INDOOR ACTIVITIES IN JULY

Rain is still falling here at EdgeOfHeaven.  I am having some new fencing done and when posts are going into the ground there is water 500 cm down which is great as the water has gone down rather than just running off the surface.

Rainy weather encourages indoor activity so last week I dyed some wool using forest green and blue dyes. I used the same dye on both a light tan and white alpaca with some interesting results.

This is Camilo on a bad hair day, but Camilo has a very soft suri fleece.  He is the largest alpaca and stands taller than me.  He has also assumed he is superior to the other alpacas and regularly dominates food bowls.  However when Udo the llama gets frisky, Camilo initially stands his ground but will retreat when push comes to shove.  As a human, it is not advisable to stand at the rear of Camilo as he has a very powerful fast backward kick.

When I applied the dye to Camilo's fleece, I didn't stir it as I wanted to retain some of the tan colour.  It resulted in a wonderful fusion of tan, forest green and blue.  I think I will felt this as if I spin it, it may just become one murky colour.

This was a worthwhile experiment - putting the chocolate sheep wool on the left into the dye and stirring it around.  All the bleached tips grabbed the colour and the wool became a real blue/black.

And now for the really showy, but expected result - just thrust some of Picasso's white neck fleece in and the depth of colour is amazing.  Once again I didn't stir this and when you pull apart the dreadlocks (as Picasso is a suri), some white remains inside.

Another article on the fabric adventure is the latest nuno scarf.  I had spun some black alpaca wool into which I had carded some Seve's brown colour.  As I wanted to use this wool, I chose a variegated grey tissue silk and created a pattern where the wool was laid out in an S shape.  When the scarf was felted, I knitted some of the wool and added it to the ends.  This provided a weight to the ends of the scarf which is handy on a windy day when your scarf often blows away.

The month would not be complete without some spinning, so here is a skein of white alpaca which will probably be knitted into some more white alpaca dolls.  Vijay is very reluctantly modelling it.

Latest little girl - SEVILLA

SEVE is a most handsome huacaya and the new little paca doll is appropriately called SEVILLA.  The brown wool has been spun and knitted from Seve's cria (baby) fleece.

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WELCOME JULY

Welcome to the second month of winter.  Last week provided a week of much needed rain and this week should be fine, but much colder.  The olive grove has been a little neglected, so this week should be an opportunity to get up there and into the pruning.  I have pruned about a third of the 70 trees and pruning also includes weeding and checking the drippers under each tree.

On the weekend we picked the last of the limes and the first of the grapefruit.  This poor little grapefruit tree is about 1 mtr high and has at least 20 large grapefruit.  The one for breakfast was delicious, juicy and only had 1 seed.  The oranges are also ripening, but may be at least another week.

All the citrus trees have quite bad black spot, so I will have to get up there and thin them out and use some white oil which seemed to clean them up last year.

The nearly one year old grape vines are all losing their leaves, so I am presuming when all the leaves have dropped that they, too, will have their rather vicious pruning back to 2 buds.  The fig tree is also nearly bare and the walnut is back to stalks.  The 2 avocados and macadamia are looking really healthy as are the apples.

We have purchased some portable electric fencing so that we can let 'the boys' into the grove to eat the pasture, but keep them away from the trees.

And now for the new 'bug' - I have been educated about slaters.  I have watched these little hard backed creatures first eat my petunias, then my peas and finally my fledgeling tomatoes.  So when I was to plant this bed for the fourth time - with snow peas and broad beans, I was going to prinkle around a powder which the nursery told me would eliminate my little friends.  However when I read the label, it said not to put it near plants you are going to eat.  I have instead used ash from the fireplace around all the plants thinking perhaps it might inhibit the night stalkers.

Celery bed

 
In another raised bed I had to harvest all the spinach as the RLEM (red legged earth mite) had started to get into two of the plants.  Last year they ate all the leaves of my potatoes in the ground, so I am very  wary of them.  Unfortunately no one seems to have a cure for them.  Their taste so far seems to be for soft leaves, so they have not touched my celery, which is not far from harvest.

Finally the rain has brought some rather creative hair styles for the alpacas.  The huacayas usually have this springy little "bonnet", but when wet you can really appreciate a bad hair day.  Also see Scrumpy on a fair weather day when he looks much more elegant.