Washing raw wool #2

Time for the "cream" colored wool to go through soaking in detergent and rinsing:

The raw wool, gross but not nearly as bad as the gray one.

First sink full of wash water, again not as bad as before.

After first wash, it is... white!

Clean raw wool. Again there is a slightly greasy feel to it still, but less than the gray wool. It does still have little specks of black dirt here and there.

Washing raw wool

At one of the local yarn stores that Sherry and I stopped at after Fenzi Camp, we found raw wool for sale. It was only $1 per oz, so I grabbed a big bag of 10 ounces to experiment with washing and carding. Half was dark brown with lighter edges, and half was cream.

I decided to tackle the dark brown wool first. Per the instructions the store had given me, I filled the sink with hot water and a small amount of detergent, covered the sink to keep the heat in, and left it until the water was lukewarm.

This was the resulting water:

And this was the resulting... gray wool??

Soak it in plain hot water to rinse. This was the water:

And this was the wool:

Second round. Wash water:

Wool:

Rinsed, then third round of wash water:

And final rinse water, almost clear:

Final wool:

The brown tips are still there, but it's mostly gray. Wow. It still has a slightly greasy feel when I rub it between my fingers, and unfortunately that's what's going to happen when I spin it. The directions stated that washing soda would get rid of grease, though you have to be careful as it will damage the fiber if left in contact for too long. I don't have any on hand but I'll pick it up and do another soak/rinse eventually.

I'm curious to see how the "cream" colored wool will turn out.

Homemade ramen

Some time back, Eli and Rachel treated me to a big bowl of homemade ramen. They had made it by simmering pork feet for 24 hours, making a gelatinous, fatty broth. It was amazing. I do not have the patience to stand at a stove for more than 20 minutes, so I decided to make a pressure cooker version. I used the pork feet, chicken wings, sauteed onions, and thumb-sized piece of ginger.

The result was not as gelatinous as Eli's broth, but close enough.

Plop that onto some store bought udon noodles.

After microwaving and adding a soft boiled egg. Just look at all that fat floating on the surface. Yum! (Also added scallions after the picture.)

The thumb-sized piece of ginger was too much - I could pick out the taste in the finished soup. Next time I will use half that, and also two smaller onions or one large one, rather than the two large onions I'd found. Other than that, it's a delicious hot meal!

Broody hen adventures

Back in March and April, my Blue Laced Wyandotte started to be broody. This means that she was spending nearly all day and night sitting in a nesting box, only leaving to eat, drink, and poop. I was preparing for my move so I didn't pay her much attention.

After the move she stopped being broody for a while, but then took it up again. Most of May and June were spent in the nesting boxes. She became more ornery as I kept reaching under her to remove the eggs she was sitting on.

After two of my other girls died from heat exhaustion, I decided to let the Wyandotte try to incubate some eggs. I gathered a few and stuck them underneath her. All was good for two days. Then I checked on her, and found that she had left the incubating eggs and instead was sitting on fresh eggs that another hen had recently laid.

So I decided that she needed to incubate eggs in her own little pen, with a single nest, forcing her to sit on the correct eggs. It took six days to gather six (hopefully fertilized) eggs. I made sure to regularly tip them from one side to the other while they waited (to keep the yolk from sticking to one side of the egg, which harms development).

I put her in her pen a day early.

 And then arranged the six eggs in the nest, and put the top of the crate on to give her shelter/privacy.

Over the course of the next week, the Wyandotte pushed the eggs out of the back of the crate, where she slept at night, and spent all day hanging out outside the crate. *face palm*

I let her out after a week. I was about ready to butcher her - if she's not laying because she's broody but she won't successfully sit on a clutch of eggs, her only value is as eye candy.

Lo and behold, the week spent in the pen has broken her of the broody state. She is now laying eggs again, almost one per day. I can tell because they're a much paler color than the eggs I was collecting while she was broody.

I decided to buy some chicks online, as four hens isn't quite enough eggs for me except during the summer months. I decided to order a few silkies since they have a great reputation for sitting and raising chicks. The place I ordered from had a minimum of 15 bantams per order. My friend Sherry joined the order to get more Golden Sebrights for herself. Ironically, while looking at the website, I decided to throw in a few unusual bantam breeds just for fun. I guess I CAN keep a few hens around just as eye candy.

Second and third solar dehydrator runs

My first try at the solar dehydrator had resulted in tasty but blackened peach slices. My second and third tries created perfectly dehydrated peaches and apples.

I scarfed down a fair amount of the dried fruit. However the point is to dehydrate fruit while it's in season (and cheap) so that I can eat it year round. I put the rest in baggies, labeled with contents and dates, into the freezer. That puts them out of sight, out of mind, and guarantees that they'll be fresh just in case the dehydration isn't enough. I need to also dehydrate a batch and leave it unfrozen to test how long it lasts, but I'm not sure how to keep myself from eating it in the meantime...

 

Reloading yarn

I bought 2 skeins of Berroco Flicker in the color "albrecht." Together that is 378 yards. I decided to use them for a pattern that calls for 350-370 yards. I knew that I was cutting it close, but forged ahead.

I ran out of yarn only 2/3rds of the way through the pattern. WHAT

I went online to purchase more and found that this yarn has been discontinued. Frantically searched and found a website that had 3 skeins in stock. Bought all of them.

There was one more potential problem - the new skeins might not match the old ones exactly, since they would probably be from a different dye lot. Luck was on my side: the dye lot was exactly the same on the 3 new ones as on the 2 I'd already used. Win!

Sexy chicken

The Gold Laced Wyandotte is enjoying sunbathing.

Duct tape dress form failure

Back in March I had a few friends over and we had a duct tape dress form making party.

Sadly, the tape I used is not holding up. At first just the neck kept popping off despite more and more reinforcements, but now the entire seam down the back has split open.

It would be hard to retape at this point and still keep the shape accurate, so I think I need to call it a loss. At least I can reuse the stuffing.

Perfecting yogurt

The key to making a thick, creamy yogurt with maximum flavor?

Minimum of 14 hours in the Instant Pot.

I make it without added flavoring or sugar, then eat it with fruit if I want dessert.

Pretty glittery bug screens

My apartment has bug screens, but it turns out there are little flies around here that crawl right through the mesh.

Yikes.

So I went to JoAnn's and purchased sheer, glittery organza that was on sale. I used thumbtacks to attach it to the window frame. No bugs so far, and it looks festive.

I didn't trim the excess fabric to maximize the chances of reusing it in a future location.

First solar dehydrator test

I wanted a solar dehydrator so that I could put fresh fruit into storage without using electricity or gas. Some months back I was able to make a trade with a dog training client - he bought the supplies and put it together for me in exchange for training lessons. I waited until a harvest of fresh organic fruit was on sale at the grocery store to test it out. Finally, peaches arrived!

And the dehydrator worked TOO well. Due to a busy schedule, I left them inside for about 36 hours, on a day that reached a high of nearly 100 degrees.

Surprisingly, the blackness is mostly cosmetic - they still taste like peaches, just a little less so than the non-burned slices.

Besides figuring out the optimal temperature and length of time for various types of fruit, there's one more thing I need to do. If you look closely at the first picture, you'll see that the lid does not sit flush with the frames that hold the screens. It used to, but the wood has warped a bit during its time in storage. I purchased silicone sealant to close off a couple of spots where the wire came away from its frame, and foam weather stripping to seal the gaps between the frames and lid. That will keep bugs away from my precious fruit!