It has been a very eventful week at Pistyll Gwyn. Great excitement all round, as Dylan, our two year old male has come back to stay after hanging out with the lads at Alpacas of Wales.I hadn’t seen him in the year since he left, and whilst he’s still obviously Dylan, I was quite taken aback by how strikingly good looking  he has become as he approaches adulthood.

Dylan is the light fawn offspring of Jolimont Lavender and Bozedown Patriot – the Huacaya Supreme Champion at the British Alpaca Society show 2007, so he has an impressive bloodline, and we’re hoping he will produce some equally impressive cria in the future.

We’ll be putting him over our girls this year, and once we have seen his cria, we’ll be deciding whether to offer him for stud services at market rates in 2012. In the meantime, if you have any girls you would like to try him on while he is untested, we can offer you a special bargain rate! Get in touch …

But back at Pistyll Gwyn … having an entire male here has meant a lot of changes and a lot of work. We now have four paddocks – which means we can keep the girls and boys separate. This has caused some grief – we have effectively split the herd. Dylan has integrated very well with the boys, and has made particular friends with Walter, but in general it looks like the boys – particularly Sillky – are missing the girls company. The girls don’t look too fussed!

Hopefully they will soon acclimatise.

After consultation with our business advisers (that’ll be Pam and Mary, our mothers), we have decided to call our strapping little cria Iolo, and NOT Rabbit, as previously announced.

Iolo and Lavender

Concern was expressed that such a frivolous name might not be befitting the rather grand super-stud and herd-sire that Rabbit – sorry Iolo – may one day become. (I think it’s something like rock stars naming their kids Peaches, Zowie, or Dweezil … )

And so, from this moment on the alpaca formerly know as Rabbit is known as Iolo, following on in our tradition of welsh alpacas with welsh names.

He’s doing splendidly by the way, if a little adventurous …

How time flies ….

After a late, but lovely slow spring we now find ourselves past the summer solstice and relishing some well-ealanced british weather for a change – some rain, some sun, some rain, some sun. So refreshing!

We’ve  had loads of bluebells in the hedgerows and at the fairydell, and lambs in Huw’s field. Wolf and Ceri next door now have cows, and we have one new alpaca … so far!

His name is Rabbit and he was born on the 3rd July to Lavender. Hit the ground running, as they say!

Meanwhile, our three guests, Dora, Hurricane and Jet have headed off for pastures new. They are missed (particularly Dora!), but we do need the grass which has been a bit slow this year, so it’s a good thing really.

Elsewhere I have been busy with Wolf, my neighbour cleaning up the wood by the road, which for some years had been used for fly-tipping. We’ve both earned some serious brownie points in the village for this, and I reckon we deserve them – the amount of rubbish that came out was astounding. The whole place feels and looks so much better of course, and means that as you approach Talog you are greeted by trees and greenery rather than bits of old washing machines and a broken toilet.

Long may it last!

It’s been a while since the last post – January and February were hard going here for lots of reasons, and I seemed to be stuck at the computer a lot more than I would like. Aside from the first couple of weeks of January and one week in February, the weather here has been good:  very cold, but dry and clear, and great weather for clearing brambles, felling trees, and minor building projects. Frustrating then to miss most of it! It now feels like full steam ahead to get as much done as possible before the spring sets in.

If it weren’t for the freezing nights (-6 on Sunday night) you would think that spring was here already. I’ve had a couple of pretty idyllic afternoons in the wood bundling faggotts from last years sticks. Gwen has had an equally good time trying to undo them all again of course, but it’s been really lovely just working quietly in the wood, with the sun coming through the bare trees. A good reminder of why we are here.  All of the trees that are coming down this year are now down, so the wood looks like a real hive of activity. We’ve felled a couple into the lower wood, which was necessary, but has forced me to address the challenge of how to get the logs out of there – it is so steep and there is no easy path. A welcome break from  logic and databases, nevertheless!

Another sign of spring is the yearly incursions of the sheep. Today there was a little gang wandering down the road, down our track, into Wolf’s field and then heading back up the road through the wood. By evening they were back in Wolf’s field. They’re not Wolf’s sheep, by the way.

Yesterday one particularly stupid sheep found it’s way into our field via a dodgy hedge, and all the farmers on the surrounding hillsides were treated to the sight of two men, a dog, and a herd of alpacas all trying to get the wretched thing out. Actually the alpacas were more bemused than bothered and stood there gawping at us, along with half of Talog … one of the drawbacks of being highly visible on a hillside.

Speaking of the alpacas – they’re all doing well. Well fleeced now, so we’re not at all bothered by the cold temperatures. As it’s dry they don’t bother with the field shelter and are now hanging out at the top of the field again. A favourite spot, generally, and right now the place where there is the most grass. I shall be glad when it starts growing again. We do have enough, but with very little to spare. The two cria are both very impressive as quality animals and as characters to spend time with.

But back to the wood …. the ravens have returned. Not as many as last year, but then there are fewer lambs in Huw’s field. Maybe more will come (both ravens and lambs). There’s still enough (ravens, not lambs) to make you very aware in the wood – amazing cronking and vocalisations that really do sound like a conversation. Thankfully there’s been no carnage yet, but I doubt if it will be long before we’re stepping over the remains of their dinner …

At the house, I’ve done a few more jobs, but there is only so much energy. (I’m feeling it at 51!) Finally though, I’m getting the stones cleared up!

Well, here we are in the first week of January, with more snow than you can shake a stick at.

Temperatures are low as well, which means that the alpacas have had to put with being brought in at night. Actually they could probably cope with this quite easily, but I need my sleep – I don’t want to lay in bed at night worrying about Lavender catching a chill, or Molly getting buried in the snow.

So they’re in the barn! Twelve of them in there is quite snug, and they do seem quite happy. During the day, of course, they’re free to wander about and try and entertain themselves – hard when the main pleasure is munching the meadow, which is now buried 6 inches below. Hay is good, but after a while ….. you can tell they’re missing the grass.

As for the rest of us. It’s harder work for me and Caerthan, and harder play for Gwen, who can’t get enough of it. She likes finding a deep bit and then sticking her nose right in. Herbert prefers to stay in!

All is calm and tranquil in the field at Pistyll Gwyn, but that’s not how it has been ….

Last week Hurricane, Jet, and Dora arrived from a nearby farm. They’ll be staying here until the spring while their owner moves home and gets settled. We were keen to help out and absolutely delighted to have them – for one thing it has brought a refreshing bit of colour into our herd!

Dora and Jet

For the most part, our lot were welcoming. Walter especially seemed to recognise Jet and be very pleased to see him. (They last saw each other about 18 months ago when they were both at Susan’s.) But then …. Our Silky got territorial, eiter about the land or the girls, or something else alpaca that we don’t know about and set about poor Hurricane and Jet. Dora got off lightly – being an ‘open’ female Silky had other designs on her!

Thus started two days of Silky muttering under his breath, like Steptoe,  and chasing Hurricane round the field, spitting at every opportunity. We were very glad at this point that we had Silky’s fighting teeth removed a few weeks previously, although to be honest there wasn’t much fighting going on – Hurricane just wanted to get out of the way. Hurricane bore the brunt of it. Jet would get little blasts of disgruntlement coming his way, but by and large it was Hurricane, for some reason, who was really not welcome.

On the other hand, there were some other voices to be heard … On that first day, the three newcomers had sought a bit of peace and quiet, away from Silky and the herd, down in the corner at Wolf’s Gate. I was watching and feeling slightly relieved that for the moment at least Silky had backed down. From across the field, all by herself, came Olive. She just went and joined the three, sniffed them, and started eating. This seemed to relax Jet and Dora, and they started eating too, and I just stood there feeling dead proud of Olive. Meanwhile, Silky, back at the field shelter was glowering and muttering ….

There was no long-lasting peace though, and soon enough Silky got one on him and came charging down the field to chase Hurricane off. Dora and Jet would stand and watch and once Silky had had emough they would go and give Hurricane a bit of moral support.

The other very obvious peacekeeper that day was Tyler. In the evening he pointedly went over and sat with the new alpacas who based themselves under the Beech Tree at the top of the field. This was the start of the herd fragmenting and re-integrating itself, although we were unsure at that stage what would happen.

The next morning I was just happy that all 12 alpacas were still there and still alive. It was still obvious that no-one was particularly happy, although they were all roughly in the same part of the field together. Hurricane had got himself in a little nook at the very top, (which I now call Hurricane’s Corner), and seemed quite miserable, prefering to lie there and keep an eye out for the dreaded Silky.

Caerthan fed them, and we were heartened that even Hurricane came down, although he kept his distance.

At this stage we noticed that although Dora would keep going back to be with Hurricane and Jet, she was clearly happy hanging around with the girls and Blanco, who was keeping a very low profile in all of this.

Walter, on the other hand … it was like he had just had enough of it all, and he decided that he would much rather be with slightly exotic and mysterious newcomers than pussy-footing (if an alpaca can do such a thing) around the petulant Silky. He switched camps.

On that second day, petulant was probably the right word for Silky. He had the odd flare up, but mostly he just kept his distance. The rest of the herd were a bit more miserable, unsure about where they should be. Hurricane, Jet, Dora and Walter would be at the top of the field. Silky and the girls would be at the bottom. Jet seemed quite stressed – humming constantly.

Tyler and Blanco would be spaced between the two groups.

Although it was better we still went to bed with heavy hearts.

The next morning we saw an immediate improvement. Silky and Hurricane were both eating in fairly close proximity to each other. Jet and Dora seemed more integrated, and there was much less visible division into two herds.

Now it was Hurricane’s turn to sulk a bit. Understandably, I think, after his less than warm welcome, but he did start to play it – huffing and puffing, and looking remarkably like a cross between Windsor Davies and a giant sheep (Neither he nor Dora had been sheared this year).

But this was the end of it. We relaxed, as it was obvious it was all going to be okay, and that alpaca business-as-normal would soon be resumed.

Looking back, I am wondering if we shouldn’t have put the newcomers in the Naughty Paddock for a bit – so they could all see each other, and maybe get a bit of that old alpaca curiosity going,  before being asked to actually integrate.

One thing that it has shown us is how much we project onto the animals and how much we don’t know about what is really going on in the world of the alpaca herd.

After all – our mild mannered Silky …. who’d have thought it?

Mike and Suzy called in on their way back from York (slight detour). Really good to see them again, although Suzy was just a little bit  distracted by concern for the newly flown fledgelings, who are now both at their universities.

Gwen had a great time of course – all over them.

We seemed to spend a long time talking about astronomy and stars and stuff. It’s a good place for that sort of thing here, and we stood in the field and took in the night sky, on a beautiful clear Pistyll Gwyn night.

With shooting stars too.

It seems like ages since we had the delivery of the thermal store and the solar panel. Well … it was over a month ago. Still, it’s pretty well all done now, although I’m hoping Peter will be able to help us getting the pump to quieten down a bit.

I finally got my wits about me to go onto the roof last Wednesday, and after endless trips up and down the ladder, even more trips to B&Q, and various rants about instruction manuals, it all actually works.

Luckily we have had some sunny days since to give it a good try out and it is quite impressive, although not so good as I had hoped on cloudier days.

The best thing about the job was perched up on the roof looking at the alpacas in the field, who were probably wondering what I was doing up there ….. daft humans!

Well, the blocking kit arrived and I eagerly tried it out on the Wavey Eyelet Scarflette. Success!

Really nice to see Charlotte again – first time since New Year 2008 at Haldon Road for me. It’s always a pleasure showing people round Pistyll Gwyn, and getting to see it through their eyes a bit. Because it is still so … undeveloped here (some might say messy), people tend to pitch in with ideas, and Charlottes ideas were pretty much all around ‘growing’.

Whilst we have had a journey of indecision and postponement on the veg plot, it was inspiring to talk to Charlotte who would clearly have got that sorted long before now!

As well as the veg she had other growing advice too ….

Me, I just want my plum trees and gooseberry bushes (rhubarb is already in hand thankfully).

Anyway, great time chatting and wandering about the fields. Gwen really took to her, and got loads of walks, which is always a good thing.

I’ve just finished the lastest ‘Heartwood’ blend – ‘Oak’:

Another one I’m pleased with, that’s just a slight variation on the ‘Sandalwood’ colourway – two mid-fawns with some dark fawn added.

It’s much cooler than all the other blends in tone, and it makes the yarn appear extraordinarily sleek. Again, I tried it as a ‘Heartwood Fine’ yarn, and it works well.  It halos a little more on blocking than the ‘Hawthorn’ colourway, but I think that’s because it’s got the fantastically fluffy Tyler’s fleece in it. And it’s the colour of my teddy, Arthur, which is ace. And his secret life will stay a secret, too.

Here’s one of the new ‘Heartwood’ colourways I’ve been developing – ‘Hawthorn’.

It’s another blend, this time some of the warmer browns with a touch of black. You can see the makeup of the singles in this shot:

This one’s going to become one of the ’standard’ blends, I’m pretty pleased with it.

The yarn itself is a worsted-spun 3-ply with a firm twist. I say 3-ply, it could be argued that it’s 2-ply as it’s right on the ‘official’ border at 20 wpi. However, the yarn has a heartiness and solidity that really don’t go with the whole laceweight thang, so I’m billing it as one of the 3-ply ‘Heartwood Fine’ yarns. I tried blocking some, and was very pleased with the result: it haloed slightly, and went very slinky and drapey.

Barinthus was present in my head when I was spinning it, hence the post title. Barinthus always has a comforting feel to me, friendly and warm, and the yarn evoked in me a feel of the wood of his boat on night-time waters. Barinthus the navigator, singing to the Great Bear at night.

I’ve had a yarn in my head and heart for a while now. A cool light blue, a slight green edge, watery. The feel of ice is always there when I think about it. The kind of yarn Skaði would have an eye for.

The inspiration took a more embodied tone to it recently, when I was playing with suri base yarns. The Wensleydale root of the base yarn lends it a translucency, like ice, that indicates the qualities of the yarn I’m after. The colour presented more of a challenge, as I’m only interested (at present) in natural alpaca colours and indigo, and indigo is too clear a blue – I needed the blue to be slightly on the green side. Not a greenish blue, but a blue with that watery ‘edge’ to it. It occurred to me that, if I took some of Silky’s fleece (a very light, creamy fawn) that maybe I’d get that edge, and I was right. I vat-dyed the locks of fleece but intentionally didn’t fully expose all the fibre to the air to oxidise. What I got was a mixture of clear mid-blues on the outside of the locks, and a greenish-blue tone on the inner unexposed fibres:

You can’t quite see the green tone in this picture, but the blue is accurate. When the dyed suri locks were then flick-carded out, this was the result:

You can just get a hint of the green edge here. As I said, it’s not an obvious greenish-blue, just the merest hint. Absolutely bloody perfect. Blended with the Wensleydale fleece to my suri base yarn specification, and the result was gorgeous. Skaði’s yarn is coming to life:

Skaði was there all the time I was blending and carding. Nudging and indicating – a nod, a frown, a glint of the eye, guiding my hand, holding it back. Yarn construction is often a profoundly devotional practice.

So now I’m contemplating the weight and style of Skaði’s yarn. The finished artefact is going to be a stole, or a large scarf, and I’ve provisionally pencilled in a pattern. If you like lace knitting, check out Anna Dalvi’s website: Knit and Knag. She produces some incredibly beautiful stuff. So beautiful that I’ve invested in her “South For the Winter” scarf pattern. I’m pretty sure Skaði would like it, although I think I’ll name her scarf “North For the Winter”.

Ok, so armed with my new-found lace knitting skills, I’m starting a new pattern. It’s going to be a scarf based on the ‘Upstairs’ shawl pattern by WollSchnegge. I’ve decided I’m going to use the gradated ‘Yew’ Heartwood yarn:

The colours are a little warmer than in the above picture, but close enough. There’s certainly enough prepared to do around 500 metres of 2-ply, so I’ll be able to either use it for a large project or put it on Etsy. Can’t decide yet.

Just the blocking to do, now. I had one go at blocking it, but it was a disaster. So, I’ve ordered a blocking kit – pins, wires, board – to do it justice.

Things I learnt: knitting; lace knitting; basic lace structures, increases, decreases, etc.; lifelines are my friend; ordinary pins aren’t good enough for blocking; neither is my ironing board; my casting off is extraordinarily clunky compared to my actual knitting.

And, ssk is a strangely satisfying stitch. Who knew?

All change with Bryony’s commissioned ‘Sandalwood’ laceweight. It just wasn’t performing to my satisfaction – as stated in my last post, suri has no elasticity and hence it’s not prepared to flatten out during the lace blocking process. Plus, I’m having trouble getting rid of that annoying ’suri loop’ that happens when you soak the plied yarn to set the twist.

So, I’m spinning up another two or three in various huacaya blends so that, when she comes back online, she’ll have a choice. Currently, the choice stands at Sandalwood, Yew and a new one I’ve been developing. I’m toying with calling it ‘Ebony’.

I’ve been working on a way of giving the suri some structure for use in a wider array of knitted and crocheted artefacts. The suri is beautiful – lustrous, smooth and fine – but doesn’t have any elasticity or ‘bounce’ to it. Great for drapey weaves, not so much for a jumper.

The problem was which wool fibre to blend it with. I didn’t want to lose the lustre, so seriously considered Wensleydale. However, Wensleydale doesn’t have the crimp I’m looking for. As luck would have it, searching through my store of fleeces, I came across a Merino x Wensleydale fleece from a farmer in Gloucestershire. It’s pretty damn perfect for what I want: six inch staple, very lustrous, very crimpy.

A lot of different blends later, I have an optimal mix that still looks like suri, but has some spring and structure. And takes indigo extraordinarily well. So, I now have a stock suri yarn base that I’ll be using mostly for dyed yarn, with an eye on producing a ’standard’ range of 2-ply/laceweight yarns. Better get carding and spinning, then…

Because of a recessive lower lip and big teeth, Silky has always had a slightly comical air – something Fu Manchu-ish about him!

For the last couple of months the teeth have been overshot – a common alpaca problem and so we had Egbert the vet in to grind them down.

Silky is still looking comical – an alpaca with a big smile, but at least his teeth now DO fit in his mouth.

Well, after a week of preparing myself, assembling all the bits, and sorting out radiator and peripheral plumbing stuff, I finally bit the bullet and removed a stud wall and the hot water cylinder to make way for …. Steampunk.

I can’t say I enjoyed the week, but the satisfaction at the end of it all when it didn’t leak (nearly) was enormous. Endless trips to B&Q; endless re-routing of flow and return, hot and cold;  bits of wire wool getting to places where wire wool really shouldn’t get, and poor Gwen taking refuge in the car to get away from the chaos.

Caerthan, wisely, just shut himself in the spinning room and made spectacular things with alpaca fleece.

I say nearly didn’t leak, because it did a bit, through the immersion heater socket, which I had plumbed incorrectly. Thankfully, for this, and other problems I had phone support from Cinnabar Stoves Peter who aside from practical advice has been very enouraging.

So, the joys of the thermal store are just opening up for us, the first immediate benefit being mains pressure hot water in our shower, aside from the more economical fuel usage. Stay tuned for more critical appraisal as the weeks go by.

But what does it look like?!? This mass of tangled pipes. Well … they all DO go somewhere, and they all do DO something, I promise. The big question now though is: “Do I box it in, shutting it out of sight like some menial in the attic, or do I celebrate its pipey-ness and watch the looks of horror on our guests faces when I show them to our already crowded guest-room …. ?”

Hmmm … well I know what the devil is saying ….