THINKING GREEN, AS IN GREEN WOOL

Today I let the dust stay where it was in the house and only worked at the farm because I had to.  I just wanted to be lazy and do a bit of hooking. The sun was shining and so I settled down but just couldn't find the right color I wanted. I needed an just barely off white wool for my little cow so I boiled a few onion skins and made a weak solution and remembered that salt is supposed to be a mordant for vegetable base dye, so I added the salt and I wasn't pleased with the dirty looking white I got so I got a bit of dye solution and sprinkles a tiny bit here and there on the wool and then when it was what I thought it should be I added the vinegar and continued to simmer it and this is what I got.

The first photo was taken without a flash and it shows a bit darker color than the real color of the wool.

This second photo was taken with a flash and shows a bit lighter than  the color of the wool.


So my piece of wool is in between these two colors.

I didn't had time to dye another off white piece so I hooked with white. next time i'll use vinegar as mordant because I got better result last time. But I'm pleased how my little piece of wool turned out.

I hope that all my American  blogging friends had a HAPPY THANKSGIVING.    JB

GOT OUR FIRST SNOW TODAY AND IT'S SNOWING CALVES...

It started when I walked in the barn early this morning. There was a new born calf still wet and another cow laying down moaning continuously. I got the flash light as it was too dark to see well in that area and went to check how she was doing and there was a big water sac showing and her water still had not broken.
The men are never in a hurry when I think that the poor cow needs help. I called my son and he was just waking up and is a bit slow in the morning. My husband and my son finally arrived and pulled the huge bull calf out and are both struggling to lift the heavy slimy calf over the cow's body to have his head hanging downward to drain his lungs. The other calf was a big bull too and was shivering as the mother didn't seemed interested in drying him off. She just kept going around the calf.  Some are good mothers and others haven't got much motherly instinct. The men put the two cows out of the ay so I can tend to the calves. I have these calf jackets to keep the calf warm and I also use some blankets. They can get hypothermia and die if they get too cold.

We got our first fluffy snowfall today and everything looked so magical. I took a few photos for the blog. In the first one, the sky is overcast and shortly after in the other photo the sun was shining.

I fed all the animals in my care and worked until noon cleaning pens for the babies.

After lunch I went back to wash my bottles and I went in the back where the overflow of pregnant cows waiting to give birth and found another baby heifer calf being licked cleaned by two cows. Again I have to call my son to come and check which cow calved and have him bring the new born in.

My calf nursery is full and overflowing and I'm sure that there is probably another calf in the barn being born now. I hate to go out in the cold dark to go check.

It seems that I've been at the barn for most of the day today. We had the rest of the cull cattle picked up today and and the breeding technician was here to breed some cows that were in heat and my husband and the hired hand were doing some renovation with the conveyor grain feeder.

I had to drive to town to get another load of calf feed and just finished around 7:00 o'clock this evening.
I had a nice tender onion soup roast of beef in the oven and my husband just put a few potatoes in the microwave and I opened a can of corn and that was our supper.  So ends my day and tomorrow is another day.   JB