Happy St Patrick's Day!

Well, I wish a very Happy St Patrick's Day, to one and all, !
I had a lovely day, relaxing and invigorating.
Stayed home from the parades, did a bit of cleaning, hung out laundry, it was a great day for it, and then went to visit my friend K and her 3 children and hubby D.
We had a great laugh, and a great chat, and it was a gift to have an extra day off in the week, where there wasn't a tight sports schedule to follow, just peace and quiet. I usually don't get to see K that often, the weekends are so busy with sport.

Later in the day, I took out my new-to-me Toyota knitting machine and dusted it off and am now in the process of figuring out how it works. Takes me back to my teens when my mother bought a knitting machine and taught me and my sister to knit uniform jumpers for ourselves for secondary school. I got this knitting machine for free, along with a ballwinder from someone who had been given it, but who had no idea how to work it. I count myself very lucky to have been given this machine.

That's it for now,
see you all again soon,
Tack Lambergsfrua för hälsningen, precis i tid!
liz

sheep, Spring flowers and the President of Ireland

Today I met real sheep! (I’ve met sheep before, but not since getting my wheel in September, and starting spinning has changed my perspective a bit.)
Today at the petrol station where the pharmacy also is situated, a farmer pulled up his car and trailer, with 4 pure bred young Texel ewes in the trailer and 6 little lambs. My 4 old son was delighted and I spoke briefly to the farmer, that’s how I found out the breed. Made me all proud inside to at least recognise the breed name and understand the term ‘long staple’ !
anyway Mr SheepFarmer was taking the ewes and lambs to their spring grazing and on the way, picking up a prescription for antibiotics for the sheep…
I asked him about the wool, he said he sells it to the wool merchants, I didn’t ask to buy a fleece from him when that time comes, I was tempted but i think it would be too much for my long-suffering family to bear, ie sharing their bathtub with a big raw fleece come summer. The fleece looked really fluffy and thick and it’s only the 3rd of March! How thick will it be by the summer?!!
so that’s my news, photos below.




Come to think of it, if I wanted to I would be able to contact Mr SheepFarmer, as it’s the local pharmacy and I could leave a message there for him. I did mention to him that I had a spinning wheel, so he'll probably remember me from that detail.
Otherwise, Spring is here, photos of daffodils and primroses below also as well as the last of the snowdrops.








Also some roadsigns in the village where I saw the daffodils, it's called Doon, Dún Bleisce in Irish, "the fort of the chief Bleisce"
it's where my girls now go to secondary school, where I also went to secondary school as a boarder and where my mother comes from, so she went to primary and secondary school there, and finally my dad bought a small farm outside this village about 20 years ago, so all roads lead to Doon!
The road sign shows the name of two other nearby villages, Cappamore and Cappawhite, 'the big fort' and 'the fort of the de Faoite clan', respectively.







The President of Ireland? well she visited another local village recently, but hey, I've blabbered enough tonight already and so I'll give the President her own blogpost in the next few days...
Hoppas ni mår bra allihopa, det blir så mycket med jobbet och barnen och min nya favorit sajt Ravelry nuförtiden att jag knappt hinner att skriva alls i bloggen, ni får ursäkta min frånvaro...

I sponsor a sheep, How about EWE?

Hi,
I now sponsor a sheep in Långbacken, Söderhögen, near Rätan, Jämtland , Central Sweden!
A Raveller by the name of Renee Darley (British originally) who now lives in Sweden has a group on Ravelry called Longbacken. She is a spinner among other things and had a flock of sheep in Denmark, before she moved to Sweden. Some of her sheep were with another person in Sweden for a while, now it turns out that person has let her down, the sheep have been neglected, the Swedish police had to take them. Renee discovered that almost 70 sheep were taken by the police from the other person, some mixed race, some a rare breed called Spelsau, an old Norwegian race.
The sheep were going to be put down by the police, unless somebody wanted to take them, and paid the police the cost of maintenance so far, and the cost of transport.
Renee lives 700 miles from the where the sheep are(were). All told the cost was high.
Renee told us, the readers in her Longbacken group, about her dilemma, whether to try to save the sheep or not. Amazingly, the word spread and people have helped financially by placing orders for fibre in Renees webshop www.thewoolbusiness.com also www.enuldenaffaer.com
and/or by contributing to Renee via Paypal to sponsor a sheep. All money paid in this second way will be repaid as fibre in a year, minus shipping costs.
The good news is that the sheep arrived at Renees farm last Thursday and the photos are up on the Ravelry group Sponsor a Spelsau Sheep.
Anybody wanting to read about the rescue can read more on Ravelry, www.ravelry.com at this group: Sponsor a Spelsau sheep.
If any of you spinners or knitters out there would like to support Renee in this, by buying fibre from her shop or sponsoring a sheep, it would be great. Every little helps.
I have myself ordered wool and paid a small amount of money to Renee via Paypal to sponsor a sheep.
There is a link to Ravelry in my sidebar, click groups and then search for 'Sponsor a Spelsau sheep', where you can read all about the amazing sheep rescue. Here's a direct link to the Sponsor a Spelsau group, I hope it works...

Renee herself will be at the Fårfestival(Sheepfestival) in Kil this weekend, say Hi to her there!
Hope you are all well out there, long time, no speak... my bad...
regards
liz

P.S. If you want to know where I've been for the last few months, I've been online on Ravelry... sigh...wonderful way to spend hours online...sigh... leaves me no time to spin or knit though...