Knitting in progress

You would think that running fibre mill would result in more knitting right? Hmmm perhaps not... Not yet anyway! Loving working with fibre but in these early stages there is more knitting of tension squares than anything else! However I am managing to squeeze in a few rows here and there. In typical form, I don't just have one project on the go, I have three! I'm knitting socks for me with scraps from the mill, a baby vertebrae for my friend's new bub, a milo for a friend's young boy and have plans for a kina for another friend's new bub! I just can't help myself! 

I'm really enjoying knitting with yarn that not only did we make it but we know the people who grew the fibre. Aren't the colours just lovely?

Simple Coconut Yoghurt

Whilst our household loves cheese and yoghurt, sadly at least two of us are cows milk protein intolerant so cheese and yoghurt aren't such a great idea. I've made a few substitutes along the way, most recently with almond milk in my coffee. I had thought that I had "grown" out of my allergy however since not even having cows milk in my coffee this winter I have been more well than I can remember for a very long time, even with two small boys fermenting bugs! The hardest for our family is for our 4 year old. He loved cheese and yoghurt before we discovered his intolerance and just couldn't understand why he couldn't have it anymore. So it was with great joy that I realised that it is possible to make coconut yoghurt! At the time we couldn't buy it from the local supermarket so with much internet research we gave it a go. I was astounded by how complicated the instructions were! I have a few versions a go with many failed attempts. Throughout the failed attempts I just kept thinking, it can't be this hard!!! So I decided to give super simple a go. It worked! My boy absolutely loves it! He is so happy to be eating yoghurt that he doesn't even realise, or doesn't care that, he isn't eating the ones he used to eat.

A word of warning through. There is good reason for some parts of the complicated versions, including bringing the coconut milk up to a high temperature to kill the unwanted bacteria. However it is so simple that we only make a small amount at a time and it is nearly always eaten within 24hrs of it being cool enough in the fridge!

So my simple version is...

1-2 tins of coconut milk (I use the Ayam 270ml tins, just because we like it, we can get it easily and seems to be free of additives)

1-2 capsules of dairy free probiotics (I use Inner Health Plus Dairy Free)

2-3T maple syrup (this is not for our flavouring, this is for the probiotic bacteria food)

Put all ingredients in to the Easiyo container then follow directions of your Easiyo maker with regards to water level in the thermos. Leave for 7 hours and transfer to the fridge.

Thats it!

It produces a fairly runny yogurt but no one cares in this household! I have added agar agar to thicken but it requires too much heating and fuss for us. If I want a thicker yoghurt I'll often add a tin of coconut cream instead of milk, which seems to be fine for us. Time in the thermos and if we add 1 or 2 capsules of probiotics helps us adjust how sour we want the yoghurt. (longer time = more sour)

We also by accident made a really nice strawberry frozen yoghurt (we call it strawberry icecream here, was actually attempting a smoothie at the time!). 500g frozen strawberries and some (maybe a cup) of the yoghurt ground up together on speed 9 in the thermomix. Yum!

Twilight calm

I really love the calm that comes with twilight on a quiet night. 

It was very much needed after a tough week on the farm. We sadly lost a steer. I had been finding it hard to remember why I was working so hard for our small farm then the little things remind me.

A quiet moment

Quiet moments are few and far between at the moment. So I'm really enjoying that Xavie fell asleep on the trip home from the shops today and we were able to park the car in a nice spot for me to sit with him whilst Andrew takes James for a while to do boy things. The next photo is my knitting and my view!

I'm attempting knitting with the magic loop technique with our official batch 1 of adagio yarn! It's been a long time coming with temperature and humidity causing us dramas. (Who thought it was a bright idea to start a fibre mill in the middle of Orange in winter? Oh dear, that's right... Us... Hmmmm. Anyway...) 

Today is the first patch of sun we have had for a week so the alpacas are thoroughly enjoying themselves sunning their tummies!

It always gives me a bit of a heart attack seeing them in the paddock like that but they love it! The photo is not great quality but you might be able to see Julie, our white alpaca, sunning her tummy in the background. Also in the photo is Ebony and her cria Onyx in the foreground. She surprised us with him last weekend. We had been wondering but didn't really think she was pregnant but clearly she was! He was very small and born in the middle of terrible weather but he is feeding well and seems to be going strong which is a relief!

On yet another snow day this week we even had a lamb born! Also very cute.

Snowing!

We've been watching the weather forecasts for snow all week wondering if the snow would eventuate. It didn't disappoint! When I fed my 10mth old at 3am it was so peaceful and beautiful with the covering of snow, it was a real shame that there wasn't enough light for a photo.

The alpacas weren't particularly impressed about the snow but we had so much fun playing in it!

What better to do now that a spot of knitting in front of the fire with my boys playing around me?

I just love this pattern! (Milo vest by TiKKi Knits)

Knitting a fratello

I love this pattern! Fratello by TiKKi Knits. In amongst everything happening here I've really enjoyed the row or two I've snuck in, in quiet moments. Xavie is growing so fast that I picked a large size but it still looks so sweet! 

Another new arrival, Gedalyn's cria

Gedalyn has done us proud again! Her third black female cria was born this afternoon! I had been watching her all day worrying about her as she was really uncomfortable. In late afternoon I had assumed it wouldn't be today as it was getting too late but when I went to feed them snacks gedalyn didn't come to investigate which was very unusual. She is usually the first to the food! Then I found her on her side and was about to call the vet when two feet appeared! A very short time later the little female cria was born. It was wonderful to watch! We had missed all the other births on our property. It was also interesting to watch the other alpacas greet the new arrival. They each greeted her but the matriarch of the group, Julie, paid the most attention and stood protector over her whilst mum, gedalyn, rested. They form the most wonderful bonds.

The photo is of later this evening just before I caught the cria to check it and put a coat on her. 

New cria at adagio!

Our first new cria in 2 years was born today! By our calculations he is 2-3 weeks early but seems to be doing well. Dark brown, nearly black male, no name yet.

Family photo! New cria with mum and his two older brothers.

Antique car club meet

We are lucky enough to live next door to our local antique car club. They use a council owned building and we agist the land (approx 3 acres). Most of the time we don't see much of them but every now and then they have a meet and this weekend is one of those times! It was fantastic, today more than 60 antique cars were right next door! They were stunning! Here are a few photos that we took walking around and admiring a few that were left this afternoon.

 

The train can be seen in the background. Cars and a train, my 3.5 year old boy was pleased!

We have been doing a bit of hand feeding at the moment so the steers remember that we bring food and follow us everywhere we go! Bellowing at us in the hope that we will bring more lucerne for them. Rather large and intimidating to be following us around like puppies!

Our golden retrievers (Mahler and Bartok) are not so pleased that the steers are in the back paddock at the moment. Mahler runs up and down the back fence, barking, warning them off. The steers don't even bother to look up anymore! They know he can't get through the fence so they just continue calmly chewing their grass.

Andrew's creations!

As part of the start-up of our mill, we have sent Andrew to train in America with one of their top mills, Lynn from Olympic Yarn and Fibre. He has learnt so much and part of what worked through whilst he was there was some of Lynn's alpaca fibre as a bit of a test! This is what he created!

Alpaca fibre has such beautiful colours and blending the fleece from a few alpacas can create something really unique. When choosing the colours to use for my training here I thought it would be interesting to capture the change as the fleece was blended through the process. So here is the starting point, some brown, black and white huacaya alpaca fleece blended with a little suri grey, lets see what it creates!

Fleece on sorting table waiting to be processed

Into the opener

From some brown, black and white with a little Suri grey, you can see the stages of blending ready to go through the carder for the first pass.

First stage roving/sliver after carder

Rovings from the carder ready for the pin drafter. The pin drafter takes 4 slivers and combines them as well as a drawing it out for the first draft. This will "average" out the sliver and will both continue to blend the colours and reduce the imperfections.
Stacks of rovings/slivers ready for the spinner below!

Second stage roving after pin drafter

The sliver/roving is then fed into the spinner.

Rovings/sliver going into spinner

Plyed yarn still on the bobin.

Yarn 1 - Andrew 0!

Here's a picture of me hand winding back to the bobin from a skein after I managed not to completely close the gates and had a run of slightly short skeins... argh!!

The final product, simply gorgeous!

On skeins!