Stinky Fiber for a Saturday Morning

So I stepped into a heck of a deal on Monday on raw fleeces (already skirted though which is good, although I'll be doing another good once over before scouring.) sunshyn689 and I are going in the morning to look at them tomorrow and see what's in good condition and will require the least amount of work to get vegetable matter (Hay/straw) out and they've supposedly already been skirted to remove anything gross. As it's going to be 95 here tomorrow I figure I can spend part of the afternoon scouring what I pick up and then set the washed fleeces out to dry on my porch overnight - by Sunday they should be good and dry and ready to be carded to be spun...

It's going to be hot all weekend, and this will be a great time to get caught up on my fleece that I need to get processed. I'm thinking that I might pick up some staples for my staple gun, some window screen and a bunch of 1*2's to make some drying frames with... as well as latex gloves for use when washing the fleeces... ya never know until you see the fleeces out of the bag how well they were skirted for dung etc until you can lay them out on a tarp and do a good once over...

• Lincoln 8 lbs. 7” staple grey
• Lincoln 5 lbs. 4” staple light grey
• Lincoln lamb 9 lbs. 12” staple dark grey
• Lincoln 7 lbs. 7” staple silver grey
• Border Leicester 8 lbs. 8” staple white
• Romney Cross 6 lbs. 4” staple white
• Romney cross 7 lbs 4” staple white
• Romney cross 7 lbs. 5” staple white
• Southdown 4 lbs 1.5 “ staple white
• Montadale 5 lbs 3” staple white
• Tunis cross 6 lbs. 2.5 “ staple white
• Tunis 7 lbs 3.5” staple white
• Romney 8 lbs. 4.5 “ staple white
• Romney 7 lbs. 5” staple white
• Cheviot 4 lbs 4” staple white
• Oxford 7 lbs. 3.5 “ staple white
• Romney 9 lbs 5” staple white

Will I buy all these? Um No. But this is what I have to select from tomorrow. Pretty cool eh? Ok - you there reading this will probably not comment, and ya know that's ok. To me - it's pretty cool - the farm is so close to me and I like the idea of developing a relationship with a local shepard. Ok - NOW GET YOUR MIND OUT OF THE GUTTER, NOT THAT KIND OF A RELATIONSHIP.

Sheesh folks.

On my wheel right now I have some lovely Merino that I hand dyed in shades of red. It's spinning up pretty nicely but it appears to be more pink than red :-) we'll see how it plies up when I get to that stage. I've been pre-drafting the roving into nice spinnable slivers, and getting in some spinning time each night after the kids have gone to bed. It's a definite change for the better and I find I'm more relaxed and sleep better after getting in an hour or so of
spinning a night.

Tonight after the kids went to sleep I scoured up a pound of BFL - oh so lovely and the staple is really nice and long. I also washed a half pound of Ramboullet... nice but after doing the BFL I'm a bit spoiled... where one has such a nice long staple the other is velvety soft. I'm now going to head back down stairs, get a shipping label that's overdue onto a box to go out tomorrow morning and then get the rest of my red finished spinning so I can ply it later.