Haylage

We decided this winter that we would keep our cow one more summer to fatten him up a little bit more before butchering so that put us in a bit of a pinch to find hay close to home and that didn't cost an arm and a leg as we had nearly exhausted the stockpile that we had.

I made some phone calls up and down the island to find that most of the cheaper bales of hay had been sold or were just to far to justify taking the truck and trailer so I thought I'd try my luck and call a nearby farmer that I know just by name on the off chance that he might have a few spare bales. Success!! He had a handful of the giant haylage bales that he could sell to me and at a really great price :)



I wasted no time rounding up the kids and getting them all plus Hubby into the truck. The kids had so much fun watching the tractor spear the ball and then watching it dangle and swing lower into the back of our truck box and then sink down nice and low :)

There are approximately 10 bales of hay in each roll of haylage plus some and a good sized bale weighs around 80 pounds so I'm estimating that one of these rounds weighs somewhere in the neighborhood of 800-900 pounds, maybe more.

So with that in mind getting one of these guys out of the truck is interesting *grin*.

My dad is a rebel at heart so he likes to tie one end of a rope around the haylage and the other end around the tree, then gun the truck and rip off as the rope snaps tight and the ball stays behind LOL.

My husband on the other hand took a more gentler approach and thought that rolling it out with foot power would do the trick :)

Going, going....

Gone :)

Who knew these babies actually bounce? But they do! Try it sometime it's quite amusing *grin*.

Hugs,
Rosina

Spring Chicks

I am moving full steam ahead into spring and surrounding myself with cheery colors and springy items like these little chicks I've been making *grin*.

I had some old sheep's fleece in my craft cupboard that hadn't been carded so I lugged out my big drum carder and cleaned it up nicely to use as the centers of my chicks. I just couldn't bear to use all of my new pretty yellow wool rovings to make them so I wound a tight ball using the natural cream fleece (sorry I can't remember what kind it is) and then just wrapped enough of my yellow corriedale roving around to cover the white and then wet felted them.

I'm really pleased with how the yellow balls turned out :) I was afraid that the yellow would slip on the white as I started to lather and rub it around creating bald spots showing through but I made sure I was extra gentle and it blended together beautifully. For the bottom of the egg shell I used an old plastic easter egg as my form and worked the wool over top of it so that it formed a nice concave shape for the chick bodies to sit in and I trimmed up the edges once they were dry so that they looked like that had been cracked open *grin*.

I was at a bit of a loss though when it came to how to felt a sheet of wool that I could cut out shapes from for the tops of the chick's heads as I've never tried doing it before. All I could think of was that I've seen others do it using bubble wrap or window screen and other similar things to keep the wool together while they agitated it but I didn't have any of that on hand. That was until I spied one of my reusable mesh produce bags! I loaded it up with enough wool roving to make a small 6 inch square, put it in the bottom of my sink on a cutting board and lathered it up and it worked! I think next time I'll work it a little bit longer to make sure it is a little more compact but it felted together enough to cut out little pieces to put on top of the chick's heads to look like bits of broken shell :)

What do you think? Do they look like they're popping out of their shells *grin*. My oldest was giving me a bit of a hard time before I put their eyes and beaks on because he said they looked like tennis balls with stars on their heads LOL.

Hugs,
Rosina

PS. Looking for more crafty ideas or inspiration? Pop over to Natural Suburbia's Creative Friday and see what others are up to :)