Wood working projects

Pulled out the circular saw, drill, and hammer yesterday and knock a few projects off the to do list:

Cover for the chick pen, so they can't stand on their water bucket and then jump out.

Rabbit hiding boxes - the far side is left open.

Picture frame to hold the egg flier my sister drew for me. (It's inside in a plastic sheet protector.) I tried my best to cut all the angles at 45 degrees, yet none of them line up, but at least it looks basically the same at all the corners so maybe people will think it's an intentional style thing?

Rabbit "stake." Chase saw an illustration of this in a book on preserving hides. More on how it works in a future post.

Final project to show off was actually created a few weeks ago. Rabbit butchering station, with two spots on opposite sides so that people can work on two rabbits at once.

Garden & livestock check in

The young rabbits are almost old enough to start mating with each other (10 weeks), so it was time to separate the boys and girls. I moved all the does (mom and two babies) to a new pen.

Mama had spent the previous week with the buck, so I'm expecting another litter around December 10th. (Butchering day for this litter is December 2nd.)

A couple of my hens are getting too much action from the roosters and their backs and shoulders have gotten stripped. It's been going on for a long time, so while the two juvenile roosters who have been in the pen with them for 6-7 weeks are definitely to blame for some of it, the older rooster must have played a part as well. I had been just monitoring but it's bad enough now that I ordered a couple of coats for them. Then I'll monitor again and see if I need to get rid of the two extra roos. (Probably. But one is adorable and the other was supposed to replace the older rooster when he was injured. I'd prefer to keep them if things can work out.)

They got a new straw bale to play with and spread out for me.

Recently I opened the nesting box to collect eggs and scared the Black Sex Link into leaving. She had been about to lay an egg, so it plopped out a moment later on the ground. Finally I know who is laying these amazing giant eggs!

Two huge yolks from her eggs on the bottom and right, and one yolk from someone else's medium sized egg. Wow.

My baby fig tree has five little figs on it, but only one has ripened. With very little pest pressure, I was able to leave it on the tree until it was completely ripe. The first one from my own tree! It was delicious.

My little mandarin tree also had five fruits. One fell off early the other day. It wasn't completely ripe but it was still yummy. Lucky me.

Some day I will have true bounties of fruits...

Spinning targhee braid

My next spinning project is this oh-so-fluffy targhee braid in gray, yellow, and orange.

First step is to spread it out.

Then I divided the entire braid into three vertical sections.

I pre-drafted one of the sections for spinning immediately and curled the other two up for later.

Four hours later, here's what I have!

I wasn't specifically aiming for lace weight again but that's what I came up with. I'll spin the other two sections using the same technique and then ply them together.

First real handspun yarn!

It took a few years, but I did it! I spun an entire 4 oz braid. It's sometimes under or over plied, and the weight varies between lace and super thin cobweb, but I did it! I'm super proud of myself. Here is what the roving looked like:

Here it is being spun up:

Wound onto the niddy noddy:

Setting:

And voila!

It's really hard to capture the colors just right on the finished yarn. It's so pretty in person. I plan to make a lacy shawl from it. (It's 763 yards.)

I had initially planned to do a 3 ply, but I didn't like the way that looked. You couldn't see the variation between yellow and pink and purple as well. So after a quick test, I ditched that plan and decided to leave it as a single.

My next spinning project will be a super fluffy targhee braid, which should actually be much easier for a beginner compared to merino and silk! I'm looking forward to it. I've blocked off time in my calendar for the monthly spinning circle at The Black Squirrel, so I'll get it done much more quickly this time.

PVC niddy noddy, ChiaoGoo Shorties needles

I recently purchased a 1 yard niddy noddy cut from slim wood, but I decided that a stronger, 2 yard one would be useful as well. The wooden one would bend if I pulled too much while winding onto it. This when I hung my yarn to stretch and set:

The hanks with more yardage weren't stretching evenly and still had curly bits.

Here's the new niddy noddy with the problematic hanks rewound:

In other fiber news, I ordered a set of ChaioGoo Shorties (mini circular interchangeable needles). They're hilariously tiny:

Ready for socks! And also just lace any weight projects, as I hadn't had any needles smaller than 2.75 mm.

Bunny ears marked again, 31 days old

10/15/18, 31 days old
Second attempt at sexing.
I now think the black furred kit I'd labeled with red marker is male, and the agouti kit with previously orange, now red marks is female. The good news is that that would still be two good-natured females I can keep from this litter. I'm still not 100% sure on my sexing. Some of the genitalia are obviously male or female, but a couple were ambiguous.

Captive bolt gun for rabbit dispatch

Arrived and tested today. It's simple to use and has a good reputation.