Today I have a day free for me!! I am going to spend it with Jane Deane (see links) at Duchy Square centre in Princetown on Dartmoor learning to dye “properly”! I know Jane will question my use of “properly” since, as with all artists, she will question the implication that there is a correct and incorrect way to do things.
Perhaps I should say, learning to dye “technically” rather than in the haphazard way I’ve done it so far. Jane will be showing me how to reproduce dyebaths for repeat batches of colour with consistent results. This will mean I can produce more than 8 skeins of one shade which will be a huge advantage.
In preparation, I have wound 60 skeins weighing 5g each of my precious DK cashmere yarn. We will be test dyeing batches to form a library of colour for me to refer to in the future. In the process of course no doubt we shall set the world to rights, have a moan as well as some fun, and find time (I hope!) for some lunch in the pub!
I need some R and R at the moment. The last cashmere kid was born yesterday without mishap and we can now sit back and relax (?) until the next season starts in only two months! Yes, by August I must be moving animals into breeding groups and getting ready for my buck to go to Innovis for semen donation to Canada.
It’s not free time of course because now we have hay making just around the corner and everyone is watching weather forecasts anxiously and checking equipment to make ready. We have the barn swept and cleared ready for the next crop. All we need now is the next window of opportunity to do it. We are hoping to use a large baler this year meaning that big bales lifted by the tractor rather than us will be the norm. We will still make some small bale hay though – about 200 bales. As each year goes by I find the lifting and stacking of these onto the trailer to get them off the field and then into heaps in the barn more and more difficult. Surgery on my wrist in a month’s time will make it impossible so we have to get the hay crop in before then. My neighbour makes over 2000 small bales each year with some help from two farm workers but even so, he puts us to shame. He has spent his entire life doing the hardest possible manual work so I suppose we have some excuse. It’s back breaking work in the heat which is of course essential for hay making. When the job is done, there is absolutely nothing more satisfying than sitting, exhausted, on top of the load on your trailer as it’s hauled into the safety of the barn.
