is Steve and Rose Ann Knoblock's 30th year raising alpacas.

We learned a bunch about keeping alpacas. Steve is in charge of the herd and showed us around the barn. Here are some photos:

Steve's free-standing feeder design

Feeders in pen and bales of orchard grass hay

Moms and cria wondering why we are in their barn

beautiful mothers in the sun

Steve's self watering bucket design- awesome!

I asked only for a little raw fleece and this is what I got - bags full!

Needless to say, we enjoyed our visit. I am so impressed by the enthusiasm and kindness of the alpaca people I've met so far. They seem to genuinely like the animals they care for - even after living with them for decades. But, really, what's not to like about these gentle creatures with the super-soft fiber?

Brent and I are off to buy wool combs tomorrow so I can start to play with the gift of raw fleece. This collection of fiber should keep me occupied for quite a while. Good thing, with the advance of the next winter storm poised to strike us tomorrow night.

I think I'm going to like spinning fiber to keep myself busy over my winters on the farm :-)

Winter in Paradise

Every winter, right about now, I start getting really tired of cold weather. Tired, impatient, irritable, grumpy. Luckily, in addition to my little collection of orchids and my wonderful husband and boys, I share my home with a lot of plants that flower in winter.

So, just in case you get a little bit of a smile when you see a flower, here are a few snapshots from around my home.

giant red amaryllis by the front door

pink cyclamen - a gift from Margaret

pink amaryllis in our bedroom

the "Thanksgiving" cactus blooming for the second time

waterlily begonia with its pretty cloud of pale pink blossoms

I hope these make you smile too. They choose this time of year to work their magic just to cheer up the cold for us, I think.

There hasn't been much visible progress on the new house at the farm. But things are progressing nonetheless. The details are being pulled together and finalized in preparation for the SIPS panel order and the roof and floor truss orders. Those items will, pretty-much, form the house.

And the next time these flowers appear they will keep us smiling in a sunnier and warmer space at Happy Apple's Farm. That's a thought to keep me smiling.