The Duck Report - now with far fewer ducks
Another missive from my mother in the hinterland where COVID-19 isn't as much of a threat as rogue squirrels.
Duck Report 4 November 12th 2020
Freddy was miffed for two days by having his horn trimmed. The following day everyone was wormed a procedure they all have to endure twice a year. This year the wormers were orange flavoured but no one seemed to think that was any better. The process is quite painless but you can’t convince a sheep of that. Michael and I drag in a wood gate and pen the sheep in a corner, then I squeeze the correct amount of wormer into the side of their mouth. Twix gets a whole tube while the sheep receive about a third of a tube each.
The warm weather has lasted long enough to allow me to finish weeding the flower garden and split some of the larger plant balls. The day lilies in particular got out of hand and were huge balls of roots almost too heavy to lift. Yesterday I top dressed the flower bed with manure which may or may not have weed seed in it so we will have to wait until the spring to see how successful I was.
I have two black squirrels back at the bird feeders. We caught one, but the dogs rushed me as I was going out to collect it, and knocked over the cage letting him out. Being the useless twerps they are, they did not catch it either.
Hunting season will be over on the 15th and I, for one, will be glad to change our walks to include the woods. I have heard very little shooting, so we may have been safe in the woods, but there is no point in risking getting shot. I always wear an orange vest but some hunters will shoot anything.
On Tuesday we were walking the dogs around the field and a deer came out of the woods and across the winter wheat. She saw us and ignored our presence until Roxie decided she might be fun to play with. She was so unconcerned that I doubt she had been shot at recently, so perhaps we have a lot fewer hunters these days.
Duck Report 5 November 15th 2020
We have been putting the animals out in the jumps field to give the home pasture a chance to grow a little before the freeze up forces us to use that field only.
Twix has been giving me a hard time leading him out so I started using a lead shank with a chain on it. The chain wrapped over his nose seems to do the trick and he can’t drag me anymore.
Freddy and Rupert have both forgiven me for worming, and ask for carrots every day when back in the barn. I still can’t get Dorothy to warm up to me although I have never done anything to upset her.
I am not sure why I am still calling this the Duck Report as we are now down to one ancient duck who is at least 11 years old. Her partner refused to come in the barn at night this fall and eventually disappeared, all we found was a small clump of feathers.
On Thursday I rented a carding machine from the Spinners Guild. I wanted to see if I liked it to decide whether or not to buy one. It worked very well, but I was carding black wool and someone had previously been carding dog hair and white wool. The result is my nice black wool is full of white hairs. I cleaned the machine 4 times but never managed to stop the white bits coming out in the black. Tomorrow I will take it back. My next plan is to contact a local person who washes and cards wool and see if I can send some fleece to her. I like carding and blending, but it is time consuming and without it I may get more accomplished.
Liam called last Sunday and talked Michael into a video call on his iPad. It was great to see him and afterward Michael was so pleased with himself for being able to work out how to do the call that he is really looking forward to the next one and maybe also hooking up with Blythe and her husband.
Duck Report 6 November 19th 2020
On Tuesday I talked Michael into driving me to Nestleton - isn’t that a lovely name - this is where Ann McDow lives and she has a whole washing and carding operation. I packed up 7 bags of wool and we delivered them to her. Nestleton is about 2 hours away from us but nearer than Elora which is the only other place I know where I can get wool processed.
Ann showed me around explaining what she can do, besides washing and carding wool she can blend and also has a machine which can spin a thick rope-like yarn. My wool will sit in line until she gets to it, which will be about 2 months. Not great but better than Elora, which I understand is about 1 year.
I still have plenty of wool here carded that I can keep spinning, so now I have to keep working on my weaving. The piece I have on at the moment is a test length which I am trying out all the patterns given in the weaving pattern book. I weave about 2” of each pattern which allows me to see if I like it. I am up to about 7 so far. I am a little confused as the book shows the patterns with 4 treadle moves and my loom has 6 treadles, so I am still trying to come to grips with the process.
This week my last dye book arrived and this one deals with lichen dyes. I have been on the internet trying to find photos of the fungus she talks about but there is some difficulty as her names do not seem to be the same as all known specimens. I think what I will do is find the lichens available around here, collect enough to produce a bath and process based on one of her recipes and see what I get. On yesterday’s walk I found 5 different lichens in reasonable quantity and have identified them on the internet. None are ones she suggests, so I will go ahead and collect the most abundant and try it and see what happens. I will use the AM method (ammonia method), which is very traditional, and takes 16 weeks. If nothing works after that amount of time soaking, it's probably not worth the effort.
Monday we did the 3-week grocery shopping trip and I had scoured the cookie book for ingredients needed. Now this week is the baking week for all the Christmas stuff. So far we have 4 Christmas cakes, yet another carrot cake, and now I am starting on cookies and squares. The dogs are very excited about this development as they get to lick the bowls.
(blythe notes: Mum's progress towards becoming a complete wood witch is both frightening and amazing, but I'll put up with it because I know she's sending me cookies in the mail)
Duck Report 4 November 12th 2020
Freddy was miffed for two days by having his horn trimmed. The following day everyone was wormed a procedure they all have to endure twice a year. This year the wormers were orange flavoured but no one seemed to think that was any better. The process is quite painless but you can’t convince a sheep of that. Michael and I drag in a wood gate and pen the sheep in a corner, then I squeeze the correct amount of wormer into the side of their mouth. Twix gets a whole tube while the sheep receive about a third of a tube each.
The warm weather has lasted long enough to allow me to finish weeding the flower garden and split some of the larger plant balls. The day lilies in particular got out of hand and were huge balls of roots almost too heavy to lift. Yesterday I top dressed the flower bed with manure which may or may not have weed seed in it so we will have to wait until the spring to see how successful I was.
I have two black squirrels back at the bird feeders. We caught one, but the dogs rushed me as I was going out to collect it, and knocked over the cage letting him out. Being the useless twerps they are, they did not catch it either.
Hunting season will be over on the 15th and I, for one, will be glad to change our walks to include the woods. I have heard very little shooting, so we may have been safe in the woods, but there is no point in risking getting shot. I always wear an orange vest but some hunters will shoot anything.
On Tuesday we were walking the dogs around the field and a deer came out of the woods and across the winter wheat. She saw us and ignored our presence until Roxie decided she might be fun to play with. She was so unconcerned that I doubt she had been shot at recently, so perhaps we have a lot fewer hunters these days.
Duck Report 5 November 15th 2020
We have been putting the animals out in the jumps field to give the home pasture a chance to grow a little before the freeze up forces us to use that field only.
Twix has been giving me a hard time leading him out so I started using a lead shank with a chain on it. The chain wrapped over his nose seems to do the trick and he can’t drag me anymore.
Freddy and Rupert have both forgiven me for worming, and ask for carrots every day when back in the barn. I still can’t get Dorothy to warm up to me although I have never done anything to upset her.
I am not sure why I am still calling this the Duck Report as we are now down to one ancient duck who is at least 11 years old. Her partner refused to come in the barn at night this fall and eventually disappeared, all we found was a small clump of feathers.
On Thursday I rented a carding machine from the Spinners Guild. I wanted to see if I liked it to decide whether or not to buy one. It worked very well, but I was carding black wool and someone had previously been carding dog hair and white wool. The result is my nice black wool is full of white hairs. I cleaned the machine 4 times but never managed to stop the white bits coming out in the black. Tomorrow I will take it back. My next plan is to contact a local person who washes and cards wool and see if I can send some fleece to her. I like carding and blending, but it is time consuming and without it I may get more accomplished.
Liam called last Sunday and talked Michael into a video call on his iPad. It was great to see him and afterward Michael was so pleased with himself for being able to work out how to do the call that he is really looking forward to the next one and maybe also hooking up with Blythe and her husband.
Duck Report 6 November 19th 2020
On Tuesday I talked Michael into driving me to Nestleton - isn’t that a lovely name - this is where Ann McDow lives and she has a whole washing and carding operation. I packed up 7 bags of wool and we delivered them to her. Nestleton is about 2 hours away from us but nearer than Elora which is the only other place I know where I can get wool processed.
Ann showed me around explaining what she can do, besides washing and carding wool she can blend and also has a machine which can spin a thick rope-like yarn. My wool will sit in line until she gets to it, which will be about 2 months. Not great but better than Elora, which I understand is about 1 year.
I still have plenty of wool here carded that I can keep spinning, so now I have to keep working on my weaving. The piece I have on at the moment is a test length which I am trying out all the patterns given in the weaving pattern book. I weave about 2” of each pattern which allows me to see if I like it. I am up to about 7 so far. I am a little confused as the book shows the patterns with 4 treadle moves and my loom has 6 treadles, so I am still trying to come to grips with the process.
This week my last dye book arrived and this one deals with lichen dyes. I have been on the internet trying to find photos of the fungus she talks about but there is some difficulty as her names do not seem to be the same as all known specimens. I think what I will do is find the lichens available around here, collect enough to produce a bath and process based on one of her recipes and see what I get. On yesterday’s walk I found 5 different lichens in reasonable quantity and have identified them on the internet. None are ones she suggests, so I will go ahead and collect the most abundant and try it and see what happens. I will use the AM method (ammonia method), which is very traditional, and takes 16 weeks. If nothing works after that amount of time soaking, it's probably not worth the effort.
Monday we did the 3-week grocery shopping trip and I had scoured the cookie book for ingredients needed. Now this week is the baking week for all the Christmas stuff. So far we have 4 Christmas cakes, yet another carrot cake, and now I am starting on cookies and squares. The dogs are very excited about this development as they get to lick the bowls.
(blythe notes: Mum's progress towards becoming a complete wood witch is both frightening and amazing, but I'll put up with it because I know she's sending me cookies in the mail)